My Victim Impact Statement

October 2022

Your honor,

On the morning of Saturday, December 8th, 2018, my wife took my daughter to the mall to hang out with friends, while she was doing some Christmas shopping.

She returned a few hours later, while I was helping my 14-year-old son put together a piece of furniture in his room.

She came upstairs to his room and peeked her head in, asking me to come downstairs and telling me that she needed to speak with me.

I could hear the dread and strain in her voice; it was as if she was out of breath as if she had been running. I could see the stress in her face. She was visibly shaken and had obviously been crying.

It was one of those moments where you can tell whatever is coming next is going to be brutal, and it was going to be someone I was close to, so I calmly got up and told my son to keep working and that I would be back in a bit to help him finish and clean up.

As I followed my wife down the stairs and into our bedroom, the whole way I was running scenario after awful scenario through my head, trying to prepare myself for what she was about to say and about who…

In the 25 years we had been married I had never seen her in this state. As I followed her, I began getting nervous because of her body language and how slow she was leading me to our room. She obviously did not want to share this with me.

She told me she needed me to sit down, but I told her I could not; I needed to stand.

Had there been a heart attack? a car accident? Is my daughter pregnant?

 I went through every possible scenario that could impact her in this way…I was trying to prepare myself mentally for anything my wife could say to me; I was trying to prepare myself to support her in some way…but I was not even remotely prepared for what she told me, and there was no way I ever could have been.

You see, for the 20 years leading up to that moment the single person I was closest to, outside of my marriage, was my father.

I had spoken to him every day, at least once, sometimes twice.

It was our ritual; every day, when I drove to and from work, I would call and speak to my father. We talked about politics, movies, work, the weather, life in general, and the kids; we talked about everything and nothing.

To friends and acquaintances, I spoke proudly and openly about my father and his accomplishments, how he had started with nothing and built a successful business, on little more than sweat and determination.

I always appreciated and respected the fact that he never pressured me to follow in his footsteps and that I was determined to follow my own path.

I always felt I had a good upbringing, and a close family, and even though my wife and I moved away so I could pursue my career, it always felt good to come home and see my family and spend time with my mother and father, my brother and sisters and their families.

Since our children were born, we have spent every Christmas and summer vacation traveling to my parents’ home in L______, Virginia, to spend time with them. It was a beautiful place around the holidays, with 5 or 6 Christmas trees and beautiful lights; my children loved it.

When we were not going there, they would come to O______, sometimes bringing our entire family, to stay at Disney World together, and we would have this Disney reunion, I guess you could call it, every couple of years. For my children’s entire lives, this is what they have known.

Living away from family, as parents, my wife and I were always extremely protective of our children and who watched them.

There were only two people among both of our families that we trusted our children with, and they were my father and mother. We would have never considered anyone else.

So, when my son went into the hospital in July 2012 with Steven Johnson Syndrome, we were told how bad this could get and that he would be there for weeks, even months.

We immediately reached out to my father and mother and told them how bad this was, and that we needed them to watch our daughter for a while.

Sending her away was hard, but we knew we could not take care of her while we were in the hospital with my son.

 I was never more relieved than when my son came home from the hospital 5-6 weeks later; even as weak and frail as he was, just having him home was a miracle, but it was incomplete, and for it to be complete, we needed our daughter back, and he needed his sister back.

Usually, when we stayed at my parent’s house, my wife and children all slept in the same room, but as of the next visit to my parent’s house, after our son got out of the hospital, my daughter was no longer sleeping in the same room as the rest of us.

My father and mother had set her up with her own room, just across the hall from theirs, while they watched her for that month in the summer, and that is the room she has stayed in, on every visit since.

As my son started to improve and required less attention, we began noticing changes in our daughter. Most of which we thought was related to how much attention we had to give our son, with his medical conditions.

Over the summer of 2018, we stayed at my parents’ house on multiple occasions. We were there in July for a week, then we went back again for 4 days for my niece’s wedding shower in September, then again for the wedding in October. My daughter was one of the bridesmaids.

On the trip back in July, our plan made an unexpected stop in Jacksonville to change crews. While we were sitting on the plane waiting for the new crew, my daughter confided in me that she was bleeding so badly that her pants were soaked through and that she needed a blanket to cover it. I felt so bad for her, but the way she said it to me was such a matter of fact, that it was like talking to another person. The bleeding was so bad we ended up leaving the plane so she could go to the bathroom and change. We ended up renting a car and driving the rest of the way home.

I remember her being in a horrible mood at my niece’s wedding; at the reception, I looked for her so we could have a daddy-daughter dance. I found her standing next to my father, and she looked as if she was crying, we danced for a few minutes, and she told me she didn’t feel well and wanted to leave so I took her to the changing area for the bridesmaids to get her stuff, she was visibly shaking while she gathered her things.

On December 6th of 2018, just three days prior to my wife pulling me aside, I had just made reservations to fly up to my parent’s house for the holidays, just like every other year. We would have been there for six days.

I was sitting at the desk in our living room and had just finished with the reservations and turned around to tell my daughter who was always excited to see her grandmommy and granddaddy, and as soon as I told her the dates of our trip my, daughter leapt out of her chair and ran upstairs to her room, shutting the door…she didn’t look at me, or say a word, she just bolted out of the room. I remember asking my wife, what that was all about. We assumed she had just gotten a phone message from one of her friends.

I hardly saw my daughter over the next couple of days.

Then on December 8th, 2018, my wife had something horrible to tell me. It was so horrible and unbelievable that she sat in a car for two hours in a mall parking lot, trying to talk other people into telling me. She knew how close my father and I were, she knew how important he was to me and how much I looked up to him, she knew how this would devastate my entire family, and she was terrified at what that could do to us, our marriage, and fearful of whether I would even believe it.

And then she said it.

 “C___ told J_____, that your father has been molesting her.”

My wife’s emotions flooded out as she could no longer hold them back, sharing all of the details of this conversation with the mother of one of our daughters’ closest friends.

Everything got very still, and my emotions went flat as I said nothing and listened and processed every word my wife said.

She sounded like she was making a case, that this was the truth, trying to convince me, but what she didn’t realize is that as soon as she said it, hundreds of seemingly unconnected details from the last few years, lined up perfectly in my head, and I knew it was true.

My wife and I started searching my daughter’s room for any evidence, and we found in her luggage, sex toys and lingerie, just like the woman said.

