It is never easy for a victim of child sex abuse to come forward and expose a predator.
It is even tougher when the abuser is the victim’s father.
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Not only did Kelly Randis, who attended Pleasant Valley High School, eventually come forward, she also helped to rescue her six siblings from vicious physical and mental abuse.
Randis later would testify at a criminal trial against her father, who was sentenced to prison for his crimes. He was sentenced to up to 16 years in 2004.
“I was like the mother hen to my siblings. My mother was disabled and my father abused me and badly beat my siblings,” said Randis, 26.
Her painful — and ultimately triumphant — story is recounted in Randis’ first novel, “Spilled Milk.” Although Randis uses the pen name K.L. on the book cover, named the main character Brooke Nolan and wrote the novel as fiction, the prose is the New York-born and 13-year Pennsylvania resident’s real-life story.
Randis, now an expert in the field of domestic violence and a Penn State graduate, said the title of the book also should not be mistaken as something that she simply pulled out of a hat to create a catchy phrase.
“I finally got the nerve to talk about the abuse by my father when I was in high school and I went to have dinner at my boyfriend’s house,” Randis said.
“His little brother had spilled a glass of milk and, when that happened, I immediately jumped up and was going to take the little boy out of the room because I knew he was going to get into trouble.”
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Randis said the boy’s father simply got up, cleaned up the mess and offered his son another glass of milk.
“They looked at me and couldn’t understand why I reacted the way I did,” she said. “Well, in my house, if I or my siblings would have spilled a glass of milk there would have been a domino effect. Someone was going to get it and things would have been flying all over the place.”
Abuse was common in every household, every father did it, Randis recalled believing.
However, when she finally sat at a dinner table with her boyfriend’s family, Randis said that is when she realized how a loving family is supposed to behave.
For too long, Randis had debated when to expose her father’s crimes. But, she said, there was so much standing in her way.
She had, however, developed a plan as to when she would finally reveal the ugly truth.
“I had to make sure that my siblings were not going to be put into foster homes and that they were all taken care of financially, because my mom was disabled and my dad was the breadwinner,” she said.
The book noted that Randis once placed an anonymous telephone call to the local social services agency about the escalating brutality in her home.
However, when she realized that the call to the agency jeopardized the family’s unity and safety, she held back from speaking out.
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Randis said she battled a legal system that always seemed to push her and the family toward keeping the abusive father in the home.
“But, it was the spilled milk that finally did it for me,” Randis said, noting that she went through bouts of feeling guilty during that near indescribable period of abuse and the aftermath of it.
Randis was the lone immediate family member to testify at trial against her father, who was sentenced to a prison term for his crimes.
Seeking to understand everything that had happened in her life, Randis searched, but failed, to find a book that adequately explained what happens to a child after exposing a parent for child abuse.
For that reason, she said she penned, “Spilled Milk.”
“Books I read explained the abuse, but none really said what happens after you tell,” she said. “That’s the most important part, in reality there’s police reports and court proceedings. It can be very overwhelming.”
A former community educator for Women’s Resources of Monroe County and the 2011 East Stroudsburg University Community Woman of Distinction, Randis said it is important for victims to feel safe, which goes a long way in helping them in revealing the abuse and confronting the abuser.
“I was terrified to come forward until someone stepped in to tell me I would be protected and that my home life was not typical,” Randis said. “Kids need to know that. I needed to know that.”
Randis said she hopes the book, which is now available at amazon.com, will be used by educators and mental health professionals as a guide for victims who might be seeking support, inspiration and education.
“I wished that I had a resource that read like a fiction novel, but educated like a counselor,” Randis said. “Now, there is one.”
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHO
