A woman who was sexually abused by her father for a long time as a child no longer wants to cover up what she was put through. For her stolen childhood, for her to be able to live today. So that no child will ever experience this again.
Can you tell us what kind of family you grew up in?
We lived in the same house with my grandparents, aunts and uncles. They brought my mother from a village for marriage. I was spoiled by my grandmother because I was the first child. They were expecting me to be a boy. Especially my mother. It’s always created a sense of incompleteness in me.
My parents were marketers. They’ve lived in the same neighborhood for years. They went to the same markets. They were well known, but they weren’t very much loved. Geçenlerde annemin ameliyat için kan gerektiğinde, kan verecek kimseyi bulamadılar…
They were financially well off. A wad of money was always visible in your father’s pocket. That’s why the neighborhood kids would shut me and my brother out. “You guys are rich!” I couldn’t understand why they were excluding us. My thumb would be visible from my torn shoe. That’s how I used to go to school.
They always tell that when we opened the closet, there was always only one olive. “Am I going to eat it or my brother?” We would stare at eachother. Then my brother and I would go to my grandma. “Grandma, we’re hungry, feed us.”
He is drunk in the middle of the night, wakes up my mom: “Come on, we will to dance. We’re going for a drink!” Then he would beat the mom when she objected. There was always a fight at home. My father tried to kill himself in front of me many times. He tried to beat and kill his mother. In short, I lived in a house with lots of violence.
Do you remember when the abuse started?
I do! When I had corona disease, I remembered everything clearly. While I was playing on the street, my mother used to call me: “Get ready, we’re going to henna night!” A relative had had a henna night. Our clothes used to be in your mother’s bedroom. And since there’s no one in the house, I would change in the bedroom. The door opened once. My father came in. I was wearing a yellow blouse. My breasts are just barely coming out. He came in, put his hand in the blouse, started touching. He started sucking my breasts saying “They’re beautiful. They’re going to grow big. We’re going to kiss them… We’re going to suck them.”
Then he let me go. I didn’t know what happened then. I went to the henna night. People were dancing, calling me to join the dance. I danced, but I always thought: “Why did my father love me like that?” I was twelve years old. After a long time, he started coming to my room at night from time to time.
(We had to leave this part unfinished because she wasn’t feeling well.)
Have you thought about getting help?
I didn’t think I could stop it. Since I didn’t think I could stop it, I woke up on the morning of the night I was abused and said to my mother: “Mom, I’m 15. If I commit suicide now, God will forgive me and not send me to hell.” My mother was a very faithful person. I even tried once. Even the neighbors saw it. When I was on the balcony. When my mom said ‘What are you doing?’, I was even afraid to tell her that I wanted to jump off.
I decided to tell my mother when I was 16. We just came to our summer house from Istanbul. My father and I were at sea. Pretending to help me swim, I suddenly felt my father’s fingers between my legs. I had a different realization there. I thought something was wrong. “Something’s being done right now, I’ve got to get out!” I had a nervous breakdown. I cried and yelled. They immediately brought me to Istanbul from the villa. “What’s happening to you? Why are you feeling so bad?”
I decided to tell my mother the next day. I said: “Mom, dad…” As I was about to continue, my father, he must have heard our voices from the inside, came in, hid somewhere my mother couldn’t see, and made a hush sign. I had to shut up. Because he was either going to kill me, marry me to someone I didn’t know, or send me to orphanage. I kept quiet.
When my mother was about to have a surgery, for the first time in years she said: “You were a good, compliant child, what happened to you afterwards? Something happened that summer. You were about to tell me?” I said, “Now is not the time, another time.” Because I wasn’t ready to tell my mom then. And when I was ready, my mother didn’t believe it. Actually, she did. She knew everything that was going on.
Do you think your father abused others, too?
I didn’t like to go to bed early at night. I couldn’t sleep. One night when I couldn’t sleep again, when my parents thought I was sleeping, I heard them talking. My mother was asking my father referring to a relative of ours: “How could you kiss her? How can you touch her p…?” During my confrontations, when I brought this up to the woman who was abused, she said: “Don’t talk about it. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I can’t do anything for you.”
Then there’s this thing being told about my father’s aunt: When my mother warned me about my clothes when I was 14 or 15, she said something like this: “Look, even your father attacked his own aunt from behind because she was wearing a miniskirt. If that’s what your father does to his aunt, what will the men out there do to you? Think!”
