Let It Go?

Since April is Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month, for the past three weeks, I’ve been trying to come up with something on the subject of child abuse to write about in this blog, an important offering that might be the least bit beneficial to abuse victims, their loved ones, and child advocates. Surely, I thought, I’ve gleaned some wisdom since the publication of Call Me Tuesday, a book about my own experience as a victim of abuse, and Call Me Cockroach, in which I detail the damage sustained as a result of my childhood trauma. But each time I sat down to my laptop to write, I came up blank. The problem was, I wanted to write something uplifting and full of hope, and I couldn’t think of anything. So here it is, nearing the end of April, and this is what I have to say. I will warn you now that if you want to learn something encouraging and motivating about child abuse, you should stop reading right here, or skip to the last couple of paragraphs.

Because of my books, I get letters almost every day from readers of all ages who suffered childhood abuse similar to mine. While I appreciate the support of other abuse survivors, and it’s comforting to be reminded that I’m not alone, it’s also depressing and heart wrenching to know so many people have endured horrendous childhoods. Years ago, after I read Dave Pelzer’s, A Child Called “It”, I tried to get in touch with him because, naively and ignorantly, I thought he and I were the only two people in the world who had been singled out by our mothers for the type of extreme abuse that we both endured. I desperately wanted to tell him it happened to me too, and to thank him for having the courage to share his story. At the time I was angry that I couldn’t contact him, but now I realize that if I get a few letters a day, he must receive hundreds, if not thousands, and there’s no way he can answer them all.

To think there may be millions of us, all damaged, searching for answers, seeking relief, scares the hell out of me...makes me physically ill. Know what’s even more depressing? Each time a child abuse survivor reaches out to me, I’m given the privileged opportunity to try to help him or her. But I can’t; I can only offer comfort. I want to help them all, to say what they need to hear, that the pain will eventually go away and one day they’ll forget all about the terrible things that happened to them when they were helpless children, but that would be a lie. In truth, trauma inflicted during our vulnerable formative years runs too deep to ever just disappear. This degree of damage, once branded into our souls, stays with us forever. Sure we can function, and with the support of loved ones, even manage to live happy, close to normal lives. Therapy can help, as well as medication, but the abuse is always there, crouching in a dark place in our minds, waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

Speaking for myself and the victims who have contacted me, most of the damage comes from a fractured self-esteem, from years of being humiliated and told we were worthless. Relationships are difficult at best. Trust is iffy. Moodiness, bouts of depression, oversensitivity, and a tendency toward isolation are some of the everyday challenges we face. What we’ve all heard is true: abuse breeds abuse. But the harm is not always directed toward others. It’s my belief that most survivors are aware of this well-known stigma and fight extra hard to make sure they never mistreat another person. Instead they turn the abuse inward, which, sadly, sometimes ends up hurting those who love them, the very ones they are trying to protect. Either way it’s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. But time heals all wounds, right? Not necessarily. Now, in my fifties, I’m still waiting for that one to play out. The older I get, the more I find myself delving back into the darkness I fought so hard to escape and revisiting my brutal childhood days.

For adult survivors of child abuse, the damage runs deep and lasts a lifetime, but for current victims, and those at risk in the future, there is hope. Our best weapon is awareness. In the past I made the mistake of not talking about my abuse, because every time I told someone they looked at me like I was either lying, or off in the head. When I was young, abuse like mine was unheard of and therefore, unbelievable. Now I realize that was the problem. The fact that there are so many adult survivors today is unfortunate, but on a positive note we have a powerful weapon in our numbers to heighten awareness just by telling our stories to as many people as we can. If you were a victim of child abuse and you want to help children at risk, you don’t have to write a book (although that would be helpful) but please consider talking about it more, blog about it, make it in-your-face heard of in any way you can.

As I write this, I can’t help but be reminded of my two year old step granddaughter, Marleigh, singing her favorite song, Let It Go, from the Disney movie, Frozen. Wide-eyed and waving her arms like she’s releasing invisible butterflies into the air, she sings, let it go, let it goooo...if only it were that easy...

