My grandfather will die this weekend. His body has gone into total renal failure, and the doctors don’t expect him to live for more than a few more days, if not the end of this weekend, then by Monday or Tuesday. And I don’t feel anything.
See, he molested me for 6 years.
I always knew, even as it was happening, that it was his sickness not my fault. I knew it was something wrong with him, not with me. But that doesn’t change the fact that from the age of 6 until the age of about 12 every visit to my grandparents resulted in that violation. And I was the lucky one because we lived hours away, so it only happened on those visits that occurred a few times a year. My cousins who lived locally suffered much more, and for much longer. I think my youngest cousin put up with about 9 years of it, on an almost weekly basis. We all knew we should tell our parents, but who knows anymore why we didn’t. Hindsight is such a strange thing.
When I was about 18, it all came out. It was a big family drama, but I felt removed–it had been years since he had touched me and I had moved on. I didn’t so much forgive him as feel sorry for him. My cousins forgave him, but our family dynamics changed from that point forward. There were no more overnight visits, which broke my grandmothers heart.
When I say I’ve moved on, I mean it. I don’t think of myself as someone who survived abuse, or who was sexually assaulted. It was this random thing that happened to me, like it happens to lots of people, but it does not and has never defined me. Lots of other people have it way worse, and maybe it’s delusional, but I just consider it this thing that I endured, but I never wanted it to define who I am.
I still feel like I should feel something about his death. Relief that he’s gone, anger that he never apologized, fury that he was allowed to do this to us, guilt that I never forgave him personally. Shouldn’t I feel something? The only thing I feel is sad for my aunts and uncles that have to deal with this so suddenly.
Maybe my lack of any feeling is the true closure. He doesn’t have any emotional power over me, good or bad. But I feel like I should feel something.
{ 3 comments }
I’m really sorry you (and your cousins) went through that.
I think your feelings are completely normal, under these or any number of other circumstances.
Wow. I went through something similar and had a similar reaction when my molester died. What I really wanted was to feel savagely happy that he was gone, but I didn’t feel much of anything. I thought maybe I was just numb at the time, but my feelings haven’t changed. My theory is near to yours in that once I reached adulthood and was able to get away, his power over me was gone, so there was nothing left to feel.
I work as a crisis counselor for victims of sexual assault and even though you don’t consider yourself as a survivor, you are. The way you feel right now is as normal as it could get, even though i hate using the word “normal”. You are probably feeling all of those things (guilt, anger, resentment…) but because it’s been so long since the abuse the feelings aren’t registering. It’s hard for a survivor to “feel” anything for his/her attacker so far after the fact because they no longer represent what they did. At a time in your life when you were forming attachments to family and friends he violated a trust. He stopped being your grandfather and became an evil horrible man who, in some ways, you probably still felt love for. Maybe you didn’t realize it was love because of what he was doing; you hated what he was doing to you and you hated him for it but the title of grandfather still earns some feeble attempt of love. But now, you’re older and you’ve moved on, as much as anyone can, and that title means nothing. He’s not what he should have been and you feel nothing. Don’t feel guilty, don’t regret. You were forced to do something you didn’t want to do and you knew it was his fault the whole time and that’s more than a LOT of people in your situation. Don’t spare a tear for him. If you truly have moved on (and whether you have or not I highly recommend you see and counselor who specializes in sexual assault) trying to feel something or forcing yourself to is only going to set you back. You are a strong person and I admire that you never let it define you. Keep moving forward!!
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