I M Perfect lady

Category: Current Affairs

  • The Sturdy Wall of Doing Nothing!

    The first "Take Back the Night" event happened. The panel arrived and spoke…into a very sparse audience.  However, the newspaper and TV reporters were there taking notes and filming…so the reach was further than the four walls.  

    Each sharing held a part of a long journey of abuse, from the nurse who collects forensic evidence, to the Dial Help person who speaks in the schools, to a woman in charge of a new women's shelter….the detective and then me.  All of us brought together for one common goal, to help victims of sexual abuse.

    Our viewpoints vary, our expertise diverse, and our messages and intents sincere, hoping to light a spark within, to Shatter the Silence and begin the journey of breaking the pattern of abuse.

    If one person changes the way they respond to sexual abuse, our night was a success. 

    The common theme is often, "I don't know what to do….I am not sure IF he is an abuser or I don't know what to say to the family I suspect abuse is going in…." are perfect responses. No one knows for certain what should be done, what is the right path, BUT what we all know for certain, doing nothing will stop nothing.

    You don't have to be articulate, educated and have a plan in hand….but you do have to be willing to stick your neck out, to stand up and take the heat to spare a child.  One panelist spoke of peer pressure or bystander accountability. 

    We as adults are very much accountable for what we do and say….or perhaps don't do and not say.  No one wants to 'color' the pedophile wrongly….or they don't know what to say to the wife of a perp….or how to approach the children or extended family.  

    The subject of abuse is not one that is spoken out loud.  And while we remain Unsure, the pedophiles remain very sure and confident of their mission….and the children's lives swing in the balance.

    I for one, am not willing to excuse adult's behavior of "doing nothing" because they don't know what to do.

    Dial Help.  Call Tom Rosemurgy….their jobs are to help you help the children.  You don't have to know what to do, but you do have to let those who can help know.

    You know how to dial a phone.  You know how to talk.  You can state your fears, your suspicions….what the talk around the neighborhood is.  If you know and don't make the call, you are standing on the side of abuse…..not against it.

    I didn't arrive last night to sit on the panel with a volume of "knowing what to do"…but I did come with piles of information on what happens when you do nothing.  I am the result.  My family is the picture perfect example of 40 plus years of folks knowing and doing nothing.

    The pattern of Not calling the detectives or Dial help has to be broken.  Their lines should be inundated with calls and pleas of help.  I know that there are folks who know, but don't know what to do.

    I am here to tell you, you call.  That is the first step to break out of the pattern of abuse. YOU call and ask for Help.  

    I am here too.  I will walk with you.  I will do what I can to help you to begin the process of exposing the monsters who are preying upon the children.  The children are waiting for someone to break the silence…will it be you?  And if not you who?  

    All of the panelists are waiting ready to serve….we are not expecting you to walk alone. We all arrived there last tonight to hold your hand.  Reach out and we will be there.  This is the job of a community, of many hands and avenues of expertise….no one is expected to do this alone.  By making one call, you will enter into a vast community of folks who know what to do….you are not alone.  Break the silence and you will find folks who can help.  

    The steps towards healing and standing against abuse is to be the one to dare shatter the silence!  Children are suffering behind the sturdy wall of doing nothing. 


  • Shatter Their Silence.

    Tonight at Michigan Tech in  ME-EM 112 (which is R.L. Smith Hall)., there will be the first annual "Take Back the Night" event.  

    Shatter the SilenceTrademark symbol
    Breaking The Silence Through Storytelling 

    “It takes two people to speak the truth: One to speak and another to hear.” – Henry David Thoreau

    Take Back The Night’s supporters have always understood the power of speaking out. Rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse and domestic violence are often labeled “crimes of silence” because of low reporting rates and social discomfort with their public discussion.

    There will be a walk after the discussion.  

    I, along with Tom Rosemurgy (Houghton County Detective), and Dial Help staff and a few others, I don't know yet, will be on the panel.  

    Just coming to hear is the first step in being part of the dialogue.  Silence is the only way sexual abuse will continue.  

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    I donated this quilt….and it will be framed and hung in the lobby of Dial Help.  I hope it inspires others to shatter their silence.

  • They are my heroes

    In the paper yesterday two young girls spoke up about their abuse…and their abusers are now in the court system.  While many may focus on what kind of punishment the men will get, I see this from how it affects the young girls.

    Their courage to speak of what happened to them is extremely powerful in their lives.  They are no longer victims when they speak out.  No matter how the sentencing goes, these girls will not carry a secret, consciously or unconsciously, about themselves.  They will carry no shame.

    Their wounds are being aired out in childhood, being expressed and voiced to adults in their lives…and they are being heard.

