Why Didn’t Someone Report Child Abuse?

Readers of “Lillian, A True Story Of Multiple Personality Disorder", have asked why no one reported Lillian’s abuse.

The answers lie in understanding the lack of protections against child abuse at the time, as well as where Lillian was living and the dynamics of her family.

Lillian was born in 1939 when protective child labor laws and child protective services did not exist.  There were no laws mandating the reporting of child abuse.  The Department of Health Education and Welfare had not yet created safeguards for abused children.

Lillian’s family hailed from rural West Virginia during an era when people believed in possession by evil spirits.  Exorcism and bloodletting were still practiced.  She grew up in a community where incest was not uncommon.  People were often poorly educated and police were considered outsiders.  For these individuals the reporting of child abuse to outsiders was considered taboo.  Families adhered to a “We take care of our own" mentality.

This type of lifestyle has been depicted in numerous films and books including the 2010 coming of age mystery drama, "Winter's Bone", starring Jennifer Lawrence as a poverty stricken teenage girl living in the rural Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Lillian's family was very much a product of this environment. Lillian’s mother was psychotic and her stepfather was a sadist and pedophile. Other family members, including Lillian’s sisters maintained the family code of silence. This disregard of abuse towards a small, defenseless child is detailed in chapter 29 when Lillian’s mother leaves her in a boarded up crate in the attic for two days without food or water. Lillian was discovered by a workman who cared for her until her family was located.  The incident was never reported.

"Lillian’s Journal: “I was around four years old.  We were going to move to another house.  She (Lillian’s mother) took me to the attic where there was a crate and made me get in it.  Then she nailed the crate shut.  I heard her go down the steps.  I could see through the slats.  Everything was quiet.  Time passed.  Later, I heard someone in the house.  I was so thirsty and I cried for a drink.  A man who had come to paint the house for the new tenants heard me and came up the attic stairs.  When he saw me, he pried the crate open and took me out.  I was stinking and filthy, but most of all, I was scared.  Scared that mother forgot where she put me again.”

"The painter took me to his house, where he and his wife cleaned me up. I remember that she put me in the sink and washed me while he washed my clothes. They doctored all the nail scratches and removed all the splinters. It hurt, but I didn't cry. It took a very long time for them to find out who I was and where my family was. Finally they learned my aunt Pearl's telephone number and called her.  She came to get me, and when she called my mother at work, mother said she thought I was with aunt Pearl all that time. Later, when I was growing up, someone said my mother was psychotic.”

When a young girl experiences severe trauma that is so unbearable -- severe physical, sexual and emotional abuse -- the brain locks the memory into a newly created self in the mind like a person in a jigsaw puzzle – that self – withholds the secret from the host personalities mind and develops an identity of its own.  It is the mind’s attempt to create a defense mechanism.

Lillian was afflicted with this condition, owing to the severe abuse she experienced as a child and teenager.  Her mind held each trauma separately in the form of personalities who took over her body, developing lives in personae of their own.

The effect of abuse on a child's thinking is one of the last and most difficult symptoms to change.  Many abused children believe that they deserve to be abused.  Indeed, some abused children believe that they wanted the abuse to occur.  The untangling of these confabulatory beliefs is a long and arduous process.

Some abused children remember, others don't.  Those who don’t, often don't want to be touched.

Esther was one of Lillian's personalities who spoke out against child-abuse.  Esther’s murderous rage towards her stepfather never subsided.

Like many young girls who have been sexually abused, Esther thought of herself as "dirty.”  These children, even as adults, wash themselves compulsively, taking long showers as they symbolically cleanse their bodies of the shame they feel inside.  Indeed, such behavior is one of the primary symptoms of sexual abuse.

Esther wrote in her journal: “How do I make these feelings of hate go away? Dr. Robinson said to write it down. He said people today are more aware of child abuse. More aware? That’s a laugh! Not on my street. But don't worry. It doesn't matter. No one wants to be involved. The law protects the abuser. By fighting back, I will be getting even! It is easy for you to say that I can't. You weren't tied up for days. You weren't locked in a closet. There are no mental scars in you. No burns from cigarettes or scalding water. No rope burns. No electric shock to watch you jump. No sex abuse. Nothing put inside of you to hide it from mommy. No night terrors from being locked in the dark. No ridicule from other kids who didn't let you forget that they know you are filth. You can't kill the one who tried to kill you. You tell yourself, ‘Someday it will be their turn.’ So, I survived because I was lucky. Lucky?!! The past lives within me. It haunts my dreams, and you, all of you, tell me I can't get even. You make me sick! And now a therapist says I can't hit back. I can't hurt anyone. Why live in the past? It’s over. Forget it. All of you who can’t dial a telephone to report abuse or don’t want to be involved make me sick, and now you tell me I can't even get even! I feel rage. I read the paper, and I want to scream. I listen to the neighbors and fight to keep from letting the anger and frustration show. Is everyone asleep? Doesn’t anybody care about what is happening on the next street? Next-door? I cry inside. I can now, but there was a time when I couldn't. I want to tell someone how it was, however it is. And make them wake up and care. I remember being scared all the time.

“I remember being scared. That time was a release before Lillian’s new dad came to live there. Lillian had wet the bed -- a sign that everything said about her was true. She was a bad seed.  She didn’t deserve to live. Guilt for being alive. Guilt for not liking to sleep in a wet bed. Bad, bad, bad. We learn fast that love means we are hurt because mother has to teach us not to be so bad. Her new dad taught us too, for our own sake, so we could get along in the world. Dad had to teach us, punish us, so we wouldn't forget, because he loved us. I wondered about other families. How did they know which one of their kids was the bad one – the bad seed? We played a guessing game and tried to pick out which kid in other families was like us, the one who didn't do anything right, the one who spent dark nights in the coal cellar. We wondered if they were afraid of the dark period? Of rats? We wondered how they stayed so clean. I remember the shame. I remember being afraid someone would notice me. What would I say if they asked how I got hurt so often? Why was I so clumsy? I would rather let them think I fell. It was an accident. If they knew how I got cut, then they would know I had been punished.”

Through Esther, we learned so much about Lillian’s life as a child and how violence was a "normal" part of everyday life.

“We were in a home visiting and watched the father put a cigarette out on his daughter’s arm in front of us and the whole family. No one said a word. A couple of years later another daughter from that home got married, and Lillian was in the home when this young woman's husband hit the baby. We sat there and didn’t say a word. We believed that this was the way it was in most, if not all families. Lillian felt the wrongness, but hadn't we been subjected to the same things? Lillian talked to the girl from the house about why her man did that, and she said his father had held a gun to his head when he was little. Wasn't getting hit better? And besides, it was just a kid, and that's how it is.

“You learn to live with it. I read in the paper about a child's death, and the neighbors knew there was no heat in the house in zero weather. The neighbors knew the kids were fed warm tea or water to live on and the authorities are considering prosecuting the parents. What about the neighbors who did nothing? The girl or boy in school who was so cold and distant, the one the teacher just can't like. Usually, teachers find something to like about every kid. But no one tries to find out why that child is the way she is. Does anyone care? Yes, I hate!"

Sadly, statistics report that one in every five girls will be abused before becoming an adult. The statistics for women are equally high. Later in life, after she had fully integrated all of her personalities, Lillian suffered considerable guilt over not having reported her own child abuse. Lillian wanted to help others. To honor her wishes, a portion of proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to promoting awareness of child abuse.

With acknowledgements to editor Jordana Halpern.