I M Perfect lady

Category: Crusade

  • Standing By

    I loved this video by Mike Dilbeck "Empowering Bystanders"

     

    It is my belief, that we can all become more aware of the times and places we Stand By. 

    Stand by and feel like he said, the urge to do something, but then change our minds.  Feel the urge to speak up, but then go silent.  To speak out about our feelings and what is true for us.

    I also love how he says, the more we stand by, the smaller we get.

    What I have found is that I have grown bigger by being a non-bystander.

    And, what I didn't know, and it seems more insane, is that the more people that are standing by, the less likely it is for someone to stand up….to get involved. Isn't that just odd…and yet not.  

    Who wants to stand out like the odd duck?

    Who wants to risk appearing foolish or different?

    And really who wants to take the chance and do so publicly?

    What I didn't know is that Bystander is common in all humans and it isn't just in the strict religions that I have seen it in.  I was seeing it as part of the cult like culture, when it is more a human phenomena. 

    It is and isn't about standing out in a group of everyone being the same, as in religions where their are sins to make us all do and act the same.

    I also believe that it my calling if you will, to inspire bystanders to become empowered, to STOP just standing by.

    I also love, how he says, that most of the behaviors he speaks about, Bullying, sexual assualt etc, do not happen in a vacuum.  I know this to be true.  It is seen and the bystanders do nothing.  It is much more a lack of movement on the bystanders part than it is on the part of the perpetrators…that create the landscape for abuse to run unstopped.  

    Who is going to stop them???

    This video clarifies the much broader and more personal issue in the plight of children being sexually abused; the bystander mentality or hurdle within each of us.

    He says, that first of all you have to recognize there is a problem, and then be willing to act…to transcend the barrier of standing by. To take effective, appropriate and safe actions.

    This, is what I am calling you all to do.

    To become empowered and willing to end your era of standing by.

    I now know that there is a human phenomena going on, that we are aware of the problems, have heard the rumors, have felt the ucky creepy feelings or fear of someone, BUT we are frozen in the STANDBY position.

    What will it take to change your position to Non-Standby?

    What will make you move?

    What will it take to make you break the silence?

    Somehow, I feel more optimistic, knowing it is a human behavior and not just the climate of the church, for I believe we are on the cusp of human revolution towards a more conscious human being.

    And, if that is so, the new human being of higher consciousness, will be able to transcend the barriers of fear…into the new level of response ability.

    We will be able to respond to abuse…instead of standing by.

     

  • Fail to see…

    While going through my file of correspondence I received from family in the aftermath of my father's arrest, I found the birth and death certificates of my father's parents….and a note, dated 10/18/09

    My mother's last line…."You are my beloved daughter I continue to pray you will come to accept me with all my faults and failures….always and forever, Mom."

    What she fails to appreciate, she is making this my job, my responsibility to lower my boundaries to accept her 'faults and failures'…of which was to love and protect a pedophile.  She has never, not once asked how her faults and failures affected my life, how I feel or the cost to myself and my children.

    Yet, she wants me to accept her as she is….and always has been, and move back into the relationship.  

    For what?

    Her peace?

    In a note that was with my father's history, she writes…

    "These are yours to keep or throw away.  My memories are only mine.  No one can take these from me.  My you find acceptance and peace with the pas. What is – is, no amount of screaming shouting crying can change it. I love you, always have and always will…"

    She threw them to me.  Tossed them out of her 'collection' of papers and said, "you were always the one interested in relatives…"

    She tossed out the paperwork, but is holding on to the memories, like treasured jewels.

    These same treasured memories for her are of the man who abused her daughters, granddaughters and neighborhood girls….and the "no one can take these from me" sentiment is what keeps us apart.

    I suppose I could talk about abuse, IF I don't use his name or reference him….for she will not have her memories tarnished, nor will she toss them aside.

    It is incredible that she will hold on, even with the evidence that spilled all over the top of it.  

