I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • Comfortable being you!

    In the past few days, from a variety of people and experiences, I have witnessed the word "Worry" in action.  I had to see what the true meaning of the word is.

    "Worry"

    - give way to anxiety or unease; allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles….

    -(of a dog or other carnivorous animal) tear at, gnaw on, or drag around with the teeth.

    -a state of anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems.

    What I didn't know was that it was to be with one's anxiety, but I somehow felt that worry was constructive in that it showed feelings about the other person; like the more you worried, the more you cared.  

    I lost my worry skills…once I began to truly understand the power of the Universe AND the Free Will of others, and just how much of what I worried about wasn't within my power to change.  My anxiety used to be that I believed I was in control and it was up to me to change…life. Reality. Things I didn't like, or want to experience.  I worried.

    What I didn't know is that swam in anxiety…believing I was caring.

    I have come to learn, as Byron Katie says, "It is not my time to suffer"…and it is not helpful to bring anxiety to a stressful situation, but positive constructive attention.  

    I don't know what is coming.

    Who I will watch suffer or how much I will suffer….but it is my intention to not give way to anxiety, but to seek ways in which to learn how to manage myself in different situations and remain present AND accepting to what is.

    I believe, that the greatest source of anxiety is wanting things to be different.

    In doing my latest quilt, I was feeling that I wanted a lady to be relaxed and comfortable in love.

    When she wouldn't do this, I then realized that real love is to be standing strong and doing things that are not comfortable.  To grow as a person and in relationships you will be asked to do many things that are not comfortable.

    Even to stand up for your feelings, your goals and dreams, to stand in integrity, you will not be comfortable, for many will try and knock you off the stand of you.

    What I have been learning these last many years is that being unique, speaking your truth and standing up for the love of self, is one of the most uncomfortable things to do….especially if you have been living an inauthentic life.  If you have been saying and doing things that are not the truth for you.  

    My worries have literally fallen to zero…the more authentic I have been living and the more I realized that we are all individuals on our own human journey with the Free Will of the Universe…that each of us have our own worlds to live in.

    When I gave myself the freedom to be me…I gave the others to the freedom to be them.

    I can't want someone to be healthier than they want to be. I can't step in front of the Universe and change reality.  I can only manage my world in this present moment doing my authentic truths.

    Worry isn't love….it is anxiety.

    Love is uncomfortable until you are comfortable being you.

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  • Behind the Art.

    "It may still be decades or even centuries before humankind stops regarding the knowledge stored up in the unconscious as immaterial, as pathological fantasies of the insane or of eccentric poets, and comes to see it for what it really is: a perception of reality, stemming from the period of early childhood, which had to be relegated to the unconscious, where it becomes an inexhaustible source of artistic creativity of the imagination per se, of fairy tales and dreams…"  Alice Miller

    Many see me as writing pathological fantasies of the insane…when I am honoring the unconsciousness within me.  And my quilts are created from there as well.

     

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    "The term "fairy tale" refers to something that isn't true.  On the other hand, it is generally acknowledged that fairy tales convey deep insights into life, that they communicate truth in the form of vivd parables. A similar ambivalance can be observed in our attitude towards dreams. We often reassure ourselves with remarks like "It was only a dream" or even "Dreams don't mean anything": yet anyone who works with the unconscious knows what an amazing amount of information dreams can provide about a person's life. This ambivalence is a reflection of our attitude toward truth per se: we want to know it and at the same time we don't because it hurts, can frighten us, places excessive demands on us, and robs us of the security of our cherished illusions."  Alice Miller

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    I threaten the cherished illusions…

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    For the art of truth is behind the art!

  • Allow me to see mine.

    More of Alice Miller…

    "Many professionals respond to the new information available about child abuse with insensitivity and indifference, which I assume are primarily a reflection of their loyalty to theory and not of their own heartlessness.  This reaction is a particularly clear indication of the dangers of the theory in question. These dangers stem from the simple fact that psychoanalysts are forced back into the framework of "poisonous pedagogy," from which they had hoped to free themselves with the help of their psychoanalytic training, and that they force their patients back with them. For when Freudian theory prescribes that patients' reports about their childhood are to be regarded as fantasies originating in drive conflicts and not in real experiences, the analyst continues to be insensitive to childhood suffering. This has the following consequences."

