New episode: Ridiculous silence that cost me my family
As episode two of new podcast My Sister’s Secrets is released, journalist Virginia Tapscott reveals the depth of rejection and fury she has faced from some members of her own family.
For the past year I’ve been working on My Sister’s Secrets, the podcast investigation into the abuse and betrayal of my elder sister Alex, who died by overdose at the age of 32.
Two men in our family sexually assaulted Alex, first as a child and then as an adult.
First it was our step-grandfather, who also abused me when we were little girls.
Then it was another male relative, who raped Alex when she was 21.
Our podcast investigation has gone over this slow moving train wreck with a microscope, carefully dissecting the psychology within families that collude to protect the reputation of sex offenders.
Why do we largely say and do nothing in the face of the most disgusting crimes against loved ones?
How do predators manage to silence not only their victims, but also the other members of the family?
Why are so many people too horrified and ashamed by abuse to take action to stop it?
You won’t be surprised to learn that there are plenty of people in my extended family who wish I would just leave this topic alone — that I would continue the silence, the shame.
I continually come up short of saying this podcast investigation has ‘torn my family apart’.
It hasn’t.
The actions of sexual predators have torn my family apart.
The week my sister died we had been planning to go to a family event that her rapist would also likely be attending.
What amazes me now, with the benefit of hindsight, are the lengths we were all prepared to go to in order to keep the rape a secret. If put in the position of having to hug the offender or to turn away, I know I would have smiled and hugged him. I couldn’t risk raising suspicions and losing my sister’s confidence.
Alex had told me about the rape and sworn me to secrecy. She didn’t want to be the one who was making everybody else feel uncomfortable. She didn’t want to upset anyone.
In the end, the family event didn’t happen.
We were plunged into shocked grief by Alex’s death, at her own hand in a lonely motel room hundreds of kilometres from home.
Essentially, what we proved was that we were willing to maintain social cohesion within the family at any cost. Of course, at the time, we didn’t realise the price would be my sister’s life. Not long after Alex’s death, I wrote a piece for The Weekend Australian about Alex, about her abusers, and about my determination to end the ridiculous silence surrounding these crimes within our own family.
After the story was published, hundreds of people — women, mainly — contacted me with their own stories of family secrets and shame.
I learned there is actually nothing extraordinary about this situation I’ve just described.
The heartbreaking part is it’s an entirely ordinary and expected response that is currently playing out in families across Australia. First the abuse, then the self-silencing fuelled by shame.
Don’t rock the boat, we tell ourselves, just ignore it. Is it really worth all the trouble? Did it really even happen?
It’s essentially an evolutionary regression at play.
We used to depend on social cohesion for survival and in the dark recesses of our minds we still do.
But it’s also a learned response. When our step grandfather sexually abused us, social cohesion was largely prioritised over any empowerment of the victims.
It meant that a similar course was followed after the rape.
The reality is that I did lose family by speaking out after Alex died.
I had to cut loose the biological urge and learned response to preserve all family ties.
That was a bewildering and hurtful process to go through, it required the courage to be disliked and entirely rejected by people who I thought would always be by my side.
The love they have for him, it turns out, is very much unconditional.
The love they had for Alex, and for myself, was very much conditional.
It depended on us preserving the reputation of someone who my sister said had raped her.
I had the choice to keep them in my life by keeping a secret that killed my sister, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to be in his presence anymore.
I had to tell his family why.
They responded with cutting attacks on her character which essentially blamed her for the rape.
Sadly, again, this is a default position assumed by many families who have unknowingly or knowingly harboured a sexual predator for many years.
Rather than face the possibility that someone they love is a sexual predator, they leap to their defence.
And the only defence is to rubbish the victim’s character and discredit their story.
It’s devastating to think that Alex put all her energy into protecting these people from the reality of what had happened, only to be cut loose at the first sign of trouble.
I suppose I have consoled myself with the realisation that conditional love isn’t really love lost at all.
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My Sister’s Secrets is the new investigative podcast from The Australian. Episode Two is available now for subscribers 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
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