Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030051
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``They have the best toys,'' Mary Clifford says.
Her favorite coloring book is called ``Animal Friends.''
And her ideal night out on the town is to hit the arcade at Tanglewood Mall, then Toys R Us, then the magazine aisle at Kroger.
``Sometimes we stand there for hours reading,'' she says. ``Did you know there are magazines just for cheerleading, for coffee, for cigars?''
Mary Clifford is a registered dietitian and a published free-lance writer. She and her husband live in south Roanoke County in a house full of stuff - kids-meal toys, Elvis posters, a lava lamp, a toy electric guitar and colored pencils.
She is 31 years old and quite literally rediscovering - no, discovering - her youth.
``I'm making up for lost time. When you're always having to look over your shoulder as a kid, how can you enjoy playing?''
The abuse started when she was 6. She was sitting on the couch watching Saturday-morning cartoons when her mother's boyfriend buried his face in her lap.
It continued for 14 more years, changing subtly. There was outright molestation, then inappropriate comments made about her body, then spying through the keyhole of her bedroom door.
Up until last year, Mary confronted her past by telling no one.
But the bad secret came screaming out in other ways.
She fantasized often about her own funeral. She ate until she was sick. She avoided mirrors at all cost. She got hysterical at the slightest things.
``If my newspaper wasn't in the box by 6:30 in the morning, I'd go into a rage,'' she says. ``If I was halfway through a recipe and realized I was missing a spice, I'd go crazy.''
A year ago, her funeral fantasy came close to reality.
Contemplating suicide, she checked herself into a psychiatric center. There, she heard other victims' stories of sexual abuse.
And there, finally, she told her own.
``Before therapy, I was seeing it over and over again, constantly,'' she says. ``And after therapy, it was such a relief.
``It was like someone finally turning down a stereo that had been blasting - all your life.''
The past year has been her worst: She and her husband had to file bankruptcy because of the hospital and therapy bills. She sold most of her furnishings - except the toys - at yard sales, and once resorted to selling plasma to buy groceries.
The past year has also been her best: She's recently become a speaker for the Child Abuse Prevention Council. Telling her story in public for the first time this summer ``was the most liberating thing I've ever done. It's like I was no longer carrying this huge secret.
``If I can deal with it and come out of it, then I think anybody can. I'm just so thankful I've been able to come this far, I wanna help anyone else I can.''
Her journey to recovery is far from over. She's still in intensive counseling. She still wavers between hating the molester and feeling sorry for him.
If more people step forward to tell their stories, she hopes, more people will be inspired to get help. And the shame will lift from the victims and fall to where it rightly belongs - on the perpetrators.
``I think it's crazy that you have to have a license to get a gun, but anyone with reproductive organs can be a parent,'' she says. ``It's just so easy to be a parent. Kids do it.''
She has come to the conclusion that she will never have children, despite being physically able. ``After what I've been through, I could never leave a child alone with someone else. Not for a minute.''
She has her own childhood to keep her busy.
She is dipping her fingers into the healing waters of Crayola markers and tempera paints.
For information on child abuse or support groups, call the Child Abuse Prevention Council of the Roanoke Valley at 344-3579.
Beth Macy's column runs in Tuesday and Thursday Extra. Her number is 981-3435.
by CNB