Shame and Isolation kills. In effect, families, and wives, girlfriends, sisters, and brothers of sex offenders find that they too are "on the registry " whether they choose to stay or go there are collateral consequences to loving (or hating) a sex offender.
Isolation kills. Fear keeps us up at night. Condemnation drives a wedge through our hearts and lives. Don't give up hope. Kindness heals. That's why we continue to post and answer comments left here on Not the Life.
If you are reading Not the Life, Halloween seems as good a time as any to talk about stoking fear and activating trolls and such. .
States have severe Halloween restrictions on Registrants. Giving out Halloween candy is Verboten! Break these rules and your loved one (son/ husband/ brother/juvenile sex offender) goes back to prison, not because they committed an additional (actual) sex offense but for not following all the Halloween Restrictions to the letter.
Just because we love someone on the registry doesn't mean we support or condone Sexual Abuse. And "Once a Sex Offender, always a sex offender" is an old prejudice that simply isn't true. Recidivism rates of sex offenders are around 3-5%. Therapy works. Taking personal responsibility to stop/ to change is real.
But sometimes sexual abuse victims and the adults who love them find their way to Not the Life. Some leave hurtful comments. The rest of us on Not the Life answer their questions as best we can.
But sometimes I tell myself, "Don't feed the trolls " because their comments are clearly meant to hurt, not help.Some see Not the Life as their opportunity to dump their anger on mothers/ wives and family members past and present. No matter how sarcastic or unreasonable many trolls may seem, most of them are hurting. Some think they are protecting children by attacking the wives, mothers, and family members of people who stick by those in prison or out on the Registry. Maybe the trolls think we helped offenders molest our children? Some even target us as the mothers whom they believe conspired to allow them to be molested as children.
No matter, where their anger comes from, no one can stay frozen. We aren't (still) the women we once were. Not the wives who felt betrayed when who heard the knock at our door... back when. We too must travel a road to change. We can't run back to what we thought was our Happily Ever After. And although we feel enough regret to fuel a few remarks of our own, we refuse to accept their shame and blame. We share and reach out. We can't remain silent in the face of harms done to us or others, not Now. And not back then.
But on Halloween especially we are reminded to fear the prejudice and collateral damage that might still target us and those we love.
Law enforcement, in the form of / Police/ Parole and Probation/ County Sheriffs, drives up in well-marked cars. Officers knock on our door making a neighborhood display of themselves wearing "swat gear." They reinforce the belief that "Once a sex Offender...forever dangerous."
I open my door to them. They enter and march around my house asking questions, poking into cupboards, issuing dire warnings. All seem intent upon showing one and all they are Protecting Children. Around Halloween, the Dept Heads also give interviews to the local TV stations issuing DIRE WARNINGS against SEX OFFENDERS. Talking about the need to increase their budgets
No matter how 'law-abiding' It's hard not to feel especially targeted at Halloween. And Halloween feeds the trolls.
I tell myself, The Officers are just doing their job. AND I follow parole restrictions to the letter as does "my" sex offender. I don't want to end up standing in the visitor's lines at the prison because I failed to full fill a requirement of his parole/ his Registry.
So, I wait. I hope for Nov. 1st. I hope the neighbors were too busy to notice those Adults dressed up Swat gear who drove up and banged on our door on Halloween.
Luckily, most Trolls only leave (verbal) pitchforks on Not the Life. (Better that, than they too knock on my door!) Collateral damage is sometimes all too real.
Sadly, some do still believe the canard "Once a Sex Offender always a Sex Offender." Some go so far as to brag "The only recovered sex offender is a dead offender." That's a possible but unthinkable outcome of stoking rage and prejudice.
In my experience, most trolls are the still-hurting adults molested as children, victims of sexual abuse betrayed and abused in childhood. Around Halloween, I' get a little cynical. I'm always more afraid of what might happen if a neighboring troll sees and decides to turn on us. Where can we get P&P's permission to live if we are forced out of our house?
Choosing to stay, or falling in love with someone on the Registry, (even 19 years after his conviction) has consequences. No matter what choices you made or make, I hope Not the Life is a Safe Haven where you can share openly, ask questions, see what others did and find comfort that you are not alone, and find help to make decisions about your own life now and going forward.
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Anyway Vickie, Thanks for having courage. Your comment got me thinking of all the reasons we keep Not the Life going. Not the Life is meant to be a Safe Haven we can all use and add our own experience strength and hope. One comment is read for years and helps many.
Please know there are a lot of Us out here and no matter what decisions we make (stay or go, how find the way forward) we too are effected by unreasonable beliefs of trolls that (sadly) do NOT serve to protect children or help anyone heal or get on with a new life whether they be victim, offender, our children our family members heal.) Old prejudices keep the troll's anger boiling.
