THE INTERVIEWER: Julia, I’ll get you to spell your first and your last name for me.
JULIA MARKS: J-u-l-i-a M-a-r-k-s.
Q. And what school did you go to?
A. Christ King School.
Q. How do you spell that?
A. Christ King.
Q. Christ King; okay. And where is that?
A. Capital.
Q. In Manitoba?
A. In Manitoba.
Q. Wow. Nepinacks (ph.)?
A. Yes.
Q. There are lots of Nepinacks (ph.) around Capital.
A. My granddaughter is a Nepinack (ph.)
Q. I have an uncle who is a Nepinack (ph.) I always think that if you don’t have a Nepinack in your family, you’re not a real Indian!
How old were you when you first went to school?
A. Five.
Q. Five. Do you remember what it was like that first day?
A. It was good. It was scary, but it was a good day.
Q. Why do you say it was a good day?
A. Because we never got abused that first day.
Q. Can you tell me about it?
A. It didn’t start, the abuse didn’t start until around October for me. It was one of the Nuns. We were playing outside and I was by myself. She took me by the hand and she took me to where the Nuns stayed. What I used to see was where they used to kneel in her office, and that’s where she sexually assaulted me. It was every week she was sexually assaulting me.
I went to day school. I couldn’t talk to my mom because my mom couldn’t talk English. I couldn’t tell anybody because the Nun said that nobody would ever believe me. I was a nobody and that nobody would ever love me. Still today nobody does. That’s what I think, anyway, but I still love my kids and my grandchildren.
I’ve been suicidal since I was young.
I didn’t think about this Nun until the signing of the papers I started having my flashbacks and seeing the Nun and having nightmares of her and the flashbacks started coming. I ended up in the hospital because of it, because of the suicidal thoughts. So I started writing things down in my life in the hospital from the age of five where she would rub me and make me rub her, too. She would make these scary noises that I didn’t even know what she was doing. I kept trying to run but she would grab me and have my pants down.
And then she would send me back to school, back to the other school classroom. But I would run to the bathroom first because I was hurting. I started burning.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
Q. Take a nice deep breath.
A. And then the other Nun caught me coming from the bathroom and she grabbed me, she grabbed my hair and she pulled me back in school. And she asked me how come I was out there and I kept telling her I had to poo and she wouldn’t listen.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
She just wouldn’t listen to me so she pushed me on my desk and I kept wanting to go to the bathroom and would put my hand up but she wouldn’t even look at me, the one that assaulted me, so I pissed myself. I felt so dirty. I had to scrub the floor. I wasn’t the only one that had to scrub the floor. There were other kids. I couldn’t tell anybody why I was wet. I had to go home. I put myself in water so my mom wouldn’t know I pissed myself.
People would come over and try and hug me and I would back away. I didn’t want anybody touching me. And we had to trust them!
My mom would always drag me to church. How I got away with it was by fainting and having seizures. So I had a couple of them and she never took me to church again for a long time. Then she asked me, “Come with me to church”, and I did it again.
Q. Why didn’t you want to go?
A. Because she was there, because I didn’t want to see her, or any Nun. I didn’t want to see anybody from the church. Because we were nothing to them. We were garbage. That’s the way I felt. And that nobody loved us. She said that we can send your mom to the devil and you can go with her, and everything.
Q. Julia, did you ever tell your mom about what happened?
A. I couldn’t tell her because she never spoke English?
Q. Even until she left, or is she still with us?
A. Nope.
Q. She is still living and you have carried this all by yourself?
A. Yup. That’s why I said, I hold everything in. I don’t tell anybody nothing. And I still hold all my pain. I hold my pain for my kids, all of it.
I started sniffing and drinking at the age of eleven. Then I was raped at thirteen. Then my mom put me away in a home because I didn’t tell nobody. But I went to school drunk. I passed out.
She said I would always be trouble and nobody would ever want me. That’s what she always told me. And that’s the way I felt growing up. I pushed everybody away in my life, even my kids.
Q. How many kids do you have?
A. I have four, and I have eight grandchildren right now.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
I have abused my children. I beat them. They feel the same pain I went through. They are struggling today. I had my son at the age of fifteen. I started prostituting at the age of sixteen because I wasn’t wanted by anybody. Because I was getting beaten up by my boyfriend I figured I didn’t deserve nothing, like she says.
— A Short Pause
Q. Today do you think you’re a cultural person, like a traditional person? Do you try to get help from them?
A. Yes.
Q. Tell me about that.
A. I tried to smudge. I try and live by our Creator. I don’t like going to church, but I will pray. Because they stopped me talking my language I can understand it but I cannot talk it. I listen. I can understand Cree, any kind of Cree, just by listening. But I can’t talk it. I just listen. That’s why I said that I’m a good listener. I listen to what people say and that’s what hurts. There were a lot of hurtful words.
Q. Have you talked to your children today about what happened to you in school?
A. I try, but they don’t want to hear it because it’s too emotional. If they see me cry when I talk, they see me as a child, they don’t see me as a whole person. They think I’m crazy sometimes because I talk to myself and they’re sitting there. But I just want them to hear. They don’t understand what I’m going through. They don’t know the hardship I’m dealing with. I’m trying to apologize for what I did to them and yet they are still angry with me.
I’m trying to change my ways by being there for them. They are old enough to be on their own, but they still come to me when they need me.
But I’m not whole. I’m only half because I was never whole. She took that away from me. I’ll never be whole. I’ll never amount to anything, like she said. And I’m nothing.
