Cleaning Out The Closet

by Bud
(Forest Lake, MN)

I have a night that has long affected me. While it would probably be beneficial to me to tell you the bizarre environment that all this took place in, it might overshadow the event itself. It involves my step-father raping my mother at gunpoint while my brother and I lay only a few feet away.

I don't want to start with the image that my mother was some sort of angelic figure, innocently, sitting by the fireside, awaiting her husband's return. That in no way would be the the truth. The rape took place in a tavern that the two of them owned. Frederick drove an eighteen-wheeler and was gone a lot of the time.

At one point, Frederick had taken a room that was some 25x25 which was actually attached to the bar and converted it into a kind of living quarters. He had put up a make-shift divider made of paneling between my brother's and my bunk beds and my mother's bed. The fronts of both sleeping areas were fully exposed and looked out onto a sofa that faced a television.

It wasn't one of those events that you get to see develop into something horrifying. Nope, it was more like awakening to an explosion that rips through your house, everything torn apart and screaming in the background.

I was around thirteen years old and my little brother was seven years younger than I when it happened. It was around 2am or 3am in the morning. All of a sudden I awoke to the sound of Mary and Fred struggling on the other side of the divider. Mary was saying no don't do that. Fred was saying Mary just lay there. She kept on saying, get that out of me.

I had grabbed my little brother and drug him up to my bed and held him while I covered his little ears. My mother started to call me and ask me to help her. Fred would yell at me to stay right where I was. He had a gun. I ran through the scenario of trying to run for help but couldn't leave my brother there to what might happen. I lay there in this completely dysfunctional home, while a man to be called my father and the father of my brother raped my mother at gun point.

My memory of the event is limited to a very small window. How it all ended, at this moment I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that I was blamed for the event. My mother and brother blamed me for not getting help. No one called the police. None of us got any help.

Frederick ended up knocking up the eighteen year daughter of my mother's friend, and the last I had heard they had moved to California.

It is a short account of a deeply historically laden event. It is a small place in the world that some of the most dysfunctional things of people came collectively came together to form a hole in my own soul. Oh! I have no doubt that all of the people at this meeting were all ill, damaged and scarred by this event.

It is a freeing thing to tell this story because no one else has told it. It comes from a closet where the pressure of its contents stresses the bolts that hold the door in place. Truth does indeed set you free. I leave now to allow myself the time to mend a great wound, to feel old feelings and allow myself to become anew.

Response from Dr. DeFoore

Thank you for telling your story, Bud. You have shown tremendous courage sharing it here. And I agree with you, it will help you to become anew.

Here are some thoughts to consider about your memory and what followed:
1) You, your brother and your mother were all victims of a criminal act. The only person to blame was the perpetrator, your step-father.
2) Being a survivor of an event like this creates a lot of turmoil and guilt. You were a protector to your brother, and you were unable to protect your mother. You did the best anyone could expect in such a situation. Victims (which you were) often "freeze" during trauma--it's a way that the body/mind protects itself.
3) Then, after the event was over, you were victimized again--when your mother and brother blamed you for what happened. I'm sure they meant well, but they were wrong. There is no way that this event was your fault, by any stretch of the imagination.
4) Your mother, once the threat was passed, was the responsible adult who should have called the police and reported the crime. When she did not do that, she as much as sanctioned the crime and abuse. And as you mentioned, the perpetrator went on to harm others.
5) You did a good job of trying to protect your brother. And you survived. Feel good about yourself and what you've done by writing this now. I encourage you to keep writing if you have other thoughts and feelings that come up about this or other memories.

You might try this exercise to help you heal:

Close your eyes, and imagine yourself going back in time as the adult you are today, to that town, and to that tavern where the event occurred. Enter the room where you, your mother, brother and step-father were sleeping. You are not going to be violent, you are just going to heal the memory. First, go to your step-father and take the gun out of his hand and make him get off of your mother. Do this with the power of righteousness and justice, not with violence. Move him completely out of the scene, until he's completely gone. Then go to the younger you, the 13 year old Bud, and say to him, "I am so proud of you for protecting your brother. You are a smart and brave boy. You didn't do anything wrong. It's him, your step-father that is wrong. You are a good boy."

Then, if it feels right, take him by the hand, or in your arms, and leave that tavern forever. Bring him with you to the safest healing place you can think of or imagine. Let him decide what he wants to do, and continue talking to him in the same way. "It wasn't your fault. Your mother and brother were wrong for blaming you. You did the best you could at the time, and you were a victim yourself. You are a good boy."

Hold him in your arms and tell him that you love him, and you will never leave him, no matter what. Then take him into your heart. Feel him there inside you. And together, the two of you look back in time and notice that he is not there in the tavern any more. He is with you now, in the present, where he and you can heal together.

I wish you all the best in your continued journey of healing, Bud.

Dr. DeFoore