Invisible Girls Read online

  And because the girls in this book are girls I have worked with, some for years, I am here as your guide, your support with intricate knowledge of these wonderful girls. The fact is that teen girls and young women are brilliant and resilient and can heal from sexual abuse. When survivors are given the opportunity to talk about their abuse in a safe environment, to let go of confusing feelings of shame and guilt and self-blame, they have every chance of healing and of realizing wonderful, satisfying lives and relationships as adults.

  Talk about it now. If you hold your abuse inside you into your late twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond, it can deprive you of healthy, loving relationships and self-esteem because you never get the chance to process the shame and the secret. As survivors discover time and again, not telling can mean living in a perpetual state of fear and mistrust and result in an inability to have trusting sexual relationships. Not talking about it and not processing your abuse can mean not feeling safe in the world. And keeping it secret can prevent you from embracing the love and joy that are your birthright.

  DON’T WAIT TO TELL…

  Liz, a thirty-four-year-old incest survivor, left home at nineteen, marrying the first man who asked her to. That marriage lasted about fifteen years, until he beat her so badly she was hospitalized. During the hospitalization, Liz began having vivid flashbacks of her early childhood sexual abuse and was eventually referred to me. It took her several months to reveal to me that she was a survivor of sexual abuse. She had never told anyone. She was so afraid that revealing her abuse would make her life even worse, yet when she disclosed and worked in therapy she felt enormous relief.

  Another client, Shari, a thirty-eight-old social worker who had survived incest throughout her adolescence, had held her secretly tightly, too, and was on her second divorce from an abusive man when she attempted suicide. In our therapy when she was able to face her childhood demons, she began to understand she could be safe.

  Amara was referred to me after a hospitalization for clinical depression. She was an attorney. She’d been having nightmares since her stepfather raped her at fourteen, and she finally had a breakdown at age forty-three. Through our work together she was able to “break up” with a family that did not respect her.

  Keisha, fifty-two and a high school teacher, was also an incest survivor. She came to see me in the middle of her divorce because her fifteen-year-old daughter had been molested by her husband. Because Keisha never processed her own incest and blocked it out for more than forty years, she ended up marrying an abuser. Her fifteen-year-old daughter made a suicide attempt and the truth came out. Daughter and mother began their healing in our therapy. As her teen daughter began to thrive because her mother believed and supported her, Keisha was still racked with guilt because she was not able to stop the cycle of abuse.

  Joanna, an artist, couldn’t sleep because of recurring nightmares. She had survived a rape during her freshman year in college and never told anyone. At thirty-six she was still afraid of getting involved in an intimate relationship with a partner. In our uncovering of her fear of intimacy, she faced the rape and realized how many years that experience had informed her relationship choices with unavailable men.

  In my private practice I work with women who’ve suffered through years of migraines, nausea, memory lapses, failed relationships, thoughts of suicide, drug or alcohol abuse—all problems stemming from a history of sexual trauma. Through friendships, college, jobs, and relationships, these women kept their secrets tucked away in a safe place and tried to forget about them. But, as they eventually discovered, forgetting doesn’t work. Working with women in their thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties convinced me that I had to do whatever I could to help young survivors heal from their abuse so they wouldn’t have to endure years of torment and harmful decisions based on their unresolved sexual-abuse history.

  As younger clients, girls in their teens and early twenties, started to come into my practice and talk about their abuse, there was a different quality to their disclosure. There was always hope underneath their pain; their abuse had not had enough years to dig itself into their souls. So back in 1993, when a few of my teenage clients told me they wanted to start a survivors’ group, I jumped at the chance. I organized a group that met in my office, and, to reach out to an even larger community of girls, I began running pro bono workshops about sexual abuse at one of the top, most diverse public high schools in Brooklyn, New York. The girls put up posters for the group in the bathrooms, and soon I had a vibrant group of girls that was racially, socially, economically, and ethnically diverse. There were girls that were born in Haiti, Israel, Russia, Jamaica, Iran, China, and the Philippines, and girls also born here in Brooklyn, a melting pot of its own.

  One of my most effective techniques for helping girls in these groups and larger workshops to open up is to have them write out their questions and experiences anonymously on index cards and then to read each other’s cards aloud. The experience is never short of phenomenal. Hearing other girls’ questions and comments unlocks the floodgates of long-held secrets. These were #MeToo moments long before that movement:

  “I survived rape last year, but I’ve never told.”

  “My cousin molested me when I was six. I never told.”

  “How can I protect my little sister? I think my father is messing with her the way he did with me.”

  “My boyfriend forced me to have sex; I said no. Was I raped?”

  “My parents are divorced now, but my father abused me.

  I never told my mom or anyone.”

  “I am having nightmares about when my cousin molested me. I never told anyone. I am afraid of what will happen.”

