Why I’m Funny
The first time I ever came in anyone’s mouth, it was into the mouth of my stepfather. He had slipped into my room while I slept, crawled under my covers from below, and gone down on me. I woke only as I began to ejaculate, pleasure masking confusion. Then, shame. I pushed him off of me, kicked at his head.
“Stop,” he whispered as he crawled up beside me. “I know I shouldn’t, but it’s just so hard to resist. You don’t realize how beautiful your thoughts are when I’m doing that.”
Glen Robert Johnson had been my stepfather for several years before he started raping me. I’d met Glen in a home for the mentally retarded, where my mother was a manager. He was a grunt, responsible for washing people’s bodies. He had made enough money working there to pay his way through college at Southwest Baptist University, where he majored in psychology and religion.
Everyone loved Glen. He was quick to a joke, to a smile. He was wholesome and good looking, like a Sears catalog model, although even at twenty-years-old his hairline foreshadowed his future greasy baldness.
My first memory of him: sitting on his lap at on the urine-musty couches at the facility, laughing. My guitar-player father had left just a few years before, chased into the arms of a young groupie by my mother. (At least in his telling.) I was perhaps seven or eight, and was glad for the attention.
Glen invited me to his small trailer home before he ever asked my mother out on a date. I sat on the floor watching “Pinwheel” and “You Can’t Do That On Television” on Nickelodeon. A treat—we had never had cable.
Glen was part of a youth outreach program at SBU. They took troubled teens and children from broken homes out to parks or over for taco dinners. Unfortunately it was soon disbanded when the man who led the organization was found to be molesting some of the children, a revelation Glen shared with my mother in the car one afternoon. He was distraught, and she put her hand on his leg consolingly.
By this time Glen had already mostly extricated himself from the group, choosing to spend time with my mother—now his girlfriend, and his first female sexual partner (an experience he later related to me in ghastly detail)—and with me.
Glen and my mother, Mary Beth, were soon married. I was elated. My father moved to Florida, but not before signing the paperwork to allow me to be legally adopted by Glen and to take his name. (I had lobbied aggressively to be allowed to change my first name to “Hawk,” but was shot down.)
Years later in a tiki bar in the Florida Keys, my birth father told me he had been unsure about the adoption, but my mother had threatened to take me into hiding and cut all ties if he didn’t acquiesce. We sipped rum-and-Cokes while I told him about Glen’s abuse, although only by an accident of conversation. I had tried to spare him the pain. My father swore to murder Glen, rising from the bar and stumbling into the parking lot, where I held him as he wept underneath the overcast tropical sky.
The first years were good. Glen and Mary Beth took a job as live-in managers of an assisted-living facility. Thirteen mentally retarded or mentally ill patients were my playmates, which excepting a few episodes—a gushing femoral artery when a woman had a seizure over a dishwasher loaded with knives; shit flung across walls by an angry mute; clients’ occasional sex or masturbation sessions I stumbled upon—was a lot of fun. The facility was in the country, surrounded by straw fields in which I could run, and the State of Missouri paid for a lot of interesting toys for the patients that they were happy to share with me. We had a swimming pool underneath a willow. When the willow leaves steeped too long in the water, the entire pool turned rust red.
One day Glen handed me a treasure map, its terminus obfuscated by a series of clues. I spent the day tromping through the fields to look under cattle salt licks and tracks in the mud, solving riddles to uncover the next clue. I don’t even recall what the treasure was. I was just entertained, flattered by the mystery. For weeks afterward I pleaded with Glen to concoct another mystery hunt, but he begged off.
When I was around ten or eleven, my parents informed me that we were moving to Kansas City—and it was a secret. I wasn’t to tell anyone I knew unless they were family. Months earlier, as my parents became privy to the internal workings of the company that managed the homes—Glen had an informal promotion as a sort of all-around “computer guy”; my mother was an administrator—they had discovered that a considerable amount of embezzling had occurred.
Jack, the boss, had been funneling state money through the company into his own pocket. My parents, fearful of being implicated in the scheme, had gathered files and reports and presented them to the FBI. An investigation had begun, but because of Jack’s connections with local and state government officials, the typical Ozark network of good ol’ boys (a network of genial corruption that included distant members of my family), Glen and Mary Beth feared for their safety.
They were not crazy. Jack later drunkenly confessed to my mother at a health-industry conference that he had hired men to beat up Glen in Kansas City, although Glen had recognized the two burly men waiting at our house as thugs that afternoon and wisely stayed away.
My mother went ahead to Kansas City to start her new job as a nursing home administrator, leaving me in our Springfield duplex with Glen and my kid sister, Rachel.
I don’t recall if this was when the sexual abuse started, although I do remember it being the first time Glen had told me not to talk to my mother about something. That’s a funny thing about sexual abuse: for as much as I believe the furor over “repressed sexual abuse” is overblown, for the first several months I was molested I would not remember it in the morning, despite waking up with Glen in my bed, where he had taken to sleeping instead of with my mother.
But if the sexual abuse hadn’t started by then, the duplicity had.
Glen, he hesitantly revealed, was psychic. “Empath” was his term. (He was cribbing terminology from Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of our favorite shows.) His mother and one of his sisters shared this trait, he confided. It wasn’t simply reading thoughts. Instead he would be struck by “flashes,” impressions of emotion and occasionally facts, most commonly from those about whom he cared the most.
He took me aside one day and showed me a polished, trapezoidal stone. He placed the stone in a divot of skin between his eyes.
“There is a place on me for this stone, which means I have the gift,” he said. He demonstrated how the stone, unlike most rocks, could transmit the current from the frightening static electricity generator he would occasionally use in parlor science experiments.
“Perhaps there is a place on your body where it fits, too,” he said.
That was his game, always tempering the threat of his “abilities” with the lure that I, too, might just be special. A telepath—or, encouraging me to stare at dust motes falling through rays of sunlight in our living room, perhaps someone with telekinesis. I was a regular reader of The Uncanny X-Men and knew about these things, even if I wasn’t sure I believed in them.
The subtext was terrible: if I didn’t have the gift, I should never forget that no matter where I was, no matter what I was doing, Glen knew what I was thinking.
At twelve or so, just beginning to feel the pangs of pubescent lust, I spent most of my waking hours trying not only to avoid thinking of sex because of its sinful nature—we were going to a new church—but because I knew that every sexual thought that bubbled up from the depths went flying through the ether to Glen.
He wasn’t always correct. Glen tried desperately to convince me that he’d “read” sexual thoughts I’d had about my mother, which despite that I was a hillbilly with little compunction about incest, were not true. In retrospect, it’s clear he was simply anticipating the sort of generic sexual thoughts every pubescent boy feels. Yet my own guilty lust provoked him, he said. He knew touching me was wrong, he’d plead, but how could he resist me when my own thoughts called out to him?
I might be special, he promised. And worst of all, as a young teen—awkward, ostracized at school, ignored by girls—I really, really wanted to feel special.
So I stopped fighting.
Those were hard years. Sickeningly charmed in a way, but difficult to shoulder.
After confessing to me his midnight indiscretions, Glen tearfully roped me into his ablution.
“Do you realize what I’ve been doing?” he asked. I hadn’t. Not in the forefront of my mind, at least. But as Glen weeped and promised never to do it again, to go to church and beg for forgiveness, every suppressed encounter came flooding back.
He wanted it to all go away. It was the first time I had to face it, to understand.
Soon he was joining me in the shower, masturbating with conditioner slathered all over his thick cock, asking me if I liked to “feel good, too.”
My mother knew. They would fight. Screaming, slammed-door arguments that ended with my mother crying, sometimes drunk on Kahlua, the only alcohol benign enough to be allowed in our Christian home.
She bought me a lock for my bedroom door, a simple slot-and-chain. I never had a chance to install it—I was afraid of what Glen would do—but when he spotted the unopened package on my shelves, another fight broke out and the lock disappeared.
Glen provided an illicit brotherhood. He took me shoplifting, teaching me how to remove the magnetic security strips from packaging and to hold things securely in the waistband of my sweatpants and how to unpackage large items like Nintendo consoles and stuff them into bean bags, which we then bought for $10.
I was flush with gadgetry. On church trips, I would hand out Game Boys (I had four) to other kids, while watching television on my Sony portable or listening to CDs on my $400 Discman. I had a Super Nintendo the day after it hit the shelves. We were poor then, but no one seemed to question how I could afford so many toys, even if they must have noticed the scars on the battery cases where I had pried off the security cables glued on by Best Buy employees. I was a pariah at church, too pugnacious and goofy and snide to be part of the elite. This was always forgotten for at least as long as it took for the other kids to grow bored with my gear.
My mother, however, did ask where I got the Super Nintendo.
“He borrowed it from a friend,” Glen snapped. He was always quick with a lie, a patronizing smile to cover the venom. Weeks later she asked if I was going to give it back, but I must had given a response convincing enough for her to pretend it was legit.
