April 14, 2004
Author pens book about child abuse
Autobiography documents horrors of growing up in violent household
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Transcending a childhood of horrors and two abusive marriages, a local woman has penned an autobiography that rips the lid off the code of silence surrounding abuse.
Rhonnie, who publicly uses her first name only, grew up in a small northern Michigan town and is a longtime resident of the Traverse City area. Her book "So What's Normal: Life After Pedophilia, Abuse and Neglect" took a wrenching year to write and she released it this month. She timed the book's debut to coincide with April's Child Abuse Awareness Month.
Drawing on her deep Christian faith and unwavering conviction that she must both save others from abuse and facilitate survivors' healing, Rhonnie hopes her book will help others find safety, healing and peace. She is embarking on a nationwide publicity campaign to not only promote the book, but to shine light on the issue of child abuse.
"The scars are very deep, you carry them throughout your life, but luckily for me my abuse drives me to help others," said Rhonnie of growing up in a loveless, neglectful and violently abusive home. "It is hard to get people to understand just how big this is in the world; I've been doing a lot of radio shows and, thank God, they've been open to sharing why it is so important to get this information out in the open."
The book has been on her mind for 20 years, but she shelved the idea for years not wanting to rip open wounds. After noticing time after time how abuse was covered so poorly in the media, indicating a fundamental lack of understanding about perpetrators or the children they torment, she decided to speak out.
The book and her mission to help others are things that Rhonnie feels she has lived her life to do.
"People [in the media] don't understand what abuse really is, I can tell from how they report on it or how they talk to people," said Rhonnie, adding that the in depth portrayal of her young life could help therapists. "I've had therapists reading this change the way they do their program, because they finally get it."
Mary O'Connor, founder of the Miracle Manor, noted how Rhonnie's book is both compelling and frightening.
"We have so many pretty euphemisms for what happens to children in what we think are stable nuclear families, and I think she has really has been pretty fearless in stripping away the veil we look through," said O'Connor, MA, MSW, the executive director of Miracle Manor. "Even in working with families, I think we still don't want to look at how brutal it is and how destructive abuse is, because we are still protecting ourselves."
A portion of the book's proceeds go to a foundation Rhonnie started called Living After Abuse, which is geared to providing counseling to adult survivors as well as children. She cites national statistics - three million victims of child abuse now as well as 39 million adult survivors - but to her each child is more than a number, each survivor more than a face in the crowd. She is one of them.
"Because counseling is so expensive, a lot of the people who need help can't afford it," Rhonnie noted. "I think counseling should be free if you are trying to help yourself after somebody else damaged you."
"There's a whole bunch of people who can be empowered again after somebody takes away their life," she added.
In the book, Rhonnie outlines in horrific, gut-wrenching detail the relentless physical, sexual and emotional abuse she and her siblings experienced as children. One emotionally charged, brutal incident at age eight drove home to her that her parents did not love her and that she was essentially alone in a violent environment.
"I knew that whatever I did, they would never love me," she said. "That's a very painful memory, the most helpless feeling anybody could have. I always thought it was me, I hadn't yet realized there was something wrong with them."
From this abusive beginning, Rhonnie segued into a teen life of drug use, drinking and promiscuity, seeking solace from her pain. She experienced long stretches of homelessness and upheaval during her high school years, never managing to graduate.
During this period, one woman helped her, taking Rhonnie under her wing, providing food and shelter despite her own large family. This woman, now deceased, helped start Rhonnie on the path to healing, though it took decades to break destructive patterns - both in thought and action.
Decades later, with three grown children and two abusive marriages behind her - struggles she also documents in her book - Rhonnie is forging a new pattern. She and her husband of ten years are sharing this mission together: helping victims of abuse, whether past or present.
They are determined to break the wall of silence still surrounding physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children; 90 percent of which, Rhonnie said, is perpetrated within a family. Family abuse is more common than the much-publicized but rarer cases of stranger abduction or abuse, cases that can incite and unite a community.
Rhonnie knows from her own experiences how a community can sweep abuse under the rug. Revisiting her hometown years later, she discovered that everyone knew the secret, yet growing up Rhonnie and her siblings were shunned.
For all these reasons, she is now talking to complete strangers on radio stations nationwide, attending book signings and doing anything possible to spread the word.
"I'm not a public person, I'm a reclusive person, a very private person," Rhonnie said. "I'm doing things here that I don't like to do but I'm going to do this with God's grace."
For more information on Rhonnie's foundation, see their website at www.livingafterabuse.com