Confessions

In 1993 I decided to go back to Zimbabwe to stay with my parents for a while.  Ryan agreed to this as we were having a really hard time right then, both on an emotional level and a financial level.  He moved in with some friends and I went back to Redcliff.

The turmoil I was going through followed me and I was on an emotional seesaw.  This then led to arguments between me and my parents.  Although I had grown much closer to them, I was in a very bad place and with Ryan so far away, I didn’t have any way of distracting myself from my sense of uselessness.  So I took it out on them.

I will never forget the one argument as long as I live.  I cannot remember what the original fight was about, nor how it turned to my parents talking about how they had always been there for me.  But my response is one that I will forever wish to take back.  That I will always regret.  My response was ‘if you were always there for me, where were you when Alex was molesting me?’.

The shock and horror on their faces was indescribable.  The silence stretched on for what seemed like a lifetime.  Then my mother called me a liar.  A typical knee jerk response.  How else does a mother react when her daughter tells her that a trusted family member had perpetuated such a terrible act against her?

And I wished that I could take the words back.  I wished I could wipe away the pain that was showing clearly on their faces.  But now it was out and there was no way I could go back.  I tried to explain, to defend myself, defend my actions.  Because I believed that I was somehow to blame.  I thought that part of the fault lay with me.  I could not understand back then that I was a victim and could not be held responsible for what had been done to me.

Now I was taking responsibility for Alex’s actions.  Taking the whole thing on my own shoulders.  The way I saw it, I should not have allowed it to happen.  I should have told someone.  I should not have let him get anywhere near my friends.  What if he had done this to one of them too?  How could I live with myself if I had let that happen?

My parents and I never really discussed it.  I don’t think they really knew how to handle it.  But the atmosphere in the house was terrible, so the next day I phoned my husband and asked him to come to Redcliff at the weekend to collect me and the boys to take us back home.  He had by this stage managed to secure a house, although we would not have any furniture.  But anything had to be better than facing my parents and seeing their pain.