Grooming Children And Parents For Sexual Abuse

Before the actual writing of my book starts, I have a lot of sorting and reading to do first, deciding upon possible chapters for the book is my beginning place. Dividing up what I have already written here on the blog into those chapters and rewriting some of the posts to better fit into the book are just some of the things that I need to do. 

In the meantime, ideas are flowing through my mind and to the page here. My creativity has been turned back on and I love it. I missed being creative, putting words to paper, or more accurately, to the computer screen in front of me. 

I found an article written by Gregory M. Weber online called "Grooming Children for Sexual Molestation" that I wanted to share here. Here is the link:  

http://www.vachss.com/guest_dispatches/grooming.html 

Grooming is why knowing the adults in your children's lives is so important. Pay attention to what your intuition tells you about a person. The world is full of good people who mentor children and make a good difference in their lives but there are also abusers waiting to take advantage of your child. Sometimes it is hard to know the difference. Make sure that your children know that there are no secrets between you and them. Tell them that anyone who wants them to keep secrets from you are not good people. Let your children know that you will always believe them and that there is nothing that they can't tell you. You love your children. Make sure that they know that their welfare is always your first concern.
Patricia

Dear Mama - Abandonment

Dear Mama,

The first time you abandoned me, I was only two years old and very sick. I now know that the doctor told you the my baby brother would die if he got the whooping cough from me. You probably thought your mother's was the safest place to leave me while you looked after the baby. He was more important than me to you. He always seemed to be your favorite. I don't remember, but at two years old, I must have cried for my mama and you weren't there. I was too young to understand. I grew to love my grandmother, maybe more than I loved you. She never left me when I needed her. 

You used to get upset, when as an adult, you heard me say that in many ways Grandma Howe became my mother. Even after I started to school, I was allowed to go spend the Summer with Grandma until I turned seven years old. After that I wasn't allowed to visit her except for holidays when the whole family of origin went to visit her. I missed her. So, a second time, abandonment became a part of my life because of Daddy's decision and yours to let him make it. My feelings never were important to either you or Daddy.

You never protected me from harm, as far as I can tell. When I was three years old, I made the decision to become your protector. I knew you didn't feel anything like those around you did. I decided to protect you so you wouldn't be hurt by others. 

No child should ever be put in the position of protecting their parents. I did that for both you and Daddy by keeping secrets. There was much that I didn't tell you because I didn't want to hurt you. It wasn't important that I was being hurt as long as I protected you. You were important. I was not. That is how you taught me abandonment again. You were emotionally unavailable for my entire childhood. That is a form of abandonment. 

Another form of abandonment in my life started when I chose you and your feelings over mine. I abandoned myself. In order to protect you, I had to abandon myself and put your feelings above my own hurts and feelings. You were important to my survival. With Daddy abusing me, I turned to you for love and care and you didn't do your part in protecting me. I couldn't tell you about the incest and protect your feelings too. I couldn't take the chance that you would blame me or shot Daddy and go to jail. Because of all of these fears, I kept silent.

Fear of abandonment is why for eight years, I didn't tell Daniel about the incest. I was afraid he would blame me, as I blamed myself and I feared he would leave. Fear of abandonment was my very first issue to address in healing from incest. So I guess it is appropriate to revisit abandonment with issues with  you too, Mama.

How does all of this writing make me feel? I am not sure what all of the feelings are right now. I can tell you that most of them are felt in my stomach and solar plexus as flutterings working their way to get out. I also cried earlier, not while writing this, but while reading someone else's story on Facebook. I carry tension in my stomach and across my shoulders and in my neck muscles. I started writing this series because of the headache that I have had for the past few months. With the help of a friend, I figured out that unresolved mother issues could be the source of my headaches. So the series of blog articles that I have labeled "Dear Mama" will be my attempt to work my way thru those issues starting from my earliest memories which is where this article starts at age two until no more issues come up for me.

You may ask why I have taken so long to write about my mother issues. Mother issues are tied into my self image. My mother was my role model of what it is like to be a woman myself. So looking at mother issues is looking deep inside myself at who I am too, as a woman. How much did who my mother was affect who I have become? Did she affect who I am at all? Hopefully along the way with this series, I will be able to answer those questions for myself.