I began making flight arrangements and making phone calls to figure out where my parents were and where they would be when I got there.

I contacted my brother to let him know that I was coming up and it was important that he told no one and that I would tell him when I got there.

I shaved and showered.

I carried nothing but my cell phone and wallet and packed no luggage because, at the time, I fully expected that after confronting my father, I would be spending the night in jail.

When C____ got home from the mall, I pulled her aside and asked her directly if my father had ever hurt her in any way, and she burst into tears, asking who had told us.

I then asked, had my father touched you sexually? and she nodded yes.

Then I asked, had my father put his hands inside you? and she nodded yes.

I began crying and apologizing, and I told her I was leaving in a few minutes to fly up there.

On the ride to the airport, my wife drove while my daughter sat in the back seat, I had very little to say and was calm but seething with rage.

For the entire ride to the airport, my wife and daughter begged me to call the police; they had a very real fear that I would confront my father and that he would shoot me or that I would beat him to death.

I finally called the F______ County Police and let them know what we had discovered and that I was on my way there to confront my father.

As I was standing in line at security, talking to my brother on the phone and making sure he was going to pick me up, he was already in a state of panic because of how little information I had given him, it was freaking him out.

My brother kept asking questions, and I finally snapped and told him that my father had molested and possibly raped my daughter.

He was shocked at what I told him and became a wreck to the point that I could not trust him to pick me up at the airport. I told him I didn’t need a ride and would deal with it myself.

As I sat on the plane waiting, I realized there was no way my brother wasn’t going to involve other family members.

I decided to text my father, to let him know what was coming and why.

I must have written, and rewritten that short text, at least five times, because I did not want anyone else to read it and understand what only he would understand.

“You have broken all of our hearts. I am on my way there right now, and you know why.”

On arrival at R________, I moved quickly through the airport and toward the taxi area, when I received a call from my brother, who was already waiting to pick me up.

When I got in his car, I told him I needed to go to a hotel, and he said he needed to take me to the police station and that my father was already in custody.

My short text message was enough to send my father into a suicidal panic, due to a consciousness of guilt, the fact that everyone would know what he had done to my daughter, and that he was most likely going to prison.

I spent the next hour or so being interviewed by F_____ County police officers, who then contacted my daughter and took her initial statement.

The next day, my brother picked me up from the hotel and took me to my parents’ house, where everyone was quite emotional and in disbelief.

“Are you sure?”, “He would never do this!” etc. etc.

I distinctly remember my mother sitting at the kitchen table in shock, clutching one cell phone tightly in her hands while her own cell phone lay on the table in front of her.

My father’s cell phone was never seen again.

It dawned on me as I boarded a plane back home that evening, that I never went back to help my son finish his desk, and I never even told him I was leaving. And even though I was only gone for 24 hours, it felt like a lifetime, and I would not be the same when I got back.

The first two months were the hardest. I began having nightmares almost instantly. I was lucky to get 2 hours of sleep in a single sitting. I would wake up almost violently, my heart pounding as if it was coming out of my chest.

I was constantly checking on my daughter as she had been living in denial for a very long time and everything was starting to come to the surface.

I was there when she got the results of her forensic medical exam, and they told her she had internal scarring, and she kept asking, “Why did he do this? Why did he hurt me.”

I was there when she found out my father had been released from the psychiatric hospital and she nearly fainted in our kitchen.

I was there when she found out he had been arrested and released in less than 24 hours and she burst into tears.

It seemed that every day, more information was coming out about what my father had done and for how long.

My daughter, my wife, and I were all in therapy.

I had to take a leave of absence from work for two months just to pull myself together.

For almost eight months, I went to sleep not knowing if my daughter would make it through the night, and on multiple occasions, I panicked to the point of nearly breaking down her door for fear she had taken her own life.

I had to rush home because police and child protective services were in our house asking my children questions.

I have seen my daughter come home in tears on multiple occasions because she was triggered to the point of panic by the smell of cologne, a voice, or the mannerisms of a stranger, which reminded her of my father.

If I kissed her goodnight when she was already asleep, she would wake up, in fear for her life, not knowing where she was or who was in her room. It was so bad that I was afraid to hug my own daughter for fear of triggering her.

She still sleeps with a locked door and the lights on to this day.

Over the course of this, we have lost over thirty relationships built over a lifetime, with family members who did not want to believe the truth, helped hide evidence, or told everyone it was a consensual relationship.

The process of grief is very personal, everyone experiences it differently, and there is no way for two people to experience it the same way at the same time, and that almost broke my marriage. There were days when I didn’t know if our family would survive this. But thankfully it did.

As a father, I live every day with the guilt of not seeing or understanding what my father was doing, of not being able to protect my daughter, and the fact that he was able to use my feelings for him as my father to manipulate, control and abuse my daughter, his granddaughter.

My family has waited four very long years for justice. And I am sure to an outsider looking in, things are quite normal.

But we wear a mask most of the time.

Just a few months ago, I was cleaning out my office and came across a photo of my daughter at 12 years old, with my father, at Disney World.  I was so grief-stricken at the site of it that I had to lock myself in my office for 2 hours, so my wife and children would not see me in this broken state.

I have looked everywhere for answers as to why my father has done this to my daughter and my family.

But the fact is, there is no question that can be asked, or answer given that would justify what he has done.

This was not a situation of circumstance my father found himself in.

This was not an accident or a mistake my father made.

Every act, every crime my father has committed against my daughter, his granddaughter since she was a child, was methodical, calculated, and well hidden.

He used the love, trust, and respect that my family held for him to his advantage, to abuse my daughter, his granddaughter.

He used the knowledge I gave him in conversation after conversation, against her.

He used the fact that her sleeping accommodations, on our visits, were only 10 feet from where he and my mother slept to his advantage and to abuse my daughter, his granddaughter, for hours each night she was there.

He used the gifts of trips for my wife and me to gain complete and unsupervised access to my daughter.

He did this with guilt of conscience, knowing he could go to jail, knowing what would happen if he were discovered and he did it anyway and more brazenly every time.

He abused her in his home.

He abused her with family members, feet away, beneath blankets, and out of sight.

He abused her in my home.

He abused her on family vacations.

He abused her at my niece’s wedding.

When she locked the door, he used his own key to open it.

When she would not comply, he used to shame her and threatened to tell me, her father, and his son what she was doing.

He purchased sex toys that he abused her with and lingerie that he forced her to wear.

