Thursday, October 13, 2011

Stop Whispering About Abusive Crimes


Stop Whispering
Breese woman uses personal experience of childhood abuse, neglect & sexual assault; along with years of domestic violence, physical and mental abuse, to expose an unbelievable story of nightmares & strength.
By Vicky Albers Breese Journal Editor

There’s an 8 x 10 framed photograph of a beautiful little girl hanging on the wall in the hallway of Patricia McKnight’s Breese home. The little girl is 5 years old. She is smilling and happy. After all, she has just started kindergarten. What the little girl in the photo didn’t know all those years ago was that her innocence would soon be stripped away and her life would never be the same again.“It was on the night of my mother’s bridal shower. I was 5 years old, and that’s the first night that my (future) stepfather molested me,”. Now she is the author of a book called “My Justice” which provides a very graphic story of McKnight as a child lost in a small town. Not only did she suffer from severe neglect, which left her severely physically scarred; but she was also forced to endure sadistic attacks by her stepfather until she left home at the age of 17.

“This book is not a matter of wanting to punish those who have hurt me, but instead it’s a necessity to finally speak of the many years of trauma, violence and sadness that have been my life,” she said. “There were always so many people who insisted on my secrecy, but those secrets have destroyed me and have also touched my children’s lives. This is my chance to finally release who I really am inside, and how that sweet, little, happy girl I once was, was so completely torn apart by the crimes committed against her.”

The most important message Trecia Ann, now 47, hopes to convey:

 "Stop Whispering About Abusive Crimes."
“I hope to reach out with this book, to speak out against child abuse, sexual assault and domestic abuse, which are crimes. We don’t whisper to our kids about any other crimes in this world. So many women find themselves trapped in a violent world that they can’t get out of. You don’t think it affects your children, but it truly does.”

In fact, it was a need to explain her background to her three children — who are all grown now and living out of the state — that prompted the book.


“I sat down and started writing to my children to explain why their mom had allowed such chaos in her life,” she said. “Once everything was written, I felt it was really important to publish this in hopes of influencing or helping someone else.”The names in the book have been changed to protect any innocent people in her life, McKnight said, however, “There are no longer any secrets. I’m finally giving a voice to that terrified little girl.”

Growing up in Freeburg, McKnight was known to her family as Trecia Ann. Her stepfather was a coal miner in a coal mining town.“Everybody knew my stepfather as a drunk, even the police feared him, and my mother was known as a sweet woman doing her best to raise her children,”. What everyone didn’t know was that for more than 12 years, her stepfather was at home making almost nightly visits into his stepdaughter’s room. That he had repeatedly molested, beat and raped her. That he had distorted her every thought, had taken away her right to decide what was right and wrong and had destroyed her right to have protection and safety in her own home. Hearing the horrific stories of her childhood, one has to wonder why didn’t she ever tell anyone? Why didn’t she go to the police? Today, she said, she does regret never speaking up. Today, she realizes there are people who would have helped her. But, as a young girl, she never thought it was possible, and she was forced to believe that at a very young age. 

"Children believe adults; they hang onto your every word. If you tell a child they are stupid, they believe you; tell them the sky will fall, they will believe you. What you say to you children when they are young affects their everyday thought. Walter taught me that I was dirty, I was naughty, I had to let him touch me, “That is how daughters show their daddies that they love them.” By the time I was 8 years old the nights never stopped coming. His hands never stopped touching. His words spun around in my head every day. I can still hear him whispering those awful and disgusting things to me. Still I have nightmares about his huge dirty hands touching me. In some ways, I can still feel the dirt he left on me, the dirt that is embedded so deep in my soul it will never wash away."

As Trecia Ann grew older the attacks became more sadistic, the mind games more cruel, the beatings more frequent and the welts and signs of neglect more apparent. She was just 12 when she decided she could no longer bathe in her own home.“He loved trapping me in the bathroom, whether mom was home or not,” she said. Needless to say, by the time she reached high school, her self-worth had diminished.

