As an adult, Lorilee made the decision to disclose to her Filipina mom the sexual abuse she says she endured as a child. And Mira Yusef, advocate and community organizer against gender-based violence, speaks with Juleyka about how to have hard conversations about abuse, disclosure and accountability.
Lorilee is the host of Trauma Survivor Thriver’s Podcast. You can learn more about her work here.
Featured Expert:
Mira Yusef is Executive Director of Monsoon Asians & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity, an organization serving victims/survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Asian and Pacific Islander communities in Iowa. She is also one of the founders and one of the staff of the National Organization of Asian Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence (NAPIESV), a program under Monsoon Asians & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity, with a mission to support local and international community-based programs and governmental organizations in enhancing their services to victims of sexual violence from the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the U.S., U.S. Territories, and Asia. Mira has a Master’s in Social Work, with specialization in Community Organizing, and a Master of Arts in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Michigan. As a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, 2004-2005, she did research in the Philippines on Muslim Filipinas employed as domestic workers in the Middle East.
Mira recommends the work of transformative justice and disability justice educator Mia Mingus, and this cool resource from activist Mimi Kim.
The national sexual assault hotline offers confidential support for survivors of sexual abuse, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The number is 800-656-4673. That's 1-800-656-HOPE. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline also offers 24/7 confidential support. Their number is 800-273-8255.
If you liked this show listen to How to Teach Consent in Our Families, and Not Your Mamí's Sex Ed.
We’d love to hear your stories of triumph and frustration so send us a detailed voice memo to virginia@lwcstudios.com. You might be on a future episode! Let’s connect on Twitter and Instagram at @TalkToMamiPapi and email us at hello@talktomamipapi.com. And follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. Today, we welcome Lorilee. Her story is heavy and we're talking about difficult things, like sexual abuse and suicide. So please use your discretion as you listen and take care of yourself. In fact, if you're very sensitive about this, skip the whole episode. We'll be back next week. Lorilee grew up in a Filipino American household. She says when she was a child, her father sexually abused her. She eventually left home and found ways to process the pain and trauma of the experience. Years later, as an adult, Lorilee made the decision to speak with her mother about it. Let's get into it.
Lorilee: My name is Lorilee Binstock. I am the host of A Trauma Survivor Thriver's Podcast and editor in chief of Authentic Insider Magazine monthly. I am also a trauma survivor. Growing up, I called my parents mama and dad. I am Filipino American. My parents are immigrants. My mom worked a lot. My dad was in the military. They were very much of the culture of "Do as your parents say. Speak when you're spoken to." My relationship with them was really difficult. I was also abused by my father. I kind of knew, "This isn't right. This is completely wrong." There were times that, as a child, I asked my mother, I was like, "I need to speak to somebody. I'm sad. I'm depressed." A lot of it stemmed from the abuse that I didn't feel comfortable saying out loud. I was screaming for help. I was screaming for attention. I was screaming for someone to hear me.
One day, I was 13 years old. I decided to go into my parents' medicine cabinet. And I didn't know what any of these medications were. I knew that they were all prescription, so I just took as many as I could. When I look back at it now, I think the reason why I did that was because I thought, "My mom won't take me to the doctor to see a therapist or someone to speak to." I don't even know if we even knew that there were therapists there, but I knew something was wrong. That if I did this, they would take me to the hospital at the very least. And they didn't. They don't want other people to know that something was quote, unquote, wrong with me. The way my parents addressed the suicide attempt was to tell me that everything is okay, that I just needed to forget about it and move on.
That's my mother's M.O. It's very much like, "If you don't think about it," and I just hear this all the time and when I say it out loud, I can actually hear it in her voice. "If you don't think about it, then it'll just go away." As a child, nobody knew about the abuse. If they did, nobody said anything. My dad was very kind to everybody. My family was extremely kind. They're Filipinos. Every Christmas, they would make Filipino food for everybody. No one thought that there was something really wrong. Well, my dad would yell at me all the time. Maybe my friend's parents saw it as "Maybe it's a cultural thing. But her parents are nice enough. There shouldn't be anything too bad going on in that house." I didn't feel comfortable talking about the sexual abuse to my mother out loud, mostly because I felt like I would get dismissed.
When I turned 18, I left for college. That was literally the best decision that I actually made for myself. I got a job. I did all the things that I was supposed to do. And I still saw a therapist, but I also never talked about the trauma. I didn't think that the sexual abuse was important enough to discuss. I had my last suicide attempt in February of 2020. My children were out of the house, but my husband came home. And then I finally just blurted out what had happened to me. He immediately was very compassionate and he said, "We're going to get you the help." I think it was all saying everything out loud, it became real. I eventually told my mom over the phone. I mentally prepared myself for days. I talked to my therapist about it for days and she was shocked.
