Trust Issues Abound for All Abuse Survivors

Life is Full of Twists and Turns
In 2001 my husband and I elected to move from our home in Indianapolis to the beautiful state of Tennessee. He had the opportunity to transfer with his company and we decided that his final few years of work time and the approaching retirement time would be best spent in Tennessee. We purchased our “retirement home” in May, 2002 and settled in. October 1, 2008 brought the retirement from my husband’s job as a truck driver. We were delighted with the retirement and our home.

Something happened on the way to retirement, however. My husband had been experiencing a variety of health issues which had worsened through the years. Shortly after retirement the reality of his heath began to settle in and we soon recognized that he was no longer physically able to do the outside work on our present property. Because of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart problems along with the corresponding medications for these conditions, his energy level has greatly diminished, especially when trying to work outside in the heat and sunshine. Reality has a way of changing the course of life and ours was quickly changing.

Sometimes Life Throws Us a Few Curve Balls
The home we had so carefully chosen as our place of retirement is no longer working for us. To make a very long story as short as possible, I will tell you that we are now in the process of selling our Tennessee home and moving to north Georgia. In fact, we are moving onto the property of our first-born son and his lovely wife. We will be building our own home on the back of their property, sort of a ground level in-law apartment which is not attached to their home except under their roof (which is a requirement imposed by the City).

I must confess that there are times when this is very exciting to me and there are times when I am so confused and distressed by it that I am unable to sleep. My mind follows all the possibilities, both positive and negative. I understand the need we have in regard to my husband’s health issues and they cannot be ignored. On another level, I also understand another need. That is the need for family. Living in Tennessee put us in a position of being away from all of our family. Of course, my family is so fractured because of the sexual abuse that abounds that I am happy to be separated from most of them. I am not, however, happy to be separated from my sons. I am a firm believer in allowing children to grow up, move away from mom and dad and make their own friends and their own lives. Yet when holidays roll around, it is not always possible for us to be together and my husband and I end up being alone most of the time. We do need family and all the interactions that make families work.


God Sets the Solitary in Families
When our older son married, he married into a large family that gets together quite often for family gatherings, cookouts, and of course, birthday celebrations for each member of the family. That is a lot of family interaction, compared to the interactions that I grew up with in my dysfunctional home. Our family was largely closed off and alienated without much interaction with other branches of the family tree.
One of the Bible verses that I learned about in 1997 when I first began the healing process for my childhood sexual abuse was Psalm 68:6 (NIV).
“God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing, but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.”
I had a hard time wrapping my abused brain around that scripture for a long time, even though I noticed that God brought a variety of people across my pathway. Some of those people remained for a short time, some have remained for longer periods of time and some will likely remain for a lifetime. Each person brought healing to me in one way or another, sometimes without knowing they were helping me to heal.

Family - Who Needs ‘Em?
For me to recognize my need for a loving, caring family is huge. I lived most of my life feeling alienated and alone. My emotions were numb so I failed to recognize my hunger for closeness.
Today, I need the family that God has chosen for me. God sets the lonely in families. I’m so glad He does that for us. This is another major healing period in my life and I recognize it for what it is.

God’s Part and My Part
God’s part in this process is to make good on His Word. I have no doubt that He is already doing that. My part is to simply trust God, my husband, my son and daughter-in-law and embrace this family that has already begun to embrace me. I say my part is simple, but as any abuse survivor knows, trust is never simple. The same push-pull always comes into play as I struggle to embrace and run away over and over again.

The Dead Tree
We have the remains of a very dead tree in our backyard. It was diseased and weakened and the strong winds of winter finally succeeded in blowing the top off of the tree. There remains a very ugly and jagged stump. I’ve looked at that stump over the past couple of months and as spring arrived, I looked at it carefully to see if there were any signs of life. Nothing. Then this morning, I noticed something that seemed to be growing near the top of the stump. My heart wanted to see new growth, but my husband assured me that the tree is completely dead and what I was seeing was a vine that had entwined around the dead tree stump.

It did not take long for the Holy Spirit to drive the point home to me. My life is like that stump, especially when it comes to family. My family is largely gone, yet there is the family that God has chosen for me and that family has already begun to entwine around this old dead stump of a person. New growth is springing forth and there is life and love embracing the deadness.

There remains much to do in order to make this move happen. However, when I realized that God was at work in me as we go through this process, I was able to embrace it with a sense of excitement. Healing the wounds of incest and childhood sexual abuse is truly a life-long process, and I am certain that the same push-pull will remain for a season. I am also certain that God is always faithful to His Word and He will bring me to a place of fulfillment within a family He has chosen for me.