    1. Analysts will have to make light of their own childhood suffering and will be unable to help the patient become sensitive to his or her suffering but will, on the contrary, minimize it the same way they did their own case and the same way all well-raised children do. Then the emotional grounds for minimizing it can be legitimized and shrouded in mystery in conjunction with the drive theory.

    2. When patients make uncertain and anxious attempts to portray the atmosphere of humiliation, mistreatment, or psychological rape they were once subjected to, their perceptions will be interpreted as drive fantasies or projections of their own desires. This will make patients (a) stop expressing their grievances; (b) feel ashamed for having them; (c) dwell on guilt feelings; and (d) repress their traumatization again, this time more deeply than before. Such a process will add greatly to their self-alienation.  Autonomy cannot develop, and as a result, patients will often respond obediently to the analyst's pedagogic efforts without even noticing them. With this method of psychoanalysis, the patients' own truth will be buried, which can, to be sure, temporarily reinforce their resistance to their traumas, usually by means of intellectualizing; yet in the long run this approach will increase the likelihood of the incidence of new depression.

    3. If patients are not given the opportunity to air their grievances against their parents and educators – which is more often the case than not – then of course they don't have to be talked out of their "negative attitudes" at all; the analyst can simply build upon their "good upbringing" and teach them very quickly how they "can learn to understand their parents better and forgive them." The religious notion that a "gesture of forgiveness" will make you a better person has also found its way into psychoanalytic treatment.  As if this gesture could do away with something slumbering deep within a person since childhood that can be articulated only in neurosis. Who know this better than psychoanalysts, had they not reached an agreement that the true nature of childhood should not be the subject of their investigations?

    "The drive theory, then, entails denial of reality, insensitivity to childhood suffering, refusal to give credence to the patient's grievances – which ultimately means refusal to take him or her seriously – and, above all, misunderstanding and denial of the roots of neurosis. As I have already emphasized more than once, it is my belief that these roots lie in the enforced repression not of the child's so-called instinctual drives but of his or her awareness of having been traumatized and in the prohibition against articulating this, which was internalized at a very early age.  Freudian drive theory reinforces this prohibition to the fullest because it is still caught in the system of assigning blame and thinks the parents must be protected from their children's recriminations. Since guilt must be assigned in this system, it is the child's drives and , just as in "poisonous pedagogy", ultimately the child himself who is found guilty. Presumably, his aggressions and the sexual desires he blames his parents for not fulfilling are what often make his parents (by projection) "appear" cruel to him. Thus, cruelty on the part of parents is always interpreted as the product of the child's drive fantasies, generated by the child's own cruelty. For this cruelty is always real and present for the psychoanalyst (as it is for the pedagogue/educator). Significantly, in classical psychoanalytic literature I have never encountered the question of what actually becomes of the children's cruelty later when they grow up and have children of their own. As if, when children attain the power accompanying adulthood, such questions would automatically disappear…   "

    She goes on to write about the consequences of when we go to seek help from those who have not addressed their own childhood with clarity…and rely upon theories that are not useful to children of abuse.

    "We might not begrudge them the peace of mind their theories provide if it were not disquieting to think that they are the ones so many people turn to in their attempt to be rescued from neurosis, people who were narcissistically and often sexually mistreated, violated, and abused as children and who need help in interpreting the information revealed in their symptoms and in regaining their original vitality. Tragically, they cannot receive the help they need from the drive theory; the most they can achieve is to reinforce their defense mechanisms against what they know to be the truth and make their adaptation to society more rigid, thereby cutting themselves off from access to their own self. This self is like a prisoner in a cell: no one believes in his innocence, and as a result, rather than remain alone and isolated with the truth, he too finally loses all knowledge of it.(cf. The Drama of the Gifted Child, pp. 10-14). Only by sacrificing his true self does he reestablish ties to other people."

