Silence
Simon & Garfunkel sang, “Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again. Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping. And the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence…In restless dreams I walked alone…You do not know, silence, like a cancer, grows.” The visions planted in my mind remain forever and the sound of silence for me is deafening. I have walked alone in my restless dreams while the cancer grew to the point of nearly crippling me. Yet, I am still here. I am a survivor.
I believe in the power of song and music, and I somewhat frequently find myself listening to songs associated with sexual assault, so I can hear the thoughts of other survivors. Today, I am taking liberty with the words of Simon & Garfunkel’s smash hit, which is not historically associated with sexual abuse, and applying them to the many thoughts that have plagued my mind over the last fifty years. They are thoughts of helplessness and despair, anguish and sadness, and depression and hostility. It was the suppression or repression of these thoughts and feelings that dragged me down to the lowest point in my life. It was that dreaded silence that nearly cost me everything.
I am a District Attorney by trade. In fact, I have spent my entire career as a prosecutor – over thirty years that is. During that timeframe, dozens of children have walked into my office, sat in my conference room, and then unloaded their sometimes-self-perceived sins on me, as if I were a person capable of exonerating them. I know those feelings all too well. For so long, I felt that I did something wrong. I didn’t, and these children didn’t either. Yet, for some mysterious reason we believed that we did. They sat in my office, usually accompanied by a grieving parent, but sometimes alone, telling me, the police, or one of my assistants the despicable things that had been done to them by their savage perpetrators. All the while, I am imagining what it must have been like for each child to have been alone with his or her beast with nowhere to hide and no one to turn to. The sound of silence was likely permeating the air they were breathing as they hoped for a quick end.
As a warning, the police say, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you.” The perpetrators use similar words, like, “Don’t tell or else.” Or else what? Or else “I will hurt you.” Or else “I will hurt” your mom, your pet, your sibling. Or else “WE will get in trouble.” These types of threats can be direct or inferred. Either way, the child is left with the clear understanding that they should not tell. They should remain silent. The vast majority do. I did.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
My heart breaks every time I hear another child’s story of abuse. For God’s sake, they are just children. What kind of demented person can possibly be gratified by doing this? Why does this continue to happen?
The police and prosecutor can only protect these children after they have already been assaulted. Is there nobody who can protect them beforehand? From both my personal and professional experience, I believe the very sad fact to be that there probably isn’t. What do I mean by this? The abusers – who I would deem pigs – except that would be doing a disservice to pigs – are frequently members of the same household as the child, or at least have a close connection to the child’s family. It is often mom’s boyfriend, a stepdad, a father, or a grandparent. It is a sibling or a sibling’s friend, an uncle, a babysitter, or someone else who has regular access to the child. It can be a coach, a teacher, a preacher, a scout leader, or some other person we let into our lives because they are related or just seem like nice guys. It is these types of people that we tend to trust with our children. Yet, it is these types of people who frequently are the abusers.
Statistics show, on average, in 93% of the founded cases of child sexual abuse, the perpetrator is known to the child.[1] They also show that the abuser is a male in 88% of the cases.[2] Although the numbers may vary depending upon the study, it’s clear that the vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by men who are associated with the child. The more alarming statistic to me though, is that over half of child sexual abuse cases in the United States are perpetrated by other children under the age of eighteen.[3] This is known as child-on-child sexual abuse, and it is what happened to me.
[1] Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement (2000).
[2] United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. Child Maltreatment Survey. Exhibit 5-2 Selected Maltreatment Types by Perpetrator’s Sex. Page 65. (2013).
[3] Finkelhor, David; Shattuck, Anne; Turner, Heather A.; Hamby, Sherry L. (September 2014). "The lifetime prevalence of child sexual abuse and sexual assault assessed in late adolescence". The Journal of Adolescent Health. 55 (3): 329–333. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.12.026. ISSN 1879-1972. PMID 24582321
Please don’t take this the wrong way, and I will answer my own question a little later, but if the abuser is not a biological parent, but is known by a parent, why are mom and dad not able to prevent this abuse from happening? Where are they when their child is being raped? Why are they not protecting their own children? Obviously, this is oversimplifying the many scenarios in which children are abused, but I raise these questions only to answer them for those who blame the parents when a child is assaulted.