Hid did this without concern for the irreparable damage he was subjecting my daughter, his granddaughter to, the damage of verbal, emotional, psychological, and physical sexual abuse, abuse she will spend the rest of her life contemplating and dealing with and he did so with his only concern being the gratification of his own sexual fantasies.

He threatened to kill himself if she ever told.

My father crossed the line as a grandfather over and over, then moved it, and crossed it again and again.

And after every nightly session of abuse, he forced on my daughter, he had the nerve to sit across the table from me, talking about what we would be doing that day, eating breakfast, and drinking coffee without a care in the world.

My father showed my daughter, his granddaughter no mercy and no leniency.

And because of this, I am asking that you show his victim, my daughter, his granddaughter, that what her grandfather did to her was heinous in every way, by giving him the fullest sentence under the law.

I know what I am asking, but that is the sentence he has given my daughter.

My father has pleaded guilty to two of the three charges, but his crimes were so much greater than that.

And while my daughter has healed physically, she will bear the emotional and psychological trauma of my father’s choices and abuse for the rest of her life.

I want to say thank you to the few people who stood beside us in this, but I especially want to thank my wife.  I always knew we would eventually get through this; I was never really sure how or in what condition our family would be when it was over, but somehow, we have managed to cling to each other, and I am extremely thankful for that.

And finally, to my daughter, I want to say there are few people who will understand what you have been through and how it will affect you, but my hope for you is that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you see what your mom and I do… Beauty, brilliance, kindness, wisdom beyond your years, and more strength of character and courage than anyone I have ever known.  I love you with all my heart.

Thank you respectfully.

P_____ ______

A letter to my Father

Dad,

Today is December 8, 2023.

Yesterday it was 5 years to the day since we have spoken, today is 5 years to the day since I discovered you were grooming and sexually abusing my little girl, my only daughter.

That day will never fade for me.

It is the day I found out that my father, the person I most respected and trusted in the world, betrayed me and my family in the worst way possible.

In the 5 years since the discovery, my family has been through hell and back.  The abuse, the trauma, the trials, the depression, the PTSD, the grief, the loss…. I honestly thought it would destroy us, I thought it would destroy my daughter, I thought it would destroy me.

I can’t tell you how close we came on so many occasions. It was a constant struggle to not let you take one more thing from us. Somehow we were able to cling to each other and make it through, but none of us are without scars, some much deeper than others.

There were days when the only thing that got me through was the faintest of hopes for a single good day, with some days being so bad it really came down to a single minute of relief, as single smile or hug.

In an attempt to get my family through the last 5 years, I have suppressed a lifetime of memories and feelings, and I have buried so much of myself in the process, I almost completely lost my self.

When I got on that plane on Dec 8 2018, to confront you, I couldn’t even look at my son. He had no idea I had even left, until his mom and sister told him what was happening. The last thing I said to him, just before I was told the truth of what you had done was..  “keep putting the screws in like I showed you, and I’ll be back in a few minutes to see how you did.” We were putting furniture together in his bedroom.

Knowing what I was getting on that plane to do, I never went back to see how he was doing, I couldn’t even look at him. I was never really sure If I would be returning.

Even when I came back 24 hours later, I was no longer the person I was, and it took me a long time to realize that I would never be that person again.

I have built up walls around me to hold back floods of grief, hate, and anger. When the pressure got too great and I could feel it spilling out, I would build up stronger walls.

A couple of weeks ago, those walls finally came crashing down; it was so bad I went on a long walk and nearly stepped into traffic.

It was the last straw.

It was the realization that while I was holding up everyone else, I was neglecting myself.

Early on, in that first December, my wife talked me into meeting with a therapist. I was in such a bad place. She was so afraid of what I might do when you were released from suicide watch. She was so afraid she would wake up, and that the car and I would be gone….and on my way to visit you.

After a couple of sessions in therapy, I realized I wasn’t ready, I needed and wanted to hold on to my hatred for you.

I had so many challenges ahead and justice to seek. I wasn’t going to let a single fond memory of you or my family stop me, not after what you knowingly did to my daughter. Not after the years of abuse, you heaped on her.

Do you realize it took over 70 typed pages to document all of your abuse?

Your family has no idea how easy you got off, and what justice for you should truly look like.

But I know and even more, I know you know.

I know that while we spent years nursing our son back to health, you spent that same time grooming my daughter and telling her how we didn’t care about her, and that we were neglecting her and that only granddaddy really loved her.

I have considered visiting you in prison multiple times, with only one single question on my mind.

Why?

Why her?

Why me?

Why my family?

WHY?!!!!

WHY?!!!!!!!

But I know that will never happen. You spent years lying to us. You lied to my daughter. You lied to me. You have lied so much to yourself, you wouldn’t even know the truth of what you have done and why.

You will never see or hear from me or my family again and I will never seek you out.

But I will speak about you often this month.

I am finally ready to process the damage you have done to me and my family, in an attempt to heal myself as much as I can, maybe even find my way back.

I am going to unpack every memory of you and grieve the loss of the man and father I thought I knew, the one I loved and respected.

I am going to post the last few blogs that have remained unpublished.

After that, I will bury you forever.

Your son.

Misjudgment

I was awaken and pulled out of bed this morning, by a single thought.

I have spent the last couple of days contemplating the last conversation with my brother.

I have severely misjudged him and in doing so added to the pain he and his family were already going through.

When this all started. The one person that was there for me was my brother. 3 months in, when I pulled completely away, it was not because of him, but because of all of the pain, confusion and chaos and my fear of what it would do to us. He was also a reminder of how much I lost when I lost the relationship with my father .

At the time, I thought it would be much better for everyone, if we had more distance, give each other time and some space. Our families needed us.

But the distance didn’t actually help, it made things worse in some ways.

When you burn your hand on a stove or something equally hot, you have this natural reaction to pull away…and that is what I did.

I should not have pulled away from my brother, even though he is a reminder of the pain and loss my family is experiencing, he is not the source, that is my father. And in many ways…even though this happened to my daughter,  my brother and his family have suffered a massive loss …our whole family has.

In many ways, he may be suffering the loss of my father even more. I spoke to my father every day, but he actually saw my father every day. How different his life must be now.

Within weeks of pulling away from my brother, as much as I missed him, not having that constant reminder of loss, felt a bit better, and I could concentrate on my daughters loss and grief much easier without thinking of my own. I could tend to my own family, without being burdened by the loss of my father or the added burden of the pain of my brother and his family.