Q. You’re a grandmother, you’re a mother. You’re here telling your story. That’s courageous.
A. I’m still —
I don’t feel I’m whole. I’m not whole. She took something. She took a lot out of my life. I can’t love myself. I can’t respect me. I’m ashamed of me. I’m everything she took away and that money is not going to do it. Money is not going to make me whole.
Q. What is your hope, Julia, for yourself?
A. I want closure. I want her to pay for what she did, if she’s still alive.
Q. What would you say to her?
A. Why? Why did you hurt me? Why did you do this? I didn’t do anything? Why did you tell me nobody would love me?
She hurt a lot of people, I think. It wasn’t just me that she hurt.
Q. Other girls, too?
A. Yeah. But I never watched for that. It was always me that I was watching for. I would always try to hide but she would always find me. I knew she would come every week but it was always different days and you can’t always hide.
Q. Where did she live? Do you know?
A. She lived right next to the school.
Q. Oh.
A. And my sisters couldn’t do nothing because they were in the high school, right next to ours, so they couldn’t be with us. That was the hardest part. They couldn’t protect me because I’m the youngest of thirteen.
Q. If you were to sit down with your children, what would you say to them?
A. They know. I told them the story of what I’ve been through. They think I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, but sometimes they tell me, “Mom, you’re too emotional because you’re always crying.” I’m isolating myself in my own home, in my room.
Since this all started happening I don’t eat. I wasn’t eating there for a while and I’m a diabetic. Finally I just had to put myself in. I couldn’t take any more. My family threw me away. I also did a suicide four years ago, over four years ago. I attempted suicide. I have nothing to live for. My children don’t —
Because my kids —
They step all over me emotionally and physically.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
That’s why I say I can’t live like this any more. I’m fighting for my life.
Lorraine has been the one helping me.
Q. Who is Lorraine?
A. Lorraine Stone. I told her she was my hero. She directed me to a lawyer and to a psychiatrist, I mean to a therapist. I see Lynne every week because I’ve got so much hurt. But I need closure. So I figured if I do this, maybe it will be closer if I spoke it out and get it out in the open, what they did.
Q. How old were you when you left that school?
A. Nine. And then I started having my kids, but the abuse didn’t stop there. The sexual abuse still kept on, with his brothers, until I left. That was when my daughter was six years old when I left. And then we moved to Winnipeg and my kids were sexually assaulted there, too. And more trauma.
We moved out of there and we moved back to our other house and they were sexually abused again right there, by family members. Then we moved back to my home town and my daughter was sexually assaulted by two of them; again.
My kids were struggling. My girl is an alcoholic. One of them is a drug addict. They are both fighting for their lives. They don’t know where to go. They don’t who they can depend on. My daughter is promiscuous. She would rather choose her boyfriends over her kids. That’s an awful feeling. But when I look at her I look at myself, the way I was, and I hate it. I thought everything would be okay if they went to counseling but it didn’t change nothing.
Q. It takes more time.
A. I’ve been seeing the doctor and telling him I’m suicidal and he wouldn’t listen to me either. “Do you have a plan?” I said, “No, I don’t.” I said that if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it. It’s not going to be planned out. I’m just going to do it. And he kept giving me pills. So finally I just took them. My son found me. I was drinking, I was gambling and I went to drugs, crack cocaine. Then they took my little girl away. Then I went to the suicide. That’s when I couldn’t take no more.
Q. And now you’re in therapy you’re all right?
A. Yeah.
Q. Counseling, and you’re going to see a Traditionalist, too?
A. Yeah.
Q. You’re doing everything that you’re supposed to do.
A. I’ve got supports from all over. I’m fighting for myself, trying to find me. I’m trying to get the kids to see I am different. I’m not the same person I was. I keep my anger in. It doesn’t come out.
Q. You control it?
A. No. I want my anger to come out so I can scream it out, but I can’t because I hold everything in. I wish I could get it out just for once, just to let it out, not to yell at my kids or my grandchildren, or anybody, just me. That’s what I want is to get these Nuns out of my life and this Catholic church.
Q. Well, you know what, when you first came in here, this is how I know they’re not winning, because when you first sat down you wouldn’t look at me but now you’re looking at me. That means that talking about it works.
A. It does. But there’s still a lot of pain.
Q. I don’t blame you.
A. But I’m writing things down and I’m letting it go. But there’s still a lot of work that I have to do with my kids and for me.
Q. Is there anything else that you would like to add before we wrap?
A. No. I’m kind of glad I did this.
Q. Do you feel better?
A. Yeah.
Q. How are you feeling?
A. Tired. Drained. I feel like something has lifted. But I’m happy.
Q. I’m really proud of you. This is hardest thing to ask people to do and it means so much to me that you can leave it here with us. I’ll do the best I can to put it away from you.
A. Yeah. I feel a lot better.
Q. I think a lot of women can learn from your story, a lot of children, especially young mothers. They need to know that they’re not to blame. Right? That’s what I learned from you today.
A. I know there’s a lot of shame and a lot of guilt that I live with. But I’m not going to let it beat me.
Q. No. Thanks, Julia.
Take a nice deep breath. Have some water. You did a really good job. Your interview was perfect. Your voice came across really nice and you look great on camera. You look good. I’ll remember this for a long time. You can keep that.
Do you want to smudge before you go back?
A. No.
Q. You’re all right?
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay.
— End of Interview