At 17, Trecia Ann finally left home and moved to Granite City. “After two years, what I thought would be a great, wonderful rescue turned out to be another abusive relationship,’ she said. At 19, she was forced to move back home but she left after just a few months due to her stepfather’s continued stalking and taunting. Eventually she married and had three children. While her first husband was not physically abusive, he was controlling and it took little effort for him to attack her on an emotional level. A turning point in her life finally came at the age of 37 following a brutal attack by her abusive second husband. “After a two-hour beating, he cornered me in my son’s room and started beating me with one of those old-style, heavy chrome chairs,” she said. The attack caused permanent damage to her back, but it also prompted her to make a solemn promise to herself. To do all she can to prevent another soul being trapped in the silence of abuse.

 
"Every day I had to control myself to keep from expressing the horrible person whom my parent's abuse & training had created. For 32 years I lived without breathing, without happiness; now it was finally my time to have that life of enjoyment with my children and keep the chaotic mess of abuse out of our lives.”

According to the victim’s assistance organization Safe Horizon, one in four women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime.
As a young child nothing could keep her from going to church. When her stepfather entered her life at the tender age of 5, the name of God was a big part of his intimidation of her. At 10, when my mother was gone and he would make me strip and get into bed with him, he would tell me, ‘God will only forgive you as a child.’ When I turned 12, his attacks were more violent and he would say, ‘God won’t forgive you anymore.’


She had issues with God and religion for a very long time. “Today, I have to seriously believe that he has been dealt with.”

She tried to maintain a relationship with her mother, but finally quit speaking to her four years ago.

 
“I never wanted to blame my mother. he’s my mom and the term ‘mom’ carries a certain reverence. But my mother would come home and see the bruises; to only turn away and ignore them. The last time I tried to reach out for help was at 15; to tell her what my stepfather was doing to me, yet nothing ever changed.” When Trecia was trying to heal through years of therapy her mother continued to deny any wrongdoing and stood to protect her husband.
“For years I didn’t put any blame on her. She was very much under educated and afraid to raise her children on her own. Finally, I had to let go of the mother I had been trying so hard to please and the only thing I felt was anger,” she said. “After so many years of her letting out little pieces of information that told me she knew about Walter, she still was insisting on her denial of everything. She was still protecting him instead of her child.”

Trecia Ann lived her life torn away from one family (after her stepfather entered her life at the age of 5, she was no longer permitted to have any contact with her real father or his family) and neglected and abused by another family. Still, she is a survivor and her battles have been fought with her determination to change and grow as a woman and mother. In spite of 32 years of trauma, brutality and sadness, today she has shown tremendous beauty while gaining back the happiness that was robbed from her.

   About two years ago now, Trecia's stepfather finally died. She received a phone call from a family member who informed her of the funeral arrangements. She took a very deep breath of relief when she learned that the man who terrorized her for more than 12 years would now have to answer to a higher judge.


 “I pulled his obituary up online and then I actually created my own,”. Those words are printed in the final chapter of “My Justice.”


    Trecia Ann admits that “My Justice” is a brutally honest glimpse into her struggle to overcome the abuse — and its long-term effects. “It’s very graphic and it’s very hard to read,”. However, through her book and through the Internet connections she has made with other survivors, Trecia is on a mission to use her experiences and her tortured life to help educate others, bring awareness to communities and to give encouragement to all survivors to reach out to just one person.


“I have gained such extreme peace with myself by putting this book together and through reaching out to other survivors of these crimes. I truly hope, with God’s good blessing, that I can help protect at least one other child from the same abuse that I endured. There has to be something, some way a community can help these kids without the fear of being taken out of their homes.”


Trecia Ann has started a new life in Breese where she has lived for the past nine years. Today, she is in a happy, loving and safe relationship with a man whom she said played a major part in her recovery.


“I am so supported and so loved right now. I didn’t think I would ever get here. I want to let people know, there is happiness after abuse. There is something to move forward for. It’s not easy, you have to work at it, but it’s there.”

Editor’s note: If you would like to con- tact Patricia McKnight, e-mail: trish.mck night@live.com. You can also connect with her via Facebook :facebook.com/triciagirl62
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