(When we met two days later to complete the interview, his agenda was different. She had new information about her father’s abuses. Despite the weight of this information, which is very difficult to accept, she insisted on speaking.)
A friend of mine who lives in the same neighborhood as my parents called me today. To find out why I never visit my parents. I wasn’t planning on telling, but when she insisted that I should visit my parents, I couldn’t resist telling her what was going on. My friend had a nervous breakdown. Because I found out that my father abused my friend, too. And she mentioned four other friends besides her and that my mother knew about it and turned a blind eye to it. “Your mother used to be there when I came to you. While your father was abusing me, your mother would turn her back and pretend we didn’t exist.”
All the children of the neighborhood…
When the children were playing in the street, he would corner the girls in the shadows, lower their panties, and in front of them, he would touch their genitals. The girls would always run away when they saw him.
That is, I’m so angry! I want to tear myself apart because I’m carrying his genes right now. I hate my parts that look like him right now…
How did the abuse end?
I had a friend when I was 17. She was a very brave girl. She had a great family. Her parents saw me as their daughter. I used to be scared to go to them because of my father. I always wanted my friend to come to us. She used to say, “I am not afraid of anyone but God. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die, and if I’m going to live, I’m not grateful to anyone.” Hw-Her confidence encouraged me. I thought: “If my friend thinks that, alone as she is, if she can handle anything, so can I.” One day I was getting ready to go to my friend’s again when my dad came in. He started abusing me again. I said “Let me go! Look, if you do it again, I’m going to tell mom. I’m going to tell everybody. I’m going to kill you; and I’m going to kill myself.” Then he said: “Oh, don’t do it! Don’t tell anyone!” I was a grown-up now. I was stronger, I was sure of myself. Now he knew I was going to say it. After that, he stayed away from me.
How did you get out of home?
I met my future husband when I was 19. We met on a job application. When he asked us to get married, I got married and left my home.
While I was arranging dowries during the wedding preparations, my mother gave my aunt a little piece of cloth. To see if I’m still a girl or not. She told my aunts: “She is to hold this down there during her first night. Let’s see what’s up!” My aunts told me: “Look, this is how you’re going to do it! Leave it at home on the honeymoon. We’ll and come and check it when we come to clean your house when you are on honeymoon.”
My mother always warned me; protect yourself, protect your maidenhood, don’t talk to men, don’t let them kiss you. When I started receiving these warnings when I was 14 or 15 years old, I realized; There’s something in the genitals, I have to watch out for that. I have to protect that. I left the cloth piece especially in the middle of the house to prove myself to my mother.
As a child who has experienced neglect and abuse at home, how were you out there inside people?
I wasn’t like a child. I felt like I’d never been born. Because I thought it was my fault… I saw myself as a being who should not be in this world, like a demon.
While buying myself something at the grocery store, I’d say, for example, that I didn’t deserve it. I was 12 or 13, I was going to get candy? No candy for me! The other kids deserved it, but I did not!
The kids used to talk about the movies they were watching. They used to say: “The girl and the boy were kissing!” They would tell it with shame and shyness, but it wouldn’t seem strange to me. Of course, they didn’t know what some children were going through.
I started to raise my scores at school when I felt stronger. After that incident at sea, I had to study and get out of that home. I didn’t feel like I belonged in that house. I felt like I was orphaned at the dinner table. I was in a place I shouldn’t have been. Bites wouldn’t go down my throat. I thought I didn’t even deserve the water I drank.
I was having a hard time communicating with people. People made a huge mistake and I’d be unresponsive to it. I was aware of my problems, but I couldn’t understand what was at the root of it and what I was angry about. I didn’t know how to relate it to myself.
I also found it strange that people go to night visits. The nights meant something different to me. The nights were a time to be hidden. I was saw that my husband’s family were seeing each other at night, not during the day. People weren’t supposed to get together at night, it was dangerous. When our house was crowded, for example, and I used to think that when I was in one room, something else might be happening in another room. Or a man coming out of the bathroom while I’m filling tea in the kitchen could do something wrong to me. What if I couldn’t make my voice heard in such a situation!
