I M Perfect lady

Category: Examples of an Imperfect woman

  • Voice of my truth.

    Today I listened to the CD of The Voice of Knowledge, by Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills.

    Here is how the book is described.

    "In this audio version of the fourth book in the popular series, don Miguel Ruiz reminds readers of a profound yet simple truth: The only way to end emotional suffering and restore joy in living is to stop believing in lies – mainly about ourselves."

    "Ruiz refers to the forbidden tree of knowledge, likening the abandonment of the true self to the fall from heaven. This fall, he says, occurred because of the loss of "the impeccability of the word," that simple yet potent prescription for countering the judgmental inner "Voice of Knowledge." Adhering to "the word" – saying only what one means, refusing to speak against one's self – allows anyone to quiet those inner tyrannical thoughts so that we can become aware of our Voice of Integrity. Knowledge then becomes an ally, and life becomes an expression of the authentic self."

    As I listened to him, I could see how my own life was based upon lies and how I had great faith in those lies and had little or no faith in my own truth and integrity.

    What this blog has been mostly about is re-discovering my truth and letting go of lies.

    I have tried my level best to rid myself of inauthentic parts of me, the beliefs that kept me from my own love, peace and joy…and in doing so I oftentimes uncovered lies that many don’t want displayed openly. My truth-seeking mission has upset many an apple cart for me, but it seems it has little affect on others unless they are ready to receive the truth…if they are not ready, the truth will slip on by…and their cart of lies will remain steady.

    I am not here to upset your cart of apples, but rather to find the rotten parts of myself, my lies.  Sometimes my lies and your lies match and at others you will not agree…that is okay, I am here only to seek my own truth.  Each of  you will find yours in your own time. This is my journey towards truth in my life.

    It was just great to listen to him speak about the conflict of lies and truth we all have within, and how in some the truth voice is louder than the lies.

    If you have never questioned your mind, or explored how you came to believe this or that, your lies remain unchallenged…or your truth unearthed.  Your lie voice may be louder for it has had free reign.

    I had buried so many truths, so much hurt I piled into a hole not to be touched, emotions shoved aside, etc…all to be more comfortable I lived lies.  My lie voice liked it that way.

    We think lies are bold and in your face, but they are not.

    Mostly what I think is truth comes in and we push it away, not wanting to deal, to see or feel.

    So we lie.  We lie to ourselves and say everything is okay.

    I only stopped lying to myself when all my lies came home to roost at one time.  There was an avalanche that I couldn’t stop…all my lies lay at my feet exposed for the traitors they were.  Their powerful deceit was bigger than any lie I could conjure up.. to cover them all up again. It had grown too huge.  My lie voice died and my weak truthful voice started to speak.

    It gained power with each truth I told. 

    I am wondering if there is a room where lies go and will it explode on everyone at one time or another? 

    When my life of lies exploded I was left with my soul eyes.  My body seemed to have eyes in feelings; intuitively I sorted out my life…I began speaking from deep inside, paying little heed to the outside disputes.

    While it seemed like the worst day of my life, it was actually the first day of the rest of my voice of integrity life.  A life without lies.  

    No more lies. 

    Not to me and not to you.

    Not to make you feel better or more at peace for your comfort or for your ease.

    No more lies to my self.

    For I lost myself behind a sea of lies…and it took me years to unhook myself from the beliefs and faith I had in these lies. 

    My voice is the voice of my truth. 

     

  • Normal Results.

    “What is your motive for Telling…” is a phrase that lends it self to much debate.  The simple fact that a child is then put in a position of feeling ‘bad’ for squealing stops many from coming forth.

     No one wants to be a squealer.

    Squealing is seen and incurred as to being weak or bad and that you should not say anything, IF you don’t have anything kind to say…

    It is seen as soiling someone’s reputation. 

    How is it that the squealer is the one who is in charge of that?  Surely it wasn’t the little girl’s fault that in Telling on Ray, he would then be made to ‘look bad’. 

    He was bad each moment he forcibly made a girl touch him.

