The Home I Know: Testimony
Chapter 15
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.
“The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state, but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men. It therefore provides strong guarantees for the rights of the accused, but essentially no guarantees for the rights of the victim. If one set out by design to devise a system for provoking intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, one could not do better than a court of law.”1
~Judith Herman, MD
~ ~ ~
My body and voice shook in unison as I called the local police station to report the instances of incest. Quickly, I was told I had to drive 400 miles South to Newport Beach to report where the crime took place. So I did, even though I couldn’t afford the trip financially or energetically. Even though I had been raped all over the United States because I could be harmed whenever I was with my father and we traveled often. I drove all the way back to Newport, opened the door, and walked up to the female administrators at the police department.
“I’d like to report a crime: sexual violence by my father, grandfather, and an uncle during childhood,” I disclosed to them.
Without a beat or note of sympathy the woman behind the desk replied with a look of utter disgust, “You can’t even do that. Aren’t there statute of limitation laws or something?”
Tears welled up in my eyes as the pressure of rage pushed against my chest. Words came out: the story of my phone call, the officer’s instructions, the drive I couldn’t afford, the time, the feeling of being trapped in a car for a seven hour ride.
“I came all this way,” I finished.
“Okay, we’ll provide an officer for you to report,” she replied after a long eye roll.
“I’d prefer a female,” I requested.
“Well, for that you’ll have to wait.”
I sat deflated in one of the nearby chairs then waited for the next available female officer for a chance to be heard, for the support denied by my family and by my community; to be honored by law enforcement. Then, I saw her. A fit female dressed in black from head to toe in a uniform, her chest covered by a bullet proof vest.
We walked together to an empty room, sat down, then she asked a number of questions, created a case number, and that was that. At the end, she told me that I didn’t have to drive the 400 miles after all. I could’ve reported in-person to my local precinct and they could’ve transferred the report to Newport. My heart sank. All that effort for nothing. I never heard from her again. Eventually, I found the courage to call back and follow up about my case. The woman on the other end of the line spoke with the same annoyance as the ones I met at the station.
“There are no notes in your case file,” she said with an eye roll I could hear over the phone. “You just have to trust that the officers did their job.”
Blind trust: to police, to family, to community, to church, to God. But none of them had earned nor deserved it. Dr. Freyd explains that, “Institutional betrayal refers to wrongdoings perpetrated by an institution upon individuals dependent on that institution, including failure to prevent or respond supportively to wrongdoings by individuals (e.g. sexual assault) committed within the context of the institution.”2
First I had to manage betrayal trauma by forgetting my own stories, then I had to manage family betrayal, and now institutional betrayal. How much more betrayal could I carry?
I returned home and considered my options. I didn’t have the economic, emotional, or psychological stamina to challenge my father in civil court. The statute of limitation laws around different types of sexual violence turned out to be too confusing for even my friends with law degrees to help me interpret.
Did I survive rape?
Did I survive incest?
Did I survive child sexual abuse?
Could I condemn my father for all three?
Even if I did understand and sue him, lawyers may choose not to take my case without the likelihood of a substantial cash payout. Also, the chance of a judge and jury supporting a survivor of child sexual abuse with little to no direct evidence is harrowingly low, especially those of us who claim to have recovered memories of the abuse as adults. Evidentiary requirements needed to prove cases of child sexual abuse leave even sympathetic judges and juries with little likelihood of convicting an abuser.
Sadly, I learned that my experience of institutional betrayal with the criminal punishment system was more common than I had understood. However, due to low disclosure rates by victimized children, delayed disclosure by adult survivors, and lack of reporting by victims and families after disclosure, incest abuse is understood to be one of the most underreported crimes. Research shows that safe and quick interventions to end instances of child sexual abuse have been proven to be one of the most effective steps to the survivor’s recovery.3 However, most often after disclosures of incest abuse by victims, family members retraumatize them by doing nothing, denying it happened, minimizing the harm done, or blaming the victim for the abuse.4
Who would report someone they loved? Someone they lived with? Someone they were economically dependent on?
My case, like so many others, was not one worth consideration by the State. One survivor’s disclosure is often not enough. Instead, when a number of victims come forward accusing the same person of harm, a case may be taken. Any case that could be won, were the ones worth committing to. My and so many other incest survivors’ stories didn’t fall into any of these categories. So I was left without justice or support, while my father remained free to reoffend.
Of 1000 reported rapes of all kinds, only 25 people who harm will be incarcerated.5 And rarely is anyone sentenced for life due to sexual molestation or rape. The average time a person convicted of rape spends in prison is 8.5 years. Then most are released without any treatment or assurance that they are safe.6
Sexual recidivism rates for people who harm are estimated at 10-15%.7 However, these numbers require getting a conviction in the first place, meaning the victim must have disclosed and reported, and the system must have believed the survivor’s story. As this process is so infrequent, actual recidivism numbers are likely much higher. Lack of safe and transformative systems of accountability and treatment contribute to intergenerational incest abuse.