In that last week of speaking to my brother, I had also spoken to one of my sisters and she told me how they were all in the courtroom when the charges against my father were read, and how they were all devastated.

But in all the conversations with my brother he had told me he was not there…he had told me he wasn’t allowed to be there.

A week later I was told by detectives that my family was being uncooperative. My mother refused to speak to them at all, and my sisters refused to return his phone calls. When I asked, had he spoken to my brother, the detective said, “yes but he was very short with us and not very forthcoming.”

The pain I experienced at hearing that statement from the detective about my brother was really what started this blog, after so much pain and loss. It was the loss of my brother that was finally too much.

But that isn’t what actually happened it was only what i was told.

Had I not distanced myself I would have known that.

Later I would learn that my brother had spoken to the detectives, and had already told them everything he knew , it just wasn’t much because he didn’t know much.

My brother also wasn’t at my father’s arraignment, he was told they would not be allowed in, so he did not go. Only my mom and sisters went and they were allowed in.

On top of everything we were already going through, what my father had done to my daughter , all the crazy emotional emails and texts from my mothers and sisters, and now this “betrayal” from my brother, sent me into a lonely state of depression..

For my wife, try that she might, all she could do was watch, as both her daughter and her husband were literally falling apart in front of her eyes. And for her, the source of all of that pain was my father, my mother and my siblings, and she finally lashed out and she lashed out at all of them.

I understand why so many families do not recover from incest and child abuse.  It is the deepest of betrayals, and loss of any trust that you ever had, then all of the shame, emotion, pain and anger that follows in it’s wake, makes it very difficult to recover.

And it isn’t just the shame of the acts that took place, sometimes it’s the shame of misjudgment and of words you cannot take back.

I have misjudged my brother and am sorry for causing him and his family any additional pain.

I do not know if we will ever have the relationship we had before, as just speaking to him recently and hearing his voice was such a reminder of the loss we have all suffered…trust, innocence, relationships, my father and the circumstances by which we lost it.

It took me a few days to process the emotions of that phone call, and find my footing again.

My hope is that someone will learn something from what my family and I are going through, and understand the effect that incest and child abuse has on everyone it touches.

Textbook Grooming

A Textbook Case is a classic, perfect case or common example of something, and what my father did to my daughter was what you would consider textbook grooming.

 


Anytime you are going through a trauma that involves circumstances you have never experienced, you cannot help but reach out in every direction for information, trying to learn everything that you can.

It’s the reason my wife and I know so much about SJS (Steven Johnsons Syndrome), Mucosal lining breakdown, corneal scarring, Intravitreal injections and eye lid reconstruction. That’s what happens when your child ends up in an ICU, and they tell you this is just the beginning of something. You try to learn everything you can about it, to prepare yourself.

But you can never really prepare yourself. You can never be prepared for the 100’s of doctors visits, procedures and surgeries that follow for years.

Now I do a completely different type of research based on pedophilia, incest, child abuse, grooming, laws, penalties and common defense tactics for child abusers etc..

I never wanted to know about SJS when my son was going through it. Knowing the possibilities was awful, knowing my 10-year-old son could lose his eyesight was terrifying.

Likewise, I have never wanted to know about grooming, incest and child abuse, or how the pain, anger and confusion from it tears families and relationships apart.

I didn’t want firsthand knowledge of the justice system, police detectives, child advocates, prosecutors, forensic exams or defense tactics and juvenile court.

And there really is no way to prepare myself for standing across from my father in a courtroom, knowing what he has done to my daughter, and how it will affect her entire life.

To understand what my daughter has gone through, I pulled several articles on incest and grooming tactics and had her go through them, highlighting the things my father had done, the things that were relevant and marking them with an age.

Early on I realized the fracturing of my family was a textbook case of what happens to a family that experiences incest and abuse, it is very well documented. I didn’t realize how well documented, until a coworker I had confided in, told me what happened to her family and it was almost identical in every way to what has happened to mine, and so I began researching the affects of incest and child abuse on victims and their families and there it was, in multiple publications and studies, a perfect description of my family and everything we were going through.

The anger, the denial, the explaining away, the confusion, the mistrust, the blame , the guilt, the silence and even the desire to tell your story, are all very real and experienced by everyone that goes through this.

It was as if someone had written a script and we were all part of some twisted Lifetime channel drama, that is still playing out,with no end in sight.

When my daughter was done highlighting the article it was shocking. It gave her a better idea of how all of this happened. She and I were both surprised to see just how textbook this was, as if my father was following some “how to” guide on child grooming and incest.

The grooming techniques my father used on my daughter

The goal of grooming a child for sexual abuse is about creating a relationship, where the victim will not question what is happening or that they are even being victimized.

It is a long-con, that requires a certain amount of effort where the perpetrator is, in it for the long haul. It involves Gaining someone’s trust over a long period of time and once you have their complete trust—finally taking advantage of it. 

They use different techniques to create a web of confusion, guilt, obligation, with warped and distorted boundaries that they have created for their own personal gain.

For my daughter it started when she was around 11.

On our visits to my parent’s, house 3-4 times a year for a week each time, my daughter had few people her age to play with. My son would spend the night with his cousins who were close in age, and my daughter would feel left out. All her time would be spent at my parents’ house. She had already developed a close relationship with them through the years and I never gave it a second thought.

But my father did, and when my daughter was 11, he started exploiting it.

He would hint at being her boyfriend and if they were the same age, they could get married.

He would touch her a lot in a tickling, playful way.

She would always sit next to him on the couch watching TV.

He made her feel special and he lavished with gifts and affection.

This first method or technique is about Exploiting a Child’s Need for Affection or Approval 

It is on one of those visits where his hands would start going towards other parts of her body but not quite. When she felt uncomfortable and started to leave the room, he told her she didn’t have to and to stay.

This is the first sign of my failure as a parent.

My children were naïve in many ways. My wife and I protected our children. We knew who they were with and when they were with them. We were like hawks in that regard, but not with my family and certainly not with my father. We should have been more vocal about what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. We should have had more of those conversations.

My daughter was 16 when all of this came out, she is 17 now and while she is very smart , her therapist made the comment how sexually naive she was…saying it is rare these days, and not a bad thing , but that my father was able to exploit that.

Something else that also came out of those sessions was that my daughter had a “people pleaser” personality.

