Sexual Assault and the Golden Rule

It is inescapable. The constant news of rampant sexual abuse of women and children. And the powerful men willing to let it continue, ignore it, or even pass it off with a "boys will be boys" sigh.

I know that "boys will be boys" line as it was said to me when I told about an assault in a family member’s home. Don't believe it happens in "nice" families? My dad was a college professor and minister. We all went to church every time the doors were open. What you see is not necessarily what you get.

There is a line from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, HMS Pinafore, that always comes back to me when these issues arise -- "skim milk masquerades as cream". Shallow pretending to have depth.

It's not bad enough that victims are expected to keep quiet about assault as if it is somehow our fault that someone else behaved badly, viciously, violently. We're told to think about the impact it will have on the abuser's life, success, career, reputation if we air our dirty laundry. Guess what, it's not MY dirty laundry. One of the best deterrents of "bad behavior" is knowing everyone will find out who you truly are!

I've been, mostly, silent over the past couple of years on this topic. In the past, I’ve been open about the abuse I endured, but even now typing these words, my hands shake at the thought of just telling the truth. Fear of the repercussions gnaws at my gut. Somehow, I am responsible for keeping the abusers' secrets and protecting them from being outed so I remain vague about the details.

How did we come to this?

On the one hand, I've talked and written about being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and two rapes as an adult. On the other hand, I've been complicit in keeping certain facts out of the public eye. The argument can be made that I kept those facts to myself to protect me, but part of that protection was based in fear. If I tell the unadulterated truth, how will that play out for me? I have no proof. I have only my memories and experiences, while the abusers have their own memories and experiences. Why should I be believed over them?  The answer is simple, I have so much more to lose by making accusations I cannot prove. People lie to make themselves look better, not worse.

Christine Blasey Ford moved heaven and earth to escape from the man who assaulted her. She reinvented herself in a far-off place and prayed she'd done enough to escape that night. When her safe haven was threatened, she considered moving to a FOREIGN country to escape, but instead, she decided to risk everything and save others by coming forward all while knowing full well it would shred her world. But she did it anyway.

She has moved from her home. Left her children, for their safety, and been emotionally eviscerated by people for POLITICAL gain. And they have no remorse. No compassion for her now or the 15-year-old girl from then. According to her critics, it can't have been that bad or it would have been investigated by the police. Really? What world are those people living in?

I want to name names and list offenses. None of my abusers are important people, but I don't name names because I'm afraid of backlash from family and friends. Because what if one of "them" decided to sue me for defamation? I can't afford that, and I HAVE NO PROOF!

How do we fix this? I don't know. Years ago, in Sunday school classes in small, rural churches, I was taught about the Golden Rule -- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Matthew 7:12). And I bought into it, believing other people did as well. But over the years I've been shown repeatedly that I was naive to believe that. I still treat other people the way I want to be treated -- with dignity, respect, empathy, and compassion. I assume the best on first meeting people. But it's getting harder to make that assumption.

rest

i had a flashback nearly 3 weeks ago.

i was with my husband when it happened, but i didn't tell him. i didn't tell anyone.

i didn't journal about it.

i didn't think about it.

i didn't acknowledge it in any meaningful way.

i held it in for nearly a week, letting it eat at me and drain my energy away.

and then i wrote about it.

then easter came, and i got triggered again.

i kept treading water. telling myself i was okay, all the while knowing i wasn't.

on tuesday, my therapist and i delved into it.

i was a wreck before i got there. 

we dove straight into it, and i was so anxious i couldn't remember the process. a process i've done dozens of times.

i processed. i relived it. i talked about it in detail. i cried. i hurt. i talked without pausing to be worried about what i was saying.

i came home and laid on the sofa all afternoon and evening. i felt miserable and hurt and damaged and sorry for myself.

and then i went to bed.

Rest.

I slept through the night. 

I woke up feeling better. Lighter. More lucid.

I didn't hate myself. I hated what had been done to me. I hate that more time was stolen from me. I hate that he's not being punished for his crimes.

But I don't hate me.

I made choices I wanted to make. I did things I wanted to do. I made a list and got some of it done, and felt good about it.

I did things that just a day or two ago seemed impossible. I felt alive again.

Rest comes from lots of places. Sleep, yes, but sharing and taking care of myself are restful too. And necessary. 