We can't be satisfied to whine "poor me" and shame and blame the 'trolls.' (not even on Halloween!)
We must find courage, to make our own choices, to share, to take responsibility, to reach out to others. To educate ourselves and find ways to heal in spite of shame, blame and the consequences of Sex Abuse and the collateral damage caused by trolls or by Life on the Registry.
Take care, Janet Mackie
Monday, October 23, 2017
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Once a sex offender always a sex offender? Will our loved one ( a husband, a son, a relative, a stranger who committed an unthinkable betrayal) be a danger forever? As the wives, ex-wives, mothers, sons and daughters and families of sex offenders tasked with important decisions re rebuilding/ balancing trust in recovery vs. the safety of those entrusted to our care, we each try to make safe and compassionate choices. And all the while we deal with the collateral consequences of abiding prejudice and misinformation as expressed in draconian laws flowing from a 1980's Supreme Court Decision that impacts laws about sex offenders and those of us stigmatized by association.
Untouchable OpDoc from the New York Times - released today
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Sunday, August 6, 2017
Please consider this: Traditional Happily-Ever-After-Believers like me are raised to believe a husband just naturally knows better; I was raised to believe in Silence (not science), I was raised to believe a-good-woman's-Love, and Not-thinking-about 'it' would keep me and my children safe. Now I think it's time to overcome my shame, my fear of blame, and break the Silence that enables child sexual abuse in our homes. On 'Not the Life' we share, pool our experience, find comfort and reason to hope that in the simple act of sharing we might discover other factors,see ingrained beliefs (similar to our own) which make possible the continuation of the cycle of child sexual abuse...And maybe, in examining and sharing our own lives and finding answers, we might help not only each other,not only our own children but our children's children find better, safer lives in future generations. But it's hard work isn't it?.
We may not be living the "Life We Chose" but nothing says we can't change and Choose a better life in Future.
As many of you know, I've been writing a memoir about Child Sexual Abuse and how the trauma of 'it' cycled down through my family and ended up affecting not 'only' me but my choice of husband and resulted in the sexual abuse of my own children. Writing the memoir has been a process of personal discovery.
Like so many others, at first, I didn't want to know what happened to me. One grandmother said, "just don't think about it...no matter what 'it' was, 'it' wasn't a nice woman's business and the women in my family were raised to be 'nice.'
The other grandmother 'prayed about' virtually everything as a matter of survival in a marriage to the un-thoughtful man who, I now realize, molested several of her children, including my father.
My father went on to sexually molest me and my brothers. He was also an 'un-thoughtful' husband in the style of his father. My father was perpetually resentful and angry and justified anything harmful that he did, saying "My childhood was worse than yours"
When I began writing the memoir I was forced to look at myself. At first, I had assumed child sexual abuse in my family began when I was molested. I thought 'it' all began with me and in order to survive my childhood, I stopped thinking about 'it.'
After my father's funeral, I found a box of old letters and pictures and remembered stories I had been told as a child. Once I realized what happened to me was part of an ongoing cycle, I began to understand how 'it' happened but, I still had a hard time with "Why." Especially "Why didn't I see what was happening to my own children?"
Why had I married a 'strangely familiar' man (who I found out had been molested himself)? Why Oh why had I 'not seen' what he was doing and saying to gaslight me so he could continue molesting my children?
Why did I think divorce would protect me from repeating the same mistake twice? Why didn't realize I had to change my own perspective on my own beliefs that made me vulnerable and hence my children to sexual abuse.
I was raised, as many younger women are raised today, to be a 'Happily-Ever-After-Believer' In my mother's and grandmother's time, 'nice' women didn't even believe divorce was possible, they thought divorce for any reason was a sin, not against 'man,' but against God. I believed in divorce as a last ditch effort, but I thought just dumping the 'molester' and changing my (our) last name would protect me and my children.
Problem is, that without understanding how our own belief-system about a 'woman's place' makes us vulnerable, we and our children remain at risk of repeating the cycle and, if our belief-system remains unexamined, we will unwittingly teach these beliefs to our children and grandchildren's generations.
In my time, social convention and religion conspired to extend the belief that if a woman just 'prayed about' the state of her un-thoughtful marriage, turned 'it' over to God and waited...all would eventually be well.
Meanwhile, she should figure out how to love her husband enough that he would see how much she loved him and 'do right the right thing.' Some of us still believe that a good woman's love has the power to 'love him into loving me' and protecting our children We go to great length to demonstrate we love him enough to 'change his ways,' but fail to see we much become different people ourselves if we hope to break the pattern, the cycle that perpetuates child sexual abuse.