    Ironic that she sends me his stuff…repulsed is how I first felt, but have always kept all the correspondence as "evidence" of her insanity…or blindness or denial…and how she responded. 

    I guess it was proof I felt I needed…to show that I wasn't just making stuff up…. as one said, "make it more interesting for my backers" or something like that.

    Who would send papers, birth, marriage and death certificates…photos of grandparents from the man who abused you.  What is/was she thinking.

    I have yet to recieve a note, from a mother.  I have seen plenty of proof of her undying love for him….and her words are absent any actions of love towards me.

    The difference between us, Is that I am not asking her to accept my faults and failures, I am working like hell to correct and change….

    This is the crux of it all. That the victims are to accept the faults and failures and continue on in the relationship; making adjustments for their shortcomings, accepting that they 'can't do no better'….and will not even try or feel they must.

    And, my refusal to accept makes me a bad person.

    It is my bad.

    Not her bad.

    Oh the dance of insanity in the beliefs of those who fail to see…

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    This is how I perceive my mother…..a forrest with a sign "Keep Out" all of your truths.

  • What Love is not…

    A woman mentioned she was an advocate for Love.  And, that led me to wonder what am I an advocate for?  What is my intention and direction; just how would I classify my advocation?

    I even looked up the word "advocate" to make sure I knew its true meaning.

    "To speak, plead, or argue in favor of…"

    What is it that I plead for or argue in favor of?

    Most, and many think I am against family…and religion and perhaps even God and forgiveness…against human kindness.  It often feels like many feel my agenda is the agenda of evil; when I believe its opposite.

    I would say, that I am for love, peace and joy, and have found it by leaving all that isn't.

    I would say that I argue for the rights of and love of, innocent children…and adults.

    It is more impacting to say what you are For, than what you are against. Being against something is relatively easy, you just shun or turn away from it. But when you are for something, you have to explore it…experience it, live it…be with it; stand for it in all things.

    I am for truth.  Even when it is ugly and not kind, when it has the capability of shattering my world, I am still for truth.

    I am for authentic living…even when it requires me to walk away from family.

    I am for real relationships…for not pretending in order to keep 'peace'.

    I am for integrity…especially when it is hard to stand in it.

    I advocate self-worth, self-love…individual imperfections that make you perfect.

    I advocate for reality and acceptance of all things…and our free will to respond as we wish.

    I advocate for freedom…and love.

    I advocate for the opposite of abuse.

    Power, freedom and choice.

    And yet, I am seen by those, I believe, still in abusive relationships as a threat or bad or evil….and I can see why.

    The most powerful tool we have against abuse is to be free and empowered.  I would be a threat to what you are holding dear, if what you are holding onto is abusive. 

    If what you are holding onto is power over someone.

    If what you are clinging to requires no new choices.

    If what you need is for others NOT to change.

    I love that I can fully embrace and hold, that I am an advocate for change in abusive homes…changing the victims into powerful empowered beings…from living in fear to living for Love.

    I do not believe that there is ever a Love option in abusive homes…fear is the only path. And, many who have only lived in fear are afraid of love…and its new choices and voices. 

    I can only recognize love as being free.  If you aren't free to do and say and be; it isn't love…its fear.  Fear leaves you with no choice. And no choice echoes abuse.

    So, I agree with the woman, I too am an advocate for Love.

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    I love my pictures when I was little, I was always holding hands or babies…even if I had no clue as to the environment of our home, I cared and did my best to love.

    When I was a young mom, I was not always so loving…or my love wasn't love but fear.  I love that person too….for she didn't know what she didn't know.

    I will no longer hold hands with those who want to keep the family together no matter what, for the 'matter what' is abuse.  I can't hold hands with abuse…

    I can't pretend to pretend that love is there; even for family.

    I am an advocate for healthy families; where children are safe.

    I am now able to be an advocate for love; for I know what love is not.

     

  • How much have you changed?

    There is a cost for being a Leader for Change within dysfunctional families; it typically means you lose your place in the family.  You will no longer be part of it, except to be on the outside.

