I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • Coat of Expectations

    Every now and again, a ghost of my old self arrives in the present…"there but the Grace of God go I"…

    It was discerning and uncomfortable, enlightening and affirming…as the new me felt how impossible it was for the two energies to mix. 

    The old me was totally engaged in the future, planning and controlling this moment of time to assure a more peaceful tomorrow, by delivering expecations like garments we all were suppose to wear.  It mattered not if we would be uncomfortable wearing them, we would appear better if we did.  Our self we were in this moment of time, was not good enough.

    I found it perplexing and engaging to witness this.

    How thoroughly engulfed in the future she was…her mind would not accept us as we were.

    This controlling the future, kept her from just being with us.

    That was me.

    It is denying this moment…escaping the here and now and the what is, preparing for a better tomorrow.  You can never relax and just be…nor can anyone in your presence. She is looking for your plans and controls…or is looking to plan and control your world.

    It was so uncomfortable to be your self in her presence, for it was different from what she wanted.  And when I didn't race to fit her expectations, long silent pauses filled the room.

    I used to be real good at making the uncomfortable comfortable, of being that someone that others needed me to be…forsaking myself to wear their coat of expecation.

  • Bond of Our Whole Truth.

    "Trauma into Truth – Gutsy Healing and Why It's Worth It" By Rythea Lee

    This book is small but packed full of affirmations for my journey…and she sees what I see, feels what I have felt…makes me feel normal through her sharing of her own experiences.

    She answers the question, "Who are your witnesses?"

    "I found an enlightened witness when I was most unnerved. She looked quite normal but she had this unusual capacity to let me unravel.  I came apart somewhat dramatically and it was almost as if she smiled because she knew I was coming together. But she didn't smile, she made a space so large and quiet that when she spoke, it reverberated into my suspicion.  She was unafraid and that was a gift."

    "It has become clear to me through the years that anyone can become a therapist. Anyone can go to graduate school, graduate with a degree, obtain a license, and saddle up with top-notch theories. Anyone can charge a bundle, sit on a wicker chair and look interested.  I've met some of these anyones."

    "My first official therapist assisted me in retrieving a repressed memory, rallied me through the grueling process of naming the face of my tormentor, and then announced that she didn't believe me. After devastating consequences, I came to learn that she did this with her clients as a regular practice. How lovely!"

    "I swore off therapy for life but then in desperation began interviewing professionals like a mad woman.  The process of asking questions and screening down the finalists lead me to a single question posed to each candidate, "Have you done your own healing?"  Out of the large number of therapists, one woman told me then and there that a healer cannot heal unless she has healed herself first.  Over many years of rock solid support, she proved to me how true that statement was."  Rythea

     

    My initial gut instinct as to be wary, very wary okay downright suspicious of therapists.  I intuitively understood that if they hadn't traveled via experience into their own childhoods searching for the truth, how in the world could they help me with mine.  

    It didn't mean that they had to walk my same journey, but that they had to have walked theirs.  Book learning doesn't equal experience.  

    Reading about betrayal, pain, or suffering, certainly doesn't equate with being a first hand learner of it. And it isn't so much experiencing or feeling the expressions of emotions, but then how did you right your world?  How did you free yourself from the grips of dysfunction?  How were you able to be a separated being?

    What we do need is someone who can let us unravel without them being afraid…knowing we are not falling apart and breaking, but that we are "coming together"…and willing to witness and let us be our truth, no matter what it is.


    Under the question "What if I don't want to remember what it was like to be a child?", she writes.

    "You were a baby, you were a toddler, you were a young child, a teenager a budding adult.  On a physiological level you remember it all.  Each moment is stored somewhere in your brain, every cough, whisper, and breath, whether you consciously remember it or not."

    "Sometimes I look at a friend or client and see the little girl or boy they once were.  Their laugh, facial expression, or gesture has distinct childish qualities that are unmistakable.  Even a person's voice can change from responsible adult to a higher pitched tone and there it is, that innocence."

    "Alice Miller is one of my heroes.  She has written prolifically on the subject of child abuse and how it gets passed down from one generation to the next through cultural and familial denial.  She asserts that any individual who has not spent time unearthing the child they once were, coming to understand what it was like to be defenseless and vulnerable, will pass unresolved remembrances onto their children or loved ones.  She has made it her life's work to prove that this is so."

