April Andrea - Bad Things Happened

2019 Sue Jean and April Andrea All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. ISBN 978-1-54396-626-8 eBook 978-1-54396-627-5

FOREWORD

Childhood sexual abuse happens.

The forced mental anguish alters the neurons in a childs brain. Helpless and lost in a vortex of mixed messages, abused children are often forced to live tilted off balance, frozen in a swirl of illogically formed beliefs that they store as fact. The result produces more negative and damaging circumstances in their adult life.

This is a story about a mother and daughters path to forgiveness and healing. We discovered how to let go of our unconscious hold on stories about our past. We learned how to recognize the unhealthy mental chatter that is chained to our current daily life within ourselves. Until we began to question the truth about our thoughts and feelings surrounding the traumas of our past, we were unable to effectively move on and live a healthy life, which we deeply desired.

Child sexual abuse happened. It is a fact. A fathers horrific need to sexually abuse a child robbed her of her innocent soul. The damaging secret and forced endurance could have easily destroyed her. The trauma bond created had a strong hold on her for years and changed the direction of both of our lives going forward.

The world is not doing enough to stop this horrible abuse. Its an act that mentally, physically, and spiritually attacks the child and robs them of their innocence, destroying any hope of healthy thoughts and feelings inside a childs mind. Its like a cancer affecting one in four little innocent children. As a mother I was split wide open. Her pain was my pain. There was nothing I could do to wipe out what had happened. Its a huge abhorrent problem so often hidden and cloaked from the outside world. Fear, shame, humiliation, and confusion take over not only the child, but also the people surrounding this act. It is the ultimate betrayal of the responsibilities that we all carry for children. It doesnt matter who you are or what part you play in the behaviorwhether you performed the act, know or suspect that it is happeningit is unacceptable to cover it up, sweep under the rug, and refuse to address it, hoping it will just go away like a bad dream.

Every person who has been touched in some manner by this evil act has his or her own individual story. We all take different paths. We are lending our voice not only about the act and its damaging effects, but also to help people affected by this horrible act recognize they can let go of the pain and change their thoughts. Very often, we live out our childhood mental and emotional traumas without realizing that we have within us the ability to stop allowing these thoughts and feelings to dictate our life.

Like any tragedy or life altering trauma, our experience had the potential to heal or destroy either or both of our lives going forward. Thank goodness we really never considered any path other than to move forward and heal. We experienced roadblocks, drama, and more traumas to be sure, but we never gave up completely. Our childhood beliefs needed to be examined, so they would have less negative influence on the path forward, along with the conscious choices we each independently and together began to make, by seeking various forms of help. There is no one method; no one size fits all. We encourage anyone struggling to do something, do anything, to move forward. There are so many options available for us all.

As we each share parts of our childhood, you will witness the many similarities of our behavior, seemingly inherited from our forefathers. They are often more visually expressed than verbally communicated. Habits are often passed down through generations unconsciously. In our case we both hide our fears and insecurities behind a curtain of pretending to be happy and calm with a strong need to smile and act happy. As children, we often default to mirrored behaviors as coping skills.

With infinite love and gratitude, we present our story.

Sue Jean and April (Nikki)
Mother and daughter

Sues Story

Chapter One

Ugly Secrets

S urely this overwhelmingly horrific story my daughter is telling me must be about someone else? It just cant be about my husbandcertainly not her father. Is she talking about sexual abuse? Of all the things I thought she would share with me after receiving her call to come home, this, is not it. I cant grasp it. Her call was incoherent, she was sobbing, and the words were exploding out of her mouth. I could not understand what she was saying. Please mommy come home right now, she begged. I prayed to let her be alright as I sped home. Is she in a wreck? Is she hurt? Did her afternoon date to get a hamburger go terribly wrong?

To my shock and horror, she is recounting years of sexual abuse from her father so graphically expressed, it can only mean one thing bad things ugly secrets, atrocious behavior that has been happening in our house. Through her sobs she reveals a secret she has been brain washed to believe she must never tell. She keeps repeating, Bad things will happen to me because I have to tell.

She tells me that her father called her ugly names; she thinks he called her a whore. In that moment I realize somehow this unusual behavior from him has tilted her overshe is overflowing with bottled up fear and painshe can no longer contain. The dam is literally bursting inside of her. She cant handle it anymore. She just has to tell. She very bravely steps out of her fear in this momentI can see she is barely holding onto her wounded self, her need is too great, as she begins to reveal an ugly secret about a big nasty monster is living in our house.

My God, this calm, easygoing child of mine is literally verbally vomiting a sickening account of her past. Soul damaging, unimaginable experiences forced upon her by her father for practically her entire childhood, and in such specific detail. She cannot be making this shit storm up. It is just too horrifically graphic; its true. I cannot deny it.

Who is this man she is describing? Certainly not the man I slept next to for 20 years. I know she has a vivid imagination, but really this just is not her style or her personality. Why did I not see this? What made her keep the secret until now? All these thoughts and more are racing through my mind. Through it all I recognize she is telling the truth, nothing but the awful truth.

In less than one hour on a Sunday afternoon in the fall of 1991 my understanding of how life, motherhood, marriage, religion, and really just about every particle of my belief system is totally blown up. I am spinning dizzily out of the falsely believed security of my world. I am rapidly realizing I cant trust what I thought I knew. My life and hers as I envisioned them are spinning out of control.

I am just plain physically sick trying to grasp it all. It feels like a knife has been driven straight through my heart. My brain has no comparative stories about the reality of what she is sharing. Its like there are two different men in my mind right now. The one I am married to and the one she is talking about.

Although those thoughts are flipping through my conscious mind, I am immediately way more invested as a mother needing to rescue her child from harm. My love bond is gorilla glue strong for this beautiful girl. I can see in her eyes that her soul has quite possibly been murdered. I am in shock, and she is rapidly shutting down right before my eyes. I am grateful that the first words out of my mouth to her were, I believe you, and I love you. I may have been blind to these heinous actions, but I am full on ready to fight with and for her with everything I have.