Category: Uncategorized

My journey is now ten years out.  Ten years of awareness from denial. 

Ten years is a long time.  

Ten years of seeing me.

Ten years of standing by my truth.

Ten years of walking the path less traveled.

Ten years of being seen as mental by those who walk differently…or ten years of being different.

Ten years of doing things the opposite of what I was taught.

Ten years.  

Is a long time.

To be walking against the beat of the family.

To be the odd man out.

To be separated.

To stand a single soul… against so many.

My lone voice drowned to silence by the sheer volumn of numbers speaking differently; joined together in family harmony.

The comfort of the group, lulls them…is there really safety in numbers?

Ten years I have had, to get comfortable being different; being the blacksheep of the family. Being the one who is standoffish, cool…indifferent to the family drum beat.

It is truly hard to believe that ten years have passed.

Ten years is, again, a long time.

I feel that it has taken that long to separate myself and feel whole coming from a family in denial of abuse.

It is in fact, their denial that has been the hardest to be with.

Or denial is what separates us.

In their denial they can't see me.

Well, certainly they can see me, but they don't get me. 

It is the lack of understanding or commonality that separates us.

They literally have chosen to preserve the family unit over the integrity of a child's abuse.

It is that simple and that complicated.

I represent the abused child.

And my actions have always leaned in that direction.

And in doing so, lean away from family.

The direction we lean into is the only meter we have to measure denial or awareness. 

After ten years of leaning in a direction that is the opposite of "Family"…I know to the depth of my soul, that the reason more victims don't stand by their own truths, is that they will feel the family pull away.

The only interactions I have had with my family over these ten years is to tell me how off I am, how insane, cold, bitter, hardened, nuts, etc.  The family will literally and figuratively turn against the child, as the child speaks of being sexually abused by a family member.

I am a grown adult speaking out.

Imagine how a child would survive this?

The Huhta's have banned together to uphold and support our family.

Ten years and counting…or decades and decades….generations upon generations. Children with grown children who now have young children, will feel the legacy of abuse, due to the way they all lean.

Ten years is just a snippet of time that encapsulates the history and how it repeats itself.  

How families band together to form a tight connection that keeps abuse securely inside.  Somehow they naively think that the threat of abuse left when Ray died. New offsprings of Ray were born when he abused them…they are now tightly held inside the family. (Also victims typically attract other abusers….the threats are not from the Huhta's alone, but from the ripple affect of others they hang with.)

Ten years I have stood outside.

Ten years abusers tightly held inside.

Abused and the abusers all coexisting under the same false pretense of family.

Love and acceptace of abuse. 

Shuning and indifference to me and my words.

When I see my sisters, sister-in-laws…I see warriors against the truth.  Mini versions of my mother. I see the cycles, the new generations of girls/boys beginning my journey.  

I see nothing among them that inspires me to think abuse has lessened.

Instead I see the perfect landscape for pedophiles.

Ten years have been quite fruitful for them. More victims being born…

Pedophiles LOVE the warriors against truth…the ones who overlook and move on, to not stare at abusers and hold them accountable.

Ten years and not a word of mine have they heard.

There is no part of me that wants to move towards these women…even after ten years.

Ten years and counting outside of the cycle of abuse.

Its legacy is one that is not easily escaped.

You literally have to turn against family and embrace your own truth.

You will be at odds.

In order to heal, you will no longer attend their functions, be part of their lives.

They, are the old you.  They are what you need to be different from in order to end the cycle.

They and you can't be alike at all.

It is to shed the traits and images we naturally pick up in families; it is to re-invent yourself into someone who is completely different than say your mother.

I was a mirror image of my mother.

It has taken 10 years to change my reflection.

My reflection is now of my own self.

It shines from within.

My truth I see…and it shines back at me.
 

I wonder if it is possible, we eat for feelings.  To feel good etc. It is like we are controlling our feelings by doing something.  Instead of letting our feelings organically come forth; is it possible the control we seek, we find in creating 'good' feelings so as to not feel the other ones.

