Punished With Silence

It has been 15 years since one of my sisters has contacted me. It has been nearly three years since another sister has spoken with me, and over a year for another.

My crime? I dared to write my mother a seven page letter disclosing to her that the disease in my body, which doctors told me has no treatment or cure, was actually a disease of unhealed traumatic emotions buried in my subconscious mind. I dared to tell my mother that I remembered being raped and sexually abused by my father as a child, and that my mother knew and did nothing to help me.

I did not speak of my sisters in my letter. Nor did I accuse them of anything. I also only sent the letter to my mother, yet one of my sisters betrayed me before the letter was even sent –betrayed me by going behind my back and telling my mother everything I had revealed in the letter, and everything I had so carefully written in my own words. My sister went back on her previous support for me, and took my personal business in her own hands by telling my mother what my memories were. This sister essentially robbed me of being able to tell my mother about my memories in my own way, and in my own words.

My letter was honest, but it did not attack my mother. My letter was written only to open the doors to truth in our relationship, to ask for a sincere acknowledgement, and was written with the clear expression of forgiveness for my mother. There was no name calling, no threats, and no intentions of ever cutting her out of my life.

Two of my sisters punished me with silence for that letter. I was cut off, called names, and threatened by them.

My mother never cut me off for that letter (I sent the letter anyway, even after the betrayal by my sister.

This past Christmas, I received a card from one of the nuns who used to reside at my local parish. The first thing that struck me about the card, was the word “Sister” in front of the nun’s name.

Sister Agnes had written to ask how I was doing. She also sent along her prayers and Blessings, and hoped that all is well with me.

As I realized the irony of this “sister” caring more about me than my own flesh and blood “sisters” do, tears rolled down my cheek.

Standing in front of the mail boxes that day, I wondered to myself if my sisters consciously knew they were punishing me with their silence? Was it actually deliberate?

Their silent punishment used to make me feel as if I was a worthless piece of trash –so easily discarded.

By The grace of God, I no longer need them to feel anything about me, one way or another. I have been liberated from my previous desire to have any of them be honest with me, or with themselves, or to consider me as a human being.

I am a living, breathing human being. I am not a robot.

This means that as much as their punishment by silence does not affect me psychologically any longer, I do wonder if they will ever, one day, be willing to look at themselves, and wish to have some kind of human openness with me.

Ignoring me all these years, and pretending I do not exist, will never erase me from their mind. Nor will their silence remove the past, or their part in inflicting pain in me when I found the strength to speak out to our mother about the incest.

This is how it feels when truth becomes more important than being accepted or loved by them.

I recently mailed this letter to the sister who has not spoken to me in fifteen years.

I never received a reply –not that I was ever expecting anything from her. But the letter, in and of itself, was liberating and rewarding for me to write and to finally send to her, and to do so without fear.

Her silence will not protect her from herself.

Recently I also mailed a very important letter to one of my other sisters. It took me several years to find the courage to send the letter. There was a time when I could not even fathom sending the letter confronting this sister –the one who sexually abused me as a child.

Sometimes, what we are most afraid of doing, is what will set us free.

My sister was a much older teenager at the time. There was no excuse for her behavior, and no matter what some advocates against child sexual abuse say, teenagers who sexually abuse their siblings are not victims. They have a rational, logical mind by then. Teenagers have an understanding of right and wrong, morality, and when something is crossing boundaries and when harm is being inflicted on another child.

When the older teenager is of the same sex as the child they are sexually assaulting, it can be devastating to the victim in many ways.

Child sexual abuse, perpetrated by a person of the same sex, can create severe rage, and even repressed and conscious anger against people of the same sex. It can cause tremendous self-punishment behavior and psychosomatic symptoms that are painful and debilitating, and can potentially create disease and illness beyond what is experienced by people abused by a person of the opposite sex.

I speak from personal experience on this matter.

The most detrimental problem is that same-sex child sexual abuse can cause sexual confusion, bi-sexual feelings, or it can make a person think they are gay, or lesbian, when they are not (read Grace’s story here).

