I M Perfect lady

Author: bjukuri

  • Get this book

    I received a message on Facebook suggesting a book titled "Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families….in that I would find lots familiar.  Wow, is there ever.

    I am sure there will much I find helpful in sharing!

    Here is a sample…

    "People of all ages are so afraid of betraying their parents.  Speaking your truth, owning your reality is not an act of betrayal with your parents. There is a betrayal, but the betrayal is with the disease, the disorder, the dysfunction. To not own your reality or to not speak your truth is the ulitmate act of betrayal to yourself."

    "When you are speaking about what happened you are owning your losses; you are letting go of the minimizing, rationalizing, and denial.  It is part of rectifying your past. It means you are no longer carrying the baggage that comes with denial. At times adult children have been criticized for blaming their parents. The principles of ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics/dysfunctional families) are not about blame. They are about owning your truth, grieving your losses, and being accountable today for how you live your life."  

    "There are two other primary resistances to this recovery process as well.  People want recovery, but they prefer it be pain free. That is understandable, but unfortunately, identifying and feeling our feelings is part of healing.  People are afraid they are too fragile and will fall apart.  Where there is loss there will be tears; where there is loss there will be anger. but feelings are cues and signals to tell you what you need. It is the repression or distorted expression of them that gets people sick or into personal difficulty.  This program will help you learn to tolerate your feelings without hurting yourself or another.  I have been asked many times, does the pain ever go away? I believe the answer is yes."

    "Another resistance is people want to heal and live in the present, but they prefer to do it alone. This is often based on rigid self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is valued in our culture. The rigidity of self-sufficiency is based on mistrust in others and the fear of letting go of control. When you allow others to be part of your path, that is when it is possible to meet the resistance of fear of feelings. Others will shine the light and offer the hope that we deserve. As adult children we have lived a life of isolation for too long. Recovery is about connection."  ACA

    Now, can you see what this is a book that I would stand by….and I am only in it 2% according to the Kindle.  

    For all those who want to blame me for blaming our parents or for not getting me, I say get this book.

  • Mental to Love

    My episode on Call Me Mental, has a few members on the family tree talking about the mental illness of our relatives; past and present…and Is There Proof?

    It seems so completely insane that they will doubt the mental illness and want documented proof of suicides.  Like the obits will say "died by carbon monoxide due to having car running in closed garage…and that he suffered severe depression." 

    Even my father's obituary did not state he was a pedophile…nor did it say how many victims lay in his wake.

    Or that there needs to be more proof of my mother's state of mind, when she stayed married to a pedophile for 49 years.

    And, I have been writing this blog stating how I lived in denial and was mental for 46 years and how it has been to come out of the fog and the consequences of a brainwashing religion.  And, still they want PROOF?

    How odd this all is to me.

    Mostly, what I feel is that they will die trying to belittle or make light the mental illness that is running through our family on both sides.  A tree that is filled with nuts and they refuse to see them and instead want normal!

    Can you convince mental people that they are not normal…will any proof dent this belief?

    On both sides we have mental illnesses that have wrecked havoc on lives…mostly due to denial.

    Not only denial, but the indifference to those of us who are saying the truth to the cost of these mental illnesses.

    It isn't so much that my father is a pedophile…gone untreated and unstopped, but the folks who knew and did nothing.  It is like the mental illness is compounded by indifference and it flows without a hitch, for no one in their right mind was willing to stand up and say what is really going on.

    What I love is how the episode that was filmed is being defended and not cheered…for it shows how mental my family tree really is.  That is the proof.

    Turning your back with indifference upon my story and my journey and my art, IS all the proof I need.  If you were all truly in your right state of mind, you would naturally support the victims.

    But, you don't.

    You can't.

    Did you ever wonder why?

    If the only family you have ever known came from a Mental Family Tree, how would you know what mental is…for you have always called it normal….or better yet, the family 'secrets' of any mental activity was quickly blessed forgotten and life moves on.