Today I'm resting in who I am, and putting aside what was done to me.

linking up with Tuesday at Ten

Break

Do I "break" -- fall apart, fragment, shatter -- or do I "break" -- pause, take a rest, a respite?

Another flashback. Another reminder of pain from the past. Knee jerk reactions to deny, run and hide, beat myself up. Is this the one that takes me down? The one that smashes me permanently? The heel of his palm to my nose. Searing pain that leaves me staggering, ripe for the attack that follows.

My husband points out that it means I fought back. And he never showed up at my door again. It was the last attack. Something good from this latest reminder of pain? 

So I write about it. I cry on the massage table. I talk to my husband. My therapist. I seek help. I feel all those feelings again -- fear, guilt, paranoia, self-loathing, denial.

I pause and take a respite. A retreat with my husband for the weekend. We may talk about it or we may put it aside for the time being. More than likely it will be a bit of both. 

But I choose the second definition. Because this time I get to choose.

linking up with Five Minute Friday and Writer's Workshop

The Smirk

I hadn’t seen him in months, and it had been so restful.
We lived in the same neighborhood, so of course I worried about running into him or just seeing his car drive by on the road.
I was running errands with my kids – distracted by them, focused on the task at hand. Walking down the aisle of the drug story contemplating buying candy just for the hell of it.
I rounded the corner and there he stood.
All the clichés are true. I froze in the spot. Time stood still. I couldn’t utter a sound. His daughter was with him. My children were with me.
In my head were a million and one things I wanted to say. You liar. You bastard. You ruined my life, my family. I hate you. Why can’t you just disappear off the face of the earth? Why were you even born?
Instead I stood there like a fool, and what I remember is the smirk on his face. He was enjoying my discomfort. He realized he still had power over me.
I don’t know if it was that or the children, but something released. I pleasantly addressed his daughter as the children began to chat. I nodded an acknowledgement to him, and hurried my children along with the mom exhortation of “we have so much to do”.
I paid for the items in my cart. I walked my kids to the car, stowing bags and children in their assigned locations. The whole time wondering how I was calmly going about these routine activities. Angered by a God who lets men like him walk free. Smirking at me.
I wanted to shout to everyone I saw, “Don’t go in there. Watch out for yourselves and your children. There’s a rapist in there.” But that would have been inappropriate, and I’d have been viewed as the crazy one, giving him even more fodder for that smirk.
So I went on my way. I finished my errands. I helped the kids with homework, and cooked dinner, and cleaned the kitchen, and gave baths, and read stories, and tucked little bodies into beds with prayers and kisses. And I tried not to think about that smirk – not to denigrate myself for letting him/it get to me.
I crawled into bed, mentioning the encounter to my husband – downplaying it as I always did. I was over reacting. No big deal, really.
I found a new drugstore. I didn’t go back to that one for a long time, and even still over 10 years later that smirk is the first thing I think of when I walk by that store.

linking up at Write on Edge

Red Writing Hood -- Saying without Saying

This week, focus on dialogue and body language to set a scene or move a story forward, limiting your use of narration. You have 450 words, beginning with the line: His crossed arms answered her question before he spoke.



(warning: adult content)
His crossed arms answered her question before he spoke.

“Of course, I believe you. I have to. You’re my daughter.” Not exactly the answer she’d been looking for. Was it better than having him say, “No. Absolutely not”?

She hadn’t expected denial, but she had hoped for compassion. It didn’t occur to her that she would get obligation.

Watching him sit with his arms covering himself, she said, “So you believe me when I say he raped me?”

“I believe you believe that’s what happened.”

A knife twisted in her heart and she began to shake.

“Oh, you’re so cold! Here’s a blanket,” her mother said, pulling a blanket from the back of the sofa and wrapping it around Mel, as if a blanket could soothe the gashes in her soul.

She hated that these conversations always left her speechless, but it was as if the connectors between her brain and mouth had been severed. She couldn’t utter any words.

Her husband jumped in with suggestions. “We are going to have to do something about this, because it changes everything.”

Her father continued to purse his lips, as he removed his glasses – a sign that he was annoyed. Removing his glasses was his “tell”. He did it when lecturing if something was distracting him from the moment. He did it when he needed to buy time. Her mother sat across the room wringing her hands in her lap, glancing frantically from Mel to her father. Like a spectator at a tennis match.

“Oh, are you sure, Mel?” she said.

“Yes,” she responded, although in reality she wasn’t sure of anything right now.

