Lusaka
“BREAKING the silence,” is Diane Louangrath’s book where she shares her story of sexual violence by her step-father and husbands from two separate marriages.
In line with the title of her book, she sat down with the Sunday Mail to break the silence on her sexual abuse.
It is not like Diane’s step father wore a sign saying, ‘I’m a sexual predator.’ He was a cool dad.
Diane, an American citizen of Thai origin, never lived happily. She was born from an abusive home. Her parents never lived in peace in their home.
This resulted in the parents divorcing when they relocated from Thailand to Ohio, Texas in United States of America.
Both her parents remarried. Diane was six when her step-father started molesting her.
Her step-father continued molesting her and when she turned 12, the step father became more comfortable and started having sexual intercourse with her.
When the trend continued and turned to rape, Diane decided to disclose to her mom and the principal at her school.
Before disclosing what she was going through, Diane used to watch a lot of movies and documentaries about sexual abuse from which she gathered courage to open up.
“My mom was shocked and speechless,” Diane says.
But when Police came in to investigate the case, Diane’s mom became defensive for her husband.
“When police came in, my mom defended my step-father saying my step-father loved us so much and he could not molest me,” Diane says.
In the United States, when a case of molestation is disclosed to teachers or school authority, police get involved and the victim is separated from their parents or guardian.
So Diane was separated and taken to the Child protective Centre were she was treated like a juvenile delinquent.
Then her cousin came to pick her up and two years later, her mom married Diane off to a 22-year-old man.
This was Diane’s first marriage at 14 years of age.
“I was confused by my mom’s action. Nothing like this had happened before. I was still a kid and all she does is to marry me off. As a result, I went to this marriage with anger. My first husband, the 22-year-old guy was of Asian origin,” she says.
After nine years of being married, Diane left her first marriage.
And in 2007, Diane got marriage to a Zambian national in the United States of America.
In 2010, her husband brought Diane to Zambia for introduction and to introduce their first born daughter.
This marriage too was toxic. Diane was in another abusive marriage and in 2014, she left this marriage.
For the next two years, Diane continued to struggle, both with the physical abuse and the emotional pain it brought her.
“I took steps to prevent the pain, but a part of me was hate. It was another toxic relationship. I did not know that I had gone into depression because no justice was done from the start when my step-father abused me and when I was forced into marriage at 14. I grew up a bitter person and this first experience of abuse affected all my marriages. I ended up experiencing emotional and mental abuses which resulted into me going in clinical depression,” she says.
And in 2016, Diane remarried to another Zambian in the US.
This third marriage too could not last and after three years, Diane divorced again.
“All my three marriages were toxic and unhealthy. I struggled to fit in. The last two marriages with Zambian husbands, one a Bemba and the last one a Tonga made me realise that I needed to heal from trauma. I was so traumatised,” she says.
Diane poses and talks about recovering from sexual abuse.
“Perpetrators of child sexual abuse will often use grooming tactics, like gift-giving, spending alone time and building age-inappropriate relationships with children and teens to keep them silent about the abuse,” she says.
The abuse had serious effects on Diane’s life including mental illness, inability to maintain relationships and suicidal thoughts.
“I attempted suicide three times. The last one was in 2018. Then at that point, God came through and I gathered courage to soldier on,” she says.
Diane says the effects of sexual violence can be challenging to deal with, but with the right support they can be managed.
“They can be particularly challenging for women, men and boys who face unique challenges due to social norms about masculinity. Actually abuse has no colour, race or gender. Do not internalise the abuse,” she says
She says from her experience, Diane has learnt that it is important to have a supportive group of friends and family to be your rock.
“I think it would have worked better for me if I had a mother who was supportive and if I was able to talk about the abuse to a supportive group of people,” she says.
Diane has now founded an organisation called Renewed Strength Zambia, an organisation that helps survivors of sexual abuses get back to their normal lives and find a way out to the many challenges they face like trauma.
Diane says it is not uncommon for survivors to feel alone and isolated.
For many, Diane says hearing and sharing stories can play a vital role in their recovery from trauma which is the reason she came up with the organisation to help people open up and find help.
She says from her experience, sexual violence can have psychological, emotional, and physical effects on a survivor.
Diane says these effects are not always easy to deal with, but with the right help and support they can be managed.
“Learning more can help you find the best form of care to begin the healing process. I ended up writing a book, titled, Breaking the Silence and it is on Amazon all because I wanted people to know my story and together, we can move on with life because abusers do not apologise and sometimes do not even get punished at all,” she says. ALSO PUBLISHED IN THE ZAMBIA DAILY MAIL ON OCTOBER 4, 2020.
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