    It is my belief, that they will heal faster and perhaps not have their abuse linger and bleed into their lives, by treating it today, in their childhood.

    They are able to see their abuse as being a crime of the men, not of the child.

    They will not carry the burden any longer of their untold story.  It has been told, it has been heard, and the men are labeled for who they are.

    As the men are addressed as the perpetrators, the child feels their innocence.  It is this return to innocence, to come out behind the secret that will reset their inner worthiness.

    Abuse doesn't have to carry a life sentence when it is categorized in the truthful manner of what it is.  To see, the imbalanced scales of what happened, who was in power and who was powerless.

    The most damaging part of child abuse is when it goes untreated, unspoken about, and that the child never gets her innocence back.

    I know the courage it takes to stand up, to say out loud what most don't want to hear…and I was an adult.  I am in awe of the girls, these little girls, who have the strength to do this.  I wish the papers would write about this from the girls perspective and not that of the criminal.

    What a brilliant story it would be if told in their own words…they are my heroes. 

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  • There is No End Game.

    In the past few days, between reading books, exchanging emails and dialogues, I have been shown the angst of trying to get a new response from an old system, and it is impossible.

    It is my belief, you have to completely abandon the whole machine, for the machine was set up with a mindset that can't be changed.  It will not allow a new viewpoint or new outcome.  

    The way our legal system is working is that it is not working…at least not for the ones who have been injured.  It is however, working rather well for the Lawyers who get paid to reduce the action down to nothing.  It is working extremely well for the perpetrators, and it isn't working at all for the injured party.  

    I don't know how the laws of the land were originally set up or why or what the expected out come would be, but I would have to say it is a colossal failure.

    Just in our little town on the front page of the paper, you can read time and time again how the charges are reduced, and the perp has been saved from serving time.  

    Yet, there is no mention about the second party, the injured party and how they feel or what it has done to their lives etc.  Where are the teams of people helping to see that the real innocent are taken care of???

    I am not sure you can now turn that big machine around.  For the judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys all know their part well, and it is a Justice System that is running without justice and no one seems to even care anymore.

    It is a system that was supposedly looking to find the truth, when the truth oftentimes is reduced and tossed out.

    IF this big machine called justice worked, we would be living in a land where the prisons would be shutting down due to lack of inmates.

    As a victim in the system, my justice was not served at all.  And there is no one in the Justice System who didn't know what my father did, yet for some odd reason, it works completely backwards…it works supremely well as Injustice.

    This system is just another system in the lives of victims that doesn't work.  It runs along the same lines as their childhood homes, where they innocent are treated unjustly, and the perps lives are given the utmost attention. 

    I am not certain I can even get you all to understand the wheels of justice are spinning in a totally wrong direction, and there are no cries of injustice, no picketing of the court house, nothing….silence, apathy.

    Each time you read in the paper another reduced sentence, a plea bargain, a this or that, and the abuser walks away with a few days in jail, you are witnessing the system abusing the child again.

    And no one says a word.

    It is my belief, that we can't change that big machine, but the healing of abuse will have to come from a totally different angle.  Our healing and wellness can't depend upon the system serving us justice and punishing our abusers, instead we have to find another way to heal.

    We have to stop putting our faith in a broken system. Stop believing that the Justice System will crack down on crimes and lessen abuse.

    Instead we will have to create a whole new system outside of the laws of the land, a system that deals with the victims…the hurting innocent.

    Just as the church is unwilling to deal with the abuse of innocent children, so is the law. Their jobs are clearly to rescue abusers from their truth, while leaving children alone again with no adult hearing and seeing their abusers in their true colors…instead they take the black actions and bring it up to a gentle grey…beige even.

    We the people of the land, have to find a new way to reach the abused children and heal them.

    A way to reach them where they feel that their truth matters.

    It is these unhealed wounded children who are the ones to next walk into the courtroom.  Soon, they will be standing where their abusers stand.  We are feeding an endless cycle the way the courts are set up now, there is no end game.

     

     

     

  • Much more alike than different.

    Only a few percentage of lives make the paper, are the headlines and open for discussion, while many others experience the same things, but never get caught or press charges.  

    There are many lives behind each Newspaper Story, there are thousands of reason as to why it came to this point in time, and you can see this from many points of light.

    Some will empathize with the boys, others with the girls, some with the Law, others with the defenders; each of us can recognize different aspects of ourselves.

    Where there but the Grace of God go I.

    My story made the paper, front page a few times, details and plea bargains and reduced sentences and all.  I lived a real life behind the headlines.

    And that is what we all do. We all living behind the written words.

