The book title jumped out at me. I was reading book reviews in a local women's magazine and read that particular review with interest. It was the first time that I had seen - or heard - of such a book.
The story of an incest survivor.
At the time, I was in my early or mid twenties and it wasn't often that I would come across such books but then, admittedly, I never really researched that particular subject as I did with books on ballet and drama. Or any other subject that was of great interest to me. The topic of incest was taboo, after all, and something I didn't want anyone else to know about. So it was best to leave it alone. And just because I never mentioned it didn't mean it never happened.
The title of the book was, "Cry Hard and Swim: The Story of an Incest Survivor" by a woman author, Jacqueline Spring. And if the book was reviewed in a local magazine, that meant that it was available in a major bookstore. I think the store itself was mentioned in the magazine.
I made a telephone call to that bookstore and was told that the book wasn't in stock yet. But I could place a reservation for it. I didn't want to miss out on reading the book so I left my name and phone number. I tried to make it sound as if I merely had a passing interest in reading it, having come across the review in the magazine.
Some time later, the call came in that the book had arrived. I went to the bookstore and spoke to the sales assistant who had contacted me. She seemed like an outgoing young woman and started to tell me about the book, what it was about and how sad it was. Inwardly, I was a bit alarmed that she had read the book and was talking to me about it. I tried to look nonchalant, that yes, it was sad, but interesting, and how terrible that these things happened. I didn't want her to make the connection and she never let on if she did. And, for a moment, I wondered if she herself had personally experienced it. Somehow, it didn't appear that way but of course I never knew. Her openness also surprised me as I had never really conversed with a sales assistant in any bookstore. They were usually there to help me with my queries or assist me in finding a book. That short, but pleasant, exchange seems to have stood out in my memory.
That particular experience also opened my eyes. She wasn't just a sales assistant working in a bookstore. She was also a person who happened to be an employee in a bookstore. Silly, perhaps? No, not really, not at the time. Perhaps I was just too sheltered. But her willingness to share did make me see beyond what was in front of me. It wasn't a mind-shattering experience but a veil, somewhere, was lifted.
Buying the book seemed like a big step at the time. And an important step. I couldn't very well bury my head in the sand and make a wish that some kind stranger would purchase the book for me. If I could, I probably would have.
Once I had made my purchase, I couldn't show the book to anyone else, friend or family member. No one. It was kept hidden in my bedroom and I couldn't read it in front of anyone or accidentally leave it lying around. Even the book itself had to be a secret. Reading it was a private experience.
The book is still with me and it is still hidden away. And I know I started to write this with the intention of wanting to share a few excerpts from the book but that sales assistant comes to mind now. It is her openness that I see before me. Why is that? I think it's because I couldn't be open about it then. And I still can't be completely open about it now.
The book, like my own experiences, still stays hidden. There are scores of books on the subject, I realise that. I read bits and pieces, here and there, but nothing else really interests me. That was the only book on childhood sexual abuse that I've ever really read, that I've ever bothered to read. Maybe it came at a time when I was supposed to read such a book.
Many years ago, someone else had written her own story about being an incest survivor. And a young woman who worked at the bookstore had casually talked about it for a few moments. When I remember one, I have to remember the other.
Odd how things work sometimes.
Graphics by Dana Lea's Graphics
The Book
Published by VIRAGO PRESS Limited 1987
Copyright © Jacqueline Spring 1987
Excerpt One
And this, too, is the art of the therapist. Yet the corresponding skill lies also in preserving that outer reality, the adult, while creating the conditions in which the inner child can uncurl from its defensive position and speak.
To arouse the hurt child within a person is relatively easy, given sufficient time and sympathy. The preservation of the adult wherein the child dwells is not so easy, for once the child does uncurl, it not only speaks, but yells and rages, screams and weeps, yearns for a different childhood, and despairs to discover that this can never be, that no one can ever take the place of the mother or father, and that this is the hard reality that has to be faced.
The adult is shaken by this inner storm, and only the consistent strength of respect provided by the therapist can hold the integrity of the person intact. For the energy aroused in the protesting child must be balanced by a complementary energy in the adult, an energy of new pride in adulthood. It is these opposing energies which achieve that eventual state of stillness in the self which is the source of all energy.
Excerpt Two
It takes great courage to say, as she did, in a room full of incest survivors, "But I loved my father. He was a good father, apart from sexually abusing me." I kept very still. What she had said was something I had to hold on to, to place in my mental file on Dad, beside every scrap of evidence about him in my possession. All the stories of my brothers and sisters, glowing recollections of his brilliance, his wit, teaching them chess, taking them on 'mystery tours', the play he produced in the house, using them as actors, the fun of it, the parties, holidays, musical evenings. He was a good father, apart from sexually abusing me.
Excerpt Three
Letting go of pain is not easy, when it is the only way we have ever known how to be. We wonder who we will be when we are no longer victims, when we have moved away from the group and no longer even think of ourselves as survivors. What will it be like when the incest in our lives no longer matters, when the memories which can never be erased no longer weigh so much in misery and fear that we cannot bear to live with them? To be ordinary, to find out what it is just to be ordinary, is this not what we have always wanted?