Patricia

 

 Related Article:

FEAR, The Monster @

http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2010/03/fear-monster.html 

No Tears for my Father: a true story of incest Book Review

Viga Boland is an online friend that I met because we are both advocates for ourselves and for other survivors of incest. When I heard that Viga was writing her memoir, No Tears for my Father: a true story of incest, I told her I wanted to read it and would do a book review afterwards.

As Viga says on the back of her book " 'Victims' own voices are the best weapons against child sexual abuse.' " In some ways, Viga tells my story. In others, Viga's story is distinctly her own and no one else's, as is true for all survivor stories. No Tears for my Father comes with a Trigger Warning Advisory for the safety of those incest survivors who may experience flashbacks or emotional pain from reading the sometimes graphic scenes of Viga's memories.

Viga Boland was born in Australia in 1946. Like many children of the 1940's and 1950's, Viga was taught by her parents to do what the adults in her life told her to do. It didn't matter who the adult was, they were in control if you were a child. This one rule, above all others, made it easy for Viga to become a victim of childhood sexual abuse and incest.

Viga, throughout her book, compares her dad to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was the smiling, loving father and friend to a lonely little girl who was taught that she was ugly and stupid by the angry, often violent, and unpredictable Mr. Hyde.  Mr. Hyde was physically and emotionally abusive to Viga and to her mother.

When Viga Boland was 11 years old, her family moved to Canada, where the physical and emotional abuse continued and at the age of 12, Viga's dad started to also sexually abuse her. The secrets, the lies, the shame and the blame of incest that make a survivors life a living hell began too.  Secrets such as "Let's not tell mama. It would hurt her." "If not for you, I would be having an affair with some other woman and your mother would be hurt." (These aren't exactly Viga's words. They were lies I was told too.) The coercion, the threats and the fear that are part of the daily life of an incest survivor, all of that worked to keep Viga a prisoner in her parents home until the age of 23. 

To find out more of Viga Boland's story of incest, you will have to read her book. I would recommend the book No Tears for my Father, written by Viga Boland to all who are interested in the truth of what it means to be  a victim of childhood abuse, domestic violence and incest. 

You can visit Viga Boland at these websites which are listed at the beginning of her book:

http://www.vigaboland.com

http://www.notearsformyfather.com

http://vigaland.blogspot.com 

http://www.youtube.com/vigaland 

http://vigaland.com 

Patricia

 

Silence Is The Friend Of Incest

This week I read an article that I want to share with you about silence. The article is posted at a blog called Beyond the Pear Tree. The blog title is "In the Name of Silence". Here is the link:

http://beyondthepeartree.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/in-the-name-of-silence/

I want to share my comment to this blog post. Here are the words that I wrote:

"There has been too much silence in the world already, a silence that allows children to be sexually and/or emotionally and physically abused, women and men to be abused by domestic violence, and allows needless wars to go on. No more silently condoning violences in any form. Bullying happens because no one stops it. Abuse is allowed to go on in the silence of individuals and societies. No more silence. No more secrets that harm."


Silence allows incest to happen within families for generations because no one is willing to call attention to the dysfunction within the family system.  Children are ashamed and afraid to speak out about what is happening to them. Children of incest carry the shame and are often afraid of being blamed for the actions of their abusers.

It is the responsibility of the adult to speak out if they suspect child abuse is happening. I know it takes courage to speak up. I didn't have the courage to face my own family and tell them about the incest that happened to me as a child until I was in my late 30's and early 40's. I know how hard it is.

Fear has to be faced and conquered, so does silence. Healing from incest does not happen until the silence is overcome. Become an advocate for your children and your neighbors' children. Don't let another child suffer in silence praying that an adult will ask if they are being hurt.

