Like many people in Florida, I had just about no way of avoiding the Casey Anthony trial. It was on the screens in my gym, it was front page in the papers, was all over the intertubes. It was part of every day in a Floridian's life for the past couple of months.
My friends who work in mental health had a unique take on the trial. They watched the testimony from a different point of view. The one sex abuse crime we know little about is incest. That's because neither the survivors nor the perpetrators want to talk about it. About the only way an incest survivor will talk about their experience is when the pain of not talking about it exceeds the pain of disclosure. The majority of incest survivors (over 90% of the ones we know about) grow up and never commit a crime. Part of that majority is pretty angry (cached version) about how incest was presented in the Anthony trial. Part of that majority relates.
Anyone who was used (as one client puts it) as a sex toy as a child and has sought treatment is familiar with the statistics. The incest survivor not only contends with their abuser, but then has to deal with the abuse from people grossed out over what happened to them. (I call that the ewww factor.) It's not fair, but it is reality that the incest survivor has to deal with a perverted fascination of what occurred from nosy people and they have to deal with the revulsion of those same people after they hear the details. The dynamics of each case is unique, but many incest survivors make similar choices, which leads to the stat that sex abuse survivors are about 40% more likely to perpetrate crimes than people with no sex abuse history.
Ok, that may be true, but that means 97% of sex abuse survivors don't live under court supervision. That's one point less than the 98% for the aggregate population of 308 million. Sex abuse may be a risk factor of being a criminal, but it's still up to the survivor to abide by the law and 97% do. Plus, this stat is possibly worse than no stat at all, because sex abuse is under reported, under convicted, over reviled and is poorly understood by the 70% (therabouts) of the population that has never been sexually abused. The annoyance sex survivors have with Casey Anthony is that the vast mojority would never harm their child. Nor would they allow anyone else to harm their child either. Although, it's true that sex abuse history and incest history can play havoc with your interpersonal skills, most survivors do behave appropriately most of the time.
My therapist friends are incensed over sexual abuse claims in the Anthony case. Their sex abuse clients are upset too. This case brings back unwanted memories, unwanted fears. Some believe the sex abuse claims, others don't. That isn't what's got them angry. It's the way the abuse is being used as an excuse. It's the way it's presented as a simplistic cause and effect kind of thing when sex abuse survivors know sexual abuse is anything but simplistic. It's the way the abuse allegation was put out there, but little attempt to confirm it that leads the non-molested to question all sex abuse claims. The abuse publicity confirmed to many survivors that they can never tell people about their sex abuse experiences, because if they do; people will think they are somehow, less and more. Less competent. Less capable. Less credible. Less pure - whatever that means. More likely to have problems. More likely to be unpredictable. More likely to be avoided. More likely to be disbelieved. More likely to be shunned in some way.
It screws up some people's recovery process.
Part of the process of healing is the victim's awareness of the context within which he or she made choices. Often, in treatment, victims gain a sense of empowerment when they can begin to trace the development of the incestuous relationship over time. Typically, victims can account for a gradual increase in their ability to make choices and implement them. Victims have often stated that at a certain time, they were able to stop the incest perpetrator's manipulations with the threat of breaking secrecy.
Threatening to break secrecy is one thing, but actually doing it is another and having it done by your attorney is contrived, but that's what a good defense attorney does. Anyone who watched the testimony of George, Cindy and Lee Anthony realized that the Anthony family was more than just a little off. What their mental health problems are isn't entirely clear, but, the Anthony family is fairly consistent with what we know about incest cases and it's also consistent with narcissistic families. Both types of families encourage lying, secrets and holding back as de jour behaviors. If it's narcissism, it's because the truth will damage the family's public image. If it's incest it's the shame (ewww) factor. Either way, this family can't get out of their own way and a baby died as a result. Then, after the tragedy this family did what it does best, confuse, conflate and confound the investigators and attorneys.
The police and prosecution didn't realize and probably still don't understand what happened to them. My therapist friends are quick to say that without a first hand conversation with the family members, they can't make a diagnosis; but then they dove right in and made quite a few conjectures and I listened in. It's clear that the police and prosecutors thought they were dealing with average, run of the mill deception. The profoundly dysfunctional family will have a family hero and a family scapegoat. There will be rampant enabling and brutal victimization, sometimes from the same family member. A dysfunctional family is adept at weaving in enough truth into their lies to baffle and perplex everyone around them. Sound familiar? Incest cases can bring out the worst of these behaviors. We'll always doubt the validity of Casey Anthony's incest claims and unfortunately, Casey Anthony's disclosure casts doubt on everybody's sex abuse claims. That angers sex abuse survivors, their therapists and their advocates. Was she abused? Maybe. Some of Casey Anthony's behavior is consistent with a sex abuse survivor. Some of it is just out there.
The police and prosecution failed to clarify the crime. They put 2 and 2 together and got an unhelpful 3. (...or was it a 5? 7? maybe?) The court testimony was deceptive witness after deceptive witness. We knew a horrific crime was committed and Casey Anthony was in the thick of it, but what exactly did she do and what roles her parents and brother played wasn't clear. How do you choose a punishment when you aren't certain of the exact crime? Despite the jurors being death penalty qualified, they didn't want to kill Casey in retribution for Cayley's death because the case was too murky. The crime that would have been a slam dunk would have been conspiracy charges and obstruction of justice against the entire family, but for some reason the prosecution didn't want to go that route.
The court of public opinion led by mean girl, Nancy Grace is convinced Casey Anthony got away with premeditated murder. Chances are the crime committed was different from what the prosecutors alleged to have happened. It does look like a child abuse death, but we'll never be certain of what exactly happened. We only know that Cayley Anthony died and Casey Anthony was the last to see Cayley - pretty damning (provided you believe George Anthony's story). Do the circumstances indicate murder or manslaughter? Who did it? When? Who covered it up? When? What did they do to obstruct the investigation?
This case is tragic in so many ways. The media exploited it. The incest claims threw gasoline on the fire leading people who stayed quiet throughout this horror story to weigh in. Then, a few voices said Casey Anthony would be acquitted due to a lack of evidence. They were shouted down and that was my first inkling that this case was headed for acquittal. This case will never be resolved. No matter where you fall on the guiltometer, this case is unsatisfactory.
There's a lot of people who have a history of physical abuse at the hands of their parents who are very angry at this outcome. They would never do to others as was done to them and they hate the idea floated that bad behavior can be explained away as part and parcial of sex abuse history. There are a lot of sex abuse survivors who wish this idea never came up. The whole trial ripped the bandaid off the wounds. People related to this hapless, beautiful child, but this is sooo not about us. This tragedy happened to Cayley. So, where is Cayley in all of this? This beautiful little girl isn't alive. No matter what, we can't bring this darling child back. She died at the hands of this rudderless, dysfunctional family and was exploited by a shameless media. She didn't get truth, justice or the American Way. Her life ended before it had begun.