As a prosecutor, I have become aware of only a few instances where parents could have protected their child from the abuse and did not. I am also aware of the more troubling, but even more rare, scenario where a parent knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it. Most often though, the fact is that the parent(s) didn’t know their child was being assaulted because it was happening in secret, and there was no reason to suspect it. In those cases, the parent(s) trusted the perpetrator to be around their child. It is likely that in those instances, there were probably signs that should have alerted the parent(s) to what was happening, but they were missed. Many completely devastated parents have told me they were shocked by their child’s disclosure, but looking back, they should have recognized the signs.
On a personal level, I wonder what was going through my mother’s head as I was being abused. I say my mother, not my father, only because I looked to her for my safety. My father, who is a wonderful man, never played that protector role for me. He was frequently working. My closeness was with my mom. Why didn’t she get up from the table in THAT HOUSE to check on me? At one point, I was in the bathroom with the older boy, literally ten feet from the kitchen table where she sat with friends, drinking, smoking, and laughing. Someone must have seen us go into the bathroom together. Why didn’t she check on me during those long hours she and my father sat with their group of friends? I was just upstairs – naked with that older boy. Preventable? I think so. Nearly twenty-five years later when I asked my mom why she didn’t protect me, she could only say, “we didn’t know that boys did that to other boys.” I believe her. She trusted that other boy would not hurt me. She had no reason not to, but she missed the clear signs that were present.
This may seem as if it is a rant against my mother and those other parents whose children have been sexually assaulted. It is not. Instead, it is a prosecutor’s observation, a prosecutor who also happens to be a parent and victim, that it is nearly impossible to protect our children from the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Yes, I have seen cases where mom and dad were in a position to protect their child and did not. In most instances though, the parents seemed to be completely shocked and devastated to learn what had been done to their child. They were even more devastated that they had not prevented it from happening. I know my mother was shocked and devastated.
I believe that unless parents keep their child locked in a closet, preventing child sexual abuse is nearly impossible. Yes, they can be more vigilant, but if they don’t remain with the child 100% of the time, the perpetrator will always find an opportunity. He only needs a few seconds to act. The opportunities to commit abuse are endless and the abusers are often patient, waiting for the best time to strike. Let’s face it, nobody can be with their child every waking moment.
During my years as District Attorney, I have seen that abusers will go to any lengths to perpetrate their crimes. In one case a child’s mother was in the hospital while dad was home raping her daughter. In another, mom was asleep downstairs when dad made his way up to her child’s bedroom. In another instance, mom had to work every day. While she was working, the child’s stepdad was raping her son. To me, it is apparent that in these close-knit settings, abuse can and does occur because parents can’t be with their children all the time. More importantly, the abuse occurs because we tend to trust that our family members, close friends, teachers, etc. are not vile creatures who will prey upon our children. In many cases, we are wrong.
Photo by Ninh Nguyễn on Unsplash
Photo by Ninh Nguyễn on Unsplash
I think I was about eight when it started happening to me. It could have been a year earlier, or even a year later. I really don’t recall exactly when it was, but I was young. I remember we were playing a card game in his room and that my brother and sister were there. Of course, he was there too. My parents were playing cards downstairs, so I thought it was okay. This game was exciting. If you had the lower card, you had to take off your clothes. I am pretty sure I lost because I remember my clothes being off. This other boy who taught us the game wasn’t a lot older than me – maybe three or four years. He wasn’t like me though. He was fully developed by twelve or thirteen. I remember seeing his erect thing with all that hair. I had never seen anything like that before. I was a very late bloomer and had not gone through puberty until I was a senior in high school, some three years after the abuse had stopped. I was just a little kid in every respect.