People pleasers tend to have a history of maltreatment, and somewhere along the way, they decided that their best hope for better treatment was to try to please the people who mistreated them, in this case my father. Over time, for them, people-pleasing becomes a way of life.

This second method or technique is Exploiting Emergencies or Vulnerabilities

When my daughter was 12, my son went into ICU at the local children’s hospital due to a reaction to medication called SJS. Within 24 hours we knew were in trouble and this was just the beginning of something much bigger than we had realized. My parents rushed to our aide, allowing my daughter to stay with them for weeks while my wife and I did shifts at the hospital. My parents were the only ones I trusted with such a huge request, and my father was given free reign over my daughter for 3-4 weeks, while we were in the worse crisis of our lives with my son.

My daughter came back severely changed from that trip. I will never fully understand what took place emotionally, or psychologically between the, but my father built a very strong bond with her. It is also when he started talking about much more adult and sexual things, and his touch and fondling started moving beyond her shoulders and back. He gave her secret gifts and money. He spent time with her they talked, he made her feel very special when she was very alone.

For months after my daughter returned to us she received odd gifts in the mail from my parents, little things, like bags of gummi bears, etc., but they were always addressed to my daughter, with no mention of my son, who was still recovering from weeks in the hospital. I always thought it was an oversight, but it struck me as odd, even then.

When I think of what he was doing and planning, my only response is “Dear God what have I done!?”

The third method or technique is Exploiting Authority or Social Standing 

When I say my father was loved and respected by everyone who knew him, I am not exaggerating. When I say he gave to anyone and everyone, I am not exaggerating. When I say I loved and respected him more than any other man I have ever met in my life, I am not exaggerating.

But when he told my daughter I would never believe her, he was lying.

When he told her we would be nothing without him, he was lying.

The fourth method or technique is Subverting Parent/Guardian Boundaries 

I had no idea this was happening until I asked my daughter about it after reading about grooming.  When my daughter would get in trouble, or lose her phone for a week as punishment, my father would be there to pick her mom and I apart.  The goal is to drive a wedge between child and parent with the groomer painting themselves as the only one who understands. My father and I spoke everyday so he always knew when my daughter had gotten a bad grade or was in trouble, and he was able to use that against us and against her.

The fifth method or technique is Secret keeping 

This starts out small, candy money, gifts that you aren’t supposed to tell your parents about. This is a test to see if the child can and will keep these harmless “little secrets”. Those secrets grow with time until they can be used as a form of emotional blackmail. He would tell my daughter secrets and get her to tell him secrets that he could use against her.

The fifth method or technique is Gift Giving 

My parents have always been very generous, so this was hard to spot. But my father had been giving “secret” money and gifts to my daughter for a long time. My parents also helped us out financially with the kids’ school and were generous in other ways, and he told my daughter how much of what she had was because of him and that we would be nothing without him. The goal is to create a feeling of indebtedness, with the idea that they will be able to collect on that debt…it starts out with small tokens, a peck on the cheek or a photo. Each photo or token becomes a bit of blackmail that they can ultimately use to get what they really want. When this had reached its peak of my father’s perversion, he was buying my daughter jewelry, lingerie and sex toys to use on her.

The sixth method or technique is Age-Inappropriate Interaction

This involves not treating the child like a child, but instead transitioning them to an adult. It involves using conversation and language that are beyond the child’s emotional age and understanding. It involves the use or pornography and talking about sexuality in a way that is meant to desensitize them. Trying to get the child to talk about there own sexual feelings and genitalia in order to strip away childhood innocence. My father would ask my daughter to look up inappropriate things on YouTube to see what her reactions was, she didn’t even know what she was looking up until she got to the site.

The seventh method or technique is Using Guilt, Teasing, and Threats

My father had been guilting and teasing my daughter in a sexual way, under his breath and in secret since she was 12. Last summer when she was 16 and everything got much worse, he threatened to kill himself if she went to the police or told anyone.

The eighth method or technique is Exploiting the Child’s Own Curiosity

Children are curious about their bodies, and the feelings they find in their solitary explorations are entirely normal; parent know this and give the child adequate privacy to learn about themselves. My father tried to use that and appropriating my daughter’s natural curiosity at a young age and tried to control it for his own pleasure and convince her it was okay and natural. He was trying to turn her into his own personal plaything

The ninth method or technique is Exploiting the Child’s Own Sensuality

My father spent 5 years grooming and training my daughter to trust what he was doing was okay. He used his authority as a grandparent and someone she loved to tell her everything that he was doing was okay and that he would never hurt her  he would tell her this is what love is and it was supposed to feel good, he would tell her your mom and dad do this, it’s completely normal. And he also told her to” stop tensing up”,” stop closing your legs”, “stop crying” and “bleeding is normal, just put a pad on it”.

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When my daughter was done highlighting the article with everything my father had done, I realized he had used every known method of manipulation and grooming that pedophiles and child abusers use. Had this not come out when it did, I know my daughter would have spent a week over Christmas being drugged and abused my father, just like he said he would.

Had I ever read a story like this to my father, or had it popped up on the news, while we were sitting together watching TV, I know he would have condemned the man responsible, referring to him as someone who should be shot…even after everything he had already done, and would have continued to do.

On the day all of this came to light, he had been sending my daughter messages about how excited he was, because I had personally told him the day before that I had made flight reservations and we would be there for a week. Some of the messages were sent while he sat in a church pew, watching a Christmas program.

He had no idea that I had already found out what he had done and was just waiting to confirm it with my daughter and that I would be boarding a plane within a few hours to confront him.

My family contends that my daughter’s participation in this abuse was consensual, maybe they believe that, or maybe they don’t.

I do not know.

Maybe they feel that he has brain damage and it is their only hope of saving my father from a life sentence and they are willing to sacrifice my daughter to save him.

But I do not know.

Or, maybe they are all just caught in the middle, not knowing what to do, being dragged along by all of this chaos, feeling like they have no choice.

Just like my daughter.

But I honestly do not know.

A bridge

As a parent you want nothing but the best for your children.

You want to see them grow, succeed, make good decisions, lead healthy lives, find happiness.

What do you do when it feels like all of that has been dashed upon the rocks?

How can you forgive the person that was responsible,even when that person was some one you loved, even when that person was your father?

How do you forgive those that stood by him, even when those people are your family?

A very dear friend recently asked me…

“What is you best case scenario?”

” Can you see through the fog of all of this, to the best possible out come?”