    She was telling to stop an action, she wasn’t concerned how it looks or how it would fit into others lives.  She just wanted it to stop. 

    In order for things to stop, reputations will change color, past ideals of a person will take on a new tone, lives and relationships will hang in the balance, things will not go on as “Normal”.

    For now an abnormal behavior has entered in.

    Insanity ensues if you continue to act normal when abnormal walks and talks in your world and you don’t tell or pay attention to it, to see it like it is. 

    It seems preposterous that you would carry on life as usual with this oddity in your midst, that you would pretend to pretend to pretend that there is nothing amiss, that you would try harder to be normal instead of addressing the abnormal behavior.

    But take it from me, we do.

    In fact, in home this was not abnormal, but normal.  I come from a long line of sexual abuse…and the way they treated it was to do nothing, but carry on as usual.

    When the adults in my childhood life didn’t see abnormal, I then became abnormal.  I had to become abnormal to fit in.

    What I had thought was that only our home acted abnormal to normal abuse, but come to find out there is a sea of people willing to sweep abnormal under the rug to keep up with their normal lives, normal religions, normal families, normal marriages, normal relationships.

    It isn’t abuse that is the problem, but holding on to normal.

    Holding on to normal, all will discount, overlook, and under react in order to keep their own normal lives. 

    What is so incredulous to me is that they hang on to normal in their minds only.  For abnormal has now come to live with them and the longer they don’t see abnormal, the more abnormal becomes their family.

    I lived and learned that abnormal was the normal way to be.

    How grateful and blessed I am, that I was finally able to see that what I had stood for and championed was not normal.  What a gift to see my abnormalities.

    Most are not given this awareness.  I am speaking out and shouting out and pointing out what others are failing to see.

    Since I lived for 46 years believing I had a ‘normal’ family but that I was abnormal, I want to share my experience.  I am not a squealer, but a person who is telling to help stop abuse…for people to start seeing that what they think or want to believe is normal is so abnormal.

     Being raised in abnormal it is hard to know normal.

    Sometimes doing the complete opposite of what you were taught will bring in normal results. 

     

     

     

  • Who Knew and Turned Away.

    The evidence report adds credence to my journey, it gives supporting evidence, names, locations, and sets the tone or energy of what I felt towards my father.   It takes this inner feeling that I had and makes it public knowledge.

    This public knowledge sits so heavily upon me, for years I watched and waited for a reaction that would tell me that others seen my father as Not Normal, yet he was always treated normally, so my feelings that he wasn’t right went unsubstantiated. 

    I had to look up Unsubstantiated.

    1.             Unsubstantiated means, unverified: not proven factually.

    Synonyms: unconfirmed, unproven, unsupported, uncorroborated

    The greatest tragedy is that I waited for an adult or any person to verify that what I felt about my father was true.  That my terror feelings were spot on, and yet no one led on to what they knew or suspected.

    I was left alone unsupported with this knowledge and my body refused to let go of.

    I am thinking what is a deeper wound than the abuse itself is to then have your feelings of the event go unconfirmed.

    No one wanted to corroborate what I had experienced and what fills my body with incredulousness is that I now have facts, verifiable facts, and supported data showing that they knew, but kept this information from me. 

    When I need an adult the most, they failed to support me.

    Here is what I read yesterday…

    “Jenich spoke with Marvin Heinonen, retired Houghton County Protective Services Manager.  Marvin informed myself that indeed Ray Huhta has been under suspicion for at least THIRTY years for sexual assaulting his own children and most of the young girls in the Saint Mary’s Location neighborhood north of Hancock.”

    (a paragraph has info on a victim, so I am excluding it)

    “Marvin Heinonen said back then and even into the later years when Ray Huhta was suspected of molesting girls, there seemed to be a cover up all the time, meaning people in the church and family members would not believe that Ray Huhta could be doing this.  Marvin said the information kept resurfacing for years that Ray Huhta is a pedophile, molesting his girls…”

    One victim wrote in her statement about her family contacting Peter Torola of the Apostolic Luthern Church that she was molested by Ray Huhta. She recalls Torola’s response to her, “What is your motive in telling on Ray Huhta?”  She also stated that three more victims approached minister Pete Torola after she left the area and nothing was done.