    Changes within families require you to go against your elders as well as family members, where the sentiment that "we are family no matter what" is destroyed.

    It is to wreck all the typical safety nests…and to break the silence of compliance…to become the one who dares to question actions, words and motives…to not accept "they did the best they could".

    To be the Leader for Change, you will have to see their short comings and make corrections NoT in their life, but in your own.

    To see where their actions led and to course correct so you are not party to dysfunction continuing on.

    A leader for Change is showing in words and deeds that they will not perpetuate the flow of dysfunction as usual; they will do the opposite and be shunned for it.

    Leaders for Change will face persecution and criticism and be hated and hollered at, lied about…they will take the brunt of the family's derision; more so than the perpetrator of the abuse and his accomplice.  Leaders for Change who dare to follow the choice to change, will suffer most from their family.

    What makes this journey particularly hard is this alone.  You knowingly do what is against the family's unwritten rules of cohesiveness….you pull and tear apart actions and words to carry the truth forward.

    Leaders for Change will see the truth where others don't…and will live it, and not just make it an exercise of the mind; but a way of life.

    Leaders for Change are for those who have been victimized by the old system…and not see it as being a victim or a survivor, but that they can literally live to change the whole system…by being the change they want to see in the world.

    Leaders for change will be a different mother, daughter, friend….

    Leaders for change will do what their parents were unable to do.

    Leaders for change will be FOR change and not just accept that abuse happened and life goes on….to forgive and forget, to find the positive among the garbage, but instead find how the garbage became this way and then do different.

    I am hopeful that each family has Leaders for Change…and that we can slowly see the numbers begin to drop…so that the percentages of abuse no longer happens within families.

    How can people not hear that.  That it is the way these families live and how they are silent or compliant that promotes abuse to thrive….that it is not the laws of the land or even the insane preachings of the churches that is the biggest advocate for abuse; but the family units themselves.

    Each individual within the dysfunctional family carries the burden or the virus of abuse. They will carry it forward, unless they are the Leader for Change.

    It is the families that slowly slip back into the sameness after abuse who are the ones contributing to abuse.  If you didn't change…abuse is still your friend.

    The treatment that I have gotten, the way folks look at me IS how they should be looking at abuse…instead, they see me as delivering evil…while evil is literally destroying these families…from the inside out.

    One child at a time….for generations.  

    When the evil doers are treated like I have been, then abuse will begin the downward spiral…until then, abuse flourishes while they direct all their anger and rage at me, a Leader for Change.

    You are either with it or against it.  Change will be the indicator….how much have you changed?  (and, is it enough to stop abuse?)

  • Leader for Change…

    A Marine that was sexually assaulted, said that she wasn't speaking as a victim or a survivor, but as a Leader for Change…I love how she sees herself as an instrument for change.  Using her life experiences to help others, to make changes so others don't have to experience the awful way she was treated…not so much about the abusers – for that is a given, but from her commanding officers and how their response was felt as abuse, again and again.

    I too want to be a leader for change in the way families deal with victims and the way victims themselves deal with families.  

    We need to teach others how to have healthier responses so as not to harm victims further.  And to hold responsible adults who know and do nothing to the perpetrators…while demeaning and disbelieving the victims.

    The only way we can start turning around and lowering the numbers of children being abused, is to be a leader of changing how we deal with abuse.

    Instead of passively feeling as a survivor….I love the role "Leader for Change" inspires within me.  It leaves me hopeful and inspired and to use my experiences to shed light upon a broken system…and ways towards healing and living that changes the patterns of abuse.

    To be a leader of change, you have to be willing to lead the change in your own life.…to make different choices and to walk different, talk different, be different…everything changes; when you are leader for change.

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    I love these two ladies, attached by a chain….we can't know who is changing who?

  • This is Justice!

    On the front page of the paper is another man 'convicted' of sexual assault, but only received 1 year, with consideration for the 195 days already served…although it was due to the fact he failed to register as a sex offender….so, it is like he is double serving time…and in the end, when his time is up, he has to move to Wisconsin.  