Source: My Life

It's Just the Place Where I Used to Live

I drove down the street where I lived as a child
Found the old house with weeds growing so wild
I parked in the driveway of rough gravel and stone
I remembered those childhood days of feeling alone.

The old front porch door had blown away
The back porch leaned in a half-hearted sway
I sat in the driveway without going inside
A part of my soul still wanted to hide

Bare windows looked back in dark, somber eyes
Empty and hollow they echoed my sighs
I wondered how much those eye-windows had seen
Had they witnessed the things that now seem like a dream?

The pretense we lived with, the truth undiscovered
The painful abuses by both father and mother
Do those walls still harbor my little girl sorrow
All those days when I prayed for a brighter tomorrow?

The squeaky old floor in the upstairs room
Tried so often to warn me of impending doom
Its squeak woke me from sleep as he came to my bed
The feelings that followed were all filled with dread

At times he peered through the windows, his voyeur-type deed
Those eyes of dark glass his will did impede
No place of safety, no place to belong
Without being violated by things that were wrong.

The house still is standing despite its neglect
We have that in common I've grown to suspect.
Its foundation has weakened as mine has grown strong
I found a Safe Place where I truly belong.

Would You Use a Pill to Erase Bad Memories?

I saw an online article about a new pill that is being tested that is supposed to “erase” bad memories.

As a survivor of years of childhood sexual abuse and incest, it would seem that being able to take a pill and forget about all those horrific memories would be ideal. However, that is not the case, at least not for me.

First of all, my own mind pretty well took care of erasing the majority of those memories. Dissociation serves us well during our childhood and I remembered only fragments of various abuses. That did not, however, keep me from having PTSD and reacting to things in my present life that were similar or in some way reminded me of past abuse. Even though I did not remember specifically what happened to me, the triggering of the abuse was alive and well. Healing from this type of harm comes from “remembering” and forgiving. Without the willingness to recall what is needed, we cannot forgive our abusers. I still have not “remembered” everything that happened to me. Remembering the abuse does not in any way resemble remembering as if we recall something that happened to us only a few moments ago. The type of memory recall comes about in so many different ways that it does not remotely resemble “remembering”.

Pills are not the answer to this kind of “working through” painful life events. We are not required to remember whole events that cause us pain and trauma. We work through the damaging part of the memories and that does not always require remembering the actual abusive incident. For instance, one of the memories I had was about my father abusing me in the kitchen. The painful part of that abuse was not what he did to me physically but the betrayal of trust surrounding the abuse. I thought he was proud of me for riding my bicycle so well and he called me inside because he wanted to give me a hug. He hugged me, but not in the way that a father should hug and love his daughter. The sting of that disappointment and betrayal was huge to a six-year-old. The sexual abuse that followed was dissociated and I still do not know exactly what he did.

Many people think that in order to recover from an abusive childhood, we must remember all the details of the horrible things that happened to us. That is just not true. In fact, so many of the sexual abuses are so similar in nature, that recalling only one incident will help us heal from a host of repeated episodes of similar abusive acts.

I can speak only to the recovery process of childhood sexual abuse, incest and rape. I cannot speak to those who suffered the crimes of the holocaust or to those who fought in wars in foreign lands. Perhaps remembering is the problem and being able to forget would be helpful to some. However, at the same time, if a pill erases what happened to us, doesn’t that erase our history and change who we are? I am not what happened to me in my past, but sexual abuse is a part of my history and I do not wish to erase my story.

A Story of Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse

Recently a young child in Wheeling, West Virginia told her story of sexual abuse to her father and then to child psychologists and counselors. Then she had to repeat her story in the courtroom as she testified against her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, charging them with child rape. The boyfriend’s court case will soon follow the mother’s trial.

As a result of this child’s bravery, her mother, Jessica Morris, was sentenced to 101-235 years for the sexual abuse and sexual assault committed against her daughter, beginning when the child was only three years old.

When stories of child sexual abuse come to light, most of us have a strong desire to see the perpetrators of such horrific crimes against children swiftly brought to justice. Many times this does not happen. Children are sometimes accused of making up stories and their attempts to tell on their abusers are quickly discounted. However, this child’s story was so consistent and compelling that it brought down the strong arm of West Virginia’s state law.

Ohio County Circuit Judge James Mazzone sentenced Morris according to the following state guidelines:
1-5 years for conspiracy to commit sexual assault on a minor
15-35 years each for 3 counts of first degree sexual assault
10-20 years each for 4 counts of sexual abuse by a parent
5-15 years each for 3 counts of incest.