The After Christmas Drain

Recently, I received a thoughtful email from one of my sisters-in-law, apologizing for not being in touch. The reason I hadn't heard from her, she wrote, is because "the holidays are not my best time of year." She didn't go into detail why, only that too many loved ones were gone and there were too many expectations from others. She was obviously down, and I felt bad for her, but, at the same time, almost instantly, her words lifted my own depressed mood. Not that I was reveling in her sadness, I was just relieved to hear about it, because it made me feel more human, less like a scrooge.


Christmas sucks the life out of me. This year, afterward, I collapsed on the couch and stayed there for an entire day, drained of all my energy. Why? Not because of the rushing around to buy gifts, or the preparing of festive dishes to take to various gatherings, or even from hosting a dinner party for my husband's family. Nah, I breezed through all that. What took me down was the exhaustion from a month of faking the spirit, holding up the heavy, happy  façade, keeping a smile plastered over my sadness, so as not to ruin, for anyone else, what should be a magical time.


The truth is, I don't really like Christmas. Sure, I get a warm feeling when I think of the true meaning of the day, a soul-deep stirring. And who doesn't enjoy watching kids rip into their gifts? But the rest I could do without. There, I finally said it, and I don't feel as evil as I thought I would, thanks to my sister-in-law's email. Although for different reasons, she and I just aren't Christmas people, and I'm guessing we're not the only ones.


My annual depression starts around the end of November and runs well into January. The reasons are pretty straightforward. The Christmases of my formative years were not joyful ones, and in spite of all my attempts at happy holidays since, I have not been able to cover up those first horrible memories. When my kids were young it wasn't so bad. Their glee filled me up and their happiness was mine. But in the last several years, even as I'm surrounded by smiles and laughter, I can still see, vividly, the forlorn face of a little girl on Christmas morning, a little girl who thinks even Santa hates her. She's huddled in a corner clutching a package of socks, watching her brothers play with their bicycles and race cars, admiring from afar the same birthstone ring that she'd seen under the tree for two years in a row, but never worn on her finger. And most painful of all, years ago, my dad was killed in a car wreck just days before Christmas. The ruthless ghost of that Christmas past haunts me every year.


I hate this part of me, mostly because of my husband. He didn't sign up for his wife turning into a grumpy elf on his favorite holiday. And I'm ashamed that I feel the way I do. My reason for writing this is to reach out to others who feel the same way. Just getting an email from someone else who also gets the holiday blues lifted my spirit. Maybe someone like me will happen across this blog and take some comfort in knowing that he, or she, is not alone.

The "Scam"

Audiobooks. We all know what they are—the title is pretty much self-explanatory—but I, for one, had never given them much thought until someone claiming to represent  “Audible Studios” contacted me a few months ago offering to professionally produce my books,  Call Me Tuesday and Call Me Cockroach, to sell in downloadable spoken format.

Of course someone was trying to run a scam on me. What would Audible, the world’s largest seller of digital, downloadable audiobooks want with an indie author, who decided to go that route because she knew no big publishing house would want to take a chance on an unknown?  Yes, it has to be a scam, I thought, and shot back a snarky email that all but asked, how much? Even when the guy from so called “Audible” responded to clarify that they wanted to pay ME to produce the books, I was still skeptical. I Googled him and found his profile on LinkedIn. He was for real.

I was convinced that the offer was legit, but I still had questions. I’d run across other books in audio format and had casually wondered if the finished product was worth the money and extensive effort to produce it. With a reputable company like Audible taking on that burden for me, I figured I had nothing to lose. But I couldn’t help but wonder about the popularity of audiobooks. I could understand how they would be beneficial to the visually impaired, come in handy to someone who travels a lot, or make the time on a treadmill go by a little faster. Beyond that, I didn’t have a clue of an audiobook’s potential to reach readers who might be interested in my story, but I was eager to find out.  Some internet research led me to a staggering figure. Turns out, in this digital age, the audiobook industry is flourishing, estimated to be worth 1.2 billion dollars. Clearly that’s more than blind people and a few road travelers.

