Even under perfect circumstances meaning that my daughter had not diverted into a life of self-destruction, the little girl I see in these photos no longer exists. Even if she had not had her innocense shattered by a cruel and selfish act of someone she loved and trusted, this little girl has grown into a young woman. It's torture, really, to look at these old photos.
At a time when we should be planning her Senior year, ordering her beautiful Senior pictures, getting ready for new journies in new directions, instead, my days are filled with visits to therapists, probation officers, juvenile court, truancy officers and waiting helplessly by the phone for any news about her safety. Oh my, it is so unfair I could scream.
Over the last couple of years, I have been diligently scanning old snapshots. Then, I spend lots of time with labeling, sorting and cross-referencing into folders for each of my daughters. My hope is to give each girl a digital collection of family photos and keepsakes. When my heart aches, I barely can focus on my normal daily tasks much less look through hundreds of photos of my precious daughter. The sad reality is that for years, I could not look at my own childhood photos without weeping.
Child sexual abuse is a sad and often ignored piece of my family dynamic, just like it is in many families. We talk about diabetes or cancer, the cousin with MS, the alcohol abuse and the chain smoking, but never do we venture into the reality of incest and sexual abuse. All the potential excuses run franctically in my mind:
it's generational
we just didn't talk about things like that
it's not as bad as you think it is
lots of families have this same issue
he can't help it
the alcohol made him do it
what could I do?
get over it.
But when it comes to my own daughter, none of these excuses are good enough. She deserves more than an excuse. She deserves action. Yet, she fights me every step of the way. There are days when I think she would be better off if I had just let it alone.
