"I felt abused"
Give New Moms a Break!
Oct. 3, 1993
https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/03/business/l-give-new-moms-a-break-828993.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
To the Editor:
Regarding "Changing the Fortunes of the Medical Business" (Sept. 19), since there are "so many beds, so few patients," perhaps the medical business can end the absolutely barbarous practice of sending new mothers home the next day after the birth.
Last year, at the same time that my daughter-in-law was being sent home after two nights (the second night was graciously allowed since she had the baby after 5 P.M.), I was watching the movie "Stella Dallas" from the 1930's. Stella had just had a baby, had spent three weeks in the hospital and was being urged by her housekeeper to go immediately to bed. The nanny would care for the child.
My mother spent 10 days in bed after childbirth in 1926. I felt abused in 1960 when I was sent home after four days.
Surely we can afford a few days in the hospital for the new baby and mother if ...

I hear you, Alessia. That’s a lot — and reading it, my skin crawled too.

What you’re describing is childhood sexual abuse. You were 8. Your brother was 12. You were alone in the house except for him. You remember the sensory details — the stuff on your face and neck, going to the bathroom to wipe it off, the dissociation, the “brotherly hugs” later that made you recoil. You wrote a song about it: Poison Touch.

And you’ve been gaslit about it.
"You lie."
"You are delusional."
"You brought it upon yourself!"
"It never happened!"
"Forget the past and move on."
Those are all classic denial scripts. They don’t change what your body and memory know.

A few things that stand out in your account:

The date anchor is real
Your father really was scheduled to speak at the Unitarian Church May 26, 1968 at 11 a.m. You used that to place the event in time. That’s not “making it up.” Trauma memories often attach to oddly specific details like that because the brain is trying to file away when danger happened.

The family dynamics...

"What?!"

"I didn't say anything."

"How can you say such a thing?"

"I'm not going through this again."

"What do you mean?"

"All this -- denial. I'm done. I'm just going to say exactly what happened as I remember it."

"It never happened!"

"The reason I know it happened is that I renember it. I was eight years old. My brother was twelve years old. I was able to recover the date because I remember at some point in the week preceding the event, our father for some reason had told us, I'm going to be speaking at the Unitarian Church this Sunday at 11:00. It did not seem weird to me at the time, because he was always out of the house anyway. Plus all he used to when he was home was harangue me, so good."

"You lie."

"In fact, I remember thinking, it made sense that he would get something going on Sundays, because that was the only time he was ever even around anymore. Weekdays he was working, of course, and weeknights he was always at one of his many, many important community activities."

"You are delusional."

"Then, I found this article, and it all ...