    "They did the best they could" is a phrase people use to dismiss the betrayals, abandonment, and violations they suffered.  They do not want to go back and feel the raw emotion from the past.  They believe it is easier to forget.  But if you take a good look at someone's life, someone who doesn't want to look into their past, you can usually see the consequences of that choice.  They are usually running scared, sprinting as fast as they can from what is screaming the loudest."  Rythea Lee


    I love that we both agree with Alice Miller a very controversial therapist of her time and I believe she still is so today.  I too feel that this is my life's work, to share what I can about the pathology of abuse, how the patterns and legacy are repeated out of not dealing with the truth of YOUR parents.  If you can't see them in their true light, you will never begin to heal from the abuse.  

    Whether you agree with Alice Miller or Rythea Lee, reality has proven these two women to be correct.  Our society at large is paying the consequences of therapy practices that don't demand going back and feeling the truth of our childhoods. 

    By eliminating this one very crucial step, we have the repetition of our parents lives being played out…due not only to familial denial, cultural denial but that our therapist may be taught lots of theories in books, but are not made to travel back and heal their own childhoods.

    Perhaps our planet would be better served if the prerequisite for being a therapist was to have corrected your familial denial.  For, how can you possibly expect another to do what you haven't done, OR help them to get where you haven't been?

    I love that I am in good company, that these two women are echoing my sentiments…and that we are not in the majority, but the minority. It truly is the path least traveled…and the one that can stop the legacy from dripping into the generations beneath us.  We are the only ones who can stop the dysfunctional pattern of our parents from bleeding on to our children.  

    When asked if Rythea was healed, she answered this way.

    "Yes, I am.  My history no longer dictates how I live my life or how I feel about myself." I smiled because some evolved part of me had answered the question."

    "I still hurt, I still struggle, I still have inner mulch to make art about (relationships, politics, potato chips), but now there is a place I tap into that is absolutely independent of my wounds and sufferings.  The process of coming to full-bodied grips with my past has tipped the scales from unconscious reactions to a reality that moves from a deeper unscarred knowing. This is my evidence that there is rhyme and reason to dismantling our false beliefs, getting to the bottom of our self blame." Rythea

    Perhaps healing is having two places within you…the wound and the space where you can now react to life, instead of being in the swirling patterns of a dysfunctional legacy.

    IMG_3178

    We can't take the wound out of us, but we can learn to live life consciously creating a new pattern.

    A pattern called truth.  

    Where our mind, body and soul are all joined together by the strong bond; our whole truth.

     

  • Wreckage We Called Family.

    Rythea Lee's book, "Trauma into Truth – Gutsy Healing and Why It's Worth It."

    She has words and her Art…she answers questions that she was asked most often…it is an artful book.

    Here is one section that popped out to me, having just experienced an encounter with my mother.  Rythea knows my view.

    The question: "Was it Lonely?"

    "Lonely like a solitary walk down a long wooded pathway.  Lonely like the sting of cold air when your warm hand lets go of mine.  Lonely as if I am entering a park full of busy unrecognizable people.  I have felt this sweet kind of lonely."

    "Then there was the lonely of sitting across the dinner table looking at my mother and sensing something was wrong. A wall, an electric fence, a city of buildings, an entire continent between us. She had hurt me early on but now she was smiling at me.  Her arms had not held me when I was tiny and crying but now she smiled at me as if we were close.  I told myself lies in order to feel one with her.  I said she would never hurt me, she didn't mean to, it never happened, I'm crazy, and clearly we are close, look at how her eyes water when she smiles at me.  I created vats of fantasies setting off warm fuzzies within me, living inside them completely."

    " All the fantasies in the world could not eradicate my terror. That kind of loneliness was deadly.  The loneliness of sitting across from someone who supposedly adores you and feeling sheer terror.  That kind of loneliness would undo me.  So I went away and learned to live with a lonely that had congruence.  I was alone, I was without the woman who had given birth to me. I was leaping into a void of unknown solitude but I could live with that loneliness.  It was a lonely that made sense." Rythea

    I get what Rythea means.  I love that she can separate the two lonely places…and how one makes sense and the other is sheer terror.  

