I finally got around to reading The Incest Diary and I decided to read it all in one go else I knew I wouldn’t get through it all. I only paused once when I couldn’t stomach it but otherwise it was so well written and honest.
She told her story as truthfully as she could: of the victim that people don’t want to acknowledge.
You can’t acknowledge that grooming and rape is bad and then reject those who are affected and possessed by them. Grooming is supposed to make the victim quiet about their abuse, even enjoy, “consent” and “collude” with it. Sometimes grooming works. Sometimes rape by a family member will make someone crazy.
As she said, the ideal father-daughter incest victim fights and runs away and screams from the hilltops about what happened. But she was silenced by her father, her family, her friends.
She was threatened with murder if she fought or ran away. Of course someone threatened from infancy, a child, a baby, would not be able to run.
A person frozen by their thinking — thinking formed by incest and violence — not be able to fight back. Both physically and mentally. Would internalise and try to enjoy the endless abuse (abuse that would not end even if she didn’t try to find some pleasure in it) as a survival mechanism.
I hated going to the reviews and seeing people dismiss her experience as pornographic fanfiction. I also hated people speculating on her identity.
The final parts she wrote about her current marriage made her terribly sad, but I was unsurprised. It’s common for victims to be revictimised. She mentioned how it felt like rapists and abusers could “smell” the trauma on her. To extent she’s right. The people of the worst kind will intentionally seek out the vulnerable and traumatised who they know will not fight back as that’s their method of survival. It breaks my heart. I hope she finds peace wherever and whoever she is. Her father and family made it so she never stood a chance.
I wish I could say that times have changed, she’s grown and the younger generation of mothers, grandmothers, brothers and friends would treat an incestuous rape victim any differently… but I can’t. I’m sorry, Miss. You reached many people with your autobiography