My sister’s reply to my letter? Nothing but the deafening silence. I sent it twice, once with delivery confirmation.

It used to be painful to be ignored, ostracized, and condemned by people I once believed loved me, and thought had regard for me as a human being.

But what a beautiful feeling it is the day you realize they no longer affect you.

It is always curious to me when people who have hurt someone so profoundly will totally deny any responsibility or offer an apology.

Do they not understand that a sincere, honest, heart-felt apology and an offer to make some kind of amends is all we ever want from them? For them to be honest with themselves and then with us?

Many years ago, I was threatened and betrayed with, ‘going to mom with your incest memories, means you will pay.’

The threats were carried out.

Living with the silent punishment is the price I am willing to pay for my freedom.

I no longer feel victimized by their silence. I no longer suffer from the pain of being cut off, called names, and vilified by my sisters.

My sisters have judged me harshly, but have they ever looked in the mirror and asked themselves, “what have I done to hurt another human being?” and “where am I not being honest with myself?”

Fifteen years ago, when I did nothing to any of them -nothing except speak up for myself about having been a victim of incest by our father- not one of them ever came to me with sister to sister, or even human to human communication to ask me to sit down with them and talk about the issue.

Throughout the past fifteen years, none of my sisters, nor the mother, have ever contacted me to get together and have an open discussion with me, or even with me and my therapist.

As I have always made it known with all of my sisters, and my mother, my door is always open to any of them that want to walk through it and be willing to sit down and discuss things openly.

I recall very well the first time I ever mentioned to my mother that I was seeing a therapist. I had not remembered the incest yet, but when I told her I was having psycho-analysis, there was dead silence on the other end of the line.

To this day, my mother has never asked about my therapist, and never once expressed any kind of joy over my having been healed with this therapy –healed from an endless list of physical illness and diseases. My mother has been silent about this vital and amazing subject. So have the sisters.

What kind of a mother expresses no happiness to her daughter that she has healed from myalgic encephalomyelitis/CFS, shingles, migraines, nightmares, PTSD, bladder problems, heart problems, neurological problems, chronic IBS, and a long list of other physical ailments usually only treated with prescription drugs, and diseases doctors say “have no cure?”

I am blown away every time I re-read the list of physical ailments I used to suffer from, or when I truly realize all I have healed from with this therapy.

I thank God for what this therapy has removed from my mind and body.

“Live with no regrets”

That is my motto for my life. It does not mean I will never fail, make mistakes, or fall down and have to pick myself up again. But it does mean that when I make a choice to serve humanity, or the choice to serve those who hurt me, I will always choose humanity…whatever the consequences.

Humanity is my family now. I will never regret having started this Blog. Anytime I ever doubt myself, or during moments of fear, I am reminded of the very reason I began this Blog in the first place. It was to help others.

When a woman named Grace found her way to my Blog because she was experiencing tremendous mental and physical anguish from having been sexually abused by her sister as a child, and when Grace found relief through an article on my Blog, she then found my therapist and was helped beyond belief in her experience with the quantum mind healing therapy we do with Dr. De Saint-Simone.

Unbeknownst to Grace, she is someone who drives me to continue to be a warrior for children and for those who are now adult survivors of child sexual abuse. The thought that my Blog helped another human being so profoundly, has made every word, threat, and emotional abandonment from my biological family to be worth it one hundred times over!

I will never regret having spoken out about the incest to my mother, or having written those two letters to my sisters.

My biological family probably hoped that by punishing me with silence, I would “keep my mouth shut” about the incest. They probably figured their silence would generate mine. They were wrong.

I have compassion for every one of them, but I am no longer punished by their silence. I have been liberated from it.

Their silence has moved me to work harder, and to be louder.

~Alethea Marina-Nova

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Coming Soon: More about my therapist, who is truly more like a quantum-mind healer than a “therapist.”

An intuitive Native American, who had just met my therapist, told her, “you are a surgeon without a knife.” This means, she is someone who helps a person remove disease from their body –through the power of the Mind.

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