Redeem The Silence

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet
voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”
~ MARYANNE RADMACHER-HERSHEY

As I went about my usual Wednesday routine, I focused on what I needed to get done during the day. My life was well-ordered and organized. I had a good husband. We had a nice home on a suburban cul-de-sac with a pool in the backyard we were the proud and busy parents of two darn-near-perfect kids, the born-again Christian parents who were doing everything we knew to be right according to the Bible. In one moment, it all began to crumble.

Midmorning, after my regular gym class, I stopped for groceries and turned toward home. After I pulled into the garage, I began the usual hassle of unloading. Juggling my gym bag, a plastic bag with milk and bread, and a diaper bag, I tried to hoist my twenty-two-month-old son and his baby-blue silky out of the car. After dropping and bending to pick up the silky, I made my way into the house from the garage. I did not notice the deep gouges on the doorjamb. I worked my way up the stairs and set Wesley down to toddle his way into the living room, and then I called, “Come up and get your diaper changed, kiddo!”

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Wesley had plopped down, happily relaxing on the floor, his hands behind his head. Leaving him briefly, I went to the bathroom in the master-bedroom suite. I was wondering how much I could accomplish in the couple of hours before my five-year-old daughter was due home from kindergarten by carpool.

Without warning, life changed in an instant. I went numb as I was confronted by a stocky man just inside the bathroom door.

I quickly registered that he was about five feet ten inches tall. A nylon stocking was drawn gruesomely over his head and dark hair. The barrel of a revolver in his hand was pointed directly at me.

My mind raced to make sense out of the seemingly impossible. Was this some kind of bad practical joke? Had my brother-in-law gotten off work to pull this stunt? What was he doing in my bedroom?

The man grabbed my arm and whirled me around, facing away. No. No. No. This could not be real! That was the last glimpse I had of the man. But the memories are seared into my mind.

The masked man shoved me from the master bathroom into the bedroom and made me get face down on the floor. He jammed the gun into the side of my skull, demanding to know when others were expected home, threatening to shoot me if I lied. Hoping to scare him, I told him my husband was to arrive home soon with our daughter. He demanded money. I told him where it was. As he pressed the gun more firmly into the side of my head, he told me he’d already gotten that.

Suddenly, fear for Wesley overwhelmed me. I began to pray for my son’s protection and begged my attacker to let me care for him. The attacker finally relented, pulled me up and marched me downstairs with the gun firmly in my back.

Wes was still on the floor, unaware of the danger and quite happy even though it was past nap time. I was allowed to carry him to his room, but the window shade had to remain open, my attacker announced. I put Wes to bed with a wet diaper—with none of the usual rocking and reading. Miracle of miracles, that child went right to sleep and never uttered a sound. As I was led away, a peace settled over me. But it lasted only a moment, for the next hour was sheer horror.

My attacker pushed me back into the master bedroom. Using several scarves he’d found in a drawer, he blindfolded me so tightly that later I had trouble seeing. He tied my hands behind my back. He proceeded to fondle my breasts and said “Not much for tits, huh?” I asked him if he was going to rape me. He said no as he began to take off my jogging pants and underwear, then my shoes and socks.

I said, “I thought you weren’t going to rape me.”

“This is just for insurance for when I leave,” he said. He then untied my hands and took off my top. Once I was nude, he retied my hands and got undressed himself. He climbed on top of me and proceeded to rape me in more ways than I am sure you wish to imagine. I cried out in pain, but he told me to shut up and raped me more brutally. At one point, he tried to make me say disgusting things to him. When I didn’t comply, he shouted, “You’re not talking!” The truth was I couldn’t make those words come out of my mouth.

Instead, I said, “Jesus loves you, and you don’t have to do this.” He kept on, and I lost track of time.

When he was getting ready to leave, my attacker forced me onto the bed—facedown. I felt certain he was going to shoot me in the back three times. I can’t explain why that feeling seemed so real. I just knew. I prayed for survival, but as best I could, I prepared to die. (I’ve since learned this is a common fear in all types of rape and molestation.) I was dragged onto the bathroom floor, nude and still tightly blindfolded. He tied a scarf through my mouth and around my head, retied my hands behind me, and bound my feet together.

The attacker then put what seemed to have been an ether-soaked cloth firmly over my face and nearly suffocated me in his haste to make me breathe it. I had no choice. I don’t know how long he kept forcing that, but at some point he let go. It sounded like he was getting dressed. When I found myself losing consciousness, I prayed again, this time to remain awake. At the same time, I tried to convince him that I was going under. He ordered me to count to a thousand. When I had reached thirty-two or so, he yelled at me asking if I could hear him, but I didn’t answer readily on purpose. He asked again, louder. I vaguely acknowledged him. He then ordered me not to tell anyone what had happened, threatening that he or someone else would be back. He then yelled at me to keep counting. I did, up to 130. While he finished getting ready to leave, I miraculously remained alert and heard him leave through the sliding glass doors.

As I lay on the bathroom floor, I thought of my five-year-old daughter who was due home at any moment. Terrified for us both that she would see me this way, I struggled frantically to get my hands free but fell back exhausted. I wondered how, even if I could make it to the telephone, I could talk with a scarf stuffed into my mouth. I prayed again, this time asking for strength. Suddenly, I pulled my wrists apart from behind me, and though I had been unsuccessful a moment before, within seconds I was free.

That was September 22, 1982. The physical turmoil ended. Little did I know that my emotional and spiritual turmoil was just beginning.

If you have lived through any type of sexual violence (SV), then you are a fantastically heroic survivor. You have survived an encounter with death. Whatever you did, you did it right by virtue of the fact that you are still here. But please don’t assume your experience is no longer affecting you. Don’t assume that because your experience of SV is in the past it is therefore unimportant. That is just a form of denial or self-delusion. Because up to 92 percent of communication is unspoken, it is essential that people get help for incidents of SV that may be in their past. Any form of avoidance is a lie and makes one more vulnerable to further emotional and spiritual damage.

Most of us have things written into our souls from our past. We are unaware they often still affect us. These things may be causing us great pain, particularly in relationships and other problems we experience in the present. Unless one has dealt head-on with a history of SV (most often with some kind of help), one is most likely unconsciously communicating in ways that can increase future risk of even more pain.