    Underneath the question, "Is healing a selfish Act?" she writes.

    "There have been countless days when I wanted my life to be different. I wanted my parents to be different parents, my siblings to be different siblings, my path to be a different path.  I went so far as to pretend the abuse I suffered did not exist.  I was willing to blot out any inkling of unrest just to have a family, to be part of the only home I had ever known."

    "Was it selfish to choose the truth above all else, even security?  Was it selfish to dive into years of grief and longing to give birth to the only self available to me, me?"

    "Selfish would have been passing the abuse on to my children, my loved ones, my partner.  Selfish would have been carrying the denial into the next generation. Selfish would have been becoming angry, scared, small, withheld person who never healed, who did not find her clear unique voice."

    "If I did not choose to remember the violence, the sexual abuse, the loss, the crazy-making epicenter of my childhood, I would not know who I am.  I would not have have harbored the tools of self-responsibility that enabled me to be in service to other survivors.  I would not have grasped, down to the bone, the kind of atrocities people live through and been able to offer my understanding."

    "The time it has taken to recover my essence has been a long, indescribably challenging road. I wanted to skip the journey and go into hiding.  I craved addictions and self destructive acts that would turn off the stark reality of what people do to children. But then, in the quiet place of faith, I sensed that love was growing.  Every day it grew in the compost of my terror. Amidst the wreckage of what people call "The American Family" stood a figure unafraid.  I had something to give and it had not died."  Rythea.

    I so know the feelings of being thought of as being selfish, as I don't wave, as I drive past, as I keep my eyes, mind and soul focused on healing. How my behavior today and my actions are cited as being worse than my fathers abuse, I know.

    I know what it means to dive into years of grief and longing.  Only those who have sought healing know the pain and echoing feelings of craving family…when you head out to save the only one you can….you.

    I also know that it would have been very selfish and self absorbing to not at least try and change the pattern…to protect the generations below you, to stop the legacy from continuing to your children's children.  It wasn't for me, that I began this journey, my sights originally were upon my children. For me…it seemed it was too late.  Yet, in being self less, I found me.

    In finding me, I am setting up a new pattern…one where when I look into my children's eyes, they will not shudder in fear…nor will I sit in guilt for not doing something.

    Rythea is another huge affirmation on my journey…

    I love too, how she felt the love begin to grow. Feeling that love, and experiencing joy, is truly what keeps us going.  Through the days and weeks and years of grieving about the wreckage we called family.

    Thanks again Rythea for understanding me.  Now I know, for you are me.


  • Result of Hostility.

    The chance encounter with my mother, was a snapshot of my relationship with her, the fleeting casual wave as she drove on…into her destination where she wasn't challenged, but rather accepted without question from the little girls.

    Driving by the one who wants, okay demands the truth.  Wanting her voice and her history to reflect reality, wanting my mother to stop and ask…she toddle lu waves and heads into the driveway where it is now easier to be a grandmother than mother, let alone woman.  Pushing past the uncomfortable for comfort from the children.

    I looked up the word estrangement.  "Alienation: separation resulting from hostility."  I believe I have been looking upon my estrangement as something that started with me.  That I 'decided' to leave…but not that I was leaving due to the hostile environment. My separation came as a result from hostility.  I didn't create the hostility I left due to the hostility.

    I didn't leave my parents due to a difference of opinions.  I left and separate resulting from hostility.

    I looked up Hostility too. "Hostile behavior; unfriendliness or opposition."

    Beneath it were the synonyms of animosity, antagonism, ill will.

    I knew that I was pushing back while hollering loudly… backing up and leaving, BUT those behaviors were due to what I was feeling there.  I was feeling the hostility, unfriendliness and ill will.  I wasn't backing up because there was too much love.

    I was backing up because there was no love.

    The attention was on me backing up, MY Estrangement, not why I was separating even though I knew the cause.  Like my nephew used to say when he was a little boy, "This isn't my poor choice!"  

    I also believe that in dysfunctional families that hostility is the answer to the truth.