This is not the way a script would play out on a tv show.

A daughter would tell her parents that she had been raped by her sister’s husband, and they would be horrified – jump to her defense. It would fall to her to calm them down. Keep them from doing anything they might regret. There would be shock, anger, grief, panic for what this would mean. The rapist would be verbally assaulted. Lambasted. His character denigrated.

But no, not in this house. In this house her father just kept sitting there waiting for her to tell him what to do. Saying without saying, he didn’t believe her at all, but rather felt obligated to placate her.

“I felt that I should tell you. I don’t know what the answer is.” What she didn’t say is how she was counting on him to have an answer. That she thought it was his job to address this horror.

But his crossed arms said everything.

link up at Red Writing Hood

Easter Sunday

It is Easter Sunday. My mind (and the world around me) is telling me to be joyous and grateful for my risen Lord. 
I am grateful, but joyous is a long way from my heart today.
This past week has brought reminders and remembrances of a past event. It is a common occurrence for me especially around holidays, but Easter has traditionally been one that gets by untarnished. Not so this year.
I've been processing through a rape that took place in the early spring many years ago. It's an episode that I've kept boxed up for a long time, and even now am wondering at the benefit of opening this particular box. 
My energy level is very low. I'm sleeping a lot, and find I prefer to sit and watch television than do anything else. My house is messy, my refrigerator is full of inedible things. I can't seem to get motivated to cook or exercise or even write. 
I find myself constantly apologizing, although I have no idea what I'm apologizing for. And I'm spending an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to figure out what is wrong with me. Why I can't just snap out of this funk?
There is, in reality, a very simple reason I can't just snap out of it. I was raped. Yes it was over 20 years ago, but I had never talked about it until a couple of months ago. I kept it stored in box on a shelf in a dusty, never entered corner of my mind. 
I chose to open that box and talk about it, because I know that is the only way to heal, but nobody said healing was going to be easy. Healing from trauma is most often compared to healing a wound caused by burn or infection. It is not a one time treatment. A kiss and a band aid won't cut it. Instead trauma must be treated repeatedly -- a constant irritation and re-opening of the injury to make sure all the infection is fully removed. 
I ran across this description recently:

Treatment for third-degree burns will depend on the severity of the burn. Burn severity is determined by the amount of body surface area that has been affected. The burn severity will be determined by your child's physician. Treatment for third-degree burns may include the following:

-early cleaning and debriding (removing dead skin and tissue from the burned area). This procedure can be done in a special bathtub in the hospital or as a surgical procedure.

-intravenous (IV) fluids containing electrolytes

-antibiotics by intravenous (IV) or by mouth

-antibiotic ointments or creams

-a warm, humid environment for the burn

-nutritional supplements and a high-protein diet

-pain medications

-skin grafting (may be required to achieve closure of the wounded area)

-functional and cosmetic reconstruction

I see so many similarities here. I think I'm in that debriding stage right now, and it is immensely painful and tiring.

I always have a difficult time letting others know I am struggling, but especially around holidays, I don't want to burden others with what I view as my negativity. 

So today I will take a walk with my husband. I'll try to clean out my refrigerator and find something to feed my family. I'll remember the amazing gift of God our Father and Jesus Christ our Brother. And I will be kind to myself as I continue to travel this road of healing and learning to accept the reality of how difficult that can be.

Peace and blessings.

Red Writing Hood -- Barracuda

Like sharks, some species of barracuda are reputed to be 

dangerous to swimmers. Barracudas are scavengers.

Mel wanted a normal life. A husband, a house, children, all kept nice and tidy in an immaculate home. But he kept getting in the way. It wasn’t just him, of course. There were the other memories, but she felt if she could get the grown up part right, then those would just fade away.

Bradley showed up in her life the year she was 15. After school Mel would look for her older sister Cindy, and invariably find her sitting in his 1970 Plymouth Barracuda listening to music she felt sure Cindy didn’t even like.

From the first time Mel laid her eyes on him she hated him. She didn’t know why, but she did. Cindy could do so much better.

He became a fixture in their lives. Eventually, after dating 4 years, Cindy and Bradley married, much to Mel’s chagrin. By then he’d been showing his true reptilian self for quite awhile, but Cindy refused to acknowledge it. Bradley was crude, vulgar, and low class. He cornered Mel in the kitchen making a pass at her. When that didn’t work, he began denigrating her for the clothes she wore and anything else he could come up with as an insult.

