I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • 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.





     

  • “Leaving the Family System – An Honorable Choice, by Rythea Lee

    On the link below is a wonderful article that affirms my journey…written by a therapist.

     http://ritualabuse.us/research/leaving-the-family-system-an-honorable-choice/

    I highly recommend reading if you are a victim of child abuse.

     

  • Inability to see evil.

    Today's Reading from Mark Nepo's Book of Awakening.

    "We are the stage and all the players."

    "One of the great contributions of psychology has been to help us understand how we replay our hurts and affections with people other than those who have hurt or touched us. There are many names for this, the more wellknown being “projection” and “transference.” In essence, we play what has been said or done, or what hasn't been said or done, over and over, until we come to terms with it. The coming to terms is called healing, surrender, letting go, or even forgiveness.

    "Being yelled at and then later kicking the dog is the stereotype of this. Yet more often, we replay the styles of clumsy love we experience. For example, while growing up, I endured the cold dismissal of my truest feelings. When I would show my hurt, I was seen as trying to weaken my parents' resolve. They then turned their backs on me, as if by showing my pain, I was trying to trick them. "

    "Having experienced this, I am especially sensitive to the pains of those close to me, yet there are times when I catch myself holding firm, just out of reach, replaying my parents' role as well as my own. This is humbling and upsetting, to say the least."

    "But just as germs must run their course, all the players in our dramas must be voiced before they will leave us be. Just as we keep trying to get what we never got from someone else who doesn't know our game, we also keep the trespass alive by reenacting it on others nearby until we can humbly know what it is to be hurtful—the first step toward forgiveness."

    "I have seen myself doing what was done to me, never as cruel or as harsh. But it has been enough to make me tremble at how easy it is to be cruel when afraid, and how difficult it is to accept that we are all capable of terrible things, and how cleansing it is to realize that true kindness breathes just beneath this acceptance." Mark Nepo

    I have been a researcher and explorer of how abuse colored my world and have been actively working to color life differently.  While most may feel, that you just have to accept what was done, forgive and move on.

    I know that abuse will follow you in all your actions and reactions.  It isn't just an act done to you, it is the environment you breathe in.  It and you are inseparable.  

    You were built in the vapors of actions and reactions in how the adults in your home treated you, responded to you, and what emotions they used in your presence…or which ones they withheld.

    It permates all avenues of your life.  It is at the core of who you are. It is how you learned to see life, others and how to respond. What to do with the truth, how to reframe all hurts, and what to show and what to hide.  It is in the DNA of who you are.

    It isn't something you acknowledge, like a cut knee, and move on…it is a virus that lives inside of you.

    An abusive act isn't a separated event, it is an ongoing lifestyle.  My parents whole life style echoed abuse.  My whole lifestyle was an example of theirs.  Isolating abuse to one event, is impossible.

    My father's abuse to me wasn't 'just one event' in our otherwise rosey relationship.

    My mother's failure to respond, wasn't just one time she missed seeing a negative trait of my father…

    It was how they saw life, period.

    The container called Mother, was not able to see my father as a pedophile, and due to this, we were left as being 'unabused'.

    This gap in reality is where my mother lived.

    She mothered from an awkward place…and in order to live there, you had to leave your truth behind.

    What she seen, she taught us to see…and what she didn't want to see, she ignored.

    We were raised not in reality, but in a dream state she wanted.

    We entered into her reality when we were born, not just in the one act of abuse.

    We lived there.

    It is like the paragraph from the blog about PTSD

    http://adultsurvivors.blogspot.com/

    Post Traumatic Stress In Adult Survivors Of Child Abuse

    "…Suppose that in the midst of a tornado a child sought comfort and protection from his parents and was told, "What tornado? It's a beautiful day…Go outside and play." That's how crazy and unsafe the world seems to some children. Some survivors have tried to tell the truth about the abuse and were called liars or accused of being responsible for the abuser's behavior."

    This is the environment I was raised in. It wasn't just one event, it was the whole landscape upon which I learned about life.

    Somehow, many believe, that we lived a completely normal life, except for one event or two, that we had normal loving, nurturing parents.  And that we can 'forgive' them this one time, for otherwise all was well within the family.

    It isn't so.

    You can't pick apart just one event, it is the whole lifestyle.

    Where the whole apparatus is backwards.  Where tornados of abuse are not seen…and so at the most crucial time of needing someone, they can't see the storm that hurt you.