Audible serves customers in over 190 countries.  In addition to selling through Amazon, they are the exclusive provider of audiobooks to Apple's iTunes stores worldwide.  The Audible Service is compatible with hundreds of mobile players, including iPods, iPhones, Android-powered smartphones, BlackBerrys, Microsoft-powered smartphones, Kindles and hundreds of other MP3 players. Production values and narration quality of Audible's recordings are stellar and their efforts at creating superior audio productions have not gone unrewarded.  In 2014 they won 3 Audie awards, having been nominated as finalists in 32 titles across 18 categories.  They won Best Spoken Word Album at the 2013 Grammys (Janis Ian’s Society’s Child: My Autobiography).  Also in 2013, they won 9 Audie awards, including Audiobook of the Year (The End of the Affair) and Distinguished Achievement in Production (Dracula), having been nominated as finalists with 32 titles across all categories. This most recent Audiobook of the Year is their second, having won in 2008 for The Chopin Manuscript. With Audible Studios, I could be assured that my books would have the advantage of the best talent available in narrators and support from a great marketing team, in addition to top notch producers and engineers.

Now I was excited, embarrassed and feeling a bit stupid, but excited.  I’m all for getting my message out to as many people as possible, and if audiobooks will help accomplish that, “Then sign me up,” I said. Thanks to Audible Studios, (the real deal) a company willing to take a chance on an unknown indie author, Call Me Tuesday is now available in audiobook format through Audible: http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00W3ZKWKS&source_code==AUDORWS0416159DB3

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Call-Me-Tuesday-Based-Story/dp/B00W5UF0EO/ref=tmm_aud_title_0

And also Apple iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/leigh-byrne/id515690672?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Allyson Ryan is the narrator of Call Me Tuesday. She’s good. Her southern accent is awesome. Just listen to the sample here: http://www.amazon.com/Call-Me-Tuesday-Based-Story/dp/B00W5UF0EO/ref=tmm_aud_title_0.  She has narrated hundreds of audiobooks, and can also be heard in promos, commercials, and animation. She received an AudioFile Earphones Award for On the Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren and narrated the successful parody The Fifty Shames of Earl Grey by Andrew Shaffer. She also has an extensive stage and TV resume and appears as "Young Mom" in dozens of TV commercials.

Audible is providing a few free downloads of Call me Tuesday, the audiobook, in exchange for honest reviews or ratings on the Audible, Amazon and Apple websites. If you are interested in reviewing the audiobook please contact me via this blog, or at leighbyrne@wowway.com, and I will provide you with a code to claim your free book.

To Believe or Not to Believe

A few days ago, I was scanning over some of the recent Amazon reviews of my first book, when one in particular jumped out at me. The reviewer started out by stating that she (or he?), too, had been a child abuse victim, and fully understood the incidents described in Call Me Tuesday. That, alone, is nothing out of the ordinary. It saddens me to write that I receive correspondence—through email, Facebook, and my blog—practically every day from fellow abuse survivors, many of whom suffered through almost exactly what I did. The thing about this review that struck me, really pricked at my heart, was what the reviewer said next. She said she would love to find the courage to write her own story but, “some of the incidents are too unbearable to comprehend that people could do that to a child and people would choose not to believe it rather than to try to understand there are heinous monsters in this world disguised as loved ones.”

Her childhood was so horrible, so incomprehensible that she’s convinced there’s no use writing about it, because there would be people who wouldn't  believe her. And the dismal truth is she’s probably right. If she were to write and publish her story, there would be many who would have no problem calling her a liar. I know, because I get it all the time. Not so much to my face, but I’ve read comments online and reviews saying they think the events described in my book were either all made up, or exaggerated. It used to bother me. Make me cry. Hell, who am I fooling? It still bothers me. Still makes me cry. But I’m getting tougher. And I needed to thicken up my skin some, so for that I can thank the non-believers. Truth is, they are the reason I, and most abuse victims, never told anyone what was happening to us when we were kids. We were afraid no one would believe us. And now as adults, when we’ve finally mustered the courage to tell, those of us who’ve chosen to write it all down must live out that childhood fear again and again with every “I don’t believe” review.

Really, in defense of non-believers, most child abuse stories are unbelievable. The majority of the population (thank God) has difficulty processing such information because they can’t fathom harming a child under any circumstances. Others just don’t want to face the truth that such terrible things happen. Possibly another reason abuse books garner doubt is because, besides their obvious, sometimes jaw-dropping, descriptions of inhumane treatment of another human being, the author almost always changes the names and locations. Why? I believe I can speak for all child abuse memoirists when I say the intent of telling our stories was not to inflict harm or cast blame, but rather to help, to heal. The true names are not essential to the message, and incriminating the individuals involved, after the fact, would not be beneficial to anyone except for the purpose of revenge, which in my experience has always been a waste of energy. Using real names would only cause trouble and pain, and Lord knows we former victims don’t need any more of either one of those things in our lives.