    Another victim said her parents confronted Ray and he denied the whole time, from that point on her family’s children were forbidden to go to the Huhta house.

    What was more horrifying to learn so many years ago, was not only did I have to find peace with having a pedophile for a father, but I also learned that so many knew and did nothing.  That 30 years ago he was suspected and the girls told to stay away…

    And some knew 40 years back and at the time wanted to know the ‘motive’ for telling on Ray. Telling on Ray.  Really?

    Imagine that?  Like we are gossips?… And how telling is it that Pete Torola didn’t disbelieve it, he just wondered about the motive for telling.

    Perhaps he had a motive to keep it silent…for a child’s only motive is for you all to see what we see, for you to change your ‘normal’ definition to not normal.

    I guess I wasn’t prepared to hear the details of the little girls, and had braced myself,  but I hadn’t expected the stories held bits and pieces of how uninterested the adults were about the children in the Huhta house.

    I am not meaning to lessen the girls in my neighborhood who were abused by my father, but what stands out is that their parents warned them away from our home, but no one came and took us out.

    I have six sisters…plus eight brothers, and we lived with the Pedophile and his wife. That was our only home.

    We were left there knowingly.

    Somehow, I would feel slightly better if no one knew…if we had gone underneath the radar, an incest nest undetected, but instead it was operating in full plain view and many just turned their heads away from the Huhta children living within.

    What does a person do with this information?

    How do your process the minister’s neglect or Protective Services suspecting but without follow through or neighbors keeping their children away with no heed to us living full time with a ‘suspected’ pedophile. 

    Surely these are actions of an enemy and not of a friend.

    I am not bitter or angry, but I am wise and now validated, vindicated…but it is a hollow victory.

    You find out no one was standing for you…you never mattered enough.

    The main reason I am working with Tom Rosemurgy, is I refuse to be one of the adults who knew and turned away…

     

  • Who is Behaving Badly?

    What stayed with me is how off balance the justice system is where the victims get a ‘court appointed attorney’ called prosecutor and the perpetrators get the option to pay for a high powered expensive, save your ass lawyer.

    How is it that the system was set up this way, where each victim is already without options before the trial even begins?

    As I read through my father’s evidence file, everything was off…except the girl’s reports.  They were right on.

    What was off was that in the history of the little girls stories, it was almost always noted, that an adult knew, was in the room or had been told, but not believed. 

    How off is that? 

    The children had been talking, telling and no one was listening. Then, a Detective arrives in our home, we give once again our stories add a touch of hope that this time, the Bad Man will get punished…and nothing bad happens to him and our faith and hope are dashed once again.

    He wins, he carries on as if 'nothing bad' has happened.

    I hadn’t truly considered the volume of abuse, while I had knew there were many…many seems so oblique. 

    But when you read names and descriptions and locations and what my father is wearing, where he is sitting and then how he ensnares a little girl to sit with him in his kindness and laid back ways and then how strong he becomes in keeping them upon his lap…Forcible Contact on his penis, it sharpens the focus and makes him even more a pedophile if that is possible.

    My friends wrote, and theirs were not table abuse if you will, but mentioned instead tents and beds…rape and masturbation… I can see his technique changed over time, perhaps age or laziness or just the threat of being caught increased…

    My friend’s stories match my fragmented memories of sneaking out of his bed…in terror of waking him.  I now have collaborating evidence to my body’s feelings of him.

    Nothing is off in their stories, nothing doesn’t make sense, all are literal confirmations of who my father is.  They all add up to the same definition, and yet at the end of his trial he walks free.

    It would seem with the volume of evidence remembered, the outcome would have gone better for us, but we didn’t know who we were entrusting our stories to.

    Doug Edwards Prosecuting Attorney was suppose to serve up our justice, but he didn’t allow most of us into the courtroom, our stories lay without a serving of justice, just tucked into a file to remain in the dark.