Here is a second article that I read just a day or two ago that shows how silence allows sex abuse to continue to happen for years because no adult spoke up to stop it. Not being from England, I don't know as much about the Jimmy Savile allegations about child sexual abuse. The article title is "A lot has changed since Jimmy Savile's time, but shame and stigma still allow sex abuse to thrive". The article is posted in what I assume is an online newspaper called The Independent with the section with the article being called Independent Voices. Here is the link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comments/a-lot-has-changed-since-jimmy-saviles-time-but-shame-and-stigma-still-allow-sex-abuse-to-thrive-8215067.html

Let me know your thoughts about these two articles.
Patricia


 

A Story Of Incest And Healing - Guest Post At Bongo Is Me Blog

My second guest blog article of the week appeared today at the blog of Bongo Is Me.  Bonnie has put a Trigger Warning on the post.  Apparently it needs one from the comments that I got this morning.  Here is what Bonnie says about my post and me.

"This is the Eleventh in a series of guest posts .....it's about real struggle..real life...real pain...and getting through to the other side....thank you to all my guests for helping me find my voice....
This woman Patricia Singleton writes an amazing blog about her journey through incest and how she survives today..she shares her courageous story here..
I am honored to have her here..Please show Patricia the love and encouragement you have to me..."

Bonnie, thank you so much for asking me to do a guest blog article for you.  I appreciate the opportunity.

The name of my blog article is A Story Of Incest And Healing.  The link to this article is

http://bongoisme.blogspot.com/2011/06/trigger-warningincestreal-life-series.html#axzz1TVeXl09Z

This is one of the most difficult posts that I have ever written.  According to the first comments on the Bongo Is Me Blog, reading my guest post caused three people to cry.  I cried reading their comments.  The last two blog posts have both been guest blog articles and have been the hardest for me to write.  Both pulled the feelings out of me that I felt on Father's Day.  I felt vulnerable and raw.  Both of those articles are the first time that I have ever recorded in writing the details of my first two remembered experiences  of incest.  Approach both of them with caution if you are an incest survivor. They are not easy reading.
Patricia

Related Posts:

Guest Post At S.A.S.S.U Sexual Assault Survivors Standing
@ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2011/06/guest-post-at-sassu-sexual-assault.html

Today Is Father's Day
@ http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2011/06/today-is-fathers-day.html

Guest Post At S.A.S.S.U Sexual Assault Survivors Standing

Several weeks ago, Jacquese whose blog is S.A.S.S.U Assault Survivors Standing asked me to do a guest blog article for her.  We only met recently on Twitter.  I liked quite a few of the comments that Jacquese left on Twitter and so I commented back.  I read her blog and left a comment or two.  Here is what Jacquese says about her blog.

"S.A.S.S.U is devoted to providing healing, empowerment, education and resources to males and females who are survivors of Sexual Assault/Abuse and  molestation or family members and friends who support survivors.  You DO NOT have to be a survivor to support this movement."

I like what this says about Jacquese and her blog.  Like me, she is dedicated to helping survivors.  From what I have seen of Jacquese, she is a wise and caring woman, so when she asked me to write a guest blog article I said yes.

The title of the article is a collaberation between Jacquese and me.  I hope you will join me in going to Jacquese's blog S.A.S.S.U Sexual Assault Survivors Standing to read my blog article which we decided to call

Incest:  Protect Your Children which you will find at the following link:

http://sassuempowerment.blogspot.com/2011/06/incestprotect-your-children.html

Jacquese, thank you for this opportunity for me to reach a new audience of survivors.  I appreciate the work that you are doing to help other survivors and their families and friends. 

Readers, please leave a comment on S.A.S.S.U for Jacquese and me but also come back here and let me know what you think about the article as well. Have a glorious weekend.
Patricia

Dysfunctional Family Systems

There is an interesting conversation going over at Emerging From Broken.  You will find this article at the following link http://emergingfrombroken.com/?p=796 .  Several of the comments at the end of the article are mine.  This article is going to be an edited version of one of my comments plus some others thoughts that I have had on the topic of Dysfunctional Family Systems.