Glen took me on late-night adventures in his dirty red station wagon. We’d break into abandoned buildings, looting them of worthless office supplies or furniture. We once climbed over the twenty-foot chain link fences surrounding a decommissioned Ford factory, running through the giant hangers looking for interesting tools. We climbed to the top of a three-story open cistern filled with some noxious liquid industrial byproduct and peered inside. I wondered what it would be like to fall in. Not to drown, but to feel every part of your skin go white with chemical frigidity.
He stole chloroform from a small town drug store—they just had it on the shelf—and encouraged me to try knocking myself out. I could never pass out before the smell nauseated me.
We explored the cave-like drainage system that ran underneath the parking lots of Arrowhead Stadium, muscling the iron storm grate aside to emerge just a couple hundred feet from the stadium itself. Glen held up the sliding security fencing just enough for me to slide under and we hid from the security guards behind the seating to look out on the empty football field, still lit up even at night. It was the only time I’ve ever been inside Arrowhead.
Another time we were at the park where the drainage ditch emptied, and he grew upset when a leathery couple walked by with their dog.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, exactly,” he warned me, hurrying us back towards the car. “But I read that they’re going to do something awful to that dog.”
Glen worked as a night mainframe operator for a local aerospace company. I’d go to work with him sometimes, trying to load text games like “Trek” on the consoles of IBM System/38 machines. Sometimes he’d let me load the giant boxes of green-and-white tractor-fed paper into the washing machine-sized printers. They smelled like ink and ions. Glen would steal things from his work, but only little things.
We ate horrible, indulgent food at night. Greasy snacks made up the majority of Glen’s diet; he gave into his quickly expanding gut. We stopped at a 24-hour grocery store one night before heading out on a “mission” to stock up on “supplies,” as if we were going to be gone for days. Thinking of the breaking-and-entering adventure ahead I exclaimed, “This is going to be fun!” as a bag of beef jerky and a tube of KY Jelly came down the belt into the hands of the young female store clerk. She looked at me, still wearing half of my stupid grin, then to Glen, who hung his head. With a start I realized what I’d said and was destroyed, sinking back into a dot, not just because I had spoken openly of our secret mission, but because I had implied that the beef jerky somehow was part of our sex play. I was thirteen or so, used to watching my stepfather masturbate over the toilet while looking at my naked body in the shower, but I didn’t want her to think I was some sort of pervert.
Once he tried to bring my mother along on our night adventure to convince her of his telepathy. It was late, but he piled us all into the car, even my kid sister, and drove towards an empty lot near Eastwood Trafficway on a psychic impulse. He was moody, disturbed.
“It’s, like, the police. Or a criminal,” he said, concerned. “A criminal has escaped.” We all got out of the car at the lot, searching the ground with flashlights for clues as he had suggested. Near the row of three-foot cubic concrete blocks, Glen found half a pair of thin handcuffs on the ground. “He must have broken them here.” The cuffs looked quite similar to the many single-tumbler pawn shop cuffs we had stolen before, to practice how to pick them with our hands cuffed behind our back.
I’m not sure my mother bought it either. She just seemed tired.
No one at church knew. My mother joined the choir, spending more and more time at Kansas City Baptist Temple. Our church was a proto-megachurch, 3,000 people in and out the door every Sunday, with two morning services and another more casual evening one for the truly devoted. The later service would often be delayed if the Chiefs were playing. The congregation sat in the pews and watched the game projected onto a 50-foot screen.
The church was rich from donations and part of a progressive fundamentalist evangelist movement that was combining traditional missionary outreach with a military-flavored internal “discipleship” leadership program that combined intense seminary traning with obstacle courses and automatic weapons.
It was a cult, sure, but a friendly one. The sort of suburban cult to which you’d invite your friends, with youth groups and subsidized ski trips that you paid for with attention, listening to a weekly sermon about how sex was wrong or how we would be eternally responsible if we didn’t encourage our secular friends to attend our Wednesday night youth group, where they might, after a few weeks of soda and sing-alongs, come to realize the redemptive power of Christ. We had milquetoast Christan rock anthems and a wise-cracking youth leader, Shane Crawford, who drove a sporty little Mazda and spiked his hair.
They didn’t much like me. I talked back. I ripped my jeans and started wearing combat boots which made me a rebel at church, but just another dirtbag at school. I’d make jokes when everyone had their heads bowed, so that when Shane was trying to get kids to anonymously raise their hands to say they felt the compelling need for the Lord, they laughed instead. I damned a few kids to everlasting fire by making them giggle, Shane would later yell, though even he laughed at my jokes sometimes.
I didn’t like going to church that much, especially not the tedious Sunday services. One Sunday evening, when Mary Beth was already at church for choir practice, I asked Glen if I could skip. He said I could—as long as he could lay me down on my their waterbed, pour baby oil on my penis, and jerk me off. I let him. He left for church himself but minutes later he returned. It was wrong that he’d done that, he said, and I needed to come along to church to repent.
Some years later, while I still attended the Kansas City Baptist Temple and did my best to live a Christian life, Shane took many of the other teens aside and warned them there was a good chance that I was the Antichrist.
My freshman year at Raytown High School, I got a bad report card.
I had known for some time that I held a certain amount of power, although to wield that power would be devastating. I’d seen the seams rip just a bit in the past: when Glen and I were busted for shoplifting pens—pens!—at the local Hy-Vee (an episode he later blamed on me, since I didn’t run when approached by the store security); when Glen accused my mother of masturbating in the front seat of the car as we pulled out of the driveway to drive to his father’s farm, which, true or not, caused her to break down so badly that she jumped out of the slowly rolling car and ran back to our house; when I’d tried to commit suicide by mashing up a bottle of aspirin into a bowl of instant oatmeal, downing it all in a few chalky bites because I thought I’d rather die than try to spend another day completing the huge matrix of chores that Glen had assigned that would keep me busy from the time I got home from school until the time I went to bed.
But sitting in band class one morning with that report card—my first with a few Cs—I decided it would be easier to use the nuclear option than to face the grounding, beatings and guilt trips that would follow.
I rode the bus home to my friend Jeff Bryant’s house after school, where I called the police. I tried to sound cold and businesslike to the woman at the other end of 911—”Good afternoon! I’m calling to inform you of an incident of sexual abuse that has occurred in Kansas City, Missouri”—but as soon as I started to tell her that I was being abused, the tears broke through and I could barely complete the call. Jeff looked away to spare me embarrassment.
Two police officers came to Jeff’s house, took my statement, and asked me where Glen was at that moment. I told them that he probably was about to leave for work. Half-an-hour later, I was sitting in the front seat of a patrol car trying to figure out how I could steal the dash-mounted shotgun, while a few houses away police officers put Glen into the back of another car and took him away.
I wasn’t relieved. I just felt guilty. I was destroying our family for my own selfish purposes. No one ever asked about the report card.
Glen moved back in with us just a couple of months later.
Among the first people my mother contacted were the pastors at Kansas City Baptist Temple. To their credit, they treated Glen with kindness (he was threatening suicide), but deferred to me when it came down to what next to do.
I sat in the office of Bob Alexander, the gruff co-paster who claimed to be ex-Green Beret and formed the center of the cult of personality that was transforming KCBT from a traditional white-bread Baptist church into a take-no-prisoners onslaught for Christ.
“Do you want him back home or not?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said.
“It’s up to you. I think that’s probably a good choice,” Bob said.
Bob talked to me for a while longer, handed me off to the youth pastors, and that was that. I always appreciated that; him giving me, for the first time in my life, autonomy, authority. Beside the fact that he embezzled three-quarters of a million dollars from the church and was sleeping with dozens of the women in the church’s marriage counseling programs, Bob Alexander was a pretty good guy.
Mary Beth, on the other hand, was a wreck. She would take Rachel out to see Glen in the run-down hotel out on Highway 40 that he was staying in, and when she returned, she’d talk about how hard it was on the family that I refused to let Glen come home, and that I’d refuse to see him.
“He misses you,” she said.
Well, I missed him, too. He was my best friend.
One day we were driving back from church when she let it all out.
“You know, you’re just as much to blame in all this as he is,” she said. “He told me that you would let him touch you for favors. You led him on.”
Years later, I brought this moment up to her. She denied it. That’s not something she would say, she said. I remember the exact corner we were going around when she said it. It was 55th and Skiles, by the brick house that used to be a school. I was thirteen, I think. Nearly fourteen.
Glen and I share a birthday. February 5th. “Just let him take us out for your birthday,” she asked. “Let’s just go to dinner. He wants to see you.”
I gave in. We all had a great time. I spent most of the meal talking to Glen about computers and videogames, reminiscing about the summer before when we’d carried an old Tandy 286 computer to his work so that we could dial out on different phone lines to bulletin board systems, spoofing multiple accounts to run a server-spanning corporation in Trade Wars 2002.