We were all kids when we got married. My father-in-law held his daughters and daughters-in-law in his lap and loved them. I thought it was weird. Why are you holding your daughter-in-law? How can you be innocent to your bride when even my father is so bad? When he wanted to love me the same way, I used to reject saying “No, I’m a baby? I don’t like being loved like that.”
How exactly did psychotherapy and confrontation begin?
Before I got therapy, I often went to the E.R. for panic attacks. I knew something was triggered. Of course, I couldn’t tell the people around me. I’d only talk about it when I was referred to a psychiatrist after the E.R. They’d prescribe drugs and send me away.
My parents caught the corona last spring. They called me to clean up before their quarantine period ended. I couldn’t say no. Normally, I was very cautious about corona measures. Four days later, my test results came positive. I started taking the pills. I had a different symptom apart from the symptoms of the corona, there was another disorder I couldn’t make sense of. I was in bed at night and I felt so weird. I was always restless. I was looking at my daily life, and it was okay. I thought it was the effects of the corona.
One night I couldn’t sleep again during the days that followed, I had a voice in my head saying, “There’s something wrong with your life. You have a big problem, and you have to solve it.” I got up; I almost fell; “What do I have to figure out?” In those days, I came across a video while surfing on Instagram. I think she was a woman my age. She was also sexually abused by her own father. I met him before I met you. That was when I knew what my problem was.
I made my husband watch the video. I said, “That’s what I was trying to tell you.” He was shocked. I was equally in shock. I was sleeping at night and was going through the same thing. Day by day I went through all the experiences of that time as a child. The same sentences in my ear all the time. I wanted to die. But I had two kids.
Two months after I recovered, my mom invited me to do a cleanup at her villa. He just had surgery, he needed some fresh air. My dad was going to clean the garden, I was going to clean the house. I said, “I can’t do cleaning with two kids, I’ll pay for it and have someone do it.” My father refused. I was making thing up about it again. I was going there with Daddy. I would stay there the night. During the day, the door would be closed. That door, iron door! What if he does something to me? What if I kill myself? I told my mother I couldn’t go but again I had a nervous breakdown out of anxiety…
The last straw was an argument with my wife. I was in the kitchen one day. I could hear my daughter and her father’s voices. I came running. “What the hell are you doing? Why are you guys next to each other? Why are you laughing so much? Are you tickling her? What the hell are you doing?” My husband grabbed me and shook me; “Wake up, not everyone is like your father. If I were to do something like that, I’d kill myself.” After that, I decided to get psychological support.
You decided to confront your father. Can you tell me what happened?
The confrontation with the father is important because it’s a new cause of trauma. Let me put it this way: After three months of therapy, I was beginning to overcome my fears about it a little bit. On the morning of October 9th, I went to the father’s house with my husband and children, saying, “It’s time!” I left the kids with my grandmother, who lived downstairs. I said to grandma, “No matter what you hear, don’t come out with the kids!” I went upstairs to my mothers’ house. I knocked a few times. They didn’t open the door. I knew they were in there, there was a movement. I knocked again and my mother opened the door. Nervous, she said, “What do you want from us!” “Let’s go in, I’ll tell you what I want!” We went in. Dad was sitting in the kitchen. I went to your dad. He said: “Tell me what you want. Then get the fuck out of my house! You’re not my daughter! You’ll never come here again; I disown you!” I responded: “What do you mean, you disown! Do you have the right to disown? You’re not a father, I hold that right!”
I took out my phone, I was showing my father my childhood photos from the album. Coincidence is, we saw my picture of the beginning of the abuse.
“Do you remember this child? Do you remember what you did to her?”
He said: “I don’t remember anything. Did I tell you to wear a skirt!”
“What skirt, what are you talking about? I’ll remind you of all of it!” I started telling him what he did to me when I was a kid. He came at me to shut me up, tried to hit me. When my husband tried to stop him, he tried to hit my husband. He picked up the knife that was on the counter. (Normally in our house, a knife is not left on the counter. I don’t know why it was there that day.) He walked up to me with a knife. When my husband wanted to protect me, he pointed the knife at my husband. My husband pushed him away from us. “Get the hell out of here!” he shouted. Mom sent us out. “You’re lying, your father didn’t do anything!” she said.
Can you tell me what you went through during the trial?
When you first mention it, you think everyone’s going to support you for what you’ve been through, but it doesn’t work that way. One by one, people started to leave me.
