My Story, part 3: the bad years (1981-1987)

tw: child sexual abuse, trauma

Around 1981, my mom and stepfather married, and we moved into his house in Anchorage, with his other three children. The oldest (we’ll call him Junior, because he shared my stepfather’s name) was ten years my senior, and then there was the middle son (Brother), about eight years older than me, and my stepsister (Sister), who was five years older than me. Given that I was about 7 when this happened, they were approximately 17, 15 and 12. (I don’t remember exact birthdates and ages, so I have to admit to little variability here.)

It was a turbulent time. Junior was big into the JROTC and Boy Scouts. Brother was into wrestling and alcohol. Sister was into disobedience and sneaking out. My mother had to try to find a way to connect with them in a positive way, despite all of them having traumatic relationships with their birth mothers. She found little success, especially at first.

It’s my understanding that my stepfather had not been a great father to them in their early childhood, as he worked nights on the railroads while putting himself through college, and had a drinking problem to boot. He felt guilty about this and tended to indulge his children later in life. He was nice to me and I liked him, but it was still always clear to me that THEY were his kids and I was my mom’s kid. (That lasted even to his deathbed. My mom told me that he loved me, but that was less clear to me than it was to her.)

I was young when we moved in and so was not very involved in the fights and arguments that occurred. I remember Sister broke the locks on her bedroom windows so that she could sneak out of the house when she wanted (and get back in the same way.) Sometimes when my parents were out of the house, Brother would organize parties with his friends, bringing alcohol, weed and very loud music into our house. Brother was a jerk to me, and so it would be a long time before we would become friends — but we did, eventually.

I tried to keep my head down — I was the stereotypical “good kid”. I stayed out of trouble (when I could) for the most part. At least, that was true when I was younger. I rarely got into fights. I got pretty good grades (mostly because I did well on tests; homework was my nemesis.) I was a gifted student, and so transferred into a new elementary school which had a very cool “optional” program. (It was a great start to my education and I wish more kids had the chance to learn that way, so I’ll talk about it in a separate post someday.) I made lifelong friends there that I wish I was still in touch with today.

When I was in fifth grade, my life started to change. This was when I was about ten years old. I was diagnosed with nearsightedness (myopia) and needed glasses. I started to gain weight, which led to me being bullied and teased. And my sexual abuse began.

First, it was my stepsister. I admit that I have mixed feelings about this now. First, she was still a minor at the time. True, she was about five years older than me, and at 15 (or so), probably should have known better than to have sex with me. She claims today that I initiated it, which I don’t recall, but seems unlikely since I still had never been introduced to sex. I can’t clearly disprove her statement, though. It only happened a few times, and at least once it included one of my slightly-older friends. And although I was still way too young to understand sex, it was at least “normal” heterosexual sex, which wasn’t something I considered deviant at the time. (Yes — it was incest, which IS deviant.) The point is that, when I look back at my history, this didn’t really fuck me up. I’ve never really felt shame about it, and I don’t really have anger towards her. It did sexualize me at far too young an age, but it feels minor in comparison.

Shortly after that experience, though, Junior began grooming me. On a trip to my stepfather’s family one summer, he had bought a newly released Dungeons and Dragons set. It was released back in 1983, so that helps me date this to when I was about 9 or 10 years old. This was what he used to lure me into his bedroom and get me alone. We started playing an adventure — probably one written in the basic module. He was the DM, and I played all of the characters in the party. At some point in the adventure, he started using the time to initiate sex with me.

I don’t even remember exactly how it started. I always think that I should be able to recall it, but I don’t. Mostly it was him fellating me, but later he would force me to fellate him as well. On at least one occasion, he attempted to have anal sex with me, but I balked because it was too painful. (I remember very clearly the texture of the shag carpet in our living room against my face during that session, though. It is strange how the human brain retains certain details crystal clearly and loses — or hides — others.)

I know that as I became resistant to him, he resorted to bribing me with expensive gifts. He gave me a Transformer box set that I wanted in 1987 (when I was 13). It wasn’t constant, because at this age, my step-siblings were often moving out of the house and returning when things didn’t work out. Anytime Junior was in the house, though, he would return to darken my door and try to initiate sex. Of course, I was deeply ashamed, and felt like it was my fault. This was the 80s in America, and being gay was considered absolutely the worst, most horrible shame you could have. The fact that I accepted the gifts he bribed me with and even initiated sex myself sometimes made me feel like I was a prostitute.