Judge Mazzone further ordered the terms to be served consecutively, making the sentence from 101 -235 years total. The sentence is in agreement with West Virginia law, as well as recommendations by both the Ohio County Prosecutor’s Office and Ohio County’s Adult Probation Officer.

Guardian ad litem for the child read a letter written by the victim to the judge in this case:
"Dear judge. I think what Jessica did was wrong. She should never have done it. I hope she gets 200 years of jail. Jack should get 200 years of jail. I hope that they get that much. Thank you for everything that you did. You are really a nice judge. I hope they get what they deserve. What Jack did was wrong too. I wish that stuff never happened. Thank you for everything you did."

In this case, it seems that the Judge heard the cry of this child’s heart and applied the law of the state of West Virginia accordingly.

It is always hard to hear about abuse of this type being perpetrated against a child. Parents are supposed to love and protect their children, not abuse and misuse them. Sexual violation by a parent is so out of the norm that it is many times hard to believe. Perhaps that is why so many children fail to step forward and speak out against their own parents. Sexual abuse and assault by one’s own parent, especially by one’s own mother is probably one of the most appalling crimes against children.

Mothers are typically seen as protectors and nurturers, not monsters who abuse their own children. However, we know that many mothers and fathers do choose to misuse and abuse their children. Statistics tell us the sad story as newspapers and newscasters across the country report their daily news stories of child sexual abuse as well as other forms of abuses.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all perpetrators of such crimes received the penalty imposed upon this mother? Perhaps then, sexual assaults against children in their own homes would decrease. If the penalties in every state were as imposing as the state of West Virginia, maybe, just maybe, we could actually stop childhood sexual abuse and incest.





Sources:
http://www.protect.org/
http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/518504.html

Meet LaQuisha Hall

I had the pleasure of meeting LaQuisha Hall today. She is a fellow freelance writer on Associated Content and is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

LaQuisha has a beautiful story to share, so please take the time to go by her blog and do some reading. I have provided a link (on the right-hand side of this page) to her site which is called "Stopping the Silence". From that blog, you can also read more about this wonderful survivor who is the reigning Mrs. Owings Mills, MD. Her platform is all about "stopping the silence of abuse". She is truly a beautiful lady, both inside and out an will be a great role model for many other survivors who come behind her.

Thank you so much, LaQuisha, for standing up for sexual abuse survivors and speaking out about these crimes against the children and teens in America and all around the world.

Bless you!

Knoxville, Tennessee Police Department Serves as a Role Model for Other Law Enforcement Agencies

The Knoxville (TN) Police Department realized the importance of the new technology used today to help track and arrest online sexual predators. Police Chief, Sterling Owen and Bradley County Sheriff, Tim Gobble, have declared war on internet predators in their area of the state of Tennessee and serve as role models for other police departments across both the state and the nation.

Sheriff Tim Gobble of Bradley County says, “I know there is a lot going uninvestigated and not being prosecuted. By becoming part of a regional concept, sharing information and forensic technologies, we’re going to be able to put more emphasis on it.”

In January, 2000, through a grant from the Department of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Knoxville Police Department founded Strike Force, a unit of KPD that is dedicated to protecting children online.

In 2007, the PROTECT organization won new money for the state of Tennessee for use in combatting online child exploitation. The Knoxville Police Department took the money, recruited more police officers, trained them in the use of the new technologies in order to equip their regional law enforcement agencies. As each agency becomes better trained and equipped, more predators will be found and more child sexual assault victims will be rescued. Finding these online predators, prosecuting them and rescuing abused and exploited children is the goal of the Knoxville Police Department.

PROTECT - The National Association to Protect Children says, “This is exactly how it should work . . . Admit there’s a crisis. Dedicate resources not just rhetoric, to solving it. And let them know you’re coming.”

The problem is much larger than anyone can imagine.
With the widespread use and availability of the Internet, children are easy prey for online sexual predators. Parents need to teach their children the dangers lurking on the Internet, they need to use every safeguard they can find and monitor their child’s online activities at all times. Statistics for online sexual violations are appalling. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in five children who use the Internet has been approached by perpetrators in the past year and one in four children have been unwillingly exposed to pornography.

This presents and documents a growing problem in our nation and around the world as more and more young children and teens use the Internet. As parents become more educated and involved in the protection of their children and as more law enforcement agencies follow the lead of The Knoxville Police Department, the Internet can become a safer place for children and teens. The job of protecting our children belongs to all of us.


Sources:
http://www.strikeforceonline.org/index.html
http://www.ci.knoxville.tn.us/kpd/default.asp
http://www.protect.org/