Child Abuse Story From Carla

by Carla
(USA)

Reading some of these stories put tears in my eyes and reminded me of what my sister and I went through. It is amazing how naive or just blind some parents or guardians are about what's going on their own household.

My grandmother raised both me and my sister from birth, since my mother was considered unfit by the courts. My sister is only a year younger than me and our grandfather had died before either of us was born. I was 7 when my grandmother re-married and we moved into his house. He was a doctor, actually a chiropractor, and his office was on the basement floor. My grandmother adored this man and even though he was generally good and kind to us put me and my sister through excruciating humiliation for the six years they were married.

My grandmother worked for a lawyer in town Monday to Friday and would usually be home by 6 pm. We were in daycare before she married, but her husband Ronald/grandpa would watch us after school. He began giving my sister and I routine physical examinations and they were done with my grandmother's knowledge. We complained to her numerous times but it fell on deaf ears, and I assume since she considered him a doctor it was perfectly acceptable.

It was done randomly, mostly when we got home from school, but on some occasions was done when my grandmother was at home, upstairs. Up until I was about 9 he would examine both of us at the same time, but as we got older would take us down to his office individually. We were always made to undress and lay on an exam table naked where he would exam us head to foot even spreading our legs open and examining our privates and touching us. It was bad enough when we were very young, but the older we got the more frequently we were examined and the more humiliating it became.

I don't remember exactly, but it started with monthly exams. The next thing we knew we were being examined 2 and sometimes 3 times each month or whenever he decided we needed to be. For years we tried to tell our grandmother how embarrassing it was for us, but she didn't think anything was wrong with it. She sometimes laughed about it in his presence and he would simply say we were bashful.

As I started developing, he not only humiliated me by probing my body, but talking and lecturing both me and my sister about bodily functions. He would have me in tears sometimes and spoke to me, and I assume my sister, like we were stupid.

One time when I was 12, I had just started getting my period and he demanded I get examined. That was the first time I actually remember getting an internal exam. It was so embarrassing I can't describe it even today. He stood there educating me about menstrual cycles as I was lying naked on the table. Later that day when I told my grandmother she just smiled at me. She told me I was turning into a young lady and he was just trying to help me and after all he is a "doctor".

The last time he examined me was just before I turned 13. By that time it became more like a nightmare each time he did it. The examinations became more extensive and embarrassing, but we also had to endure the humiliation of the lectures we got. After examining us we laid naked on the table as he pointed to and talked about different parts of our bodies, sometimes for fifteen to twenty minutes. Most of the time I would be trembling or in tears and after discussing it with my sister found she felt the same way.

My grandmother and he started arguing often and fortunately for my sister and I, separated. We moved out of the house and within a year they were divorced.

I'm a junior in college now and can't believe my grandmother still doesn't realize or accept that my sister and I were abused by him. She still thinks of him as a doctor and still doesn't understand how we were treated by him and what traumatic experiences he put us through. My sister and I still discuss it sometimes, but we don't even talk about with my grandmother anymore. She was so blind and I guess in love with him at the time that she just didn't get it. Of all the arguments that they had not one of them involved my sister and I, or all the examinations he did to us. She never once thought, and still today doesn't understand, that he was a pedophile. The more I thought about it as I got older the more I remember about his demeanor when he examined us. He simply enjoyed humiliating us and was never sympathetic when we cried about it. I still shutter today when I think of it and hate going to the doctor's even if it's just a cold or something. I had a gyno exam done last year and made sure I went to a woman doctor.

I think my grandmother was too trusting and obviously didn't realize how that man traumatized her granddaughters. I try not to think about it but whenever I hear of a child being abused I think back about it. My sister is somewhat still bothered by it, but I don't think to the extent I am.

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