reality versus how we might wish it was

by Rain Trueax

For this blog, I tend to write articles ahead of time, as ideas come to me. I had one planned for today and changed it after my friend, Diane, wrote her piece about her own experiences with sexual abuse. I felt her bravery, and yes, it takes bravery to share such things, meant I needed to change my own plans to address some thoughts on what has been traumatic for our whole country.

Here is not where I want to write about the recent hearings, guilt or innocence of anyone involved in them, but rather the subject of sexual abuse, ramifications on a life, my own experiences, and how thinking about the subject and its impact on adults led to one of my books.

My mother told me that when I was a very little girl, there was an old man hanging around our farm. She felt he was too interested in me. She kept a close eye on him anytime he was there. Maybe he just liked little girls, but she had a personal experience as a small child when two of her sisters were molested by their grandmother's boyfriend. She knew reality wasn't always as we wish.

This next involves fear. As a first grader, I had a mile and a half walk home from school on a gravel road, mostly with no homes. I remember seeing the car approaching and I didn't know who it was. I began to run and then found it was my father who had come to pick me up. My grandmother was riding shotgun and was angry at my parents, believing I had been scared unnecessarily.

Some years later, when I was maybe 12 or 13, I was walking by myself in a nearby city when a black, paneled van stopped and a man leaned out the window. He offered me $5 if I'd help him find an address. I shook my head, avoided his vehicle and hurried to my grandmother's home. If I'd helped him, what do you think I'd have experienced?

Here's the thing with sexual abuse-- it should not be that way. Girls should be able to walk alone, have fun, and not have to worry about being abused. It should be, but it's not reality and never has been. Maybe it will be someday but right now, it seems things are a long way from my believing that.

Dating is another of those situations with lots of possibility to go wrong. As a teen, after a date, I had a boy pull into a lakeside parking lot and turn off the engine. I liked the boy but didn't like the feel of that situation. I said I didn't want to do that. Then I added-- you wouldn't want me to, would you? He gave a very insincere no, but he never asked me out again.

Here's the thing-- do we set a scene for what happens or is it purely bad luck when a date turns bad?  Not totally either way, as one of my daughter's friends had a guy, who had been a close friend, suddenly turn on her. The rape led her to the hospital. She never pressed charges-- maybe blamed herself. Women tend to do that.

In terms of dating, my father also had warned me-- don't let anything get started because a boy may not be able to stop (or want to). I warned our son when he got close to that age-- if a girl says no, stop right then. Maybe don't date her again if she's been a tease, but whenever she says no, that is it.

Could he still be accused of more by an angry ex? Yep. Despite what some claim now, some women do lie about such. It's maddening because it makes the majority who have claimed molestation more easily doubted, but let's get real about human nature. Women are also capable of lying when it suits their purposes. Hopefully, the potential for that shows up in a personality before it gets to that point. Lies about such have found their way into the workplace-- again for other reasons. But in the end, we can only do right regarding our own actions, which means when she says no, that's the end.

There is a similar warning regarding women-- don't say no as though you don't mean it. That's what I have against some romances, especially as they used to be in the genre. The woman said no. He kept on and changed her mind, calling it seduction. Sorry, but that's sick. When she says no, he should quit right there. If she didn't mean it, it is her loss.

Would such thinking prevent all molestations or worse? Not remotely but it's what you need to do as a woman in the world as it is. Be alert. Be aware. Don't ignore instincts. In a drinking party, don't go off where there are bedrooms. In fact, don't go off by yourself with drunk guys. Don't drink punch in parties; and if you have a drink, keep it with you.

I know some women resent what I just said. Fine--  resent away, but it's reality of being a woman and not just our world or today. Such caution will not prevent all bad things from happening. We've heard too many stories of women who did it all right but ran across the wrong man, a predator, and their options were over-- men like Ted Bundy.

Years back, I was interested in writing a book about the emotional aftermath of sexual abuse. I wanted it from the man's angle. I read books where men described their experiences as well as how it impacted their lives. I also had a lot of stories I'd been told by those who'd gone through it.

For my hero, I created a world that was falling apart. I kept from the reader the identity of who the predator had been until into the book. I put warnings in the blurb that it involved sexual abuse as many survivors don't want such in a romance.

I think most know that sexual abuse is about control. When someone has it taken away by someone they should have been able to trust, it has an emotional impact. Even suppressed memories don't mean it isn't impacting how they react to others.

In Moon Dust, the hero is a high school principal. He's successful, has a wife he loves, but he's shut off emotional vulnerability even with her. She has no clue what happened to him and is ready to end the marriage. 

From the books, I had learned that in some ways, it's harder on male molestation victims, because men are supposed to enjoy it. We have seen a ton of articles recently about the impact on those when priests took advantage of the trust that should have been safe. I think it's even worse when it's in the family. 

Moon Dust is a romance, but it's also about what can we do when we realize that what happened back then is still with us. Susan began to find the answers she needed in a conversation with her psychologist friend, Barrett, over hot chocolate.

            Barrett sipped her coffee thoughtfully. "Give me more."

            "Your brain is in overdrive," Susan charged, "Just exactly what are you thinking?"

            "I don't know. Just putting together what you've told me before about Dane. Go on, tell me more. Something is trying to work its way to the surface."

            Susan smiled wryly. "Is it that hard?"

            "Don't be cynical. Just talk."

            "He's a workaholic. Never home, always needing to be the perfect principal. Emotionally he was closed off, never sharing the things that went wrong or even the ones that went right. It's like Dane has a place inside him that isn't open to anyone else."

            "Did you ever try to tell him any of this?"

 Susan shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe not in so many words. I haven't been so good at explaining my feelings. I did try to make him see that I needed to feel I was a part of his life, but he never heard me... or didn't want to hear me. Talking about our getting counseling led to his pulling away, angry, threatened almost."

            Barrett stared into her cup of coffee, drumming her fingers on the table. "How about a refill?" she asked after a moment.

            "What are you thinking?" Susan probed as she poured the coffee.

            "I don't know. What was Dane's childhood like?"

             Susan tried to think, to remember all Dane had told her, and there was nothing. "I don't think he's ever talked about it."

 "Nothing? Not about his relationship with his parents, mother's boyfriend, step-father, a birthday party, going to Disneyland, a special friend-- nothing?"

          "I don't think so. From what little he's said about his parents, I don't think childhood was a memory he wants to think about. Dane's father and Blythe were divorced when he was three. His father remarried and has another family back East. Dane never said so directly, but from the way he spoke about his father, I don't think the man ever contacted Dane after the divorce. I know he never sent support money. It must have seemed as though he divorced Dane as well as Blythe. Blythe remarried when Dane was about maybe twelve or thirteen. His step-father died when Dane was ready to go to college."

            "What's Dane's relationship with his mother now?"

            "Maybe a phone call once a year, but he rarely wants to see her, always balking at any suggestion that we invite her to spend holidays with my family. When we got married, she did not come to the wedding."

            Barrett seemed to consider for a long moment, her fingers against her lips before she asked, "Was Dane abused as a child?"

 It's available through Amazon and other book sites-- Moon Dust.