I should take a moment and note that, while Sister seemed like a bad seed to me when she was constantly fighting with my mom, she has since spoken to me that she was also sexually abused by Junior (and Brother). I didn’t know this at the time, but it does make sense. She would eventually be moved into foster care and bounce around from foster family to foster family. I think my feelings towards her then were largely driven by her fights with the most important person in the world to me, not an honest assessment of her as a person.

During this time, I had become deeply unpopular at school. My glasses were absolutely terrible, my hair was unmanageable, my clothes were out of style. I had continued to gain weight, which I was very embarrassed by. I didn’t have many friends. Of the two closest friends I had from elementary school, one wound up going to another school in a different district. The other wouldn’t associate with me in school because he was afraid being my friend would make him unpopular. I did have a few others, but they were often a grade below me, and so were in different classes and even schools. (In America, we shifted schools after 6th grade, and again after 8th grade.) As a result, I became reclusive and depressed.

Part of my depression came from my most secret shame: one summer (I think at 13 but I could be mistaken), when I was visiting my father’s family, I became an abuser myself. This is more common than you might expect, but it will always be one of my greatest regrets. I repeated the cycle and became a perpetrator to one of my younger brothers. (The severity and duration of this abuse was far less than what I myself had endured, but that’s not an excuse. Nor was the fact that I was still a kid myself. I should have known better.)

When this secret came out, much later, it was responsible for driving the wedge into the relationship between my father’s family and I. The brother I had victimized has since forgiven me for what I did, which I deeply admire him for. I could never forgive my own abuser, so he’s a far bigger man than I am. My stepmother has literally referred to me as the devil for what I have done and my other younger siblings have never really communicated with me since. I accept that this is just part of the consequences for my actions.

The guilt and shame I felt for what I had done finally gave me the strength to reject my own abuser. I stopped his abuse, but never spoke out about it. By this point, Brother was in an alcoholism rehab program, and Sister was struggling as well. Junior was the only one of my stepfather’s kids that he had any reason to be proud of. (He had enlisted in the army after graduating from high school… although he would later get a dishonorable discharge.)

I have since rationalized it by saying that I loved my stepfather too much to destroy his belief that his eldest son was an upstanding citizen. The truth is that I was also probably afraid that he would choose to believe his biological son over me, and that the dispute would destroy my mom’s marriage. Heck, maybe I was just afraid people would think I was a freak because I’d had sex with another man. Whatever my reasons, my abuse was over, but it wouldn’t become public until much later.

[When I was in college (age 17+), my mom and I were driving in the car one day, and she told me that Junior was moving into a new apartment, and that we should help me move his belongings that weekend. I responded with (paraphrased) “Fuck no, I’ll never do anything for him ever again.” She left me alone but never forgot that. Junior would later be accused of sexually abusing other children, and she confronted him about her fears that he had abused me as well. He admitted it to her. That was when the family became aware of my abuse. Sadly, it took too many more years and many more victims before I would have the courage to stand up in court against him. By that point, she was no longer around to corroborate my testimony.]

My abuser moved on to other subjects. He worked at a roller skating rink and managed other kids who worked as paper delivery boys. I have no proof, but feel certain he found other victims there. (I know I was not his only victim, I just cannot be sure that any of them came from those jobs.) They certainly were positions that would put him in contact (and often in a position of power to) young boys and men. I very clearly remember one night that he brought one of the paperboys to our house while he picked something up. I recognized something very familiar in his stare while my brother was busy. God, I wish I had spoken up sooner.

Outside of my abuse, I was a pretty normal, bright kid. I was in honors classes in junior high. I got my first computer, an Apple IIe, when I was 10 (1984); we bought it with a couple of my Alaska Permanent Fund dividend checks. I loved Transformers and collected as many of them as I could get my hands on. My stepfather had another severe heart attack; again, he survived it. My mother was a social worker at Humana hospital in Anchorage and often worked on call. (I remember she had to leave one of my birthday parties because of a multiple casualty event of some kind, but I don’t remember the specific details.) I was the classic GenX latchkey kid, and would often be at home alone by myself for several hours after school, before my parents would arrive.

I started high school (9th grade) at Bartlett High School in the fall of 1987, when I was 13. In hindsight, the preceding years, from about 4th grade through 8th, feel like they were unending and most of my “childhood” memories can be tracked back to this time frame. Now, it seems like it was an impossibly short time period (only six years). I entered a new school as a freshman with basically no friends (in my school) and a lot of shame and guilt.

Fortunately, things did get better from there.