    As a child, you then learn to absorb this truth and make sense of it on your own. You learn that your mother will only accept sunshine and blue skies…"If you can't say something nice, say nothing at all…"

    My whole life view was incorrect…it left out abuse.

    When I brought abuse in…my whole view changed.

    I changed.

    I had to reconnect me back to reality, including all the dark skies and places that I had forgiven or ignored.

    A huge red flag of an abused person is their inability to see evil.



  • My Lady and I….the book.

    Below is the link to ordering my book.  It is a bit expensive, but it is a table top book, an book of Art…a Memoir.  Which I heard today from Cherly Strayed, it is writing about the meaning behind your experience.  I am very pleased both with my experiene, the meanings I have received and the book.  

    http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2804976/a22d6e53844eba296736d3f014cde2752024100b

  • The Final Straw

    As reality is working to right itself at Penn State, it offers a wealth of conversation about what serves the victims and then what serves those who are standing on the side of abuse; even in knowing silences.

    You will not satisfy both sides.  

    As a victim who has known the 'other side' of these men in high places, it does wonders to see them put into reality.  Not lower than they should be, just where they ought to be.

    We don't want fantascies, but we do want reality.

    It is a secondary pain to have an abuser held up to high esteem or to be put at the head of the table. It messes with our psyche, to have such extreme opposites exist.

    And when folks who are not abusing, but in friendships or looking toward the abusers or those who know and do nothing as if they are normal or even a pillar in society, we begin to doubt our own minds.

    Seeing reality focusing into place that matches our experiences, corrects our minds and settles our psyche.

    It matters greatly, no matter how many years later, to have these corrections made.

    It isn't so much justice, but reality righting itself.

    What I believe causes the most stress and anxiety after abuse, is the way 'normal' folks react to our abuser.  We feel we are insane, when no one treats him any differently.  He gets treated normal or even higher than normal, while we are left knowing a truth that no one appears to see. And eventually, we too begin to believe how others act over our own knowing and truth.

    Reality is much easier to navigate if all people see and respond to abuse the same, but this will not happen. For many want to preserve a reality, prior to abuse or knowing of abuse, so silence ensues.  If no one acts like abuse exists, perhaps it will fade away.

    Penn State offers to us, what happens when many are silent. AND, what happens when many speak up.  

    The boys who spoke up, are the heroes and they are served each time a person who knew and did nothing leaves.

    It shows it was wrong.  Wrong is what we want to hear, for it matches with our reality.

    I am hopeful that one day the FALC will have its day in the sun, where the eyes of the world will see what lies there and it will match my eyes.  Where the pillars will fall.  All it takes is for the abused to speak up.  One at a time.  Each voice is a nudge that will push the top down.

    Speaking up is power for the victims and will leave the abusers powerless.  You never know if it is your story, that is the final straw.  

  • Take Down Their Hero Signs.

    A link I posted on Facebook said, "The Paterno family issued a statement only hours later saying the statue's removal "does not serve the victims of Jerry Sandusky's horrible crimes or help heal the Penn State community."

    And they are wrong.

    It does serve many victims of sexual abuse crimes.

    It serves us completely.

    Perhaps it doesn't serve the family and loved ones who want him to keep his hero status, to keep his legendary life of football unscathed…or tainted, but it indeed does help us. As he grows darker, the victims grow lighter.

    It does serve us to see the truth flipping their reality around, just as the reality of the boys was flipped in abuse while under his watch.

    It is helpful seeing that those who know and do nothing are also seen as Not Heroes and If they had a statue stating so, It can and will be removed.  Their status in society is now seen as less than normal.

    Lowering the statue, raises the esteem of victims everywhere.

    We can't undo their silence, but we can take down their hero signs.


  • Honor, Pride and Grace.

    Below is my Letter to the Editor.

    "Can we really be silent, when once again, another case of criminal sexual conduct is reduced, and once again, a light sentence is handed out, when another victim's story is played around with by the attorneys until it isn't even recognizable?

    Who truly believes that we have a Justice System

    Who does this really serve?

    I can't know all the details, but enough was said in the paper, that 15 to 20 rapes to a child between the age of 5 and 8, and the perpetrator gets 100 days.  How is this right in our world?

    The courage it took for this victim to step forth is the same fuel I hope she can use to continue to speak for herself, to stand up with her truth, and to know, that no matter how it is received, it isn't her fault.

    The heroine in this story is the one who not only survived being raped as a child, but has the courage to let us know who did it, so the rest can be forewarned.

