Searching for Mercy Street

The memoir by Linda Gray Sexon about the troubled relationship with her mother the poet Anne Sexton. Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton (1994). I did buy this book now thirty years ago already, and I was stunned at the time by the total honesty. It was indeed much more than just a touch.

How come people actually still ignore child abuse so? Molesting a child isn't something that one can justify by saying that the adult was mentally unstable or such. As a child I had been abused by a family member too. I once excused it as an adult towards my then counselor by saying that it was something that was already present in my mom's family.

I've regretted that excuse eversince. No, it's not because someone was from a six generations long dirt poor family. Likewise no, it's not because someone was mentally disable or depressed. It's about the power the perpetrator has vis-a-vis the child. Showing a child how to masturbate is indeed as bad as anything else. No, that's the truth.

What I find important, and it's indeed something that can puncture the bubble of shame too, is that anyone who suffered so from any kind of sexual or even physical abuse as a child or teenager, breaks the circle. I mean that anyone who can voice the crime should do that, regardless of the reputation or merit of the evil-doer.