    I believe we all have newsworthy lives, if the Truth be told.

    My truths were told in the headlines and I had to then live out its implications.  It was up to me how the Rest of the story would go.

    In each of the participants in the latest story, each will continue on with their story, each will set forth either a changed person or get back on the same track.

    Each of us had the opportunity to learn and to bring it into our lives and find aspects of ourselves we can look deeper at and learn before it gets this far out of hand.

    Each of us have the potential in all of us to be any of these characters. Yet few make the paper. 

    Yet there is a Universe Paper, headlines that are always written in detail and without the lawyers being involved…it is just the basic truths as it happened and in real time…the real lives behind the stories in the paper.

    The stories in the paper is but a tip of the iceberg, the real living happens before it is written and long after it is no longer the News.

    Choices and actions will continue to write itself out in Chapters and verses in the Universal Paper.  Some will have learned the lessons and have received the gifts of this tragedy and others will need a lesson or two thousand more.

    Our lives are not about which ones make the paper, our lives are about seeing aspects of yourself in each headline…seeing how we are much more alike than different.

  • What we sow, we Reap

    As the Justice System continues to fail, we are asked or challenged not to fail reality. 

    The Justice System takes an action and reduces it, like it is a magic maker, like it can take something that was done and undo it a little or a lot, to go easy on the 'first' time offender.  When we can't know that.  It may be the First Time Caught Offender.

    The Justice System we believe is for the victim, that the victim will see her perpetrators 'pay' for what they did, and in the end, nothing happens.  

    We have been told to leave it in the hands of Justice, when the hands of justice are incapable of seeing the crime and staying the course, in fact people have jobs that are based on reducing actions to aggravated assault, in changing a rape to be sentenced like a punch.

    They literally get paid to see that the crime isn't accounted for.

    The Court of the Land is set up to support the offenders, it has them 'innocent' until proven guilty, but does its best to NOT see reality, by reducing and plea bargaining down…in the end it proves them more innocent than guilty.  And while they do this, we the victims remain more guilty and less innocent. We are still damaged no matter what.

    Wouldn't it be nice if the victim could have plea bargained down the crime, to reduce the rape to just a slap on the face?  Wouldn't a slap from a 'friend' hurt just as bad?  We were not given the option then or now.

    I know the parents of the girl and even the parents of one boy, and I am not an objective bystander, for I have great sympathies for the girl…for the one who couldn't reduce her pain to a lesser degree, IT was forced upon her.

    Reality always stands strong in her world.

    What I have learned from walking the walk of Un-Reality that the Justice System guides you on, is that it isn't the final word on these boys or families; the Universe or God balances all slates.

    While the court of the land and those who get paid to turn rape into slaps, feel that they have the power, they have only a surface level power, a false sense of balancing the sheets.

    The Universe pays no never mind to what the court of the land is doing, what the 'Blessings' of the church is doing, the Universe knows the score and can't help but give back to them what they sow.

    We are not responsible for their punishment, it is not our job.

    Each boy has to live with what he did and if he didn't catch the lesson, another one is headed his way.  He may not learn this time, but no worries, his life will teach him in a million ways about what he has done.

    While the father feels rage and wanting to balance the scales, all it would do is add more evil to an already evil situation.  

    What makes more sense to me is to see them for who they are and tell the world.  Act like they are rapists, even if the law wants us to see only aggragated assault, see the rape.  Know that they have energies inside of them that hurts girls.

    We are challenged not to change our minds as the law did.

    We are challenged not to delete away their actions.

    We are challenged to walk in reality and stand with the girl's truth.

    Unlike animals we Force ourselves to not see and not respond to the evil we experienced, to reduce it to a lesser degree and continue on as if nothing has happened.

    What messes most with the psyche and minds of victims IS that life continues on unchanged, when their whole world fell apart.

    We see the law of the land reduce and change and return the boys to a 'normal' life, while clearly their actions are screaming something is wrong with me.

    And there is something wrong with us if we too don't get their message. We too are held responsible for our responses. Are we treating them like hurt people?  Like someone who needs to be removed from society?  Or, will you 'forgive' and see them as normal.

    What another great example of why evil continues on with so many knowing.  There is no one connected to this case that doesn't understand and know that multiple rapes occurred, and yet with money and pleas, and a "No Contest" decree all that happens is 30 days in jail, but AFTER Christmas.

    Did you all know, that "No Contest" means guilty? But there are other added bonus attached…some may be that the Injured Party can't sue for damages etc.

    It is all a word game and exchange of words and sadly the meanings don't follow.  For no matter what you call the action, the action stands unchanged.  You simply can't reduce an action after it already happened.