    We are afraid to say our truths for the way others will react.  It isn't the truth we are afraid of but, the Hostility to follow.

    In loving homes, truth isn't met with hostility.  

    I wasn't able to bring my truth in…not without there being hostility.

    Even among my sisters, some turned very hostile, when I continued and still continue to speak of reality. While they are defending their parents and saying they did their best, they don't know they are being hostile to me.

    The way of dysfunctional families is to turn hostile on the truth in defense of the lies and illusions.

    I separted from my family as the result of hostility. 


     

  • Passed me by.

    Iyanla Vanzant and Oprah held a Life Class on Guilt…I heard it on Sirius Radio as I drove along on the mail route.

    Iyanla said, "You cannot forgive a Lie."  

    I know this is right.  

    What I need first is the truth, without the truth, what would I be forgiving?

    The definition of forgiveness that I heard long ago from Martha Beck goes something like this… "Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past can be any different."

    If you sit with that awhile, it is about being truthful.  When you are truthful you are forgiving.  

    Ironically or not, near the end of my route, as I just completed shutting the mailbox and getting ready to pull back on the road, I checked my rearview mirror first and then up ahead.  A dark grey vehicle was approaching me and a grey haired woman was driving, she waves…and as she comes abreast of me, I realize it is my mother. I pull out and drive on to the next mail box….no wave.

    No wave, nor was there any other deep seeded emotion.  

    No anger, rage, disgust, nothing.

    Two women on two different paths…meeting.  She in her life and I in mine.

    In the past, an encounter with my mother would leave me rattled.  Was it due to the fact, we had vehicles between us and the open road?  Or is because I no longer have negative energy being held in her memory inside of me?  I can't know.

    I didn't feel compelled to stop or to wave, nor did my emotional body change.

    I didn't go into a childlike state of wishing or lamenting.

    I wasn't moved in any direction, beside to continue doing that which I was doing before I came upon her.

    I felt it best I write about it, to make sure I noted our crossing…to be with it awhile. To honor it. To feel it.  To be with it awhile.

    I believe, that I have forgiven her, for I have seen her truth.  

    I am no longer wishing that the past was different.  

    I am no longer wishing she was different.

    My last glance of her, was when I drove by the house she was entering, my brothers. She was with many of his little girls walking beside her.  A grandmother with her granddaughters.

    My lost family continues, without me.

    Her wave was like a toddle lu wave, a jaunty little greeting…she had to have seen me first, my blinking mail light flashing…and she is way okay driving by a daughter she hasn't seen in over six years.

    The wave and our estrangement seems to fight each other, or perhaps not.

    That is the wave you give to a stranger you once knew.

    Me…I didn't even have a chance to raise my hand, for it took a few seconds to recognize her and by then, she had passed me by.





  • Lost the Consequences.

    The hardest part of being a mom for me is to be the consequence lady, to remember that I am in control, that I do have the ability to pull things away; instead of being the fish on the line, I can be the one holding the line.  When I lose control, I LOSE control of me.  

    I am a slow learner, I will wiggle angrily on the line, feeling that I am being jerked and toyed with, before asking how I got here and when did I let go of the pole?

    How did I allow my child to be in charge of me?  

    When I feel out of control inside, most likely I have given up control of me.  I have slipped beneath the surface and am hanging on the line…wishing and hoping things would be different…a victim snagged.

    Mothering has taught me to control myself, rather than try to control my kids. As soon as I believe that my child controls my temper, we are both lost. 

    First I wrestled with reality and then I turned inside and tried to settle my anger, and then I realized, I can make a difference in my son's life by eliminating the perks he enjoys…making a consequence for his actions. 

    As soon as I did this the world balanced out.

    He is in charge of how he acts.

    I am in charge of the consequence.

    Empowerment replaced helplessness…by taking control of me…and releasing his behavior to him.

    I knew as I rode around and around on the lawn mower, that I was the one who cared more.  And, the one who cares the least, has the most power.  First I tried not caring that he wasn't doing his work. That didn't work.

    Then, I tried not caring about doing the mom thing, that didn't work.

    Then it dawned on me to not care if he had privileges..that worked.

    I can't care more about his life then him.

