What He Called Me.

I am Daughter 3, one of Mark Willey's youngest children, and the closest in age to Daughter 1

Growing up I felt continuously responsible for my father’s emotional state. I felt terrified, shameful and powerless.

Ever since I was 5, my father leaned on me emotionally and physically to take care of him. He confided in me like I was a romantic partner. He would cry to me about his insecurities and I felt a huge responsibility to make him feel better by comforting him and reassuring him. This was ongoing through my childhood and through my teenage years.

My dad referred to me as the “lover”.

He would constantly ask me to tell him he looked good and looked young. He would ask me to touch his arms and tell him how big his muscles were. My dad’s hyper focus on women’s bodies was apparent by age 6 for me. He would talk about his daughter’s body parts often and in an inappropriate way. He would shame us for having female bodies because it caused him to feel things that I did not understand at the time.

There were no boundaries around what he felt entitled to say about our bodies. I knew very early on that my body was not my own and that he felt entitled to control it. I was aware of what my dad found attractive because he would talk about it to me. I just remember feeling so much shame at such a young age and he would talk to me about sexual things and I remember feeling like it was my fault and I was impure. I felt like I was the one obsessed with talking about these sexual things and I was a horrible kid for thinking this way. It felt debilitating to sit with the anxiety of feeling like a horrible kid for the sexual things I was being exposed to. It is still really hard for me to think about this stuff without my brain disassociating.

In 2019, my sister accused my father of sexual assault. I found out when I was home alone and there was a knock at the door. Two tall gentlemen in suits greeted me as I opened the door. They said they wanted to ask me some questions and that they were detectives. They asked me about someone at the church who was being accused of sexual assault and I gave them all the information I had on him and thought we were done, but then they asked about my dad.

At that moment, I broke down sobbing, not knowing how to handle the situation and struggling to answer their questions. I had pushed down so much of my past that I genuinely could not remember big parts of my childhood. I had shut it away to avoid the pain. I was not sure what happened when I was younger and what my dad had done to me and my sisters. I knew that my dad made me feel scared and unsafe but I had no idea why. I told them what I could at that point until my spouse asked them to leave because I was so upset and dysregulated. They later called for a statement and I said no I did not want to give one. I was too scared to make a statement and honestly wanted to make it all go away.

At that point in my life, I could not access a lot of my memories. This past year I was admitted to an inpatient facility because my trauma caught up to me and some of my loved ones said I needed help. I like to pretend that bad things didn’t happen when I was growing up because I am powerless to change what happened.

I am realizing that by pretending it didn’t happen, it does not actually change what happened and it minimizes the abuse that I and my siblings experienced. What happened in our childhood was unacceptable and horrific. Through the love and support of those in my life, and continued therapy I am becoming brave enough to speak the truth even when it is scary.

My father sexually, physically and emotionally abused me.

Most of the abuse went unseen by others and went unchecked because of that. We were all homeschooled and had no outside world exposure other than the church and had no idea what “normal” was. My dad would actively keep people out of our home so they would not see what was going on.

I know our family was not the only one who suffered abuse and pain from my father’s leadership and I hope by the telling of our stories, it brings some freedom for you to express what you went through.

~Daughter 3