There are probably some authors who have pulled a James Frey and published fabricated material to get attention or make a few bucks. But I can’t imagine why anyone would do this because there are too many other, more pleasant and profitable subjects to write about. Abuse memoirists actually lose a large portion of the reading population because many people would rather not read about something so depressing. Whether or not some of the books out there are exaggerated, I don’t know. Speaking for myself, I can tell you that I wrote the way I remember feeling at the time. But, as with my fellow child abuse memoirists, I was a child, and when you’re young, things do sometimes seem larger than life.

The people who never doubt stories of abuse are other abuse survivors. I remember how I reacted when I read a Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer. It’s been a while, but if my recollections are correct, the author was stabbed, forced to drink bleach and eat the contents of a dirty diaper. Unbelievable, right? Not to me. I knew his account was true, every word, because I had once faced the same evil. At the time, Pelzer’s book was one of the few of its kind on the market. Today there are many touching and inspiring memoirs and novels about child abuse available to the reader. Like with any other genre, there are some good reads and some bad ones. If you are interested in the subject, a couple of noteworthy books to consider downloading to your reader, or adding to your personal library, are Spilled Milk, by K. L Randis, a lovely novel in which the author artfully recounts how she brought her abusive father to justice, and Ghost No More, by Cee Cee James, who, unlike me, was able to rise above her abuse with dignity and grace. 

In my opinion, there can never be too many books on the subject, because volume heightens awareness. I encourage every abuse survivor to write your story, and if you feel so inclined, publish it, even though by putting something unbelievable out there for the world to read, you’re setting yourself up for some harsh ridicule. Still, the rewards are worth the risk. Publishing my books has been one of the most emotionally fulfilling experiences of my life. And probably the most therapeutic part, aside from the actual catharsis, has been connecting with other child abuse survivors.

As for the non-believers, if our shocking childhood stories don’t ring true to you, please know, we didn’t write them for you. We wrote our stories for our brothers and sisters who suffered in secret right along with us, to let them know they were not alone after all. And for the boy in junior high school who decides to speak up when he recognizes that a classmate’s actions bear a resemblance to a character's he read about in one of our books. We wrote them for those of you who want to learn, to know the signs of an abused child, and be made aware so you can attempt to make the world around you a better place.

Tell

Some people--particularly a few members of my family--have asked why I felt the need to write a book based on my childhood abuse. They can't fathom how I could possibly benefit from revealing such embarrassing family secrets. Was it cathartic? Was it to get even? To make money?

No, no and no.

You see, severe childhood trauma tends to get caught in the crevices of one's soul and therefore, it's not easily purged by something as simple as writing. At least that's been my experience. If it were that easy everyone who's ever been a victim would just write it down and be done with it. Healed. Happy. Normal.

As far as getting even goes, well, that's just impossible. There's no way to even the score of losing your childhood, your self esteem, your ability to trust, and part of your adult sanity. Besides, my blood relatives are so far-removed from my life, unless they wanted someone to know we're related, because our last names are different, it would be next to impossible to make the connection.

A money-making scheme? Hardly. As an independent author, I have no hopes of becoming rich, or famous from the meager proceeds of this book.

Then why on earth did I write such a disgusting, humiliating story based on my life? The main reason is really a pretty basic human need--I wrote it to tell.

For most of my childhood I was afraid to tell, forbidden to tell, and for a long time, I didn't tell. Then when I tried to tell no one believed me. And no one else in my family would tell, so for many years, my abuse was kept a secret, and of course, my family thinks it should continue to be a secret. But I'm no longer a child and no longer afraid. Now I can tell. And that's why I did tell.

Really, above all else, it's the key message of my book: It's okay to tell. By telling my own story I send my message to all abused children and adult survivors. But today, in honor of Child Abuse Prevention/Awareness Month, I send the message, not to abused children, but to their families. Because for almost every abused child out there today, there are family members who suspect something but are not telling. That's one reason, in my opinion, why child abuse is still so prevalent.

