I didn't tell anyone because my brother said we would get into trouble. I was eight years old when it ended. He was 15 1/2 years old. Big developmental spread there. I guess that's why I didn't tell. Hard to remember. There other part must've been something like,"it's our secret." I never did tell anyone until I was 19 yrs. old and told a Catholic priest. He seduced and abused me too.

I didn't tell primarily because I didn't know to. I didn't really understand what was happeneing and that it was as bad as it was. I knew I didn't like it, but life was full of things I didn't like.

More rencely I've come to the relization that I was desperately lacking any kind of older male affection and therefore was especially unlikely to say anything that could get the only person who had (to my mind) given me any in trouble.

And once I did realize the enormity of what had happened (around 16 or so) I was basically too ashamed and frigtenend of what people would think of me. They would think me weak which was something I simply wouldn't allow myself to be seen as.

I don't know if this has been particularly clear, but I hope that it helps.

-Eric

Ken,

This is a post>

Ken, I told no one for several reasons:

I was always beaten badly and choked. He told me he would kill me, how he would do it and why everyone would think I died from accidental drowning. I believed every word of that.

I was filled with shame. I truly thought that no other boy had been sodomized and I sure would not let anybody know I had.

I did not think that what he did was a crime, so I had no reason to tell anyone.

He was a guy I admired and he was a super good friend when he was not in one of his crappy moods. I felt I needed him. I just could not understand why he got so angry with me. What had I done?

He told me I had caused him to do it because I "flashed my butt" all over town. I did believe that I did something that caused him to harm me--it was my fault.

Bob

Ken I did tell at the age of 11yo when I was raped by Father Ryan. My 5th grade nun asked me why I was no longer an altar boy and I told her what Father had done to me.

"You have to tell Tom to keep it from happening to the other boys" she said,So I told.

That when the mental rape of me begin.I was told that if I went to the police all the boys and girls would know what Father Ryan did to me. They said they beleived me but I should let the church board deal with this matter. In Aug of 1961 I sat before a group of church people and told them what Father Ryan did and they told me my story was unbelevable. They never questioned the other altar boy and would not let me in the room when Father R was questioned. I trusted these people but they just raped me again.

3years later when my English teacher raped me I didn't tell because I knew no one would do anything to help me. Tom

I wanted to just mention that what Scot says really resonates with me, too. The first time a therapist asked me why I didn't tell, I got really angry and it created a barrier in our communications. While all he said was, why didn't you tell, what I heard was a judgment. I took from him an implied: You should have been able to tell unless you were weak or, if you didn't tell there must be some reason, such as you wanted the abuse to continue.

I know these aren't implied in your question (nor were they implied in his). And perhaps his intent was to make me confront that part of me that was judging myself. The negative voices were, after all, my own. And I hope your book can serve to help caring people finds better ways to intervene and prevent continuing abuse.

Anyway, I hope I'm not taking this too far off your topic, but I thought I'd add my two cents on this in case you wanted to cover that aspect of this in your book. It's been 27 years since my abuse stopped, and this question can still provoke a lot of anger.

At first, he tell me he will make sure I am taken away from my mom, and put in orphanage. He know I feel like I make my father leave us, because I am bad. Later, when that don't work on me any more, he threaten that he will hurt my mom if I tell anyone. I believed him. He tell me what he will do to hurt me, and he do it. He give me reason to believe he will do those things.

leosha

I got abandoned when I was born. My father was sick and so they made her choose seeing him over me is what I was told by my parents. It was because whatever he had was contagious. So my first few days or weeks (however long it was) was spent with nurses and hospital staff instead of my mother. I grew up being afraid that I was going to be separated from my mom.

So when my dad or brother would threaten me with breaking the family up or splitting it up because I told, there was no way I could do this. I always was afraid that if I did the slightest thing wrong, the family would split up and it would be my fault. Than I would once again be abandoned.

Another thing was you got the silent treatment in my family if you had done something to upset my father. It didn't have to be anything of major significance as it could have been he was upset about his day, and you just happened to be standing there at the wrong time. The silent treatment included people talking about you in front of you or behind your back while whatever you said was not listened too or heard. It was like you were there but you didn't exist in their current world. The silent treatment was of course honored by all members of the family because if you didn't give said member the silent treatment, you would then be an outcast at that given moment. The silent treatment would last until some act of god would take place and lift the sentance. Or the silent treatment was lifted on you when someone else did something to earn it more so then you did.

Another thing (probably could go on an on here). My father threatened all of us that if anyone ever turned him in he would beat the shit out of us. Ok, he had demonstrated that enough times to us for it to be very powerful. No one dared to cross him because he was so violent (especially early on in my life as a young kid).

Then there is God and how religion got brought into it. We as kids were told time and time again that we were supposed to be seen and not heard. If we visited someone and they offered us something like a glass of water, we were taught to refuse it. They had to force it at us. But as kids we were supposed to honor our father and mother and not do anything and I mean anything that questioned them. Not only would that bring immediate and harsh punishment, but it meant that the people in church would hear about it as well. And of course than the humiliation and shame really played a major role.

But growing up in a fk'd up house like mine, I didn't know what a world was like outside of what I was experiencing. I learned early in my life that I couldn't trust those that I should have been able to trust or depend on and so in my mind, why was anyone else out there going to treat me any different. I figured there was no one I could trust and so that only person that I relied upon was myself.

Fukc, no wonder I ever told!

Don

old tapes

He fed me the crap that they feed to us all - I believed it for far too long!

Rik