I know that what he was really asking was, what I saw in regards to all of the broken relationships, that have been left in the wake of my fathers actions..the relationships with my brother, my sisters, my mom.

I didn’t have much of an answer when he asked, and I do not have much of an answer now.

I tell you honestly, I have tried hard to see past all of this, to see what life looks like, to see what those relationships look like, to see what the life of my daughter looks like, when all of this is done.

The best I can hope for today, is that my daughter will see herself through my eyes,… see in herself, what I see, when I look at her, and for myself …be able to live with the decisions I have made and the actions I have taken, to know that I have done the best for my family, based on the information I have, that I was a good husband and father, someone my wife, daughter and son can look to, with some level of pride, regardless of the personal price.

There are days when that hope is hard to hold onto, and the price is great.

7 months ago, my brother and I were talking about a “guys trip”. The two of us, our sons and my father would take a few days to hang out in the middle of nowhere…it didn’t really matter where, maybe the Adirondacks or the Appalachians. My son wouldn’t stop talking about it.

I could not imagine then, that a month later I would find out that my father had been molesting my daughter, and all of our worlds would be turned upside down.

There has been a lot of confusion, accusations and hurt feelings ever since. That is what this does, it turns families inside out and tears them apart.

I spoke to my brother for the first time, in a long time today. He was angry with me, you could hear it in his voice. He was angry at how he had been portrayed in my posts. He emphatically denies what the police have said in regards to his cooperation, and I honestly believe him and I have always wanted to believe him. It would not be the first time the police have told me something, that was not completely accurate, while my brother, has always been a good man, a good husband and a good father, someone his wife, daughters and sons can look to, with pride.

Regardless of his anger, it was just good to hear his voice and know he is still there. I wish we could have talked longer and eventually maybe about something else..anything else. But It was good to talk to him and I was sad to say goodbye.

If you or your family is going through anything like this.. incest, child molestation, etc, then you will understand what it does to a family. You will understand that its affects are devastating, for everyone involved.

It is the ultimate betrayal.

Betrayal by someone like a father or a grandfather, is the absolute most devastating loss a person can experience. It is not just the loss of a loved one, it is the loss of trust, and it is not just the loss of trust of that person who betrayed you, it is the absolute loss of trust in everyone and everything you have ever known, even your own judgement.

That dissolution of trust creates an ever widening gap in all of your relationships, a gap that seems impossible to cross…and in some cases may be.

But today, I got to bridge that gap with my brother or I should say we bridged it together..and maybe not completely, but it was enough to give me hope.

Continuance and Consent

This morning I learned that my fathers trial for molesting my daughter has received a continuance.

My feeling could not be anymore mixed, but it took away some of the stress I was feeling as of late, and I know it will do the same for my daughter.

The combination of nearing the day that I would see my father again and for the first time since this all unfolded, as well as seeing my mother and siblings, who have stood by his side, has been eating away at me.

While the continuance itself has given me some relief, the reason for the continuance has answered a couple of questions that have been looming over me like a dark cloud, for quite some time.

Will my family do the right thing ? Or.. will they fight for my father to avoid justice?..adding insult to injury, by robbing my daughter of any possibility of closure, justice or healing.

I have honestly been dreading the answers.

They have had six month to think about what my father is facing, and the charges he is facing are extremely severe.

• Aggravated Sexual Battery by a Grandparent (1-20 years, up to $100,000 fine)

• Forcible Sodomy by force or threat on a victim 13+ (10-40 years, up to a $100,000)

• Object Sexual penetration (5 years- life in prison, up to $100,000 fine)

..and even though there are only three chargers, they all happened multiple times.

I have long realized, that with the amount of evidence against my father, and the severity of the charges, that he would have very few options for a defense. He would have to claim mental health issues, destroy my daughters credibility, or keep her from testifying all together.

It seems they are doing all of the above.

After grooming my daughter since she was 11 years old, after fondling her and secretly teaching her about sex since she was 12, after finally molesting, raping and sodomizing her at 16, my father’s defense is that what he did with my daughter was consensual , and my mother and siblings are standing by his side.

I have suspected that they were blaming my daughter for some time, based on a text my younger sister had sent me.

“..OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK WITHIN YOUR OWN HOUSE.”…my response is in blue.

I have never been more disappointed and ashamed of anyone in my life, than I am of my mother and siblings at this moment.

My mother, my sisters and my brother, believe that my daughter is to blame for my fathers actions. They believe my daughter is to blame for the manipulation, grooming , molestation and sexual assault of herself, that started when she was 11 and ended when she was 16, when she found the courage to tell a friend what had happened to her. Do they truly believe it is her fault?

For months I have defended my families bizarre re-actions and denial to my wife, as a form of shock, but there is no denying their intent anymore. They intend to prove in some way, that my daughter consented to my fathers abuse, and to do this, they intend to subpeona her Snapchat account as well as the 5 different Snapchat accounts my father used to contact her.

I already know will they will find, and some of it will be embarrassing for my daughter, but she has no reason to be ashamed, as my father was the architect of all of this.

No, what they will find be far worse than they can imagine, and it will condemn my father more than they know.

They will find that my daughter locked the door, and that my father sent her threatening messages using Snapchat, if she wouldn’t open it.

They will find that my father sent her lewd vulgar and disgusting text, as well as photos exposing himself.

They will find that my father threatened to tell her friends what was going on.

They will find that my father was planning to drug her, when we came there for a week at Christmas, so that could have his way with her.

They have opened Pandora’s box and they don’t even know it.

This will now become a legal game of chess, and the moves are going to get very tactical.

To reduce the charges against my father they have to attack my daughter, their grand daughter. If they embarrass and shame her enough, maybe we will withdraw charges, so she wouldn’t have to take the stand.

Do you know that almost all sexual abuse offenders who go free do so because someone didn’t take the stand?

But for better or worse, my daughter is just like me, and my family knows just what that means…

My daughter will have her day in court, she will tell her story for all to hear… To my father, my mother, my siblings, you will all hear the truth., and her mom and I, will be standing by her side, with unending love, support and absolute pride, in how courageous and strong she has become.


Nothing more, will be taken from this family by my father and he will bear the full weight of his crimes against my daughter.

We will lock arms, dig our heels deep into the ground and we will press forward. We will not give up a single inch, and we will not stop pushing forward until justice is completely and fully served.

The guilt of a father

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For the last 6 months, I have been filled with a profound and overwhelming guilt for what has happened to my daughter, through my fathers actions.