Their parents heard his remarks, but never came to her defense. Cindy even told Mel that Bradley had admitted his attraction to Mel. What Mel couldn’t figure out was what Cindy saw in him. She would have cut him loose so fast his head would have been swimming.

He was Mel’s thorn in the flesh. That was until the night she stayed at their house. Bradley and Cindy had been married close to 2 years. Bradley had behaved badly on a few occasions since the wedding, but Mel had kept these episodes to herself. She generally kept her distance from him, but this night she couldn’t bear being alone in her parents’ house. They were out of town, and Mel hated staying in that big house by herself. When Cindy invited her to spend the night, it seemed the perfect solution.

Mel woke in the middle of the night to find Bradley stroking her thigh. He was whispering about wanting her, about knowing it was wrong, but not being able to help himself. Then he was on her and she was frozen in panic. There was something terribly familiar about this scenario, but Mel knew she couldn’t think about that now. Instead she just removed herself from her body until it was over. Later, when she returned, she saw him sitting in a chair across from the sofa she was sleeping on. He just stared at her. No words were ever exchanged.

The next morning she was ready to leave early with Cindy even though Bradley had been planning to take her home.

As Mel stood in the shower, she boxed the incident up, all the while recognizing he was no longer just a thorn.

link up at Write on Edge

RemembeRED -- Broken

We met in the local coffee shop. I got there first and sat waiting facing the door. She came in maybe five minutes later. She smiled her polite smile, chattering about the weather and asking if I wanted tea. I said no, and she went to get hers.

She settled at the table and sweetened her tea. I took the lead, because I had asked to talk to her. It was obvious she was in grown-up, teacher mode, while I was struggling with terror that bordered on hysteria. But we were polite, by god.

“I need to tell you something”, I said.

No response from her.

“I’ve remembered more about what he did. It went further. He raped me.”

She sat staring into her cup of tea for a moment. No response.

I asked if she believed me.

“No, I don’t”, she said.

“Why would I lie to you?” I asked.

“You’re upping the ante. You didn’t get what you wanted with your first version of the story, so you’ve upped the ante”, she said.

My control was shattering now. The tears began to fall. She was so cold; so calm. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t this.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“How do we have a relationship with this between us?” I wanted to know.

“I don’t think we can”, she said.

“That’s it?” I said.

“I don’t see any other way”, she said.

She sat calmly staring at me. No pain, no remorse, just a cold block of ice where I had thought her heart was.

“I will always be here if you change your mind”, I said getting up from the table and rushing to the door.

I struggled to my car, with tears streaming down my face. Somehow I drove across the street and parked in a different parking lot. I sat sobbing and shaking and wondering how it had come to this.

I pulled out my cell phone and called my husband. He promised to meet me as quickly as possible.

I called my therapist and told her what had happened. She offered comfort and peace, assuring me I had handled the situation as well as I could have. She said to call whenever I needed to and she would see me when she returned to town.

My husband arrived and got into my car. I turned to see his caring face.

I began to sob in earnest.

“I don’t have a sister anymore!”

link up at Write on Edge

Pandy's Project -- Vote to Help Survivors

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm writing you today to ask a favor of you. Pandora's Project, a 501©(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual violence, is competing to win a $25,000 Pepsi Refresh grant that will allow them to expand their work and provide free or low cost events for men and women who have survived sexual assault. The grant will be given to the 10 organizations with the most votes and competition is fierce, so I am asking you to please consider voting for Pandora's Project.

Voting is simple - just click the link and sign in using your email or Facebook and vote. Please make sure to vote for Pandora's Project and if you've got a moment, also vote for their partners!

http://www.refresheverything.com/pandorasproject
Then vote for Pandora's Project by texting 103598 to Pepsi (73774).


You can vote today and every day, so please put this on your to-do list for the next month! You can also promote Pandora's Project by:

·         asking your Facebook friends to vote

·         using Twitter to ask your followers to vote

·         mentioning Pandy's effort on your personal website or blog

·         emailing your family and friends to ask them to vote (see sample emails below)

·         telling any groups you belong to about our efforts and providing members with a link

As a survivor of sexual assault, I feel strongly that no one who has gone through what I did should go without support and Pandora's Project works hard to ensure that all survivors have free access to support and resources. Your vote means a lot to me!

Blessings,

Melanie