Alice Munro's Betrayal Is One of Many for Incest Survivors
Familial, Social, and Institutional Betrayals After ICSA
Listen to the post read by Jo. or read below. This piece discusses incest abuse. If you’re a survivor or supporter seeking resources, head over to Incest AWARE or Sibling Sexual Trauma.
When I read Andrea Robin Skinner’s story that revealed the incest or intrafamilial child sexual abuse (ICSA) perpetrated by her step-father, I immediately recognized the multiple betrayals survivors so often face. Skinner disclosed the abuse to her mother, Alice Munro, through a handwritten letter years before. The recently deceased, famous Canadian Nobel Laureate had chosen to stay with her husband anyway, while Skinner became estranged from the entire family, left to heal alone.
I found an article and video where I could see Skinner’s face and listen to her own words, while she spoke of the devastating impacts ICSA has had on her health, her life, and her family:
“By the time I was a teenager, I was at war with myself, suffering from bulimia, insomnia and migraines. By the age of 25, I was so sick and empty, I couldn’t properly start my adult life.”
While I watched Skinner disclose the far-too-familiar early losses of body and family, of a safe childhood and a smooth transition into adulthood, I felt her story arise in my body. I, too, am an incest abuse survivor. Like Skinner, I had penned a letter to my mother of the past perpetrations by a number of men in my family and mailed it. She read my words and returned a note to me saying something like: “I believe you, but you must forgive them.”
Instead, I chose to walk away. My mother, on the other hand, remains devoted to the family system, while I live estranged from them: those who know all about my history and have done nothing but blame me for the shame that my absence has caused the family in our picture-perfect community. But the story of incest abuse is not just held by Skinner and my bodies, and not just perpetrated within our families.
Unfortunately, ICSA, at times compounded by the betrayal of non-offending family members, is far too common. Little anti-incest research has been done in the US since the turn of the century, so recent prevalence data doesn’t exist. However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) estimates that out of all reported cases of child sexual abuse (CSA), around 34% are perpetrated by family members. Due to lack of disclosure and underreporting, the actual rates of ICSA are believed to be much higher. Familial, social, and institutional betrayals further threaten survivors’ sense of safety, contributing to their silence.
Social stigma around ICSA makes conversations confusing or uncomfortable. Most prevention education materials focus on people who harm outside of the home while neglecting to address the risks and methods of protection for intrafamilial sexual abuse. Without adult oversight, the burdens of protection, violence, and disclosure rest on the shoulders of children.
However, as Child USA states, “Approximately 1 in 5 victims of CSA never disclose their experiences of abuse,” for a number of reasons. Serial sexual violence in the home can cause Dissociative Amnesia (DA), which is defined in the DSM-5 as a condition “characterized by failure to recall important information about one’s personal experiences, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature.” Some CSA survivors remember the abuse throughout their lives, many long after the abuse took place, while others never do.
ICSA survivor and researcher Dr. Jennifer J. Freyd, in her Betrayal Trauma Theory, “posits that there is a social utility in remaining unaware of abuse when the perpetrator is a caregiver. [...] In such cases, the child's survival would be better ensured by being blind to the betrayal and isolating the knowledge of the event, thus remaining engaged with the caregiver.”
When survivors do disclose, the average age is after 50. However, more often than not, non-offending family members call the survivor a liar or do nothing. As Dr. Judith Herman explains:
“The bystander is forced to take sides. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing.”
If the family does choose to side with the survivor, they still may not report the perpetrating grandparent, spouse, parent, sibling, inlaw, etc., because of love, economic or emotional codependency, or protection of social status. Often the family system or community are protected over the individual. This phenomenon, called Cultural Betrayal Trauma Theory coined by Dr. Jennifer M. Gómez, is often necessary in historically marginalized populations, as they must work to protect their communities from further oppression. Black families are disproportionately overreported for child maltreatment, even when abuse occurs in white communities at equal or greater rates.
When survivors, family or community members do report, they are often met with neglectful or retraumatizing processes within the criminal and civil punishment systems. In many states, statute of limitation laws still prohibit convictions of a crime after a certain amount of time. Criminal cases for reported sexual abuse are unlikely to lead to conviction. Additionally, often non-offending parents (usually females) suffer criminal and civil consequences under Failure to Protect Laws, while children can be sent into foster care where they are four times more likely to be sexually abused.
Without victim compensation, CSA survivors must pay, often out of pocket, for treatment for chronic health conditions in a privatized medical system that calls them “disordered.” According to Darkness to Light, “The average lifetime cost per victim of child abuse is $210,012,” which includes the economic disparities caused by productivity losses. Although the anti-sex trafficking and anti-domestic violence networks provide safe shelters and basic life needs to help victims transition out of violent environments, rape crisis centers do not. It can be difficult to secure and sustain oneself on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) for Complex-Trauma conditions caused by ICSA.
These additional harms all reflect Institutional Betrayal, defined by Freyd as “wrongdoings perpetrated by an institution upon individuals dependent on that institution, including failure to prevent or respond supportively […].”
So, when families fail ICSA survivors, communities sweep our stories under the rug, institutions refuse to provide a safe place to land, and we can’t care for ourselves independently due to health issues, where do we go?
The Incest Gap — or the lack of incest prevention, intervention, recovery, and justice methods — leaves children vulnerable to sexual abuse in their homes, isolates survivors and families through intervention and recovery, as well as allows people who harm to reoffend. Skinner fell through the gap, and so did I.
She finally found home and healing in a community of survivors who offered her solidarity and hope. As she shares in her experience at The Gatehouse:
“I was in the presence of a collective strength that had been built by many voices.”
I founded Incest AWARE: an alliance of individuals and organizations seeking to improve methods of incest prevention, intervention, recovery, and justice.
Together we celebrate who we have chosen to be, we share our liberation stories, we honor our bodies in whatever ways they exist today. We witness each other’s courage, while we hold and heal the horrors of our histories and continue our activism journeys to ensure that the next generation of children are safe from ICSA.
I see myself in Skinner, and I write this so that she may see herself in me too. Thank you for sharing your story, Andrea. We are here with you.