Man, reading all these responses and the theme running through them was this - it pretty much was impossible to tell someone because of all the dynamics that were going on. I think Larry put it really well when he said



Finding our way through such difficult circumstances would have been difficult at best as adults. But think about it for a minute - WE WERE LITTLE KIDS. I guess the reality of that thought just really hits hard sometimes when we consider that we were little boys trying to make sense of senseless things, and trying our best to make right decisions about what we were faced with. It's a stunning thought sometimes.

i still have peoblems today .about making decisions.......i worry......is it the right one.........i go out of my to please prople......hoping they will like me......it was afully hard to make the proper decision as a child....as i didnt have anything to go on...............steve

Steve,

I hear that one - I used to go out of my way to please people too, and still got rejected at times. It's hard to know the right decisions to make in relating with others when we were never taught the right way in the first place.

I WOULD have been believed.

But what nine-year old boy wants to tell his dad "Ummm Dad? There is this man that lives up the road that I've been hanging out with and he talked me into sucking his dick and doing other things that I didn't like."

No I didn't tell because of one simple reason, embarrassment. Also, my parents didn't TELL me what to do if something like this actually HAPPENED.

I figured that the damage was already done, why bother bringing it up again?

I don't know. What little I tried to 'tell', well, I was away at training center and school, and would only get to see my parents each month or two months. When was the first time I went home after I been there for two months and abuse had started, I said I did not want to go back. My parents say 'why', I say that the coach is mean. But I did not say why I not like him, what was happening, and my father get angry and say that no child of his is to be 'quitter', and I am to not give up the chance I been given. I know, though, if I said anything of the abuse, even just of the physical, my parents would listened to me. I know that now anyway.

Andrei

I grew up in a family where sex was never ever discussed. So the only sex education I got was from my abuser. I assumed it was right. So in that set up, I did not have the guts to tell my parents. I mean, we were not even allowed to say the word sex in our home.

In a ertain sense I do think my family would have believed me. I believe it would have explained the mood swings and the isolation.

In my family, the message was really, "Pretend that everything's all right, and don't rock the boat" about a lot of things. That wasn't said, of course-- it was just the assumption we all lived with. We talked only about trivial things -- painful things got buried. I had little brothers and sisters who died right after they were born, and they were never mentioned. (Even now, neither of my parents remembers their names or exactly when it all happened -- I only know because I read birth certificates, etc. in the attic.)

Some families have a rule that nothing is allowed to be wrong. So, I was hurting and embarrassed and didn't have the words to say, and I wasn't in a family that could have helped me find a way to talk about it.

I think very few of us have a clear way to just say, "this happened." I hope the work they're doing in schools now is at least offering kids the words to say and other people to talk to.

Sex wasn't discussed in our family. Even when my folks discovered things that should have indicated all was not well in my world, I was the one blamed and I was the one disciplined with whippings on my bare bottom. How the f*** was I supposed to have learned that in the first place? Were they so ignorant as to think I came up with it on my own? "Uhhh.... Lets see, we caught Johnny doing what? Lets give him a whipping! That's nasty!"

Yeah, real brilliant! Again, 1963-64. Different world I suppose.

John

One Thing about the 14yo kid his mind was fooze at the age of 11. When you are but through that kind on trama the mind shuts down. So at the age of 14 he was still a 11 year old boy. Tom