    "The advice regularly given in the old pedagogical manuals was to "break" the child's will at as early an age as possible, to combat his "obstinacy," and always to  impart to him the feeling that he is guilty and bad; they stressed that one should never allow the impression to arise that an adult might be wrong or make a mistake, should never give the child an opportunity to discover adult limitations, but that the adult should, on the contrary, conceal his or her weaknesses from the child and pretend to divine authority. Later, if this child becomes a patient, it might be that during analysis he will realize for the first time that something essential is being "taken away" from him, i.e., his own way of expressing himself, and that his analyst is treating him just as his parents did earlier when he was still too little to be conscious of it.  This is a form of psychological castration, which unfortunately may be repeated in analysis if the analyst assumes a didactic attitude. Even if he does not, it is still possible for the patient to experience him as the "castrating father" if he indeed had that kind of father. Only by granting the patient the right to do this and not regarding his fears as paranoid delusions but as a long overdue breakthrough of repressed perceptions can the analyst avoid taking the parent's castrating attitude and instead enable the patient to make "new discoveries." Alice Miller.

    I am not certain you can fully appreciate and bring in, the consequences we face in seeking help for our childhood mistreatment….when the therapy world is so backwards and hell-bent on theories that support the parent and discount the child's childhood as its root cause in our dysfunctional life. Not to mention the therapist themselves and their viewpoint upon their own childhood and HOW that alone will aid or prohibit us from finding our way back to our vital self.

    What Alice Miller shows me is the expansive view of where our troubles began and why and also how it is near impossible to find our way back to vitality IF the therapists are unable to reconcile their own lives with truth.

    It is like seeking the key to the cage from those in the cage with us.  Blind leading the blind, but with some who have more intellectual theories that are actually stopping us from finding the key.

    A very tricky landscape for sure.

    She confirms my suspicions in how someone could lead you out, if they themselves have not begun this journey.  I recognize and appreciate the book learned, but Alice also knows what I suspected…that the wrong leader/facilitator could lead you further away from your self.

    It appears it all boils down to the truth.

    If you can see yours, you will allow me to see mine.

     

     

     

  • Who is now a parent.

    Alice Miller writes in "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware"…

    "The consequences of sexual abuse however, are not restricted to problems in one's sexual life; they impair the development of the self and of an automous personality. There are several reasons why this is so:"

    1. To have one's helplessness and total dependency taken advantage of by the person one loves, by one's mother or father, at a very early age soon produces an interlinking of love and hate.

    2. Because anger toward the loved person cannot be expressed for the fear of losing that person and therefore cannot be lived out, ambivalence, the interlinking of love and hate, remains an important characteristic of later object relationships. Many people, for instance, cannot even imagine that love is possible at all without suffering and sacrifice, without fear of being abused, without being hurt and humiliated.

    3. Since the fact of abuse must be repressed for the sake of survival, all knowledge that would threaten to undo this repression must be warded off by every possible means, which ultimately results in an impoverishment of the personality and loss of vital roots, manifested, for example, in depression.

    4.The consequences of a trauma are not eliminated by repressing it but are actually reinforced. The inability to remember the trauma, to articulate it (i.e. to be able to communicate these earlier feelings to a supportive person who believes you), creates the need to articulate it in the repetition compulsion.

    5. The unremembered plight of being at someone else's mercy and being abused by a loved object is perpetuated either in a passive or an active role, or alternately in each.

    6. One of the simplest and completely unnoticed forms of perpetuation of the active role is abuse of one's children for one's own needs, which are all the more urgent and uncontrollable the more deeply repressed the original trauma.

