“We were the Beaver Cleaver family. We were a step away from 2.5 kids with a dog and a white picket fence. Except, we had a secret. My father sexually abused me.”

Two Seattle residents share their painful experiences of being sexually abused as children with the hope that it will encourage others, who can relate, to get counseling. Their simple message to other victims, “You are not alone.”

Listen to Ethan’s story, adult survivors of child sex abuse

It’s difficult for Ethan to hear news updates about the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse trial because he’s been in the shoes of the alleged victims.

Ethan was eight years old when his family went to visit his favorite uncle.

“My uncle invited me to stay the night. Why not? It all seemed so innocent,” he recalls.

“Then all of a sudden everything changed and it was weird and it was uncomfortable.”

His uncle performed oral sex on him.

It happened two times, on two different visits.

“I didn’t even know how to talk the people I love anymore because this thing happened,” Ethan says.

He couldn’t understand what his uncle was doing and he couldn’t stand to watch.

He hoped his great grandmother, who lived next door to his uncle, wouldn’t come over to the house to see what they were doing.

“What we were doing – as if I was taking responsibility for what was happening to me because I didn’t know what else to do. Of course, I hadn’t chosen my way into this,” he says.

Ethan had no intention of telling anyone about the confusing sexual contact. He was ashamed and believed he was to blame for his uncle’s actions.

Somehow, his mom found out. She asked Ethan about what he had done with his uncle.

“I remember exactly where I was sitting, and I remember my hands fidgeting on the table as we talked,” he says. “When I think back to that I still get a feeling up my spine and a bad feeling in my stomach. It was very intense; more than an eight or nine year old can handle.”

The sexual abuse ended. Ethan went into counseling. After that, his parents did what a lot of people do when they discover a relative is responsible for molesting a family member. They didn’t talk about it.

“If we don’t talk about it, it’ll just go away. But it’s like a wound covered with Saran Wrap. It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse. It led to a lot of disfuctionality and discord in the extended family,” he says.

After years of therapy, Ethan can still feel the sense of “disgust and dirtiness” that he carried with him through his childhood.

He acknowledges that those two instances of sexual abuse are not as significant as what many men have gone through, still he’s affected by it today. He gets extremely nervous in social situations and has a hard time trusting people.

Ethan shared a lot of his personal life and struggles. The only statement that shocked me was hearing him say, “Even if I could go back and make this unhappen, I wouldn’t do it.”

“I realize that I admire myself so much for having moved on and having gotten through this trauma, I didn’t want to know myself without the trauma,” he says. “I’ve discovered so much strength in myself through the recovery process.”

Part of that process included producing a documentary called Stories of Silence.

Listen to Sarah’s secret. A Seattle woman’s story of sexual abuse

28-year-old Seattle resident Sarah grew up with a close family, in a nice neighborhood.

“We were the Beaver Cleaver family,” she says. “We were a step away from 2.5 kids with a dog and a white picket fence.”

Child sexual abuse happens in “perfect” families too.

“My father, he touched me in ways you’re not supposed to touch a daughter, and it was every time we were alone,” she says, hesitating to choose her words carefully.

She doesn’t remember how young she was when the abuse began.

“I had definitely gone the whole phase of not understanding what was going on, to assuming it was normal, to realizing that I did not like it and I did not want him doing it, to just total revulsion. I’d be in the shower afterwards crying, not understanding why this was happening to me,” she says.

She does remember the sexual abuse ended when she was a junior in high school.

“One time after we were alone I’d pulled away so strongly that he couldn’t ignore it anymore. It was clear that I was not okay with what was going on. He stopped and told me to get dressed so we could talk. I really don’t remember what he said, but I know I asked him, ‘why’ and he said, ‘because you’re so beautiful,'” she recalled with tears in her eyes.

“Now I’m realizing is a really horrible thing to say. He took away a lot from me and that’s one of the things he took because now I’m not comfortable feeling beautiful.”

In an effort to feel more comfortable with her life, and her fiance, two weeks ago she decided to tell her family she was in therapy – therapy for the sexual abuse she endured as a child.

She believes her mother never knew about the sexual abuse.

“I was carrying this weight before and everything was fine. Now I’ve shared it and my world is in chaos,” she says. “My parents’ marriage of 30 plus years might be breaking up. My brother says he’ll never talk to my father again. I’ve got a wedding coming up, I don’t know what we’re going to do with that.”

Her father acknowledged the assaults and threatened to kill himself if his wife learns any details about what happened, for more than a decade, between the two.

“I was enraged. That’s not acceptable,” Sarah says, speaking as though her father is in the room. “If I had to be strong and deal with this my whole life, you need to be an adult and deal with this now. You don’t get to put this on my Mom and I.”

By LINDA THOMAS

Photo, screen grab from the documentary Stories of Silence

Part one of this series: Why adults don’t stop child sex abuse