“I’m not going to go into details about it. I don’t mind saying it, because I do think it’s important that people understand you can survive these things,” the Canadian told The Guardian.
Sadly, physical and psychological abuse came with the sexual abuse. Her stepfather, Jerry, was responsible for the years of abuse which began around Shania’s 10th birthday.
“I feel the sexual abuse goes hand in hand with the physical and psychological abuse when it’s somebody you know,” Twain said. “I learned to block it out. Abusers need to manipulate you, whether it’s before or after, and what I said to myself is, ‘OK, there’s something wrong with this person and that person is not well.’”
In order to keep her siblings together, she was forced to endure the abuse even longer.
“I did feel sorry for myself a lot as a kid,” Twain continued. “It was either go to Children’s Aid and get saved now … I weighed it up and thought, ‘If I got to Children’s Aid, we’ll all get separated,’ and I just couldn’t bear that, so we all stayed together for better or for worse.”
“I was worried about my father killing my mother,” Twain revealed. “I thought they’d kill each other. My mom was quite violent, too. Many nights I went to bed thinking: ‘Don’t go to sleep, don’t go to sleep, wait till they are sleeping.’ And I would wake up and make sure everybody was breathing.”