Last week I read a book, "Identity" by Ellen Hopkins. Turns out we have a lot in common with the main character. Reading the book triggered us and brought out a lot of feelings.
Foremost right now is thoughts on the mother, anger/rage really. In the book the mother pays little attention to the daughters, she is caught up in her own life, using the daughters for show only basically. The daughter tries to tell the mother about the abuse, the mother ignores it/doesn't believe it. In the end of the book the daughter confronts her and the mother says 'why didn't you tell'.
That phrase is word on what the mother here said. Never mind that we did try to tell. Never mind that there were MANY signs....... even all that aside.......... The fact of the matter is that phrase lumps the blame back on the victim. It absolves the mother of any wrong doing. It says if only you had told me, I would have helped you, but you didn't so it is all your fault.
It is wrong, it is wrong to say. It is something we feel a lot of guilt over sometimes. Did we outright say the fathers father is hurting us? No we didn't. Did we scream about not wanting to go there when before we liked it there? Yes. Did we tell her that it hurt to go there? Yes. Did we show many of the signs of being abused? Yes. Did we once try to escape an abusive situation? Yes we did, he chased us down, and we paid dearly for it. We never tried again.
But it is more than that, see we believed we were protecting her, and the brother and everyone by not telling. We were tricked, and it is something many abusers do. We were told that others would be hurt if we told, that they would have to go away, that they would go to jail. All sorts of lies. As a child, as a 4 year old, we didn't know any better, we didn't know those were lies, we believed him. So when she all those years later, said it was our fault because we didn't tell? Well we believed her, we fell back into those old feelings and thoughts, and blamed ourselves. Truth is it is not our fault. We did the best we could, and we have to accept that.
The book triggered other things in us as well.... The character is destructive with drugs, with food, with Self Injury. All of those things we have struggled with. We saw a lot of ourselves in that book and it was painful to read, painful to think of that time in our lives. We used/use all those things as a means of escape, and that is what they provided us with. Sadly though? It isn't really escape, not in the way we wanted, we wanted to escape permanently from those feelings/thoughts/memories, and none of those things do that.
Ultimately the girl ends up attempting suicide. This is also something we have done. It is something that we don't feel shame in. NOr though is it something we are proud of, it is simply something that comes/came up for us in times of great unbearable pain. It was and is always about for us, a way to end the pain, a way to feel in control again.
Yet it was a good book, and one I would recommend for others.
Alex
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