Female Beauty

Teri Hatcher, one of the stars of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” reveals in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair that her uncle sexually molested her when she was 5-year old. This is lifted straight from the site:

Teri Hatcher Reveals Claims of Childhood Sexual Abuse at the Hands of an Uncle In the April issue of Vanity Fair Teri Hatcher goes public for the first time with claims that an uncle sexually molested her 35 years ago. When she learned in 2002 that a 14-year-old victim of Hatcher’s uncle had committed suicide, and worried that the uncle would escape charges of molesting the girl, Hatcher approached the prosecution. “I didn’t intend to talk about this with you,” she tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Leslie Bennetts, “but it is something that’s been surfacing with me for the past three years. This is something I’ve tried to hide my whole life.”

In 2002, before Desperate Housewives relaunched her career, Teri was helping her parents move house. Hatcher’s mother handed her some recent newspaper clippings: Stone had been arrested and charged with three counts of sexually molesting the daughter of a neighbour. His victim, Sarah Van Cleemput, had killed herself, leaving a note: “You’re probably thinking a normal person doesn’t do this, well ask Dick.”

After Teri came forward, her uncle, Richard Hayes Stone, then 64-years-old, pleaded guilty to four counts of child molestation in the case of the 14-year-old victim and received 14 years in prison. Teri said, “I was just blown over by this girl’s pain. I thought, Boy, that’s really close to being me. Any day of the week, I could feel that sort of pain. I haven’t tried to kill myself, but I’ve certainly thought about it, and then I feel guilty about thinking about it, because what’s so terrible about my life?”

As many victims of sexual abuse do, Teri says she had complicated feelings about the abuse. She didn’t see her uncle after she was 8- or 9-years-old, and never told her parents, though she thinks they suspected.  “I think their way of dealing with things is denial and guilt,”  she says.  “Nobody wanted to talk about it. But all I did was blame myself.”

Sexual abuse is so often kept a secret. Like Teri, most know the perpetrator, whether it’s a relative or a family friend. It can be a very confusing experience, especially if the child or the child’s family was close to the person committing the abuse. Children often fear consequences for themselves or their families if they confide in someone. Or they accept the abuser’s threats that no one will believe them.

Problems with adult relationships, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and self-mutilation are all documented effects of childhood sexual abuse. However, the longer the abuse remains a secret, the more damaging it may be. When you’re sexually abused, your sexuality and intimacy get intertwined with all of those feelings you experienced during the abuse: guilt, shame, fear and ambivalence. It’s never too late; confiding in someone at any point can be incredibly healing. The earlier you get help, the lesser the impact the abuse may have on your developing personality, your ability to trust and your adult sexuality.

Most men and women with sexual abuse histories say they always felt “different.” As a child, you almost begin to wonder if you’re making it all up — or if what’s happening to you is not a bad thing. Instead, you start to think you’re a bad person. It’s the insidious strategy of an abuser. He makes you feel that something is wrong with you for the inappropriate behavior he is inflicting (most sexual abusers are men).

Working through these feelings in therapy will help you begin to see that it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t anything about you that caused the abuse in the first place. Though the process may be painful, a skilled therapist can take you back to those powerful childhood feelings of helplessness and confusion. You tackle the bad memories as an adult and do something you weren’t able to as a child: put the blame where it belongs.

Studies show that just 3 percent to 5 percent of sexual abuse allegations are false. Let’s give our children the best chance at a happy, healthy adult life by taking them seriously. Hatcher not only helped convict her abuser for victimizing another woman; she’s now an inspiration to the more than 60 million sexual abuse survivors among us.

“Without Teri, this case would have been dismissed”, the Santa Clara County deputy district attorney who was the sex crimes prosecutor against Hatcher’s uncle, Chuck Gillingham said,  “I have so much respect for what she did. This is a person who had nothing to gain and a lot to lose.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 10:54 am and is filed under Career, Sexual Life, Gossip, Personality, Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.