I sat with myself many times today, aware of what my mind or belly or something wanted.  I wondered at not so much the taste or the fact my belly wasn't hungry, but what I was searching for.

I am thinking it I have eated to feel good emotions.

I thought at first it was about the taste, but as you know, while eating something good, you only really taste the first few bites, the rest you just eat to finish.

So, I started by tasting the cookie in small bites and then noticing how I felt before AND the surprising lack of gooder I felt after.

I am bringing my awareness to what I am expecting food to do for my emotions.

I bet this is what is meant by emotional eating…we eat to feel good emotions.

But, is that possible?

At first I thought, eating was about tastes…and it is…in that IF it tastes good…it will transfer good feelings or emotions inside.

There seems to be a very odd fantasy about the magical powers I have given food.

I am continuing to eat as I normally do, but watching how my feelings are while eating.  

Aware I believe I can separate my emotional body from the food and then will food just be fuel? Is it possible that what I am actually craving from food are feelings I can get in other places, perhaps non-caloric ones?

It seems more true that I have placed "good" feelings in food.  It isn't that I am covering up 'bad' ones….when I eat, but I have gotten in the habit of going to food for my happy emotions.

I know I get them elsewhere too, but there is a wire wired incorrectly that has me eating to feel good.

And, the reason I have been holding closely to the sweet treats, is that I am believing it is my happiness pipeline.

I will try and see if I can find other ways besides food to fill up on happiness.

Or at the very least release food to be food.

My guts believe food fuels my happy button. I know that my emotions and food are mixed up.  To look at the combination of flour, sugar and butter and believe that happiness resides there…instead of inside of me.

My emotions have leaked out again…or so my mind would have me believe.

Heaven is in a sweet treat.

When the feelings are inside of me.

It is impossible for food to hold my emotions.

The reason we have been married for 27 years, is the fact that my husband is a kind man.  His kindness and caring for his kids goes beyond the outer edge of great.

While some women would be upset that her anniversary evening was spent alone…I feel grateful he is my husband.   

His daughter's car needed breaks.  He said it would be a quick job. But, he also never does a 'good enough' job, but takes his time and makes sure it is done right.  So four hours later…he feels it is road worthy again for his daughter.

I knew after about 2 hours, that our date was off.  

What more can a woman ask for after 27 years?  He has not lowered his standard for caring.  He has always known his priorities.  Caring for our family is at the top of his list.  Yes, it often comes before our date time.  

To see his care, for his adult children, melts my insides…it isn't a job for him.  It is what a loving dad would do.  

We can date another night.  

He has set the bar high…

What is an open heart on Christmas?  What signifies purity and compassion?  When do we fail knowing the Spirit of Christmas?  Is there an expectation or requirement of Christmas that we can goof up and miss the execution of Christmas?  Is there an outer or societal and family expectation or can there be a personal goal? Some how it seems that there are unwritten rules and expectations where you can fail at christmas.

At least from looking in from the outside.

But wonder if Christmas IS an inside job.  If its meaning is only known within?  If you and your heart and soul meet and it knows its worth…and that is Christmas.

It isn't a day.

It doesn't come in the right and perfect gift, table setting or perfectly baked sweet treat, but rather it is the joining of heart, mind and soul.

That Christmas signifies its possiblilities…but that each of us have to live the life where we are in perfect harmony inside.  

I feel Christmas.

I feel the complete harmony inside of me.

This inside harmony is won by being as truthful and self-loving as I can when I am given the opportunities to be Me.

Which is always.

Even at Christmas I remain faithful to being authentically Me. 

When society and Hallmark would like nothing better than to see another family reunited.  Not healed, but back to being together.  Most are not comfortable with broken families, for it shows that Family isn't as strong as they would like to believe it to be.  If one family can break and shatter…than others are not immune.

It seems that most would rather a whole family and a shattered individual.

Christmas to me isn't about gathering together broken individuals to make a family…rather its about being a whole and peaceful individual.

I am at peace.

I am one with my broken pieces.

I know joy.

I know love.

I had to break the family to become Me.

