WI- Out of the Shadows, Part 2: Confronting sex crimes in our community

6-24-2009 Wisconsin:

Recovery: 'One layer at a time'

It took sexual abuse survivor Charlene Bille about 50 years to start loving life.

The pain the Fond du Lac woman endured between the ages of 2 and 12 festered within her for years. It has taken the 60-year-old decades to heal to the point she is at today: assisting law enforcement with how to approach a victim and openly discussing abuse with those who know her story.

"My first incident (in 1951) is not my first memory. It's my last memory," Bille said. "I had memories of being sexually abused when I was older first. I would have flashbacks of things happening to me when I was older. Through therapy and as I got stronger, the abuse when I was 2 was my last memory. (Experts) tell me that if I had the memory of when I was 2 first, it would have destroyed me because I had to get strong and learn to deal with these memories before I had that memory."

Linda Selk-Yerges, director of Assist Survivors Treatment Outreach Prevention Inc. (ASTOP), said Bille, like many survivors, "peeled back the onion" in an effort to recover.

"You keep taking it one layer at a time. You keep peeling back until you get to the core, until you get to the beginnings (of the assault)," Selk-Yerges said.

Bille said one reaction to the abuse she had as a child was the need to see everything going on around her. At Christmas time, she would sit in a corner to assure no one would sneak up from behind. As an adult, she would choose spots in restaurants that would give her the best view to avoid surprises.

Other manifestations of trauma were immediately more self-destructive.

"I started self-abusing when I was 6. That's my first memory of cutting myself," Bille said. "I would find glass or whatever and cut myself on my legs. As I grew older, I would cut with razorblades. I had a pattern of self-abusing. I would overeat. My first memory of overeating was with semi-sweet chocolate. … I realized as I got heavier, boys ain't going to like you. I would overeat and then I would take really hot baths. I would put in the plug and let the hot water run. I would sit in there an hour, hour and a half, two hours. When that didn't work, I would cut."

She noted that on some trips to the hospital she had 200 or 300 cuts on her body. To her, cutting was not an attempt at suicide, it was a means to relieve her pain.

"Cutting was not blood. I did not see blood. It was black ooze because there was so much crap inside," Bille said. "At the age of 6 on, I just cut wherever."

Bille never told anyone about the self-abusing. She started to seek help after depression set in when she was 30.

A pivotal moment happened when she and a friend, who had been reading about sexual assault, met for coffee.

"She asked, 'Charlene, have you been sexually abused?' I said, 'I'm dead, in my head.' She reached across the table and touched my hand," Bille said. "If she could touch me when I'm the dirtiest, filthiest person in the world, it can't be all that bad. We sat and talked and she said I should call my counselor."

Road to recovery
Bille sought help at a variety of places and was met with skeptics or naysayers. She said once she found ASTOP and a doctor who believed her, the healing process began.

Selk-Yerges agreed with Bille that survivors stop growing emotionally at the age when abuse starts. Even though Bille was a grown woman holding a job, ASTOP counselors had to nurture her.

"The first contact I had with ASTOP I was suicidal. I had cut really bad that day," said Bille, who noted she did attempt suicide three times in her life by other means than cutting. "It had to be by the grace of God that day I picked up that phone and called the crisis line. I don't know who answered that phone, but they said they had a group that night and I should come.

"The ASTOP girls would hold me sometimes and let me cry," she added.

During assaults as a child, she said she would mentally take herself out of the situation, like she was watching it happen. Through therapy, Bille integrated back into the situation. She felt the pain of the assaults, but was on her way to healing.

"I listened to a tape one time and in that tape it said, 'You have to admit to what you lost.' … I lost my innocence. I lost my childhood. I lost what was mine to give to somebody someday that I'd choose to give it to," Bille said. "That was all taken away from me. I remember thinking that when I was 10, I was 80. I never thought I was a child."

Moving on
Bille encourages those who survive sexual assaults to report the abuse and get help. She never reported her assaulters because of threats to her well-being.

"I never confronted anybody and that was my choice. In my head and my heart I forgave myself because that worked for me," she said. "I have a relationship with God, so that is how I dealt with it.

"I just knew within me there was something more. There had to be something more. I got this picture of, 'I am free!' I was so knotted up, like a plate of spaghetti. It was like I had to take one string of spaghetti at a time and just unravel it. That was what my insides were like."

Reporting abuse
Bille said she would go to school with bruises on her body wishing the teacher would say something. As an adult, she took a stand and reported abuse after changing the diaper of an 18-month-old girl at a Salvation Army daycare in the 1980s.

"If you (the parents) think there is anything going on with your child, make a call," Bille said. "It doesn't even have to be a child. If there is anything with any of your family members that you think is not right, check it out."

Through her recovery, Bille can be the voice for those yet to rebuild. Selk-Yerges said Bille is the proof needed for victims and those who have the opportunity to report crimes.

"What Charlene does is give hope to survivors of sexual abuse and that is huge," Selk-Yerges said. "(ASTOP members) see the healing and wonderful blossoming of survivors, but for the story to come from a person who's gone through it, to walk through it, she is the one who gives hope that it is better out there. The abuse becomes an event that happened in your life. It no longer has power over you."

Bille added, "I was a mouse, just quiet. I'm not a mouse anymore. I'm enjoying life. If people can see that in me and hear my story and know why, I think that's important to see that there can be life. … Life is fun. That's what I would like victims to see. They can get beyond (sexual abuse) and enjoy life." ..Source.. by Russell Plummer • The Reporter