Silence, love, and not-knowing are the mantra's taught us as a 'nice' respectable women. We are the 'nice' women who cannot imagine the police will ever come knocking on our door...until they do.
1) Belief in Silence (before and after the fact) may distract the neighbors, deter the lynch mob once 'it' comes out but there is a lot of 'it' going on and silence doesn't help us understand the how or the why of the cycle of child sexual abuse: silence does nothing to help us prevent or heal 'it.' either. We don't need to heal back into who were were before (just with a new partner) We need to do the work to be different not simply better-than.
2) There are a 'lot' of 'us' out here (even in nice neighborhoods.) , When 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys report they too were sexually abused in childhood; when upwards of 800,000 offender names (and by extension at least that many families) are listed on Sex Offender Registries nation wide, the continuing belief in the magical power of silence, 'a good woman's place' may make us feel like we are at least doing something. And not and not-knowing actually facilitates abuse of all sorts.
Until we have to face the fact that we were betrayed; until we (maybe) have to look at ourselves and ask what factors of my belief system contributed to my actually 'not-knowing.'
Or maybe we choose to just cut and run...trusting that without change on our part, the next marriage/ relationship will automatically be better-than this one? I have come to believe that, What is required of us (as the betrayed party) is not to insist that we are the forever betrayed victims but that we examine our own beliefs, change, become different than we used to be so that our relationships will also be different.
We need to re-write our futures by re-thinking our roles in marriage and motherhood and voting for gender-role equality...and that is hard work.
As many of you know, I've been writing a memoir about Child Sexual Abuse and how the trauma of 'it' cycled down through my family and ended up affecting not 'only' me but my choice of husband and resulted in the sexual abuse of my own children. Writing the memoir has been a process of personal discovery.
Like so many others, at first, I didn't want to know what happened to me. One grandmother said, "just don't think about it...no matter what 'it' was, 'it' wasn't a nice woman's business and the women in my family were raised to be 'nice.'
The other grandmother 'prayed about' virtually everything as a matter of survival in a marriage to the un-thoughtful man who, I now realize, molested several of her children, including my father.
My father went on to sexually molest me and my brothers. He was also an 'un-thoughtful' husband in the style of his father. My father was perpetually resentful and angry and justified anything harmful that he did, saying "My childhood was worse than yours"
When I began writing the memoir I was forced to look at myself. At first, I had assumed child sexual abuse in my family began when I was molested. I thought 'it' all began with me and in order to survive my childhood, I stopped thinking about 'it.'
After my father's funeral, I found a box of old letters and pictures and remembered stories I had been told as a child. Once I realized what happened to me was part of an ongoing cycle, I began to understand how 'it' happened but, I still had a hard time with "Why." Especially "Why didn't I see what was happening to my own children?"
Why had I married a 'strangely familiar' man (who I found out had been molested himself)? Why Oh why had I 'not seen' what he was doing and saying to gaslight me so he could continue molesting my children?
Why did I think divorce would protect me from repeating the same mistake twice? Why didn't realize I had to change my own perspective on my own beliefs that made me vulnerable and hence my children to sexual abuse.
I was raised, as many younger women are raised today, to be a 'Happily-Ever-After-Believer' In my mother's and grandmother's time, 'nice' women didn't even believe divorce was possible, they thought divorce for any reason was a sin, not against 'man,' but against God. I believed in divorce as a last ditch effort, but I thought just dumping the 'molester' and changing my (our) last name would protect me and my children.
Problem is, that without understanding how our own belief-system about a 'woman's place' makes us vulnerable, we and our children remain at risk of repeating the cycle and, if our belief-system remains unexamined, we will unwittingly teach these beliefs to our children and grandchildren's generations.
In my time, social convention and religion conspired to extend the belief that if a woman just 'prayed about' the state of her un-thoughtful marriage, turned 'it' over to God and waited...all would eventually be well.
Meanwhile, she should figure out how to love her husband enough that he would see how much she loved him and 'do right the right thing.' Some of us still believe that a good woman's love has the power to 'love him into loving me' and protecting our children We go to great length to demonstrate we love him enough to 'change his ways,' but fail to see we much become different people ourselves if we hope to break the pattern, the cycle that perpetuates child sexual abuse.
Silence, love, and not-knowing are the mantra's taught us as a 'nice' respectable women. We are the 'nice' women who cannot imagine the police will ever come knocking on our door...until they do.
1) Belief in Silence (before and after the fact) may distract the neighbors, deter the lynch mob once 'it' comes out but there is a lot of 'it' going on and silence doesn't help us understand the how or the why of the cycle of child sexual abuse: silence does nothing to help us prevent or heal 'it.' either. We don't need to heal back into who were were before (just with a new partner) We need to do the work to be different not simply better-than.