There are quite a number of books written on the topic.  I visited Amazon.com earlier to see what was available and quit after page 17 of the list.  Two of the best, in my opinion are Healing The Child Within:  Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, written by Charles L. Whitfield and Healing the Shame That Binds You, written by John Bradshaw.  Two others that were life savers for me are both by the same author Melody Beattie Codependent No More and her second book called Beyond Codependency.  I highly recommend each of these four books.

This is just a small definition of what it means to grow up in a dysfunctional family system.  For more information, read any of the four books that I mentioned above. 

In dysfunctional families, the individual members don't talk about what is wrong or what's missing from the family system, things like communication and trust.  They don't usually love themselves.  Sometimes there is neglect of individual needs.  The child doesn't have a healthy adult to model how to take care of themselves so the child doesn't learn this.

In some dysfunctional family systems, there are secrets that everybody knows but nobody talks about.  In my family that secret was alcoholism.  In A.A. and Al-Anon, they call this having an elephant in your living room that nobody wants to see.  The elephant (alcoholism in my family) is there.  Everyone walks around it like it isn't there.  Nobody talks about it.  Another secret that some of my family members either knew about or suspected was incest.  Everybody knows not to talk to outsiders about what is really going on inside the family.  I learned in Al-Anon that we are each only as sick as our secrets.

Everybody is afraid of change.  The dysfunctional family system is very rigid and doesn't allow for change in any form.  Anybody that dares to want to change comes up against resistance from the other family members, sometimes resulting in being ostracized or cast out from the family.  Nobody welcomes change.  Often if you get into recovery as an adult, nobody in the family acknowledges that you have made changes in yourself, that you are different.  They continue to see you in the role that you were assigned as a child.  That can be very frustrating especially for survivors who have worked really hard to make these healthy changes.

Nobody feels supported by the other family members.  Feelings are not shared.  There are often unexpressed, unfelt emotions. Emotions are often ignored or stuffed rather than acknowledged, especially fear and anger. There is usually a lot of underlying stress.  Any time you have secrets.  There is stress.  There is sometimes loneliness even when the family is together in the same room because nobody feels connected to anybody else.

Each member is assigned a role to play in the family.  Some of these roles are family hero, scapegoat, family maintainer, peacemaker, the invisible child, the sick child, and others.  Some people play more than one role at a time.  I played hero, family maintainer, and peacemaker at different times. I was also my mother's emotional protector at least by the age of 3.  I have a very clear memory of this.

Everyone is fearful, often without knowing why.  Sometimes, as in my case, the fear is so deep that I didn't even realize until I was 19 years old that I lived in daily fear for my life and sanity.  I didn't recognize the fear because it was constantly, always there in the fabric of my life.  I don't remember a time that I wasn't fearful.

In my dysfunctional family, my dad was a dictator of what we did, what we thought, how we acted.  He dictated through his rage.  Not all dysfunctional families are this extreme.  Some are.  Some are not.  Some families are so disconnected from their feelings that nothing seems wrong on the surface.

These are just a few symptoms of living in a dysfunctional family system.  The family system is more important than any of its individual members.  Nobody is supposed to become a separate individual as they are expected to in a health family system.  There is no separation in a dysfunctional family system.  Everyone is so emeshed that there are no healthy boundaries.  I used walls to keep you out and to keep me protected.  This separation was such a big issue in my family that I waited until I was 19 to run away from home.  My dad was not going to let me leave if he had known in advance.  I told my mom that I was leaving.  My dad came after me two days later.  He threatened suicide if I didn't come back home to live.  He didn't commit suicide and I didn't go back home to stay.  I went home for the weekend to say goodbye to my sister and brother.  I left for good on Monday morning.  I knew in my heart that if I didn't run away that my dad would never have let me escape from under his rule.  Again, this is an extreme example of a dysfunctional family system.

These are just some of the symptoms of growing up in a dysfunctional family system.  There are many more.  Not all families have all of these symptoms.  Do you personally know any families that don't have some dysfunction?  I know some that are working on getting healthier.  Our society is full of families dealing with addictions and codependency.  Some families are healthier than others.

