Once upon a time, my aunt was alive.
You see she’s not anymore. She made it to the ripe, old age of 23. She lived many years beyond her abuse. A decade or so past her abuser.
But it was him. It was what he did to her that ultimately ended her life.
I don’t know when it started. She was 3 years older than me. He had a cabin next door to my Grandma’s and Great-grandma’s trailer and house, respectively. He was family. My great-uncle, I think? I remember ice skating on his pond. He showed us how to shoot a BB gun and fish.
I remember one time my aunt said, “If he ever wants you to go with him by yourself, don’t go. Run back to Grandma’s.”
It felt weird to hear it, but I didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t elaborate as to why.
I remember one day we (him, my aunt, and me) were going to go fishing. We were going to leave early, so I slept over at my great-uncle’s house so we could leave at the break of day. Since my aunt lived right next to the cabin, she didn’t stay over.
I remember the door to my bedroom slowly opening after I was in bed. I pretended to be asleep, but I lay there terrified, keeping one eye on the door. I listened for the footsteps I feared would come. Eventually the door closed again. I didn’t know then why I was so afraid. Thinking of that unnerves me today. Now I know better.
When my aunt was in 5th grade, she and my grandma moved two hours away. She’d had pretty severe behavior problems. She smoked cigarettes back then. She probably drank, as she snuck liquor out of my great-grandma’s cabinet and we took it into the woods once. I doubt that was the first time she’d done it. Certainly she fought a lot with Grandma. I guess Grandma thought a change of scenery might help.
During 6th grade at her new school, a teacher gave a lesson on abuse. My aunt came forward and said that had happened to her. A grand jury hearing was called in my hometown. I was put on the stand too. I was in 3rd grade I think. I missed school for the hearing. I don’t remember much about it. I remember recounting wandering hands when I’d sit in his lap. Perhaps something about “feeling funny” around him.
From what I understand other women started coming forward after my aunt came out about her experiences. Not only had he been raping and molesting my aunt; he’d also been photographing some of it. He’d done it to others.
Not too long after the hearing, we heard the decision. There was enough evidence to go to trial.
Not long after that, we got a call. He shot himself.
At that time I still didn’t know the extent of what he’d done to Tonya. All I knew was he’d hurt her, and badly. But when I heard he’d killed himself, I was gleeful. My little third-grade self was happy a man had committed suicide.
My forty-year-old self is still glad.
Because another thought that occurred to my third-grade self, and has stuck with me until now was … I was next.
That sleepover? He was lulling me and my parents into feeling even more safe around him. He was grooming me to be next. Way past wandering hands when I sat in his lap.
I think really, really hard on that sometimes.
Though the abuse was past her, she carried the burden with her, as many do who suffer severe abuse. She was using drugs in middle school and into high school. She got my grandma evicted from their apartment by messing with the fire alarms and electrical breakers. Finally she got thrown in juvie for calling a bomb threat to her school. She used her own phone.
She seemed to clean up her life after she got out of juvie. She didn’t want to go back. From conversations we had after, I think she may have suffered more sexual abuse while there. She didn’t want to go back.
So she cleaned up her act a bit. I think she got off the drugs. She met a nice guy. She got pregnant in high school, they got married. She dropped out, but she ended up getting her GED. She worked at fast food restaurants and the like. Things seemed mostly good when I visited. A few years later they had another baby.
A couple of years after that she came out of the closet as a lesbian. She started acting … unlike herself. Like she needed to try to be different.
She admitted at one point that she had briefly reconnected with her biological father, and he raped her.
Her downward spiral continued. She started using drugs again. She seemed unhappy, out of touch with her behaviors and who she was.
Soon enough, a late night phone call from Mom. Tonya had shot herself.
Gone.
Gone because of entitled, predatory men who were supposed to be her supporters and protectors used her. Abused her. Set her up for a life of survival, and no healthy coping skills. Eventually those survival skills wore out. Maybe she just did.
This story doesn’t quite fit in with the “don’t believe the accuser” shit that’s going on. Though it does explain why this little girl didn’t immediately cry out against her abuser. Even before 5th grade, she’d seen it everywhere in society that people might not believe her.
When her biological father raped her? Too many might have said, “Why’d you put yourself in that position? Why didn’t you say ‘no’ this time?”
To anyone who supports Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court position: fuck you.
For those who excuse the actions of predators while attacking those who come forward about being attacked: fuck you.
This isn’t just about those who come forward later. This is about those who will never have a voice again, because you fucked them up so badly.
Or if you weren’t the direct attacker, you covered for them. Just like my great-uncle’s wife did for him when he raped and molested my aunt and all of those others.
If you are one of those people, you help to create the world where people like the one who abused my aunt can exist.
You are the problem. And fuck you.