2) There are a 'lot' of 'us' out here (even in nice neighborhoods.) , When 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys report they too were sexually abused in childhood; when upwards of 800,000 offender names (and by extension at least that many families) are listed on Sex Offender Registries nation wide, the continuing belief in the magical power of silence, 'a good woman's place' may make us feel like we are at least doing something. And not and not-knowing actually facilitates abuse of all sorts.
Until we have to face the fact that we were betrayed; until we (maybe) have to look at ourselves and ask what factors of my belief system contributed to my actually 'not-knowing.'
Or maybe we choose to just cut and run...trusting that without change on our part, the next marriage/ relationship will automatically be better-than this one? I have come to believe that, What is required of us (as the betrayed party) is not to insist that we are the forever betrayed victims but that we examine our own beliefs, change, become different than we used to be so that our relationships will also be different.
We need to re-write our futures by re-thinking our roles in marriage and motherhood and voting for gender-role equality...and that is hard work.
 |
| In Inferior, acclaimed science writer Angela Saini weaves together a fascinating—and sorely necessary—new science of women. As Saini takes readers on a journey to uncover science’s failure to understand women, she finds that we’re still living with the legacy of an establishment that’s just beginning to recover from centuries of entrenched exclusion and prejudice. Sexist assumptions are stubbornly persistent: even in recent years, researchers have insisted that women are choosy and monogamous while men are naturally promiscuous, or that the way men’s and women’s brains are wired confirms long-discredited gender stereotypes. As Saini reveals, however, groundbreaking research is finally rediscovering women’s bodies and minds. Inferior investigates the gender wars in biology, psychology, and anthropology, and delves into cutting-edge scientific studies to uncover a fascinating new portrait of women’s brains, bodies, and role in human evolution. |
Friday, July 14, 2017
Welcoming the Wives of Sex Offenders: Validating each other and Finding Courage to Break the Silence surrounding Sexual Abuse
Women, Wives, and Mothers seek out Not the Life I Chose so they (we) can share candidly about our lives, and maybe gain perspective on lives harmed by sexual abuse of one kind or another. Men, (many of them male survivors), as well as women, wives, and mothers, girls and boys, need this safe space to speak openly about the pain and bewilderment we all feel but are too often afraid to express for fear of reprisal.
Almost more than the abuse itself, we need to be able to set aside shame, blame, and isolation to openly examine our pain in the company of trusted others who know what we are going through because they too felt the same way.
So long as we struggle on in silence, so long as the only sharing allowed is to recount specific details, 'gory details,' police reports, approved accounts of our 'victimization' so we can be labeled the 'Forever victims' and the others labeled forever 'perps' ("Once a sex offender always a perpetrator" is the line that energizes those same lynch mobs that isolate and silence every one of us)
So long as we allow fear to silence us, we deny ourselves perspective and fail to recognize the 'cycle' of training and belief which leaves each vulnerable to passing down the cycle of abuse to our children and our children's children. Male survivors are especially afraid to disclose their childhood abuse for fear they will be seen as 'sissy-boys.' Investigators, mothers, victims, all fail to broaden the perspective to include male survivors of child sexual abuse even if that Male Survivor is also a 'molester.' We don't believe Sex Offenders Recover. But then what SO dares speak out? Even if SO recidivism is below 3%, who dares openly speak of trusting in the recovery of a sex offender (except maybe here on Not the Life?)
Mired in the moment, dealing with the "Knock at the door" answering police questions about our husbands, our boyfriends, our sex-curious sons, we can't bear to look deeper. We can barely keep our own noses. Yet shame, blame, and the after-effects of sexual abuse don't magically disappear with divorce, or even with our decision to 'stay.'
I keep posting on Not the Life, hoping t keep this space open for myself and for others. Not the life is a place to unpack our (sometimes before ignored) real lives, a place to gain enough perspective to reorganize and go on. To find a "new life' we have to also unpack the traumas of childhood. Maybe not here exactly, maybe here we only find the courage to speak openly, but going on has to include unpacking the traumas and attitudes of childhood. To do so we need to hear other voices from other rooms. We must reach out in real time so that not only our own children but our children's children can grow up safe from the cycle of sexual abuse.
To do that we must include the voices of the male survivors currently denied the right to speak right along with the rest of us dealing with the after effects of the "Knock on the Door".
Almost more than the abuse itself, we need to be able to set aside shame, blame, and isolation to openly examine our pain in the company of trusted others who know what we are going through because they too felt the same way.
