Verbal Sexual Abuse Begins

I honestly do not know what happened at home when I turned 11, but things changed, and not for the better in some regards. Dad's drinking got worse and there were house parties every weekend for the parents.

One Summer when my brother, dad and I were out at the pool, my dad had the camera ready to take a picture of the my brother and I. The picture shows my brother reaching over to pinch my bum. He and my dad laughed. I did not. At that point was the first time my dad commented to me, "Your headlights are showing!" I didn't now what it meant but I knew it wasn't nice. I believe I went inside and told mom, who likely scolded dad and went on about the day.

We became involved in the Anglican Church but I didn't see that it made much difference, other than the Bible was now in our lives. There was still drinking, and the comments from my dad, and of course I was developing as a young lady.

When I was 13 years old, I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus and my entire family also did. We entered the Pentecostal denomination and the verbal abuse took a turn for the worst.

A Christian trucking ministry called ACTS - Association of Christian Truckers sat in our driveway for a week in the Summer of 1983. He and his wife stayed with us for that one week and it was one week too long for me.

I don't know who was in the chapel first that day, but I remember it was a hot Summer day and I was 14 years old and I was wearing a pair of shorts and a halter top. The pastor made some comment about my clothes being that of something like those that a prostitute would wear, to which my dad covered his face and turned face, covered by his hand and said, "He's right, you're turning me on," and ordered me to go inside and change my clothes.

I stormed inside sobbing and I felt so ashamed and dirty. How could dad say such a thing?! I was his daughter after all!!! His little girl! How could he??

Mom came running, wanting to know what was wrong, so I told her what had been said. She stormed outside in my defense demanding to know just what the hell I was supposed to wear because it was the middle of Summer after all? I don't know what was said after that. I was in my bedroom crying. But that was just the beginning of such comments.

Over the years I would hear such things as:

• Your headlights are showing!! - I heard it a lot!
• You'd be better off riding him than sitting beside him (when I sat beside a boy)
• If you weren't a Christian or didn't have Epilepsy, you'd be sleeping on the streets with every guy that came along, pregnant with 3 kids!!! (heard that one LOADS of times)
• If a skirt was too short there was reference of seeing all the way to my pussy

The comments started when I was 11 and then only ended when I moved away when I was 24. And the shaming and embarrassing part was how loud and angry he said it in front of other people. He said it like he hated me. And to this day, he holds me responsible for the sexual assaults and rapes I endured growing up. Because he hasn't heard the guys' side of the story and because I went or did certain things, he holds me even partly responsible for being raped, even deserving it to some degree.

So I understand all too well what verbal abuse is. Add the element of sexual abusive overtones to it and you have what I tolerated from my dad growing up. I pray nobody else has to deal with it, because I am now 50 and these comments still haunt me and in some ways dictate my daily living.

That's my mom there beside me.

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