Meet Misty
I walk into the University and make sure my student nursing uniform is neat. It's skills check off day, and my watch reads 6:45 am. Stifling back a yawn I remind myself “you are in the last year of nursing school!” As I walk past several classrooms my mind drifts back to 13 years earlier, spring of 2005. For one eidetic moment, I am a young 22 year old Amish woman again. Trembling, I stumble into a tiny rural police station, I stop abruptly and stare around, wide eyed and full of anxiety. From the shocked looks I receive in return, I can tell that few Amish have ever graced the door of that police station. I looked in their faces, everyone seemed to be wondering “What would an Amish girl be doing in a place like this?”
But to me, Amish was synonymous with crime. The bishop of my church had been sexually assaulting and harrassing me for months. That very morning after assaulting me he told me he was going to start coming to my room at night. In shock, barely able to move I waited for him to leave. Then robotically started pinning up the front of my dress.
I was not born Amish….
I was born into a broken home full of domestic violence, alcohol and drugs.
When my mother was fifteen she was living with her stepfather and gave birth to his child, my older brother. Over the next few years my sister and I joined them. When I was 2 years old they separated, and my brother was adopted by my grandmother. Two years later, when I was around four, my mother met a wanted child molester in northern Arizona. He was a gold miner and 27 years older than her. We moved in with this man, into a 13 foot trailer on the top of a mountain and mining site, and life became a living nightmare.
My sister and I would be held in almost complete isolation for fifteen years. We were not allowed to speak at all. When my stepfather and mother went into the store they left a recorder in the truck, to make sure that we didn’t speak. We were severely beaten, and sexually abused by my stepfather. After a few years, the community where we lived became suspicious, and we packed up to a mountain ranch, where we began to live and dress like the Amish. (no lights, heat or electricity.) My sister and I were only let off the mountain to help sell things or bring them back to the ranch. Towns people looked at us oddly, but as my stepfather wagered our religious “act” that covered the true purpose; which was to hold my sister and I “captive and enslaved”
After my escape several people from the tiny town apologised to me. Several said they knew something was wrong, but because we were “religious people” they did nothing. During the lonely winter nights, when darkness fell and there was nothing to do but sleep and dream, I would dream I was running away. I would get as far as our lane gate and I would hear a shot ring out, and sink to my knees. My stepfather was an excellent shot, and I would often dream of escape only to have it all end at the gate.
When I was 18 my stepfather tried to break my neck, at that point I knew I had to escape.
I tried, but failed and was brought back home to my abusers. After this my mother and stepfather could see that I had become a problem, so a few weeks later we started visiting an Amish community. We looked and dressed as Amish already. And we were obedient to a fault, so the bishop agreed to take my sister and I in. For the Amish to accept outsiders is extremely rare. They almost never accept “English” (this is what they call outsiders), but they made an exception for my sister and I. It was hard to learn Pennsylvania Dutch, all of the minute rituals and rules, but after about 7 months I was fluent in the language and the (Ordnung), the Amish church rules.
At first it seemed like heaven compared to the abusive and isolated life I had been raised in. This was peaceful and serene. However, it was not long before I realized there was a bad undercurrent of sexual abuse and oppression going on with the women. In the “Amish” you are expected to obey the rules ( especially and particularly from men) you do not ask questions.
After a few months the bishop's wife confided in me that her father, who was a deacon, had molested her, and her sisters. Her mother reported the deacon to the church ministers five times. Each time he was shunned (cut off from societal life, family and community) for six weeks and then brought back into the church and into the abused lives. This is the standard punishment for any crime committed; example: wearing your dress too short, or molesting a child, you receive the same punishment. Children who have been molested are not taken out of the home of the perpetrator. Even after they are married, they must attend family functions, church, and other social activities where their abusers will be. To show any kind of resistance or visible avoidance would show that they have not forgiven their abuser.
After about three years I moved in with the bishop’s family. Right from the start the bishop began sexually assaulting me. I did not tell anyone because I knew that he being a bishop, and me being a girl, I would not be believed. Early one morning the bishop came to my room, he sexually assaulted me and said he would start coming to my room nightly. As he was molesting me, I feared he was also molesting his children, so I decided to go to the police. I ran to a non- Amish neighbor’s house and she took me to the station. After telling my story, I still felt the police were not convinced. Remember I was a woman, in a community run by men. Not only is this community run by men, but the whole community lives as if it’s the mid 1700s . They have no telephone, no car, no electricity, no iPads or iPhones, none of the modern conveniences we have today. How could sexual assault occur in such a pious place? ..... but I did file a formal complaint and they had to investigate. They did go and question the bishop, but the case was dropped for lack of evidence. Not long after this the bishop took his family and fled to Canada. That’s when I left the Amish for good. I went to live with my stepfather’s sister. Despite having only a third grade education I was able to get my GED within 6 months.
In the 17 years since I’ve left the Amish I have graduated college and have a BA in nursing. I have been married for 15 of those years, and almost a year ago had my first child.
My healing began when I started to write down my experiences, and I self published my memoir Tears of the Silenced in hopes of saving others who were or are in a situation like I was.
The anniversary edition came out in spring 2019 (from Mango Publishing), with updated info and has pushed sales past the 200,000 mark. In this new, updated memoir I go into my life after abuse. People do not realize that abuse, like this leaves you broken. You have to put the pieces back together.
In the spring of 2017, I was shocked to get a goodreads message from someone claiming to be the daughter of the bishop's of my ex Amish community. I immediately responded and confirmed that it was truly the young girl I’ve gotten to know so well. She told me that her father had been arrested for molesting her and almost all of her now, 10 siblings. They had come back down from Canada, after fleeing persecution, and the three oldest daughters went to a neighbor lady for help. Miraculously the detective assigned to the case was, at that exact time reading my memoir Tears of the Silenced. He had pieced together that the book he was reading was about the man he was investigating.The bishop has subsequently been arrested, tried and sentenced to ten years in prison. I was saddened to learn that the bishop had been shunned for molesting his oldest daughter before I even came to the community. The entire church knew what kind of man he was.
It took me nine of those years to grieve.
In the wake of the #Metoo movement I noticed that churches were primarily silent on this matter. There are a few coming forward with the #Churchtoo movement but not nearly enough. I want to encourage all victims to come forward and tell their stories. Telling your story could save someone else from being hurt. Also, to everyone out there, if you suspect child abuse be a hero and report it!!!