He moved back in the next week. My conditions were simple: He could live with us, but he wasn’t my father anymore. He couldn’t tell me what to do, and if I ever asked him to leave he had to leave.
Glen and Mary Beth agreed, and Glen moved out of the trashy hotel and back into our little house in Eastwood. He began going to regular counseling sessions at the church, as well as the state-mandated ones. He hadn’t gone to jail because my mother had convinced me not to press charges.
“What he did was wrong,” she said, “but he’s sorry. He’s back at church. Do you really want to ruin his whole life?”
It wasn’t long, a few weeks perhaps, before Glen and Mary Beth sat me down and explained how, despite the previous agreement, in a Christian home the father was boss. I would have to obey him if I was going to live there. They typically agreed on theology, although once when Glen explained how when a woman dies her soul is absorbed into the man’s soul, along with the souls of any of his unwed daughters, even Mary Beth had a hard time agreeing.
I ran away several times over the next few years, but I was a kid, couldn’t even work legally in most places until I was 16, and didn’t really have anywhere to go. We moved into a bigger house as Glen switched jobs again to Layne Christensen, a drilling company, where he eventually became the CTO. My mother continued to work in health care, which would sometimes take her on trips out of town.
“What are you thinking about?” Glen said too loudly one night, when I had been laying in my bed to sleep. Their bedroom was just across the hall. Mary Beth was away on business, with my sister.
“Nothing.” I could tell from the sound of his voice that something was up.
“You should talk to me for a while,” he said, in an attempt at a placating tone. I got out of bed, walked directly into his room, and tuned on the light switch. He was lying in bed, naked, stroking himself.
“You fucking asshole,” I said, and went into another room to call my mother. “He’s fucking jerking off while trying to talk to me,” I screamed at her. “Tell him to get the fuck out of here.” I had taken to saying “fuck” quite a bit at that point, especially during the fights, which would end with broken glass or shattered furniture.
They spoke on the phone for a while, then Glen left. Nothing else was ever said about it, although she didn’t leave me alone with him again—for a while. That her son might be raped or abused by her husband was an annoyance, an irritating factor that had to be worked around when traveling, like making sure the pets were fed. It was a hassle she quickly forgot.
Once Glen came barging into my room, furious.
“You’re messing with me,” he said. I had no idea what he was talking about. “You’re leaving cum in the toilet for me to find. Why are you messing with me? This is hard enough for me without you trying to make it worse.”
In fact, I’d stopped masturbating for weeks at a time, trying to keep any thoughts of women out of my mind entirely, as we were taught over and again by pastors that even thinking about sex was as bad as actually having it. And masturbating? It might be okay, I once heard a pastor opine, if one could do it without thinking any sexual thoughts. But we were told: why take the risk?
Instead I would hold out for as long as I could until, usually in the shower, I’d be unable to stop myself. Before the orgasm had even left my body I would begin to pray: I’m sorry, Jesus. I’m so sorry. This is the last time. Never again.
The church had accepted Glen back into the fold. Within a couple of years, Glen was a trusted, loved member of the community. Because of his acumen with computers, he was even invited to help run Kansas City Baptist Temple’s little league database, saving them thousands of dollars on a commercial system.
As quickly as Glen was reintegrated, I was pushed back out. I joined the adult choir, whose director, Steve McCoy, showed me the only kindness I’d had from pastors since Bob Alexander, teaching me music theory and encouraging me to write original songs with him for the choir. Even when I stopped doing my music theory homework, Steve would still let me come to his office once a week and talk, or play him ornate secular music like Rush or Dream Theater. Steve wasn’t like the other adults, the ones who would mention in the crowded church lobby that I might be, you know, kind of a queer.
Steve was asked to leave the church when he chose to get a divorce from his wife, a nice woman who was, unfortunately, not a good match, despite their relationship having been tacitly arranged by other pastors in the run-up to Steve’s sanction.
With Steve gone, I didn’t last. I’d dropped out of high school at that point. I hadn’t gotten out of Glen and Mary Beth’s home yet, but I was spending weeks at a time living with my friends at their parents’ house, until I depleted their generosity.
Glen had left me alone sexually by that point, taking up with a set of “friends” who I believe were the same set of guys he had known from his days of cruising parks. I knew about these parks because he would take me to them, but only on adventures, never for sex, although he would point out men walking through the woods in the distance or sitting in their cars, warning me. I don’t know for certain that he was fucking any of them, but he continued to spend hours away from my mother in the middle of the night, or left for work hours early. Sometimes my friends and I would spot his car parked in a lonely lot in city parks.
Eventually I got out for good, making enough money to live with roommates. I saw Glen often, but as he and my mother’s relationship became more and more fragile, I spent most of my time at their house during the day, where I could speak to Mary Beth alone. I still loved her tremendously. I watched her struggle with an endless series of weight loss programs and a compulsive shopping habit which resulted in a mound of still-full shopping bags as big as a car in their garage.
They even had another son. After my sister was born, Glen and Mary Beth tried to conceive for years, going through something like seven or eight miscarriages, including one in which I had to scoop the dead fetus out of the toilet with a 64-ounce QuikTrip cup after my mother had been surprised by a premature dilation. They had needed the body for an autopsy. In time, her doctor discovered that my mother was literally allergic to Glen. Her body would begin to reject his cells as they twined into hers, and baby after baby died in her womb.
At last, a steady course of Heparin throughout the pregnancy allowed it to come fully to term and my brother—her “miracle baby”—was born.
“If God didn’t think Glen and I should be together,” she told me every time I asked her about her abiding and apparent unhappiness, “He wouldn’t have given us Nate.”
I met a girl, then another. I moved to New York. I made fewer visits to Kansas City. My mother, sister, brother, and young niece came to visit, but Glen was too busy and stayed in Kansas City. My sister and I spent most of their visit at each other’s throats, despite that we had grown to be extremely close over the years, particularly since her pregnancy and subsequent marriage at an early age had forced her and my parents both out of Kansas City Baptist Temple.
After a while, we realized it was Mary Beth. When she was around, we became bitter, cruel, wicked. Glen was gone, but the trauma lingered. Mary Beth wasn’t ever happy—and her guilt, her unhappiness, her moments of begging us to say that she was a good mother, it was too much. She wanted to be a victim, too, but instead her weakness made her loathsome. We would prey on her and she would cry. This was the order we understood.
Last year, on the way from New York to Oregon, I overnighted in Kansas City with my sister, who was going to drive with me the rest of the way. My mother called my sister on the phone, who stood in her kitchen repeating the conversation to me, her eyes rolling.
“Well, he said he’ll go out to dinner, but he doesn’t want to see Glen,” my sister told my mother. My sister had become an ambassador. Deals were brokered. Compromises made. We’d go to dinner without Glen. My sister and I would pick up Nate from school, so he and I could spend time together.
A couple of hours later we sat in my friend’s apartment, where I’d dropped off his vintage Kustom amp that he’d stored with me when he moved from Brooklyn back to KC. My mother called my phone, furious and crying.
“This is…it’s bullshit,” she said. “I don’t understand why you are doing this.”
“I don’t want to see him, Mom. I don’t want to see him ever again, in fact. You’re married to a rapist.”
“You can’t… No one gets to tell me when and if I get to see my son.”
Dinner was cancelled. We were to drop Nate off immediately.
For the last few years, I’d asked my mother what she was doing to protect Nate from Glen.
“Well, I keep a close eye on things,” she would say. “I think I would notice if something was going on.” Nate’s friends and cousins were at the house often, but they were also prepubescent, which, as far as anyone knew, was beyond Glen’s desire.
“Besides,” she would say, sort of cheerfully frank, “And don’t take this the wrong way. But I don’t think Glen would do that to his own blood.”
On the short drive to their house, I asked Nate if Glen had ever touched him. Nate was about ten, I think, and probably not that far from puberty. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have the chance to talk to him again.
I wish I would have had more time, that I would have been able to be in Nate’s life more, that he trusted me more—although I knew that in his way, he loved me. Glen once told me that he ran into the living room and screamed to Nate, “Hey, Joel’s here!” Nate had dashed into the driveway, but it was all a prank, and instead of being only momentarily upset he had cried all night. Mary Beth and Glen liked to tell me that story to illustrate how much Nate loved me.
Nate said that nothing weird had gone on, but mostly he just sneered, trying to act cool for some reason. My sister looked at me from the passenger seat, eyes wide, aware that the moment we’d talked about for years, the moment when we had to talk to Nate about Glen, was suddenly happening without planning. And it didn’t seem to matter. We were trying to give Nate the warning we never got, that his father was not to be trusted, but there were no tears, no confessions, just cold, pre-teen sarcasm and what I desperately hoped was ignorance.