Every time you read an article, or hear on the news about another child dying from abuse, ask yourself this: why didn't anyone in the family tell? Surely a parent, stepmother, stepfather, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, an aunt or uncle suspected something. Unless the abuser was a single parent with an only child, who had cut off all contact with family and friends, believe me, someone knew something and didn't tell. I am convinced of this because after I became an adult, practically everyone in my extended family admitted to me they knew I was being mistreated but didn't tell.

Adult survivors, still keeping your secret, you now have a chance to have the tiny voice of the child within you to be heard. Tell. Or consider writing down what happened to you, like I did. You don't have to publish it (writing just happens to be my thing) but you can write about it and let someone you love read what you've written. No matter what anyone says, it did happen. And it's your turn to tell.

If by chance I'm fortunate enough to have a young person, who is in some way involved in abuse, happen upon this blog, or my book, I hope they get my message loud and clear: tell. If  you are afraid, or if the words are too horrifying to utter, then write it down and slip it to someone. If you're not being abused yourself, but a sibling is, or you suspect one of your friends may be a victim--please, please tell.

True Story or Based On a True Story

It makes sense that people wonder why I say my book, Call Me Tuesday, is "based on a true story" and not simply "a true story." The short answer is that personally, I believe every memoir--particularly the ones covering the earliest years of one's life--in which names, locations, etc. have been changed, conversations recreated, and in some cases blanks filled in, should be classified as "based on a true story."

To me, pure nonfiction is documented, researchable facts, not personal reflections, as seen through someone's eyes. For a memoir to be based on truth, I believe the bone structure of the story, to the best of the memoirist's recollection, should remain intact and not embellished upon, which in my case is the horrific, often twisted, childhood abuse I endured at the hands of my disturbed mother. Due to my young age when much of this took place, my recreations of conversations and insignificant events may be imperfect, but the day-to-day torment I suffered during these early years is etched into my memory in vivid detail. This raw, soul-baring account of what I remember is what I offer the reader in Call Me Tuesday.

Nevertheless, readers are understandably confused by all this, as evident in this interesting blog review: 
http://taralovesbooks.blogspot.com/2012/12/call-me-tuesday-by-leigh-byrne-cbr-iv-50.html.

So, the sequel to CMT (projected to be released in late spring or early summer of this year), in which my true experiences are diligently rendered as I recall them, will be classified simply, as a memoir.

Mama is Dead

Mama is dead.

 

They found her Saturday, on the kitchen floor of her home in Memphis. The window in her bedroom was open; the back door unlocked and a lamp was knocked over. Her little dog, Mimi, was missing. Had Mama been the victim of a robbery gone wrong? Detectives were called in. They found her purse; her credit cards were intact. The TV was still there, her jewelry. They found Mimi in a spare bedroom, starving, dehydrated and clinging to life. The detectives did not suspect foul play. Then how did she die?

 

From a picture, I see she looked fine on Thanksgiving—in good health for a woman of 77. But she was taking heart medication. Had she missed a dose–or two? There were pills strewn across her bed. Maybe she had a heart attack and went quickly. It even crossed my mind that it could have been suicide. It was almost exactly the same time right before Christmas that Daddy was killed in a car accident many years ago. Not knowing is excruciating. An autopsy has been ordered, but we have yet to get the results. 

 

My mama is dead. The mama I never truly had, and yet, now that she’s gone, I am filled with sorrow for the loss. I cried when the news sunk in. Why, after the cruel way she treated me—after the abuse I wrote about in the book? I wondered myself. Just how is a victim of child abuse supposed to feel when her abusive parent dies? I think I would have cried hearing that anyone passed in such a sad, lonely way. I think. Or maybe I cried simply because she was my mother, my flesh and blood and because I know with her died any chance of the two of us ever having a relationship. That truth is now painfully stamped into my heart.

 

My mama is dead and I am sad. I write this through tears. But wait, should I be sad? In the many private hours she spent alone, by choice, I know hers was a soul in turmoil. Now it’s at peace, and I should be relieved for her, right?  Relieved that her burden has finally been lifted.

 

Her funeral is Thursday. She will be buried beside Daddy in her home town. And I will be there. After the funeral my brothers and I plan to go back to her house and go through some of her things. In her personal effects and private papers, I hope to find some traces that she loved me after all. I will need your prayers.

 

Until the Spinning Stops

For those of you who visit this blog regularly, yes, I've changed the name. But there's a good reason. I did it because lately, I've found that "every other Tuesday" has been coming around a bit too quickly.