    And I learned when I am out of control… I have lost the consequences.

  • Mini Vacation

    I am on a three day weekend, a mini vacation. I wanted to do relaxing fun things for at least two of my three days.  I spent my first day with my daughter, we seen an Art Show and shopped…had lunch.  It was nice to spend time with her.  I didn't take any pictures of our day together…it was a day of ease.

    Yesterday I drove to visit a friend…a few surprises awaited me.  And I did pull out my camera…

    IMG_8315
    Here is her inviting deck…an outdoor room.  A bright spot added to her home.


    IMG_8309
    And I spotted these rocks around her flower garden…painted by her and her twin daughters. She had told me they were into painting rocks and had sold some while camping.  LIVE LOUD is a favorite.  Art and inspiring.

    IMG_8310

    And here are her laying hens cooling in the shade. Well, her husband's.  They love to eat flowers and are still too young to lay eggs.  In the fall she will have fresh eggs.

    IMG_8313

    We then drove a few miles and arrived at Lake Superior…

    IMG_8319
    A picture perfect beach…

    IMG_8320

    Prepared to spend the afternoon.  Just relax and enjoy!  Soaking up Nature.

    IMG_8329
    We had company at our spot later in the day…her daughters, a cousin and friend. Always amazed at how empty this beautiful sandy beach is…like a private island paradise. 

    IMG_8325

    IMG_8331
    Nature's gifts for us to enjoy…and we did.  

    Days of family, friends, Art and Nature…life.

  • Seen and Understood.

    "The people who have lost their parents and families due to abuse deserve the utmost respect and support. These people have risked it all to heal and stand up for the truth. These people are heroes and angels who hold a horrific reality for everyone else. They have suffered and escaped, and for that, I bow my head in reverence."  Rythea Lee

    What I love about her writtings, is how she totally gets it from the point of view of the abused; how we lost our parents and families due to abuse.  What a different perspective compared to how most see me…as leaving a family…and not that I lost a family.

    Slight is the angle of words, yet how vast is the difference. One blames me, the other corrects that.

    One seems to set me as uncaring…like if I cared enough I could have a family.

    That a family is still there waiting, not a collection of toxic relationships.

    Vital is the difference in understanding, there is no family there.

    No nurturing loving cove.

    I love how she writes, "hold a horrific reality for everyone else"  Yes, that seems perfect to me.  Nice to be acknowledge from the outside.

    Rythea also writes, "We do not live in a world where abuse is acknowledged and dealt with as an epidemic, relentless, radical situation.  If we did, there would be systems of support that help families, children, and adult survivors prevent and heal from trauma. There would be programs in schools teaching children about abuse and encouraging them to speak up about things that are happening to them. There would be extensive programs for all parents to learn and share about abuse prevention and treatment. There would be funding put forward for a complete revamping of our foster care system, which, as it is, does not protect children in foster care. The entire mentality of “family” would be questioned and explored in our communities and organizations to foster support at every level of functioning."

    I love that she too uses the word epidemic…and that it is relentless.  Very few acknowledge the volume, even when the numbers are as she writes, "One out of 4 girls and one out of 6 boys will experience contact sexual abuse by the age of 18 (Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, 2005). This statistic should cause the kind of alarm that is aimed at war and environmental break -down. What could be more important than a child’s safety? Isn’t it obvious that child abuse becomes the stem of violence that pervades our nation and beyond?"

    I love her frankness and where she directs her focus.  I feel the weight of blame being directed at me, changing course.  Just reading, that I lost a family, I didn't leave one, makes my body relax…I always felt it was no different than losing them all in a tragic accident…yet they are not dead. 

    I bow my heart in thanks, for getting our walk…and for you caring enough to write your experience of seeing me. It feels good to be seen and understood.

     

    These quotes were written by Rythea Lee. Her new book Trauma into Truth: Gutsy Healing and Why It’s Worth It is available at Amazon.com. Rythea Lee has a private practice in Northampton, Massachusetts and teaches workshops and classes for healing and self-expression. You can read more about her and her dance theatre company, the Zany Angels, at http://www.zanyangels.com . You can also see Rythea Lee perform on youtube.

  • Final Act of Abuse.

    I have permission from Rythea Lee, to use her article "Leaving the Family System" – An Honorable Choice" here on my blog.  There were so many things I wanted to unpack in this article.

    The first paragraph alone.

    By Rythea Lee

    As a therapist, I have worked with people who have been beaten, raped, psychologically tormented, severely neglected, and in many other ways profoundly betrayed by their parents or family members. Never, in my 15 years of working with people, have I heard of one of these abusers taking responsibility for what they did. Most of the time, my client is the one person in the family who is dealing with the abuse. The rest of the family and extended family refuse to talk about the incidents. Frequently, they belittle the truth teller, depict them as the one in the wrong, and even call them crazy. These clients over years of time, experience blame, shaming, walls of silence, verbal attacks, and are disowned if they continue to try and bring up the subject of past abuse. Many clients pretend the abuse never happened in order to stay close to family members while secretly suffering from the horrors of the damage. Most people don’t realize how common the pattern is- the one who remembers loses everything. The one who got hurt carries all the pain. The one who was a child victim is victimized again as an adult. It is wrong and it happens everyday."

    She affirms my experience. It isn't that I am a special case or that my family has acted differently than most, we are like her clients.  It isn't unusual…however it certainly doesn't make healing from sexual abuse within a family an easy journey.

    It feels good to have a therapist recognize this.

    She goes on to say;

    "Some survivors of abuse who come to terms with the atrocities of their childhood recognize that some family members if not all of them are too toxic to be in contact with. In more blatant terms, some people recognize that crimes have been committed and no justice has been served. There is an understanding that a child’s life was threatened and damaged, that the abuse caused lasting physical, emotional, sexual, relational, and energetic effects. When this reality is faced, usually after years of intense therapy, some people choose to cut off contact with direct offenders or portions of their families, for months, years, or forever."

    It is when you come to terms with the atrocities of your childhood, that you are then looking at who performed them, that you then have to step back, ask for space…knowing that not only abused happened, but your life is now filled with issues due to it.  You simply can't afford to allow any more abuse while you are trying to rid yourself of its affects.  Taking back your life and setting up boundaries is in my opinion, a crucial act of choice.  Choice is one tool that helps us regain our power.

    Most have no real understanding, WHY we have to leave our families in order to heal, the two paragraphs above help explain why.  Perhaps hearing this from a therapist and not a survivor will lend a different view.  

    Here is her third paragraph.

    "What I have witnessed as a therapist is that this boundary is essential for some survivors of abuse. The healing really begins once this boundary is made. Once they have clearly decided that the perpetrators behavior is not healthy for them to connect with, they are then ready to feel, express, open up, and trust themselves and others. For these people, pretending or ignoring the abuse is not an option."

    It is true, you are only ready to feel, express and open up and trust yourself, AFTER you set up the boundaries.  You can't do this while nestled in the dysfunctional family unit.  Your body and soul KNOW it isn't safe to do so.  I also love, "pretending or ignoring the abue is not an option."  It wasn't for me.  However, I do believe IT IS and option for many. I have witnessed this, as incredible as it seems, most choose this option.

    I will stop for today, at this fourth one.

    "It is important to say that the decision to cut off family is an incredibly painful one that comes with huge losses that are hard to imagine from the outside. It is one of the hardest choices a survivor will make. We live in a culture, in a world, where family is everything. Parents who abuse are protected in our culture. Once doors are closed, parents can get away with almost anything. People who do not speak to family lose all resources- money and all financial safety nets, comfort, basic support, tribe, belonging, and roots. Not only that but they become “different” than most others in the world, are shunned and isolated for an act of survival and self-preservation. Some friends of survivors feel such discomfort when facing the reality of what can happen in families that they lobby for the norm that families must stick together. Once again, instead of the survivor getting support, they get misunderstanding and criticism."

    She has depicted my journey…she is right, we "once again, instead of the survivor getting support, they get misunderstanding and criticism."

    The very thing we need to survive, IS the very thing they use to berate us.

    "Not only that but they become “different” than most others in the world, are shunned and isolated for an act of survival and self-preservation."

    In what other recovery, is this necessary?  

