Wait Quietly

At 00, I am still in therapy for the sexual abuse I endured at six, seven, eight, and nine years old. A brother. A stepfather. An uncle. I can still hear my mother's air conditioner whirring in the background as I wept into my pillow, my tiny body pressed under the weight of my brother. When he finished, he stood up and pressed his limp erection into his pajama pants before nicely telling me to get up. He never attempted to clean up his violence. He only ever adjusted himself before guiding me to my bedroom door – hand in hand. There, in the shadows, he told me to wait quietly until he closed his bedroom door before I went to the bathroom to clean myself off, and I did. I waited, quietly.

At six years old, I did not cry out. I didn’t rebel or run down the hall to my mother as any assaulted person would. Why did I obey him? I stood by the door and waited in the dark, quietly honoring him and his request, when at that moment, unbeknownst to me, he had taken so much from me. That moment and many moments to come would break me again and again – wrecking any pure sense of sexuality or sensuality I would have come to know on my own. Even now, I must be vigilant in keeping him, them out of my bedroom.

I waited in fear while his semen clung to my flesh and saturated the front of the nightgown my mother had made for me. As his door closed softly, I tiptoed across the hall in the dark, but I was no longer crying. I was afraid. I didn't feel like a victim; I felt guilty. Complicit.

With a clean body and a soiled gown, I turned off the bathroom light, opened the door, and stood still so my eyes could adjust.  The entire upstairs was dark, and there I was, a recent victim of sexual abuse, tiptoeing to bed so as not to disturb the family…

At six years old, what made me wait quietly in the dark after being sexually assaulted in my bedroom? Why didn’t I cry out? Why didn’t I share the night’s events while my mother scrambled my eggs? Why did I feel, without any more instruction than “wait quietly,” that I needed to hold what had been done to me in my body, and in silence? Why did I not tell anyone at school or church what was happening to me? I am unsure of what makes little girls, little humans remain silent and tiptoe across dark hallways when they are being sexually abused. I do not assume to have all the answers, but I know the threat of physical harm, even death, was a big deterrent for me. I knew this threat. I knew firsthand how the rage of an unhinged adult could quickly, easily end the life of a child.

I write because I was a victim of childhood domestic and sexual abuse and because I am always interrogating my experiences for bits of hope to sustain myself in what seems like a constant sea of despair. I don’t reflect, write, or speak to generate more pain or chaos within myself or my family, but to gain clarity about who I am and what I am to do with what I’ve endured.

With the two adult males, my stepfather and uncle, I remained quiet because they were both pedophiles, and they were violent. I still have physical scars from my stepfather’s beatings. When I go to therapeutic sessions to process the fear and sexual trauma around their abuse, I grapple with theodicy and maternal issues because my mom didn’t protect me; that then extends into this broader, more cosmic sense of not being loved or cared for by God. What God, what divine architect allows children to be raped? My stepfather and uncle would beat and rape their wives and fuck their sons and daughters. I remained quiet when they closed my bedroom door.

When I engage in therapeutic practices around my brother’s sexual abuse, I grapple with guilt and a shame that I now know comes from within the Christian tradition. With my brother, I believe I remained quiet because I felt like “we” had done something wrong; somehow, his sexual abuses were “our” secret, not solely his sin or his burden to bear – it was ours. And then he started making the abuse a game once we were in the fort we had built, or mom had left us alone to watch cartoons, and I felt complicit for giggling when he tickled me and his dick pressed against my panties.

Back to the question, why did I wait quietly? I’m sure I was in shock. I had no idea what was going to happen that night when my mother tucked me in and placed a stuffed animal in my hand. This type of violent exploitation of relationship and trust shatters the victim in a manner that cannot be quantified. I knew what was happening to me was painful and confusing, but I knew this person, didn’t I? I also waited quietly because I had grown up in an environment of poverty, violence, and neglect. I did not know how to advocate for myself, and I did not believe I had a voice – the church taught me that at an early age.

My mother went to the elders of our church to report my stepfather’s abuse and infidelity. I remember attending the hearing. We sat in the hall while my mother testified before a panel of white male elders, and then my stepfather arrived confident, covered in dust with his construction boots on and a strident step, and my mother was asked to step out. Her time at his arrival was done. They closed the door. My stepfather accepted he had hit her for being mouthy and disobedient, and that he had only struck us because we were unruly children who balked at his authority, but he blatantly denied any sexual infidelity.  I knew that to be untrue because he spent nights with me, some of our neighbors, and even my brother, but my mother didn’t know. She was exhausted by her own lack of identity and sufficiency, her eyes swollen by violence, poverty, systemic indifference, and unanswered prayers; she was often asleep behind her own tears and the whirring of the only air conditioner that cooled only her room.

When my stepfather was done testifying, he walked down the hall past us and winked. With that wink and the smile revealing his gold tooth, I knew the night was going to be bad for us all. I had no idea, until that day, that going to any form of authority could be detrimental to one’s health. They called my mother back into the elder’s room and told her that she only needed to be a better, more obedient wife and control the children she had borne with other men, and God would restore her marriage and calm the temperament of her husband. That night, the whole family suffered. My stepfather beat us all. Blood was shed from us all, but then he spent the night with me.