Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

It is nev­er easy for Sh­er­na Alexan­der to re­late the sto­ry of her ear­ly child­hood, grow­ing up in a home where she was sub­ject­ed to phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse for ten years.Now, at 40, her scars are not all healed, but she has made gi­ant steps to re­cov­ery and her life is be­ing re­stored through un­con­di­tion­al love and for­give­ness.She was on­ly six and a half when a man who was sup­posed to be one of her guardians raped her and forced her to re­peat­ed­ly per­form sex­u­al acts.Alexan­der's fa­ther, a nurse at the St Ann's Hos­pi­tal and a for­mer of­fi­cer in the T&T De­fence Force, died in 1981, leav­ing her and her younger broth­er in the care of a rel­a­tive and a male friend.

Once the abuse be­gan, Alexan­der said she en­dured it al­most every day. She vivid­ly re­mem­bers the first time she was raped."He walked with some type of lu­bri­cant and told me it will hurt but this will make me feel bet­ter."It was a pain I would nev­er for­get...ex­cru­ti­at­ing. I felt as though my stom­ach was be­ing ripped apart and it was like I was suf­fo­cat­ing with his weight on top of me. I still re­mem­ber the smell of his breath and his heavy breath­ing. And him touch­ing my face and lick­ing my chest," she said.In the fol­low­ing days she felt sick, could not walk prop­er­ly, and bathing and uri­nat­ing were, in her own words, "like hell." But this did not stop the per­pe­tra­tor. To in­tim­i­date her, he would of­ten threat­en to beat and kill Alexan­der. At oth­er times he would say, "I care about you; I love you; I would be a fa­ther to you and sup­port you; you are spe­cial to me."

De­spite his threats, Alexan­der still told a teacher at pri­ma­ry school, but noth­ing was done. And when she sub­se­quent­ly told her guardian–who al­so phys­i­cal­ly abused Alexan­der and her broth­er–her guardian's re­sponse was: "Talk to Je­sus and pray plen­ty."As the phys­i­cal abuse per­sist­ed, Alexan­der's broth­er fled the house in St James. But too fear­ful of run­ning away, she re­luc­tant­ly stayed. Her role as a sex slave in­ten­si­fied as she grew old­er. Life for Alexan­der was con­stant tor­ture. Many days she cried. She would day­dream about dy­ing or hav­ing a bet­ter life, like her class­mates, who al­ways looked so hap­py and seemed to have lov­ing par­ents."I thought some­thing was wrong with me and I was the on­ly child in the world ex­pe­ri­enc­ing this. I of­ten won­dered why God hat­ed me. I slow­ly be­gan to have a ha­tred for any­thing re­li­gious, es­pe­cial­ly since [her rel­a­tive] was a Chris­t­ian and the teacher who taught me re­li­gious in­struc­tion al­so mo­lest­ed the girls, touch­ing me as well many times. I won­dered how could a car­ing God al­low this to hap­pen."

With no one com­ing to her res­cue, Alexan­der tried to find ways to de­ter her abuser, in­clud­ing not bathing or brush­ing her teeth for lengthy pe­ri­ods."I thought if I didn't do these things and I smelled bad enough, he would leave me alone."But in­stead her de­lib­er­ate poor hy­giene led to a se­vere case of oral thrush."I re­mem­ber my mouth be­ing so sore and it was dif­fi­cult to swal­low. They took me to the fam­i­ly doc­tor and I re­mem­ber try­ing to tell him what was hap­pen­ing to me..."The doc­tor re­spond­ed by ask­ing her guardians to send her over to his home three times a week, "just to re­lax and spend time with his fam­i­ly. I guess this was his way of help­ing," Alexan­der said.But even a few hours away from home did not bring re­lief, as once she re­turned at night­fall, the tor­ment con­tin­ued.

