Reply #79: Me too. I was molested over the course of a couple years [View All]

around the time I was 7 or 8. I see your points and understand what you deal with to this day vis a vis your addictions and indiscretions. I also agree that the death penalty is never justified. I know it in my mind to be true. But when I hear of sexual abuse of children, I want the perpetrator dead. In my heart, that's what I feel right away. I do just about everything in life by the book, so to speak. And that probably comes from feeling like I had done something wrong for so many years before I realized it wasn't my fault.

But should sexual abuse become a part of my daughters' lives, I don't know if I can do things by the book or if reason will override emotion or even if reason will survive. I just try to make sure it never happens, without being heavy handed about it, but still being informative and protective of my children. I don't want to know how I'd respond to a person who violated my children. I think it's my extra perspective on this issue that makes me doubt how fast I'd hold to my principles that relate to other people when my family's resolve is tested.

Am I holding on to my hate and anger? I don't think so. I spent a lot of years working my past out and came to feel nothing one way or the other for the man who violated me. It's knowing that process of guilt, self-doubt, denial, feeling ostracized, overcompensating, feeling uncomfortable and dirty and haunted in every sexual situation for every relationship prior to my marriage. Knowing that in some form or fashion, that's what children of sexual abuse endure beyond the physical act. That's what fuels my vigilance, keeps me awake late at night and up early in the morning and home every night to look after my children. That's what pushes me to talk candidly -- though at an age-appropriate level -- with my daughters about what constitutes sexual abuse so they know what it is if it happens to them.

My opinions might not be those of the perfect Democrat or hell, for all I know, they might not have anything in common with anyone else, but I spent years of denial, solitude, acceptance, and recovery on this subject and my opinions work for me. It's fine for some to follow that Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner creed, but I will not. I understand some people are innocent and some perceive degrees of guilt, but knowing how abuse of this kind can put the abused on autopilot for the rest of their lives keeps me from wanting anything to do with them.

Thank you for having the courage to offer this post, varkam, and for prompting me to exorcise some of these demons. I've been here at DU for years as a lurker and I spend at least two minutes a day on this site, but I rarely contribute. Finally I feel invested here with this, the least anonymous of my anonymous posts, and whether I'm judged to be right or wrong, I feel comfortable enough to say, "this is me and this happened to me."