“If you ever need me for anything, if you ever need to get away, if Glen ever touches your penis or Mom tells you to not talk about something, you can always find me,” I told him, eyes on the road. “I will always come get you. You can tell your teachers, too. But you can always call…” I realized he’d never remember my phone number. “You can always Google me.” It seemed like weak advice, but it was true. “You know how to Google, right?”
“Uh,” he said his best jock voice. “Of course.”
I haven’t talked to Mary Beth since that day about a year ago. She called a couple of times. I didn’t listen to the messages. She sent me a message on Facebook which said, in part, that it was “never about choosing between you and Glen, or that you were less important to me than Glen, because I love you both.” I unfriended her. Somehow, I was more comfortable knowing that thousands of strangers could read my thoughts than letting her have access to them.
A couple of weeks ago, my sister called.
“Timmy’s dead,” she said. Timmy was Glen’s sister’s brother-in-law and, as far as I can tell, his first long-term sexual partner. Timmy had killed himself in his barn.
“All those hillbillies can burn in hell,” I said. “I could give a fuck.”
My sister called me an asshole and hung up. And she was right. I never really knew Timmy, despite watching from a distance as he tried to get married, have a family, build his house and be happy, fighting against the nature his family, culture, and religion told him was wrong. Glen’s sister Melinda, although I haven’t spoken to her in years, was always kind to me. It’s just easier to stand alone.
But Timmy’s death has made me realize I’ve kept one last lie inside, one that makes me culpable in all of Glen’s sins against others, his cruelties, his deceit, his sociopathic falsehoods that may very well end up in more pain, more abuse, not to me but to my brother, to his friends and cousins, to someone I don’t even know.
It’s the lie that I can destroy this family by simply talking about the truth, when this family was already destroyed. Despite the stately house, the gleaming Ford truck under the tall tree, the kids laughing in the yard, there is no home, only wreckage.
A.
Reading this makes me feel empty. Everybody’s broken…some just more than others. I hope you can find something good and true, and reliable, in your life Joel.
Feb 24, 2010 @ 11:12 pm
Ben Rosengart
Hard to respond, but it seems wrong not to. That is some heavy stuff, Mr. Johnson. Kudos to you for making it through with your compassion intact.
I understand why you feel culpable, but I urge you to forgive yourself.
Feb 24, 2010 @ 11:20 pm
Zak
Fuck man… Fuck. I don’t really know what to say other than that. I hope that with getting all of this off your chest you can find some peace.
Feb 24, 2010 @ 11:37 pm
p.
It’s hard to read those stories esspecially when they’re obviously autobiographical. I feel sorry. But I also feel impressed by the way you try to handle all of this. You are somewhere else now. I wish you the very best.
Feb 24, 2010 @ 11:49 pm
Tavie
Your strength is very moving. This story made me cry.
I hope this helps you find peace. Your courage and honesty are not only admirable, but crucial for other surivors of abuse to see. We see strength and it helps all of us.
Feb 24, 2010 @ 11:52 pm
Quasilaur
Reading this makes me dumbstruck. I wish I could adequately transmit the emotions evoked. For what it’s worth, hugs and thanks for sharing such a personal story.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:10 am
Josh
Thank you for reminding those of us who haven’t had to deal with horrible stuff like this that it’s real. And for reminding those who have that it’s OK and important to talk about it. I hope you don’t mind if I keep you in my prayers, man.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:19 am
angrymonkey
I am so glad you told your story. And why can’t Nate live with your sister?
You did the right thing cutting off your mother but please please don’t let Nate be a victim of this family rapist.
you rose from the ashes.
walk and live in that knowledge.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:40 am
Aaron Ragan-Fore
You’re a braver writer than I, Gunga Din. Joel, thank you for trusting your readership, and yourself, enough to post this.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:43 am
Cole
That’s powerful writing. I appreciate you sharing something so big. It makes me realize I miss you, but that getting out of KC was probably the best thing you could have done.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:45 am
RoyalSapien
Dude… thank you for sharing this. If I teared up several times, I literally cannot imagine what you’ve been through. You are courageous and awesome and thousands of people literally love you for being you.
Best of luck with your escapades in the van. I think it’s safe to say we’ll be here if you need us.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:46 am
Andrine
I don’t know you. A friend directed me to this page. Thank you for saying it all out loud. It makes me feel somewhat less guilty about cutting my mother out of my life due to my similar story. It helps me feel great about supporting and defending my daughter against the “cool and popular” family friend who sexually assaulted her, and for going public about it within our community in order to encourage others to speak and protect those who have not yet fallen prey. The truth is all we have when everything else has been taken away. Thanks for speaking yours.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 1:03 am
Blak Lotus
Joel, I’d actually like to congratulate you on your writing. Confessional autobiography is hard to do well – I mean, the content is so powerful, but I think your writing and tone are really compelling and powerful too. I was immediately sucked in and couldn’t go to bed until I finished it. Really good job. What you’ve communicated here is now real for me – I mean, when I think of all the different stories of how people really are, how America really is, how we grow up and experience sexuality and religion – this is one of those stories that will always come to mind as part of the spectrum of what it can be like to grow up.
And that sneaking into the bedroom while we’re asleep thing – that’s a part I can relate to personally.
Given all you’ve been through, it’s amazing how you’ve become who you’ve become. Good job on that too.
Courageous AND artful. Impressed.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 1:04 am
Elisabeth Rowan
I understand a little of what you went through, although my memories aren’t so clear. Your writing and your story are both very powerful, and putting them publicly could save someone in a similar situation, but it still takes courage. I cut my father off years ago–but it was easier, as my parents were divorced. I’ve never quite gotten to the point of talking to my mother in depth…my tentative enquiries were met with denial. I find it so sad that women can be so needy that they will throw their young to the wolves–and yet, I married someone just like my dad, and fortunately came to my senses before having children. But for that, I would have gone down the same path.
There is a sense of being broken, of making the wrong choices over and over because of scars left from childhood, but you seem to be overcoming a lot and dealing with it better than some. I wish you well in the healing. Remember, they may take away a childhood, but it’s up to us to forge the rest of our lives. Take care.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 1:20 am
John
I’m sorry you could not enjoy innocence in your young life. You have been strong, I hope you find a loving partner, a good life, and a community of normal people. What those people did is not what most people do. There really are good, strong loving partners who build wonderful homes out of the usual frailties of being human. I hope you either find a religion with people who are what they seem, or you learn to live without the burden of religion. You deserve a good life.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 1:41 am
tara
You are a brilliant writer and a brave soul. I don’t know what to say other than that. I’m glad you are a survivor, and that you survived to share this.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 1:48 am
Joshua Ellis
Oh, Jesus.
I know how painful it was for me to read this; I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to write it. I wish I had the kind of courage you possess.
I’m so very sorry, Joel.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:05 am
kate
Wow. I an so sorry for all you’ve gone through, and so happy for you that you’ve made so much from that. I couldn’t read this without acknowledging my reaction. I hope your openness and the volume of people hearing about what you’ve gone through and supporting you through comments, tweets, etc. give you strength and anything you need. It could never be your fault.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:13 am
Ruined, reconciled.
Your story has a lot in common with mine. I think religion coexists with abuse in a lot of families because speaking about it at all is seen as sinful. Fuck that. My kids will grow up knowing that however awful the truth is, it’s better than a nice lie thrown over the top.
Peace.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:35 am
Andy Baio
Horrific. I think your dad had the right idea.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:43 am
Gina Glenn-Moon
Joel,
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. Your writing is so honest & heartfelt-I feel sad for what you went through, but glad that you chose to share your story. Your childhood was tragic, but your writing may save countless others from similar fates. I suppose I’m trying to say that I don’t see you as a victim, but as a man who has confronted his demons. In my opinion, you won. Hands down. Again, thank you.
-Gina
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:54 am
Tom
Thanks, Joel, for publishing this.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 3:02 am
Chris Cardinal
It’s a strange feeling, to have the wind knocked out of you by words on a screen. It’s even stranger to find yourself completely unable to type or muster any sort of response.
Such has been the last ten full minutes I’ve stared at this white box.
I’m at once frustrated, upset, empathetic, angry, and helpless to control any of these emotions.
I look at the other responses on this page and realize they come from people just like me—compelled to say *something* but completely unable to respond with anything matching the gravity of such revealing prose.
I’ll simply say I’m sorry and thank you, at once.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:19 am
Erica
Thank you so much for sharing this. It’s such a powerful story, told with truth and sincerity.
I’m so sorry you had to endure what you did as a child. I have the sense that you see the events very rationally (without denying the emotions they caused), which is good.
Have you ever read Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison? It deals with similar issues of a mother choosing the stepfather over her children.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:51 am
Leah
Tonight I read this after Matt Haughey posted it on Twitter.
An incredible piece of writing. Powerful and humbling and so well written. What Blak Lotus said – yes. I’ll just add: thank you.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:52 am
Sails
I echo many in admiring your bravery.
