My journey is now ten years out. Ten years of awareness from denial.
Ten years is a long time.
Ten years of seeing me.
Ten years of standing by my truth.
Ten years of walking the path less traveled.
Ten years of being seen as mental by those who walk differently...or ten years of being different.
Ten years of doing things the opposite of what I was taught.
Ten years.
Is a long time.
To be walking against the beat of the family.
To be the odd man out.
To be separated.
To stand a single soul... against so many.
My lone voice drowned to silence by the sheer volumn of numbers speaking differently; joined together in family harmony.
The comfort of the group, lulls them...is there really safety in numbers?
Ten years I have had, to get comfortable being different; being the blacksheep of the family. Being the one who is standoffish, cool...indifferent to the family drum beat.
It is truly hard to believe that ten years have passed.
Ten years is, again, a long time.
I feel that it has taken that long to separate myself and feel whole coming from a family in denial of abuse.
It is in fact, their denial that has been the hardest to be with.
Or denial is what separates us.
In their denial they can't see me.
Well, certainly they can see me, but they don't get me.
It is the lack of understanding or commonality that separates us.
They literally have chosen to preserve the family unit over the integrity of a child's abuse.
It is that simple and that complicated.
I represent the abused child.
And my actions have always leaned in that direction.
And in doing so, lean away from family.
The direction we lean into is the only meter we have to measure denial or awareness.
After ten years of leaning in a direction that is the opposite of "Family"...I know to the depth of my soul, that the reason more victims don't stand by their own truths, is that they will feel the family pull away.
The only interactions I have had with my family over these ten years is to tell me how off I am, how insane, cold, bitter, hardened, nuts, etc. The family will literally and figuratively turn against the child, as the child speaks of being sexually abused by a family member.
I am a grown adult speaking out.
Imagine how a child would survive this?
The Huhta's have banned together to uphold and support our family.
Ten years and counting...or decades and decades....generations upon generations. Children with grown children who now have young children, will feel the legacy of abuse, due to the way they all lean.
Ten years is just a snippet of time that encapsulates the history and how it repeats itself.
How families band together to form a tight connection that keeps abuse securely inside. Somehow they naively think that the threat of abuse left when Ray died. New offsprings of Ray were born when he abused them...they are now tightly held inside the family. (Also victims typically attract other abusers....the threats are not from the Huhta's alone, but from the ripple affect of others they hang with.)
Ten years I have stood outside.
Ten years abusers tightly held inside.
Abused and the abusers all coexisting under the same false pretense of family.
Love and acceptace of abuse.
Shuning and indifference to me and my words.
When I see my sisters, sister-in-laws...I see warriors against the truth. Mini versions of my mother. I see the cycles, the new generations of girls/boys beginning my journey.
I see nothing among them that inspires me to think abuse has lessened.
Instead I see the perfect landscape for pedophiles.
Ten years have been quite fruitful for them. More victims being born...
Pedophiles LOVE the warriors against truth...the ones who overlook and move on, to not stare at abusers and hold them accountable.
Ten years and not a word of mine have they heard.
There is no part of me that wants to move towards these women...even after ten years.
Ten years and counting outside of the cycle of abuse.
Its legacy is one that is not easily escaped.
You literally have to turn against family and embrace your own truth.
You will be at odds.
In order to heal, you will no longer attend their functions, be part of their lives.
They, are the old you. They are what you need to be different from in order to end the cycle.
They and you can't be alike at all.
It is to shed the traits and images we naturally pick up in families; it is to re-invent yourself into someone who is completely different than say your mother.
I was a mirror image of my mother.
It has taken 10 years to change my reflection.
My reflection is now of my own self.
It shines from within.
My truth I see...and it shines back at me.
