I have known rape survivors

[TEB]

My two great aunts were raped by soldiers doing the Russian civil war. It was never talked about in our family but it was known. They came to America around 1922 with my great grandparents at that time I think the ladies were in late teens. My grandmother was a young infant maybe a year or two old she was born in Netherlands as a refugee.

I really do not know the whole story of how they ended up in the coal fields of western Pennsylvania. Growing up my great aunts never married they lived with my great grandparents their whole lives. To me as a young child they were just part of my life perhaps just constants in a family of immigrants of first and second generation Americans. To me they meant love and safety and lumpy mashed potatoes ,And Lawrence welk on a Saturday night.

To this day when I make mashed potatoes. I boil them and never peel them I mash them up with the skins. My aunts would say the skins make you grow strong In broken English children to us young boys . I remember these ladies clearly as I sit here having coffee, peasant dresses that we’re homemade scarves wrapped around their heads and calf black boots. We joke my brothers and I of the Slavic looks the defined nose the hollow cheeks the slender builds that we all have inherited.

I think of the trauma these two ladies endured as young women in Ukraine. They never received any counseling or help in their lives. I imagine today that the rapes were multiple by soldiers war and rape a sick and twisted reality. I do remember they drank vodka regularly and perhaps that was their way of self medicating. And my great grandfather was a broken man a immigrant coal miner lost always in a bottle of vodka. as today I wonder if my great grandmother was a victim as well as her daughters by the cocks of those soldiers. So as a husband a father of three grown daughters I’m down with support for Christine ford and all victims of sexual assault.

[MyOwnPeace]

1. What a sad, sad memory...........

one can only wonder how anybody can be a part of any such cruelty.
Don't you wish you could ask them now about their thoughts on this "candidate?"
But then again, maybe they would continue their life of silent suffering....................

[duforsure]

2. I've known two women

Who were raped also , and they were preyed upon , and one was given booze to make it easier for them , and they will always have scares from what was done to them. Charges should be filed against kavanaugh for his actions , and to hold him accountable for all he's done , especially to women. Neither women filed charges , but when I knew them they both sometimes wished they had, but were scared to. Women shouldn't ever be afraid to do that , ever. We need a lot more women in our government to make that a priority .

[leftyladyfrommo]

3. It was 40 years ago and I still cannot stand

to be close to dark eyed, dark haired men. I keep my distance from all men until I get to know them better. I was plagued by anxiety attacks. I still am. I never was able to have any sort of normal relationship after that.

I have had a good life but I live and work alone.

[Cousin Dupree]

4. So sorry for your trauma. Hugs. Peace to you. Wishing you the best.

[TEB]

5. Peace to you

[leftyladyfrommo]

6. Oh,thank you. But I am fine.

It is perfectly possible to live a really good life without men. I have good friends.

[Poiuyt]

7. My wife had been raped at knife point

Needless to say, she doesn't suffer fools like Kavanaugh lightly.

[TEB]

8. Agreed

Compassion to Your wife