As a child, the books and stories I gravitated towards were very similar in nature, “King Arthur and his knights”, “The trials of Hercules”, “Ivanhoe”, “Beowulf”, “Conan”, “Thor”. Later , it would be Superman, Batman, Capt Marvel ( shazam) and again, Conan and Thor. All of those stories depicted heroes, protecting the weak, righting wrongs, seeking justice.

Those stories appealed to me for the same reason they appealed to so many other boys. By instinct, we are hard-wired to protect others, and for me, it was evident at a young age. My grandmother used to tell stories of how I would not let her cross the street without me being there to hold her hand, to protect her…I was 5-6 years old.

Later it would manifest itself throughout elementary, middle and high school, as I opposed bully after bully, regardless of size or number. I protected my friends, strangers, girls, guys,..it didn’t matter who they were, if they were being picked on or bullied and I was there, I would stand by their side. It didn’t always fare well, as I had my nose broken more than a few times. In my 20’s, I would do the same thing, only in bars, or where ever it was happening, even to the point of stopping a husband from abusing his wife in a shopping mall.

Looking back now, I distinctly remember how my own father protected his family. I remember how he urged me to stand up for my sister and myself. I actually watched him do it as well , on multiple occasions. So it wasn’t just the hard-wiring, it wasn’t just the type of books I read. Much of who I am, my sense of protection and justice was instilled in me, to a degree, by my father, the same man who would molest my daughter.

In the first few moments of being told my father had molested my daughter, I flashed back to two separate occasions, where we were visiting my parent’s house and as I kissed my daughter goodnight, she told me to make sure her door was locked. It struck me as odd even then. We never locked doors at our own house. What was she afraid of? What were they watching on TV that she would be scared? I thought she was being silly. She slept in a guest room right across the hall from my parent’s room. It never dawned on me that my father was sneaking into her room at night and molesting her, torturing her, abusing her.

For two months, I would rack my brain trying to remember if I had actually locked the door on those occasions. It haunted me day and night. Then on one especially rough day that my daughter was having, I broke down and told her of my guilt and that I couldn’t remember if I had locked the door. We both sat there crying as she told me she locked it every night and he still came in. I cant imagine how helpless she must have felt , how alone and afraid.

How long had he been manipulating her?

Why didn’t she feel like she could come to me?

How could I have protected and stood up for so many people..strangers, and not be able to protect my own daughter from my father?

How could I fail at the one thing a father was supposed to do… protect his daughter from monsters?

I often think about how my own father would have reacted, had this happened to my sister, when we were children. What would my own father have done to his father, had that been the case? How would he be reacting if instead, it were a stranger, who did this to one of his grandchildren?

I do not doubt that these thoughts have crossed my fathers mind. How could they not?

How tragic and ironic it is, that the very man that I was modeled after, a man that I loved, will be standing across from me in a courtroom in 2 weeks, diametrically opposed in everyway…the focus of my rage…a rage devoid of mercy, fueled entirely by the betrayal of one father and the guilt of another.

A shared, but personal Grief

A friend of my wife’s lost her young child to a rare brain disorder about 5 years ago. Although I did not know her well, our kids played together. My wife talked about it a lot, as her friend’s marriage was suffering in the wake of their child’s death. They would continue to struggle for a couple of years before separating and finally getting a divorce.

It is very common for good marriages to fail under the weight of Intense grief such as the loss of a child. It isn’t that they do not care for and love each other, it’s that we all experience grief in a very unique and personal way, and we experience it in our own time.

It is said that there are 7 stages common to grief: Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing and Acceptance. We can experience them in any order or experience the same one more than once. It is even possible for people to get “stuck” in a phase of their grief for extended periods of time, even for the rest of their lives.

Then there are the different manifestations or symptoms of grief. They too are extremely unique and personal.

  • Crying
  • Headaches
  • Difficulty Sleeping
  • Questioning the Purpose of Life
  • Questioning Your Faith
  • Feelings of Detachment
  • Isolation from Friends and Family
  • Abnormal Behavior
  • Worry
  • Anxiety
  • Frustration
  • Guilt
  • Fatigue
  • Anger
  • Loss of Appetite
  • Aches and Pains
  • Stress

Over the last 5 months, my daughter, my wife and I, have experienced the full range of grief and it’s symptoms. Being completely different people, however, we have been going through them at very different times, and in very different orders.

My daughter was living in denial for a very long time. Denial is a great defense and survival mechanism, regardless of how horrible the situation is, denial can protect us, or at least delay our feelings and emotions in regards to a traumatic event or loss.

When I questioned my daughter for the first time, about what my father had done to her, I could see the denial literally fade away, as a flood of emotion and pain, came to the surface, her face distorted as she began to weep and nod the answers, to questions no father should ever have to ask his daughter. She had become so accustomed to living in denial, that It would be another 3-4 weeks before the reality of everything would truly hit her, and it would hit her hard, without notice, over and over and over again.

My wife has had a very different journey in her grief. For our entire marriage, I have been the rock and she was this jellyfish, sunbathing on the rock. In those first few weeks of discovery, our roles were completely reversed. She became the strength I needed, to get me through those early dark days of shock and confusion. Eventually, the pain and hopelessness, of watching her husband and daughter go through so much trauma, loss, and sorrow, would become too much and push her to an emotional breaking point. It didn’t help that this was a trigger for her, dredging up pain she had never quite recovered from.

I reacted quite differently. Within the first couple of hours of knowing the truth about my father, I would describe my behavior and reaction as being on autopilot. I was flat, unemotional and detached, I showered, I shaved and I planned. I was this simmering pot of rage, that I would slowly and intently turn the heat up on the nearer I got to my father.

I would never experience denial. The anger and guilt were so intense for me, It would be weeks before I would get any sleep. I would end up taking 4 weeks of leave from work to focus on my family and work through the rawest of emotions. In those 4 weeks, time distorted in a way that I had never experienced on that scale, minutes felt like hours, days felt like weeks, and sometimes 2 to 3 days would pass without a notice. The mundane, day to day tasks, became monumental. I was internalizing everything and was all but paralyzed by anger, guilt and my own thoughts. Eventually, with the help and support of my wife, and a few others, I would be able to compartmentalize enough to start moving forward.

The only one in our house, who could escape any of this, was my son. He would steer clear of conversations, hide in his room, or fight aliens online. When he would see I was in a rough place he would come over and offer a hug of support, tell me he loves me then scurry back to his room. I didn’t realize he was getting most of the information from my daughter, they have a really good relationship and she kept him up to date on the general state of things.

