The Home I Know: Solidarity
Chapter 22
Thank you for your interest in the section of my memoir below. If your email server clips the message, then you can read the full post on Substack. You can also listen to the post by clicking the audio button at the top of this page. When needed, visit the Bibliography and Support Resources. This post mentions incest abuse. If you’re seeking resources, head over to Incest AWARE or Sibling Sexual Trauma.
Chapter 22: Solidarity
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”1
~ Anais Nin
~ ~ ~
A women’s recovery conference was coming to Los Angeles, so I reached out to the organizers and asked for the opportunity to volunteer and attend for free. They agreed and sent me a complimentary ticket. I flew down to LA and by the evening, dressed in a ball gown that I had last worn at my high school winter former, I found myself in a ballroom with over 600 women all recovering from something. This is what recovery could look like within community. Beautiful. Not the isolation I had grown so accustomed to, but a celebration. A model of what could be for incest abuse survivors like me.
Panelists throughout the weekend discussed healing from codependency, sex addiction, drugs, alcohol, physical abuse, eating challenges, domestic violence, the list went on. Here, healing was normalized. But, just like after #MeToo, I kept waiting with bated breath to hear stories of incest abuse spoken on stage. There were breakout sessions for most types of recovery. However, there were no groups for sexual abuse survivors.
Many panelists spoke about sexual abuse as a part of their histories, but it was either an afterthought, or they were just beginning to process it, or they hinted at a history of abuse but weren’t actually allowed to share due to family protections or signed contractual restrictions designed to silence them. Even within a recovery community of 600 women, sexual violence remained a secretive and secondary subject. Incest abuse was not addressed along with other systemic social justice issues. I raged as I returned home from the recovery event in LA and learned more about the history of incest survivors’ disclosures and social silencing throughout history.
In 1880, Bertha Pappenheim, known under the pseudonym Anna O., had been a client of Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer in Germany. She coined the phrase, “talk therapy,” after working with the physicians to contribute to a study that connected her experience of Hysteria with child sexual abuse. The psychoanalysts published what they came to call “Seduction Theory” in a study that suggested that Hysteria was caused by child sexual abuse. They hoped to be celebrated.
Instead a backlash ensued that risked their reputation, as many of the aristocrats wanted the abuse of their own children to remain secret so that they could keep getting away with it. In response, Freud called the survivors liars and presented, “The Oedipal Complex,” claiming that children had sexual attractions to their parents instead of the other way around. This history, coined by Florence Rush, came to be called the “Freudian Cover-Up.”2
A century later, a surge of anti-incest medical research arose in the 1970s-1990’s thanks to the second wave of Feminism, whose focus on preventing rape and treating survivors often centered those who suffered from child sexual abuse. Feminists centered incest abuse as a social problem caused by the violence of patriarchal hegemony in society, institutions, and the family. In many ways, this broad paradigm formed a strong foundation for the anti-child sexual abuse movement at the time, but it restricted the focus on cis-gendered men as perpetrators and people who were harmed on cis-gendered women.
This marginalized a number of populations within the movement, especially boys and men who had been incested, mothers and women who had been incestors, people of color (especially those who identify as multiracial), the LGBTQIA+ population, people who had disabilities, as well as cases of child-on-child sexual abuse (COCSA), and in particular those experiencing Sibling Sexual Abuse/Trauma (SSA/T).
In short order, physicians medicalized the issue of incest, shifting the focus to “The Incest Family,” the causes of abuse by people who harm as illness, and the consequences against survivors as psychological. The medical approach to incest centered family dysfunction and individual survivor responsibility for recovery, while divorcing the issue from societal influence or context. Too often, research arrived at biased conclusions that called out incest abuse in historically marginalized populations — especially communities of color, rural areas, impoverished families, and single mothers and parents — while ignoring the prevalence of abuse in white, wealthy communities. Additionally, pro-incest efforts run by propaganda sought to justify sexual violence within the family in a number of ways. Herman explains:
“As recently as 1975, a basic American psychiatry textbook estimated that the frequency of all forms of incest as one case per million.”3 The same text book goes on to endorse incest abuse saying, “Such incestuous activity diminishes the subject’s chance of psychosis and allows for a better adjustment to the external world.”4
In medical literature in the United States written as recently as the 1980s, researchers still suggested a curiosity around consent, wondering if children were interested in sex with adults, as well as blaming the child victims for the abuse.5 The medical neglect of incest abuse survivors has contributed to our silencing, our lack of safe interventions, as well as our inability to heal and receive justice.
But the resilience of survivors shined, as I reclaimed anti-incest history. A litany of survivor stories came to me. Stories of Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison, who both shared their survivor stories through novels and memoir such as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Bluest Eye. And Dorothy Alison, who’s Bastard Out of Carolina dissected incest abuse with her stepfather. And the producers of the movie Something About Amelia, which explored a story of father-daugher incest.