    Reducing reality is only done in the minds of those who believe it can happen, but it changes nothing in reality. 

    Insanity is believing you can.

    What is so tragic is that the girl gets left with an insane reaction to a real crime.  

    When the law of the land responds this way, what recourse are you left with?

    At some point we will catch on that changing reality with words doesn't work…it isn't supporting the victims, but it works really slick on the offenders.  

    Why do they get a second chance and a clean slate, when she doesn't?  

    She only gets one reality….One Verse of what happened, she isn't allowed to change it.  Nor can we.

    We only can think it different than it was.

    We can each tell a story, but reality moves on unchanged.

    Reality is supported by the power of Universe, never underestimate its balancing sheet, it is impeccable….it is the all seeing and the all knowing.

    All we have to focus on is our own slate…what we sow, we reap.

     

  • Remain Unmoved.

     The gift that the scandal at Penn State is offering is it is encouraging others to stand in the long line of abused children, whether it happened recently or years and years ago.

    The adults who are standing today, are great examples to others that we can't sit down and silently pray that it will go away.  It won't.

    What I find so infuriating is that many will HEAR about abuse, but not believe it.  Which is the biggest problem victims have is being believed.  Imagine, we are not believed.

    What does 'believing' us mean?  What will show us you believe?  What actions are your changing to tell us that you are now 'believing' in the news?

    What I just get so floored by is that people listen, but they don't believe. They hear, but they continue on as if we had not spoken.

    Josh commented on my blog post, "Shattered Dreams" stating that not only did his Uncle abuse his father, he also abused him.  That means that Eric has gone on abusing now for many years.  What will that mean to you all who sit in the pews?  What will happen?  Will you contact the Chairperson of the Board of the First Apostolic Church and DEMAND he not preach?  Will you start to then question many things, or will you hear it and just pass it on as 'their story' their life, and go on unchanged?

    I believe there is active listening where it instills actions and then there is passive listening where it requires nothing of you.

    What I want to impress upon you, that passive listening is the greatest gift to Eric, it will allow him to freely abuse in the third generation.  Imagine that?

    Passive listening is what Joe Paterno did.  Passive listening is what those in Higher Positions did.  Passive listening is how so many boys were abused, while the coach horsed around in the showers.

    I don't know what it will take in your world for you to act upon knowledge, for you to stand up and get 'involved'.  

    What I see most is the courageous abused children, even those who are now adults stepping forth…. and speaking out. How many will be believed?  Just as in the Penn State case, you will draw a side, you will decide who to believe and why….I would be curious to hear the other side.

    Josh is telling you, do you believe him?  Do you dare not act?  For all who will passively read blogs and then go on with life unchanged, you are exactly what is needed for sexual crimes to be committed, again and again and again.  There is a term for you all, accessories to the crime.

    Those who know and remain unmoved.

  • Shattering Dream

    While commenting back and forth with Lynn C. Tolson, the Author of "Beyond the Tears", on facebook, it came to me why folks support the Coach and the Organization and not the abused boys…they don't want to lose that which they are a part of.

    Whether it is to be a fan of a winning football team and coach, or whether it be a family and father, no one wants to let go of that which they have looked up to, aspired towards, cheered on and been part of.   

    By looking at the abused child, you will see that your hero is a monster.

    It isn't the pain of the child, it IS the pain of the dream dying.

    Lynn asked on facebook, "Why is it so painful to support the abused children? Why, why, why (not expecting an answer). The topic of child sex abuse is so uncomfortable yet the victims live their entire lives in a world of hurt."

    It isn't the child's pain we fear, but our own pain as our family dies, our team isn't as grand as we thought, or that the icon coach is just a normal man, who didn't want to turn in a friend, or who didn't want the public to know that it is as vulnerable to abuse as any other organization.

    We fear our own losses so much that we will hold on to a false dream rather than feel it actually die.

    In walkng face first into my greatest fear, I was able to then see the abused child.  It seems we all have a choice in either holding up a dream or letting it die to save a child.

    What very few can do is let go of their own lives in order to save a life of a child, to spare them the shame, guilt and blame of 'wrecking' the dream.

    What hurt me the most, wasn't the rape of my father, nor even the image of him changing from dad to monster, but what hurt even more was being blamed for killing the family.  

    I wasn't rioting for his reputation…so it was seen as I was out to tear our family apart, when in fact all I was doing was standing by the abused children…the long list of girls who suffered under his hands.

    I wasn't able to stand in a picket line supporting those who knew and said nothing, and I was seen as a traitor to our 'family'.  

    It wasn't my pain that they couldn't bear feeling, but they didn't want to feel the pain of losing a family.