You may ask why am I willing to write a blog about incest, about my own dysfunctional family system.  Why am I making all of my families dirty laundry public?  Some might say that I am being judgmental of others when I talk about my own recovery and my very unhealthy childhood in a home with incest and alcohol.  I am not doing that.  I am sharing what my journey has been like for me. 

Many of us are choosing to go "public" with our issues and our recovery.  You might ask or even demand to know why I would do this to my family.  I am not doing this to anyone.  This is what was done to me and to many other abuse survivors.  Incest is just one of many abuses that are happening to the children of countries around the world.  This abuse will continue unless I and other survivors start to speak out.  Breaking the silence of abuse means that I sometimes get attacked because others don't like having all of this "family" stuff being aired in public.  You won't shut us up any longer.  The survivors of abuse are beginning to speak out on their own behalf and on the behalf of those who are still afraid to speak out. 

I thank Carla Dippel and Darlene Ouimet for speaking to others through their blog Emerging From Broken.  By thanking Carla and Darlene, I am not claiming that they have been abused.  That is for them to decide.  Not me.  I am thanking them for being an inspiration to me personally.  I always welcome comments from my readers.
Patricia

The Case Of The Three-Year-Old Adultress

The following is something that I wrote years ago and a friend found and gave me his copy of it recently. I warn you that it won't be easy to read. It may cause flashbacks. It may make you cry. For that I apologize. It is still difficult for me to read. I wrote this when I was 40 years old which would put the date of writing this as 1991. I didn't write a date on this paper so I don't know the exact date that I wrote it. Here it is in its entirety.

THE CASE OF THE THREE-YEAR-OLD-ADULTRESS

by

Patricia C. Singleton

"I learned a new word today. That word is adultress---that word is me. I am sitting in church with my grandma and I am three years old.

Today I added a new word to my vocabulary. That word is fornicator---that word is not me. I am sitting in an Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting and I am forty years old.

This year, I am eleven years old. I haven't started to develop into a young woman yet, but it will happen later this year. My periods will start; I will develop breasts; I will grow hair under my arms; and I will grow hair on my pubic area. Before any of this happens, I will become an incest victim.

I don't have any memories of sexual abuse happening before the age of eleven. I remember a weekend of repeatedly being raped by an uncle. I remember the pain, the tears, the pleas for him to stop, the fear and the silence. I remember the sense of betrayal that I felt. I remember wondering what was wrong with me that I had caused him to do this to me. What I don't remember is any blood. This was my first time. I was a virgin.

A few months later, I started working on weekends helping my Daddy at the dairy barn. The first night we had to go to the hay barn to get hay down for the cows to eat the next day. I followed Daddy up the ladder to the loft. He turned his flashlight off. He told me to pull down my pants and to lay across a bale of hay. We were in total darkness. I was scared and disgusted. I knew, without being told, what was going to happen, again. The incest continued to happen an average of two times a week for the next six years. I have many memories from this period of my life---memories that, as an adult, I consciously tried to forget.

Until three years ago, I thought that I had a full memory of the years that the incest was happening. I went to visit an aunt who is a year older than I am. My aunt lives in Dallas, TX. My husband took our children to the Book Depository Museum from which Lee Harvey Oswalt was supposed to have shot President John Kennedy. When my husband walked into my aunt's house, he and our children were talking about the Museum. My husband asked my aunt and I where we were the day the President was shot in 1963. I said that I was in my 7th grade science class. My aunt looked at me and said that she and my grandmother were living with my family at that time. I looked at her and asked her to repeat what she had just said. I was shocked. I remember several times when we were children that she and my grandmother lived with us. I have absolutely no memory of them living with us at that time. I was confused and very frightened. If I didn't remember this, what else did I not remember?

My memories, or lack of those memories, remains a mystery to me. The pieces of the puzzle are slowly falling into place. Three years ago, because of some paintings that I did, a counselor told me that I was probably as young as eight or nine years old when the incest began. Two months ago, while I was sitting in my Incest Survivor Group listening to someone else talking, I suddenly heard a child's voice inside my head. She shouted, "Something happened when you were seven years old!" I still don't know what happened, but I believe my feelings that tell me that something of importance did happen.