    "I can imagine that this last point will bewilder many readers, who will angrily ask: Is the affection I show my child wrong, too?  is the love I have for my child also to be forbidden me? Of course this is not what I mean.  Physical attraction and affection are always part of love, and this has nothing to do with abuse. But parents who have had to repress the fact of having been abused and who have never consciously relived it can become very confused in this regard.they will either suppress their genuine feelings of affection for fear of seducing their child or they will unconsciously do the same with the child that was done to them, without having any idea of how much harm they are causing, since they themselves always had to distance themselves from their suffering. How can these parents be helped? There is probably no possibility of curing their compulsion to repeat without extensive therapy. It is indeed difficult for people who as children were the property of their parents to realize when they are treating their own children like their property.  Nevertheless, I see some hope if people becomes sensitive to the question, if they become conscious of these connections.  This assumes that a person can at least admit that his or her parents were not gods or angels but often deprived and emotionally very isolated people for whom their child was the sole permissible object for the discharge of the affect; these parents moreover, found justification for their behavior in various ideologies, including pedagogy and, not least of all even psychoanalysis with it's theory of "infantile sexuality."   Alice

     

    This explains, at least to me, the way abuse goes from one generation unto the next and how it is spread and why and then, what it will take for it to stop.

    This book has history of how we as a species have evolved…and until we see the child as innocent and not our property…we are going to NoT see how abuse is spread. 

    We will continue to teach good touch bad touch…while the parental role will go unnoticed…

    I find this chillingly tragically spot on…it is exactly as I know it to be true. 

    The parents are the grown child who has repressed his sexual abuse…the cycle goes on until you can see what you have repressed.

    The battle I feel I am fighting is for the plight of the innocent child…and what stands against me is the repressed victim who is now a parent.

    (The blueprint of sexual abuse within a family!)

     

  • Parents are unloving.

    When I have been contemplating and writing about everyday heroes, it came to me the twist between domestic violence campaign and how we view incest.  In the first we are raising awareness campaigns and urging them to leave the abusers.  And, in the second, children/adult children are made to feel heartless for leaving a family and even urged unwittingly to remain in the relationship.

    Why is it that we see a woman who escapes her abuser as being in a better place away from the abuse.

    And when a child leaves their family it isn't seen as kind or even beneficial to them.

    If divorcing a family was a socially acceptable option for being abused as a child, we would have much less stigma.

    Just as Freud found in the late 1800's, that when mistreatment of children caused hysteria in later years, he knew that the biggest obstacle he was up against wasn't the fact that his findings would not be accepted, but rather that the population wasn't willing to see the parents as responsible for a negative influence.

    What I have been banging my head against is the false positive read most have on parents.  Period.

    It doesn't matter the trauma they inflict, they remain in the light of love and honor; most refusing to lower them from their lofty stand.

    Animals in nature, who turn against their offspring are seen as an anomaly.

    Parents who strike out, are verbally abuse, as well as engage in sexual activities with their offspring are not granted this same title.

    And, those who see clearly this unnatural behavior are then labeled as the anomaly…and I guess we are. A small percentage of the population can even see the wrongness of sexual abuse WHEN it occurs In THEIR family.  

    Which makes denial among family abnormally normal…and those of us who can see the anomaly…not normal…among those whose normal is abnormal.

    Divorce is normal for those who have been victimized within a relationship of marriage…where the abuser fails change; the relationship must.

    Estrangement will someday be a normal extension of healing from childhood abuse… 

    It is not the disbelief of our sexual abuse, but rather the disbelief that parents are unloving.

     

     

     

  • What most stand up for.

    I have been asked to write a guest post of Response Ability…The RESPONSE ABILITY® Project empowers people to intervene in problem situations and be an Every|Day Hero.

    And I have sent in three drafts so far.  

    The tough part is that in order to be a hero in your own life and deal with your sexual abuse by a father, you have to destroy the kind father image you carried.  The imaginary life, the only one you have grown-up with will be shattered. And, secondary, most of us in society don't want to hear or see someone trashing family; we see that as being disrespectful. So, then the question becomes how do you exit your family who abused you without injuring them?

    Is there a kind and gentle way to leave them or for them to leave you as you speak and break the silence?  Will the exit not be as hard as the initial abuse, minus the lure and grooming?  