    Most are emphatically stating that they are moving on with Joyful Hearts…paying no never mind to Beth and Carl and their filming on a documentary called "Call Me Mental".  They refuse to bring in our mentalness, JUST as they refused to bring in my father's and my uncles and the list goes on.

    This is a backwards stigma of abuse where your family WILL NOT ACCEPT you being mental.  And are only called mental when you point out the mental people.

    Can you get that?

    The refusal to see mental illness IS what keeps the mentally ill accepted as normal.

    And those of us who are trying to shine the light of what this has done to the victims in the past and the victims yet to be born…we are shown as mental while they defend they are a normal family of joyful hearts.

    What they truly want is a normal happy family that is blossoming…untouched fruits…when it is impossible.

    There is no way you can call your self or your life normal IF you were born into a home of a pedophile and with a wife who turned two blind eyes to what he was doing.

    I am sorry…impossible to come out normal from there.

    The only way you can, is to fully accept the mental illness you have inherited…and to start undoing the process by acting different. Sorta like behavior therapy.

    What is so hard is that the mental illness in their mind refuses to see itself…or to label itself being mentally ill.

    It was only when my mind and world completely fell apart was I able to see how mental it was…and still I had to earn my way forward.  I had to NoT do what I was taught by mental people.

    Even as I sit on a film called "Call Me Mental" the family refuses to see themselves in me…

    They want proof of being mental…and that is what I have been writing about for years is that our family is damaged and it will spread this on to the next generation by the virtue of indifference.

    I have heard in various tellings how my family members are moving on…leaving behind the negative, that life is too short, that they can't find peace with the negative, that they forgave and are now peaceful….Like the mental illness can be avoided by ignoring it.

    Really?

    Sadly the mental illness is alive and well in your head…and is making choices for you.

    It is seen by the way you act or don't act.

    It is in the indifference towards me.

    It is in the cruelty and belittling of my brother's life.

    You are the carrier of its insideous ways…and the only thing that will slow it down is to see it.  To embrace it and to own it.  And, to not shun those of us who claim it…but rather learn from us as to how we can stop it.

    Would my father have had such a long run, IF someone would have seen his mental illness?  Would there have been so many victims IF we as a family had embraced this disease and had him put away…40 years ago.  If my neighbors, pastors and mother brought him to the police and supported the victims in telling their story?

    I think not.

    What we don't acknowledge grows and spreads…

    I am proud to be called mental…for it is from there that I can work to right myself.

    It isn't the members of society that fully embrace their mental illness, but those who refuse to entertain the dark, that are damaging our families.

    My experiences with my family IS all the proof I need to know that mental is where I came from.  There is no part of my upbringing that was considered normal as far as the emotional, psychological and nurturing goes.  For I witnessed first hand how a pedophile is lovingly accepted, blessed and taken care of.

    And, the victim….left alone.  That is mental illness.

    For in a normal nurturing loving family, the victim would not be left standing alone…

    Love would know innocence from abuse…would move heaven and earth to stay far far away from anyone who hurts children.  Love would see the child's needs first, always.

    I moved from mental to love…

     

     

     

     

  • Un-wounded.

    The climate that is needed for an abused child to be heard is a place where all things go.  There can be no narrow road…but it has to be wide expanse of openness.

    The narrow road most will not see…even as they present it.

    When you live a life that is totally regimented, you leave little room for new information.

    I wonder what upsets you the most, that the new information will wreck your idealized life or the person delivering it.  What do you not want to change?  Your life or the image you hold of someone?

    I find this all intriguing and frustrating.

    Our concepts of each other and what our world 'should' look like closes the door for reality.

    Why is reality such a frightful place to be…when it is only your mind who will not let you see it, for your body lives here.

    The greatest clues we have is how our bodies feel.  

    I believe that some feel, I could have remained in the family and recovered.  That I could have continued my life UNCHANGED and made changes. That it was an extreme life surgery to give up family relationships.

    And yet IT is their responses to the truth that had me make the family changes.

    If they would have been open to wholly accept the totality of my truth, I would not have had to leave.