So long as we struggle on in silence, so long as the only sharing allowed is to recount specific details, 'gory details,' police reports, approved accounts of our 'victimization' so we can be labeled the 'Forever victims' and the others labeled forever 'perps' ("Once a sex offender always a perpetrator" is the line that energizes those same lynch mobs that isolate and silence every one of us)
So long as we allow fear to silence us, we deny ourselves perspective and fail to recognize the 'cycle' of training and belief which leaves each vulnerable to passing down the cycle of abuse to our children and our children's children. Male survivors are especially afraid to disclose their childhood abuse for fear they will be seen as 'sissy-boys.' Investigators, mothers, victims, all fail to broaden the perspective to include male survivors of child sexual abuse even if that Male Survivor is also a 'molester.' We don't believe Sex Offenders Recover. But then what SO dares speak out? Even if SO recidivism is below 3%, who dares openly speak of trusting in the recovery of a sex offender (except maybe here on Not the Life?)
Mired in the moment, dealing with the "Knock at the door" answering police questions about our husbands, our boyfriends, our sex-curious sons, we can't bear to look deeper. We can barely keep our own noses. Yet shame, blame, and the after-effects of sexual abuse don't magically disappear with divorce, or even with our decision to 'stay.'
I keep posting on Not the Life, hoping t keep this space open for myself and for others. Not the life is a place to unpack our (sometimes before ignored) real lives, a place to gain enough perspective to reorganize and go on. To find a "new life' we have to also unpack the traumas of childhood. Maybe not here exactly, maybe here we only find the courage to speak openly, but going on has to include unpacking the traumas and attitudes of childhood. To do so we need to hear other voices from other rooms. We must reach out in real time so that not only our own children but our children's children can grow up safe from the cycle of sexual abuse.
To do that we must include the voices of the male survivors currently denied the right to speak right along with the rest of us dealing with the after effects of the "Knock on the Door".
Sunday, June 25, 2017
I recommend Reading Roller Coaster to Hell and Back by Paul Hanley. It's a memoir of sexual abuse written from a male survivor's perspective, a male survivor, who, untreated as a child, went on to act out his conflicts and be labeled a 'Sex Offender' himself. His story is of a "Survivor who found looking Truth-in-the-face to be his only path to Recovery. It's a hard read but I believe Paul's memoir is well worth your time.It's honesty offers each of us here on Not the Life new hope with it's helpful new perspective on sexual abuse and the ongoing collateral damage those of us on Not the Life experience every day.
Roller Coaster to Hell and Back is indeed a TRUE STORY OF SEXUAL ABUSE AND NEW HOPE. This is one of the (nearly non-existent,) Memoirs written by Male Survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Mr. Hanley not only describes the damaging effects of being sexually abused as a young child by his stepfather BUT Mr. Hanley has the courage to set aside the secrecy and shame imposed upon Male Survivors and go on to describe his painful journey from being a young male who was sexually abused, to himself becoming an Abuser and then, finally a Survivor intent upon stopping the cycle of sexual abuse by telling of his own survival. He shows us the cycle of sexual abuse by revealing how the conflicts his abuse engendered in him as an abused male child, ultimately led him to act out his sexual conflicts, thus repeating the cycle of sexual abuse on an adult woman once he himself reached adulthood.
Mr.Hanley's memoir does NOT seek to use his story to engender sympathy for himself as a "Sex Offender' but he uses his journey to point the way To Recovery, to becoming a Recovered Sex Offender as well a Male Survivor of childhood sexual abuse. He describes the brutally hard work of Sex Offender Group Treatment as well as the Individual Therapy and 12 Step-Work he chose to do not only to ensure his own recovery but to ensure the protection and safety of others. He also discusses his experiences 'on the Registry'
This Memoir does indeed give new hope. Roller Coaster should be read by Male Survivors, by those 'forever' labeled Sex Offenders, Therapists and Judges and By the families and friends of those affected by child sexual abuse.
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(Above is the review I placed on Amazon. If you choose, you may buy a hard copy of Mr. Hanley's book or you can download a copy (for free) on your Kindle. Either way, please post your own comments here on Not the Life and let others hear your own reaction to the memoir.)
Saturday, May 13, 2017
a gift for us on Mother's day: Transforming after we hear the knock on the door: Post Traumatic Growth (Re-Posted from a 2014 post here on Not the Life.)
Post traumatic growth, (PTG) the other side of the coin from PTSD, Post traumatic Stress Disorder...PTG is not simply resilience but transformation. Resilience may be when we've been blindsided and we just stagger on pretending. But PTG? Post traumatic Growth is when we Didn't give up. Didn't capitulate. PTG is Transform. (You know like one of those little transformer toys you stepped on in your bare feet because your kid "forgot" to put it away. OnlyPTG is much, much better. And of course we will be way cuter than those things when we transform!)