    How do you be an everyday hero in a family that depends upon your silence?

    Somehow the old heroes of abuse were to suck it up and forgive and forget…that those who can withstand the abuse are seen as stronger than those of us who leave. A family who can support, defend and uphold the abusive parents are more loving and kind, than those whose lives are dedicated to ending the abuse of future generations.

    Something is very backwards.

    To be an everyday hero in your life, you will become the enemy of the family.

    Society will often stand with the family and works equally as hard to hold it together, while the victim is left standing alone; untreated.

    The treatment that will help alleviate the affects of abuse is for others to see the monster who wounded us; and not to see him or treat him as a father.

    I am often accused of focusing on the evil and not trying to emphasize the good…like it would be helpful and restore our family IF I could do this.

    Would it restore me?  

    Is it helpful in my recovery to not see the abuse?

    Can you change the pattern of abuse by not seeing it there?

    There is a very weird phenomena that is present with sexual abuse within a family that is unlike any other human affliction.  When cancer is in your body, we are not asked to stand by the cancer or be with it or like it or focus on its good parts.  And, yet when sexual abuse from a father enters, it appears reasonable people lose their reason.

    Sexual abuse from a stranger is easier to find solutions to.  You can simply stay away from that stranger, not invite him to the holidays and no one is freaked by it…in fact, they would be horrified if you did.  It would appear you were insane to want to have a relationship with this stranger who abused you.

    And, yet, the fact that the sexual predator is your father, you are expected to do just that.

    How can we keep the rules, if you wil,l for healing be the same IF the perpetrator is related to you or your 'friend'?  How can we explore and figure out the dynamics that victims encounter when the abuse comes from within?

    I see the everyday hero as being the one who will stand up in the family and not sit in silence.  I see a hero who will give up her family in order to stop the abuse from flowing to the next generation.

    The only way abuse ends is when we end the denial that it is happening.

    When we stop enabling and supporting and forgiving those who harm us.

    When we put up boundaries and raise our voices in saying I require more in my relationships.

    My mother modeled for me how to keep abuse alive and well in her home for 49 years and its consequence was that my father had a victims for over 4 decades that he called family…and their friends.

    How do you model a different behavior without acting different?  Is it possible for the words to be spoken, but no action taken and it be the change the family needs?

    Here is what I know.  Words were spoken to my father, about my father, among others of my father, but no words were spoken to the children from my mother…about my father and his sexual desires with little girls.  

    And, more importantly, no actions were taken that removed him from our home.

    No heroes arose for the victims.

    And, the victims themselves did not speak up… until the second generation…and it changed very little within the family.  

    And the ones who did make changes, were criticized for it.  They are not heroes.

    The outspoken victims are expected to speak up, but there is no expectation of the family being dismantled.

    They want our voices of truth and integrity but to find forgiveness and kindness towards those who hurt you.

    Again, if this was a stranger who raped you, you would not be asked to do this…or to spend holidays and invite them to weddings.

    How can we elevate the victim into empowerment and allow the family structure to crumble and be okay with it.  I am.

    For, It wasn't me who assembled the soddy foundation of family.  

    My parents designed our family by what they put into it and what they paid attention to and how they responded within. The family was damaged by my father's hand and my mother who looked away…not by me saying so.

    We all contribute ourselves to the family.  The family is only as good as what each individual brings to it. 

    The problem of sexual abuse within a family is a hard one to solve or to intervene in, for you are stepping on hallowed ground. This is the juxtaposition all victims are dealing with when they even begin to consider speaking their truths…you know you will face the wrath of family…and lose their love.

    Heroes in sexual abuse with family members are the ones who deserve the most support and are given none…or little.

    I believe that what messes with our heads and hearts the most is that the family continues on, regardless of our abuse.  

    Like nothing truly happened to us.  

    I am not certain I can write for the Response Ability. For my ability to respond tampers with the ideals of family and the 5th commandment.  I am going against what most stand up for.

     

     

     

     

     

  • The Baseline for how we live.

    In Alice Miller's book, "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" she writes about groups and our need to belong. 

