Category Archives: abuse survivors

The Witness

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It is 3 flipping twenty in the morning and I have written myself out of a paper bag several times recently. But not this time.

This time I give you a picture–our protagonist is at the brink of death when the neighboring Amish descend over the rolling Pennsylvania hillside–their quiet presence ostensibly saving the life of young Harrison Ford.

I am naive to believe in those faux Amish extras. To quote Isaiah:

stop trusting in men

This is the last day of April. Much has happened this month, not much fan fare about the victims of crime and child abuse. Quiet. Too quiet. As I have quipped before–no one wants to be the spokesperson for dysentery relief, too stinky.

I want to say this–I am not sorry I have been a vociferous child advocate. I am only sorry I have failed. My children are not safe. Neither are yours.

When I feel the despair of the freakishly ignored I understand why most victims of child sexual abuse never share their story–it is worse to tell your story and be treated like a freak than keep quiet and attempt to mend alone.

It is as though our children were naturally able to count with their hands but each time they gave us the correct answer we slapped their hands and told them to parrot a wrong answer–like carrot or France.

You might ask yourself how dizzying, confusing, and painful it would be to know that 2 plus 2 is four, not Siberia, but never to be allowed to say.

I don’t have to ask. I know.

3:34 am

Fairy Tale Beginnings

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Imagine you are a reasonably attractive young person in your 20s. You are educated and have an interesting job with growth potential.

Then…you enter into a completely voluntary relationship with two fairy tale creatures. Think frog in well, old lady at door of castle material. There is a spell that has been cast over them, you, intrepid young person, must break the spell!

This requires enduring a lot of verbal abuse, physical abuse (fairy tale creatures are small but fierce and sometimes quite wild).

You hang on, barely, telling yourself each day that the humiliation and loss you feel is worth the investment in these small people, I mean enchanted creatures. Someone has to break enchantments, why not you?

Yolo; I know. That is part of the heartbreak. To “waste” your youth on the ungrateful and the enslaved can feel like desert living.

When they get older, larger, and more criminal, it can feel like…well let’s just say not a fairy tale.

The other people in the enchanted woods look a little queasy when you spill your tale–what? No magic reveal? No broken spells? What the heck?!

You can see it in their faces–please stay away from us, we live in this forest and are invested in keeping up magic appearances.

But you know the secret–dark, sad, but unavoidable secret. There is only one happily ever after and there is only one handsome prince.

He was the unlikeliest of Redeemer Princes–unremarkable, a tradesman. Itinerate, shekel-less. He died a miserable death and seemed to indicate there would be rough and uncertain times for his kingdom.

His spell-breaking talisman seemed a little too brief–follow me.

Like we would want to do that. Like that would be pretty. Like hell itself would be a picnic.

But of course, hell was just a place on a narrow road for him. It was not his destination. So keep up, girl, the story isn’t over…

Isaiah 58

After the Sea

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We sleep in boats
Strewn out across
An unending sea
Cling to blankets, shelter, each other

An archipelago of contained air
All that holds us
Up inflatable dinghies,
Flotsam unstable

We call to each other
Sun-drenched dazed
Testing our new words
Like… beach balls….
Flood….
Antediluvian–
post-apocalyptic always

Cup your hands
Across your eyes
Look to the deep
Where the leviathan hides

Home.

The Bad Days

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Some days are just hard. You could tell me I need more sunlight or you could tell me that I need to leave the past behind me. I wouldn’t advise it, but you could.

But what I would say–

Grief is a big dog sitting on your chest
An arrow lodged in my sternum
The shadow on my daughter’s
Face
Lost people
And the dream of a family where everyone is safe
Someday.

The Cypher

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A few of us may remember a night spent with dear, dear friends camping in the woods. Deep, off-site camping.

Spooky.

There were four of us. Two were afraid of bears. A couple afraid of humans.

In the end two slept. And two did not. The sleepers were candid–

we slept because we knew you were awake.

