"Just be nice. Don't make a fuss." / Author: anonymous
Jen Hoey 
A real story from a brave woman who wants to share her story. The author remains anonymous, at her request.
My story. A part of me feels that I don't have a story. I've read so many horrific stories that I feel embarrassed even writing this. I hardly have a story. It pales into insignificance in the shadow of those who have experienced unimaginable horrors. Those people have stories. So I tell my story with huge hesitation and reluctance because even though it isn't horrific, it still impacted me and continues to. I tell this as an opportunity to get it out so others can feel brave to tell their 'little' stories too.
We all have a story. It wasn't until my daughter was exploited sexually when she was 20 and I remember thinking how fortunate I was that it never happened to me because it seemed to happen to so many women. And then I remembered four times it did happen, that I can recall. But because I wasn't raped, I never thought that I was harmed in any way. The first time I was just 16. I'd been working a holiday job picking strawberries. I remember this day he commented on my white pants, how nice I looked in them. I was flattered, of course. My memories are few and I don't remember lots of that time, just a few details. He was 32 and worked in the packing shed. That's the only real memory I have of him there except for the time the other guys put plasters in his sandwich. They must have known something I didn't. He visited me in Auckland hospital when I was there for a suspected brain tumour. As it turned out, I had severed a nerve while picking strawberries that had rendered my leg paralyzed from the knee down. My dad was there. He didn't tell him to leave. When I started at high school, he visited me at lunch time and brought me gifts. He sent me letters, and I wrote to him. I do recall one day I was writing to him, telling him I loved him too, and my sister saw and told my mum. I remember mum telling me to stay in my room - I was angry with her and told her I hated her.
One day he sent me a big, glossy magazine with instructions to be careful with it because it cost a lot of money. It was full of naked women. I remember being really confused why he would want me to look at it. I was also terrified my parents would see it. So I climbed out my bedroom window and burned it in the barrel in the paddock we burned our rubbish in. I was suddenly scared at this realization that this wasn't ok. I must have told my mum that he came to school to visit me because my mum informed my school that if he showed up there, to call her. He showed up one day at school end. My mum came and met him on the road, where she punched him to the ground. She went to the police afterwards to report the assault. She was let off. He was a known paedophile. My older brother and dad drove to his house to confront him, but he was gone. And that was the end of that. Apart from the shame I carried into my adulthood. My mum dragged the story up, retelling it at every opportunity in front of anyone who would listen. It was my fault; it seemed.
The second time was while I was still 16. I was staying at my aunt's house in Auckland and they had a foreign student living with them. I was on a beanbag watching tv in the downstairs room when he came and sat beside me and chatted. I liked the company. We talked for hours; it seemed. Then suddenly he was on top of me with his tongue down my throat. I got away and ran to my room, terrified. I remember shaking. I blamed myself, wondering if I'd done anything suggestive to prompt him.
The third time I was 17 and dating a guy from school. We were friends, and I helped him with his maths. We'd been out to the movies a couple of times. One night, he dropped me home, and I invited him in for a hot drink. We started kissing, then he gave me a hickey. I did not know he was giving me a hickey. I was extremely innocent and naïve. Then he started unzipping my jeans. I jumped up, startled, and said he better leave. I was so shocked that he was attempting to have sex with me AND in the lounge of my parent's home! I called him the next day, and he didn't want to talk to me. I remember being heartbroken and my mum saying, "I told you not to call him." I just wanted her to hug me. She gave me enormous grief about the hickey but I never got to tell her he tried to have sex with me and that I had told him to leave.
The fourth time I was 20. I was staying with my Auckland aunt again with some girlfriends. In the middle of the night I awoke to my cousin naked and on top of me, kissing me and groping me, saying "it's ok, just relax" over and over. I was so scared, but somehow managed to push him off me. I lay in my bed as still as a statue, in shock. The next morning, my aunt opened the door to find his clothes on the floor. I remember the look on her face, a mixture of shock and disgust. Nothing was ever spoken about it. My first uni boyfriend convinced me to have sex with him. I didn't want to, but my sister had recently fallen pregnant and I was sick of being the good girl, so I gave in to his insistent pressure. It was unpleasant. He commented that the only thing wrong with my body was that I had a bit of excess fat on my shoulders - I was skinny! I remember feeling horrified by this comment. He wasn't exactly model material himself. Yet I stayed with him for at least a year, having unfulfilling sex and hating myself.
