"This is an excerpt of the letter I wrote to confront my abuser:
 
I, from my heart, pray that as you read this that you will allow God to speak to your heart, mind and soul. This letter is not from a malicious heart, nor from a revengeful spirit nor ailing mind. 

I sometimes manage to persuade myself that God is as pleased as I am with my developing maturity, while in fact His Spirit is gently pushing open doors into the darker regions of my heart that I pretended didn’t exist. I am developing the courage to follow Jesus into the unfriendly parts of my soul. I will no longer pretend that I’m fine and that I have not been all right for years, when, I know that something is troubling my soul. 

I—through absolutely no fault of my own---was subjected to a terrible crime against the core of my being. The sexual molestation you inflicted upon me, set in motion such a powerful force against my life that made it especially frightening as I searched the corridors of my mind trying to understand why I have no memories of my childhood. I am a person with no memories and therefore I had no past life to build the foundation of my world upon.  

As the water from Niagara Falls bangs against the water below so strong and forceful, so are were my emotions as I listened to your taped testimony about how God delivered you from your lustful, sexual predatorily life. My heart pounded and I began to sweat as I tried to push the mental picture out of my mind, but I couldn’t. It was so real that I could feel your breath breathing so deeply as you laid on top of me. The feelings would not go away and as you spoke about the many ways you connived to get physically next to women to “get off,” I became sick to my stomach. You spoke of the many times you purposely got onto crowded subway cars so you could feel the body heat of the women you secretly molested and how you allowed your penis to rub against their bodies. This is sexual deviant behavior. How disgusting you are. Somehow I continued to listen, for I knew I would hear about what you did to me so I listened attentively and to my amazement I didn’t hear anything! about your incestuous relations with me. I was sure I was going to hear how you offered me money to molest me and how you hurt me when you tried to put your finger in my vagina. How appropriate that you didn’t mention how you molested me? Just like you secretly molested countless women, you wanted to keep your incestuous relations a secret. I often wonder if you sexually abused your daughters! Is that why you didn’t want them around me? The Darkness of sexual abuse will always be exposed in the Light of the Lord. You tried to blame me for not having a relationship with my nieces when all this time it was you. You, who didn’t want your secret uncovered. You, who not only manipulated me when I was young and opened Pandora’s Box by exposing me to something that my young mind and body was not ready for, but you also manipulated my relationship with my family by saying that my lifestyle was not Christian and therefore I was not worthy to have my nieces in my life! !!! (If the truth be told, your lifestyle was questionable). ! You didn’t want them around me because you were afraid of the secret being open to the elements. Did you sexually abuse your daughters? I remember you being so happy, almost ecstatic when you purchased bunk beds for your girls. One of your daughters was a bit too old for you to manipulate though, so she slept on the top bed and you slept on the bottom bunk, in the same bed with the youngest one who didn’t know better. How could she, she was just a small, innocent child who needed security, comfort and love. Isn’t that what a father is supposed to do? You thought being in the same bed with her was a gracious thing to do. After all you were comforting them because you believed they had no mother. Only your idea of comfort was to hold, touch, and embrace. It is alarming to sleep in the same bed with your girls!! Did you snuggle, and hold her tight as you pressed your body with a little poke against her body? Did you get an erection and get off? Who would know? Who woul! d be privy to your secret sexual abuse? Your thought process is warped because you thought you just would explain that you slept in the same room with your daughters and the same bed with your very young, innocent little girl that you was just trying to comfort them because they were “motherless.” She was just too young to know that she was being used, abused and manipulated.  

Let me give you a little of history on childhood sexual abuse aka incestuous relations and some of the effects it had on me. I will be as brief as I can although it encompasses so much that many have written books about it. Because I was sexually abused I have such difficulty with thoughts. This is one of the behaviors victims of sexual abuse have. The stalking memories I have would return in dreams or in odd thoughts during the day. I have had many nightmares and could not daydream without frightful thoughts. They were so troubling that I would force myself not to daydream anymore. I am one of the victims of sexual abuse who have difficulty having my head under water. Were you the reason I was so afraid of water and therefore unable to learn how to swim? I couldn’t allow any water to get in my face even while washing my hair or showering. I always felt like I was drowning. Do you have any idea what it feels like to sense you’re drowning? My fear of being drowned trans! posed to my children. Yes, your abuse of me trickled down to my children. I was so afraid of drowning that when my children wanted to get in the water; I became paranoid and would only allow them to venture out a short distance in the water while at the area pool. There are social maladjustments, emotional problems including the inability to trust, perfectionism, phobias, avoidance of both intimacy and emotional bonding. The scars of the abuse has affected virtually all facets of my life. I was left with little self-esteem or most of the time no self-esteem. I have issues with security, fear of people I love leaving me because of something I did or didn’t do. While you are reading this and as you begin to think about what you’ve done to me, perhaps you believe I submitted to your abuse. It wasn’t so much to the abuse, but to the power and authority you had over me. I was taught to obey adults and to me you were an adult. Just so you know, the times I remembered what! you did to me I felt disgusted and shameful, but due to my ne! ed to be taken care of and loved, I guess I felt that any kind of love and attention was better than none at all.
 
For most of my life I have felt worthless. I have never felt loved or cared about by anyone. All of my life I have been wearing a mask. I was just going through the motions of life, just existing. It’s a horrible feeling to pretend that everything is great. 
I need to face what is true about the sexual abuse and the damage done to my soul and the harm done to my children as it relates to the past exploitation of me by you. I thank God for his faithfulness and His love for me as He carries me through this journey.  
I am learning about my shattered repressed emotions of the abuse. I am choosing not to be a victim. God is healing my mind and my soul and at last I’m learning to like myself after 50 years.  

As I begin to heal and discover who Lenore is, I will ask my children for forgiveness. I was not there for them as I should have been. I should not have felt so disconnected or detached from my life and in turn from them. I loved them with all I had available, but I should have given them more of me. I should’ve been stronger and in turn helped them be stronger.  

In the end, I will forgive you and move on. However, I can never forget what was done to me. To forget my personal history is tantamount to trying to forget myself and the journey God has placed before me. I will carry my backpack and as I journey on the path God has placed before me, and as I walk, I will pick my bag and throw out any hurt, pain, hate, bitterness and vengeful thoughts and replace them with love, forgiveness, prayer and hope that as I heal, you will be healed and truly delivered as well. But as of today, I choose who I want in the circle of my life and I choose not to have you in it."