    How was justice any different than the church’s blessing and forgiving and wanting us to forget?

    It seems there is a very off pattern here, children speaking and the forces that be or the higher powers, neglecting to do their part.

     What is and always has been consistent over the 40 years of this abusive reign my father has been on, is that the children are the only ones doing their part.

    Each time they are asked they tell the truth.

    Each time they are asked they put hope in the abuse ending.

    Each time they tell they are once again disappointed.

     Imagine, the adults who knew and the vast intersections in the community? 

    Wife, mother, neighborhood parents, minister and socical services and then finally the law.

    And then imagine when the law sets him free what we are left with?

    What I know for sure it wasn’t for the lack of evidence or the lack of victims speaking out or the lack of remembering or recalling correctly…the one main source of his freedom is the reactions from all the adults who were informed of his behaviors.

    And I believe each adult had their own personal reasons, their own personal stories of pride and friendship…of fear of what this will do in their own lives by facing this morsel of truth full on.

    It had very little to do with Ray Huhta.

    For anyone with nothing to lose would read these reports and be incensed and filled with the off color of Ray and the repeated and long suffering of abuse of the girls.

    You would have to be legally blind and totally incompetent to not get it. 

    No one reading this could possibly believe that he wasn’t a serial abuser, a pedophile with long standing reputation, for the birth dates of the oldest victim is in the 1950’s to the youngest…in the late 1990’s.

    What sits with me the most is again that it isn’t that we need to have more victims come forth, we need to have more victim rights, holding more adults accountable for dropping the ball.

    Why is Doug Edwards not reprimanded for this?

    Why wasn't the Social Service Man, Marv Heinonen not taken to task for knowing for over 30 years and doing nothing?

    Why wasn’t the Minister, Pete Torola not held accountable for knowing that children were being abuse and he did nothing?  (yes I get it, he is dead. But he was quite alive back in my childhood when my friends told him…)

    Why are we allowing adults behaving badly?  What is so odd is not only is my father way out of line on treatment to children, but then are the rest who knew and did a feeble at best attempt to shut him down.

    Imagine, HE is a FREE Man.  He had lots of help in order to remain free up against so much evidence.  He had lots and lots of help!

    Honest!  Read these stories and you would shudder to think he is free, living in Texas, has access to his newest little great -granddaughter and has full approval by his daughter and his grandson to have a ‘relationship’ with her.

     Again, adults behaving badly!

    Not JUST him, all who are still blindly and without comprehension of the danger they are willingly allowing his latest victim, his 2000 model from walking down my same road.  Sure, it may not be rape today or even masturbation, perhaps she will get off lightly with just forcible contact of her private parts while her father and grandmother visit with him, like there is nothing wrong. 

    Who is behaving badly?

  • Reacted Like Me.

    Today I sat in the office of Detective Tom Rosemurgy, (Rosie to his friends) and we talked about sexual abuse.  Of new information and suspected abusers and how we can help victims share their story and how without their stories, the wheels of justice will not begin turning…and we talked about my father's case and how peculiar it seemed.

    He had my father’s file on his desk or most of it… and inside where pages of little girls stories, and the man they described fits my terror.

    My feelings match their pictures and they are talking about my father.

    I didn’t read this file until a few minutes ago.  

    It is odd to read them, knowing the girls, the house and the visuals they painted, all correctly describing our childhood home, the chairs, the places and clothing my father wore, and then the awful acts he subjected these little girls to.  Years worth of criminal sexual assaults rained upon the neighborhood girls, one after another, year after year, and what is so striking are the adults who know this all along.

    Insane.  Totally criminally INSANE!  

    What strikes me so blatantly horrific is the details of the girls and the knowing of the adults, and the longevity of his run, and then after all these DETAILS and TRUTH are given over to the Detective, the prosecutor who at the time was a member of the FALC, he doesn’t use their cases???

    OH MY GOD does this infuriorate me.