    They act, like I acted alone.  I did not.

    Even as the episode airs it is causing friction…NOT from its content, but from the indifference from my family.  

    What they will argue about isn't the truth, but the messenger. They will deflect the truth by tearing apart the person speaking it.

    I caught a small snippet about Solitary Confinement, and how it was started by the Quackers.  It was believed that if you gave a person the silent treatment, they would eventually see the error of their ways.

    I see their indifference the same way. It is somehow believed that if they don't respond, I will eventually 'see the wrongness of my ways' and return to the fold.

    The fold is waiting.  

    Waiting for me to concede my truths and accept the 'loving' family.

    They are waiting for me to return to the fold, sheepishly admitting, my bad.

    What they fail to see is how they are an unwelcomed clan for any truth and pain about abuse.

    They don't want to hear about the mental diseases that have plagued our family.

    The ancestors whose lives were displays of the affects of abuse.

    All signs of our longevity with denying abuse.

    Suicides, alcoholics, depression, bi-polar, addictions, sexual abusers, to those whose lives are without intimacy…to name a few. Not to mention the physical body and its ailments.  My family tree hangs heavy with the side affects of abuse and yet…there are many who don't want to look at this part.

    They want to remain focused on the good, like it will wipe away the rotting fruit.

    Rejecting what you all call 'rotten' or not loving and kind, is to shut off those of us who are abused.

    My silent and indifferent family would like me to believe that we are the same, and yet I hear not one word from them. All I hear, even second hand, is that perceptions of our family are many.

    Oh and that they are. 

    But, in the end there is only one truth, no matter how many perceptions there are.

    I looked up the word perception.

    "the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses."

    One of my mother's last sentences she spoke to me was "You and I have two different perceptions of the same man."  

    Yes, we do.

    There are two different perceptions of our family. But their inability to see or hear the wounded doesn't make us un-wounded.

     

  • Oppression of the Silence

    I see the project "Call Me Mental" as a great invitation to stand up and be real.  It was an unveiling if you will, about my whole life…and how I live with its truth.

    How interesting that there is a need for a documentary to show our 'whole' lives. That we have been taught and conditioned to just wear our 'nice' things out in public.

    Is this what is called "mental" to fully reveal your darkness?

    When others see me as being courageous, it seems odd to me…now.  

    However, I do recall the sheer terror and choking sensation of uttering words about something that has been kept in the dark for generations…and to admit I had no idea who I was…for I had built a life minus my truths.

    And, I also instinctively knew the cost of breaking the silence.  Which I guess is why I am seen as brave. 

    How many of us are keeping things in the dark and what is the cost?

    It seems to me we all pay a cost, it just depends on who carries the weight of the truth or handles the burdens of silence.

    My Self was the cost of 46 years of silence.  

    I lived a life minus me.  

    I lived to support others lives and to ensure their comfort.  

    Mostly I lived to keep the abusers happy…and the legacy of abuse going…unknowingly when I turned away from my truths.

    The only ones whose disapproval I feel, are those who still are actively supporting the legacy by their own silence and lack of owning their truths.  

    The stigma or disgrace that I am asked to carry is to be outspoken. That is a no no in the land of abuse. I am called mental for doing so, and being punished by silence.

    It is funny, in a sad and peculiar way, how my speaking out is viewed… 

    It isn't my words, my quilts or the newspaper articles that I shared, but rather where each person is standing in their own lives with the truth of who they are…that makes the difference.

    Their truth or the lack they live it, means more in how they hear me, than what I can say.

    It just seems that in this day and age, we should have evolved more in awareness and consciousness to be more truthful and open with not only ourselves, but with those we hang with. 

    If the "Call Me Mental" tour is inspiring others to live their truth, it will be a huge success.  To have folks from all walks of life, displaying their lives in a way that will lend courage for others to do so. We will evolve into more aware humans if we can all do this.

    It will be to break down the wall of perfection…that is disabling us from being ourselves.  