You are a very good writer as well. Very clearly very good. I wish you well and hope you continue to write.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:56 am
Jake
Much respect for sharing this, Joel.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 10:24 am
bridget
ive never read you blog before today and your honesty has given me a gut ache. Ill be back!
Feb 25, 2010 @ 10:36 am
MFA Mama
I read this after @melissasummers RT’d it. I don’t think I need to tell you how fucked up this all was or how brave you are to speak out. Instead I’ll say that this was some amazing writing; have you ever read “River of Names?” If not, you should.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 10:39 am
Marci
Reading this story of your abuse was difficult. Can’t charges be filed now all these years later? I fear for Nate. I realize that pressing charges brings it all back and you would have to face him and MaryBeth. Thanks for sharing your story.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 10:52 am
ImpassionedPlatypi
Thank you. I appreciate you sharing this. It’s awful that you had to go through it, but I have to say that the impression I get from your writing is that you’ve turned out very well despite it. I know of people who have had some similar things happen and have a lot of problems later on, but I get the feeling you’re mostly ok and that makes me happy.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 11:24 am
brh
Very brave writing, Joel. Not sure what else to say, but know that there are a great number of people out there with a great amount of respect for you and your writing.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 11:43 am
Ryan
Joel, I’ve followed your writing for what seems like forever… followed you from site to site as you went… this story is just incredible and makes me want to burst out in tears.
I’ve admired you ever since I first starting reading your work and tried to emulate you, starting my own freelancing gigs here in Canada in the tech and gaming fields… I just can’t fathom how strong you must be to have lived through this.
I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through this your whole life, and wish there was something I could do for you, to make you just a little bit happier, as you always do for others in your life.
Truly a great man.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 11:54 am
jotajota
/hug
/bearhug
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:10 pm
Jake von Slatt
Respect, man. Utter, fucking, Respect.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 12:57 pm
P.S.
Joel – thank you so much for sharing this. Please know that sharing your story help other people deal with their own abuse, too. I’m quite a bit older than you; one of my sisters and I were both abused by my father – he switched to me when she aged out. My mother knew and did nothing, said nothing – it meant he’d leave her alone. Like yours, the whole family was sacrificed to his selfishness. It’s informed my whole life, and my sexuality, and I’m just now really starting to come to terms with it and working on figuring out how to not let it continue to undermine me.
Thanks again for your courage.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 1:36 pm
Jacqui Cheng
Joel, I just wanted to say that although our experiences have different details, the overarching themes are the same. And those of us who still can’t get up the balls to talk about the depth and complexity of our pain appreciate you doing so.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 1:56 pm
Eric
I don’t know you, a friend told me I should read this. It would seem wrong to have read it and not leave a comment. First, I admire you for surviving the abuse. That alone is more than some of us manage. I also admire you for having the courage to speak about it, and so frankly, honestly, and insightfully. It’s sometimes the hardest part to admit the full picture, that one’s abuser was also a friend.
Two of your comments particularly struck me:
“I never really knew Timmy, despite watching from a distance as he tried to get married, have a family, build his house and be happy, fighting against the nature his family, culture, and religion told him was wrong.”
I appreciate you sharing this insight, which puts the lie to the belief people still sometimes hold that gay men are abusers by nature. People see the stories of their abuse and wonder if there isn’t something to that theory, but it seems obvious that some are driven to it partly by social rejection.
“It’s the lie that I can destroy this family by simply talking about the truth, when this family was already destroyed.”
Yes, very good point. One of the hardest things is when one’s family, whether other victims or just bystanders, refuse to acknowledge what happened and pretend that by talking about it, YOU are causing the problem. They’re absolutely wrong.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:09 pm
Eric Mill
Amazing, and extremely brave, Joel. Thank you for writing this and publishing it, so that other children and parents who might find themselves in such a scenario can learn and hopefully be better prepared.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:21 pm
tim elhajj
Joel, Jesus! This is powerful work. I am moved and honored to have read your story. Thank you for sharing it.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:40 pm
mai
thanks for being honest and raw. i cried while reading this.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 2:58 pm
Dave
Just wanted to jump on and add to the thanks for writing this. It’s a brave thing to do, and I think your story is important.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 3:05 pm
noah
As long as the web still has room for bravery and eloquence like this, that just makes it that much easier and more inspiring a place for other abuse survivors like me to be.
Thank you so much. Just… thank you.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 3:45 pm
thatgirlinnewyork
thank you for finding the courage to share your truth, joel. i grieve for the loss of your adolescence and trust of those who are supposed to be your loved ones.
that you came to realize your own strength in this is no small matter. your testimony can only help to free others from the exile of family lies. may your courage carry you to a life you can love, and a community where comfort can be found.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 3:56 pm
The Devil Tesla
This story really leaves more questions in my mind than anything, and I hope that expand more on your life from here at some point.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:00 pm
Emily
I feel compelled to comment on this but am having a hard time doing it. Everything I think to say sounds like trite, sycophantic bullshit.
So I’ll just say this. As a survivor of abuse I know the guilt and responsibility we can heap on ourselves. Even now as an adult when I KNOW it wasn’t my fault, I don’t always believe it. It’s painful but it helps to hear other people’s stories. So thank you and fuck them, you’re better off without them.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:03 pm
Diana
The recidivism in men like Glen is guaranteed; once they start, none of them stop. He is culpable and the way that church practiced its Christianity is unconscionable. It’s not just hillbillies that hang on to hateful crazy, and it’s not just them that are proud of it.
I bear the burden of the sibling that didn’t get touched by the perpetrator. It’s not the same as yours, by any means, but I just want to remind you that you’re not alone – even though people have tried to con you into thinking you are.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:11 pm
Norm & Al
I was abused by the son of my dad’s boss when I was 5. Eventually it was discovered, but because of who his was, there were no serious consequences for him. My parents handled it very well, especially considering it was the early 60s. I have never had the courage to write about it under my own name.
My wife was abused by a family friend when she was in her teens, and ended up passing her around to his friends. It was never discovered, and she never told anybody about it, until her nieces got into their teens and he started hanging around a lot. It was very very painful for her.
What I have learnt is that it is never over. I thought it was, I thought I had grown past it. But it puts roots up throughout your life, it really never ends. I did not figure until I was in therapy for alcoholism in my mid 40s that it was still affecting me. And it seems to happen to so many many people.
It is so important to speak up about it. But it is so hard to get to the kids, who are so easy to manipulate and turn into accomplices of sorts. Or who at least think they are accomplices, which is the truly sickening and harmful thing about it.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:35 pm
Jason
Truely sorry for the things which have happened to you. You are a powerful writer.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:39 pm
Frank
It’s inspiring that you’re able to tell such a terribly sad and personal story with such candor. Thank you Joel.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:45 pm
brittney
You got me in my throat. I relate to so much of this.
You are braver than you can possibly know.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 4:54 pm
hayley
This was really good, totally compelling. The more we talk about things like this in a way that can be digestible like a really good narrative, the fewer people in general will stop ignoring certain types of human behavior.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 5:36 pm
Mike
Like one of the other comments said, I feel as if I should say something after having read all that.
I do not know you; a friend on FB directed me to this post. I have a mixture of feelings, here. Of course, I’m appalled at what you went through. At the same time, though, I feel proud of you — is it weird to feel proud of a stranger? — for not only getting out of the situation, but also for having the balls to talk about it so frankly and openly, in a place where anyone so inclined could read.
I hope that making this kind of story public contributes, in whatever small way, to stopping such things from happening again.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 5:49 pm
Halloween Jack
I could have been in your situation, so easily.
Thank you for posting this.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 5:50 pm
Ryan
Post Glenn’s Facebook link. Fuck should be in prison.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 5:52 pm
3musketeers
I have no idea how this got onto my twitterfeed, but all I can say is that I couldn’t stop reading. I am so sorry. What you suffered is just wrong. Coming from an Asian family myself, growing up in the middle east, I had several incidents of I suppose, mild abuse.. random strangers touching me, even with my parents around, as well as being chased down the street in broad daylight, touched in elevators.. that kind of thing. Once, I told my parents and my father, swearing to murder the man, took me by the hand and we walked around our apartment building, never to find him. My mom sat down with me that evening trying to explain it. And then, nothing. I had nightmares for years and my family, with its cultural taboo of not discussing such topics, just ignored me, until I eventually began to fight back in my dreams. Forever vigilant over my younger sister, never letting her out of my sight. You went through so much worse, I am amazed that you are still intact.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 6:20 pm
Denise
I’m sorry this happened to you. Thank you for sharing your story. Your writing is exceptional, you really have a gift here or maybe this art – your writing – is a result of the amount of suffering you’ve endured, but you are amazing.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 6:41 pm
A.F.