    I am happy he was caught at such a young age, but am very concerned that in 100 days, he will be a free man.

    From what I understand, the healing rate of pedophiles is slim to none.

    So, this young person warned the courts and the courts felt the need to reduce the charges and set him free.  

    Our task as the general public is to take notice.  Notice that a pedophile has been set free.  This is our community. Next election for prosecutor, remember this.

    And to the judge who said it was "unfair and causes pain and hurt."  Really, Unfair? No Judge, it was a crime.  And more damage is caused by allowing this man to leave the courtroom, damage is caused by allowing this man to leave the courtroom with a slap on the wrist.  

    Beth Jukuri

    What prompted me to write, was that time and time again, we see in the paper a crime being reduced and victims watching how their history is rewritten, and in doing so, the sentence is so light…yet the affect from abuse is not lightened at all, and if nothing, it is made worse.

    Instead of focusing on the broken Legal System, I believe it is better to focus on the courage and empowerment that comes from speaking out loud.

    Speaking out is crucial to healing, to getting out from under the cloak of shame silence carries.

    It doesn't matter who believes you, what matters is telling your story to someone.

    The telling releases the shame and lessens the responsibility, giving it back to the abuser.

    Whether he serves time or not, you have given him back his deeds and it is no longer yours to carry.

    The secret was about what he did to you, not about what you did to him.  When we keep silent about it, we carry it like it is ours.

    It doesn't matter if the court system fails…the person speaking up did not fail.

    We can literally see the wide expanse between failure and empowerment.

    The victim didn't fail in her reporting…she instead began the process of taking back her life; restoring truth back into her reality.

    Certainly we can focus on the failures of the legal system, but we would then miss seeing the courage of the victim.  There are two stories and when we set our eye upon what they did wrong we miss what the victim did right.

    If we believe that it only pays to speak up IF there will be justice served, we then are missing the bigger picture.

    Speaking up isn't to punish the abuser, but it is to free us from being tangled up in their lies and dysfunction.  It frees us to begin living a life empowered and free…no longer shackled to our abuser in silence.

    Let the courts lie in their own dysfunction and put your attention on making your world abuse free.  You have taken the first step by identifying your abuser to the Law.  Turning him in allows you to reclaim your true history.

    No matter what the relationship was with your abuser, you have the right to set the record straight.  It matters not what the courts do, it matters greatly what you do for your self.

    Detective Tom Rosemurgy will hear you.  He will allow you to speak your truth. You do not have to press charges…give him the name and clear your history.

    Dial Help will also listen as you rescue your truth back from the silence.

    Your courage comes from speaking.

    The greater the fear of speaking out, the more crucial it is to do.  It means that your life blood, your spirit, your essence is caught up in the silence and protecting your abuser.  Your world will not end when speaking, but the pretending will.

    Speaking is dropping the responsibility and shame…returning you to….(I had to look up what words were opposite of shame. And here is what I found.

    Honor, Pride and Grace.  This is what is waiting for you when you speak out.

    Let the shame go and you will find the seeds to honor, pride and grace.




  • Courage and Bravery.

    IMG_8247
    "Courage and Bravery" is the title of this quilt.  It spent the winter in Ed Gray's Gallery in Calumet.  When I dropped off a new bunch of quilts, I saw this and was so happy to see her again. I will hang her with the story line quilts.

    The description I had written was "There is nothing more beautiful than a woman in her authenticity, a woman who has braved her own truths with courage."

    IMG_8257

    My daughter Hannah took these pictures, she has an eye that matches Art.  She naturally is able to know the right angle and how much of the background is needed to make my quilts shine. I am very grateful that she is willing to use her gifts with me.

    We also needed one of me for my book…so impulsively, without any artful preperations, I posed for her.   Here I am in my natural best.  IMG_8284

    It does complete my book to have a picture of the woman who created the Lady.


  • Causes Child Abuse

    "On top of the abuse and neglect, denial heaps more hurt upon the child by requiring the child to alienate herself from reality and her own experience. In troubled families, abuse and neglect are permitted; it's the talking about them that is forbidden."         http://adultsurvivors.blogspot.com/

     

    Let's see if I can draw a picture as to what this is like.  It is like you exist, but you can't talk about your existence, you are there but silent, moving around but not allowed to talk about it….a ghost in your own life. Where what happens in it, isn't allowed in it.

    And then we wonder why children who were abused are not able to be rational, that they can't see what is going on in their lives. They have been taught to not see…to permit abuse, but to be silent about it.

