For a long time, I never felt safe. The people who were supposed to keep me safe didn't. The people who could have stopped it didn't. I didn't trust anyone around me, and was drawn to all of the wrong people at the same time. I had good friends, who were good people, but I never put my trust in them. The connection between love and trust had been broken in me at a very young age.
I was a "good kid." I got good grades, played sports, was involved in activities, helped with my younger siblings. I repressed many memories from most of my childhood. In junior high, one night while in my room reading, something in my book triggered these memories, and they came rushing at me all at once. The room was spinning, and all I could think was, "if I just stop breathing, everything will be ok." That was the first time I contemplated suicide. All of my relationships went downhill at that point, and suffered for a very long time.
I eventually began to feel ok. I broke off contact with most of that side of the family. I rekindled old friendships, and started new ones. I began dating. The long term romantic relationships I found myself in weren't very healthy. Alcoholism, parental issues, violent childhoods, abandonment issues, controlling personalities - the personalities of the men I dated during my teens and twenties weren't always the best. My broken-ness felt a connection with their broken-ness. There was something comforting in knowing I wasn't the most fucked up person in this relationship. Until it became too much. There were several times I felt the world was crashing down on me.
During my mid twenties, it came to my knowledge that I wasn't the only person to have been molested by my grandfather. This revelation brought about so many conflicting emotions. Guilt that I hadn't done anything to prevent what happened to me from happening to anyone else. Fear that I was just as as bad of a person as he was because of it. Shame that what happened to me was "out there." Relief that there wasn't something wrong with me that made it happen.
As an adult, a mother, a wife - I've learned a lot about coping. Thirty years of carrying this burden, and there have been only a few times I've talked about it. What happened to me, to us, is not talked about in our family. This grandfather - this monster of a man - is held in such high regard still. Every time I see a picture of him, every time someone talks about him, part of me dies a little more. I see so clearly the destruction he has caused in multiple lives, and it's completely brushed under the rug, never to be brought to light or acknowledged.
1 in 3 women have been a victim of sexual abuse. 1 in 5 for men. 60% of perpetrators are known to the child - 30% are family members. The repercussions on children and their families lasts a lifetime. Let's break the silence, and give voices to so many whose innocence was stolen from them. There is a great freedom in saying out loud that which so many refuse to acknowledge.
I'm starting this project to give you back your voice. Your story may or may no feel familiar to mine, but it is yours to tell. We are listening - we love you - we support you.
If you would like to participate in this project, either by telling your story, or working behind the scenes, please contact me via email: hello@photographybyshanna.com.
Shanna Aitken