My Sister’s Secrets podcast: For my brave sister Ally: time to end silence on sexual violence
What does your family say when you tell them someone they love is a rapist? Gripping new podcast My Sister’s Secrets is unlike anything you’ve heard before.
“Aunty Ally’s dead so now we can’t see her anymore.”
My kids don’t tiptoe around taboo topics.
Death, religion, mental illness – it’s all very matter of fact when you’re three. Somewhere along the way we learn to suppress everything. Don’t ask that, don’t cry, you can’t say that, have some manners.
With journalist Steve Jackson, I’ve spent the past year working on a podcast investigation into the secrets in my own family, in an effort to find the truth about what happened to my brave, beautiful sister Alex.
This podcast is everything my four-year-old self has wanted to ask since my step-grandfather sat me on his lap and molested me.
It’s everything I wanted to say and do when my sister told me she was raped by another relative before swearing me to secrecy.
It’s an exercise in charging down taboo topics and leaving nothing left unsaid. It’s a process of unlearning the avoidance of sexual violence that infiltrates society at every level.
What exactly does it sound like when you ask your Mum why your abuser didn’t go to jail? What does your family say when you tell them someone they love is a rapist? What happens when other victims of the same perpetrators come forward? I wanted people to hear exactly how these situations unfold because I believe we can’t possibly find answers unless we first ask the questions. Solutions are hard to dream up when you constantly avert your eyes to the problem – the existence of sexual violence.
There were no blaring sirens for my sister, no doctors rushing about and clattering of doors or metal trolleys. A fatal drug overdose can be astonishingly quiet. Just a needle placed down on the bedside table and the quiet of a motel room for one.
Maybe the whirr of a ceiling fan. She simply stopped breathing.
I keep thinking – surely this is not how it ends? How can a little girl be sexually abused from the age of three and then raped as a young woman, by men within her own family, and this be met with absolute silence? How can those men experience absolutely zero repercussions?
Only when we properly consider the expected response to these situations can we fully appreciate how warped and bizarre the code of conduct is.
Alex dies quietly and we all hug at the funeral. This should not be how it ends for victims.
Where are the sirens?
I can’t save my sister now so, like most people who experience a devastating preventable loss, I’m entirely focused on prevention. I want this podcast to be the blaring siren she never had. I need everyone to stop sleepwalking and omitting and ignoring. We’d do well to start asking questions like a three-year-old.
Exactly why is Aunty Ally dead? Well, son, someone hurt her very badly but no one ever did anything about it.
So she carried the hurt and the sadness for as long as she could but eventually she needed a rest. She gave herself a needle and went to sleep like Nanny’s dog, Maisie, and she never woke up.
It may seem an odd thing to do – give the world a front-row seat to understand how sexual predators operated in your family.
But stranger still is the way the sexual violence is studiously ignored by almost everybody.
Exchanging experiences is the only cure for a disease that thrives in isolation. If this podcast helps one person feel less alone in their battles, it’s worth it for me.
In the unlikely event that an offender stumbled upon this podcast, I hope it reminds them that the movement has hit fever pitch – it’s only a matter of time before one of your victims realises they have something to say.
This podcast comes from a place of urgency.
One in five children will experience some form of sexual violence before they turn 18.
I’m no statistician but they seem like shocking odds for a parent of four. I have four in five chances running around the place and I can’t afford to do nothing. None of us can.
It takes everything I have not to recoil when my kids ask me where babies come from.
Something deep down inside me still jumps up and tells me it’s wrong to talk about these things, to lower my voice and speak in hushed tones.
I push aside the reflex to create a diversion and I answer the best I can because I want them to know it’s safe to ask these questions. I don’t want them to be ashamed of sexuality, something so deeply human that they can never escape it.
This space cannot be a mystery they work out for themselves, a giant omission. A void they eventually fill in when some kid at school shows them porn on their phone.
If someone does something to him that he doesn’t understand, or shows him something, I need him to know he can come to me for help.
In the making of this podcast I constantly fought the reflex to lower my voice.
To actually describe my abuse remains difficult, the words still get stuck in my throat sometimes.
What makes me determined to be explicit about what happened to my sister and I is the idea that being silent is exactly how predators want us to stay.
If not silent, at least very hush, hush about it.
Alex ending up dead before her time was an ideal outcome — for her rapist.
So we chose to be as explicit as possible in this podcast because anything less is a euphemism that effectively shields everyone from the reality of what is happening.
I don’t know how to make people fully appreciate this universal disaster we face, unless I say exactly what happened.
“Mum sees a special doctor to help her think.” This is one of my personal favourites. My kids reference my therapy as sure as night follows day.
I hope they never learn to see shame in asking for help or going to the doctor for your mind. I know that modelling a fearless approach to mental health is a crucial part of breaking the devastating cycle and preventing the intergenerational mental health impacts that can result from sexual violence.
In this podcast we trace the psychological unravelling of two women, my sister and myself, that went on almost entirely undetected for decades.
From the self-disgust and shame to the extraordinary development of a unique skill set that enables sexual abuse survivors to expertly hide their pain.
The more we talk about this the better equipped we will all be at identifying the warning signs in others and, most importantly, within ourselves.
It’s all on the table now and there is immense relief in not having to hide anymore. I’ve well and truly shed my victimhood.
I’ve wielded a force in the face of direct efforts to subjugate me again and again.
Now all I want to know is – what happens when we leave nothing left unsaid?
My Sister’s Secrets is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.
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My Sister’s Secrets is the new investigative podcast from The Australian, launching on Friday afternoon in the podcasts section of our app or at mysisterssecrets.com.au
Get the app at the App Store or Google Play
Subscribers hear episodes first and get access to all Virginia Tapscott and Steve Jackson’s groundbreaking journalism on this topic, plus much more. To check out our subscription packages, visit theaustralian.com.au/subscribe
