But the stories they shared were from the dark cellar where families go horribly wrong.

        “I was abused by my brother from the time I was 7 or 8 years old,” said Heather.

        “My step-father abused me. I didn't know it was wrong,” said Jessica. “When I told my mother, they said, "She's talking nonsense.'” She was 6.

        When Karen became pregnant, her parents told the neighbors she was running around with boys.

        “The father was my natural father,” she said.

        Words that make your skin crawl.

Conspiracy of denial

        Each woman had a miniature stuffed Sesame Street character to hold as she talked, to reduce stress and remind her of the childhood stolen by the very men who were supposed to protect their innocence.

        They shared a lot besides pain.

        Each told about a conspiracy of denial — when a family avoids facing a terrible truth by holding onto a lie so tightly it turns hard and rigid like a cramped muscle.

        “They know, each one in her heart, that the abusers are still out there doing this,” said Anne Mangold, a counselor.

        These women were rejected by their own families. Brothers, sisters, even mothers sided with the abusers.

        “We've heard the story a million times,” Ms. Mangold said. “Our society would rather be in denial about the father or the step-father. Outside the family it is handled much differently.”

        Ms. Mangold and her counseling partner, Allyson Blythe, have been leading the support group for about five years.

        Here's another thing the victims share: “All of us in this room have made bad decisions about men,” said Heather.

        They wear the telltale marks of vulnerability that attract predators, wife-beaters and abusers.

        And they all worry about becoming abusers.

        “The anger comes out at the most inappropriate times,” said Pauline.

        Sexual abuse and incest are hereditary diseases. The men who abused them were often victims of abuse who passed it on to their kids, generation after generation.

Stop the cycle

        The women told of threats, beatings, deceit. And pornography, the worm on the barbed hook of sex crimes.

        “When I was growing up it was Playboy on the coffee table. It sets a tone of what's normal,” said Pauline.

        “I've never met an offender yet who hasn't used porn,” said Ms. Mangold.

        These women decided to share their stories with a stranger, hoping to warn other families to avoid the dark closets where abuse hides and festers.

        “If your child doesn't want to go see a certain uncle and throws a fit about it, find out why,” they said.

        “Tell your children you have a right to say no, you have a right to your own body. And tell them they can tell you anything.”

        Forgiveness, they said, is an article of faith. “It's for us, not the abuser.”

        “I will never heal,” said Karen.

        “Sometimes I wonder. If I had not been abused, what kind of person would I have been?”

        E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.
       

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