    The stigma is to disgrace perfection as its false strength… It wasn't that I have disgraced a warm loving strong family, but rather one that is steeped in abuse.

    We don't applaud perfection; but rather those who have overcome great odds to live a life of peace, love and joy, coming from whence they came.

    No one would see me as courageous for creating quilts. It is to create art when you don't know who the hell you are.

    To have the quilts showing me the way out of my darkness…for that is where I escaped when the rest of my life didn't make sense.  

    I had to make sense of the abuse. I had to accept a father that was less.  I had to lose family in order to stand by my truth.  

    My courage is to find a new me while lossing huge portions of the old me, and to live it out loud. 

    To show how mental it was to be removed from the truth and then how mental I am accused of being for standing by it.  

    I see those of us who refuse to bow back into the land of pretend, called Mentally Challenged, for we will not conceed our truths for your comfort and ease…and I guess grace.  

    We are willing and able to disgrace your life of pretending… as you pretend nothing is wrong…we continue to show you there is. We are mentally challenged when we can't pretend to pretend to pretend.

     Call Me Mental tour will be seeking those who dare speak their truths…when their families and society would prefer us to remain silent for their comfort.  It will be those of us who can't live in the oppression of the silence.

     

     

     

  • Shattered In My Mind.

    Yesterday the image of a darkened closet where we are talking and sharing but no one knows your name….and the outside where we see each other but rarely share our truths…stayed with me.

    The juxtaposition of never being with your truth and your face at the same time, let alone be with it with someone else…and ESPECIALLY with those you love.

    We somehow believe that our truths will not be embraced.

    And, we have learned this in our home environment growing up.  Especially where one parent was abusing and the other looking away.  We are left to pretend in the light of day, we are okay and nothing is wrong.  And we keep our truth hidden, silent and feel its shame.

    What I have been able to re-experience, is this phenomena.

    Except, I refuse to go back into the closet or to hide my face or not say my name.

    The filming for the documentary has solidified the wrongness of anonymous…for it mirrors abuse and perpetrates its shame.

    What is so odd is that those whose lives are lived half in the closet are not hidden at all.  For their behaviors and actions are clearly speaking out shame.

    We only think we can hide our truths, but our truths keep showing…in how we present ourselves, what we will share or not share, what we are comfortable with and what we are not…who we support and who we steer away from. What we call kind and love and what we think it is.

    There was no part of my life that abuse didn't touch. No part that wasn't spared.  Even in my quilts, my abuse was showing….

    The religion my mother chose supported her 'forgive and forget' life style, where you don't have to deal with abuse; but bless it away and get on with living.

    What I know, is that the truth isn't hidden, it isn't in the closet away from reality.  There is no place the truth can hide.  It is always showing. We for many reasons, refuse to see it and embrace it and live with its contents.

    Someone asked me last night as I was recounting my experience with being filmed and the talk of the church came in and or family and it was asked, if they believe it happened?

    I do believe they do believe IT happened.

    That Ray Huhta is a pedophile. But, what is so curious is how they continued to live like he had not shown this truth. Like IT didn't happen.  

    I did start to respond, "how so many didn't believe it…" But, what I know, is that they did not respond to it…for reasons unknown or known.

    To fully accept it, means your world will flip completely upside down.  Few chose this route. 

    What makes me appear mental, is I allowed my life to flip.  I flipped out.  I could no longer be separated from my truth…I was dying and I didn't even know it. Dying as the girl who would hide her feelings and her emotions…cramming them in this very tight space; away from reality.

    Perhaps the closet exploded…

    The closet doors were shattered in my mind.

     

  • When he speaks his truth.

    The internet has given us all opportunities we would not otherwise have, to reconnect and to connect…and I am part of groups within the Facebook community.  Some are for Art, some for books and one group is for those of us who have left the church…any branch of the cult like religion we were raised in…and we can offer our experiences. 

    This group is connected with a blog Extoots, whose owner remains anonymous…and so are most of the respondents who comment on the postings….they go by aliases; fake names in order to speak their truth.  I always signed my name, my real name and was fully exposed.

