Renate | For Her Mother
Renate | For Her Mother
My name is Renate and at this moment I’m 37 years old. I want to share my mom’s story with you and what it does to someone’s life and that of others.
I was 7 when my dad died because of cancer and my mother became a widow. When I was a teenager she told me of the things that happened to her when she was young. I think she wanted to warn me, that there a men out there you can’t trust. But when I heard her story I couldn’t believe there were men that could be trusted anymore. And I felt really sorry for all that happened to my mother, I wanted to protect her. I think she needed someone to tell her story to and she only had me at that time (I was the eldest of three kids), but it really changed my perspective of men. Yes I was madly in love with a guy at school, and we became a couple, but I didn’t dare to kiss him or go any further than cuddling. I was curious like any other girl, but my fear was bigger. It took me more than 10 years to find out how to deal with this and how to have a normal conversation with a guy. That’s not ok if you’re a teenager….
My mother grew up in a city and in a neighbourhood with lots of small alleys behind small workers houses. One day she was followed by a man in a long dark coat. It sounds like a standard scary movie scene, but that is what happened. He touched her in places she didn’t want to be touched and she ran home.
She was very little, only 4 years old, but she still remembered. A few years later her own brothers sexually assaulted her. She had four older brothers, a younger brother and one younger sister. Two of her older brothers (who both went to a boarding school ruled by monks) used her for their sexual lusts. They put their fingers inside her, touched her breasts and after a while penetrated her as well. This happened at her own home and only a couple of years ago she told her sister that this had happened in their childhood. Her sister did not believe her…. She said: “I’ve never noticed it, I’ve never seen it, so it can’t be true!”.
And this wasn’t the whole story yet. My mom said that it felt to her if pedophiles can smell their victims. That they can feel it when you are vulnerable or have been sexually assaulted before….
One day she went to a sleepover with her best friend. She had to sleep on the attic. And in the night her best friends dad came to her and sexually assaulted her….
Every time something like this happened, my mother felt so scared that she just froze…she couldn’t move or speak…she just let it happen because she was too scared. She wanted to scream or kick someone, but she just couldn’t. She couldn’t trust anyone anymore, because her trust in people was gone by all that had happened.
She learned to deal with it and she found a friend in my father. He was probably gay, but this wasn’t accepted in his family. Because my mother and father were very close friends to one another and they both had ‘sexual problems’ it seemed to them this was a perfect match! (It’s very strange to hear all these things about your own parents and also very sad. I can’t feel the same anymore towards my two uncle’s. One I had never liked in the first place and the other one I can only see as a week person now…)
After my dad died a lot of unsolved pain, loss and suffering of my mother was laid bare and she had some rough years working through all these emotions. It took her years of her life, not only was it noticeable in her looks, but she also got pain in her body and was exhausted. That’s what it can do to you, and that’s what it can do to others you love. Because it’s horrific for a daughter (or better: a child) to see her mother suffer like this and to not be able to do anything about it. And unconsciously you transfer ideas and feelings to the people around you, even if you don’t want that to happen (or even if you would like to teach them the opposite, because you don’t want your children to experience the same things).
So please, if you’re being abused or if you know or see that someone gets abused: do something! Help yourself, it is NOT your fault, you are stronger than you think and there is always someone who believes you and wants to help you!
You are not only helping yourself but others as well!