This is a story that needs to be told, and shared, and understood by many. Thank you for having the courage to share it with us, although I dearly wish you hadn’t had to endure a single bit of it.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 6:55 pm
Emerson
A friend of mine who talks to you regularly on IRC passed this along to me. I’m a teacher, and I know that some of my students have been through similar life experiences, and it breaks my heart to know it, and even more that unless I pick up on it, there isn’t a lot I can do about it. I hope for all of my student’s sakes that they can muster up the same strength you have, to at least tell someone. Anyone.
Good job, Joel.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 7:08 pm
Zanny
I really can’t say anything sensitive which doesn’t make me sound like a dipshit asshole, however, at the risk of sounding like a dipshit asshole, you did get a raw deal and I’m glad that you’re over this enough to actually share this with everyone.
I don’t know you, but somehow this made me lose it. I know a close friend who had to go through something similar and he still hasn’t been able to talk about it much.
I don’t believe in God a lot, but I hope if he really exists, he somehow makes it up to you for having to suffer through this shit.
Also, sorry again for sounding like a dipshit asshole.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 8:17 pm
An intense, personal story about sexual abuse — omglog
[...] February 2010An intense, personal story about sexual abuseTech writer Joel Johnson tells the world about his family. Religion included, of [...]
Feb 25, 2010 @ 8:33 pm
Lies and Truth
[...] via Why I’m Funny – Joel Johnson. [...]
Feb 25, 2010 @ 8:50 pm
the fugazzi
Learning to stand completely alone creates the one type of person who cannot be corrupted in the way that was done to them, or many other ways as they learn to connect the dots. There is deep understanding of the temptation to use others before the opportunity ever occurs. Kids are easily confused about what is natural because their reality is created by adults. But once somebody goes through that and really learns who they are and what they’re not going to be to other people, a monster, and what they are going to be, the protector that is always needed, they become the one thing this type of oppressive controller can never harness. They become like fire. You’re like a match, and for better or for worse for you, some greedy fool struck you. Now you glow. It doesn’t have to be this way. There are other, easier, more fair ways to glow, but this is how you were struck. Good luck with your family. Good luck with your life.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 10:03 pm
David
You are not alone. You are SO not alone. I’m fifty-one, and it still haunts my dreams. You are not alone.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 11:13 pm
Rick
Thank you.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 11:13 pm
damian keber
Heroic work. Thank you Joel Johnson.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 11:29 pm
Jason
Thank you for sharing. It’s painful to imagine with your strong writing. I hope you can find peace in other facets of this life. It is truely a strange life.
Feb 25, 2010 @ 11:35 pm
Thei Makerel
Wow, I have to say this story really hit home. I was never a victim of sexual abuse but my family was always really flawed so I can relate abit…
Kudos to you on making it with your sanity intact and doing so many accomplishments. I have alot of respect for you despite reading this and learning who you are less that 10 minutes ago.
You are truly deserving of anyone’s respect.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 12:53 am
Jerry
Thank you
Feb 26, 2010 @ 1:18 am
Colin
I hope that you are aware that, by writing this, you have made the world a better place.
Thank you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 1:52 am
Jesse
One person said it already. It’s hard to respond to something like this, but it would be wrong not to. I don’t know if you believe in God, but may He bless you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:00 am
mcjake
I’m sorry man. I really feel your pain when it comes to trying protect your brother.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:04 am
J
Thanks for sharing; it takes true guts to express what happened, let alone to have lived through it all.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:15 am
Tony
It was never your fault, Joel.
People like to talk about courage, but they don’t know the first thing about it. Nothing they could ever talk about could match the courage you’ve shown.
Thank you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:15 am
AT
Joel, I don’t know you, but thank you for sharing this. Like others have said, you have made the world a better place, and perhaps even helped other victims to find it within them to air what has happened to them, that there might be justice.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:46 am
Jared
You’ve done something here that few people are capable of, and I applaud you for that. You’ve eloquently given the world a little bit more perspective, an act that few can ever hope to accomplish.
My mother underwent a situation similar to that which you describe during her childhood. She persevered, as you have, and went on to raise a remarkable family. I hope that you can do the same, and that your brother Nate finds his way.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:54 am
R.E.B.
Thank you – thank you for writing this. Your words read like a speech for the many of us who share a common story, but who are not yet as strong to say or write them on our own. Thank you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:55 am
Boyd Waters
I hope you notice the trend here: the truth is taking over. No more lies.
It won’t go away. The abuse cannot be undone. But the lies are gone forever.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:56 am
Calrek
Joel- Thank you. I’m having my first child here in a few months and this story made me pause and think of all the ways I will give my lifes blood to protect that child. None of us can take back anything that happened to you, but all of us can stop it from happening to someone else. Thank you Joel.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 3:41 am
Sunny
I’m absolutely appalled by the horrors that you dealt with through your childhood. I’m speechless, really. This is just pathetic. Glenn is just pathetic. You shouldn’t feel bad at all for not caring about Timmy’s death. I pray for you.
Thank you for writing this.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 3:51 am
Scythe000
Wow…just…wow. Thanks for sharing, man. You’re a rock star in the blogging world. You’ve not only survived but flourished, so screw anybody else.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 4:19 am
David Hobby
Joel,
This post took an incredible amount of courage to write, but the fact that it is going viral means that it will help give courage to many people in similar situations.
Bless you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 4:25 am
Michael
Wow, never have I read something that required so many emotions to come out.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 6:09 am
MTH
Thank you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 6:22 am
Tal
Like many of the people here I felt compelled to in some way respond to the true bravery you’ve shown by sharing this story with the world. Ignorance is bliss I suppose, but I think it’s important to learn about the world that we live in so that we can do everything we can to make sure that it’s a better world for our siblings, children, and everyone around us who, much like you, don’t deserve to be the victim of such horrific experiences. Thank you again for sharing your story with us strangers, and continue being such an introspective and *good* writer and human being. Your courage not only now but throughout your life is both incredible and inspiring.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 6:24 am
dre in the morning » Blog Archive » Friday: I Got Vajazzled
[...] Why I’m Funny Joel Johnson’s article on being molested as a young boy is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I’ve ever read. [...]
Feb 26, 2010 @ 6:43 am
Alison
though my past trauma with sexual abuse has never been as traumatizing as yours, i know what you’ve been and probably going through.
there’s not much we can do but move on, right?
Feb 26, 2010 @ 6:55 am
Ginger
Dear Joel,
Although I’m going to write what so many others have already so eloquently written, I thank you for having the guts to share something so deeply personal and revealing as your story. And as so many others have written, I did not feel that I could read your story without responding.
What your stepfather did to you, and what your mother allowed him to do are totally unconscionable.
The other adults in your story are also complicit in their guilt. Any adult who knows or even suspects that sexual abuse, or abuse of any kind, has the responsibility of reporting it. I believe that too many people think that “someone else” will take care of it, or they think that it is none of their business. But it is our business.
I’m so sorry to rant. I just feel deeply that we adults must protect children, even if it is none of our business.
I worry deeply about your little brother, Nate. And I desperately pray that someone helps him.
I applaud you for being a gracious and eloquent writer, and for being a strong and brave man. I also want you to know that not all Christians or Christian communities turn their eyes on abuses of this kind.
All the best to you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 7:21 am
Emerald
I’m married to a person who was equally traumatized in her youth. I have at least to friends who were abused by their familiy members. But I myself grew up sheltered and somehow I feel guilty for this – maybe because of the helplessness to these things happening.
Thank you for your words.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 7:38 am
Wes
I saw a link to this story and was hesitant to read about this right before going to bed. The one part about your story that didn’t make me feel angry, sick or helpless was the fact that you’ve acknowledged and accepted so much, and have gotten away from the cycle you seemed stuck in, that you are writing this instead of still trapped inside of it. I’m glad I came across this.
Personally, I was never abused like you but I can relate to some of those feelings of a broken family and I go over it tirelessly- wrestling with whether to attribute my struggles to my parents or myself, flipping between acceptance and resent.
You seem like a strong person and I hope that once you marry you have the healthy family you should have known all along.
Thanks for sharing this part of yourself. I don’t really know you, but I would enjoy reading more.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 7:41 am
S
Joel, you are an exceptionally strong individual to have survived and stayed more or less sane after what you’ve been through. I wish you all the best in your life.
P.S. You’re a good writer.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 7:56 am
Christian
Your demons are not the same as mine, but I value your courage and take it as an inspiration. May the future be bright.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 8:05 am
Jeff
I’m a lawyer, so your story prompts my mind to run to legal issues. If you haven’t considered contacting the police again, please give it some thought. In some states, there is no statute of limitations for felony offenses, or there are exceptions to the statute of limitations that allow the later prosecution of child sexual abuse cases. The fact that you elected not to press charges previously doesn’t mean you can’t do so now. Of course, you may have your own reasons for preferring not to do so, but contacting the police would be one way, maybe the best way, to protect your brother. Contacting the social or family services arm of the government is another possibility. It likely would lead to an investigation into your stepfather’s current living situation and whether it endangers your brother. Law enforcement may contact you even if you don’t contact them, based on your post. If they don’t, they should. However you elect to proceed, I hope it brings you a measure of peace.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 8:55 am
Niki
I was once told that we are “only as sick as our secrets”, I hope that talking about your past is another step on your journey of recovery from it. By speaking out, by refusing to carry the shame that secrets confer, you do an enormous service to everyone who has been through abuse. I know you know this, but it bears saying again and again and again – it was not your fault and you did not deserve it. There will, inevitably, be others reading this who are not yet able to free themselves from similar situations; your words here should give them hope and strength.