    This is the punishment for sexually abusing a child.  He was able to plea bargain away the other children….and since it wasn't his first time, (failed to register as a sexual predator) it is insane that he will be set free in 6 months.

    How serious are we, as a society, about sexual abuse of children?

    What is the role of court systems and whose side are they truly on?

    What affects do these light sentences have on victims of abuse?

    It appears to minimalize their pain and suffering, almost making it a 'joke' to even report for all the dude will get is a slap on the hand.

    Seeing this through a victims eyes changes how we feel about the adults who are supposedly there to help us.  If this is help, no thank you.

    Somehow the courts in the land have to take serious these offenses against children. I even wonder, is it because it is children that they are so lenient…that there are no big voices in a big body outraged at these light sentences.  

    The joke is on society.  We are allowing these predators to roam freely, repeatedly…and how insane, making them sign a register, like that is a restraint. We are letting them destroy innocence and create more wounded…whose pain will bleed into the world.

    Hurt people hurt people.

    Somehow we have to change the way these guys are dealt with, as well as find resources and places for their victims to go to undo the damage.

    The courts used to be the place to seek revenge or at least justice….this doesn't happen with sexual abuse on kids.  

    These kids now feel like the courts abused them too, by not taking serious, the offenses against them.  Who is standing by these children? What are they doing to undo the damage?  How many children did this one man affect?  And, his punishment or the consequence…."a year in jail"…well half a year, since he already served 195 days.

    So, for half a year he can't abuse children. But, as soon as he gets out, the cycle begins again…oh, but in a new state…this time Wisconsin.

    Isn't the Court Systems looking like the Catholic Church….just pass them on to another congregation or population, get them out of my court.

    Not only is no one really looking at what he did, no one is looking at the children.  It is like society is doing its best to not really see what is going on in reality.

    Perhaps we will have to find solutions to this problem outside of the courts. We will have to empower the children, enlighten the adults. We will have to approach this problem from the angle of the child.

    They can't depend on the adults for help…at least not in the court system.

    At the very least can't we as adults no longer pretend to pretend, this is justice!

  • Unfounded goodness.

    In a conversation I had, someone was saying, that there is a fine line between rebuke and self-righteousness….and that self-righteousness was perhaps the most tricky of all sins.

    I had to look up first, the meaning of Rebuke.

    "express sharp disapproval or criticism of (someone) because of their behavior or actions."  

    I am not aware that rebuking is wrong….is it?

    I then, looked up the word Self-Righteous.

    "Having or characterized by a certainty, esp. an unfounded one, that one is totally correct or morally superior."

    I can see that if you are certain about an unfounded certainty, that you would be off the mark…but if you are certain about a certainty, than you can't be classified as self-righteous.

    The way I am feeling or the message I am getting is that rebuking and self-righteousness are bad, sinful even.

    Which then means, that in the eyes of some, I am being a sinner….for having or more, for expressing sharp disapproval of the abusive behavior of my parents…but not self-righteous, for I am not certain about something unfounded.

    I find these two words being used as warnings….that I best be careful where I tread or how.  Instead, I see them as blinders or stop gaps or safety nets for the folks who don't want to be Found OUT….or called out.

    These 'sins' work remarkably well if you don't want to face sharp disproval.  

    I believe that self-righteousness is a "Tricky Sin" only if you are feeling certain about something unfounded.  

    Again, I am in awe of what fears fall into place….that they are more afraid of 'sinning' than paying attention to who their fellow church members are, what they are doing, and what is the cost of "not sinning" to the children who are waiting for someone to show sharp disproval to the behaviors that is being done to them!

    I guess, in the eyes of many, I have sinned.

    I have sinned.  Not my father….

    I have sinned by rebuking him and for being certain.

    In my opinion, if these two words are similiar and one is a tricky sin, then the opposite of me, is being good.  A non-sinner.  

    Which then explains the silence of the church members.

    But they need to know, self-righteous is a wrong; especially if it is unfounded.

