We Need to be Heard

It absolutely disgusts me, the amount of sexual abuse toward children going on in this world. All around us, right this moment, there are children being molested. Even worse, most of the time it’s by close, trusted family members. Worse than that is the fact that many of those family members are professing Christians.

Do you have any idea how often sexual abuse happens in Christian families to children under the age of ten? By fathers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles. It makes me physically sick that someone who God places to be a protector can view their own children and grandchildren as playthings to sate their fleshly lusts. Children are NOT for satisfying our selfish, sinful, disgusting, horrific fantasies. If that isn’t modern child sacrifice, I don’t know what is. Using a child, offering an innocent human being who no doubt unquestionably trusts their abuser, to Satan’s altar of fleshly lust and satisfaction is child sacrifice of the highest degree.

But it doesn’t end after the initial sacrifice. Do you have any idea how often children are continually abused and molested by the same person? It’s rarely a one time occurrence.

How do you think such an experience is processed by a child’s innocent, simple mind? The answer– it’s not. A child’s mind is so completely UNABLE to process and understand sexual abuse that it shuts down, buries, and forgets the experience. Memories of molestation can remain buried for over a decade before the mind decides it can handle and understand what happened.

But that’s a lie. When resurfacing memories return to the teenager or young adult, we still can’t process it correctly. Truthfully, there is no ‘correct’ way to process something so horrific. Though the mind now understands WHAT happened, the memories are still viewed through the eyes of a child. The adult mind realizes what happened, but there’s a disconnect between adult understand and child experience.

With a foot in both worlds, it’s impossible to process. The only thing that’s changed is now we have the knowledge of what happened. Rarely, I would venture to say even never, do we fully understand the why. Because there is no why. There is no reason on earth that such a thing should have happened. There is no understanding.

The aftermath of resurfacing memories gets worse. Through a warped coping mechanism, we face things such as trust issues toward God and man, anxiety, depression, and panic disorders, chronic nightmares, suicidal thoughts, homosexual and perverted tendencies, self harm; and that’s barely the tip of the iceberg.

We suffer physical harm, as the maturing body develops. We suffer emotional harm: I can testify to my own fear of being terrified of the idea of marriage and sex, along with a warped image of love and relationships.

Mentally we feel dirty, worthless, used. Because that’s the only explanation as to why someone would use us as they did and toss us away when we were too old to be enjoyed anymore.

And it gets worse. Do you want to know why so many of us feel like it was our fault we were abused?

//Because we were told it was.//

Yes. It’s true. All too often when we have returning memories we go to the person or people we trust the most. We need help. We need to tell //someone// in the hopes of being rescued from drowning in what we don’t understand.

So we go to Mom, Grandma, a trusted aunt, possibly even male family members and we try to tell them. What are we told?

//’You’re making that up. That person would never do such a thing.’//

//’It must have been your fault. You provoked them somehow.’//

They say things to our faces that rip those already bleeding wounds even wider. And why? Because they cannot comprehend a brother//son//husband//father doing anything like that.

They can’t comprehend? They don’t WANT to comprehend. How do you think we feel? We can’t comprehend it either and it HAPPENED TO US. That’s why we seek //help//. But we receive the farthest thing from help. We get a second betrayal from someone we trust. We are shut down again, just like our minds did so many years ago, except this time it’s from the outside. We are told not to tell anyone about it. “Don’t let the family know.”

Why?

WHY?

Why should your family NOT know there is a predator in their midst, preying on their innocent children? You would rather hide that horrific secret, save that predator from embarrassment or offense, instead of save your children from being the next sacrifice. You are just as guilty as the predator–no, you are HELPING the predator by not exposing them. By not standing up and telling them that you will not allow them to hurt anyone else, you are allowing it, giving PERMISSION, for them to continue.

No wonder teenagers are as broken as they are today. Betrayed by their entire families. Robbed of the ability to ever properly trust someone again. All because their family cannot face the truth that they have a monster among their own. So it happens again. And again. If you don’t know your history, it is bound to happen again. That’s true for your family history as well.

Don’t point fingers at other situations that have been exposed. Thank the Lord they HAVE been exposed. Look at your own family. Who hasn’t been exposed? Who NEEDS to be exposed?

I will not cower and let this sinful practice of child sacrifice continue. I may not be able to stop it, but I will be a voice for the victims. We need to be heard .