Tag: authorities

  • Freedom isn’t gained by doing Nothing.

    We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is
    visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.
    ~Alexander
    Solzhenitsyn

    While I have known that it takes folks with great courage
    to speak out, I didn’t realize ALL can see, but only a few will give up their
    comfortable seat and do so.

    It isn’t that they can’t see, IT is because they don’t want
    to be uncomfortable.

    Isn’t that odd? We see the truth, but err in acting so not to be uncomfortable.

    We don’t want to experience perhaps the rage or dislike
    another may send our way, if we dare to mention the unmentionables.

    The truth sits there in its uncomfortable glory, shining
    forth and many will glance away so they will not feel uncomfortable.

    What happens when a few good folk don’t want to feel
    uncomfortable? What do you all believe happens to the pedophiles, while you are choosing comfort over speaking out?

    As I wrote on my brother’s blog, “It takes great courage
    to 'tell the authorities' but if you don't, your truth and words get stuck in a loop within the structure of abuse. You are the one who needs to bust out and speak their names. Until then your silence cements the structure in place, the bars on the cage
    .” www.messyguru.typepad.com

    Do the people sitting in their ‘comfortable’ spot really
    know what they are doing by not speaking out and feeling uncomfortable?

    I see it as either you are relaxing in the cage with the
    abusers or you are outside of the cage speaking out. To me neither seems comfortable, but only one is constructive or actively shutting down the cycle of abuse.

    Even if you only have hearsay and you are keeping that
    quiet, you have no idea which part of the puzzle piece you carry, which part of the big machine you are keeping in place.

    Each of us holds part of the cage together, and if one by
    one we start speaking out, the cage begins to fall apart.

    All it takes to get the ball rolling and to open the cage
    and let the flood of victims come forth is one voice. One voice will carry the others forth.

    The word has to get out that it is okay and normal to feel fear and terror as you break the silence, as you rattle the cage of abuse…It is the only way it will end.

    Someone has to bend the bars of silence by talking to the
    authorities.

    The reporting voices are the heroes and the heroines. They walked in fear and terror, but take the step anyway.

    They speak of fathers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles,
    neighbors and friends. They share their stories of abuse…letting go of the shame and guilt, ridding them of the load they carry.

    They are willing to be uncomfortable to save a child from following in their footprints. Until and unless the abuser’s names are brought to the authorities, abuse will continue forth.

    Silence locks the cage.

    What I still find hard to believe is that it is more comfortable in a cage with a monster…than it is to leave and break the silence, yet I do understand.

    We get comfortable or numb to the fear we know…and are more
    frightened of a new fear.

    However, this new fear and terror of speaking out will free you from the cage of abuse…it is the only way out is doing what makes you uncomfortable.

    Freedom isn’t gained by doing nothing.

     

  • It is not how you say it, but that you say it.

    It seems that I am not the only one who is unsure of what to bring to the Authorities and what is considered ‘evidence’ or if you have the right knowledge or if it is not first hand but rather hearsay.

    What I want to impress upon all who read this blog, is that we each carry a parcel of evidence, and each part whether it be large or small, first hand or was told to us by victims or friends of victims, we are all carrying some evidence.

    Evidence we believe in.

    It doesn’t have to be bold and in detail, it can be that you too have heard about the character of this man or this woman.

    They are all, as we are all, presumed pure until told otherwise, until enough folks can say something to the contrary.

    Each of us has a ruler to gauge people and each of us have bumped into unsavory characters, and what most of us fail to do, me included is follow through and speak up, alert not only friends and family, but authorities.

    The authorities we have to presume are NOT knowing or hearing what we are, they are in the dark and it is up to us to show them were to shine their lights, to investigate and look into the well being of the people, we are fearful for.

    If someone had pressed the issue way back when my father was molesting his daughters and all of our friends, it wouldn’t have taken a great detective to canvas our neighborhood and collect evidence from the girls living there.

    We keep thinking we need to work this from the bottom up, to find a child willing to say something, but that is not our job.  We are not the investigators; we don’t have to have a complete file of evidence to alert the authorities. 

    Our job as citizens of the world is to alert the authorities of folks we have information on, whether it be first hand or second, but if you believe it…it needs to be handed over to authorities.

    As the saying goes. “All it takes for evil to continue is for good folks to do nothing.”

    It matters not if you are articulate, if what you have heard seems small, it all adds up to the complete story; a story told from a variety of angles.  It can be your personal experience or how you heard.

    They need Not just one viewpoint or one age, not just from folks within the church, but from those on the outside.  Not just the family and friends, but friends of family and friends.  We all have a thread that will make up the tapestry of who these people really are.

    They have created an elaborate shield that deflects their criminal behaviors. We each can tug and pull on one thread that will reveal to all just who lies beneath.