Your writing here is courageous and honourable and important. I hope you can take the sincere respect and love of this stranger as a tiny part of the thanks you are due.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 9:36 am
matt
Wow. Thank you for writing this. Simply powerful.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 10:38 am
Gil
Thank you, Joel.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 11:30 am
Andrew
Joel,
I’ve long enjoyed your writing on other websites (having found my way here by way of Gizmodo); but this is the first of yours that I’ve read about you, personally.
I can’t claim to understand what you’ve been forced to endure, but know that my respect for you as a person and as a writer has grown twofold for having read this piece.
Well done, Joel.
It too easy, too often, for those of us fortunate enough to have been dealt a simpler hand to lose sight of the human connection behind the impersonal, newsy accounts we more often see.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 11:36 am
J
Joel, you and I have a mutual friend; he directed me here. I’m shaking and heartbroken for you, and angry, and relieved, and amazed. Thank you for sharing this, for showing that the shame does not belong on the survivors but the perpetrators.
This is one of the best (and worst) pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time. I’m thinking every good thought for you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 11:45 am
Nathan
Joel, Thank you!
I was sick, reading this, questioning why you weren’t protected from those horrific and continued betrayals. I know I can’t imagine or understand the entirety, but it has certainly stirred up many tears and very powerful emotions in me. I hope that when those painful memories strike, that you can find some comfort in knowing that an army of us stand by your side; with our hearts aching at the wrongful suffering that you have been through. Though I am at a loss to say anything that could do justice to you, I truly give you my respect.
Sincerely,
Nathan
Feb 26, 2010 @ 11:57 am
dumnezeueateu
I’m trying to find the words to say how this story made me feel.
Sad, mad, annoyed and worried would be some.
I hope you find the strength to somehow get over this horrible time. Or at least to not let it bother your current life.
All the best, truly all the best.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 12:36 pm
David
Thank you. A million times over. Thank you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 1:31 pm
anhero
I was abused when I was 12; drugged, raped, beaten, left to die. I can hardly talk about it, most of my best friends know anything about it. I wish I had your strength, Joel. I really do.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
Josh
I hope this post helps you to put it into your rear view. The writing is direct and powerful, I have to imagine a reflection of you. It happened, and acknowledging is as good a start to healing as I can imagine.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
The Lab
This was amazing. I hope the clarity with which you see this issue has given you some peace. I hope the empathy which I and so many others here have for you provides some comfort.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 2:46 pm
Andy
After reading your story, I felt compelled to reply. Your story is well written and I couldn’t stop reading…it made me think of my own abuse, something that I think I’ve been pretty successful at keeping repressed. I wish I had your strength to confront it. Thank you for telling your story, I wish you the best of luck.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 4:01 pm
Mike Billitteri
Beautiful, powerful writing, Joel. Hardships in life, especially of this magnitude, are difficult to relay in writing, but your voice has brought a frank, logical tone to a despicable series of events, which I always find refreshing and compelling.
I skipped a class to read this. Somehow, it seemed far more important to me. Thank you for sharing your story, and thank your for the grace and bravery with which you did.
Stay strong.
Mike
@billitteri
Feb 26, 2010 @ 4:39 pm
bavaria
Joel,
This may not be anything that hasn’t been said before, but thank you for posting this…it is incredibly powerful and moving. As Q said, it’s an insight for those of us that this is real and it’s ok to talk about.
Even though we’re not very close, I am proud of you and proud to call you a friend.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 5:22 pm
[redacted by request]
I never knew why I felt a connection to you; now maybe I do. My older brother abused me psychologically when we were kids. It wasn’t until a therapist realized I was suffering from some serious childhood trauma that it came to light that he’d sexually abused me. Now that we’re both adults I think that, in some ways at least, he’s grown to be a better person than I. But I’ve never had a remotely normal sex life and I’m perpetually alone (single, almost never in a relationship or sexually active) because of it. I can’t blame him now for what he did as a child, but I refuse to be in any way close to him, either. No one can really understand if they haven’t been through it. Take care, Joel. You’re important to me and a lot of others.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
r
thank you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 9:02 pm
Ellie
You know what else is SO important? That you’re a guy, writing about this. There are so few personal stories from men about the abuse suffered from other men, or women for that matter. I hope, no, I know, that some man will read this and it will touch him and it will help him.
And: please don’t stop being there for Nate. Please don’t stop letting him know that you are ready to help in an instant, and that he can call you anytime, and that he will not ruin the family if he does so. Please tell him that you will care for him if he needs a place to go.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 9:03 pm
blather
“Outside it’s raining motars from BDI,
But we have no worries ’cause the LDE is fucking r33t.”
<3's to you, sir.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 9:15 pm
tqa
“It’s the lie that I can destroy this family by simply talking about the truth, when this family was already destroyed. Despite the stately house, the gleaming Ford truck under the tall tree, the kids laughing in the yard, there is no home, only wreckage.”
At last, the truth. This was me too. Thank you.
Feb 26, 2010 @ 9:38 pm
Annie s.
Brave. Just plain brave.
Feb 27, 2010 @ 2:57 am
April
You are amazingly courageous! Thank you for sharing your story. There are millions of us out here. For 7 yrs. it was my Dad that sexually abused me(age 10-17), combined with protecting my younger sister…What we do not reveal and expose cannot be healed…Your voice speaks out for children (and to adults of childhood abuse) that are still in bondage.
Feb 28, 2010 @ 2:12 am
Ben Gold
Joel, you’ve been one of my favorite tech writers for a long time. I feel that I’m doing you an injustice by exclusively complimenting your ability in that one type of writing.
This is artfully written, and excruciating to read. Having never dealt with a situation remotely similar, it was never something was “real” to me. Of course I knew that this kind of abuse exists, and I’ve heard countless stories in the news, but this is the first time it as really struck me.
You’re incredibly brave for writing this. I wish that others growing up under similar circumstances could read this, it might do them some good, but that’s just my conjecture.
Feb 28, 2010 @ 6:57 pm
matt-fu
I can think of nothing to say beyond “that sucks” and “well put”.
But <3s for sure.
Feb 28, 2010 @ 9:46 pm
Laura
Trying to understand the why of my abuse I found that I could compare it to evolution. My father and his father were cave men. I’ve evolved to be civilized and passed it on to my children.
Having talked to your brother makes you a hero.
Much love,
Laura
BB
Mar 01, 2010 @ 12:47 am
southwer
thank you so very, very much for writing this. you have no idea how many people you have probably already helped and will help. My father is an alcoholic and for years I have suspected him of molesting my sister. I don’t remember him ever molesting me but my skin crawls when I am near him. My mother has ignored EVERYTHING. I am 33 and only now getting therapy. You are so right – the lie is that anything you could do would “destroy” that family, Glen and your mother’s complicity destroyed it when you were a child. Thank you so much for not staying silent. thank you.
Mar 01, 2010 @ 3:41 am
Servr
I stand with you.
Mar 01, 2010 @ 5:56 am
E.G.
If I was abused, I don’t remember it; but I have seen sexually *awake* since age four or five. I, too, was raised in a fundamentalist-caliber religious household. I know God for myself, now, independent of dogma and sometimes even free of bullshit. I abused my two sisters when we were young, mostly psychologically and sometimes sexually. I’ve been a member of a sexaholics anonymous 12-step group since 1994. My grandfather raped my cousin, and my dad is/was addicted to pornography. My life now is more sane and less what I’m going to call ‘unhealthfully sexual’ than ever before. One of the 12 steps regards making amends to those you’ve abused, unless to do so would further hurt them. I don’t know if talking to my sisters would further harm them. The advice I’ve been given is to simply wait for them to approach me. Both sisters are married, both have children, and both seem to more or less function well. The one who functions less well is the one I’m closest too. Reading your account brings this all up again for me and now I have to fucking go back to work. There is so much shame and pain in sexuality. And joy. I have discovered some joy. But it’s all so fucking confusing and difficult to sort out. I pray, simply, for willingness. I pray, simply, for goodness. The scene that opens your account, your father and you at the bar in some tropical locale, you holding your weeping father in the parking lot, that pretty much fucking laid me flat. Hang in there. Whatever it means, and for whatever it’s worth, I stand with you, too.
