Out of the Miry Clay with Linda Fossen Part:1

Viktorya:

When I first approached you with the desire to do an interview, I simply felt that because you were a Christian author, you fit into my interest of people to interview. I just started doing interviews for Christian book writers. Your story is heart wrenching and truly an example of not only the Lord bringing someone out of the miry clay, but also placing them on the Potter’s wheel and perfecting a beautiful person both inside and out. I want to first thank you for your courage to make a difference in the lives of innocent children and sharing your most intimate aspects of your life to the entire world. It’s not an easy task but will always make us stronger!

I want to make this a conversational type of interview, if you don’t mind. I have learned so much about my own life and situations that I simply can’t just ask you questions. We have so much in common, that I know we can reach out in hope together, by just sharing our conversation.
Out of the Miry Clay is a must read book for any minister, pastor, teenager and quite frankly anyone who has been sexually abused. It depicts not only the horrific terror of childhood sexual abuse, but the unfailing love of the one true God, Jesus Christ.

The things that you had to endure by your own father, who was not only suppose to be a Christian man, but a pastor to God’s flock, is unimagineable. You have brought light into the dark world of deceit and shedding of innocent blood. I, myself hold no animosity towards Charles Phelps, but I am surely not going to sugar coat any of his sins towards you. One can only hope and pray that he truly repents before it is too late, because no one can fix him, but Jesus Christ.

In the first few chapters of Out of the Miry Clay you painted a picture of a seemingly normal family. Your mother was distant but a dutiful wife and mother. Your dad was a worker and appeared to be all he portrayed. Can you give the readers a little insight on your home life between the first time you were sexually abused by your dad at the age of 3 to the first time he raped you at the age of 8?

Linda:

I think one of the things that most people do not understand is that abuse occurs in seemingly very normal families – at least on the outside. My family looked like the perfect family on the outside but inside it was a totally different thing. I was born in a small farming community in southern Minnesota near the Iowa border. My first introduction to sexual abuse came when I was three years old. My father was recovering from back surgery and made up some games for us to play. I thought all little girls played these games with their daddies.

I had no earthly idea that I was being abused. In fact, I didn’t know what sexual abuse was, nor could I sell the words. All I knew is that I loved my daddy and wanted more than anything in the world for him to love me. I was always a daddy’s girl. I never bonded with my mother - she was just in shutdown mode from my earliest memories of her. But I was a daddy’s girl to the core.

The abuse started out seemingly so innocently, first as fondling and then it progressed to more and more perversion. When I was six years old, our whole family gave their hearts to Jesus. Sadly the abuse was to continue for many more years. At the age of eight, I was introduced to sexual intercourse. I had been groomed for years for this – it was just the next step in the years of abuse that I was to endure.

Viktorya:

My dad never sexually abused me, but it had always been the men that my mother brought into our lives. My dad always worked off for the military and their marriage was not the best. When you mentioned in your book about feeling you had to be the one to emotionally love and be affectionate towards your dad, it struck a chord with me. I can relate to this feeling. I guess it is a feeling of manipulation made by the abuser to make us feel bad if we aren’t showing them “love”. It is almost like they (or the act of abuse itself) make you feel inferior and pity towards them. I believe that it can also be considered a control tactic.

I felt that way a lot in the marriage to my ex husband. Can you elaborate a little on that feeling? I believe that most all woman and children who have been sexually abused feel or has felt this way, but can’t quite get in into words to make others understand. In fact this feeling alone has allowed Satan to condemn me so much, he made me feel like a whore. I also noticed how you explained it as feeling like playing the mother/daughter role. Please talk about this.

Linda:

In any dysfunctional family, each member of the family has a role to play. Dysfunction doesn’t occur in a vacuum, there is an elaborate plan set in place to make sure the dysfunction continues. In my family, I was the cheerleader. I was the one who made sure that everyone else in the family was doing their job. The goal was to make sure my father was happy.

I thought that if I could control my siblings, then somehow I could control the abuse, but it never works that way. My parents did not like each other at all. They did not fight with angry words or yelling matches. It was just a silent war that went on between them.

My mom was very much into housework and cooking but she did not do much of anything to be emotionally there for my father. She was just shutdown. She did not have to tell me but I got the message loud and clear that I was supposed to take care of my dad. It was my job. Whenever my father wanted to run errands or go to lunch, she would often send me telling me “you and your father are just alike – two peas in a pod. Go with your father.”