    Today, I left the Facebook group…for on the post about my episode with Call Me Mental, the article of my father, 'exposed' the name of the reporter…a church member or ex-member Brad Salmen…and someone connected him with his fake name.  

    Like someone had opened the door and a face was exposed, the post was then deleted…discussion ensued and blah blah blah.  

    I had never liked talking to faceless people or to be told the truth, but without a face attached.  It just never felt right to me.  Although the argument is…that they will slowly show their face, when they are ready…and that it is somehow theraputic to be able to speak EVEN if you can't show your face.

    This is where we part ways.

    I do not believe that whispering in the dark, in a closet is helpful.

    It almost affirms that our past is a dark dirty secret.

    Never to see the light of day, and that our truth is something we should never attach to our faces.

    It was odd, how when the truth slipped in attached to a face, It was quickly deleted.

    That was the wakeup call I needed to exit this group.  Like how dare you turn the light on expose who is who and who is saying what on the Extoots blog!  I have no desire to go darker…and nameless and faceless and truthless.

    That is what the abusers love, for their secrets (victims) to cower in the dark. To keep their secrets secret, to never dare to be fully exposed.  

    The victim feels it is their truth that is ugly to reveal, when it is actually the truth behind the abusers. 

    I just can't see there being any good reason not to reveal your name…and your truth.  I do know that there are instances of domestic violence where you have to be careful and go through proper channels for your own safety….but on the views of sexual abuse as a child, a nowaday adult will be set free from that closet of shame, once he says his name…when he speaks his truth.

     

     

  • Life As Usual.

    I believe the biggest factor that waters the stigma of abuse IS the response to our telling.  It isn't the crime itself, the effects on the physical body OR even the betrayal of love or trust.  It is the absence of connection when we need it most.

    What messes with our mental wellness Is the lack of responses.

    Our minds can't hold the way in which people act.

    We internalize their distance.

    I know that some of the mental illnesses are in our head; the voices of negativity. But, in the case of being sexually abused by a family member, the most damaging voices are the silent ones in real life. 

    In reality it is the absence of our friends and family…lending us their voices to help us.  Instead we get the opposite.

    No parties.  No cards. No food delivered.  We are treated to the empty landscape of deafening disapproval.

    While I have a support team, many new friends that have happened upon my journey, and reconnected with old friends. A child who finds themselves in the footsteps of my childhood….feels this chilly terrain.

    And, internalizes it.

    Brings it in.

    There are no celebrations or hereo's parades…It is not openly discussed.  Nor are there stragedies in keeping away from evil…instead, life goes on remarkably the same.

    How?

    How is it that we don't have a better response to the abused?

    There is no way I am being treated different, kinder or unkinder.  I am just an example of one of the abused, and I am verbalizing the treatment I have recieved.  

    To all who feel justified in their silences, I want you to know, you are not part of the solution but a huge part of the problem.

    Not only are you not delivering cards or cheers of support, but you are actually and figuratively continuing on where the abuser left off….lowering their sense of self.

    Reducing them again, to someone who IS not seen.

    The abuser does not see our needs or what is good for us.

    He is selfishly acting out his desires.

    I see the silent majority doing the same.

    For personal reasons, fears, anxieties etc….they keep silent and restrained.

    If I could only articulate the emptiness and cold space we are left in by you all, I would feel successful.  I lived in the empty space you all left me in.  I also grew and reclaimed my Self without you.

    And, in hindsight…and with experience.  I can see how you all could not be there for me, for you all were in your own dark space just trying to survive.

    I don't blame you…for the quote comes to mind. "Forgive Them, They Know, NOT what they do."

    However, I am speaking for the ones on this side of the silence.

    I am speaking out.

    I am telling you how it feels.

    While the family continues to gather, while the church pews continue to be filled, while life goes on as usual, your usual is denying.

    Being denied, being the one unheard or believed…watching your actions of sameness IS what messes with our minds.

    What we expected or believed is that we would matter.

    We would matter enough for the whole system to lurch to a halt.

