Tearing Down the Walls of Silence, Secrets, and Shame - Rape, Childhood Sexual Violence, and Incest
Welcome to our first podcast!!!
It has taken me 50 years to find the courage to talk, to share with the world my truth, I entered this world as the Sacrificial Child. I am the unwanted and constant living reminder of an unholy alliance no one wants to remember, but here I be.
My father was a pedophile, with a long proven track record, raping his 11 and 14 year sisters, and as a special gift to himself raping a 13 year before heading off to war. Then there was my mother, his 14 year sister -in-law, who we won’t classify as a rape but more as a business transition - she wanted a new plaid coat and he wanted to screw a 14 year. I am the result of that unholy alliance.
When I turned 14 my mother and grandmother decided I should live with my father, who I only knew as Uncle Ed, and his wife my Aunt Dell, my mother’s eldest sister, in a large tract house in the suburbs of Southern California.
Within the three months of moving in my father raped me and continued at least once a week for 3.5 years, 150+ times, he violated my body. I, along with Effie, my 11 inch crochet elephant, declared war on my father and his wife. I couldn’t stop the rapes but I refused to allow that bastard to rape my mind. Despite everything I held on to one goal, escape by going to college.
Everyone in my family knew he was raping me but they chose to remain silent. Why, he had what I didn’t, power and status. I was a young voiceless and powerless black girl in the 1960s when black folks didn’t have the right to vote. But each day, as I watched CBS Nightly News I saw people, who looked like, my age, my color who were protesting, fire hosed, and dog’s attacking them as they depended their Civil Rights. They were my heroes, if they could return to fight I sure and hell could.
When news came that father impregnated me, there was no outrage, no pull out the guns to shot him, no oh poor Teri. It was assumed that I would do the right thing, exhibit some common form of decency by handing over my new born son to my pedophile father to raise. When I refused to the family was passed and never forgave me
This podcast series is to provide for folks who look like me, from similar backgrounds for our faces and voices to be seen and heard.
This is for the millions of us whose lives were defined by 6 words - rape, childhood sexual violence, incest, and silence and the two most powerful shame and betrayal.
This is for us to declare we are not weak powerless victims but were victimized, that we are more than survivors hoping and waiting for someone to toss us a life line
This podcast series is for us to own and proclaim who we are - STRONG, POWERFUL and VICTORIOUS
This is for us to talk, share our voices, and solutions by tearing down the walls of silence, shame, and betrayal
Hope you enjoy the podcasts
Theresa Willard Hughes
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