"No, really? What? How did this happen? How did I not know?" Which I think is a little crazy, because I asked for help all the time and she wasn't there to hear me. To be honest, I didn't expect her to believe me. Her response was, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that. I'm going to leave your father." And then she confronted my father and he actually admitted. He apologized via text. And what happened eventually was my mom stayed with him and just recently told me, "Is it possible for us to see the grandkids?" I spoke to her for the last time around last year saying, "I'm not going to bring my children around dad, unless he's dead." And she said, "Can we just forget about it? Everything's going to be fine." And so it was the same thing over and over again. Pretend that it doesn't happen. You can suppress it and it can go away for as long as you need it to, for some people, I guess.
Lantigua: As a mom, Lorilee's story shook me to my core. Child sexual abuse is a difficult topic to discuss under any circumstances, but it's nearly impossible when the alleged perpetrator is a family member. Lorilee's experience also made me think about how in many immigrant families, cultural factors, attitudes about family cohesion and taboos around sex and sexuality can make these topics so much harder to broach. How can first gens, whether as survivors or concerned relatives, better prepare to have these extremely serious, yet delicate, conversations with our loved ones, if and when they're ready to do so? To help us figure it out, I called in an expert.
Mira Yusef: My name is Mira Yusef and I am based in Des Moines, Iowa. I am the executive director of Monsoon Asians and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity, and also one of the staff of the national organization of API Ending Sexual Violence, which is a program under Monsoon.
Lantigua: I always start with the same question, which is as you listened, what did you hear in Lorilee's story?
Yusef: I felt a lot of her pain. Her story is not isolated. It's a story that I hear from friends. It's a story that is shared by a lot of women, men and non-gender conforming folks, especially immigrants and especially in the Filipino community, because I am Filipino. The words that came to my mind is silence, disclosure, asking for help. So those are the things that were going on with my head when I was thinking about it.
Lantigua: So I want to talk about silence. Silence is both harmful and protective in many of our intergenerational conflicts. Can you expand on how you perceive silence in a situation like this one?
Yusef: So for me, silence, it's harmful when we don't talk about the issue, that we don't believe survivors and victims. But then it's also protecting family. If they're silenced, you're protecting the family, the community. What we're then sacrificing are the children that has been harmed. Sometimes, and specifically for immigrant community, and specifically for Asian, and then specifically for Filipino community, I think survivors and victims, they don't want to disclose until that person dies.
But for me, what was really surprising is when her mother believed her, when she disclosed and her mother believed her, I was like, "Wow." But then the fact that she went back and then said, "Forget about it." That is protecting the family. Parents of adult survivors of child sexual abuse in general, they are in the middle. There's this person that they love, who harms someone that they also love. So where are they? Protecting the child, for me, is crucial. But then, at the same time, it's the husband or the partner who might be financially supporting them. So there's a lot of factors.
Lantigua: It feels as if in many instances, one of the parents has to make a choice about, "Do I believe the child and then separate from the perpetrator? Do I believe the perpetrator and then just let the child deal with it?" In your work, what do you see people doing once they know? And then what do you recommend, in terms of the disclosure, for people who are survivors, who want to get to the point of disclosing this to a parent or to a close family member?
Yusef: The mother will usually go back. We've seen that so many times. This disregard of children. I think there's this thing about adult-ism, as if our voices does not matter. And that what had happened to us does not matter. And "let's just forget about it, because we need to be a family." So there's two things that can happen when someone disclosed, either they're not believed and then when they are believed. But then the point is what will happen then? What will then the action after that? Is as crucial when you said, "I don't believe you," or when you say, "I believe you, but I will go back to your dad and forgive them." Is that really what the survivor wanted? When we were working with survivors, we always ask, "What is the purpose of you disclosing, especially if you're an adult survivor?" And if they said, "I just want to for healing. And also now maybe I have a child who's the same age when the abuse started. I don't want it to happen to them."
We will tell them, "Be prepared to not getting believed or you are going to be acknowledged. And what will be your reaction if you are not believe?" Because family is so important for us, especially for immigrant folks, family is everything for us. So that means you need to be ready to end that relationship, for now. Okay. But then if you disclose, what will happen next? Do you do an accountability? And what does really accountability in our community, what does that mean?
Lantigua: So in this case, Lorilee informs her mother that she will not bring her own children around her father. And it seems that, by extension, then her mother will not get to see the children, because her mother has chosen to stay in the relationship. So in a way, that next generation is also being impacted and is having to make a big sacrifice, that of not having their grandparents in their lives, because of the abuse that Lorilee experienced. Is this something that you see in your work, where multiple generations are being impacted?
Yusef: Oh yes, definitely. We see this a lot. This intergenerational trauma conflict, we at Monsoon, at NAPIESV, we really try to discuss and have a discussion, because we don't really have the spaces to discuss it in an honest way. And then how do we talk to our elders? How do we talk to our parents about it? Because they, themselves, might have been victims and survivors and we don't know, because they're not sharing. Because, again, it's that silence.