Mar 01, 2010 @ 1:39 pm
Sabrina
Thank you for this. For the last couple of years, I have been struggling in my marriage because of what my stepfather did to me and how my mother covered it up. I struggle with my sisters (his children) and my mother. And I just found out that not only was I abused, along with my mother and grandmother, but my dad was also abused. I was beginning to wonder if I was fated to be surrounded by it, if there is something wrong with my family that’s out of our control, and if I will inadvertently give this curse to my kids.
For some reason, even though your story is horrible, just like every other one I’ve heard, yours gives me a little positive nudge. Thank you, and take care.
Mar 01, 2010 @ 3:20 pm
me
you are extraordinarily brave for publishing this on the internet.
look at your life and see what you have accomplished and know that it is all yours. unlike most people, you had to raise yourself.
in your darkest hours you will know that you can get through anything because you’ve already seen the worst life has to offer: a father who steals his son’s innocence.
Mar 01, 2010 @ 4:01 pm
Anonymous
Thank you for sharing your story. There are unfortunately far too many people who have similar stories. Many have posted on here already, and yes, I am another one.
I beg you to do something for your brother, please, if not for you then for him. At the very least talk to him about it again.
It’s the most difficult conversation you will ever have, but he needs to know.
Thank you so much for writing this, for staying a strong, compassionate, and wonderful person even through all the horrible things you’ve gone through.
At the very least know that you set a powerful example for the rest of us still struggling.
Mar 01, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
Brixton
Joel, Ive always enjoyed your tech writing. I’m at a loss of words so I’m just gonna say this: you’re dealing with this issue correctly and your a great person as well a skilled writer.
I wish you the best in life.
Mar 02, 2010 @ 3:41 am
Q&A: Joel Johnson, Tech Blogger & Sexual-Abuse Survivor | DADWAGON
[...] childhood in Missouri, he was being sexually abused by his stepfather, Glen. In a piece he called “Why I’m Funny” and posted on his Website, joeljohnson.com, he recounted in surprisingly even tones the mind games, [...]
Mar 02, 2010 @ 10:02 am
churchball
Thank you for your powerful statement. It is powerful because the raw truth is not shielded by fear. You are sharing your vision without filters, which is, now that I think about it, a good definition of courage. I will save this story to share with others I see who have had similar un-Godly experiences in their lives. The only other thing I will say is that your story strengthens my gratefulness for the gift of forgiveness I have. Forever and ever, our basic id human-ness will keep us in need of that grace no matter what we try to do by ourselves or through churches.
Mar 02, 2010 @ 11:17 am
Annette
Iwish you a future of healing and happiness!
***God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference***
Mar 02, 2010 @ 11:38 am
Jen
Thank you for telling this story. It is shocking how often children are sexually abused, and how often one or both parents is complicit in the abuse. I don’t understand how such despicable actions can be so common, but I suppose that’s because I’m a healthy functional person who would never abide by such abuse.
I’ve known at least five people from three families who were sexually abused while one parent knew about it and sheltered the abuser.
One of my exboyfriends was abused by an uncle when he was a child, and his father knew about it and took the uncle’s side. Luckily his mother had the uncle sent to jail and divorced his father.
Another ex and his two sisters were sexually abused as children by at least one cousin, if not by more people. Their mother knew of the abuse and did nothing to stop it. She didn’t even tell their father that it was happening, and she continued to socialize with the cousin.
One of my best female friends was abused by her maternal grandfather, who lived with her family. Her mom knew of the abuse, and did nothing to stop it. She did not tell my friend’s father or remove the grandfather from the house. During adulthood my friend confronted her mother, who defended herself by saying she thought the molestation was all “above the belt.” As if that would make it okay?! Either way, the abuse was not “only” below the belt.
My own background and life is so “normal” that it could have come from a sitcom, leading me to think that that my close friends have been a somewhat random sample of the population, and that sexual abuse of children must be an absolute epidemic. Presumably I’ve known way more than five people with this experience, given that only people who I’ve been very close to would be likely to share their story with me.
Thank you again for sharing your story. We as a society need to start talking openly about this epidemic, so that more resources will be poured into prevention, treatment for children and adult survivors, and punishment and treatment for offenders. Currently schools and the government seem to pay little attention, but hopefully that will change as people such as yourself tell their stories.
Mar 02, 2010 @ 1:46 pm
CC
Thank you for telling your story. Writing this has shown great strength and I hope sharing it gives you some peace. Too many of us have experienced sexual abuse during childhood and the more we speak up, the more we may be able to prevent it from happening to others. Take care.
Mar 02, 2010 @ 2:35 pm
karen tsang
Joel,
I come to you by way of the DadWagon Q&A. Every person who owns and tells their own story and forgoes the shame of secrecy is embracing life. Telling the truth is paramount: One can’t ruin something that was never okay.
Based on your story, and the subsequent interview with Matt, it appears that you have emerged with your humanity (and splendid voice) in tact.
Thank you for using your strong, beautiful voice, and your platform, for good. I hope you find joy in every corner of your life.
karen
Mar 02, 2010 @ 3:04 pm
Abbey
Thanks. Onwards and upwards.
Mar 02, 2010 @ 3:46 pm
Survivors News and Reviews » Blog Archive » Interview with Joel Johnson, Tech Blogger and CSA Survivor
[...] him into adulthood. You can read the interview over at DadWagon, and here’s the link to his original piece, which may be a bit graphic for [...]
Mar 02, 2010 @ 7:25 pm
Michael Haden
If you are still able to press charges, I urge you to do so. There is a high likelihood that he is still abusing children and he isn’t going to stop until he is prosecuted.
Mar 02, 2010 @ 7:36 pm
dedleg
Wow, what a devastating story. You are a fantastic writer… and I guess it’s trite but I hope something truly awful happens to both Glen and your mother. I mean aside from what already has.
I’ve never been able to give any kind of pass to that particular type of scum – your mother should be absolutely ashamed of herself.
Mar 02, 2010 @ 11:10 pm
An interview with Joel Johnson on why he’s funny | Easybranches.com™
[...] Joel wrote his piece [Warning: The first line is a doozy] last week and it spread rather rapidly among a certain group of people. Joel, the former editor of Gizmodo and Boing Boung Gadgets, is brave and both pieces are definitely worth reading – the interview for its reasoned stance and the actual memoir for its brutal honestly. His level-headed interview with Matt at DadWagon is even more interesting in that he explores many of the emotional barriers that we tech geeks – and techie dads – rarely think about, namely the ways our relationships effect the ones we love. This is not to say we’re all in Joel’s situation or that we could even imagine the impetus for his step-father’s actions, but technology gives us a shield and an excuse. Joel, in this case, refused that respite. [...]
Mar 03, 2010 @ 11:30 am
Broken
Your story is very similar to my own, only I am female. I have not spoken to my mother in 5 years and, like you, she is still married to my perpetrator. The last sentence of your piece spoke to me the most. We do not have the power to destroy what was already broken. God bless you. I hope your healing journey continues and that you realize all the love and joy you desire.
Mar 03, 2010 @ 8:53 pm
Rosalie
The government also failed you. As you know, and as others can see from the posts, sexual abuse is rampant and leads to severe trauma. Since your unforgiveable experience with the police, both child protective services and law enforcement have evolved light years in these kinds of investigations. Your brother’s situation should be reported. Every state has a Hotline for suspect child abuse. I hope someone calls on his behalf.
Mar 13, 2010 @ 8:30 pm
enki
I love the way you write, Joel. Thanks for this, really.
Mar 15, 2010 @ 6:03 pm
Chris Tackett
Joel, Just now seeing this and am stunned. So sorry to hear what you went through, but everyone commenting here is correct: it’s good that you’re sharing this and will help many people. Wishing you the best.
Mar 16, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
Why child protection is important | Fish Piper
[...] Whenever I’m tempted to grumble about safe ministry training and child protection legislation I’ll remember this story. [...]
Mar 16, 2010 @ 6:32 pm
Trar
I was struck but your story and didn’t know what to say. Then I realized why it resonated so hard–my mentally ill and violent older brother would fly in to rages (convinced I was stealing and rearranging his things, telekentically hacking his computer) and describe how he was going to rape and murder me in detail.
And my family wonders why I don’t want to spend holidays with him. It’s my fault for ruining the day if I can’t ‘get along’ with him.
He’s moved out but I still am afraid. I feel like you’ve lost that fear, and it makes me hopeful. <3
Mar 17, 2010 @ 8:23 pm
Chris Doyle
I commend you. Courageous move in writing this and posting it. May it brighten your future and dim the past. May it also help other people/children who have suffered sexual (or any) abuse to name the perpertrators and vanquish the bastards!
Regards, Chris Doyle
p.s., well written
Mar 18, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
Shawn
I believe in Jesus. But I also believe in a just world Glen would have been offered one opportunity to ask for forgiveness and make himself right with God. Just before he was pushed off a stool and hung with a rope until his last breath left his body.
Mar 18, 2010 @ 8:07 pm