Today, I read an article about a book coming out, or rather, being reissued. It was first issued in 1978, a year after the famed movie star and doting mother Joan Crawford died. It was titled Mommie Dearest, written by Christina Crawford, who was Joan's oldest adopted child. What many people would have assumed to be a book written about a doting mother from a loving child turned out to be a horror story of epic proportions.
Christina recounts, with vivid detail and pronounced sureness, that she and her adopted brother Chis were abused by Joan. This was the first book of it's kind to write with such openness about the violence and brutality that went on behind closed doors. Add on that it was a celebrity memoir and you have a book that would, and did, turn the world view of the famous on its head. Of course, not many wanted to or believed what Christina said in her book, some even calling her an outright liar, her two younger adopted sisters included.
What does abuse look like?
Let me be clear here, what Christina recalls in her book is a violent, alcoholic mother who was prone to bouts of anger and abused her children, at least the two oldest ones. But, the reason people called her a liar was because on the outside, to the press and even their friends, it was just a happy family. Nothing was wrong, and Christina was a child of a celebrity; she had to have everything she wanted right? Christina will be the first to tell you no, that wasn't the case at all.
Abuse is often hidden behind other things. I was abused, not physically, but verbally by my step-father for twelve years of my life. My brother as well was abused and has become a different person thanks to that verbal abuse. On the outside, however, to everyone else that we visited, the friends we had, we were the perfect family. We had fun, we went horse riding every weekend we could, and he supported me at everything I did. Bragged on me when I got into college and won a scholarship.
The only people that knew were few and they were mostly our friends, which meant they could do very little to help because they were kids like us. Abuse doesn't have to look like abuse to be abuse and not everyone has to see it for it to happen. The point is, it happened and the abused knows it happened.
But that person is so kind and helps others all the time...
Yes, because that is the face that they put on to hide what they do when no one else can hear or see. The abused is put into a light of being a liar by the person that abused them. The one who talked down to them and told them they were nothing is the same one who told everyone that the abused was a compulsive liar or had built up such a persona of being a good person, a kind person, that the abused just simply can't be telling the truth. It's not a believable story.
The victim here...
The abused is always the victim, even after the abuse has stopped, because the one that abused them shines a darker light on them by making themselves look better. It's hard to prove abuse happened when the person that caused it looks like a saint. So when a person who was abused decides to step forward, it's a brave step that not many take.
Did abuse happen in Christina Crawford's house? I don't know. I wasn't there. But, I don't think she is lying either. Did abuse happen in my house? Yes, I was there. I heard it, witnessed it, and received it. Does anyone else believe me? Some do now, but at first no, so I stayed quiet. So don't accuse someone who claim abuse of lying right off the bat. Because sometimes, the only lifeline they have, is to come forward and tell the truth of what happened.