    That means, anything can be done to them and they will not speak up.

    Silently permitting.  

    Here is another paragraph that struck a cord in me…

    "Children don't innately know how to repress their spontaneous responses. They have to be taught, and troubled parents are perhaps the best teachers of all. There are three iron-clad rules in the abusive home: Don't talk. Don't trust. Don't feel. To break any of them means risking rejection or punishment."

    Living a life that leaves out trust, feelings and talking, leaves very little to work with. It is how we are to be in our home.  How can you be 'natural' if you leave out feelings and how can you relax without trust?  

    When I did bring in my feelings and began talking about them, I was rejected.  They will say I left, and perhaps it feels better to know that. But, what I know is that no one wanted to hear how I felt…and in order to be myself, I had to go.  Their rejection of my truth made it so.  I could stay, but not bringing in my feelings and certainly there would be no talking about it.  

    Here is another great one;

    "The child's sense of guilt and responsibility is useful to the abusive parent, who believes he isn't abusive..that it is the child who forces him into being abusive. The non protective adults want the child to bear the guilt so they won't have to face the harm their neglect is causing. So…the dance of the violent family begins: Children are responsible for adult's behavior…adults are responsible for nothing."

    It isn't hard to imagine this, I have lived it.  This is exactly how it goes.  No adult is willing to be responsible.  Neither sees that it is NOT the child who is causing the abuse in the home. 

    A violent family is one where the adults are out of control and blame the child…a child who is unable to stop, for he/she is little and has no power.

    Imagine, blaming the abuse on the powerless.

    Yet, this is done repeatedly until the 'powerless' one flips this around in their heads and sees where the real fault lies. It isn't a child that causes child abuse.



  • Reason Button is Broken

    "Traumatic events that are human in origin seem to have more severe after-effects than natural disasters. Hurtful and frightening as it is to be raped by a stranger, or to be in the path of a natural disaster, the creation of a personal disaster by a loved one is vastly more bewildering and overwhelming."           http://adultsurvivors.blogspot.com/

    This paragraph from yesterdays long reading is what I have always felt, that it was worse to be abused by someone you love and trust, than it would be to violated by a stranger…for not only is your body raped, but so is your psyche.

    It leaves you with no place to go to feel safe.

    What I have come to learn, is that the mind took us in.  The mind created a false landscape for us to rest in.  However, most never leave there and return to reality.

    My brother looked up the definition of Rational.

    "Rational: The term rational refers to being of sound mind and having (or exercising) the ability to reason."  

    The ability to reason is what is lost to those of us who are abused in childhood, we use Incorrect Reasoning in order to survive, and many never learn what is correct reasoning.

    The reasons we do the things we do.

    My mother had her reasons for staying with my father.  I would say they were incorrect based upon reality.  No mother in her right mind would stay and have more children with a man who is a pedophile.  Her inability to reason rationally was also taken away in her childhood.

    Looking upon the family legacy and history, you could say I come from a long line of incorrect reasoning.

    What I didn't know know know, is that they are seeing the pedophile, the abuse, the wounded child, BUT they are making incorrect reasons for the behavior.  Mostly, blaming the child.

    My father said, "The girls wanted it…"  

    I felt like my mother saw me as competition.  I felt it.  I just didn't know in what competition we were opponents in?

    The biggest damage in abuse, is when we lose the ability to reason correctly.  

    We don't act reasonably in the face of harm etc and even act incorrectly with things that are not harmful. Our reasoning mechanism is all screwed up. We become unreasonable beings.

    Some will say (family) that I have been laboring under this Abuse Issue, for way too damn long, that life is passing me by, while I am still here sorting it out. What they fail to consider is how off they are in their reasoning.

    They are all making choices, but the choices are made using incorrect reasoning…and they can't tell. For all of their lives, that they can recall, this broken device has been making choices for them.

    It seems preposterous that you can not know your reasoning button is broken.  But, if you never had a good working one, how would you know?

    What is reasonable to survive abuse is not reasonable to heal from abuse.

    I had to go against all my reasoning in order to change my reasoning button.

    The choices I made in the first 46 years were incorrect, they allowed me not to see abuse.  

    Once I saw abuse, all my 'reasonable' choices of the past, would no longer work.

    The saying, "Forgive them, they know not what they do…." comes to mind.

    When you see folks acting peculiar, it isn't because they don't know…it is because their reason button is broken.