Category: Call Me Mental

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.

 

 

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.

 

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…

 

 

 

For the past many years I have given up praying or any thoughts of prayer.  I know this will seem shocking to many, but I have come to learn that the only prayer that has any substance is "I want what God wants." Period.  The end.

The Universe has a ruling sequence that is the cause and affect…and I have seen the choreographing of lessons and life experiences that were all used to set me free to be me.  There is no part of my journey you could take out and call useless.

It was all perfectly perfect for me.

There were moments that I was blown away by what IT was asking of me, the sheer madness it seemed…only to have revealed to me my strength, courage and success  at accepting what is.

Bowing to the flow of free will…and seeing the consequences of my choices.

I truly am left prayer less.  What can I possibly pray for that God doesn't already want?

I love that I can stand behind the mystery and magic, like a huge organically moving Art piece and know that our free will is painting our lives.  We act and IT responds.

It never fails.  

The Universe has delivered to me the exact and perfect answer often before I ask the question. 

Deepak Chopra says, to put your intention out there and then let it go.  

It is the letting go, removing your needs, desires and wishes. To not try and control that which you have no control over.

What I have learned, when each of my limited desires were not fulfilled, is that I was given what I needed in order to grow and heal.  I had to walk into places and out of relationships to know what love is.  I never walked alone.

My small self was often in battles with my soul.

The Universe only serves the soul.  

My personality often balked at the needs of the soul.  Eventually my soul outgrew my little self.

I think we can see life through two eyes…our personality and our soul.

What is good for the soul often feels like hell to the personality.

I love that the Universe backs my soul!