The litany continued with the activism of the second wave feminists, who opened over 1000 rape crisis centers, including V (formally Eve Ensler), who’s now published a number of books about her experience as a father-daughter incest survivor. To the work of Ellen Bass and Laura Davis in A Courage to Heal; Christine A. Courtois, who penned, Healing the Incest Wound: Adult Survivors in Therapy. And the research and writings of Judith Herman, who all advocated for incest survivors during the False Memory Syndrome Foundation’s backlash in the early 1990’s.
The False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) was founded by the parents of Dr. Jennifer Freyd who she accused of sexual abuse and worked tirelessly to convince society and clinicians that the return of repressed memories and Dissociative Amnesia due to child sexual abuse weren’t real.6 When many survivors disclosed to family, friends, therapists, and clinicians, they experienced the retraumatization of disbelief at best, blame at worst, or too often both. This became known as “The Memory Wars” waged between the accusers and accused. Unfortunately, too many individuals and institutions sided with the FMSF.
Today, incest survivors rarely disclose much less scale their stories publicly because we have so much to lose. As Herman explains:
“Those who attempt to describe the atrocities that they have witnessed also risk their own credibility. To speak publicly about one’s knowledge of atrocities is to invite the stigma that attaches to victims. Denial, repression and dissociation operate on a social, as well as an individual level.”7
I had already lost my family, my social capital, my career, my material life, my health, my wealth, my sanity. In this next transition of my life, I could choose to write and speak publicly about my story. I could try and get paid to make this issue more mainstream. But parts of me resisted the work.
We’ve tried so hard to protect our story and now you’re going to share it with the world?!
Safety has been our first priority for so long and now you’re going to let yourself be vulnerable to systems of perpetration that want to silence you?
What if the family sues you? Do you have the resources for that?
But we must. This is who we are.
It was time to begin. I was done making excuses for violence, and I realized that liberation must become a collective conversation. I knew I couldn’t do this alone. A survivor-run organization called The Center for Story & Witness posted an opportunity to apply for a gender-based writing workshop in LA. I submitted my application without expecting to get in; As countless survivors of complex incest situations can attest to, social stigma often leads to rejection and marginalization, even within survivor-focused programs. When an email from the organization landed into my inbox, I drew my mouse over the bolded type and clicked the subject to open it.
“You’re in! ”the message read, and included a number of details like room, board, and schedule.
I took all of my inner conflicts with me as I disembarked from the plane that landed just East of my undergraduate college on the bluff by the sea. The first morning, I arose in a hotel room down the street from the event venue. A number of long, rectangular tables in the shape of a large U sat centered in the meeting space. A few other gender-based violence survivors had arrived before me and found their name tag by their seat. I saw my new name written in beautiful script, walked to my chair, sat down, and settled in. Together, we began chatting as we waited for the other attendees to come in and for the workshop to begin.
Throughout the weekend, we read the works of other social justice activists. We wrote our own pieces to express the realities of our stories, and they were witnessed when we read our writing aloud in the presence of those gathered. In the U-shaped community, in this sacred space, I claimed my calling as an activist, as a writer, and as a survivor. Not because I felt some higher power required it of me, but because of the love, support, and confidence of a community that celebrated me, and I them. Whether or not I was ready, all parts of me were willing. I began publishing my story digitally.
A fellow survivor activist reached out to me. She wanted to meet. So we found a time and place just down the street to share a meal. I sat at the bar awaiting her arrival. Then I saw her. A tall, beautiful woman walked toward me.
“Hi, I’m Shirkydra Roberts,” she said confidently with an outstretched hand.
“Hi, I’m Jo.,” I replied as I timidly offered my own.
We ordered food and drinks then got to talking. While we sipped sparkling water and chewed our salads. We spoke of our shared dreams to create community for incest abuse survivors, as well as the obstacles we both encountered: some similar, others different. We spoke of external barriers like lack of funding and the burden of co-managing income earning and social justice projects, as well as systemic social issues like racism and ableism. We discussed internal obstacles like fear of safety and anxiety. We found communion and allyship in each other and started planning events together.
While my work often combatted the social denial that incest abuse happens in affluent white families, Shirkydra labored to protect herself and her community from racist and classist assumptions of intrafamilial dysfunction and violence. She carried an additional weight of naming that she was still a survivor of incest abuse by people who shared her racial, ethnic, cultural, and class identities.
Jennifer M. Gómez, Ph.D. coined the phrase, “Cultural Betrayal Trauma Theory,” to explain the intercommunal protection from violent oppression that historically marginalized people are forced to focus on, often decentering the safety of individuals within the community itself. Too often in these communities, the existential threat of white supremacy means community cohesion must take priority over protecting those hurt within the community, by the community.8
And yet, the history of incest abuse in the United States connects directly to the rape of enslaved Black people by white enslavers. White slave owners routinely sexually abused the enslaved, or forced reproduction between enslaved people to produce more enslaved children — all who were considered property. Yet the strength of the Black community has driven their liberation movement.
