The Silent Victims

This morning an email shocked me. It came from a woman I've known for 25 years although I haven't seen her in a long time. She learned about my book, When a Man You Love Was Abused. That prompted her to write me and tell me her story.

My brother molested me when we were teenagers, right in our family home. I felt I couldn't tell my parents because it would destroy the family. Instead, it ended up nearly destroying me, so I'm all for getting those things out in the open. I finally told my mother after my father died, and she admitted she wouldn't have known how to handle it.

As I read her story, I realized once again how normal most of us appear. I wasn't aware of my own abuse back then and certainly she gave no indication of anything wrong.

That's how it is with many of us—the silent victims. We're the ones who don't tell. Maybe we're afraid of not being believed or we want to "protect" the family. Sometimes it's because we feel the shame that our perpetrator ought to feel so we keep silent.

It's sad that many victims remain silent.