The truth is, at this time I am not willing to be silenced by fear.
Still, there is also fear in not telling my story. This ongoing, lifeline learning.
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Why? I’m scheduled for surgery in a couple months to remove several organs. With that knowledge comes an uncomfortable awareness that complications are possible. I’ve signed that all-encompassing waiver acknowledging the ever-so-slight possibility of death.
To be honest, I keep pushing the necessary surgery to next month and now next year. My symptoms may be getting worse, and there is no possibility that the need for surgery will simply disappear.
My history with a similar surgery was less than I had hoped. Last time, I woke up with fewer organs than I had anticipated. The possibility of another unexpected outcome is still very real.
I understand the perception that my writing on Birdanity, a website among billions, is only a tiny part of humanity.
Still, it matters.
I matter.
What happens to me, and what has happened to me, matters, too.
Being Still
The last card a family member gifted me reads:
“The Lord will fight for you. All you have to do is keep still.” — Exodus 14:14
With these words, she directed me to stay quiet and wait on the Lord. She also fears, as I do, about my physical safety.
That written…
The medical/forensic report confirms that a former partner was physically violent with me. He has also been harassing me online with 60+ comments here.
I am – silently carrying pepper spray.
I try to be still. Calm. Live.
Is writing also being still?
Is being quiet the same thing?
Most of my body says yes. I know that writing my history offers a voice for my body, my organs, and a way to release the trauma within the skin’s walls.
My fingers, however, are holding up protest signs.
The Inheritance of Silence
Content warning: Childhood sexual abuse.
I keep remembering a story from my youth. It’s difficult to write about and perhaps difficult to read.
When I was ten years old, I was molested by my schoolteacher on more than a few occasions. That man was also a church leader at a Baptist church.
After being molested by him in a swimming pool, and knowing I was scheduled to stay at his home for the weekend, I felt I could not remain silent.
Instead, I had an emotional fit, and there was a confrontation with my parents when they demanded to know why I refused to go.
At first, I simply refused to stay at that teacher’s home overnight. Eventually, I told them why, even though doing so meant revealing what had happened to me and feeling as though I was somehow tainted.
The pastor of the church allowed my teacher to resign so he could teach elsewhere. I was told that the pastor already knew the teacher had molested at least ten other girls before me, yet did nothing to prevent him from continuing.
It was my father, who was also a leader in the church, who demanded that the teacher leave his educational position and the church.
My parents instructed me never to tell anyone what had happened. They said it was to preserve and protect me.
I felt dirty and hurt. I even lied about not knowing why the teacher had left in the middle of the school year.
My father has since passed away. However, two years ago, my mother wrote an email about the incident in response to a conversation about what happened. It read:
“This happened more than 30 years ago and you still suffer from what that teacher did to you. Our pastor knew and then tried to hide that man’s sin. He let that teacher move away quietly without any responsibility for what he had done to you and those other girls. As a leader in the church your Dad tried to be quiet to protect you and not to hurt you. In hindsight that was wrong. Who knows how that teacher went on to hurt others!”
Those words have stayed with me.
My parents believed silence would protect me. The church allowed someone who had reportedly harmed multiple girls to leave quietly.
And I was left carrying the consequences.
The Repetition
Content warning: Domestic violence and sexual assault.
The similarities in my life are difficult to ignore.
If I am quiet today, will I follow a pattern of silence? How long will that pattern continue to affect my life?
Why should I remain silent until the Lord finishes anything on my behalf?
Through prayer, is my entire family unleashing some sort of spiritual warfare that we will never see?
Will someone who responds to conflict with physical violence learn a different way of treating people if there is no accountability?
Will I look back at this situation and realize that I did relatively little when I had the right and opportunity to seek justice and accountability?
Is justice truly served by allowing people to move forward without addressing the harm they have caused?
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With regard to my former teacher, I keep returning to the words of my family:
“Who knows how he went on to hurt other girls?”
I wonder that, too.
My former teacher wrote my parents a letter denying what had happened before he left the church and school.
There is something particularly troubling about the knowledge that someone can deny wrongdoing, move elsewhere, and continue with life while those who were silenced and harmed carry the consequences.
Yet I was not the first. According to what I was told, there were at least ten girls before me.
The possibility that others may have been harmed is one of the things I find hardest to reconcile with the decision to remain quiet.
The Cost
Sin by silence may be an internal killer in the long term.
If I’m honest, I tried to commit suicide years ago when I lost hope and felt a desperation that I wasn’t being heard, properly defended, or believed.
That experience is part of my history, too. It speaks to the consequences of feeling powerless, unheard, and unable to find a way forward.
These are truths I will remember for the rest of my life.
I am also convinced that I will not live in fear of what another man may do.
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Perhaps there is also something more fundamental here.
I have spent considerable portions of my life learning when to speak, when to remain quiet, and when my voice might make someone else’s life more uncomfortable.
At ten, I spoke because I was afraid of what would happen to me if I didn’t.
As an adult, I am once again confronted with the possibility that my silence may not be protecting someone other than me.
I do know that I cannot go back and change what happened when I was ten. I cannot give that little girl a different childhood, a different response from the adults around her, or a different ending to that story.
But I can make a different decision today.
A Different Decision
Perhaps being still doesn’t mean being silent.
Perhaps faith, if it is to mean anything to me now, must leave room for truth, boundaries, and the pursuit of justice.
I can let God fight His battles without surrendering my own voice.
And I can acknowledge that protecting myself does not require protecting the people who have hurt me from the consequences of their actions.
I cannot change the past. I cannot undo what happened. Nor can I change what happened to that little girl or give her the protection she deserved.
But I can make a different decision today.
I no longer want silence to be the price of someone else’s comfort.
I’ve been quiet before.
I know what that costs.
I choose to write. To speak.
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Signed,
Birdanity
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