I have shared with you that I suffered from sexual abuse as a toddler. One of my earliest flashbacks is of my mother/abuser removing my diaper to sexually abuse me. When I share my story with people offline, that seems to be the hardest form of child abuse for people to grasp or believe. They cannot fathom that anyone would hurt an innocent baby or toddler, and yet this happens with much more frequency than anyone wants to believe.
A reader contacted me about a news story of child pornography involving an infant that has not made much of a splash in the headlines here in the United States. You can read the story at the following links:
- Arlington Man Arrested on Child Pornography Production Charges
- FBI: Army Major Produced Child Porn
- Former Army Major Sentenced For Raping Baby
Remember when I was on my soapbox about the Protect Our Children Act? I first learned about this legislation when Oprah put a spotlight on it. In that show, a police officer shared that child pornography involves children of all ages, even babies. He talked about a man removing a baby’s diaper to perform sexual acts on the baby on camera. The look on the audience’s faces was absolutely horrified.
How could something as serious as infant rape and pornography not make a ripple in the headlines? My guess is that people don’t want to hear about it. They don’t want to believe that babies are at risk of being raped, sodomized, and abused in other ways.
While I don’t want it to happen, either, I don’t have the luxury of burying my head in the sand because it happened to me. The more society buries its head in the sand about this type of child abuse, the more freedom child abusers have to continue engaging in this type of abuse. After all, if babies can’t be sexually abused, then they don’t need protection, right? This gives child abusers a green light to harm all the babies they want because (1) nobody is watching to protect the babies; and (2) nobody will believe the memories when the adult has flashbacks of being sexually abused as a baby.
As a society, we are sacrificing our most innocent and helpless members. Because we don’t want to believe that infant abuse and pornography happens, we bury our heads in the sand and ignore it. What does that say to the babies who are being sacrificed so we can live in our denial?
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
I am still pretty new here, but unfortunately, I also know from personal experience that sexual abuse of babies/toddlers happens. One of my first memories is of my sperm donor taking off my diaper for the same reason. My ‘non-offending’ parent (sometimes I think I ‘hate’ her even more than I do him) to this day denies that anything could ever have happened.
So far I have not been able to share this with anyone except for my therapist, even my husband thinks this is ‘taking it a bit too far’ (and he means me not sperm donor!).
I guess, I am still very much at the beginning of my journey towards healing, so far most of my energy has gone into trying to figure out this weird, multi-faceted kind-of-me (both my therapist and my psychiatrist don’t believe in ‘labeling’ people), but since I found this blog – which often describes ME to a ‘t’, I have received confirmation from my therapist, that DID is indeed my diagnosis and I found a measure of peace in knowing that I am not alone and that I am normal – normal for someone with DID!
Thank you, Faith, for bringing this up and thank you to everyone who by commenting makes this blog what it is – a sign of hope.
N7#D4
Hi, N7.
I am sorry that you also know this pain. Preverbal memories (from traumas inflicted before you had the ability to speak) are stored differently from other memories. There isn’t a whole lot written to explain how to process them, but it is different.
From what I have read in books and heard from my readers, healing from preverbal abuse involves a lot more of releasing body memories — of “feeling” what happened to your body without the context of a regular flashback.
I suspect that I experienced some preverbal trauma based on body memories, but I have not delved too deeply into this layer of healing. If I do go there, I will blog about it so others will have some sort of resource available.
– Faith
I would be interested in that topic. When I visit my friend’s infant, I “know” that I was sexually abused at that age. I also get some body sensations – they’re not really strong enough to call body memories. I have the feeling that I won’t get to this as my main healing work for a while, but I like having a road map of what issues I need to work through.
I am so sorry for you both that you went through infant/toddler sexual abuse. It is so horrible. In the Netherlands, tehre was a recent case of a man sexually assaulting more than 40 infants/toddlers at a daycare center. I was astonished and horrified by that. I wish you both were believed more, so that you could get the sympathy and support you need.
Well said. There is a line in our cultural sand one must never cross. And that’s prerty much including Things That Arr Too Heinous. All that means is there’s no reaearch, no help for us.
I also have a memory of preverbal abuse. it is something i’ve only told my therapist. How do you explain what our infant brain conveys about it? But who would believe me, or not interpret it as me mis-understanding him changing my diaper. but i know. a child, even an infant, knows when safety flees and terror begins.
What actions can be taken to protect our littlest and most defenseless treasures?
Thanks for your courageous truth-speaking, Faith!
Ruby
The way it worked for us was the nonverbal memories came to us when lying down. They were hard to take when they came into our consciousness.
The time from when we were 2 until 3 1/2 and verbal and our brain worked with words is somehow harder to put all together.
For us after we moved at age 3 1/2 we were creating parts consciously and those memories were all hard to take they were not as difficult to get to.
That it was a long time ago really is not an issue. That is not how our memory works.
It is all horrible and I think the only thing to do is to let as many people know that it exists. I expect that it is more known by enforcement agencies than they let on just as cult activity is more known than they let on. The training says not to let the public know to protect the public. I feel the enforcement agencies do not really want people to know how little control they really have.
I no longer speak in anger. No one hears me. I do what I can. Part of the problem is that mothers have the responsibility of always knowing. They do not. The myth that mothers always know best and always protect their young is not true and unhelpful.
Males often claim that they can always tell who is an abuser. Often saying that they can smell them. This is not true.
It is going to take time. I do think it is getting better all the time. One is to many.
” and (2) nobody will believe the memories when the adult has flashbacks of being sexually abused as a baby.”
Exactly. I think some abusers count on this.
[…] at Blooming Lotus: Child Pornography Involving Infants: I have shared with you that I suffered from sexual abuse as a toddler. One of my earliest […]
[…] at Blooming Lotus: Child Pornography Involving Infants: I have shared with you that I suffered from sexual abuse as a toddler. One of my earliest […]
I have read in the enterprise about this how can I as one person help stop this? I am a mother of 6 and it kills me to hear that these animals prey on helpless infants and toddlers!
Hi, Patty.
I think the most important thing you can do is raise awareness that this happens. Yet another toddler porn ring was busted, but I did not see it mentioned in the mainstream media. I think it is because people don’t WANT to know. If they bury their heads in the sand, they don’t have to deal with it.
Here’s the link if you want to read the news story:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/08/04/stuffed-toy-bunny-helps-uncover-alleged-international-child-porn-network/?test=latestnews
Raise awareness that this happens. Share this news link (note the article was published on Fox News, which is a credible news source) with others. Don’t let people keep their heads in the sand.
~ Faith