Pain as a Child

By Charlotte Ruth

Abuse should never be suffered in silence. Blocking it and pushing down is good for a while, but it will never go away. Something will happen to trigger them to resurface.  Abuse should be brought to the attention of authorities.

 Abuse, whether physical or mental, has devastating and long-term effects on everyone involved. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ardella Moriarity
• Release date: May 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9780578503660

Book preview

Acknowledgment

This book would not have been possible without the encouragement of the Writers’ Group that I attended monthly. They inspired me to pursue my dream of writing. I am deeply indebted to Doris, the Writers’ Group and the Boys and Girls Club that gave me the inspirations to move forward with my dreams.

Awareness

Here I am at age 68 deciding to write about my childhood sex abuse upbringing in the early 1950s. I guess what finally brought me to this awareness were several realizations brought about from: those I am currently working with today, and their stories; that is what is bringing it back to my blocked-out memory.

Two of those realities came from my current work with the Boys and Girls Club. They held a three-hour seminar on child abuse, called Darkness to Light—Stewards of Children, showing and raising awareness of child abuse. The second was, while working at the Boys and Girls Club, I see children come and go every day, watch their mood swings from day to day and their reactions to simple commands. I have children say to me, I wish you were my mother or I wish you were my grandmother. And even wish I could go home with you because you are so kind.

I have also seen one or two kids come in with self-inflicted cuts on their arms or wrists. This makes me wonder what kind of life they are living at home or go home to every night or every other weekend. Plus, there are several other kids that are being raised by their grandparents, because living in a small town you know a lot of people and you read a lot about what happens and too. Plus, some kids tell that both their parents are in jail for drugs or other reasons. I am sure these are different stories, again based on their home environment and can be told in a different story.

Child sexual abuse is a complex problem in itself. With that being said, during the early 1950s, there were not a lot of laws established or enforced for any adults or children, being abused or the abuser. No hot lines to call for support to go to or marked designated safe places for them to run to either.

According to Law.com, kids did not have rights in the 50s. They were considered property as far as the law went. The organization called NYSPCC is the society for the prevention of cruelty to children organized in 1875. So that should give you an idea of how children rights were thought of back then.

Grandfather

I will start my story at the point where I can recall my first incident of sexual abuse. I believe I was close to the age of four years old. Usually that is the earliest age any child can start to remember things in their upbringing. I was the youngest