So in a very real way I was the emotional spouse for my father. I was the one who talked to him, went with him places and was his friend. In short, I was the one who was responsible to make him happy. My father used this to his advantage because he had a way of making me feel sorry for him. Even though he was abusing me, I often pitied him for his loveless marriage. My father was exceptionally good at manipulating me and he often made me feel that the only time I was being loved was when I was being abused.

There was no difference between love and sex. In my mind, they were the same. But they are not the same. Any abuser is a manipulator – that is how they continue to abuse. They become very calculated and everything they do or say is for one goal – to control the child to the point where they will willingly submit to your every wish. My father took great pains to make sure that I would “enjoy” the abuse – he treated me more like a mistress than a daughter.

It was extremely confusing. In time, my father completely controlled me – I was a slave to him. Because as a child I did not have the capacity to understand that he was evil, I did the next best thing and blamed myself for being evil. I thought it was all my fault.

Viktorya:

Another thing that I noticed is all throughout your book and as your story progressed from childhood to adulthood, you had this need to “fix” your dad because you desired emotional affection from him. I felt the same way about my ex husband. I always felt like I had to fix him. I felt that I was the only one that could fix him, because he made me feel that way.

Then finally one day when I finally got him fixed, he would love me the way Jesus explained a man should love his wife. In fact, I stayed with him for many years, anticipating that day, until I finally realized that I could not fix him. Can you please tell us about your feeling about the need to fix your dad? Please explain how you finally got through that.

Linda:

Every child is born with the need for love and affection. It is just built into our DNA. When a parent is not meeting those needs then the child feels it is their fault. A child will do whatever it takes to get that need fulfilled. And that is how we try to fix those who should love us. Everyone knows that fathers should love their children. The truth is that many fathers have no idea how to love their children. They did not get that love in their childhood so they have nothing to give.

My father abused me until I was about 12 ½ years old. At that point, I told him if he ever touched me I would kill him. And if I would have had a weapon, I know he would have been dead. There is no question in my mind that I was capable of killing him. I hated him for what he had done to me. But there was also a part of me that still loved him – that still longed for him to be the daddy I so desperately wanted him to be.

As I grew older, I had this insatiable need to try to “make” my father be the kind of father I always wanted to have. I had no idea that he was incapable of it. I simply knew that he was broken – he wasn’t a good daddy. My teen and early adult years were spent trying to change him. I have always had a spitfire kind of personality and I thought that obstacles in life could be knocked down and smashed. I used this same tactic on trying to fix my father.

The more he resisted changing the harder I pushed. I had a real love-hate relationship with my father. It wasn’t until in therapy, I was faced with the hard facts of who my father really was that I was finally able to see that he could not give me the love I so desperately wanted. My therapist was able to show me very clearly how my father fit the classic profile of a sociopath. I had been trying to get water from an empty well. He had nothing to give me. He was bankrupt in his ability to be a father.

That was such a hard realization for me to come to because even though I knew how much pain my father had caused me, I still in my heart felt that it was my fault. If I had not had been so needy then maybe he would not have abused me. If only I had been a better daughter then maybe he would not have abused me. I had to admit that at his inner core my father was a very evil man. I will never forget the day I was able to say those words out loud. I thought for sure God would send me straight to hell. My father had so successful succeeded in brainwashing me into thinking that he was the one who was good and I was bad.

I had to first of all physically distance myself from my father. Then I had to emotionally cut the ties that bound me to him. This was a long process and a heart wrenching one because even after I realized the full scope of what my father had stolen from me, there was a part of me that still felt like I could not live without him. I could not live if he would not give me his approval.

I had been so controlled for many years and it did not feel right to stand up to him. It took a lot of time for me to let go of the dysfunction that I had grown accustomed to as a child and embrace wholeness. The dysfunction was comfortable because it was what I was used to. I had no idea how to be normal.

The whole process of breaking that bondage I was in was a work of the Holy Spirit. I have no idea how you get from where I was to here. It shouldn’t be possible but here I am. Look what the Lord has done!

Viktorya:

Amen! Wow, this book has certainly opened my eyes a lot to things that I needed to know for myself. This has been a real eye opener and I am sure that your book will contiune to bless others that have been or is in your situation. This is only the first part to a series of interviews that I want to conduct with you. I pray that you have a blessed Thanksgiving. May God continue to bless you!

Please find more about Linda Fossen by visiting her website http://www.lindafossen.com