He was the son of my parents’ best friends. We went there all the time, and I hated it. Not that I didn’t like the people. I just didn’t like that we went there a few times a week for what seemed like hours at a time. I remember it like it was yesterday – my parents, his parents, and other friends sitting around the kitchen table – eating, drinking, and playing Italian cards. I remember the roars of laughter coming from that table. It seemed like my mom was very young at the time, maybe thirty years old. My dad was in his mid to late thirties. They had us three kids early on and all of us were under the age of ten at the time we started going to that house. I was the middle child, but only three years separated all of us.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and my dad worked as a manager of a local radio station. It must have been difficult for mom at that age to look after three young kids by herself. I think going to THAT HOUSE was her escape from us, even if it was just for a few hours at a time. We were there, but she didn’t have to watch us because there was no place for us to get in trouble. At least, she didn’t think there was. While that house seemed to be her escape, it was the place I wanted to escape from, but there was no escaping for me back then. I was just a little boy. The sad fact is, that as I sit here today, a fifty-seven-year-old man, District Attorney, and father, there is still no escaping THAT HOUSE. It literally sits two blocks from my office. I drive by it every day. I hate that place.
As I look back to forty-eight years ago, two questions come to mind - why didn’t anyone ever check on me and where were my sister and brother? I don’t know the answer to either of these questions. Perhaps my sister was with the older boy’s sister. My little brother? I have no recollection of where he was. Was he home with a babysitter? Was he with mom at the table? Other than the first game of strip cards, I just can’t remember where they were. The house wasn’t that big, so why weren’t they coming to find me? I know where I was - in his room with him, or in the basement of his parents’ rental property, in either bathroom, in the outdoor wine-making shed, or any other place he could find to abuse me undetected.
As for the adults, didn’t anyone wonder what an older, fully developed boy was doing with me - the little kid? We were together for hours. Why wasn’t anyone concerned? We were naked in his room all the time. If anyone checked, they would have seen what was there to be seen. I remember the downstairs bathroom incident. Why did he think he could take me into that bathroom, ten feet from where the adults were sitting? Our pants were around our ankles. Did he get off on the danger of possibly getting caught? How long were we in there? How did nobody notice? What would we have said if an adult came to use the bathroom? Would I have told? I don’t think so.
The abuse continued until I was fifteen when he graduated and went off to college. He’s a professional now in a big city. I’m the chief law enforcement agent in the county we grew up in. Go figure! We never talked about it – the two of us that is. Never once, not even when it was happening. I just remember him telling me to do this and to do that. I don’t know when I figured out how wrong it was, but growing up in a devout Catholic home, I knew it was wrong. I don’t recall him telling me not to tell. He could have, but I don’t remember it. He never threatened me. In my mind, it was just implied that I shouldn’t tell, even though I had no idea what we were doing at first. I knew it was something I had to keep a secret though. So, we just kept doing it and I never told. That silence quickly became my guilt and my shame.
The older I got, the more I knew what was happening to me was wrong. So, I simply acted as if it wasn’t happening at all. I couldn’t tell a soul. What would they think? How would my friend group react if I told them? What would they think of me? I mean, I was fifteen years old and still doing it. That was on me as far as I knew then. My friends were the homecoming/prom kings and queens. They were the star athletes and the top students. I can’t imagine what they would have thought if they knew I was having sexual relations with another boy. I would have become an outcast. Yes, today I know they weren’t sexual relations and that he was assaulting me. But back then, I didn’t know. I thought I was doing it. The fact that I was stimulated while it was happening made it seem as if I was the culprit. I now know I was not.
When he left for school, it all ended – the sex that is. I just went on and acted as if nothing had ever happened. I never told but I knew my body, my mind, and my soul were messed up. They never let me forget what had happened. So, I immersed myself in school and athletics. I went on to a major university and a major law school, paying every cent of the cost on my own. Where some have turned to drugs and alcohol, I just tried to block it all out. My way of doing that was to excel in school and at work with the vision of becoming a great lawyer someday.
Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash
Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash
Meet Susan, my wife and best friend. We first encountered one another in fifth or sixth grade. She became my girlfriend in seventh grade, and she is the very first girl I kissed. Like most childhood relationships, it was a kid thing that lasted a couple of years and that was it. That is, until our junior year when we became pretty good friends. By the end of our senior year, we were boyfriend and girlfriend again. Susan stuck by my side while I was in college and then we married three years later after I completed law school. We started a family and decided to make our home where we had grown up in upstate New York. As I mentioned, Susan was and is my best friend. Yet, I never once thought about telling her what had happened to me as a child while we were dating. I was so embarrassed by it. What would she think of me? It was all so disgusting.