    "How can it be explained psychologically that the same person who exhibits so much acumen and critical judgment concerning his enemies at the same time retains a touching, childlike loyalty and submissiveness vis-a-vis the dictates of his own group? Anyone who knows what it means to belong to a group knows how critical this membership can sometimes seem. Even a brief contact with a group can give one of feeling of maternal warmth, of a good symbiosis with the mother, never experienced before, which makes on feel secure yet at the same time free and comfortable to express oneself satisfactorily. This is how it actually would have been had there been a good symbiosis with the mother. But since a group is only a substitute, the search for what is missing can never stop. In order for this to happen, a process of mourning would have to take place. Every form of addiction, instead of doing away with the old longing, simply perpetuates the tragedy by repeating it. A glass of whiskey or a cigarette that can be held in the hand, set aside when not needed, and immediately reached for when needed, establishes the comfortable feeling that an available mother can give. Since the real mother was not available, however (or the child would not have become addicted as an adult), the child was not permitted to experience either a good symbiosis or a liberating separation and remains dependent for the rest of his life on the image of an ideal mother he wishes for but never had. the addictive substance thus provides not only a feeling of comfort but also the torments of dependency."

    "When a group takes over this ersatz role, although it gives the illusion of being an ideal mother, it mercilessly requires the same adaptation to its demands that the real mother once did. Since the origins of this situation reach back to the early beginnings of life, a person will have a hard time recognizing his predicament."
                                                                                                                    Alice

    What Alice Miller does in her writings, are to show the whys of our behaviors and that we don't just do things without a cause.  We are literally seeking that which we missed and are often blind to what is missing…while seeking it.

    Like craving something, not knowing what it is, but finding its substitute and believing you found it.

    Her depiction of what happens when a mother and child relationship is incorrect and what it means in the choices we make, is remarkable.  It is the baseline for how we live.

     

  • I had denied Me.

    In a comment on the Extoots blog post about Labels and the ensuing discussion about being judged by them, a comment struck me.  "If it isn't being said, then it doesn't exist."

    This technique is literally the blueprint of denial;  and the co-operation it takes to keep it in motion.  

    Denial isn't played alone, you need two people to not say what is happening.  Two people to not address and delve deeply into what is not being said, but what you both know is present…

    Two, who know something isn't right, but neither wants to know know know it exists.

    And unspoken agreement to not know.

    In our family arrangement of denial, you can't have one spouting off what isn't talked about and continue in the usual relationships.  

    The ones who don't want to say it exists and then have to consider the consequences that it would require; back up and talk less and less to you.  It isn't about you, but about what they don't want to know exists.

    I lived in this land for 46 years, where it was almost near impossible to say what wasn't being said…to the point considering talking about it, never was an option.

    And, I am not talking about abuse, but just things you know about another, but never bring up.  Or the way you feel about another, but not say.  Instead you agree to not talk about the differences, in order to get along.

    The church also uses this same co-operative denial, in the application of forgiveness of sins. Where we are not to bring up the sin…so if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist.

    Now, if this is how we were raised in general, then it makes it rougher to talk about the abuse; to break the silence…to no longer co-operate in denial.

    My family doesn't know how to talk to me…for I don't play their game of silence.

    However, they talk about the unspoken, but just not to the person they have the trouble with.  Or at least this is how it used to be when I was part of the family.  You don't tell the truth to the one you are with; but about the one who isn't there.  

    How often do you hear, "I would never tell it to their face…"?

    I know there are more agreed denial relationships than ones who leave nothing left unsaid.

    I had a tough time, leaving denial.  I had to work hard to say what needed to be said and to feel the fear and say it anyway.  To speak of the unspeakable and live from there, and not placate myself and others by not being uncomfortable.  

    I had tons of uncomfortable unsaid things; for I had a built a life upon what wasn't said. And, in the end, we all know how that turned out. 

    It was what wasn't said that was the truth.

    My fear of my father…unsaid.

    My questioning the religion…unsaid.