    It is hard to explain, but after abuse we are already precariously balanced, and it almost seems that we get further abused for trying to come to terms with it, for standing by our truth, we are shunned and isolated.  Leaving us alone with an abused psyche and a life that is filled with vestiges of our abuse; relationships and beliefs, religions to name a few.  

    Our asses get kicked while leaving…like the families final act of abuse.

    Rythea has a website, http://www.zanyangels.com


  • The Churches Stance of Innocent.

    S.M.A.R.T.  Has another article, "False Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse are Rare"

    False allegations of child sexual abuse by children are rare

    I feel that in society, the numbers are flipped, that the overall sentiment, is that you can't trust a child's words; and that  adults lie rarely.  

    I have even felt the skeptism as I talk about abuse, that the overall push back is that I have to work harder to convince that my words are truthful, that there is an uphill climb to get folks to believe.  

    And I surely can understand the bend we are trying to unbend.  

    Using Joe Paterno as an example…it is up to us to go against the legendary status already in place, to take an image of a person and add bits to their reality, which they have worked to keep covered, OR like Joe Paterno, their lives were lived large, the few instances of knowing and doing nothing seemed so small.

    I know that it seems incredible that credible people do unimaginable things.  

    But they do.

    In my experience, the image of Pete Torola was like that of Joe Paterno, perhaps he didn't have a statue, instead they built a monstrous church; his castle.  His history as being the leader of the church was what we have to take down.  He too knew about various stories of sexual abuse and did nothing. Didn't report one to my knowledge.  He is remembered as the preacher of the FALC, not as a man who knew and did nothing. I for one would love to see his history reflected in the truth.

    This is the push we have to go against, we the children/adult children of sexual abuse…as we are reporting incidences.  It isn't that the crime isn't so big, BUT the image of the man we are naming is of epic proportions in comparison to our lives.

    Trying to convince my mother, that my experience of her husband, wasn't her experience of her husband, never happened.  

    The imbalance between the child whose life doesn't carry a long list of legenday acts going up against men who have lives and allies…is a near impossible feat.  

    I wonder if this is why it typically takes until we are adults to go against the abusers, where we feel the ground is more equal?

    What I have felt as an adult coming forth, is that my life has to exemplify the truth impeccably, while the abuser doesn't have to lift a finger to have folks standing in awe of his journey as if it were the complete truth.

    My father did not have to defend his history, his wife and children did it for him.

    They in turn have me labeled as insane, mental, post traumatic, crazy.  Me, for standing by his complete history, with the truth of all the little girls completely intact. I personally have not plea bargained them down to a misdemeanor.  I have stood by each girls story and believe them and their innocence and that my father is indeed guilty.

    This is reenacted in every court in the land…each time an abused child presses charges.

    The abuser is held as innocent UNTIL proven guilty.

    Which by default, makes us guilty until he is proven guilty.

    The lawyers are all lined up fighting for the innocence of the abuser, while the abused sits guilty…usually watching their truth being chipped away in plea bargain after plea bargain.  

    In the end, they are left sitting with a partial truth being hung up…a partial truth of their abuser's actions towards them.  He isn't allowed to stand in the courtroom with the truthful actions fully displayed, they whittle it down to be so small, until it appears senseless to bring it to trial.

    This one act, which isn't allowed to remain in tact, is supposed to change the image of the abuser. How?  How when the act isn't even complete by the time the lawyers get done with it?

    I don't recall now, what the actual charges my father was actually sentenced with, but they didn't reflect the statement of the Detective.  The words of the little girls were not in the courtroom.

    What the victims had wrote and the final accusation, was a world apart.

    The truth was there, but it wasn't used in the trial.

    It is no wonder that the images of these men in the courtroom are seldom changed, for even the judges and the lawyers will not stand with the truth.  

    Unless like at Penn State, where the sheer numbers of guys coming forth forced the court to act differently.  Impossible to go against such numbers.  It shows again, how powerful the abusers are.  It takes more than one to topple them down.

    Which is why I feel that the numbers of abused in the FALC, can and will do the same.  Banded together…we can impact the churches stance of innocent.  

    I once again ask that you call Tom Rosemurgy with information.