For me, this was one of the most traumatic aspects of the abuse I received. Amongst other people when focus was distracted elsewhere, the abuser would quick grab me. First was the embarrassment at being fondled in the presence of other people. That comes with the smug look of the abuser daring and implying: I can get you any time, anywhere and nobody will notice or care. Sure enough, people turn their attention back, I'm a mess I think anyone could see and maybe one intuitive person might ask if everything is alright, but for the most part nobody notices and thus the implied threat-nobody cares. And as for the one who might ask, you don't even consider answering honestly. The abuser, you know is listening, is watching intently for your response to the question. Waking in the middle of the night to hands under your nightgown already tells you he will even get you while everyone is sleeping. Saying something does not guarantee he won't get you later.
It got especially devastating as I got older. Sitting in the truck, as close to the passenger door as possible, Dad stops for gas. The attendant is one of my classmates. He asks what is wanted, Dad answers and as the attendant turns away, my dad quick reaches over before I know it and squeezes between my legs, drawing his arm back quickly as the attendant steps away from the pump and can again see into the truck. My father laughs at me as I fight back crying. It's humiliating.
Then the day came when we were standing on the front lawn. He walks straight up to me and grabs my breast. Infuriated, I scream "I'm going to tell Mom!". He steps up into my face with a glint in his eye and says "I dare you". So, I did. Mom says she was going to divorce him anyways. She took the information, told my dad she wanted everything in the divorce or she would go to the police with what I told her. She got everything but the John Deere tractor. That was to be sold and put in savings for our college educations. That never happened and became the end of the story. No one was ever told what happened, but somewhere the rumor surfaced that the reason I didn't spend time with my dad was because I was mad at him because he caught me having sex with my boyfriend. I was still a virgin. I was labeled as whore while yet a virgin. By family. And when I did finally have sex with my first real boyfriend, my mother was right there to remind me: "You're disgusting! You're filthy" Slut! Whore! Trash!" went the rant. Was already one anyways. damage was already done, it couldn't hurt any more than it did already.
He was right. Nobody cared about what he did to me.
Unless it made them angry. I remember on one occasion my mother got that plotting look in her eye. She was angry with me and wanted to instigate my sister against me. She began with some little grudges she reminded my sister she had against me and once she began to get her riled she told my sister "Oh, yeah. And she said your father raped her". My sister in a blind rage shoved me up against a refrigerator so hard it smashed and punctured the wall behind it. My mother gloated over her misdeed. There is one thing in which both my sister and I agree: my mother is not happy unless her children are suffering. Yes, she loves us to a degree, but it is overshadowed by an intense hate, resentment and jealousy. Something she no doubt had ingrained into her as a child. It is her own self loathing being projected at us. But again: she is twenty years older than I am. She could have learned what she needed to overcome her own issues and stop being abusive to her children. Instead she has been instrumental in conspiring with our children's fathers to have them removed from our custody. Even now she is interfering with my sister's exes, manipulating them into keeping one son from her and trying to convince the older to leave his mother. A world never feels safe when we are betrayed by our own parents and some people, some things just never change.
Of course I've been out in the world extensively and have found very caring people, appalled by what has happened to me, though I have never told so much of the story before this. When people are too shocked or outraged, I don't really respond well to them. Their anger as intense as that which abused me it feels like sometimes. For some people it's an all too common story they have heard many versions of and their acceptance that yes, this really does happen all the time, is reassuring. While other's non-chalance and complete indifference feels belittling. The nicest thing is when someone just listens and believes. A hug is reassuring if we are at a point where we can let that in. But for me, hugs from grown adults without any sexual intent were as foreign as another language. Something I was very uncomfortable with at first. and then couldn't get enough of as I received that which I had been deprived of all my life: warm, loving, nurturing.
In plain sight, somebody loved me. That. Is priceless.
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