I M Perfect lady

I sat with the word disgrace yesterday…and wondered if I had that definition correct in my mind…since stigma is a mark of disgrace.  What was this disgrace I brought to the family?

I needed to know how I had marked this family.

"Disgrace"

"loss of reputation or respect, esp. as the result of a dishonorable action…- bring shame or discredit on (someone or something).

What is so compelling to me is that I know the upside downness to it all and yet I have felt what it feels like to be treated as the disgraced person…to be treated like I literally have disgraced our family.

Yet how?

How is it that I get the treatment and stigma that was my father's and mother's?

How do they get to keep their reputations, respect and honor and I lose mine?

How am I the one who has shamed and discredited my family?  

While it has to be confounding to them, it is equally perplexing to me to see how the tables are turned and the victims carry this stigma in abuse.

Carry the black mark of disgrace.

How is it that we as a society have allowed this to go on?

If I had not experienced this myself, If I had not lived the past 9 years as being the subject of stigma…I would not have believed this phenomena.

My sadness yesterday was of helplessness and hopelessness, that there was nothing I could do to remove my ill gotten disgrace.

I cannot get rid of it myself.  

I am colored black and there is nothing I can do to change it.

I cannot remove the smear that has been placed upon me…

As they sit and ponder why I am not eager to attend their parties, go to the sister's weekend, etc, it is that I come in as Disgrace.

Before I even arrive my ill gotten reputation proceeds me.

I come in soiled and with a dishonorable discharge…and feel their lack of respect for who I am.

Me.

Not my father.

Me.

For the past 9 years I have served my father's sentence…

A was convicted and tried in the family court.

I was given a life sentence without a chance of parole.

What I know beyond a reasonable doubt, is that there are millions of innocent children/adult children who are wrongly convicted and serving (life)sentences that are not theirs to serve.

That families place upon victims the stigma and disgrace that belongs to the perpetrators…that the parents get to retain their honorable status, their 'fine' reputations and live in grace within the family unit…while the victim is cast out and colored black.

By 'removing' the wounded abused one, somehow it is percieved as restoring the family's honor and reputation.

Getting rid of the 'black' marks…keeps it clean.

I know that I can't, in one blog post, articulate this phenomena and how our families and communities are hurt by this distortion…how the hurt are cast out and those who hurt are kept within, and what that insanity creates…

As a victim…as I member of a family who has experienced this…I can see how abuse thrives, how dysfunction flourishes…for you all keep the bad and cast away the good.

Good being the truth, wellness, reality, authenticity, respect, honor….etc.

Instead families of dysfunction keep the lies…as the ties that bind.

They will honor thy mother and thy father, no matter what…and cast out any one who tries to mark them them up.

I will live as disgrace so they can have loving parents.

I will live as disgrace in order for them to have a blessed family.

I will live as disgrace in their minds.

This is the only way my past 9 years makes sense…for I have lived the life of the disgraced…in order for the loving family to remain intact.  I have been sacrificed and forced to live out his life sentence…without them giving me a second glance.

This is the stigma of sexual abuse…how victims are locked up in prisons of disgrace.

Some body has to pay the price for abuse and if we don't make the perpetrators pay, if we don't hold them accountable, it falls upon the victims.

I have felt the weight of this life sentence handed to me by my family…I feel disgraced.

I stand wrongly convicted.

And, the most saddest thing, especially when the abuse happened within the family is then the second blow, to be disgraced when you break your silence.

You stand alone, with your dirty underwear…cast out…they voted and you are not innocent. 

 Nature has been one of my greatest healing places…