All it takes for the family to break is for one to leave…

I wasn't the first to break the family.  My father broke it.  I am just admitting showing its wreckage…by refusing to get back into the 'family' portrait.

No matter how many years and christmas memories we had, none could make up for the damage of abuse.

What I feel many believe is that the family would heal if I could open my heart and let them enter in.  

And I feel it would deny the abuse…by loving those who hurt others.

If this worked; there would be no abuse.

For this is the heart of the abuse issue, the family not sacrificing family…in order to save the individuals.

Instead the complete opposite is happening….Loving the idea of Family has subjected many to suffer silently in order to SAVE the family.

When, in truth, what they are 'saving' is abuse. 

Abuse lives and flourishes extremely well in families intent on keeping it together, no matter what.  Abuse dies when you are willing to break apart a family in order to honor the wound/hurt/abuse of one child.

My Christmas Wish for all, is to see more wrecked families and many individuals being honored for their wounds.

Sitting here 9 years into the future of the day that changed my life forever, I am grateful for seeing eyes.
What I know now, what I didn’t know then is that not all have minds that change.
Many have minds that hold onto a belief even when reality is in complete opposition.
A strong mind is seen as a huge asset, when it is actually the key to keeping you in false beliefs and denial.
To live a life free of a mind that creates its own reality is breathtaking…both in the tragedy it fully embraces and the love, peace and joy.
Being able to fully embrace all of life in its perfection, isn’t to just try and find good in all things, but to see all. The good, the bad and the ugly.
How tragic it is to live behind a mind that continually changes what is in reality. Theind that doesn’t see reality, is a mind that grew out of abuse.
When you are capable of seeing all you are able to question the mind and your life and the choices are plenty.
If you haven’t changed in the face of tragedy I feel you missed the portal out of the mind.
At first I felt offended when family thought I had lost my mind. But soon I realized it was a good thing. I was no longer a prisoner of my mind. I was free to challenge it and my life and a million beliefs that had taken my life from me.
My mind was flipped in the aftermath of abuse. When no on saw what I had seen in reality, when perhaps my telling fell on deaf ears. My mind helped me survive by deleting and changing reality.
That flipped mind matched my mother’s.
Now we no longer see out of the same mind. Mine now walks after reality and no longer flips things around for my comfort.
And my changes are hard to be around if you are still in the clutches of a mind that is protecting you from the truth.
The greatest threat to an abused mind is the truth and it’s job is to take the good and make it bad and the bad and make it good.
That is the only way they can accept and be with a pedophile and his accomplice and stay far far away from me.
Their mind tells them so.

Today is December 4th, the anniversary of discovering abuse in my life…the 9th anniversary to be exact.
Wow.
Back then it was hard to imagine living with the reality of knowing your father was a pedophile and all that entailed, let alone envisioning life 9 years out.
In 2004, it seemed to be the end of my world and it instead was the first step towards uncovering who I was; a journey of finding the real me.
I haven’t fully discovered me, but I am much clearer now and more honest with myself about myself than I ever was in 2004.
What I didn’t know back then was not only who I was or how I felt about me. I knew what others needed and wanted much more than my own needs. I had never taken care of me.
For nine years now I have been living life bases on my truth, my feelings, my clarity or awareness and to walk my truth even if it doesn’t appear kind…it is kind to me.
I can no longer say I haven’t seen my mother in 9 years for she arrived at daughters wedding. .. I can still say we have not spoken.
She tried…but my daughters wedding was not created for a estrangement intervention. She was up here for at least a month longer and never called.
I have nothing to say to her.
No words will penetrate the illusion she lives in, where I am the one at fault, to blame and one she has dirtied with her lies…lies not only she believes , but many siblings as well.
After 9 years there is no change in the way they see me. And there is nothing I can do to change their minds.
It is easier to change me into an asshole, than it is to give up on family.
Family that is steeped in dysfunction.
Much easier to make me wrong than to really see and feel your own life.
All I can say after 9 years is that I never expected to be the one outside, I truly believed that the one who did the wrongs would be.
How silly of me or naive to think they would set aside family roles for abuse.
Instead it seemed they made them stronger as to not focus on the after affects of abuse…that by being a ‘good’ sister you can leap over the damage abuse caused in you brain and psyche.
What has surprised me the most is how unchanged most are. How little it appears to have affected so many, while it totally flipped my world! And how hard and diligent they are to hold family together no matter what.
What ripped me apart, they have been sewing back together, okay to leave me out.
In fact they will tell you how wrong I am for family.
My biggest sin in their eyes is that I put me first…and will not put aside my past and move on, unchanged. What they fail to appreciate is that I did not change me, my father did.
It has taken me 9 years and counting to find the me I would have been…before my father changed me. He is the one I thought would be set out side of family for raping me. And my mother who turned away from me, her too I thought would have to go.
But no.
I was me.
I would have lost the bet in how this has turned out.
After nine years I am no longer holding out hope for things to be different. I have accepted that my past can be no different, that my family will act any different…
And I am beyond incredulous to see that I have survived being estranged from them all, in fact thrived.
That I have been able to find a life worth living and that I love me and my life.
I only miss what I had thought was there…