Nobody hates excuses more than me, and I can't believe I'm doing this, but here goes. We are entering our busiest time at work (I work at Macy's), plus, I'm trying to get my stepdaughter ready for college. Between those two things, promoting the book, and trying to be a half-way decent wife to a man who's used to a hot meal on the table at 5 o'clock every afternoon, and has a pile of sewing repairs for me to do...well, to make a long story short, blog Tuesday rolled around this week and I completely forgot about it. Completely. Forgot. Never even entered my mind until about twenty minutes ago. So I decided, for the time being, I will post when I can.

I truly appreciate everyone who follows this blog, and please know that I'm not giving up, I'm just slowing down for a while until my world stops spinning around me.

Nowhere to Hide

Up until my book, Call Me Tuesday, was released earlier this year, only my family and a few close friends knew about my childhood abuse. For years, I went to great lengths to keep it hidden because I feared people might think I was mentally ill, somehow damaged by the horrific abuse I had suffered.

Now, because I made the decision to publish my story, and openly admit the book is based on my own true-life experience, hundreds of people--most of which I've never even met--know I once had to dig around in the trash for food, and drink from the dog's water. That I had to defecate on a piece of notebook paper because I was locked in a room and had nowhere else to go. They know I've had my face smeared in vomit, was made to eat disgusting food and do degrading things.

Don't get me wrong, I am thankful so many people have shown an interest in my story, and the feedback has been both rewarding and therapeutic. But the last thing I want is to be defined by my abuse, nor do I want to be labeled a victim. And anyone who knows me can tell you that I am a proud and private person.  

Why then, you ask, would a proud and private person reveal such humiliating truths in a book? 

More than anything else, I love to write. From the first essay paper read aloud by my teacher in grade school, to the recent publication of my  book, writing has been my strength, my go-to in times of stress. It's the one thing I have always been able to do well. The only thing I've ever done that made my daddy proud.

I was taught in school to write about what I know. My childhood abuse left me with this really bizarre, yet compelling story to tell, so it kind of made sense to make it my first serious endeavor as a published author.

But, I naively thought I could hide behind the word "fiction." Change all the names, locals, time lines, some of the details of what happened, give the story a happy ending, and no one would ever know it was really about me. And I probably wouldn't have even included the words, "based on a true story" in the description, if my best friend (I'm convinced she's also my guardian angel) of over 20 years had not implored me to reconsider. She said that without the element of truth, the story would not have the power to help as many people. And that's the point of the book, right? To purge my soul of poison, and to help others.

Well, partly.

Like I said before, I love to write, and I just so happened to have had this strange and unfortunate childhood that I thought might make for pretty good reading. Sure, the writing of it was cathartic. Sure, the book might possibly help some people, But, in all honesty, I wrote it because that's what writer's do. They write.

When I had finished the book, which is slightly fictionalized, I realized the pain in the words was so raw, so frighteningly real, it was obvious that I, the author, had been the one who had endured it, and there was no use trying to hide from the truth any longer. There is nowhere to hide. 

The Kirkus Review of Call Me Tuesday pretty much says it all:
"Byrne conveys a horrifying story inspired by true-life experience, according to the jacket copy, and though it’s well-written, it’s also very hard to take because the prose so vividly and evocatively portrays suffering."

Be Aware

Is there a certain smell that takes you back to a place and time in your childhood? Does the scent of honeysuckle remind you of carefree summer days playing outdoors with your friends? Or when you walk into a Cracker Barrel restaurant and smell pancakes cooking on the griddle, do you instantly find yourself sitting sleepy-eyed in your mom’s kitchen waiting for her to place a stack of buttery hot cakes on the table in front of you?

For me, some of the smells that trigger childhood memories are sour milk, Jungle Gardenia perfume, and Southern Comfort liqueur. When I sniff a carton of milk before I put it in my morning cereal, if by chance it has gone bad, I am suddenly forcing down clabbered chunks while my mother stands over me with a threatening fist. If I pass an elderly lady who’s wearing the same perfume Mama used to wear, or sit beside someone in a bar who’s drinking her favorite liqueur, out of nowhere I can see her face above me—all flush and gnarled in anger—as she’s forcing my head under scalding bathwater.