After the birth of our first child in 2001, I think I started to become a little more emotional. It probably had to do with knowing I needed to protect my little girl from the evils in this world. I was so worried about her and that made me start thinking more about what had happened to me. I was always aware that the abuse had created some relationship, some emotional, and some sexual issues for me, but I didn’t know the much deeper effects it was having on my mind. After my daughter was born, those effects started to become more profound. I started thinking about it all the time. I began questioning what I had done, like it was my fault. That started to weigh on my soul. I started looking back and thinking about it every day. I started having nightmares about him. Then the flashbacks started rolling in. It was like I couldn’t get him out of my head. He was now front and center – something that I had managed to avoid for so long.
At thirty-six years old, for the very first time, I decided I was going to tell someone about my childhood. There was never any doubt my first and only choice had to be my very best friend, my wife. It was the hardest thing I ever contemplated doing in my life. Here I was, this prosecutor who dealt with horrific cases of child sexual assault every day. I watched these children walk into courtrooms and tell complete strangers what happened to them. I worked with those children so they would be able to tell. Yet, I couldn’t find the words to tell my own wife what had happened to me. I don’t have an exact count, but I am certain that on no less than two hundred occasions, I tried to tell her, but I just couldn’t. The words “I was sexually abused” could not make it past my lips no matter how many times I tried. WHY? I don’t know why except it was just so disgusting to me. I believed at that time that I had done it, that I wanted it, that I was responsible for it – that it was simply my own fault. Put aside the fact that I was seven or eight years old when it started. I was so afraid of what she would think, or how she would react.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the summer of 2002, and we were sitting on our dock on Seneca Lake. I had built a small fire for us to enjoy. It was a beautiful night with lots of stars out. The crickets were chirping, and the fireflies were lighting up all over the lake. In all respects, it should have been a beautiful evening. It wasn’t for me. My mind was racing. Tonight was going to be the night I finally told. I was going to end that deafening silence once and for all. It would no longer have to be my dirty little secret, something that only he and I had shared for over twenty-eight years.
I wanted my wife to finally know my pain – my mental anguish. I needed her to know it. Suddenly, those words emerged from the deepest part of my soul and crossed my lips for the first time. I said to her, “I need to tell you something.” There was no turning back. With my head in her lap and tears in my eyes, at last, I uttered the words, “I was sexually abused as a kid.” There it was. After twenty-eight years I finally told. My deafening silence had been broken.
I thought that telling Susan would make it all better, but it didn’t. I guess I don’t know what I really expected at that time. I had brought her into my most private space, hoping it would make me feel less alone. Although I didn’t specifically ask her right then, in my own way I was begging her to help me. At the time, I didn’t even know what that help would look like. How could I have expected her to know what it was that I needed? I just knew I couldn’t be alone any longer. I had always felt so alone. Looking back, she didn’t know what to do. How could she have?
Seven or eight years of abuse and twenty-eight years of silence came down to this single conversation which lasted all of two minutes. After I spilled my soul, she told me how sorry she was that this had happened to me. I knew she was deeply concerned but that was the end of it for a while. I needed so much more. I needed her to ask me if I was okay. I needed her to frequently check on me. I needed her to ask me the freaking details. I wanted to talk to someone about it and she had to be the one. Susan never asked. She didn’t check. She didn’t hear my details.
Nearly thirteen years after I told Susan what had happened, Lady Gaga released her hit song “Til it Happens to You.” Unlike Simon & Garfunkel’s hit, this song was clearly about the struggles of an exceptionally talented singer after she had been sexually assaulted. I don’t think there is a survivor out there who hasn’t, at some point, had similar thoughts and feelings as Lady Gaga coursing through his or her veins. I can’t listen to that song without feeling the despair in her voice and equating it to the despair and anguish I felt for so long. Every time I hear it, I realize that my wife had no idea what to do when I told her because she couldn’t know. Nobody can know until it happens to them. How could I have expected that Susan would know how I was feeling? She couldn’t know, and she didn’t know because I was unable to articulate what I was feeling and what I needed from her. Without those two things, she couldn’t help me. Nobody could.