    It is like all these little girls carry my memories and they are left sitting on paper and only one little girl’s makes it to the court of the land. 

    IT is criminal what this prosecutor did to each girl who wrote her memories down.  He should be sitting in jail with Ray Huhta.  And instead both are walking around free as the breeze…while the little girls are left to heal and deal the best we can.

    He raped, masturbated, fondled and had them fondle, he rubbed and touched their privates and them do the same to him…FOR over 35 years.  And when the detective gathers this information, the prosecutor uses just one little girls???

    What in the hell is up with that???

    Here are some of the accounts…just random sentences…fragments of their childhood experiences with my father.

    Chair that spun around,

    Back to microwave,

    Long johns,

    Red nylon long johns,

    Rocking chair by heatrola stove,

    Nice and friendly,

    Easy going,

    Strong,

    Kept my hand on penis,

    Rubbing my privates,

    Won’t let me off his lap,

    Wife in kitchen,

    Other children in room,

    Sunday dinners,

    Father across talking,

    Forced hand on penis,

    Masturbating,

    Raping,

    Wife at church,

    In his bed,

    Wife at hospital having baby,

    Tent with friend,

    Pulling my pants down,

    Friends mother knew,

    Minister told, not believed,

    Child protective services…he’s been under suspicion for 30 years.  Hide in bushes attempt to catch Ray in the act of abusing.

    It is all like a mad mad dream where nothing makes sense and the senseless wins.

    How the voices are ringing out clear as a bell as to who he is and what he has done over 35 years and yet it falls once again upon an adult who acts poorly, the prosecutor so totally dropped the ball on this, and you have to wonder why? 

    To think Ray only served a few weeks in jail is beyond what I can comprehend. And what startles me is that my mother read these same stories and at the end of his trial she drove him to Texas.  Imagine???  How can you read these and not react in revolt or in horror.

    The cry should have been to do what ever it takes to keep him locked up and instead it seemed that so many wanted him free. 

    Our voices on paper meant nothing. 

    Not sure if our trial, (for it seemed like it was a trial for all the girls who wrote a statement,) was unique or is this typical?

    Somehow the response to the words written by the girls seems to not bring forth the action necessary or one that fit the words.  It just seems all wrong.

    The words that should have adults springing into action and becoming fully enraged and setting about to seek justice, did the opposite.

    No real attempt was made or so it seems, just the very bare minimum required, the least of the least…and yet the stories are detailed and stretch over so many years.

    I just don’t get it. 

    Yet, while I always was accused of over reacting, I believe even I under reacted.

    Hindsight it 20/20…and I am not sure I could have convinced not only the prosecutor, my brother and the rest of the family, but it just seems that I missed calculated the amount of repeated abuse heaped on one child.  It would be bad enough if one girl had one incident, but it seems that most had years of abuse. 

    And he gets a few weeks in jail…

    What strikes me the most now, is that for years now I have been criticized for being so dramatic, for over reacting, for not letting it go, etc.  And all I can say is that I certainly wish that others reacted like me.

     

  • Living on the Blocks.

    Week 9, The Artist Way…Julia Cameron writes,

    “We’re more comfortable being a victim of artist’s block than risking having to consistently be productive and healthy.

    “An artistic U-Turn arrives on a sudden wave of indifference. We greet our newly minted product or our delightful process with “Aw, what does it matter anyhow?  It’s just a start.  Everybody else is so much further ahead…”

    “Yes, and they will stay that way if we stop working. The point is we have traveled light-years from where we were when we were blocked. We are now on the road, and the road is scary.  We begin to be distracted by roadside attractions or detoured by the bumps.”

    And here are a few sentences from the exercises at the end of the chapter.

    “Your choice to block is a creative U-Turn – we turn back on ourselves.  Like water forced to stand still, we turn stagnant.”   Julia

    These blocks are in Life and in Art. And we use them as an excuse as to why we can’t live a better life or create art. 

    And it is only ourselves that turn us around and heads us back to our old vices and excuses or fears.  We keep turning our backs on our truths, our desires, what we love, what brings us peace, our joy…in the good energy flow. 