    Somehow our minds have us convinced that we will spot this action happening, that we have to see it with our own eyes, before we can pass on information. You need not have the whole picture, but one piece of the puzzle.

    Again, we are not the detectives; we can’t arrest them, or take them to the court of the land.  It is our job to help the detectives.  We know what they don’t know.

    And if you know enough to believe it and you don’t share it, you are adding and abetting the crime. 

    The only ones who are free from guilt in this are the ones who don’t know. 

    If you don’t know, you can’t know.

    But, once you know, you can’t not know.

    And if you know and are holding it safe within, you are doing each pedophile a great big favor.  Their sickness breathes on your silence.  

    I was even more devastated by mother, for she was okay knowing and doing nothing for me.  Nothing.  I was left alone to tend my wounds, to make right my upside down world.   For I have very little memories, but I do have one, me showing my mother my hurting bottom.  I was little, way little.  I didn’t know why I kept that one odd memory. But now I do.  I showed her and nothing was done. She didn’t leave him.  Forty years later, my niece says her Grandpa touched her.

    Silence and doing nothing kept him going from girl to girl. 

    If you believe it, believe that your silence will deliver to him/her another child to abuse. For my experience with my father shows the trail.

    I had evidence that his sickness began years ago.

    The detectives need past histories, not just what is going on today, they need to see a pattern emerging.  The more who come forth, the more chances his/her case will go to trial.  They need to hear that this ‘story’ is being told far and wide, it comes from people of all ages…

    The less that comes forth, the more chances his/her reign will be like my fathers…40 years and way too many little girls!

    What I know for sure is that I will not be the one sitting holding my evidence while a child’s innocence hangs in the balance.

    I will not be like my neighbors or other members of the church and withhold evidence.  What I heard will be passed on.  Not in the rumor mill, but to the ones who have the power to help the children.

    No matter how my evidence is taken by the law, I know that I have done my part.

     It is not how you say, but that you say it.

     

  • Returns to being good.

    What a multifaceted catch 22 it is when society is asking that the children of abuse be the ones to stop it. To be the ones to name their perpetrator, to come out of their cages of captivity and walk freely with courage seems insurmountable.

    What it fails to realize is the condition of the conditioned mind and how it has programmed the child or the adult child to bow down to authority, to keep silent and suffer in silence.

    We have been taught by experiences to go it alone and to keep to ourselves our selves, to not expose or share the feelings part of us, but instead walk around with a veneer finish that covers our truths.

    We have lived mostly as the veneer and have not allowed the real self to peep through and now in order to stop the abuse we have to completely reverse this.

    The veneer has to fade to the back and what comes forth is all we have tried to keep hidden. We have to now present to the world the very thing that terrorized us.

    Imagine? We are the ones who stop the monster, we whose power they took, now have to come forward fearlessly.

    And yet, as odd as this seems, as backwards and as upside down, the very step in sharing your wounds is the very thing you need to begin building your strength and courage, it will help define who you are from the base of truth.

    To speak your truth of who you are and what happened to you, who you fear and why, are truthful utterances of your journey in life, your biography and pathology, what has made you you. You then are able to see and feel that IT isn’t you that is bad, but them. You are not the problem, they are.

    And, by having a veneer, also shows the lack of support and caring you had. It literally shows how untreated you are.

    If, you had to ‘hide’ your abuse, it shows that you lived in an abusive home. For if you lived in a loving caring home, the abuse would have been treated, you would have been lovingly cared for and nurtured and the Bad Man/Woman would have been put away as so not to harm another.

    When the bad man/woman is not put away, we are left to feel bad and actually are told to put away our wounds.

    What an odd show and tell it now requires in order to stop more generations, we have to show who the monster is and then our wounded self returns to being good.

  • What you see and say.

    I am reading David Hawkins book “Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man” and here is something I found fascinating…

    “The mind automatically assumes that it is continuously aware of reality, and it is unaware that what it considers to be reality, is actually own presumptive inner processing function that has been termed ‘the experiencer’ (Hawkins, 2000-2006).”

    “Thus the data has already been automatically processed and edited via ego mechanisms within 1/10,000th of a second that have thereby added or subtracted value, meaning, and importance as well as emotional tone and shadings of memory and significance. What the ordinary mind presumes to be “truth” is actually a processed composite of thousands of variables of differing degrees with superimposed editing, selection, distortion, and emotionalized, preferential evaluation. This editing is done unconsciously in 1/10,000th of a second and is not eliminated or bypassed until one reaches Enlightenment (cal. 600 and above.)” David Hawkins

    What I am extremely intrigued by is that our minds are already programmed to see that which we see and it is near impossible to interject a new idea especially in an old image.

