Category Archives: abuse survivors

100 books

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the day i let go of the rope i decided, why not write?

if someone mined the interior of my computer they would find fragments of the same terrible story–for years i wrote to stay sane

when i finally wrote the book it was an act of defense not just for my children but for the millions of other children who have been silenced and marginalized by abuse, especially sexual abuse

after I wrote the book I sprinted to edit it and clean it up and then I bought a hundred copies.  I have given them out.  That was the goal I had set for myself and the image that goes with it has been with me for years:

When M. and C. were little they had so many tantrums so regularly I often thought about the climatic moment in the now ancient movie The Witness–the bad guys are about to win when a contingent of Amish neighbors appear on the horizon.  Their numbers and witness prevent violence.  Over the years I have longed for those Amish people–a group of witnesses preventing violence.  And that was the idea–one hundred books, one hundred witnesses.  The justice system is falling short and sexual predators are allowed to do much more damage than they should because we do not have an effective system to just identify them and prevent them access to children.  If you add the terrible price of silence and the way it cuts children off from healing and community–something needs to change.

Now that I have gotten to the watermark of 100 books I feel compelled to reiterate my offer.  Want a copy?  Send me your address.

lists in my head

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i keep thinking about Meghan’s suggestion that i should write a prevention list at the end of the book.  i should, but i haven’t because it haunts me,  i genuinely believed for years that i was protecting my children from abuse, but i was wrong,  so the only list i feel qualified to write is remedial–a list of don’t, not do’s, that i write brokenly–like writing to the person i thought i was before…

don’t think you can be too careful or paranoid

don’t take advice from people whose parenting models you don’t agree with

don’t second guess your instinct

don’t think that instinct will be enough

don’t expect a child abuser to tell the truth (they won’t)

and don’t expect them to have a conscience (they don’t)

don’t believe statistics ( sexual abuse is ridiculously underreported)

don’t believe the myths surrounding both predators and their victims

(for instance most victims of abuse are not abusers

and abusers will lie about everything to save their skin or keep abusing)

don’t think that there is an economic, racial, or educational profile for predators, there isn’t

don’t think abuse is rare

remember 6 degrees of separation?  it is my contention that if you have not been the victim of a sexual predator, you have a close relationship or family relationship with someone who has

why?

because all the predators I know or have heard of had an AVERAGE of 10 victims

that means that if even 10% of the population is a predator, we are all victims

don’t think that prevention checklists, sex offender registry, and warning sign checklists will ferret out most abuse

which leads to my next post..