Abuse Case File

My adoptive father, Jim, psychologically and sexually abused my younger sister and myself.  My younger sister and myself were both adopted as infants in our adoptive parents home.  My adoptive father was a food chemist, was well liked by everyone; he had a good education and great job.  My adoptive mother was an RN and had adopted both of us from St. Micheal's Hospital.  My adoptive mother, Vicky,  did her best to raise us in a good environment and I am sure tried to limit or mitigate the damage our adoptive father was causing to us.  My sister and I are not sure exactly when the sexual abuse started but I am sure he started to groom us for the abuse from the time we were small girls.  But he was such a well liked and well regarded man; he would be the last anyone would suspect of performing such horrific acts. The worst thing was as we were growing up and into our adulthoods he was always tried to put us down and always tried to discredit us, especially when he remarried another woman who had children, I suppose, fearing that some day, my sister and I would come back to accuse him.  My sister and I have not had any contact with him for a number of years.

My adoptive father also, I suspect, was trying to involve, or did involve his younger brother in some aspect of the abuse.  When this certain uncle came over to our house, my sister and I (we were about 5 and 7 years old respectively) would pin washcloths over our chests and over our genitals as though they were loincloths and we would dance around the living room with our uncle watching.  At the time, we were little girls dancing around the living room to music on our record player, which we thought was fun, but now that I think about it, this was rather bizarre and twisted, two little girls who were barely dressed, dancing around the living room in front of two grown men.  During our childhood our father tried his best to keep my sister and myself from being close, keeping us divided and fighting between ourselves because it was in his best interest.  My sister and I both got involved in the drug culture during our teen years (this was in the 1970's) and we have both had many problems with being in abusive and bad relationships with men during our lives, until recently. I have suffered from depression for many years because of what happened.   Now my sister and I are both reasonably happy and in good relationships.  I was fortunate enough to receive some counselling about the abuse a few years ago, which helped me greatly and I am trying to encourage my sister to get some counselling as well.  Unfortunately, she lives on the other side of Canada and we rarely get to see one another, maybe once every 5 years or so.  

What my father did to us was horrific and cruel and I guess we really didn't think about it while we were growing up; we didn't realize (and remember what we'd blocked out) until we were adults.  I have thought about reporting this to the police but haven't as of yet as my adoptive father is now 81 years old and has had some health problems.  What makes this even more horrific is that the Children's Aid Society had interviewed and background-checked our prospective adoptive parents and I guess they looked good on paper, but if they'd only known about my adoptive father, I am sure they wouldn't have placed us into his care.  But that was in the 1950's and there were many babies to be placed!  Thanks for reading....