    Which explains why most folks will not change their minds about fathers/brothers/uncles etc that become abusive. Even if their bodies carry the emotions and fears, their minds will not allow them to change the words from father to pedophile, to change the truth.

    What I am asking is for folks who don’t have this ironclad confused mind leading the charge, for the ones who can see and can speak to do so.

    To speak up against this criminal behavior of child abuse, to step in front of the unseeing eyes and see the truth of what is going on and to alert someone.

    We somehow sit in the position that someone in the family would speak IF something were going on. I am here to tell you it is near impossible for the abused and confused to stop this from the inside.

    The rumor mill on the outside churns and spews forth lots of data, but rarely offers the details up to the Child Protective Services, we don’t want to ‘ruin’ a family.

    Let me tell you a family that is riddled with sexual abuse is diseased and needs to be rescued. It needs the light of day to shine in and to halt the actions of the abuser; it needs you to say something. You are not ruining a loving family, but stopping the abuse from going on to generations upon generations. An abusive family isn’t a loving one.

    You may not awaken all the folks within the family, but perhaps you can save one person, one child…

    What I know to the dept of my soul, if you on the outside treat the pedophile as normal, then we believe we are nuts.

    If you on the outside would reflect what we know, “that something is wrong” then we are set free…we are looking for another view, one that honors the fear and yuck factor we feel.

    When you continue on as if nothing is wrong, as if this man is okay, if you continue to perform ‘normal treatment’ of him, we are left in a sea of abuse.

    We are counting on your clear eyes and words to set us free…

    Some will be awakened and others will be incapable of finding the space before the mind takes over and eliminates your truth, but speak it anyway, for you never know if there is one there that can and will be saved by what you see and say.

  • Warn the Authorities.

    I had a multifaceted dream just before waking this morning, confusing about places, time lines and doings, but yet totally clear with overall theme.

    I was at a high school reunion that was taking place at my childhood home and I left early, just walked out. In my car as I was leaving I seen my old neighbor running through his house with little boys chasing him. The next time he passed in front of the big bay window, he is wearing underwear, boys still laughing and chasing him. He then heads for the upstairs, stops midway and I see his underwear have fallen and his butt is showing. He stops on the step and turns…it is like he wants me to see him…doesn’t move for a second or two and then ascends the stairs…little boys following.

    I even notice that the stairway has been moved, for in the old floor plan, I would not have seen him taking the game to the upstairs bedrooms, out of sight.

    In the dream I call my brother to tell him…and then the next thing I am in a grocery story and see another old neighbor boy who is now an older man with a gray haired ponytail, and he is carrying a little boy who wants to get down…he lets him go. He and the boy are fully dressed and appear normal.

    I am buying a drink for my son who is in the hospital for a surgery and have witnessed in the dream my husbands loving teasing ways with him.

    This underwear game man juxtaposes the normal or regular men to boy scenes. The cat in the matrix, that something isn’t right, showing me the differences…and how I didn’t run over and wrestle with the man who was in the midst of a pedophile game.

    Yesterday Oprah asks her audience after listening to the Freedom Riders, what do you know that is wrong and what are you doing about it?

    What do you know or sense or feel isn’t right and what are you doing about it…?

    Leads me to sit with my life and ask what do I know that is wrong and is there something I should be doing about it?

    It just occurred to me in the past few days, that I don’t recall others talking about pedophiles to me. Of me being aware of knowing about other families. I just have no memory of them warning me of creepy men…and then I had a flash of knowing, it was me they were talking about. I lived in the creepy home. I was in the subject of what others were talking about, they didn’t tell me, for I was already there.

    This was shocking to know. No one brought the discussion about pedophiles and creepy men up to me, for my father was a known one.

    I find it fascinating and sickening to know that many knew and only warned others to stay away.

    In order for this disease to stop spreading, the ‘early warning’ system has to be ended, we have to learn how to step in, speak up, tell the authorities…do something.

    Even if you have known for years, now is a good time to do something different.

    I was taught to not speak ill of others, to not point out their negative behaviors, ‘for we all have faults’…silence was my first response.

    And I know I am not alone, there are pews full of well-intentioned good people, silently sitting by warning others to stay away, but not wanting to use their voice in a ‘negative’ way, to use it to tell someone suspicions of a child being abused.

    All it takes is for someone to alert the authorities and they will ask the child.

    It takes someone from the outside in the land of normal to come in and rescue those who were born in captivity.

    We know no different, we need you to speak up on our behalf.

    I have heard a few stories in the past six years, but I too didn’t move on it, didn’t speak up, for I who they spoke of I didn’t know, didn’t know their children or who they had access too. But what I also didn’t do is tell the person who told me, to not warn me, but warn the authorities.

    “What do you know that is wrong in the world and what are you doing about it…” Oprah Winfrey