From victim to survivor (Emporia, Kansas)

Unfortunately, this survivor's story is all to typical....

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/apr/15/victim-survivor/

From victim to survivor
By Brandy Nance
Friday, April 15, 2011

Editor’s note: The following story contains some graphic material.

“I’m a survivor, not a victim.”

Those are the words childhood sexual abuse survivor Jessica Crank spoke Thursday evening during the Crime Victims Rights Week dinner held in Emporia.

Dozens of people attended the dinner — all in some way affected by a crime, from property crimes to homicide.

Crank was the speaker for the evening and by the time she was done speaking, there weren’t many dry eyes in the room. Crank said she was a survivor of long-term child sexual abuse. Her father was the perpetrator and her earliest memory of the abuse was between 3 and 4 years old. Her earliest memories were of her father abusing her while in the bathtub, she told the group. She said he would always tell her and her little sister that other girls and women had it worse — he would tell them of rape and abuse.

“He said what we went through was nothing compared to what other girls and women were going through,” Crank said.

After her father had been abusing her in the bathtub, he started coming into her room at night.

“He would act like he was teaching me things,” she said, adding that he told her that it was their little secret and it’s what fathers and daughters do.

Later, he started moving to Crank’s little sister.

“That was my baby sister,” she said. “I was so angry he had brought her into the sick and twisted world I had been in.”

Crank said she started offering to take her little sister’s place so her little sister could go and play.

When Crank was in the fifth grade, she talked her little sister into telling someone. They told Crank’s teacher and then they had to tell the principal, which was her dad’s best friend and neighbor. The two were split up and had to talk to the counselor. The sisters were sent home that night. They had done everything they were told to do in the videos they had watched at school…yet they were sent home.

That night, Crank’s dad said he would kill their mother if they didn’t change their story. After making a deal with their father to not hurt them anymore, Crank and her little sister decided to change their story. They told the police that they had made it all up because their father wouldn’t buy them a television.

Things then got worse.

“He went from gentle teacher to angry rapist,” Crank said, adding that she then feared for her life. “Things got worse.”

The abuse went on for another five years, every day. Crank was abused before she went to school and forced to get herself together and put on a happy face at school so no one would suspect anything was wrong. She secretly made a plan when she turned 18 to run away with her sister. She didn’t think she had any other choice.

At the age of 16, she told a friend, who told her if she didn’t tell someone by the end of Christmas break, she was going to tell someone. When her friend found out she hadn’t by the end of Christmas break, she followed through on her promise. The same principal that sent them home five years earlier was told. Crank and her sister were called into the office and denied everything and pleaded them not to call their father. The school told their father.

Again, they were sent home.

Her father blamed it on the little sister and took his rage out on her. He told her little sister “I can rape you and nobody can stop me.” Her little sister’s mother was right upstairs exercising with a friend. They couldn’t hear what was going on.

When Crank talked to her little sister, something changed inside her.

“That’s when I decided enough was enough,” she said. “He was getting too brave.”

She talked to her little sister and made a plan.

“That’s when I made the best plan I’ve made in my life,” she said.

They waited until their dad went to work and talked to their mother. They called the police and went to stay at the SOS house.

“I remember staying at the SOS house that night lying in bed listening to my mother crying for hours,” Crank said.

It’s been 12 years since the abuse Crank and her younger sister had to endure. Their father was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Crank has battled severe depression and drug abuse. She has overcome both. She now is married with two daughters and she’s striving for her bachelor’s degree in psychology and criminal justice.

“I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor,” she said.

Following Crank’s words, a candlelight ceremony was held. A candle was lit for property crimes, crimes against persons, domestic violence, child abuse, adult sexual abuse, elder abuse and homicide. Each person in the room had a candle to light. Homicide survivors were asked to gather toward the front of the room and say the name of who they were honoring as their candles were lit.