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Survivors: ‘Listen to me’

Former Moscow resident speaks on her abuse, shaming that followed

By Samantha Malott, Daily News staff writer

Natalie Greenfield, at the age of 13, met the man who would become her abuser while she was at a Christ Church function in Moscow.

For the seven months following that first meeting, the 23-year-old pastor-in-training was grooming her, building trust and friendship, she said.

“Then he moved in with us along with several other boarders,” she said. “Within weeks of moving in he started sexually abusing me.”

Greenfield spoke Thursday night at the University of Idaho as the keynote speaker for sexual assault awareness month. She also sat down prior to her presentation for a one-on-one talk with the Daily News.

Greenfield, now 28, lived in an eight-bedroom, three-story home in Moscow with her parents and four siblings. It’s typical for Christ Church families to house boarders from Greyfriar’s seminary and New Saint Andrews College, she said.

During the year and a half of abuse, Greenfield said she was “completely infatuated and obsessed with” her abuser. At that age, she said, she thought she was in love.

Greenfield said her abuser made sure she knew that everything was her fault, keeping her “right where he wanted,” afraid to tell anyone what was happening.

“I didn’t have any sex education,” she said. “All I got was from this nasty guy.”

Her family’s home was a “mecca” for church activities at the time and always buzzing with people, and there was an underlying sense of trust in those people, “whether or not it was merited,” she said.

By all outward appearances her abuser was handsome, charming, godly, personable and respectable, she said, but he was also sneaky.

Greenfield said he would oil the door hinges so they wouldn’t squeak as he snuck into her bedroom at night, when the majority of the assaults happened. He also had rules for her, such as burning or flushing notes between them.

Because he was sneaky and in pastoral training, no one suspected the abuse was happening, she said. Near the end, Greenfield said, she believes her father got suspicious and he would even sit in the hallway outside her room some nights.

It wasn’t until her father found her abuser hiding behind a bush in the yard and spying on her and a group of others inside the home that he was kicked out of the house, she said.

Greenfield said when the abuse ended she began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and an eating disorder.

“Everything about that religion is all about guilt,” she said. “I thought God was punishing me for these sins by that point I was really messed up.”

Greenfield kept the abuse to herself until just before she turned 18, when she told a friend who pushed her to tell her parents. Greenfield said she figured her parents would be upset, call the police, that there may be a trial and he would go to jail and be labeled a sex offender.

The result was quite different.

Greenfield said her parents called the police and her abuser was arrested, but “Christ Church fought for him tooth and nail.” She alleges the church told her parents not to go to trial and church members wrote to the court on her abuser’s behalf and brought her own character into question, she said.

“I didn’t expect to be shamed,” she said. “There were so many moments then where I wished I had suffered in silence.”

The case went to mediation and he was sentenced to one year in prison for one count of injury to a child. He served four months, and didn’t have to register as a sex offender, she said.

“He got off scot-free,” she said.

Greenfield said Christ Church sent clear messages they supported him, not her.

Trying to move forward, Greenfield said, she received none of the emotional, physical or psychological support she needed.

“So I left,” she said. “I remember just sitting there thinking, ‘what do I do now?’ I just lost faith in humanity for a while.”

Christ Church also formally excommunicated her from the church, as well, she said.

It was during the time she also met her husband, Wesley Petersen.

“He was the first person to treat me with love and respect,” she said.

The couple now has three children, two girls and one boy, with another son on the way. Right after giving birth to their second child she received a Facebook invite to the baptism of her abuser’s child, she said.

“Without even thinking, I wrote this whole blog post about it all,” she said. “I got to the end and was like, ‘I’m done staying silent.’ “

It was the first time Greenfield had publicly talked about her abuse.

“It was liberating enough that I kept doing it,” she said. “Slowly but surely, every time I would it would be like this breath of release.”

Advocating for victims has now become somewhat of a full-time job, she said.

“I would have never pictured this, but it has become one of the most profound and beautiful things in my life,” she said. “I do this because I know it is still happening in churches everywhere and for a fact in Christ Church.”

Greenfield said society does not have the option to look the other way.

“This isn’t just a victim problem, it’s all of our problem,” she said.

Sharing stories and listening to others is important because it connects people to real victims and real attacks, she said.

During her talk on campus she expressed the importance of compassionate listening, not only to benefit the community and awareness of the issue, but for the healing of those sharing their stories.

Greenfield said compassionate listening takes real effort, a choice, a kind heart and setting aside one’s ego, she said. Just saying “sorry” or “it’s time to move on” is patronizing and makes them feel more alone, she said.

“Compassionate listening is something we can all apply in our lives right now,” she said. “Anytime that somebody wants to be listened to or heard we can practice it.”

Greenfield said it is mutually beneficial to learn we are deeply connected to one another no matter how different our stories may be.

“It’s much easier to form these ideas of how a victim should heal without actually talking to a victim. We need a lot of public education. Sexual abuse victims have a lot of PTSD,” she said. “My abuse ended 14 years ago and I had a panic attack two weeks ago.”

It will always be a part of her story, she said.

Two UI undergraduate students also shared their stories of abuse, both sexual and domestic, and their healing journeys Thursday during the talk, titled “Listen to me.”

Samantha Malott can be reached at (208) 883-4639, or by email to smalott at dnews.com.

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Kudos once again to @Samantha Malott