Our internet is down, it feels like I lost my voice and connection with the outside…or to be reduced to a whisper; my iPhone.
In a way it has been nice to be secluded, but it also shows the isolation or smallness we were raised in, where your daily contact was with folks you could see or hear.
I am on a selective island, with slight glimpses outside of my home.
I can fully appreciate how broader my world is with the internet. I can imagine how small my world shrinks without it… It feels like you are disconnected.
The circle of sharing grows very small and even the stream of incoming wisdom is reduced.
What a huge leap of expansion we all have come to rely upon. Without it I feel disconnected to the whole.
While it has freed me to do other things, I truly feel connection handicapped. Everything is slower, as I type this with one finger…
My voice would grow silent to the world beyond my physical presence, and for some a welcomed relief!
Perhaps it has shown me the value of connection!

"Work is Love made visible" Kahlil Gibran

Two of my daughters and I put on a Bridal Shower for my daughter who is getting married in three weeks…and the attention to detail was mind blowing, fun and involved, time, care and work.

As the time drew nearer to starting the shower, we had almost pulled off all our ideas, in creating a wonderful outdoor lady party…and it came to me "Love is in the details".  Love is what we were making visible or tangible.  

I grew up in a culture or environment, where details and fluff (extras) were not necessary and were skipped.  We just did what was needed and rarely went above board.  I am certain money had a lot to do with it and the sheer number of children to care for, but I hadn't realized until we (the girls pulled together the creative ideas) were putting it all together that this is what love does.

It is the extra attention, the getting the right feel, the perfect color, just the right jar or container, it all mattered.  It mattered, because the daughter and sister it was to honor, mattered more!

Each piece we picked out reflected my daughter and our love for her.  

What was also fun to put it all together, to plan and figure out the details….okay, the third triangle banner was a bit much, but I LOVED how they looked!   We all pitched in and created a shower to remember….and visible love!

Fresh flowers….lovingly put in mason jars…..

Table set for special ladies….

and my most special ladies….

A great place for a shower.  When, my girls were little, this was their place to play house, to dress up, and hang clothes in the trees.  I tried talking them into a dress-up shower, where we would all dress up in large hats and long dresses…..but, they were not sold.

And, the fabric in the banners were material with special meanings….or at least some.  Dogs to represent my daughters furry children, a piece from my favorite Aunts stash, who passed away and passed on her love for quilting to me, a piece from Finland from a special friend, my hand-dyed, and lots of left overs from many Lady quilts….together their colors and stories created a wonderful decoration…giving love to the shower.

I want to thank my daughters for giving me the lesson…..that love is in the details!

I Was Once a Victim Too // News // Notre Dame Magazine // University of Notre Dame.

Real signs of Spring along the mail route!

You can see the brown that surrounds them, but tuffs of green sprouting up!

Love the surprise and changes I see…each day, if you look closely it's a new painting…nature, doing what nature does…Change.