Category Archives: abuse survivors

What my daughter said about abortion

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Let me say this: if my adopted children had been aborted my daughter would have had a normal life. Yet there is not a soul in our lonely little family who thinks that was the answer. Every life has value.

I read my daughter my last post. When I froth at the mouth I know I need an editorial opinion.

She said this–

I think of nature shows I have seen. Elephants will grieve over lost babies. A mother elephant will mourn over the body of her baby born too young to live. Her family-mothers, sisters, aunts, will gather around her and pick up the bones and touch them to remember her–the little one missing.

It seems like people are celebrating killing off babies. It also seems like people cover their guilt by calling it a fetus, not a baby, so they don’t have to picture a living thing that they are killing.

Just: a book review

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No one in their right mind writes a book review of their own book so people don’t have to read it.

So here goes:

I wrote Just because books had helped me through some tough times.

It is not a work of literature. It is a cry for help. I wanted to add to the voices of men and women who had helped me–mostly celebrity survivors who had been courageous and told their stories. Oprah, and Ellen, Sugar Ray, Ashley Judd, and Todd Bridges…

What would have I done without them?

So this the story: we fostered and adopted children damaged by neglect and abuse.

Life with them was so hard. It became even harder when we found out my adopted son had molested some of my children and others.

We pushed for legal consequences.
We dealt with the damage.

I was surprised by how little protection the justice system gave us. The book was a cry for help and a warning.

What I would add to that as an epilogue of sorts is that there is another book too painful and personal to write about what I call the shunning syndrome.

If you are brave or foolish enough to speak openly about being victimized by sexual abuse, you lose almost everyone you love.

Tough book to write. Even tougher to live. Par for the course for humans–we let our wolves drive our flocks.

But beyond the lonely places, we are fine (thank you).

Prayers for my reactive attachment disorder children

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I face this story every day, every moment of every day:

Once upon a time there were two teens. They both came from stories of neglect and abuse. Someone had hurt them by not giving them safety. Others by transgressing the most basic law of love–don’t hurt a child.

They hooked up. Had kids. Wandered into ways to dull the pain and longing in their hearts.

The children were so young but they still remember hunger, watching their parents leave them locked alone with a single cupcake to share among them all.

Longing. We all long for something–love, truth, justice. But what if that longing is never heard? A child cries but no one holds him? A little girl lives with a gnawing ache for food.

What happens when the search for love and safety comes up empty before they are one or two or three?

I watch her face in each picture. She never smiles. I want to say to her mother–pick her up, snuggle with her, talk baby talk to her and feed her. That is why you get wic, so she can be full.

Break the cycle, girl, for God’s sake, break the cycle.

What is it like to be raised by wolves?

Better than this. Wolves are social animals, willing to hunt for their young.

I search for answers, but there are few that satisfy. I cringe at memory–my own exasperation, impatience, and exhaustion. So many things I would do better.

I say that ruefully knowing that the maxim I had at 27 was true and mattered–regardless of the raggedy look of things. You must hold on. They need years of you just being there.

I am here. I won’t ever leave you.

He asks if we can meet. I say yes, but only me. The others are not ready.

Ready is a placeholder for heartbroken. Reactive attachment disorder can seep into the lives of everything it meets. It takes no prisoners.

I pray. I pray all the time. I pray they do not hurt or kill or disfigure. I pray for safety. I cast about for anyone or anything I could enlist to save them…from themselves. The longing for mother’s love turns to drugs, alcohol and reckless touch. Wires in a machine all shorted or circuited wrong.

Nothing will work but love, and by love I mean compassion. And by compassion I mean Jesus. I do the only thing that makes sense when the disease at the heart of your child is terminal–I cling to the feet of God and say, Save these babies, resurrecting God.

SCOTUS decides on child pornography

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This decision is infinitely more important than the DOMA suit.

Let’s see how much press it gets, who weighs in on the issue, and what Justice Kennedy has to say about the honor and dignity of children. Now that he has shown this is an important issue for him: the rights and legal protection of children.

Time to pony up, Your Honor.

Pony up.

Love the Island

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You can imagine me
Being dumped
On a nearly deserted island
just for talking too much

And you can also
See me chafe
Not so much for myself
(I am quite capable of talking to flora, fauna, and God, thank you, very much)

No.

For the children in my boat
They don’t deserve this–
The extreme isolation
So many freaking
Hot piña coladas!

No.

They deserve community
Friends who see them through
A voyage through calm seas

I tell myself this
Too much
Until I remember a wee bit of sage advice–

If you are going to burn your bridges
You better love the island

Love indeed
Beautiful survivors

Explaining Evil?

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He picks up a Shutterfly book his father made several years ago…our family before the flood.

There are pictures of flowers taped over my adopted son’s face. One of his victims has placed them over his face because her grief is still deep, and the righteous anger with it.

To her younger brother this is a strange thing. Who is this teenage boy? Why is his face covered?

I explain it to him. I explain the story using the simplest words I can find–the words of a fairy tale, a bedtime story. Only no one wants to tell the story of why the little girl has covered her “brother” in flowers any more than we want to face the hurt that happens when someone you trust and love betrays you and all you hold dear.

Hold dear…
Hm, little girl in the picture, I will always hold you, dear.

It is my job, like breathing.

Michelle Knight

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You have lost too much, been hurt by too many, abandoned instead of protected.

I am afraid for you. Afraid for all the stupid things people say to a person who has a tragic story. Afraid for the terrible pain you have endured.

A pain, I think, that does not magically go away. You need shelter. First from God, then from everyone else. Find the people who shelter you and stay close. Find the other survivors.

Of course I will be praying they find you. Balloon releases are a nice gesture, but they are only that–a gesture. What you really need is safety and love–these two most basic things that have been denied you so long.

I will be praying for healing for you dear girl. Healing and justice.

Justice would be nice for a change.

Crime in Cleveland

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When I think of the brutal tragedy at the heart of this Cleveland story I think of several other stories of law enforcement failing miserably to do their job.

In the Castro story neighbors claim they called the police. They said they reported strange situations at the house. The Cleveland police say they don’t remember those calls.

Okay. But was there anything about this Castro fellow that should have have raised alarms? Did he say, do, or not pay anything that would have warranted the intervention of the public trust?

Were these women the victims of police indifference as much as their monstrous captors? And if it can happen to them, if they were not saved by entities paid to ensure their safety, how safe are you?

Why are people so chicken?

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My daughter asks after I have waged yet another quixotic public awareness campaign about preventing abuse.

I tell her siblings this story to buttress my own vertiginous disbelief (in the chickens)….

They ran psych experiment wherein a single person was surrounded by a classroom of people “in” on the experiment.

A series of paired cards were shown, each with an objective, empirically correct answer–the longer line, for instance.

In each case the majority voted for the wrong card.

Soon the lone dissenter joined the majority.

Sure it can feel crazy to vote for the powerless, the disenfranchised, crime victims, and children.

But right is right.

And the short end of the stick stays short whether you are a weenie or just perhaps a little bit brave.

After all, the life you save could be your own.