    Certainty is fine….unless you are certain about something that is a lie.

    If this is true, than I see more self-righteous within the familys of abuse…upholding characters of goodness…to folks who are abusing.  That to me, is being self-righteous…holding on to unfounded goodness.



  • Touched by my Art

    The journey with "My Lady" has been one that is unknown and a mystery and enthralling to be part of.  I just never know the bends it will take and the energy she will be given and even the life lessons I will learn in the darkest of times…

    As I sat pondering my path, my stance or stand against abuse; that excludes family and its cost or application…I contemplated silence.  I felt that my art even came at a cost…to stand by her. That perhaps and maybe, I would have more peace and joy by letting HER go.  To be me, but silently. To end the bold and loud display of who I am.  

    And, then….out of the blue a card arrived, on one of my low days.

    A woman who saw my quilts at the Portage Lake Library…expressing how they touched her, spoke to something within her…and, how her late husband was an artist, how she wanted to support me AND MY CAUSE…

    I sat stunned.

    What could I say….that I was going to stop?  That I was too tired…of the side-effects…

    Instead her letter intrigued and excited me…and I was humbled that she had chosen me and my work as something she wanted to contribute to in any way. This gesture out of the blue, moved the clouds of doubt away.

    I was fueled once again.

    I was wondering and pondering again, but in ways that we could conspire to expand the visibility of My Lady.  

    Imagine, going from wanting to darken and hide my Art, to looking for ways to expand her exposure…such is the power of one card.

    Of one person willing to reach out.

    We met.

    We talked.

    We connected.

    We shared.

    We dreamed.

    We conspired.

    My Lady, my admirer and I.

    She wants to remain anoymous…which will be tough for me…and it does add to the mystery.  A Lady behind My Lady and I.

    I want her to be part of the process to be active and engaged…yet hidden.  

    One of the best parts of My Lady, is meeting other women who connect with her, who find her energy contageous, who love her independence and strength, her courage and fearlessness.

    We met woman to woman; and spoke of what we could do to bring out "My Lady" spirit in other women, to encourage them to make a change, to take the first step in growing, to dare to do something for themselves…

    After the deluge of unbelievers in me, it felt good to have this woman understand me.  She even said at one point, "your family doesn't even know this you, the you you have become…" and she is right.

    And, they may never know her.

    She is a motherly type, a woman as complex as My Lady…and she is stepping up to help me and my cause…because she was touched by my Art.

     
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  • Ambiguity and Authenticity.

    Ambiguity and Authenticity have to be polar opposites.

    I was wrong…the opposites of ambiguity are; direct, decisiveness, straightforwardness, exactness, clearness, brightness, obviousness.…etc….so its opposite is unclear, not direct, not exact…not obvious.

    In my exchanges with a few siblings…what stands out the most is the indecisiveness….the waffling back and forth.

    I am accused of being wrong when I label them as abused.

    I am then accused of grand standing AS the ONLY one being abused, and told they too were abused.

    I was accused of being part and party to the abuse years ago, and now I am seen as a family wrecker today.  When the actions of before and after are completely different.  You can't have it both ways I keep saying…..

    But, they can.

    There is nowhere for me to gain ground with them.

    I would be damned no matter what….well I am damned no matter what.

    This is how I know clearly it isn't about me.  For I have been two ways and it hasn't changed their worlds.  If it was about me, then at one point things would be going smoothly….either in the years where my father was abusing or in the years I stepped away from him.  Something should have changed in their worlds IF I am the one controlling them.

    Easy to blame the sister/daughter who is nowhere near their lives; than it is to look in the mirror.

    What I know for sure…for me, is that I need something that is not flipping and changing and two sided.  I need steady and clear decisions.  I need folks to be who they are always.  Not the 'kind' public persona and then lambasting me behind the scenes.  I don't know who you are.  I don't trust you kindness, when the ugly erupts.

    I know how this is.  

    That was me for 46 years.