  One girl told another, and then another, and then a kind of underground network of girls from other area high schools and colleges brought more and more girls to my workshops, support groups, and counseling sessions. Pretty soon I was seeing hundreds of survivors. The more they talked, the stronger and more confident they became.

  What I witnessed over and over again was that, as these girls found a safe place to talk, they began to speak of their experiences, and, as they spoke of their experiences, they began to heal. One young woman said, “I sealed myself off. I figured if everything looked okay from the outside maybe the inside would eventually change, but it never did, until I admitted what had happened to me and stopped hiding.” Another said, “I used to tell myself it never really happened, but when I started talking and I faced it, it became smaller and smaller, and so did my father.” And another: “When I began to tell, it was like I had jumped off a freight train and had finally reached my destination.”

  In situation after situation, what I witnessed convinced me that it is far easier to come to terms with sexual trauma during adolescence and early adulthood than later on in life. It makes sense. We are at our most resilient during this time; we’re still growing and changing. If you can talk about trauma while you’re still young, still figuring out who you are, it simply can’t plant its roots as deep. You see, it’s the secrets that really do us the most harm. In all these girls I felt an urgency to get better and a resilience that simply was not present in the women in their thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties who had let their abuse eat away at them for ten, twenty, thirty years or more.

  THE BIRTH OF OUR BOOK

  Invisible Girls was conceived out of this urgency, out of a deep passion to tell the truth, to uncover the trauma so that girls and women could begin to heal from their sexual abuse. My experiences with these girls made me realize that the sooner these young women acknowledged the abuse and let go of their closely held secrets, the sooner—and more completely—they would heal. It was the girls I worked with who urged me to publish their stories and experiences. They wanted to reach out and create a great circle of girls and young women speaking out, supporting each other, healing. Their passion for revealing the depth and truth was unstoppable.

  According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Cent
er, statistics remain difficult to come by. But this is what we know: Most sexual abuse, especially incest, is never reported. As of 2017, ninety-one percent of survivors of rape are female, and half of those survivors are under the age of eighteen. Nine percent of sexual-abuse survivors are male. Ninety-six percent of the perpetrators of abuse are male. Four percent of abusers are female. One in four girls will experience sexual abuse by the time she is sixteen. It is a fact that young women aged sixteen to twenty-four are most vulnerable to sexual violations by intimate partners. These statistics come in spite of persistent underreporting of incest and all other sex crimes. The statistics for sexual abuse of adolescent girls and young women are simply staggering. Girls who have been through the experience deserve to be heard and to hear from one another. I wrote this book to bring you into the deep inner world of the amazing girls who reflect, and take us deep inside, the soul of sexual abuse so that we can understand it. Invisible Girls gives voice to the voiceless as it uncovers all the secrets.

  I also wrote this book to help girls and young women who have not been abused to become aware of the realities of sexual abuse, to become smarter and safer as they come into their sexuality, and stronger and more resilient in the face of a culture that still defines girls and women by how well we satisfy the needs of men. The wonderful girls and young women who speak in this book share their experiences of ongoing sexual abuse within their families, as well as of one-time abuse by an uncle or cousin or family “friend.” You will learn about acquaintance rape, date rape, and stranger rape, and the specific emotions and issues that tend to arise from each situation. For example, in the chapter on incest, one survivor writes a lengthy account of her six years of being raped by her father and how he coerced her and controlled the family. Through her insights, we begin to see and feel what the incest survivor is up against and to learn strategies for surviving this hellish experience. In the chapter on rape, a survivor writes about how she had been unable to trust boys or men, totally unable to connect in a romantic relationship, until she began to speak out. What we learn from all these girls is that help is out there, that healing is possible, and that sexual abuse is never a girl’s fault.

  An organization called Generation 5 was founded in 1997 with a mission to end the sexual abuse of children within five generations, and it continues its work to reach that goal. This book is a part of that work of stopping sex abuse generation after generation. The more that girls are able to speak out and reach out, the more other girls will be encouraged to do the same. The less taboo the subject becomes, the more possible it will be to make changes—to public awareness, to the law and public policy, to the options available for girls living with abusers or would-be abusers. You may not have been able to stop the abuse that happened to you, but you can start getting your life back together now and reach out to other girls. Together, eventually, we will make it impossible for men to get away with taking out their own rage or anger or fear or despair on women and girls through sexual violence. If you are no longer being abused, this book will offer you perspective and healing. If you are currently living at home and being molested by a relative, it will provide you with critical emotional support and resources—even if you are not able to get away immediately, this book will help you to open up and find your support. And if you are just beginning to remember abuse that happened when you were younger, this book will help you find the strength and the right people to talk to so that you can start to heal.

  We know that many teen girls who are abused end up taking detours in their lives—getting into drugs, sex, self-harm, or eating disorders. They often feel that the abuse is their destiny, the map of their lives. But I work with these girls, and I can tell you that every girl can heal from sexual abuse. My hope is that by shedding some light on the problem I can help you turn away from some of the darker choices other abused girls have made.