I didn’t tell anyone else, and Susan and I never discussed it again until four years later when I really started to crumble. The silence had crept its way back into my life, but now, I was broken, really broken. It was as if I had bottled this up for twenty-eight years, discussed it for two minutes, and then sealed it off for another four years. I was an absolute mess inside my head. I felt I had no one to look to for help.
I had now been District Attorney for ten years and had two small children. I needed to perform as a professional, a father, and a husband. So, I put what I had termed my mask back on and acted as if everything was okay. I went to work and did my job, and I took care of my family. All the while, I was slipping into depression. I was suffering from post-traumatic stress. The nightmares and flashbacks were overwhelming. I was having panic attacks, and I was sleeping fewer than three hours a night.
I began to crumble, and my marriage began to fail. Here I was, this influential attorney capable of trying the most horrible cases, protecting innocent victims, and I was falling apart. My whole life was falling apart. I looked at everything as if my entire life had been a lie. The funny thing was, everyone around me believed I had the world by the tail. On the brink of walking away from my family, Susan and I talked. Then we talked some more, for hours and hours. She took the initiative to begin reading about men who had been sexually abused as children, and I believe that opened her eyes to what I was going through. When she began reading, I knew she really cared and that she was worried. It probably saved our marriage. She asked about the details I had so badly wanted to tell her about four years earlier. She asked what I needed from her and how she could help. She stressed that I needed to get therapy – our marriage depended upon it. Shortly thereafter, I told my mom about the abuse. She, too, suggested therapy, but I was resistant.
After all those years of silence and sadness, and after finally telling, I realized how angry I was with my mom. I blamed her for what had happened. I blamed her for not protecting me. Why didn’t she? Protecting me was her job. I just couldn’t understand it. There was no anger towards my dad for some reason, just my mom. Although I didn’t tell her I was angry, I knew by disclosing what had happened that she would be hurt. For some sick reason, I wanted her to hurt like I did. I don’t even know why I desired that. It wasn’t as if she knew what was happening to me back then. I loved this woman, and I knew that she loved me with all of her heart. I knew if she could make the pain go away she would. I knew if she could trade places with me, she would have. My mom was and is a beautiful woman. I know it wasn’t her fault.
If I had it to do over again, I am not sure that I would even tell my parents. It’s not as if they could do anything about it. As angry as I was with my mother, she came through for me in the end. She was crucial in me getting professional help. I clearly needed it. My wife, my family, my friends were not capable of giving me the professional care I needed. It was my mom who called the therapist and got her to accept me as a new patient. It was my mom who scheduled the appointment for me. I told her I wouldn’t likely go, but I did. Thank God, I did.
Meet Pat, my therapist. What an absolute blessing she was. She had spent most of her career counseling children with issues stemming from sexual and physical abuse. I think she took me on as a new patient probably because she had previously counseled someone else in my family. Pat and I would sit with each other one or two times a week for an hour over a five-year span. She mainly listened to me as I figured out how to move forward with my life with this significant, undealt-with trauma in my past. Like my mom and my wife, Pat saved me too. I was sad when my relationship with her ended, but I was in such a significantly better place that I believed I could continue my healing journey on my own.
Pat introduced me to the Advocacy Center of Tompkins County (New York) where I enrolled in group therapy with both men and women. Singlehandedly, this was the most important thing that led to my healing. For the first time, I spoke with other survivors, and I felt SO NOT ALONE anymore. Those survivors were the most amazing people I had ever met. At last, I was able to talk with people who were just like me. Although everyone’s trauma was different, their thoughts, views, and issues were just like mine. After listening to everyone, I believed it was fate which brought us all together.