    I see my life as a river where others lives are rocks cropping up or interests that are not crucial to my pathway, and instead of floating on by, I stop.  I stop my own flow in life.

    We each have specific rocks that stop us and then there are bends in the river, opportunities that float by, but we are too afraid to slip into the flow…or we are so busy doing things that are not important and they go by unnoticed. 

    It is just so interesting that Artist Blocks or Blocks of Addictions keep us from creativity…and they are all our choices.

    It is up to us to stop clinging to things that don’t serve us, that keeps us from living. 

    One big boulder in my life is ‘Responsibility’ and getting my work done first. 

    I focus on cleaning up my space instead of using that time to create.  I put so many rocks ahead of my flow, that my life seems heavy and hard. 

    I never looked at it this way…even though I lived it more often than not.  In fact slipping into the flow of life and playing in the currents and relaxing and letting the river take me, without saying no…is not very common in my life. 

    Most of my life has been spent on heavy rocks and in other people’s responsibility.  Getting used to flowing in my life will take some effort and will mean turning my back on ‘work’.  Who knew that work is a blockage in your life.

    Today, my one day off, and again I am working on cleaning up our house, the sewing machine sits…however, I did make a date with my husband for later on.

    In time, I will be able to discern how much free flowing time I have had and how much I have spent on the rocks, for I will feel its heaviness and know I got lost again living on the blocks.

    "Saying No can be the ultimate self-care."  Claudia Black

     

     

  • Help not Hurt

    “The question is not, “Can you make a difference?” You already do make a difference.  It’s just a matter of what kind of difference you want to make during your life on this planet.”  Julia Butterfly Hill

    I hadn’t considered that we are all making a difference; it just may not be the kind of difference that will impact another’s life in a positive manner.

    For each thing we do or even what we don’t do matters to someone.

    Just how or who it helps is the difference.

    While taking actions to speak the truth about abuse I am making a difference. And what kind of difference it will make in the lives of pedophiles will be different than how it will affect the lives of children.

    In the past my silence made a difference…it allowed my father to continue abusing. 

    Giving my report of my childhood which lacked memories or odd memories standing out, and how my body feared him, helped bring him to the court of the land.

    My viewpoint of him made a difference, albeit 40 years after the crime.  My report validated the little girl’s experience six years ago…together our stories made a difference to each other.

    The Detective shared with me that he honors and truly understands anonymous reports, how it may be hard for victims to stand tall and share their story.  I get it now too.

    My view of anonymous changed. 

    Anonymous reporting of abuse is vastly different than anonymous attacks.  Both make a difference in completely different ways. 

    Anonymously helping feels so much better than anonymously attacking. 

    There is room for anonymous when it’s used to help not hurt.

     

     

  • Extreme in Religion

    There was a haunting phrase in the book, “Inside the Kingdom” by Carmen Bin Laden.  After she separated from her husband she bumped into one of her favorite brother-in-laws, and he explained how he could no longer be her friend.

    “You may be right, but my brother is never wrong.”

    This sentiment or mindset is similar to how people feel about their family members, that they MUST always see them doing what is right, no matter what.  Or even church members are giving a huge margin of error compared to those not in the clan. 

    This so poignantly describes how family members cannot see their father outside the lens of that title. 

    That at the end of the day, “You may be right, but my father is never wrong.”  I feel this totally, that my father can never be wrong. It is an awkward place to stand in. They will shun me to have a ‘right’ father.

    I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the ways of the Saudi people and could see such pointed similarities.  Perhaps somewhat less extreme, but still debilitating to the women of the FALC. 

    Our veils were not made of cloth, but as Carmen said, she carried her jail upon her back…by submitting to or allowing another to tell you what to do with your own body.

    The Arabic word woman comes from the root word Sin and that is how the ladies are treated.  Just by being born a woman, you lose all rights.

    They cover up their sins…so the woman has to be hidden.

