The days following May 4th, the night of sitting down with my parents and looking them in the eye to tell them how hurt I was, and to have them fail me, is something I don’t know that I will ever be able to forget. Can I move forward and heal? Absolutely. Will I ever understand how they could look at me without remorse or love, unwilling to help me in some manner, to be able to move forward from the greatest pain in my life? No, I don’t believe I will be able to comprehend their actions. I’m not them, but if nothing else, they’ve taught me how to stand on my own two feet! They’ve allowed me to see what type of parent I never want to be, and I’ve learned how significant my impact is on my children, forever and always.
The weeks to follow were nothing more than ‘going through the motions’ of my day to day life. I had a household to manage, children to care for, and a business to oversee. Brian continued to support me and try in many ways to talk with me, to make sure that I was speaking out when I needed to and not bottling the pain inside. Those days are somewhat of a blur, which really was a few months, but they went by so slowly. I remember feeling like I couldn’t get out of my own way, like I didn’t know what to do or when to do it, and I couldn’t make myself happy for anything. My friends were so supportive, knowing that only weeks before, my family had been such an important part of my life – and now that was all gone. How do we go from having what feels like everything, to being so lost and feeling like nothing? Welcome to the world of a victim. You internalize the pain, unable to explain what happened, maybe being afraid to think about it, not too mention actually talking out loud about it. I vaguely talked with my friends, yet was still so hurt by all that had transpire, that I really had very little desire to discuss how I felt. I knew that more was going to happen, and although I wanted my story to be heard, I also wanted to crawl up in a hole and hide from everything.
After a couple of months had passed, I decided that I needed to let certain people know; he was a danger to me, to people I knew about, and worried for who else had he victimized that I didn’t even know about. So, I began to gather my thoughts around the end of July, and I knew that it was time to tell his wife. She had to know, she had to hear this from me, and I needed to tell her. At that time, they had a three year old daughter together, and I feared for my niece. She was so little, at such a vulnerable age, and I knew that if I didn’t speak out and something happened to her, I could never live with myself. For my own safety, I planned the timing for right before we were heading on vacation; this way I would be no where around to see her anger unfold on him. We were leaving on August 16th, so the weekend prior I called up a close family member of hers and spoke with him about the situation, that I was going to sit down and tell her this horrendous news, ultimately breaking her heart, and I was worried for her and their child’s safety. He was in no way surprised, and said that he would be there for her in any way that she needed, that this person needed to be stopped. By this point, I was going out of my mind. My nerves were nearly gone, I was shaking uncontrollably throughout the day, but I knew this needed to be done. I knew that I needed to protect her, her daughter, and for all the others he had victimized – a bit of justice for us all.
I sat down that Wednesday evening with his wife, at my dining table, and with fear in my voice, spoke as openly and candidly as I could about what had happened to me all those years ago. I told her some of the details, and she asked more and more questions. Sadly, I didn’t see an upset wife; I saw a distraught, angry woman who seemed to knowingly believe what I was saying, almost as if she was not shocked by many of his tendencies. But again, I did not go into great detail with her about what he had done specifically to me; and remember, at this point I hadn’t even done that with Brian fully. So many people now knew what he had done, but I still struggled with verbalizing all of those humiliating and somewhat debilitating details that I carried with me for decades. She didn’t cry, except for when I had told her that special person would be there to help her (that broke her down). Instead, she actually stood after a while, pacing back and forth, and kept saying “now what do I do? what do I do now”? My conversation with her that evening ended with a broken wife leaving my home, and Brian and I packing our kids in the car and getting out of town. In a sense, I felt terrible for leaving her, but I was comforted that she now knew and what she chose to do was up to her. We told her that we would support her, and that she would not be left alone in this nightmare.
Later that week, I got a phone call from my oldest brother and he asked me “did you tell her?” and i said absolutely I did! I stood firm in that, proud of handling the situation and standing up for myself. He obviously knew something had happened, because things seemed to be ‘falling apart’ back home and ‘shit had hit the fan’. I checked in with her after he had called, wanted to see how she was holding up and to let her know I was thinking about her. Understandably so, she seemed in a bit of a fog, but she was taking one day at a time. She had gone home that night, unable to keep her anger from lashing out at him and to my understanding had requested a divorce. Thank you, for standing up for yourself. Thank you, for standing up to him and ‘slapping him in the face’ with his own demise. Thank you for liberating me, and all of his other victims in that moment. Thank you!
We came home after that week long vacation, feeling relaxed but anxious. I was unsure what we might find when we got home, and walked on ‘pins and needles’ for days, no weeks, worried that he would come after me for, essentially in my mind, ruining this fairy tale life that he had created for himself. His fairy tale life . . . had been crushed, squashed like the scum of he who lived in it! Thankfully, he never attempted to approach me. Those days turned into weeks, and life seemed to return to ‘normal’, which was as normal as it could be. For me, I wasn’t sure what normal would ever be. Here I was, this wife and mother who was struggling to understand how I was going to heal from this, to move on in my life, and what the future was going to be for me. My parents were essentially gone, gone forever. They, by no means, were parents to me – parents protect their children and love them in every circumstance, not give up on them! Mine, gave up on me. They gave up on me many years before, but sadly, I lived a lie for years and years before I realized that pain. Although the abuse will never leave me, the pain of how they all failed me will forever outweigh the pain I felt as that little seven year old girl.
About four weeks after that sit down, tell all to his wife, I saw her again. I turned the corner at the grocery store, and there she was – smiling and happy. I stopped to say hi and see how she was doing, and asked where my sweet niece was, and that’s when that rug got ripped out from under my feet . . . . . “Oh Kendall’s home with your brother. She didn’t want to come shopping, so she stayed home with daddy!” . . . . . and in that moment, I turned my body away, my heart sank and I walked away from her without another word. How? How could this possibly be happening? How is it that I opened up to you, I continued to humiliate myself to protect you and her, and you treat me as if I’m nothing? Why? Why was this happening to me? Why was my abuser allowed to live his life, but I have to live forever in pain? Why . . . . . . . . . . . ? ? ?
By this time, with all of the hurt and agony, the humiliation and scars, the worry and torture, I began to question myself and everything around me. Why was my life playing out like this? What did I ever do to deserve this treatment? What have I failed to do in life that I’m being punished for over and over? Those following days turned into weeks, and they seemed to be some of the most difficult times in my life. I felt so lost, so misunderstood, and so unable to communicate with anyone or anything. I’m sure I mistreated my husband, and failed my kids in many ways. I’m certain my friends didn’t deserve this lifeless person, and my work was probably scarce. By the beginning of October, I had hit my brick wall, and I knew if I didn’t figure out how to help myself, and allow others to help me, I was setting myself up to lose everything I ever loved. My life was lifeless, my breaths were breathless, and my heart was broken.
I hope you will stay with me on this journey. Although my story is nearly complete, my journey is just beginning. The struggles which we carry with us are nothing short of life lessons to keep us moving . . .
My First Breath 