By Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

They come together each week on Tuesday evenings. They are a group of 12 women. They seek strength from each other. Their meeting lasts two hours.

The subject for this group is not always the same. It is not alcohol abuse nor is it narcotics abuse. They are not involved in overeaters anonymous. But they are very real victims in our society.

This group of married and unmarried women are incest survivors. In the six months since they have found each other they have given mutual, generous help and strength. They have also given the group a name. They are the Incest Survivors Outreach Network.

Kathy Flanagan is a training specialist with Clayton County Family and Children Services. At the request of the group, this vivacious, pretty young woman has become the facilitator of the network, although she is not a victim.

“It began six months ago,” she said, “with one of the group--let’s call her Joanne--feeling that she needed to contact others like herself--a victim of an incestuous home. She placed an ad in “Creative Loafing” and was surprised and delighted by the response. Victims of this traumatic nightmare carry very heavy burdens. One of them is the feeling of isolation. They were told never to divulge the secret. The load was carried alone. Joanne decided she needed some help.”

The response was so good that Joanne decided to form the group. Even some men answered the advertisement but declined involvement in any group.

“In Nashville, Family Services set up a hotline for incest victims,” said Kathy Flanagan. “Forty percent of all the respondents in a one-year period were men. I know that we need a hotline in Atlanta too, but so far funds are a problem. We are just grateful for the group.”

How do these women help each other in their eager weekly meetings? “The main emphasis,” says Kathy, “Is on ‘moving out.’ As victims, they were told never to talk about it. To protect the awful secret, they ignored the friendship of other children. In high school they shunned the company of boys. Intimacy and sharing became impossible. This group soothes the agony and helps the terrible isolation. Help is there and recovery begins.”

Kathy Flanagan explains that most of the group have had professional therapy or are presently receiving counsel for the problem, a problem that has been with many of them for years.

“One of the great problems is their victimology,” says Kathy. “They have been imposed upon so well that they are ready victims in many areas. They easily become addicted to drugs and alcohol. As children they went along with father or stepfather or uncle or grandfather, so they more easily go along with other exploiters too. Many incest victims become rape victims. A group like our network helps them to quit being a victim of any kind.”

Victims of incest do marry and many do reveal their ordeal to their spouses. With kindness and understanding a relationship can result. However, victims, finding a trusting intimacy most difficult, often divorce. “Remember,” cautions Kathy Flanagan, “they have been betrayed most cruelly by, perhaps, the one person they want to trust most. Women victims often have trouble trusting men. Men, they reason, are simply out to exploit them. The problems are many.”

The problems are indeed many. Professionals like Kathy Flanagan will outline some of them for you. One in four teenagers are sexually approached by an adult before they turn 18. Seventy-five percent of the adults involved are family members or friends of the family. Twenty-five percent are strangers. “The trauma is not as lasting when strangers are involved,” says Kathy. “The trust issue is not there. Children who are molested by strangers get support and understanding from their family. But if it happens with a family member, they are told ‘it was your fault.’ The same is too great; there is no support of the child. Protection for the family name is first.”

Courageously, Kathy is not just involved with the survivors network. She is also carrying the message to children. Kathy has devised a puppet show that she brings to schools and churches which talks to children and hopeful prevents them becoming victims.

“Children accept the message very naturally,” says Kathy. “They are sensitive and even at an early age know when something is wrong. The puppets talk to them about comfortable and uncomfortable touch. And they talk about who to tell. They tell their best friends things and they tell their dog their secrets. But the puppets say it is better to tell an adult. And the feedback from the children through the parents has been good. A parent will say ‘You helped answer questions my daughter had.’ It is working. We need this and other programs to work.”

You know what this dedicated young lady means when you listen to the story of one of her victims. Mary is now 22. She believes she was victimized by her father when she was six or seven years old. It continued until she was 14. Then it ceased. She made very few friends in high school and put the agonizing incidents out of her mind. They were buried and forgotten. Mary went to college in Massachusetts and while studying ways to assist rape victims, had total recall of her childhood trauma. She suffered a nervous breakdown and as she recovered, attempted to reach out to others by working in Rape Crisis Centers.

Returning to Atlanta, Mary confronted her mother, now divorced, with the facts of the abuse. She seemed shocked, however, Mary believes she had some knowledge of this family insanity. She also confronted her father who had remarried. “He threatened to kill me,” says Mary, “if I publicly divulged the secret. He called me a troublemaker to his family, making me feel like stranger rather than his daughter.”

Mary volunteered for Atlanta’s Rape Crisis Center and while working there read the advertisement in “Creative Loafing.” “It seemed heaven sent,” says Mary, who is an active member of the survivors network. “I was looking and really needed them. I hope more will find us and join us. I know their pain. It is pretty bad--you really feel totally betrayed.”

Experts, like Kathy Flanagan, who work with survivors and incest victims recognize incest for what it is” a vicious, emotional family disease. “The molester usually comes from a home where incest has taken place, perhaps he was a victim himself. He guards the secret as a child, so no outside family help can be sought. He has affection needs and intimate needs but has nowhere to turn. The family becomes a guarded castle where fear is king. We call it a ‘fortress family.’ The isolation is numbing.”

Often a spouse will suspect the awful relationship is taking place. Instead of rushing to assist the victims or seek help to heal the situation, silence is chosen. The family secret becomes master of the household. The destructive situation is carried to the next generation where the disease easily spreads.

Asked if she believed her father might abuse the children of his new marriage, without any hesitation, Mary responded that she was certain that he would.

“There are steps we can take,” says Kathy Flanagan. “We can speak to the children and to the spouses. And sometimes the right word brings help to those poor, sick, desperate people. However, we must be careful.”

The Incest Survivors Outreach Network is a unique organization. “While you have Parents Anonymous around the country,” says Kathy, “there is no other group like this that we know of. Naturally we hope other groups will find the hope and the healing our group has found. We would be delighted to help anyone we can, especially other victims who still suffer. They can contact us at my office at (404) 478-0295. And let us hope that soon we get that hotline going.

Kathy Flanagan denies that incest is a modern perversion gaining acceptability in our free swinging, anything-goes-society. “It is a disease that has been with us for generations. Its destructive claws of isolation, terror and unspeakable burdens of guilt placed on the shoulders of innocent children bring great suffering to lives and human emotions. But our group, ministering to each other, shows there is hope and there is help available.”

Kathy Flanagan, a pretty, young, vivacious and optimistic professional is a solid part of that ministry and help.