Sex Abuse Survivor to Sen. Defrancisco: You Can't Hurry the Healing Process (commentary)

By Jennifer Nadler
Syracuse.com
June 9, 2016

http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/06/sex_abuse_survivor_to_defrancisco_you_cant_hurry_the_healing_process_commentary.html


I went back and forth about writing about the Child Victims Act that appears to be dead in the water. The state Senate recently voted it down 30 to 29. I can't change the vote. Sen. DeFrancisco's opinion is the statutes of limitations in child sexual abuse cases should not be eliminated. I probably won't change his opinion. While there are many things I cannot change, I choose to focus on what I can. I stayed silent for so many years about the sexual abuse that was destroying my life. I can no longer stay silent. Today, I choose to use my voice.

I am a professor, a wife, a mother, and I am a sexual abuse survivor. I was repeatedly abused by a family member when I was 12 and 13 years old. It took 25 years to be able to say this without embarrassment or shame, without guilt or regret, without fear or self-loathing. It was 25 years too long.

I did not tell. I could not tell. I would not tell a soul. Frequently, children don't tell. They believe it is their fault. I believed it was mine. I carried around a suitcase full of guilt and shame. With every passing year, that suitcase became heavier and heavier. In my mid-20s, my life unraveled until there was nothing left of me but that scared, ashamed, broken little 12-year-old girl.

Many people don't understand why it takes so long for survivors to come forward. It is not a choice. It is a coping mechanism. Each survivor has his or her way of dealing with the trauma and emotional pain of sexual abuse. Drinking, doing drugs, binge eating, being a workaholic, gambling, acting out sexually are just some of the destructive behaviors that get survivors through their darkest of days. Eventually our coping mechanisms are no longer enough to keep our secrets and our pain at bay.

During a psychiatric hospital stay, a fellow patient told me I was lucky. I couldn't quite understand why she considered me lucky. She told me to look around the room. It was filled with people in their 40s and 50s. I was 25 at the time. One patient was 62. This was the first time this woman was grieving for her inner child, finally able to face the wounds of her past.

The healing process survivors go through is not something that happens on a specific timetable. It happens when they are ready. Sometimes it takes decades. This is not something survivors choose, as any psychologist, counselor or therapist will say. This is something DeFrancisco doesn't seem to understand.

The statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse cases should be eliminated because most survivors are unable to deal with their trauma within the arbitrary timeline of the current statute, which is five years after one's 18th birthday. I was ready to report the crimes my relative committed when I was 25. I was considered one of the "lucky" ones, and even I had missed the statute by two years.

In response to a letter by Charles L. Bailey Jr., DeFrancisco claimed with the passage of time recollections can become clouded. I will never forget where I was and what I was doing the day the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up or World Trade Center towers came crashing down. I will never forget ever time my relative came into my bedroom and repeatedly sexually abused me. I can still hear the sound of his heavy footsteps shuffling into my bedroom. I can still hear the quiet sounds of his panting. I can still feel his dry, rough skin against mine. My "recollections are not clouded by an inordinate passage of time," as DeFrancisco suggests. Survivors go to great lengths to forget the trauma and pain of our recollections. Time does not make those horrific memories cloudy.

Senator, try to imagine how you would you feel if one of your sons or daughter comes to you tomorrow, next month, in five years and tells you they were sexually abused as a child? Would you tell them how sorry you are and what a shame it is? Would you, as their father, not want to see justice served?

In regards to the Child Victims Act being voted down, DeFrancisco wrote "I am not blocking anything, nor do I have the power to do so. I simply have given my opinion on pending legislation that would eliminate statutes of limitations in sexual abuse cases."

Senator, in a bill that failed to pass by just two votes, how are you not part of the reason this bill didn't pass? Your opinion is more than just your opinion. Your opinion is power. Every vote for that bill mattered. Your vote mattered. It matters to the 1 in 10 people who have been sexually abused in your district. Your opinion is protecting sexual predators like my relative, who is free and who now has grandchildren. I pray every night they are not suffering the same fate I did.

We are addressing you because you are our senator. You were elected to represent the people, all of the people. Of the roughly 19 million New Yorkers in this state, you are not representing the almost 2 million survivors who have been sexually abused.

DeFrancisco has done many tremendous things for our area, helping to reduce crime, reform welfare, reduce taxes and create jobs. I did not write this to demonize someone who clearly cares. I wrote this hoping maybe something I said makes the senator rethink his position. More importantly, I wrote this for the survivors who may not be willing or able to speak yet.