PTG happens after we are rocked to the foundations.. After The Life we thought we had chosen, Implodes. When we are betrayed in such a fundamental way that we can't just simply stagger on. The pieces no longer fit when we try to pull the Life We Chose all back together. . So we choose to move beyond, choose to struggle and create a new life of our own instead of living the patterns once laid out for us by others.
We are transformed because we Choose to Create a different Life after the implosion,
But that transformation depends on fundamental choices we make now. How we choose to continue will effect the rest of our lives...and perhaps more importantly, the rest of our children's lives.
1) First we have to decide upon our fundamental response
#A) we can close over the wound, hide the shrapnel, develop gangrene, actually commit suicide instead of just wishing we could, or we can solve that problem and just go dead inside from Betrayal.. # B) Pick ourselves up and stagger on pretending that nothing fundamental just happened. We'll deal with the PTSD later.
# C) Grieve what has ended. Give ourselves time to grow our (new) selves back. Better than ever. PTG. Transformer toy but way better because we are in charge of our transformation.
2) After that fundamental choice there are other choices to be made, especially if we chose #B) or #C) above. We need to find friends willing to "understand." women willing to "be there" for us.
We need gather our team, our tribe. Like Evie says, we need to find ourselves in "good company"
We need (hopefully) three who will listen, offer inspiration, point out the bigger picture, explain "boat maintenance" help us row our kids out of harm's way, row toward a better shore. We need women with whom we can discuss our and their transformation.
Some of our "advisers" may already be personal friends who stuck by us, they might be counselors,We might discover "sisters" out there in blogisphere, just other woman who know about betrayal. We need sounding boards able to listen and sympathize without trying to take over. Friends we trust to tell stories of where they've been. What worked and what didn't, for them. And then we need to help someone else who just heard the knock at the door.
It's our choice but we need them, They need us. Nobody really goes it alone.
In her book Sleeping With a Stranger, How I survived Marriage to a Child Molester, Patricia Wiklund highly recommends we find what she calls an "Administrator" who can accompany us to meetings, hearings etc. and keep track of appointments for us in the first stages, when we feel overwhelmed. Later they'll bring the wine and celebrate our successes with us. (And help us fend off those "Villagers with Flaming Pitch-forks" when necessary.)
These friends are the sympathetic women Evie referred to in her "Pulling Back the Curtain of Shame" blog post. .
3) Rule # 3 is NEVER Quit on Ourselves. (Remember we did not Choose #A to begin with and there is no going back now. We have already come too far to give up on ourselves and our children.) Persevere. Look at Betrayal from a whole different angle ( Remember Evie's blog about how she is now actually grateful to the young girl who reported Jake? The girl Evie said she once hated as the reason people found out and her world imploded... back then?)
Keep on keeping on. There will be other "new" angles No one can transform our lives for you. Why should they? I'm not saying there won't be times when all we want to do is just climb in bed and pull covers over our heads. The world will NOT go away just because we wish it would. Wine does not take care of everything. Eating by the light of the refrigerator won't cut it. Besides we have to fit into our clothes. We have to "interview our interviewer" and clinch our future tomorrow.
4) In some ways we need to take our time. It's not time to "forget and forgive" just because someone else tells us we ought to. We need to Recognize our strengths. Reward our own bravery. Remember PTG? Perhaps we can't wish away the whole world but with perseverance we can transform our world and ourselves with it.
Steal one of your kid's transformer toys. Make that little plastic transformer a reminder. Carry it around in your purse. Don't we know that every Heroine has a Talisman and a Smile and a Sword? My talisman is a little plastic figure hanging off my file cabinet. She's a little Red Headed Disney Princess dressed in a long blue dress and cross bow ...Just as a reminder that there is a before and after....
PTG!
PTG happens after we are rocked to the foundations.. After The Life we thought we had chosen, Implodes. When we are betrayed in such a fundamental way that we can't just simply stagger on. The pieces no longer fit when we try to pull the Life We Chose all back together. . So we choose to move beyond, choose to struggle and create a new life of our own instead of living the patterns once laid out for us by others.
We are transformed because we Choose to Create a different Life after the implosion,
But that transformation depends on fundamental choices we make now. How we choose to continue will effect the rest of our lives...and perhaps more importantly, the rest of our children's lives.
1) First we have to decide upon our fundamental response
#A) we can close over the wound, hide the shrapnel, develop gangrene, actually commit suicide instead of just wishing we could, or we can solve that problem and just go dead inside from Betrayal.. # B) Pick ourselves up and stagger on pretending that nothing fundamental just happened. We'll deal with the PTSD later.