    Instead, our brokenness, means nothing at all.

    Or, it means we are mental for we can't get back to life as usual.

    IMG_1406

     

  • Before I broke my silence.

    Today I rode the mail route with bits of sadness tagging along…and parts of wonder.

    What I have been fighting against is the sentiment that I am unkind.

    I am a wild and mental lady, angry and cold-hearted, judgemental and self centered…one who has tossed aside her family for her own personal gain.  Gain of what, I am not sure of yet.  This image of me I have felt for years coming at me…in concentrated waves of stony silence…rebuffs.  

    If I could only articulate the feelings of being asaulted by indifference while standing up wounded…you would see the contrasts.  

    What have I done to deserve this title of unkindness and cruel silences?

    In the video you see my brother's wounded heart.  His emotions are the feelings of the child who is unseen and unheard. It is also the scene of being heard and being seen.  He has an attentive audience.

    My mind cannot wrap itself around the fact that we have to educate and teach how to respond to a wounded human being.

    And yet, we awkwardly will deal with wounded humans who hurt others by treating them as normal, kind and nice.

    Somehow there is something way way off, when the abused is treated like the abuser and the abuser like the abused.

    Can you see it?

    My greatest sadness today is to feel the wounded child being seen as unkind.  Today, I felt and fully embraced my kindness.  Can you look in my brother's face and call him unkind?

    It is an act of kindness to speak your truth.

    It is an act of kindness to break the silence.

    It is an act of kindness to feel emotions.

    It is an act of kindness to put up barriers against evil.

    It is an act of kindness to show the church that their forgiveness doesn't heal the wounded child.  

    To me, and call me mental, it would be unkind to do the opposite of what I have been trying to do.  

    My brother and I were both wounded in our childhoods, we are showing our wounds in public. And some are not willing to see them…or God forbid comment on them.

    I have had wonderful comments of courage, bravery, wise, etc…all for being real.

    Being real is unkind?

    Really???

    How?

    Or, how is it judgmental to point out the silence?  Isn't that what the church has done…deflected the wrongdoing on to the abused.  How am I more wrong for seeing the silence than those who are silent.

    I know I am supposed to find a reasonable reason as to why some turn away…in order to keep them kind.  I can't.

    Here is what I do know. When I was unaware of my own abuse, I was unaware of others wounds. I was unaware of my hurt, I was hurtful in my blindness.

    My favorite detective, Tom Rosemurgy asked me, "What could we have done to get your attention when you were unaware of your abuse?"  I still don't have the answers, but I am working towards solutions.  I am doing my best to shake, rattle and roll the ironclad beliefs that held me in the dark.  

    I just don't feel that by me NOT addressing my feelings about the silence would be helpful.  The truth being put out there time and time again is the only thing I feel that can poke holes in denial.

    Maybe I am only judgmental and unkind to those in denial.

    And, if you want to remain in the dark, you don't want to see the wounded.

    For once you see the wounded, you see too much.

    Here is what I know for sure.  I saw my wounded self.  I saw the little girl whose love, and trust had been ripped to shredds.  Her broken heart.  (see my brother's piece) and I fell in love with her.

    My heart opened wide for this girl. The one who had been abused by her father.  By her father.  I held her in my heart.

    So each time I am unseen and unheard or turned away from or shrugged off with indifference, it is denial denying me.

    It would.

    The question is why?

    In the past, I thought it was me. I was not kind enough, cute enough, articulate enough, my words were not soft enough or more christian sounding.  Now, I know it isn't me.

    There simply isn't nothing this wounded adult child can do to make you see.

    The video clip does not show unkindness or cruelty of the wounded…at least not the wounded who are aware.  It is those who are not aware of their wounds who wound.

    Kindness flowed in me…unchallenged by your indifference.  It didn't matter today.

    My brother's wounded emotions are the visual picture of kindness…a child with a broken heart isn't unkind.

    A lady who is trying to draw attention to the beauty of the wounded…isn't unkind.

