turning points or things we don't talk about

I learned from an early age that no one really wants to hear the truth or have me speak it. For years, I felt like the child in the Emperor's New Clothes trying to tell people that the king was naked and being shushed for my efforts.

I was sexually abused by my mother's sister from age six until I was able to thwart her at around age thirteen. I confided in my mother and sought protection from her. She refused to believe me, and accused me of wanting to destroy our family. The abuse continued. I found it hard to forgive my mother. (A psychiatrist who should have known better.) She died during the summer of 1971; and something in me shifted in such a way that I would no longer accept my role as the slated victim of my aunt's desires. I rose up and found myself and the courage to tell her that she would never touch me again.

My father, whose well being I accepted as my responsibility, was mentally unstable. He became even more so after my mother's death. I was the "hero" in the family. I literally filled my mother's shoes. I cooked, cleaned, and became my father's intellectual companion. Eventually I became his Friday night date, his choice for dinner, drinks, and discussion.

One evening when he came home from work he greeted me with a french kiss. His probing tongue changed everything for me. I knew I couldn't stay there. That I could not make the ultimate sacrifice for my father's happiness. And that if I did continue to live with him, I probably would feel compelled to do so.

For me the trick was to find a way to spare him humiliation, to help him save face and avoid public scandal. I was already attending college at 16. I was bright ( A Who's Who Among American High School Student's) and told him I wanted to live off campus and attend university full time. I pushed to have this happen. This seemed like a plausible excuse. Everyone almost bought it. But we all knew we were naked under our garments: that the truth looked really different. It hung in the air like stagnant smoke.

I get so weary in this life of having to cover everything up, sanitize it , make it clean and acceptable for others. After my father's death (I was barely 21) I tried to speak to his brother about the complexity of my relationship with my dad. When my uncle began to figure out what I was trying to say he also shushed me. "We don't speak ill of the dead." I was corrected and silenced.

Incest, is rarely talked about. I have often worn the coat of incestuous shame, and currently am thankful to be fairly free of it. I want to believe that in telling my naked truth I can be liberated. But more than that, I want to believe that by telling my own truth, I become more whole, more genuine, more myself.