For the next six months, we would wind our way through the different stages of grief, as the enormity of my father’s actions unfolded in front of us. Coupled with the confusion of a multistate police investigation, little to no updates from the prosecutor, and the broken relationships of our extended family, there were many moments when our feelings and emotional states would be in stark contrast. Each one of us reaching an emotional critical mass at different times and for different reasons, causing misunderstandings, thoughtless comments and imagined slights.

This week my wife called me at work, to tell me my daughter was in her room crying and she didn’t know what to do. By the time I got home, it was “she said”, “she said”, kind of emotional argument, where everyone was the victim and no one knew how it started. I pulled the three of us into a single room and we worked it out. It was raw and honest, and painful, as there really isn’t any other way to deal with this, but we worked it out. And we will do it again tomorrow or next week if we have to. because that is what families do.

The stress of what we are going through is great, and there are going to be some very bad days, and on the worst of days, when your instincts tell you to push everyone away, we have to hold on tighter and pull each other closer. The side we are on was chosen years ago, before any of this ever happened, and years from now we will still be here, together.

…and if you are going through this as well, know that you are not alone.

A search for meaning

Within a few days of discovering that my daughter had been molested by my father, I was sitting in a therapist’s office, overwhelmed with rage, guilt, and sorrow.

In my whole life I had never been to a therapist, not that I had anything against them, I just never felt the need. Luckily my wife had an appointment with a therapist already, and she convinced me to take that appointment.

The therapist didn’t say a whole lot, asking a question here and there, while I rambled on for almost 2 hours. It was exactly what I needed, a place where I could speak my mind, without adding fuel to any other fires. So I sat there in a chair, unjudged, listening to myself speak, putting into words everything I was feeling.

I talked about the shock and anger of what my father had done, and how it contrasted with the man I knew, loved and spoke to, nearly every day, for a lifetime. The man who had built a business, and given to many. The man who had taught me so much, and is the foundation for who I am in many ways, successful, independent, honest, fair, a good husband, and even a good father…the same man who had molested my daughter, the man who had betrayed his son, betrayed his family, himself , his legacy…the man I would kill if he were standing in front of me.

I talked about the guilt that I was drowning in, the guilt that only a father who had failed to protect his daughter could know. The guilt of a father, who upon kissing his daughter goodnight, failed to realize what it meant, when she, half asleep, asked him to lock her door….the guilt of a father who failed to keep the monsters out.

I talked about the sorrow I had for my daughter. This precious, beautiful and kind young woman, had been abused, controlled, manipulated, molested, and victimized. At the time I had no idea how bad the damage was, or for how long she had carried this painful secret. I just knew it was bad, and that it was done by her own grandfather, by someone she loved and trusted.

Then somewhere in all of that anger, guilt, and sorrow, I had a much-needed epiphany. The act of talking out loud and putting pain into words, made me realize how much my daughter and I had in common, how strong she was, how resilient, and that we both had the strength to get through this, especially if she had unending and unwavering support. She would have it, if only from my wife and me.

By the end of that session, the therapist was in tears at the enormity of what I was going through. While she had only just met me, she had known me and my daughter for a year, through my wife’s stories and sessions. Through that storied connection, it was hard for her to be objective, and I could see it in her face. It would be our only session, but before I left, she recommended a single book.

She recommended “Mans search for meaning” by Viktor E Frankl.

I am not going to turn this into a book review, but If you are struggling with deep pain and grief or are attempting to find your way through traumatic events, then I recommend it to you.

It made something I always knew, more concrete.

We each need a purpose. Without purpose we as individuals, are not entirely whole, we are idle, lost, hopeless.

There is a void in our lives and we are prone to fill that void .

My father, who had his first job at 8 years old, had built a successful business, worked hard his entire life, raised and provided for his family, had been a deacon in his church a member of the choir, had somehow lost purpose and meaning in his life.

It is common among people, especially men who have accomplished much and are close to retirement to go through this.

To fill some of that void, initially my father had started playing video games, eventually one of those games would take over his life. It was a game that allowed him to feel like he was building something, he could feel like he accomplished something.

Eventually that would not be enough and his thoughts would turn and twist to something else..to someone else.. my only daughter, and our lives would be forever changed.

Facts and Feelings

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Even on the most ancient coins, there are two sides…giving way, to that age-old adage…”two sides to every story.”

My family’s story is no different.

What I write, is based on what I know to be true, as told to me by police, child victim advocates, therapist, state prosecutors, and my daughter.

It is based on hindsight and a photographic memory of seemingly trivial events, that in the light of the last six months, have only begun to make sense.

It is filled with the raw emotion of trauma, loss, and betrayal.

It is a story of facts and feelings…and they are very different from one another.

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Facts regardless of what they are, do not change..but you may not have them all today…leaving you a puzzle with missing pieces.

Never quite the complete picture, we are left to fill in the blanks, and our brains are very good at filling in the blanks. Sort of….

 

Feelings, on the other hand, are quite different. They are temporary. The way I feel today is not the way I will feel tomorrow…not that feelings are not real, but they change with time, as our understanding evolves or as we ourselves mature.

When this whole thing started I was very torn between the trauma of my daughter, the anger at and loss of my father, the shared pain of my wife and son, juxtaposed with the shared shock and pain of my mother and siblings.

My daughter understood the magnitude of the truth, long before she told it…and it is why she carried it alone, for so long.

With the loss of contact with my family I do not have a clear picture of what they are going through, but as the son and brother, I know it must be great. They know that their father, the man they have known and loved their whole lives, is facing the very real possibility of a life sentence…and at his age, and based on the charges, I know this to be true.

Likewise, my family does not see or understand, what I am facing.

My father while he may die in prison, is much closer to the end of his life, the horrible physical, psychological and emotional damage he has done to my daughter, however, will affect her for an entire life.

His unspeakable, selfish betrayal of my trust and love, has had an indescribable effect on me…and will forever affect the relationships I have with my mother and siblings.

I have read a lot on the subject of rape, incest, and child abuse… and everything that is happening to my family, because of my father’s actions, is what is referred to as “textbook”.

Every family that has ever gone through this, has suffered in a very similar way and it is tragically, well documented.

Some of those families took 10 to 20 years to recover, some never did.

…I hazzard to speculate at the outcome.