~ The Twilight Zone ~
INCEST –
A FAMILY TRAGEDY
“Family members may need to deny, trivialize or even turn away for their own conscious or subconscious reasons. And we agonize as we have to let them go.”
Marilyn Van Derbur
“The Twilight Zone” below is reprinted from the Special Edition of LIP – INCEST – A Family Tragedy; The Holzinger Story, from December of 2003.
Can you imagine writing a letter to a Doctor of Psychology and stating that you are now in complete agreement with your brothers and sisters that your other sister is “mentally ill?” Can you imagine?
And what caused these geniuses to come to this psychological analysis? Because I wanted to do a DNA test with a childhood friend. That’s right. Anyone who wants to do a DNA test in this country should immediately be locked in a mental institution. And my brothers' and sisters' response was so over the top (there aren’t even words to express it), and because my parents wrote the letter for them, I think it points even more highly to a possible DNA connection with that friend. There will be more on that coming shortly. Why haven’t we done the DNA test? Stay tuned…
And what did these geniuses think the Psychologist was going to do? Immediately have me locked away in a mental ward because they determined I was mentally ill? I mean, what did they think he was going to do? Tell me it was “impossible” that my father molested me? Tell me it’s “impossible” I have a half-sister?
I would like to state right here and now, for the record, that I believe all of my brothers and sisters are mentally ill. The Psychologist, by the way, agrees with me.
And how did my parents get their grown - all but one over fifty-years of age - children to sign these letters? That will be coming as well.
And what does this have to do with the Quakers? Well, they have known about this for five years and not done one single thing. When I was growing up, the Quaker Meeting in Lancaster was nothing more than an incest cult using “peace” as a cover. Are they still? I will take a look at that shortly.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE
& Other Things
I wrote to a friend in October of 2003, "My brothers and sisters sent my therapist’s boss a letter in which they stated, “Please note that all of Becky’s brothers and sisters are in complete agreement that she is mentally ill.” I feel as if I am in the twilight zone - and damn glad I live in an age where I can’t be locked away in a mental ward because I say that my father molested me."
Their letter was in response to my letter to the President of Franklin & Marshall College that appears on page 2 of this paper. I felt I was in the twilight zone for another reason as well. The letter they wrote to a psycologist was written by a pedophile, a victim of the pedophile, a woman who has never married, who has had terrible insomnia since her teens and who at 53 years old is scared to death of her own father, and a third-grade teacher who somehow thinks all of this is okay.
"They have a pedophile calling a psycologist to say that my father couldn’t have molested me!" I said in astonishment to my therapist, Martha."
"Well," she understated, "there is that."
"I think the men in the white coats should come and take this whole family away," I continued. She didn’t say a word.
I am 49 years old. I have been a single parent all my life to a son who is now a sophomore at Penn State. I own a small home and have worked at the same job for the last eight years.
Denial is incredibly strong. Not only do I have the fact that one brother molested both of his other brothers in my family, I have memories of abuse. I told a boyfriend when I was eighteen. I moved into Holly House, a small guesthouse on the Sylvan property that barely fits a bed, in high school. It had a lock on the door.
I stopped speaking in high school. Martha named it for me - it is called elective mutism - and I stopped speaking to the point where I embarrassed my parents in front of company - and they took me to a psychologist - employed by Franklin & Marshall.
I moved into an apartment in the twelfth grade. I had to change schools and work two jobs to pay to attend McCaskey because my parents didn’t live in the Lancaster School District. I have always had a fear of men.
Our minds repress memories because they are so traumatic that we can not cope with them at the time. I listed the above items in my life because most are simply verifiable facts. The memories that came back to me are true.
If anyone questions repressed memories, then look at my brother. Ninety nine percent of mental health professionals will tell you that he was sexually abused. He was repeating learned behavior when he molested his thirteen-year-old brother. Yet, he says nothing happened to him.
I told one of my sisters to take the e-mail from the front page of this paper (An Open Letter to Tom Holzinger) to any mental health professional and to also tell them that Tom molested his thirteen-year-old brother. "See what they say," I said. I saw the look of fear pass through her eyes. She has never done it.
I don’t wish what has happened to me on anyone. I cannot describe my anguish for the last three years however, without an understanding of what has made us who we are, we can never arrive at inner peace and comfort with ourselves.
One of the great ironies of this story is that my parents always wanted me to be a writer. I doubt this was their intent. Sadly, their actions supplied the most important story I have ever written.
I will not feel sorry for them one bit when this paper is printed and distributed. If you think I’m angry, you’re damn right I’m angry. I have a right to be angry. Incest cost me my entire life.
My parents continue to sit on their huge property calling me delusional while it is obvious to everyone that a train wreck went through their family. A train wreck called incest.
They have left scarred, under achieving children incapable of forming long-lasting relationships all across the map while they stand in peace vigils, are active in the American Civil Liberties Union and put themselves out to the public as fine, upstanding citizens. It is a sacrilege. It is high time they were held accountable for their actions.