    I would be kind and then spew hatred and anger and rage….and then back to kindness.  What I have discovered of me, was that my anger and rage was for the duplicity of my parents. My fears of not knowing who would appear….

    What I know for me, is that I don't trust folks who are unable to own who they are.

    I can handle dysfunction if they are working towards eradicating it in their lives…victims of abuse who are learning how they became so backwards and are working like hell to undo the damage. But, I dont' know what to do with those who scream they are kind, normal and blessed….coming from abuse.

    I looked up again….authenticity.

    Authenticity is defined as "real or genuine : not copied or false. : true and accurate. : made to be or look just like an original. - Conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief. Trustworthy or genuine.

    I would rather be with authentically dysfunctional folks who know they are not right….than to be with those who have no idea who they are and how they contaminate this world.

    I just can't believe that my authenticity with my dysfunction is harmful….but, I can believe that their denial about the depths of their dysfunction is harmful in ways they would be shocked to see IF they were aware.

    Our paths are different….and worlds apart….as far as ambiguity is from authenticity.


     

  • Normality in Ambiguity.

    What I got left with, after all the mind twisting and thought turning, was how does a 'kind' person show their boundaries?  If you can't step back or move away from things that insult your soul, then how can we, watching you, know how you truly feel or who you are?

    What can we trust about you when there isn't a clear you…an outline of boundaries that clearly define who you are?

    I was struck by the blurry vision or mixed messages that assaulted me…in the ambiguity of who my siblings really were.

    And, it then led me to wonder how this amibiguity was the image we were given of our parents; hence ourselves.

    That my father, due to his acting out in abusive ways, was not just one solid self, but a double vision.

    My mother also had two sides…one being a 'good' christian woman, but one who allowed an abusive man to live in her home.

    This ambiguity gave us the license to be two faced.

    That being two-sided was normal.

    And…kind.

    And…Non-judgmental.

    Even, loving.

    When I no longer have two sides, but one crystal clear out-line of me, I am not 'easy' to be with.  For, I won't flip to the 'easy' side, that allows anything.

    What I feel is that they want me to capitulate and roll over and be friendly…while inside I am not feeling that.

    This technique, of doing that which you don't feel, feels very abusive to me…or it has echoes of it.

    That you are doing that which you don't feel like doing, but you do it to make someone else 'feel good'.

    As I view my siblings and my mother, I can't see a clear picture of who they are, I see no out-lined set point of what they stand for and what they stand against.  They have no clearly set apart self, but move as a group.

    Either a group called family.

    Or a group called church.

    But, not as a one…character.

    I don't truly know who they are and what they stand for.

    What I feel is that they will fall for anything.

    In my new awareness or understanding…kindness has critical lines and boundaries.

    Kindness is solid.

    Value has one side.

    Respect, love, honor do not twist in the wind and become something else; when it is too hard or uncomfortable.

    I see the affects of living in a home with two-sided parents; whose real truth was covered up, to be that we learned to live without a clear sense of who we were….for we were asked to be something we were not.

    In abuse you are asked/demanded or bullied into something you don't want to do.

    I feel that my family now is subjecting me to the same tone of abuse.

    In that, they are wanting from me something I am not freely giving; due to their nature of being two-sided.

    Abuse in families adds the second side.

    It goes from normal…to abnormal and the combination is ambiguity.

    And Ambiguity's definition….

    Something that does not have a single clear meaning…

    Doubtfulness or uncertainty of meaning or intention: to speak with ambiguity; anambiguity of manner. 2. an unclear, indefinite…

    Something with ambiguity is unclear.

    What I feel is that my family is asking me to support and stand with ambiguity…to remain loyal and committed to ambiguity.

    For there is no clear message of love, with abuse tossed in on top.

    I do understand and appreciate where they are coming from….that living in the two faced world gives you a pattern and role model to follow. Where what you feel and how you act do not have to match…and who you are and how you act can be complete opposites. They find comfort and normality in ambiguity.


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    I was so drawn to nature, for there was no ambiguity!  It was as it appeared; always.