Lantigua: So what do you say to folks that you work with about how do you prepare?
Yusef: When we prepare them, basically thinking about the worst, preparing them for that. So "This is what's going to happen. This might happen. Are you willing then to not have any relationship with your mother?" And if they said, "Yes." "Okay, then let's figure out then how you're going to say it." If they said, "You know what, I'm just going to tell them. If they still don't believe me, I will still be part of the family, but there are certain things that I will do differently." For example, like holidays, you see your parents, you visit your family members. "What do I do, just in case that I'm triggered, how do I make sure that I'm grounded, that they're not going to mess up what I feel or I'm triggered at that moment?" So then we provide those kind of scenarios and then giving them strategies how to be grounded.
Lantigua: Let's say that the parents are not being supportive and maybe they're even denying what happened, how can other members of the family create an environment in which someone we love feels safe to come and talk to us about it?
Yusef: I think one thing that we, like I, myself will practice or other folks, we tell them is, for example, we're having a family function or we have a family dinner, whatever, you could always tell who will be the best auntie or uncle to go to to share information about certain things. You just know. Deep in your feelings. I know you do because deep in your guts, "I can definitely come talk to that uncle and they will not judge me, because I am gay." I think it's also up to organizations locally to discuss about sexual violence, to talk about domestic violence and other forms of violence in the community, and just really educate our community members in order for them to be the first responder that will accept. And that will validate that person's feelings, that person's experiences, because for us, first disclosure is crucial.
So that even having conversation with community members saying like, "Hey, you need to make sure that if a child disclose to you that there is a sexual abuse that's going on in the family, you need to believe them. If they are believe, we can do something immediately." And then this person will say, "I am now comfortable in sharing what had happened to me, because they believe me." But if the first disclosure is not a good experience, then it's basically that not believing them is silencing.
Lantigua: As the person listening and receiving the information. You basically have to hold off any doubt, hold off making any judgment, jumping to any conclusions and just allow the person to tell you what they came to tell you.
Yusef: Yes. And then usually what happens with specifically for sexual abuse or child sexual abuse is they don't want you to solve it. All they want is to be heard. All they want is to be validated and say, "I believe you." And that is enough. In reality, a lot of immigrant communities and families, the reporting, we don't do that, because we still see them as a family member. That's still their father. That's still your uncle. So when we think about justice, social justice for sexual assault survivors and victims, and specifically adult survivors of child sexual abuse, we don't really ask, "What is justice for you?"
Lantigua: I really like this question you just posed, "What is justice for you?" It makes me think about, "As an adult who might be prepared to disclose this information, do I need to understand, do I have to have a definition of what justice looks like for me before I disclose, so that then if I need help in getting that justice, I can ask for that help? Or is that something that definition of justice comes out of the process of disclosing?"
Yusef: I think each person, it will be diverse in how you will see that or how you will practice that. That is something that we ask immediately, "What do you really want from this?" And sometimes they will say, "I want to sue," or whatever. So then we will go with them with that. But most of the time, the victims and survivors that we are assisting, they will just say, "I just want it to end. I just want to prevent it to happen again in the future." For them, it might not be going to court or whatever, but it just really say that person who harmed them acknowledging that they harmed them. There don't have to be forgiveness, but it's just this acknowledgement of "I hurt you." I'm really all about the practice of transformative justice. I recommend the work of Mia Mingus. I recommend the work of Mimi Kim, who does fabulous work on a community accountability and transformative justice.
Lantigua: Ah, Mira, thank you so much. You've been phenomenal.
Yusef: Thank you so much.
Lantigua: Okay. Here's what we learned from Mira today. Plan for the worst case scenario. When disclosing abuse to family members, there is always the chance you will not be believed. Prepare mentally and emotionally for that possibility and create a plan of action to keep yourself grounded and safe either way. Consider your end goal. When thinking about disclosing abuse, try to pinpoint what you want to get out of the disclosure, whether it's healing, closure, accountability, justice. Consider, as well, what these words mean to you? And remember, believe survivors. If someone discloses that they are or have been victims of sexual abuse or child sexual abuse, believe them. Hold off any doubt or judgment. Validate their feelings and experiences and listen with an open mind.
The national sexual assault hotline offers confidential support for survivors of sexual abuse, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The number is 800-656-4673. That's 1-800-656-HOPE. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline also offers 24/7 confidential support. Their number is 800-273-8255. We'll have additional resources in our episode notes.
Thank you for listening and for sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show producer, Kojin Tashiro is our mixer, Manuela Bedoya is our marketing lead. I'm the creator, Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram we’re @TalkToMamiPapi. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host. “She Told Her Mom Dad Sexually Abused Her”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything,
LWC Studios., July 11, 2022. TalkToMamiPapi.com.