Same Pattern, Different Players...and We Don't Listen to the Victims

This is a story that keeps replaying itself in different homes...it is only the faces that change but the pattern of abuse is the same. Father starts to sexually abuse daughter...she suffers in silence for so long until somehow, either by default or design, she opens up to Mother or any other person. Instead of showing compassion and listening to the Victim, the response is usually to condemn her to the shadows of the dark silence from which she emerged.

Below is an excerpt from a book by the sister of world-famous former NBA superstar Michael Jordan--Deloris Jordan, who accused their father, James Jordan (now deceased) of rape in her memoir called "In My Family's Shadow".

"Ending eight years after it first began and five years after losing my virginity to my father, it scares me to think how much longer the abuse would have went on had I not spit out the dreadful truth to my mother during one of our many heated disagreements. Disagreements that were sometimes anything but pleasant and often featured no indication of love between the two of us.

So as she ranted and raved about how no slutty daughter of hers better get pregnant and bring any bastard children into her house. I finally heard myself saying: "If I am so much of a slut, why don't you keep your husband out of my bed?"

When I finally found the courage to let my father's deeds tumble from my lips, I did not know what to expect, but I never in a million years would have guessed that my mother would turn on me. Her words of betrayals did far more damage to me than my father's deeds. They spoke volumes to the fact that she really did not care about me, which my father obviously knew. It is because she was so expressive with her dislike for me that probably made my father know he could get away with violating me.
My father confessed his actions on the same day that I disclosed them to my mother. And on that frightful day of admission, I watched my mother, looking for a sign, any sign that she cared about me.

The memory of my father whispering in my ear during the wee hours of the night about the beauty of my body has played over and over in my head for many years. And as if that has not been incapacitating enough by itself, having to comprehend the fact that more often than not, he had just gotten out of the bed he shared with my mother to find his way to my bedroom has just added to the realization of the painful situation."