MOTHERS Becoming VISIBLE to EACH OTHER: AFTER THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR: when we are deciding what to do next, Whether to cut and run, who to stick with (and whether and how) When we are beginning to realize that WE too will be swept up in the Collateral Damage of shame and blame and ignorance..

• The important thing, I think, from my own sad experience and from listening to others here on Not The Life I Chose, is not to get on the pitty-pot about "How badly the IN-Justice System is treating us and our children and "Our" sex offender (adjudicated, Registered, guilty innocent or not)  because then we start to think all our present suffering somehow makes the harm done to others OK we have forgotten this this is not tit-for-tat suffering. Every one needs to change and heal and end up better in spite of undergoing this truly horrendous experience . 
• He "hit me first" is not an excuse we would accept from quarreling children and this situation abouve all requires us to be (or become) adults bent on using our power as adults to protect children from future harm and to protect the vulnerable and betrayed among us (including ourselves) 
• Two wrongs don't end up making anybody "Right." No matter how bad we ourselves feel/felt we were hurt as children ourselves, or as adults by the "unfair" the seemingly endless parade of social workers, police, neighbors etc etc that seem to blame us as mothers as much as they blame and shame and pillory "offenders/ fathers/ friendly strangers and  "our" child pornographers), No  matter how unfair all this seems or even  IS,  we ALL have to find some way to get through this, to Recover, to invent the new normal, not just flee back to an old normal and hope it "New" only to find ourselves repeating the toxic patterns we learned about our role in marriage and a woman's "place" in support of our husbands (and sons and ourselves and our own molested children). Just Keeping Silent and Hiding , just trying to hang on to our former place in society (and not fall among "those People" Those families on the Sex Ofgfender registry is herculean and requires we retink our own attitudes and expectations going forward. 
• Just managing to "get through THIS"  might tear us all down even more than "outsiders" ever could,  if we choose to climb onto the pitty pot and feel so sorry for ourselves that we forget to reach out to each other, "our" offender and yes, even to the persons who were harmed and haven't had a fair chance to heal from their own wound either. 
• The Point of NOT THE LIFE I CHOSE is to discover that there are indeed a lot of "US" out here. To discover that although we may all be very different personalities with very different points of view Our only Real hope is to find each other, to start a discussion, to share and join hands and in so doing Lift the BURDEN of SILENCE we all struggle with, lighten the burden by sharing our lives and by RESPECTING  each other no matter what collateral damage we struggle under. 
• Getting stuck on self pity only retards our own growth, our acceotance of our own responsibility to become people who exercise our power as grown-ups to protect children by healing and changing (Post Traumatic Growth is not ony Possible but required of all of us involved in the "situation" after THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR. 
• Any thoughts on the subject? Please share. Please comment. NOT THE LIFE I CHOSE was created by all of us for all of us (for you and me to find community and sanctuary and (perhaps discover and mark some ways forward for all of us )