Stained: The Secret Shame of a Teenage Girl

By I J Boes

Having been raised in a religious and socially isolated home, nothing prepared me for the dangerous world I would encounter. Stained is the true story of an innocent girl, and her fight for survival.

While growing up, I heard my mother whispering about my uncle. At age 11, I found out the dark secret of Uncle Hank. That was only the beginning of a long and painful jouirney of sexual abuse and emotional torment, and living with the permanent stain of shame.

After being rape twice by the same man, I was horrified when he moved into the house across the street. Being thrown into an abyss of shame and fear, suicide seemed to be the only way out.

This is the true story of the first twenty years of my life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462018178

I J Boes

I received my BS in Sociology, and started writing children stories. Now, I want to tell the story of my painful childhood, in the hope of helping other children. I have always loved both writing, and reading fiction. I could transport myself into another time and place. It helped me forget my pain.

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Afterword

Introduction

When I first considered writing about my life, I thought I would simply sit down at the computer and start typing. I mean, how hard could it be? All the information I needed was in my head. Of course, I have spent most of my life trying not to remember the shame I felt; and still feel.

Once I managed to get the shaking under control, it all started to pour out of me. I had suppressed the shocking details of my childhood by pretending it never happened. I survived the nightmare, but I have it permanently etched in my brain. It jumps out at me without warning. I have learned to suppress the memories, and the constant, over-whelming fear. I watched the events happen from outside a bubble—telling myself it happened to someone else. It is something I have learned to live with. Remembering the events has been tough; writing the details for everyone to see has been demoralizing. I have gone through three decades of my life trying not to remember. But for the sake of all children, my story needs to be told.

I have made a lot of bad decisions, so I have to shoulder some of the blame. I remember thinking at one point in my early years, ‘this must be normal, so I have to adapt.’ Of all the adults that knew what had happened to me, not one of them seemed surprised, or even upset. No one offered to protect me.

I was young, naïve, and trusting, so men saw me as easy prey. I know a lot of bad decisions I made later in life, were the direct result of the first eighteen years of my life. The years that should have been the happiest were stolen from me. My life has been a painful, traumatic journey. Even now that I’m a mature woman with a grown son, I still feel frightened and helpless.

What bothers me the most is, at a time when I should have been loved and protected—I was thrown to the wolves. I couldn’t talk to my parents. I thought they would blame me. I knew they would condemn me. What abuse, suffered by a child, could be vile enough to lose the love of a parent? In our family, virtue was everything. The loss of virtue, no matter how it came about, was a reflection on the entire family. If I could have had an open and honest relationship with my parents, maybe they would have protected me better. More than likely, as was the case when I was being mistreated by my older brother, they wouldn’t have listened. Or even worse, they would have blamed me.

After many tearful hours at my computer; this is my story.

Chapter 1

What do parents really know about their children? Most children keep little secrets. I guess we kind of had a ‘don’t ask–don’t tell’ policy, at our