Photo by Team Picsfast on Unsplash
Photo by Team Picsfast on Unsplash
As I was going through therapy, I came to the realization that I wanted and needed to do more to help other survivors. Obviously, I was helping many victims in my criminal cases, but I wanted to do more. I learned that the Tompkins County Department of Mental Health was sponsoring a train-the-trainer type of event featuring Mike Lew, a worldwide expert on male survivor therapy. Pat asked me if I would be interested in participating as a member of the survivor panel. Staying in tune with the new me, I, of course, said yes. I was aware that I would be bringing a unique perspective to the panel, in that I was not just a victim, but also a prosecutor. I thought this could have many benefits for the service providers.
Just like that, I was signed up to sit on a panel in front of 75 treatment professionals. Oh boy! I remember I was so nervous. Telling your wife is one thing. Telling a bunch of strangers is another. The event was in the next county over, so I figured I wouldn’t know anyone there. I was wrong. When Susan and I sat down, the woman in front of me turned around and said, “Hi Joe, what are you doing here?” She was a therapist in my county’s mental health department. I panicked and immediately lied. I wasn’t ready for that. I told her I was just interested in the presentation. After lunch, I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “I need to tell you something.” Her response was simple and caring, “You’re going to be on the panel, aren’t you? It’s okay Joe.” All I could think was this is real now. Then, I did it. Later, the therapist asked if it would be okay to tell her staff about me. She thought it would be helpful for them to know they had a prosecutor who really understood victims. Knowing it would soon be out in my own county, I still said yes.
The following spring, I was asked to speak at the Advocacy Center’s “Kids are our Business Breakfast.” There were over three hundred people in the audience, including several police officers and judges I had dealt with over the years. It was beginning to get real for me. People who I worked with now knew my deepest secret. I left to a standing ovation. My wife was at my side again.
Since those early days, I have been called upon to tell my story to many other service agencies in New York. Every time I do, my mind necessarily wanders back to those childhood days. Today, I can answer the question that plagued me for so long – WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME? I truly believe it was because I could handle it and would someday be in a position to help others. I think the abuse led me to become a career prosecutor. I think it led me to be a District Attorney who puts his victims first and will go to trial based upon their word alone. Why? Because I believe them. It’s that simple. I know the abuse ultimately led me to become a speaker for victim service providers throughout the State of New York. I was meant to be in this position so I could be the voice of my victims. So, I could make a difference for victims around the state.
Recently, with the help of my office staff and some not-for-profit service agencies, I established the Justice Center of the Southern Tier of New York. It is a state-of-the-art facility where crime victims/survivors can go to receive services all in one place. It is a place where victims can be interviewed by police and prosecutors in a safe and extremely comfortable setting, unlike the cold and dreary police and prosecutor office settings. It has colorful, cozy, and comfortable furniture, butterfly stickers, paintings, a slate waterfall, and even artwork created by victims. It is a collaboration of service providers with one purpose in mind – helping victims. As I wind down my career as a prosecutor, it is my intention to devote my time to the Justice Center. I am hopeful that the concept behind it will be used as a model for more regional centers throughout the state and, perhaps even the country.
Doing what I have done for so many years as a professional, and having my own traumatic experience, I am keenly aware of the effects that sexual assault can have on a victim. I know that those effects can weigh on that survivor for many, many years. I know it never goes away. It will always be there. It is the same for me. I have good days and bad days. I have days where I can’t wait to go to work, and I have days where I can hardly get out of bed. I have activation cues (triggers) just like everyone else. Some days, they seem to send me back to being that little boy again. God, I hate those days. Other times, the triggers just create a passing thought for me.
It has now been forty-two years since the last time I was assaulted. It has been twenty-one years since the first time I told anyone about it. Through perseverance and with the help of many others, including – my wife, my children, my family, my friends, and my therapist—I am better today. I have lived a difficult life fighting this childhood demon, but I am okay. Like me, it will never be easy for anyone to move forward when this type of thing is in their background. That is the sad reality. But, in my humble opinion, at least for me, it gets easier when you can talk about it. When this is held inside, the sound of silence grows like a cancer. It is darkness. It is walking alone. No survivor should ever have to endure a lonely, silent, walk in the dark.
About the Autor
Joseph Fazzary has been the Schuyler County District Attorney for 27 years and is an advocate for survivors.
Published by SurvivorSpace, an initiative of Zero Abuse Project
Built with Shorthand