Un­able to stom­ach any more, she at­tempt­ed sui­cide. A cock­tail of pills tak­en from the med­i­cine chest and a cup­ful of mouth­wash were go­ing to be her ul­ti­mate es­cape. Her plan did not work. She was rushed to the same doc­tor, and this was fol­lowed by a sound beat­ing with a fan belt by her guardian."I felt like an ex­per­i­ment that each per­son had to use and take a piece of. I felt worth­less, and just want­ed to die," she said.While she was at sec­ondary school Alexan­der be­gan hav­ing sex with old­er men, while still be­ing sex­u­al­ly abused at home."I guess I was try­ing to be an adult, but al­so want­i­ng to re­main a child...not re­al­ly know­ing what a re­al child­hood was or what adult­hood should feel like. Part of me felt sex was the on­ly op­tion for help­ing with hurt and in hav­ing sex with oth­er men there would be some type of heal­ing or cleans­ing. But boy, was I wrong."

She got preg­nant five times and had five abor­tions."My first abor­tion was at a back­yard abor­tion­ist in Bel­mont...I re­mem­ber the line of women wait­ing to have abor­tions was so long. I still deal with that hor­ror to­day," she said sor­row­ful­ly.With her life head­ing in a down­ward spi­ral, at 15 she packed some clothes and ran away in search of her moth­er. But she end­ed up back in St James, where she was beat­en for ly­ing.Her moth­er even­tu­al­ly took her in, on­ly af­ter re­ceiv­ing a scold­ing from Alexan­der's half-sis­ter, who was vis­it­ing from the USA. Look­ing back, she said her moth­er al­so dis­played the clas­sic traits of an abused per­son, but would nev­er ad­mit it."When I ful­ly un­der­stood what abuse was, I knew that my moth­er had to have al­so been a vic­tim. Up to this day my moth­er can­not em­brace me or say, 'I love.' As a mat­ter of fact she can­not do it with any of her chil­dren."De­spite the tur­moil Alexan­der ex­celled at school, gain­ing sev­en CXC pass­es. She opt­ed to study law at A-lev­el, with the in­ten­tion of be­com­ing a crim­i­nal lawyer to seek re­venge on all child mo­les­ters, but changed her mind when she met psy­chol­o­gist Dr Ronald John, who would be in­stru­men­tal in her heal­ing process.

Not healed, but bet­ter

Some things, if not all, hap­pen for a rea­son, Alexan­der be­lieves. By 25, she ac­cept­ed a mar­riage pro­pos­al from a man 20 years old­er."I sup­pose I agreed to mar­ry him as an easy way out," she said.She re­mained mar­ried to her hus­band, a preach­er, un­til he died last De­cem­ber, but the mar­riage was a very rocky one. With all the de­bris of her past, it was dif­fi­cult for her to love and of­ten she would be­come an­gry and lash out. This led to many phys­i­cal fights."I would just be­come so en­raged over the small­est is­sue. I re­mem­ber one day he screamed at me, 'Like I mar­ried the dev­il.' That is when I broke down and cried out to God. I had felt so lost, use­less and out of con­trol for so long."

The cou­ple sought coun­selling."Dur­ing our coun­selling ses­sions, I found out my hus­band was al­so a prod­uct of abuse...I guess in many ways God used him to save me."I even­tu­al­ly grew to love him, and be­ing with him gave me the con­fi­dence to speak up about the past I so just want­ed erased," Alexan­der said.Mov­ing for­ward has not been easy for Alexan­der. She be­lieves abuse of any kind is dif­fi­cult to com­plete­ly over­come, and that heal­ing comes by first for­giv­ing one­self and the per­pe­tra­tor and by help­ing oth­ers to heal."Abuse is some­thing you live with for life–even in do­ing this in­ter­view so many emo­tions arise. But there must be one per­son who is bold and brave enough to do it to help an­oth­er," she said. "Am I com­plete­ly healed? No way! But I can say with the grace of God, and the con­tin­u­ous love and sup­port from good peo­ple, I am 95 per cent bet­ter."