There used to be a fear of how to explain it to people. Now I’m saying, I’ll tell people no matter what. Now it’s your time to worry. Doubt people that surround you. Let’s tell you about it so you can get familiar with it. So don’t say, “No, he wouldn’t do that” when your children mention something like this to you. So, I went down this road…
Lawyers from UCİM supported me. As I prepared for the trial, I found that there was a lack of knowledge in the people who run the justice mechanism. In my case, for example, there’s no time out status. If the person who committed the crime is your father or mother, there is a period of up to 24 years to prosecute. I still had four years before my case expires.
They said, “Is there anyone to testify?” It’s domestic. There’s no one to testify. There was, but everyone backed off. My mother never listened to me anyway. When my brother tried to talk, his hands shook, he panicked. He said, “Don’t she try to talk to me! Let her go to the police station and solve her problems with her father at the police station. They don’t concern me!” Later on, he began to say, “You’re lying, you’re slandering, your father didn’t do that.” They began to make plans. We sell everything, we move to another town. We live the way we want.
My brother was supporting me at first. But when my father told him, “I’m going to disinherit you,” he withdrew his support. For them, wealth comes before honor. “Okay, sister, you do that, but don’t let our right of inheritance be taken away.
You mentioned it occasionally, but I’d like to ask you again: How did what you went through when you were a kid affect your family relationships, especially your relationships with your children?
My relationships with my children… I mean, I thought I should protect my kids more. Especially my daughter… On the one hand, my daughter seemed like my mother’s child to me. As if my mom’s going to protect her better. I guess I was thinking that because I was afraid to take responsibility. You know, if what happened to me happened to my daughter because of my negligence, I couldn’t handle it. My attitude lasted for about two or three years. And then, I became more interested in my daughter, thinking I’m the mother of my daughter, and I’m the one who needs to protect her. This interest later turned into an overprotective form of oppression. I’m in the kitchen, for example, my daughter’s in the living room watching TV. I’m calling out to my daughter, “Give me a voice, Mommy!” There’s no voice. ” Are you all right, darling?” No voice again. Then I run to the living room. “My girl, are you okay? What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you give me a voice?” “Oh, nothing! I couldn’t hear you because of the TV.”
When my daughter was a baby, when I had to eat, People wanted to hold my daughter -whether it’s a woman or a man- I would say: “You don’t have to hold her. I’m very comfortable!” and keep my child in my own arms. They couldn’t understand why I was so fond of my child.
You’re thirty-six now, and looking back, how do you think it affected your life?
I recently experienced something: I often make pastries, especially when winter comes. My daughter wanted pastries again. I said “My fingernails are long, girl. I can’t do it with long fingernails. It can’t be done with gloves.” She asked: “Mom, why do you always grow your nails?” I said: “When I cut my nails, my hands look like your grandfather’s.” I realized why I’ve been growing nails for years.
Ekim ayında otuz yedi yaşıma girdim. Hissettiğim?…Yaşamamışım ben…Geriye dönüp baktığım zaman, çocukluğum elimden alınmış, gençliğim elimden alınmış… Anneliğim alınmış… Şu an olanda gençliğimin son yıllarının elimden alınması…
She was my child, but I didn’t feel like she was my own. Sometimes I even felt like my child was from my father. There’s no such thing! But for a few years after she was born, I’ve been distant from my child because of this.
What would you want to do about it if you thought you’d never be judged, if you had no worries, if you thought people would just support you?
I’d like to tell everyone the things that I told my psychologist with shame, things that the more I think about, the more I feel like they are my fault, in writing and speech; everything my father did to me. Then I’d like to stand in front of that man and yell in a way that everyone can hear. “Why did you put me through this!? I was your child, why did you put me through this!? …”
I don’t have anything else to ask. But if there’s anything you want to add, except for these questions…
I want to raise awareness in the community through people like you, and I who has been going through this. Especially for mothers. I want the society not to ignore anything it hears; violence against women, violence against children, abuse. I don’t want people to say, “This is how it goes.” I want us all to get stronger together. I want research be done on these matters. I want people to listen to the children. Even if they are lying. I want people to take them seriously by saying, “Why did my child lie?” There’s a reason for lying. I want them to question themselves first, then their children. I think we should question everything.