    I know I have been unkind. But it was before I broke my silence.  

     

    I am posting it again! Call Me Mental…

     

     

     

  • Look again at yourself looking at me.

    First I want to thank and give great appreciation for those who dare stand by me. Who have listened and heard my words.  The ones who have understood my journey and stayed with the content of my pain and not rushed to the outer limits discussing the reasons for my parent's inability to parent.  But, for those who have stayed by me and attended my words, my pain and my art.

    The ones who have followed me along…weak and confused, hurt and angry and watched and encouraged my growing.

    Folks who have walked with me through my darkest times…are now able to "Like" my episodes on Facebook.  I know that this will seem childlike, but sadly the Like button is so telling of the content of who you are.

    It is the tap on the shoulder, the eye contact and encouragement…especially when it is so deeply personal.  

    The 'unliked' folks are teaching me great things.

    I am learning how it is to speak up and not be heard.  Or to have the conversation be re-directed to a space three steps removed from the actual wound.  AND, how it feels to be a child trying to get someone to respond, to stand up with you.

    It is not the silence of your enemies that affect you, but the silences of 'friends'.

    I feel that my voice is that of a child, a victim who is daring to break the silence and I am just shocked at how non-impacting it is.  How life appears to go on as usual.

    In the same group discussion, the annoymous shield was broken, and it felt like someone had inadvertantly opened the closet door.

    The full thrust and heart of the intentions behind the "Call Me Mental" project IS to break the stigma.  

    Stigma is the closet.

    Stigma is the silence.

    Stigma is not so much the silence of those who watch me come out of the closet BUT those who are in the closet wanting to remain hidden.

    I am fascinated by this all.

    How not only do I no longer fit back in the closet, but there are folks who are 'out' but that I feel are just pretending and who really would be more comfortable with me being silent.

    I am not even sure I can articulate the experience of breaking the silence and hearing silence…

    What this feels like to have an artful presentation done and for the discussion NOT to be on the subject of the episode?  It is like if they were to watch a film on quilting but talk about the person who typed up the pattern.

    Honestly, I am blown away.  By those who have dared stand with me….and the silence after I broke the silence, again.

    And, how some feel we are further along and that we will not repear the history of my family….Really?  

    I can only visualize the trauma of being traumatized and to have it all ignored. For life to quickly return to normal, for the good folks to overlook and avoid any contact with the wounded child.  For the subject to be shut down…or never even begun.

    Being set aside untouched.

    It is these feelings of not being touched, of them holding back and away that make us feel that something is wrong with us.  That we are now untouchable and for sure unspeakable.

    We become ostracized and the things being discussed are not even close to the heart of the matter…abuse of a child.

    We are too yucky to touch…and talk to…or "like".

    I can't make me touchable. 

    I can't make me kind.

    By them staying away from me, they are showing me who they want to be near.

    I know, to the depth of my soul, this behavior for whatever reason IS the source of our stigma.

    We feel what you all can't do…and internalize it.

    I refuse to feel ashamed, because you are ashamed to be with my wounds.

    You too, will not define me.  Just as I refused to carry the shame of my father, I also refuse to carry the shame of those who can't touch me.

    I know the walk now of the untouchables. 

    I know it isn't our 'sin' to carry.

    I am giving this back to you all.

    It isn't the silence that I have broke, but that I am asking you to look again at yourself looking at me.

     

     

     

     

  • My Episode.

     

    Well Here it is!  Thanks David Cowardin and Lola Visuals, and NDC of Duluth and Carolyn Phelps for her kind words!  It has been nothing but a great experience!  Thank each of you for being you!

    May this project go on and inspire, challenge and touch folks in ways we can't even imagine! 

    You can read Carolyn's response to my episode and her thoughts at http://callmemental.com/episode-2-beth-jukuri/

    I feel that this is a full circle moment…where I am being affirmed and supported and tag teamed with folks who have the same interest as mine…removing the stigma of being abused and its affect of mental illness, replacing it with Self Love.

    I am proud to be part of "Call Me Mental"!