  THERE IS HELP

  If you are looking for urgent or ongoing support, please turn to the Resource Center at the back of this book for help. There you will find hotline numbers, websites, blogs, podcasts, and counseling centers across the country. Included in the recourse center is my website, www.invisiblegirlsthrive.com, where additional resources, a Q&A, and letters from young women can be found.

  Together, we will be like artists building a beautiful mosaic: All the tiles we need to rebuild your soul, with its many nuances and imperfections and exquisite, colorful complexities, are here. We just need to put them in their right places.

  INTO THE LIGHT

  Girls and women are brilliant at surviving and at doing very deep psychological work to heal their own trauma. Whether through counseling, poetry, songwriting, art, or writing stories, or whether through telling a friend, a therapist, a parent, a school counselor, or a volunteer at an abuse hotline, the most important thing you can do is simply tell someone, because telling is the beginning of healing.

  The girls whose stories fill this book all did heroic work overcoming shame and guilt and the tremendous burden of secrecy. It all began with telling someone. All they needed was a safe place and the permission to let out their secret. As I see it, my role and the role of this book is to provide that safe environment for other abuse survivors, as well as to enlighten those who have not been through the experience but who care about these girls—parents, loved ones, counselors, or educators. If you are not a survivor, you will witness just how resilient the human spirit really is. If you are a survivor, you will be able to take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. And if you have just begun to process your experience, this book is here to help you make your way through the dark maze of feelings you have been holding inside. Together we will find the light. As one eighteen-year-old wrote:

  Out of all the piles of dirt, garbage, and shit we have been handed, we can grow a patch daisies.

  CHAPTER 2

  ASK DR. PATTI

  Answers to Girls’ Questions About Sexual Abuse

  Over the years, girls have asked me hundreds of questions about the many confusing feelings, statistics, and terms that surround sexual abuse. I’m sure you have some questions, too, so I thought it would be helpful to share some of the questions, comments, and concerns I encounter most frequently—and my responses—to help clear up some of the most common misunderstandings surrounding sexual abuse and point you toward the chapters that might be most helpful to you.

  Dear Dr. Patti,

  I keep hearing that sexual abuse is really widespread. I have never been sexually abused and I don’t have any friends who have been. Is it possible that the statistics are wrong?

  Signed,

  Wondering

  Dear Wondering,

  Sadly, it’s possible that you do know someone who has been or is being abused, but you just don’t know it. Because of the stigma and the shame surrounding sexual abuse, many girls have trouble telling anyone about it, and that means that, if anything, the statistics you’ve heard are probably too low, not too high. The latest information I have (from a 2017 National Sexual Violence Resource Center report) is that one out of four American girls will experience some sort of sexual abuse by age sixteen—everything from a single incident where someone touched a girl’s breasts without her permission to a ten-year experience of being raped nearly every day by a relative. These statistics apply across all economic and ethnic lines; again, 96 percent of abusers are men.

  Dear Dr. Patti,

  When I was ten years old, my uncle put his hand under my shirt and touched my chest. I got him to stop. He also rubbed up against me and tried to hold me to him. He lived far away and I never saw him again. I never told anyone. Was I sexually abused? What exactly is sexual abuse?

  Signed,

  Concerned

  Dear Concerned,

  First, let me say that I’m very glad you do not have to deal with this uncle anymore. I’m sad to say that what you experienced was abuse. Even one inappropriate, unwanted touch is abuse. Generally, any unwanted sexual encounter constitutes a
buse. The reason it’s important to acknowledge that it was abuse is that otherwise it can eat away at you or make you feel ongoing conflicts about yourself and your sexuality. It’s important to know that it was abuse so you are clear that it was not your fault.

  There is non-touching sexual abuse and touching sexual abuse. Here’s a list of some of the more common forms of both:

  Touching Sexual Abuse:

  • Having any of your private parts touched

  • Being fondled

  • Being penetrated genitally through sodomy or intercourse

  • Being asked to sit on the lap of an adult and having the adult rub their genitals against you

  • Having an adult rub against you or touch you in any way that makes you uncomfortable and refusing to stop

  • Having to watch an adult masturbate

  • Forced to perform or receive oral sex

  Non-Touching Sexual Abuse:

  • Being asked to view pornographic materials

  • Having pictures taken of you in sexual poses

  • Being spoken to with sexual intonation (i.e., “you look like a slut,” “you must be screwing around,” “look at your breasts; they look really firm”)

  • Being repeatedly walked in on in the bathroom or your bedroom

  • Having an adult repeatedly leave the bathroom door open when they are inside

  • Being asked by an adult if they can check out your breasts and genitals

  • Being forced into conversations about sex