Theirs is the genetic memory of kidnapped Africans jumping from slave ships to a watery grave because it was the last free choice they could make. Of the Maroons, formerly enslaved and self-emancipated, who formed small, self-sufficient agricultural communities. From the abolition of slavery to the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter Movements, Black resistance and resilience has influenced and guided all other social liberation movements in the United States.
Shirkydra wore both the strength and burden of her liberation on her chest. She presented so confidently that she could speak publicly off-the-cuff. My passion for the work drove me forward, but my insecurities and anxieties held me back.
“Jo.,” Shirkydra began. “You can’t wait for your feelings of fear to leave you, just bring them to the stage. Your anxieties, your doubts, your dreams: carry them all with you and just shake while you speak. Don’t you worry, love,” she continued. “I’ll always be there to support you.”
Another survivor had searched “incest abuse articles” on Google and found a few of my recent publications where I shared my story. I wanted my writing to help get the issue of incest abuse elevated into public discourse; she wanted to work to improve prevention efforts. Together, we desired to build a community of anti-incest activists. Incest AWARE was the name she chose for the organization and began to create an alliance of survivors and people who supported us.
We weren’t starting a movement from scratch, but instead giving it a name and continuing the flame carried from generation to generation. The resilience of survivors and allies sustains and drives the movement. From books like Melba Wilson’s Crossing the Boundary: Black Women Survive Incest, to Oprah Winfrey’s disclosure as a survivor of intrafamilial sexual abuse. From the Ojibway community of Hollow Water on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, CA — who produced a documentary with the help of Bonnie Dickie — about how they responded to an epidemic of incest abuse through community-based (as opposed to state-based) transformative solutions,9 to Miss America by Day: Lessons Learned from Ultimate Betrayals and Unconditional Love, penned by incest survivor Marilyn Van Derbur.
From Viola Davis who acknowledged she was a survivor of Sibling Sexual Abuse and Trauma in her memoir, to Lidia Yukavitch’s disclosure of father/daughter incest in her book, The Chronology of Water. From Dr. Gloria González-López, who published, Family Secrets: Stories of Incest and Sexual Violence in Mexico, in 2015, to Amanda Mustard, who produced the documentary, Great Photo, Lovely Life, in 2023, to reveal the child sexual abuse and incest committed by her grandfather on a number of victims.
From Lynn Crook who wrote a book about her successful court case against the father who incested her — only to have the case publicized, twisted, and weaponized by False Memory advocates. From the Independent Commission on Incest and Child Sexual Abuse in France.10 From the End Incest movement in India, and the pleathora of research on Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse (ICSA), especially Sibling Sexual Abuse and Trauma.
From every survivor who has come forward publicly, to me, we are still sharing our stories.
I invited a number of activists in the Incest AWARE Alliance to come spend a weekend in Seattle. The activists arrived: one a writer, one a community organizer, one a mindfulness teacher, one a comedian, and me. I picked them up from the airport and immediately felt that same sense of sacredness I used to feel when walking into a new church, or floating in the ocean.
Together we discussed incest abuse without a beat, without a hesitation, without a reservation, without the need for education or explanation. How we’ve recovered from it, what we’ve learned about life through the process, and the work we do as activists. The whole weekend reflected the world as it could be, as it should be for survivors like me, like us: a place of compassion and competency where everyone listened actively and responded proactively.
At the end of the weekend, one of the retreatants planned a yarn activity to close the retreat where we each held the piece of string and answered the question, “What did we learn on retreat this weekend that we want to take with us?” The string rolled to the next person, until we all shared, connecting us by wisdom and yarn, hands and hope.
When the yarn came to me, I spoke of this certain solidarity of incest abuse survivors and the necessity to expand it exponentially. Then the facilitator asked a final question: “I’d like everyone to say one thing they love about Jo. in gratitude for organizing this weekend.” Each person spoke so highly of me during this commencement from a life of emergency recovery. My community centered me, without me even asking. I returned home with a new energy in my bones.
Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
Herman, Father-Daughter Incest.
Herman, Father-Daughter Incest.
James Henderson, “Incest”, in A. M. Freedman, H.I. Kaplan and B.J. Sadock, eds., Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 2nd ed. 1975 p. 1532.
Olafson E, Corwin DL, Summit RC. “Modern history of child sexual abuse awareness: cycles of discovery and suppression.”
Crook, False Memories: The Deception That Silenced Millions.
Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror.
Gómez, The Cultural Betrayal of Black Women and Girls: A Black Feminist Approach to Healing from Sexual Abuse.
National Film Board of Canada, “Hollow Water.”
“Accueil Du Site De La CIIVISE,” September 30, 2024.