Category Archives: abuse victim

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.

Ten a Day

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I do believe all crimes against children are under-reported. I know because even the cases that get reported do not go down the wormhole of additional victims.

So I have been going along with the standard figure for death-by-child-abuse in the US–5 a day.

Today I read that figure should be double–ten children a day die from child abuse a day in America.

Mind boggling.
Incomprehensible.

Or…
One kindergarten class every 2 days.
A basketball team a day.
70 a week…3 thousand 6 hundred 50 a year die…

Are murdered…
And we…
Do nothing.

One in what?!?

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I see this statistic so often I have it memorized–one in four girls are sexually abused, one in six boys. That is 25% of girls and 16% of boys.

Only the statistics are ridiculously low and therefore misleading and therefore very wrong.

There is NO reason to believe that the statistics for Norfolk or Pitcairn Island wouldn’t apply to the rest of us. There is little reason to think that pervasive abuse of boys by a man like Jerry Sandusky would not factor into raising the stats for boys.

Let me offer a counter example–1 in 4 girls eats cereal for breakfast, 1 in 6 boys has some kind of tomato in his diet.

I bet if you read that statistic you would have one of two responses–

Boy,those numbers are off!
Or
Sure, but that cannot be all of the kids eating cereal and tomatoes.

The most scientific response to those statistics would be to dig deeper to find out why the kids were not having their diet accurately reported.

It would actually be a relief if the answer were in the children–they lied or felt ashamed of their cereal and tomatoes?

But the ugly truth is this: our society systematically pressures victims and their families to suppress stories of abuse. Our numbers are grossly inaccurate because no one wants to face the real numbers.

And by numbers I mean people
And by people I mean children
And by children I mean rape victims…who deserve our help, our assistance, our dismay.

About Pain

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Most people have run across CS Lewis’ quote about pain being God’s megaphone. We are risk averse. We don’t really even like to think about pain.

I dropped a roll of (heavy) butcher paper on my big toe. Dumb, I know. The pain was and is intense, binding.

It derailed my plans for a run. This in itself is a sticky issue. Exercise, especially running is my go-to, no-guilt stress reducer. If I could I would eat a lot of chocolate and drink vodka gimlets, but to paraphrase Tobias Funke–I don’t need the calories.

I guess I didn’t need the run.

The truth is my big toe was already a wounded soldier–bunioned, afflicted with frequent stubs, not helped by my penchant for running barefoot and in Chacos. That poor toe was already punished.

I am not really that fixated on my toe. I am fixated on why?

I know God well enough to trust that my clumsy accident is no accident at all. He has stuff for me in the midst of pain. Things like:

Wound care. I wiki toe breaks. Importune my doctor husband. Follow his advice…

Pain management. I take the ibuprofen with alacrity and gratitude. It just takes the edge off. Same with the ice…

Change plans. No run is a bummer. But this also means a real change in my dazzling and exciting plans to work on the exterior trim of our house. I went from looking forward to tackling the high places to envisioning myself doing most of the yard-and-under edges.

The little things. As I said, I was already neglecting this toe. Now I am not. I am grateful for all the thankless weight-bearing it does and very aware of how much I need my big toes.

Need. I am also going to need more help. My kids will have to be my team–helping with all the not-so-fun cleaning jobs.

Empathy.. Most of all I am aware that my small intense pain is nothing compared to the people I pray for–friends battling cancer, families missing loved ones, prisoners in terrible places, women whose lives have been stolen by…it is too easy to say monster.. Too easy to pile a decade of individual blows–each one vicious and deadly into a lump sum.

I would prefer to separate each into a blow of such force that to minimize or forget is to be less human, less alive.

Let us face these terrible things together, these monstrous griefs.

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?

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

Martha Speaks, Mary Speaks

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I love the PBS show Martha Speaks. Martha is a very lovable talking dog who teaches vocabulary lessons. One of the reasons I love PBS kids is the safety inherent in these child-centered communities. Such safe places.

In today’s episode Martha becomes discouraged when her constant chatter is not appreciated. She neglects her speech and has to resume talking quickly to foil a crime.

I feel for Martha. Often people don’t appreciate words. Some things are difficult to face, much less talk about. This episode always makes me grateful for those who expose crime and injustice. Like my adopted daughter, for instance. She helped her little sister get help. She spoke out.

Thanks kid.

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.