As much as I would love to post something funny on my blog this week, I just can’t, because  it’s Child Abuse Prevention Month. So since it’s my last post for April, and I’m an abuse survivor and the author of a book based on my story, I figured it’s as good a time as any to take off my mask of humor and do my part, however small, to bring about awareness of this armpit of all crimes.

Mind you, I’m no authority on child abuse. I only know someone personally who was abused as a child. But I am an authority on her. Her abuse was severe. Not the worst—victims of the worst abuse probably are not around to tell about it—but it was bad. On a scale of one to ten maybe a seven or an eight. I believe that gives me an insight that others may not have, and puts me in the unique position to try to help a few people. So here goes.

Once, after reading my book, someone said to me, “That’s horrible, but it was a long time ago. Stuff like that doesn’t happen anymore.”

Oh yes it does. Every ten seconds a case of child abuse is reported, which adds up to approximately three million a year. And that’s only the cases that are reported. Wonder how many go unreported, like mine.

We are doing a good job of reporting suspected abuse—better than ever before—but we have to try harder, look closer. You can forget about the abused kids telling on their abusers. It’s not going to happen. I can remember my mother and father saying that I should never tell anyone what goes on in the privacy of our home; they said it would rip our family apart. As  horrible as my life was I was still afraid to tell, afraid of what might happen to my brothers and me if I did, of what might happen to our family. You see, what an adult says translates differently in a child’s mind. For instance when my mother told me I was disgusting, ugly or dirty, what I thought was, “I am a bad seed. I deserve to be punished. I don’t deserve anything good to happen to me.”

So, it’s up to us adults to report suspected abuse. I know it’s difficult. I know you don’t want to be all up in somebody’s family business. But I’m telling you it’s the only way.

Maybe I can help. Because I was once abused I know some behavioral signs to watch for when you suspect something is not right. Some signs beyond the obvious.

In a child:

*Flinching at sudden movements

*Always looking around as if waiting for something bad to happen

*Overly compliant, passive or withdrawn

*He or she does not want to go home

*He or she rarely looks at or touches a parent

What to watch for in an adult:

*A parent shows little concern for their child’s welfare

*Blames the child for problems in school or at home

*Makes comments that the child is bad, worthless or burdensome

*Rarely looks at or touches the child

I know this is Child Abuse Prevention Month, but I feel it’s important, since there’s not a month set aside for adults who were once abused, to point out a couple of things that might help those of you who are in a relationship with an abuse survivor to better understand his or her behavior.

Our biggest struggle is with TRUST, and  that’s understandable for obvious reasons. Most of us don’t feel entirely safe in any relationship with another human being. We are always waiting for the big bad to happen. We enter into even the most casual of friendships on our own terms. We may keep you at arm’s length. Many of us prefer to be alone because it’s safer, less complicated. Some of us have numbed our feelings as a way of protecting ourselves. All of us are terrified of being hurt or betrayed.

We are not freaks, but we are damaged goods. We struggle daily with confidence. Speaking for myself, I often have mini panic attacks, usually when I’m attempting to prove myself worthy, like interviewing for a job. And even when I’m doing something as insignificant as rolling a bowling ball down the lane on league night, I sometimes hear a voice in my head telling me how worthless I am, and that I’m going to mess this up. Then I usually do. Mess it up. Gutter ball.

Some of us don’t talk about what happened when we were children because that’s what we’ve been taught to do, what’s been drilled into our heads. And because we are ashamed of it. From my own experience, I’ve found that functioning in society is more difficult once people know. Now that my book is out and my co-workers have read it, I’m ashamed to face them day after day, because I know that they know about all the degrading things I was made to do as a child, all the humiliation I suffered. Now they look at me differently. I get a lot of sympathetic stares. I hear whispers. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I sense that some of them are a bit afraid of me, that they wonder about my mental well-being.

But my biggest challenge and deepest fear concerning my abusive past is that I have yet to remember the worst of it. And I have valid reason to be afraid. Before my father was killed in a car accident, he told my best friend there were horrible parts of my childhood that I have blocked out, and he prayed I would never remember. The idea that something unthinkable is lurking in my subconscious, something my mind is afraid to acknowledge, something even worse than the hell I went through, terrifies me  to the bone.

In honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month, for a limited time the price of the e-book edition of “Call Me Tuesday” will be 99 cents.