    How like the FALC church…

    And the word Islam means submission…

    One other idea she wrote about is that in this strict society, that it is never ‘bad’ to be too extreme. That it is seen as good to be excessively strict or religious. 

    Imagine you can never be too extreme in religion…

     

     

     

  • Yours to decide, always.

    I talked to the Detective today and it was very enlightening.

    He is willing to help us help the children by giving us information that will educate us of the process. We know what abuse is, but not all levels and kinds, but we we want to stop it, but we don't know how to stop it… who to report, how to report or what to report. What is applicable, what is not, what is too old etc. 

    His focus is the victims and wants all to know that no matter if you want to report anonymously or not, he welcomes your story. 

    He and I both feel that the beginning of the healing process is to speak out, no matter how long ago your abuse happened, it will break the bond of silence.  He needs your help to help the children.

    His job is to separate the abusers from the children and in order to do this he must have courageous victims willing to share their experiences.

    What I believe most victims feel is that they will be met with the same kinds of disbelief or non-action that they have met thus far.  However, talking to him showed me that they listen and not only listen but they believe in you.

    In just telling your story you will feel so much better. 

    Tom Rosemurgy is willing to take your calls, to answer your emails or receive your letters.

    What I want most is for you who have been abused to have access to someone who will hear you.

    trosemurgy@houghtonsheriff.com  Is his email address.

    Or you can write him at,

     403 Houghton Ave.  

    Houghton MI 49931

    You don’t’ have to leave your name, but please leave your story.  You have been carrying it too long; it is time to let it down, to hand it over to someone who can carry it for you.

    Your power is regained in your voice.

    I am here and will help anyone who has a story to tell.

    The truth needs to come forth, for while it is kept quiet there are children in danger.

    I know our voices will make a difference in the life of some child.

    I send you courage and strength…I cheer you on as you wrestle with the decision to speak now or remain silent, and the choice is yours to decide, always.

     

     

  • Not being Free.

    I listened to a woman speak yesterday in her audio book, Carmen Bin Laden “Inside the Kingdom”, my life in Saudi Arabia… She was raised in Europe and married the brother to Osama Bin Laden. 

    So she had to do as women do in that country… she lost her freedom as she covered herself up. 

    She married her husband in the 70’s. Both had lived in the United States and went to college here, so her vantage point is as a woman who was free going to not being free. 

    It was interesting to hear that the women and men felt they ‘respected’ woman by making them hide and not show themselves.

    How odd.

    We respect you so much that you are to become invisible???

    She explained how the world looked from behind the dark veil, how you cloudy and dark all things were.  How when she left the country and could be without the veil, how crisp and clear and fresh all things looked.

    And how when she was in a large group of women, she lost her sisters, for they all appeared as dark triangles.  There was no way for even the women to tell who was who; they all just blended into covered triangles.

    She said it was like entering a parallel universe, for it was completely foreign and she said little by little she allowed her self to be taken over.

    What is so interesting to me is that she is a grown woman, who in order to be ‘loved’ by her husband and his family had to hide behind the veil, giving up all her free rights as a human being. 

    Coming from the outside she could see things so differently than the women born into this society. 

    The ones born in this didn’t even know that they had another choice available.

    While listening to her, you can see how the beliefs and lifestyles mindlessly get handed down.  Girls are treated differently from the day they are born; they are never groomed to have rights.

    What is so odd is that the men/boys would get in trouble for seeing a bare unveiled woman. So they are taught it is wrong to see a women without her being hidden. 

    The value systems are set in place in childhood…

    The extreme societies are extreme examples.

    Yet on the scales of freedom, a loss of individual power is still a loss.  Some of us are in the process of getting our power back, enabling us to shed the veils or silken chains of not being able to own our own lives. 

    Carmen is showing me the extreme cases of women being brainwashed into succumbing and giving up the right to breath fresh air, to see clearly, to walk freely…and yet it is my belief, that while many women in the FALC don’t wear a darkened veil, they are just as imprisoned.

    Albeit on a lesser scale, but not being free is not being free.