Some children must seek their own liberation and are left vulnerable in the foster care and other support systems. Most Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) is produced in the home, then published across the internet, making a victim’s trauma evergreen, streamable content for consumption. Often, victims leave the home young with a romantic partner who is still abusive, just less so than the family system. Some victims run away from their homes and land into any job they can. Many are abused during consentual sex work or they’re kidnapped and placed in sex trafficking rings. There is a high likelihood of being retraumatized as an adult after being incested as a child. This is called “The Incest Pipeline.”8
I couldn’t hold the responsibility of the cost and commitment of healing as a victim of serial sex crimes alone. I, like 96% of other victims of crime, hadn’t been aware of victim compensation programs that could be applied for with just a police report.9
It became so clear to me that the systems that failed to protect me from abuse, that failed to intervene, that failed to provide adequate resources for recovery, that failed to offer any sense of justice, also failed my father. His history of abusive behavior began long before my body. His siblings often shared what a terror he was, how much power he had over them in their family system, how he passed down the beatings he received from his father onto the younger and even more vulnerable members of his family. No one intervened. No one stopped him even then. No one taught him how to become a safer person.
What would intervention to end his abusive behavior have looked like when he was a child? When he was an adult?
Many theories suggest a number of reasons why people sexually perpetrate children. Some chose to act on pedophilia: a sole sexual desire for minors. Some premeditate the abuse and ritualistically plan and groom a child and their community to gain and sustain access. Some choose to perpetrate opportunistically, or just because they can, due to imbalances in power dynamics. Some perpetrate situationally because of the excuses of trauma, sexual neglect, or stress.10
There is no list of characteristics that accurately describes people who choose to sexually harm children or why. However some patterns have been discovered in studies: a sense of excitement and sexual satisfaction; coping with low self-esteem, stress, or unmet emotional needs for intimacy or affection; a sense of entitlement motivated by values of domination taught by white supremacy, the patriarchy, and adultism; lack of sexual education or boundaries; and/or social isolation.11
In many states, children who sexually harm other children are added to sex offender lists (some for life). This restricts reporting and treatment, even though treatment has proven to be effective to end recidivism by youth.12 Additionally, there are few places where adults who are attracted to children or are at-risk to harm can go to receive support so that they do not perpetrate in the first place. Vilification of this population isolates them from acknowledging and accessing help, so once they do perpetrate, they receive no assistance in ending the sexually harmful behaviors.
By failing to prevent abuse, intervene safely, and transform people who are at-risk to harm or have already harmed, the system built to protect children from sexual abuse in the home is actively contributing to repeat and increased victimization.
~ ~ ~
I returned to my little cottage and laid in bed to rest, when my phone began to vibrate nearby. I looked at the screen and saw a name I both awaited and feared, Kaylee, my childhood friend from church who used to swing on the park rails with me after gobbling down a few donuts.
“Hi Anna Banana,” she began. “I know we haven’t talked in awhile.”
“Hello, it’s nice to hear from you.”
“I had a memory,” she continued, “of your father.”
“Okay.” Here it goes. The moment I had been dreading and awaiting: that I likely wasn’t his only victim. My body tightened.
“One year when we were at Yosemite, your father made me and a few of the other girls all get in a line.”
“Okay,” my body continued to compress with that all-too-familiar pressure.
“He then asked us to play a game with him where he would grope all of our legs and then rate them from prickly to smooth.”
“Okay.”
“He fondled our legs over and over again. Then rated them. I didn’t win because mine were prickly. I felt so ashamed. I wanted to please him.”
“Kaylee, I’m so sorry.” My heart broke open.
“I know I wasn’t as supportive as I could’ve been when you disclosed years ago. I didn’t understand the depth of the problem of incest abuse, nor how to handle it. But I’ve been working with a therapist, who’s helping me to see his behavior as predatory and increasing my confidence in your story. I wish I would’ve supported you sooner and want you to know I support you now.”
“I appreciate your apology,” I began. “Although the lack of support from our community in general was painful, there was no rulebook about how to deal with these issues. I didn’t have one either.”
We caught up a little more about her life and mine and then hung up. I felt flooded. Sad that, as anticipated, I wasn’t the only child my father harmed sexually, validated with her strength to bring her story to me, honored with her apology, confident that I would have more support if I ever had to engage the criminal or civil legal systems. I now had corroboration in someone else’s story. It wasn’t justice, but certainly validation.
I needed to go to the sea, as only it was big enough to hold these massive feelings. It always held the stress of my home memories. My feet found their way back to the sand and my heart to the part of the water between the stacked rocks that shaped into two jetties. The chaos of the waves’ whitewash splashed against them fiercely. I approached those barnacle-studded stones, then removed my shoes.
The waves crashed around the jetty and soaked me, but I wasn’t scared because I wasn’t trapped: at any time I could turn back to the safety of the sand. The salt water dried and tightened my skin. The wind wrestled my hair. And an internal peace replaced the external chaos created between whitewash and rock. I left the constancy of the chaos and the jetty behind, as my feet settled deeply into the safety of the sand.
Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror.
Freyd, “Institutional Betrayal Research Home Page.”
Jaffee, S. R., Takizawa, R., & Arseneault, L. “Buffering effects of safe, supportive, and nurturing relationships among women with childhood histories of maltreatment.”
Ahrens C. E. “Being silenced: the impact of negative social reactions on the disclosure of rape.”
Morgan & Thompson, “Criminal Victimization, 2020 | Bureau of Justice Statistics.”
The Mama Bear Effect. “Understanding Abusers | the Mama Bear Effect.”
Incest AWARE. “What Causes Incest? | Incest AWARE”.