    My absence of warm feelings towards my mother…unsaid.

    If you look at who I was compared to what I said.  I lived as the unsaid me, which was false.  The real me, that I left unsaid, was too afraid of what wasn't spoken…

    And, rightly so.

    When I started to speak from the 'unsaid' side, I was speaking my truth and I started to exist along side of it.

    How interesting is that.

    In the land of unspoken, the real me ceased to exist as well.

    What frightened me the most, was that I knew my first 46 years were built upon nothing…and I had no idea of who I really was.

    I had denied Me.

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    Quilt owned by Northern Lights Clubhouse.

     

     

     

  • Discarding the lives of children

    The only way abuse wins, is if we accept the disgrace.

    The stigma of being sexually abused comes from the way others look at you….and can only be overcome when you look at yourself differently.  Changing their minds will not help with how you feel.  And is an impossible task.

    It is, as the wise men say, an inside job. Love, peace and joy come from within.  It isn't about how others see you, but how you see you.

    I don't see myself as a disgrace. 

    I do see though, how the stigma of abuse is created and upheld, and it isn't by strangers or folks who don't know.  Just as abuse is most often with family members or people we know, so is our stigma.

    One man's disgrace is another's man's hero.

    Interestingly, I have felt both. 

    Accolades for speaking out and sharing my journey…and disgrace.

    You would think, that my family, would be the one handing out the accolades…that my biggest cheerleaders would be from those who knew me best. Instead, it is the opposite.

    The environment within dysfuctional families leave little room for healing…okay, no room.

    I knew there wasn't a spot I could stand upon where they would see my innocence…the lens upon me always had me being the problem.

    The only way back in, is to give up my innocence and give it to my parents.

    The cost in doing so would be my sanity.

    I see this phenomena of holding the parents in the highest regards as the biggest obstacle in eliminating or reducing the stigma of abuse.

    When will we begin to see the numbers of abusers, that they equal or surpass the number of the abused, for each of us or most have two parents in the mix.  The stigma will be carried by the children until we turn our gaze upward towards those who started this…and those who knew and did nothing. Reported nothing… 

    In my family home, a father abused. A mother knew and was unable to respond in a healthy way. Uncles were abusive. Neighbors were abusive.  And, the children were taught, "not to go to that house" and yet the abuse flourished.

    Never were the adults in these homes held accountable.

    Never did they wear the cloak of disgrace for allowing or being abusive.

    They continue to wear "Good Christian" or at least Christian….labels.

    Parents are taken care of, included, believed, loved…understood, defended…no matter what. And, who is looking at the abused child?  Who is caring for their wounds?  Who is turning away from the parents…the adults who are acting disgraceful?

    We all participate in helping the stigma, each time we defend or stand with excuses ready for the abusers.  Each time you turn your gaze away from the child you are part of the problem.  You are sentencing a child into disgrace.

    We are the problem.

    Stigma is created by those looking on.  Not by those who have been abused.

    We don't manufacture disgrace…we are subjected to it.

    It is as Alice Miller writes about…the biggest problem when we are taught that good children "Love and Honor thy parents…"  Without first seeing if they are deserving.

    This blanket of love and honor they sleep under no matter what, is the wall that keep innocent children out.  

    Where is the innocent blanket for the child?  When do they get that….? Oh, I know, when you become a parent, all your sins and abusive behavior will be hidden behind this veil. 

    The church, society and we all….believe in the sanctity of parents…while discarding the lives of children.

     

     

     

  • You are not Innocent.

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

    I needed to know how I had marked this family.

    "Disgrace"

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

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

    Yet how?

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

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

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

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

    Carry the black mark of disgrace.

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

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

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

    I cannot get rid of it myself.  

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

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

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

    Before I even arrive my ill gotten reputation proceeds me.

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

    Me.

    Not my father.

    Me.

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

    A was convicted and tried in the family court.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I will live as disgrace in their minds.

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

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

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

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

    I stand wrongly convicted.

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

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

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     Nature has been one of my greatest healing places…