# C) Grieve what has ended. Give ourselves time to grow our (new) selves back. Better than ever. PTG. Transformer toy but way better because we are in charge of our transformation.
2) After that fundamental choice there are other choices to be made, especially if we chose #B) or #C) above. We need to find friends willing to "understand." women willing to "be there" for us.
We need gather our team, our tribe. Like Evie says, we need to find ourselves in "good company"
We need (hopefully) three who will listen, offer inspiration, point out the bigger picture, explain "boat maintenance" help us row our kids out of harm's way, row toward a better shore. We need women with whom we can discuss our and their transformation.
Some of our "advisers" may already be personal friends who stuck by us, they might be counselors,We might discover "sisters" out there in blogisphere, just other woman who know about betrayal. We need sounding boards able to listen and sympathize without trying to take over. Friends we trust to tell stories of where they've been. What worked and what didn't, for them. And then we need to help someone else who just heard the knock at the door.
It's our choice but we need them, They need us. Nobody really goes it alone.
In her book Sleeping With a Stranger, How I survived Marriage to a Child Molester, Patricia Wiklund highly recommends we find what she calls an "Administrator" who can accompany us to meetings, hearings etc. and keep track of appointments for us in the first stages, when we feel overwhelmed. Later they'll bring the wine and celebrate our successes with us. (And help us fend off those "Villagers with Flaming Pitch-forks" when necessary.)
These friends are the sympathetic women Evie referred to in her "Pulling Back the Curtain of Shame" blog post. .
3) Rule # 3 is NEVER Quit on Ourselves. (Remember we did not Choose #A to begin with and there is no going back now. We have already come too far to give up on ourselves and our children.) Persevere. Look at Betrayal from a whole different angle ( Remember Evie's blog about how she is now actually grateful to the young girl who reported Jake? The girl Evie said she once hated as the reason people found out and her world imploded... back then?)
Keep on keeping on. There will be other "new" angles No one can transform our lives for you. Why should they? I'm not saying there won't be times when all we want to do is just climb in bed and pull covers over our heads. The world will NOT go away just because we wish it would. Wine does not take care of everything. Eating by the light of the refrigerator won't cut it. Besides we have to fit into our clothes. We have to "interview our interviewer" and clinch our future tomorrow.
4) In some ways we need to take our time. It's not time to "forget and forgive" just because someone else tells us we ought to. We need to Recognize our strengths. Reward our own bravery. Remember PTG? Perhaps we can't wish away the whole world but with perseverance we can transform our world and ourselves with it.
Steal one of your kid's transformer toys. Make that little plastic transformer a reminder. Carry it around in your purse. Don't we know that every Heroine has a Talisman and a Smile and a Sword? My talisman is a little plastic figure hanging off my file cabinet. She's a little Red Headed Disney Princess dressed in a long blue dress and cross bow ...Just as a reminder that there is a before and after....
PTG!
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Speaking of REAL Apologies , Making REAL amends is more than "What do you want? I said I'm sorry (sorry I got caught out)."(not the 'sorry you feel that way sort of non-apology that just expects the person we harmed "to get over it" This is hurting me more than I ever harmed you?) There are 3 Components to a Real Apology:one that CAN HEAL BOTH THE PERSON WE HARMED AND HEAL US TOO.
Recently there have been a couple of people who 'commented' on Not the Life who weren't commenting but just relieving themselves of 'emotional overload" by attacking others here on the Blog. Even when they (sort or) acknowledged/ apologized realizing they might have gone just a tad too far in 'expressing their anger/ resentment (might dumped stuff on us maybe because they were angry, resentful but too afraid to say their stuff to the people/ authorities / family members/ prison guards/ social workers/ neighbors and mothers and maybe even the "Offender who was arrested when they knocked on our door and the whole world feel apart ? All the people we/ they ARE actually enraged at. (I do know the feeling, the rage and resentment that build up...It's NOT fair but if we attack each other?)
Some folks let their anger get away from them. They chose us to dump on us, they troll Not the Life. Say WE we're 'not entirely honest" and Question others on Not the Life instead of actually apologizing for dumping their rage on others here instead of telling us their stories.) Why? Maybe because they got hurt and thought we were a safe place to dump their anger and resentment. After all how dare the wives and families of Sex Offenders complain and who could we complain to anyway except each other? So that left them free to rail and rant and hurt us and themselves here on Not the Life even though they were just hurt and MAD period and they had months/ years of 'unfairness' to dump. (Welcome to our world? I know the hurt. I lash out sometimes and need to go back and really apologize. I've been dumped on before and this certainly won't be the last time but a REAL apology certainly helps both me and as well as the person who chose to harm me as it turns out.)