I eventually married a guy I had dated for 5 years. We met at church. I thought he would never hurt me. He was a Christian, so I naively thought we'd live happily ever after. The unfulfilling sex continued. A few years into our marriage, I discovered his porn addiction. I didn't understand porn or why he would want to look at it. I blamed myself and worked harder at being slim (I was slim already) going to the gym and eating healthy. He never noticed or acknowledged my efforts. He had a love affair with a woman at his work. He was besotted with her and would come home from work and tell me about her and his intense feelings for her. She did not reciprocate, and this distressed him hugely. I remember thinking this whole situation was odd, but being so disconnected to myself, I didn't really register how odd it was. I just blamed myself again. Not pretty enough. Not a good enough wife. Eventually, he had a sexual affair with another woman at work, while I was pregnant with our daughter, as a way to get back at the woman he was besotted with for ignoring him. He was very angry when he discovered I was pregnant. I get migraines, so I can't take the contraceptive pill. I was using a diaphragm and spermicidal jelly. On investigation, we discovered the jelly had expired. So it was all my fault I got pregnant. My marriage eventually ended. My husband told me he had never loved me and only married me out of a sense of obligation, as we'd been dating for 5 years.
A couple of years later, I met my current husband. I was committed to not having sex until we were serious (my Catholic upbringing had me believing this was a terrible sin) but I was very attracted to him. The sex was great, my first fulfilling sexual experience at age 37! And I felt guilty for enjoying it so much, especially getting pregnant and not being married. My mum was very disappointed in me for getting pregnant and made me well aware of it. I was 37 and felt like a naughty child. More shame heaped on me.
As a 54-year-old female, I still struggle with men. I avoid them as much as I can and struggle to know how to relate to them. I feel inferior. I feel like I know nothing and that I have nothing important to contribute to the world. My dad was a distant father who didn't show affection or tolerate discussion. His opinions were the only ones we needed to know. I had four uncles growing up. One was extremely dominating and at his funeral it was said that he didn't suffer fools, as if that was a good thing. What it really means is that he was an arrogant jerk. I hated him. And I never really understood why. My other uncles left their mark on me too. I was just a girl, not to be taken seriously. I felt invisible. I have an older brother, 6 years older. He has mental health issues as a result of our sister being killed in a traffic accident. They were only 11 months apart in age and were very close — she was 9 and he was 10. I was only 5 at the time and apparently it didn't impact me because I was only little. He doesn't suffer fools either, so I feel like a fool whenever I see him, which isn't often as he keeps to himself.
Growing up, I didn't learn that I had a voice, or that I could have an opinion or ideas. I was just a girl. I recall once as a psychology graduate in my 20's and my mum asking me what I thought about my brother's mental illness. I mentioned the research on drug use and mental illness - my brother used drugs - and my dad saying "You don't know nothing." I remember driving away from their place so angry. I remember saying to myself, "he can't even speak proper English!"
I'm angry that I didn't stand up for myself. That I didn't have a voice. That I was silenced in so many ways. That my experiences and my feelings associated with them were pushed away. I feel the silent screams from my belly. They cry out to be heard. They tear at my body and I feel their pain. Migraines, aches, depression and cancer. My body bears the brunt of these unexpressed iniquities. As I write this, I feel that familiar pain in my chest and down my arm where the anger sits, stuck, waiting for me to release it. I'm scared it will erupt, so I do what works for now. I breathe and I remind myself it wasn't my fault. And I'm sorry.
I hope one day I can find a way to let that anger have a voice so it no longer hurts me. I read once that trauma isn't what happened to us, but rather that not being supported through those experiences is what creates the trauma. That seems to be the theme of my experiences. I carried the shame and the guilt, and there was no support.
I didn't know how to process the feelings and I don't recall ever hearing the words "It wasn't your fault." When I see women expressing their anger about the wrongs done to them and being judged by men and women for being too aggressive, my jaw clenches.
I supported a friend through the process of reporting an historical rape and seeing her perpetrator in court. I saw the impact that had on her. The female judge decided he'd been through enough (he had his photo and crime on the front page of a local newspaper) and let him off. He was too old to go to prison, apparently. There was no compassion for what he'd done to my friend when she was only 6. She is now crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. Anger.
As a good Catholic girl, that was never allowed. "Just be nice. Don't make a fuss."'