Guarding us, so to speak.
Vigilant and awake
Maybe a little paranoid, even.
Tired in the morning.

Some will stay awake
So that the little ones can be
Safe.

This is you.

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I know people would prefer I not write or talk about what happened to my family. I know because they tell me to shut up. I know because they tell other people I am a liar or crazy or at fault. The lines of thinking are terrible and wretched. But the abuse itself….

Is haunting.

I write about what it feels like to have adopted a predator because predators are common. Yesterday I saw an arresting picture of a “shark circle”–hundreds of fish in schools carefully leaving a distance of a few yards between themselves and the shark.

You gotta know a shark to avoid a shark. What if the sharks could assume the shape of an ordinary fish? What would happen to the schools?

I write to stay off of drugs. If I articulate the enduring pain and hauntedness of what happened to my babies I am debreeding a deep and terrible wound. I don’t know if it will ever truly heal.

My adopted son made himself out to be safe. But he wasn’t. My children were victimized. That does not go away.

But I think somehow that if I cry out, mourn, and wail for the things we have lost in trust, hope, and community perhaps my children will not have to.

Or at least they will not grieve alone.

Dearest Child

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Dear Girl,

I found out about you from another mother who, like myself, became a child advocate after discovering her child was abused.

We are an ornery bunch–the moms who speak out. Our social media pages are littered with appeals for greater care. Greater care for our kids. Greater care for you.

I don’t know your name. I pray you are safe. I will continue to pray for you. You need to know some things:

You are a crime victim.
You need safety and a chance to heal.
Sex is not who you are, nor is it a way of valuing you.
You are a precious young woman and your innocence was stolen from you.
Terrible, but worse that it was taken by your own mother.

You deserve better.

You deserve a real mom.

A real mom would fight like a wild dog to keep you safe.

A real mom would make a fool of herself to protect you.

A real mom would tell the truth and do whatever she could to…

Give you love
Life
Safety
Hope.

You deserve a real mom.

I am here if you need me little one.

The Resilient Child

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Children are resilient.

If I had a dollar for every time I heard this….

The truth is children are not any more resilient than adults. They are helpless and not yet mature enough to understand or control the harm done to them. We all carry our wounds with us, and children need vigorous advocates, not cheap platitudes.

My friend tells a story: he was quite young and won a prize at a picnic. An older child tricked him into relinquishing his winning ticket. Only later did he understand the trust he had placed in the older child was misplaced and he had been cheated.

Small story, but one he tells to this day with a sense of injustice. How much more are the truly harmful things that happen to children wounds we carry into adulthood?

So think about my small story the next time someone says children are resilient. If you want your child to recover from the wounds of deception, abuse, or cruelty in a darkened world you will have to be their advocate and physician– providing a safe place to heal, a shoulder to grieve on, and a tough mama or daddy to fight for them. Fight for the safety of the little ones.

You be the resilient one. Speak out.

Finding

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Pretend you are just a wisp of a thing
Standing in a maze
But…
Someone you
Love is looking out for you.

He says–

Mark 8:34-38 (NIV)
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [35] For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. [36] What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? [37] Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? [38] If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Which can be translated–follow Me. Trust Me.

He can see the whole maze so I do. I do trust him. Sometimes in my life I have hoped there was an easier way through. I have always known that others wandered through their mazes and had to slay monsters…or be slain by them.

The ultimate question for me is not how?

He answered that when he came back from hell with my life in his hands.

No. The only question is when?

When will we all
Walk into the Light?
Glorious Light.

Rev. 22

The Picture

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The poster shows familiar faces–Oprah, Ashley Judd, Tori Amos. There are people in it I did not know were sexual abuse survivors. I was a struck by the stories I did not know as the dozens of people who were survivors who weren’t on the poster.

Each made a choice to tell their story. Each has helped me to tell ours.

Victims become survivors when someone shows them they are not alone. What happened to them has happened to others.

We need to speak out.

To heal
To save others
To break the power of silence