SO I want to talk about Real Apologies (not the yes but kind we all hear and offer so often)
The 3 Components come from a book REVISIONING ACTIVISM bringing depth, dialogue, and diversity to individual and social change by David Bedrick J.D. He seems to think that those of us experiencing prejudice and injustice in the 'outside' world can learn to be the better person ( can learn to apologize and heal each other and maybe even begin to heal ourselves of the anger and resentment that led us to take advantage/ bully/ attack others when we actually recognize our part in causing harm, work through our anger and then be able to offer a real apology to those we have harmed
So here goes:
Part 1) A clear statement of the offending action ( thus demonstrating that s/he knew what s/he had done and taken responsibility for causing harm.) A non-apology sounds like this: "I'm sorry you feel that way." which implies the offender has not done anything offensive and the problem is just in the eye of the offender OR that vague old standby: " I'm deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance" as though no person actually committed 'actions' and thus there's no one need for them to understand what led to their own actions, take responsibility for changing and responsibility for not harming others in the same way in future.
Part 2) An expression of deep empathy for the person they offended. A valuable apology needs to consider the point of view and experience of the person they offended NOT just I'm sorry YOU feel that way ( suck it up/ get over it..Can't you see I'm apologizing that you feel offended?)
Part 3) A deep and honest understanding of your own motivations for 'doing' the offending action...without this willingness to admit what you get out of harming the people you harmed/ offended you will continue to apologize and apologize and continuing re-committing the actions that caused the offense.
What David Bedrick's "How to Apologize" chapter envisions is that by taking responsibility for and understanding our actions caused harm, by empathizing with those our actions/ words/ nasty looks harmed and by having courage to understanding what we got out of dumping/ disrespecting taking advantage of them in word/ deed we might just become a better persons than we used to be you know, back when we dumped on everyone around us because we felt so sorry for ourselves.
Making REAL amends is more than "What do you want? I said I'm sorry (sorry I got caught out)."
Real apologies take work, and humility and they are healing. They allow us to go on.
Some folks let their anger get away from them. They chose us to dump on us, they troll Not the Life. Say WE we're 'not entirely honest" and Question others on Not the Life instead of actually apologizing for dumping their rage on others here instead of telling us their stories.) Why? Maybe because they got hurt and thought we were a safe place to dump their anger and resentment. After all how dare the wives and families of Sex Offenders complain and who could we complain to anyway except each other? So that left them free to rail and rant and hurt us and themselves here on Not the Life even though they were just hurt and MAD period and they had months/ years of 'unfairness' to dump. (Welcome to our world? I know the hurt. I lash out sometimes and need to go back and really apologize. I've been dumped on before and this certainly won't be the last time but a REAL apology certainly helps both me and as well as the person who chose to harm me as it turns out.)
SO I want to talk about Real Apologies (not the yes but kind we all hear and offer so often)
The 3 Components come from a book REVISIONING ACTIVISM bringing depth, dialogue, and diversity to individual and social change by David Bedrick J.D. He seems to think that those of us experiencing prejudice and injustice in the 'outside' world can learn to be the better person ( can learn to apologize and heal each other and maybe even begin to heal ourselves of the anger and resentment that led us to take advantage/ bully/ attack others when we actually recognize our part in causing harm, work through our anger and then be able to offer a real apology to those we have harmed
So here goes:
Part 1) A clear statement of the offending action ( thus demonstrating that s/he knew what s/he had done and taken responsibility for causing harm.) A non-apology sounds like this: "I'm sorry you feel that way." which implies the offender has not done anything offensive and the problem is just in the eye of the offender OR that vague old standby: " I'm deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance" as though no person actually committed 'actions' and thus there's no one need for them to understand what led to their own actions, take responsibility for changing and responsibility for not harming others in the same way in future.
Part 2) An expression of deep empathy for the person they offended. A valuable apology needs to consider the point of view and experience of the person they offended NOT just I'm sorry YOU feel that way ( suck it up/ get over it..Can't you see I'm apologizing that you feel offended?)
Part 3) A deep and honest understanding of your own motivations for 'doing' the offending action...without this willingness to admit what you get out of harming the people you harmed/ offended you will continue to apologize and apologize and continuing re-committing the actions that caused the offense.
What David Bedrick's "How to Apologize" chapter envisions is that by taking responsibility for and understanding our actions caused harm, by empathizing with those our actions/ words/ nasty looks harmed and by having courage to understanding what we got out of dumping/ disrespecting taking advantage of them in word/ deed we might just become a better persons than we used to be you know, back when we dumped on everyone around us because we felt so sorry for ourselves.
Making REAL amends is more than "What do you want? I said I'm sorry (sorry I got caught out)."
Real apologies take work, and humility and they are healing. They allow us to go on.
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