    We wonder why more folks are not lining up to give up the details of their abuse, it is to give evidence and facts that will tear apart their dream of family…

    It isn't that we don't support abuse, we don't want to support the tearing apart families, religions and organizations. But if abuse is within, your organization is decaying from the inside out, and eventually, there will be no good there to hold it up.

    Penn State has shown us it isn't the abuse that we can't bear to see, but the shattering dream.

     

     

  • Keep Play Alive!

    I discovered a great truth about myself and my feelings, that I want to own what I feel and it feels worse to have someone try and get me out before my time, I want feel as long as I want to feel.

    My mail route has been a five day a week job, and I found out on Thursday, that it was switching to a six day a week one week and then a five day the next, rotating every other Saturday off.

    I sulked, and I pouted, and felt deep disappointment in losing a day off, and when my boss tried to placate me with false hopes, it made me feel worse not better.

    It then came to me, it is much better to let a person sit in her pity puddle for as long as she likes and when she comes out on her own, she will be ready to face the life change that put her there.

    I felt cheated and manipulated and cajoled to be feeling a false emotion for her sake, but not mine. Me, I wanted to sit and grieve over my loss of a day off.

    And she felt responsible for my sadness and then tried to feed me false hopes of it being an error that perhaps it will change, etc.

    I told her, please just let me get accustomed to my loss, let me be here, I will adjust and acclimate myself in time. I am okay being sad.

    It began to bother me more that they couldn’t accept me being upset. I can now see it is best to honor the feelings and emotions and not try changing them with words.

    Just let them be.

    I can now see how I have mishandled or perhaps over-handled my daughter’s emotions messing around in them and confusing or mixing them up for my ease.

    I love that we have a right to our emotions and we can express them at our own pace.

    Losing a Saturday every other week does make me sad, it is like losing a play date, a recess or free time…I will have to manipulate the rest of my week to make up this time, perhaps giving up cleaning or washing clothes or cooking…sometimes it takes time to find the silver lining.

    Instead of giving up playtime, I will give up more domestic chores…every other week.

    Whatever it takes to keep Play alive!!!

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  • Our Abusive Parents Loved Us.

    Tinogona, It is Achievable! Tererai Trent

    Sometimes it is hard to grasp the how or to figure out the way, but all that is needed is the faith in that it can happen.

    Surrendering the details up to the Universe and just keep our energy and focus and feeling in ‘it is achievable’ for Who is on our side.

    As I sit and begin to hear and know more of the abuse that is running rampant in families and how their legacy goes on for generation upon generation, I feel an overwhelming weight of not just turning one person, but their whole pathology.

    A child sits so young and malleable, so impressionable and is being taught the pedagogy of his ancestors most of which have suffered as he is, having been raised by adults who have failed to see their own pathology.

    To reach the child, it seems we have to sway the adult, to appeal to the wounded child within, to get the fearful hurt confused essence to hear our words.

    What I must remember, is that I heard… I was able to resonate with the words one brave little girl spoke, so perhaps, the children will lead this parade.

    Alice Miller speaks of an enlightened witness and the word enlightened means,

    1. rational: free of ignorance, prejudice, or superstition
    2. well informed: having a sound and open-minded understanding of all the facts, or based on such an understanding
    3. having achieved great spirituality: having achieved the realization of a spiritual or religious understanding.

    I love the first two meanings, for without them, you can’t achieve spiritual understanding, for I believe that real spirituality is having an open mind that understands all of the facts.

    Being an Enlightened Witness for a child means that you will report to the Authorities so that they can question the child. Sadly, our system is set up so that the child has to be the one to start this ball rolling, and perhaps it is they that are the strongest among us, the least ignorant to the lay of the land within their homes.

    By being a parent who is willing to say, that the legacy of abuse begins with me, is to free the child from having to point this out. Children are dying and suffering all to keep an image of a good parent, even when all evidence is to the contrary.

    It is achievable to stop the legacy of abuse, if we all stand up and speak the truth of what is going on in our homes, for the shame to fall upon the adults and leave the children to be free and innocent.

    As it stands now, the children are suffering silently due to the silence of so many knowing adults.

    What is your pathology? How was it being a child of your parents? However you were treated as a child, you will ‘naturally’ parent that way, for it was what was taught to you.

    In order to change this pathology, you have to see that the parents who raised you were wrong, they did not teach you love, they taught you evil.

    It is by becoming enlightened to the facts and by seeing the truth, which you can then stop this insidious disease.

    It is spread by ignorance alone…we simply were taught that our abusive parents loved us.

    It is achievable to know real love.