Three weeks ago, I told my story for the first time. My story was told to a mixed group of men and women from several different recovery groups. Because I wanted to hear my own story, I taped it. I knew I wouldn't remember half of what I said to the group. I listened to the tape twice alone at home. The third time I played the tape was for my Incest Survivor Group and one of my counselors. Because this was a safe environment, I was able to hear a sentence that I hadn't heard myself say before. What I said was that at a very young age, I had labeled myself as an adultress. As I heard myself say this on the tape, a picture from my past came to mind. I was sitting in church with my grandmother listening to the preacher talk about adultery. I was three years old when I first labeled myself as an adultress. The sexual abuse was already happening in order for me to attach the label of adultress to myself. I don't have any memories of this happening, but why would a three-year-old attach that label to herself unless, in her own mind, it fit the circumstances she was living in?

Two weeks ago, at an ACA meeting, I was talking about labeling myself an adultress at the age of three. A person in the group pointed out that I wasn't married so I couldn't be an adultree at the age of three. That person said the label should have been fornicator instead of adultress.

The Webster's Encyclopedia of Dictionaries gives the two following definitions:

"Adultery---violation of the marriage vows."

"Fornication---sexual intercourse between unmarried persons."

As an Incest Survivor, I am not guilty of being an adultress or a fornicator. I was forced into a sexual relationship that was not of my choosing. I was the victim. I am now a Survivor who refuses to believe the lies she was told as a child. I know that I was not a three-year-old-adultress.

I was a victim of the adults in my life. As an adult, instead of punishing myself for something that was never my fault, I can celebrate each day of my life. I have the new found freedom to experience joy, laughter, and serenity. I can now allow myself to experience all of my emotions, including my fear and anger. As a Survivor, I am learning to take care of myself. As I grow in strength and become more open to life, more memories may surface.

I am learning what courage is. Courage is being afraid and doing the work anyway. Dealing with the pain, fear and anger of recovery takes courage. I don't know where this story will end for me. I do know I am willing to make the journey because in the end, I will be a better person.

Also, by sharing my story with you, I may give you the awareness that the adults in my life didn't have. If you can do something to prevent a child being abused, please do it. A child may not be able to ask for help. They are often afraid to say anything if they have already been betrayed by an adult that they trusted. As an adult, don't be afraid to get involved. If you think something is wrong, please ask the child. As a child, I couldn't tell anyone what my dad was doing. I didn't think anyone would believe me. I often prayed that some caring adult would ask me if something was wrong. Then I could break the code of silence that I was taught by my abusers. Don't ignore the signs of abuse. Protect our children."

Even back in 1991, I knew that I would some day be writing about my abuse in order to help others. This past week, 5 of my email subscribers unsubscribed while I gained at least that many or more new subscribers through the feed readers. I am always sad to see any of my readers leave. I am always pleased to see new readers come along. Thank you to both for joining in on my journey, even if it is for just a short time.

I know that what I am writing about is difficult to read. Without breaking the silence of abuse, nothing and nobody changes. Holding it all inside, silently suffering keeps you a victim. Sharing with others makes this burden easier to bear until it turns itself around and becomes a blessing. You may ask, how does incest become a blessing? The blessing comes from the strength and compassion that I have today that I might not would have if not for my experiences of the past.

Patricia

Why Some People Are Blind To Abuse

Some people are blind to abuse because it isn't in their experience, so they don't see the signs.

Some people are blind to abuse because they don't want to see.

Some people are blind to abuse because they don't want to see what they already know is happening.

Some people are blind to abuse because to see would be to feel their own pain.

Some people are blind to abuse because to see would mean that they would have to act and they are afraid of change.

Some people are blind to abuse because they don't want the responsibility of doing something.

Some people are blind to abuse because they can't believe that another adult would do such things to a child.

Some people are blind to abuse because they don't want to ruin someone else's life if they are wrong.

Some people are blind to abuse because they don't want to stick their nose in somebody else's business.

Some people are blind to abuse because they just don't care.


Please, please don't be any of the above. Become aware. If you can, do something to make yourself more knowledgable of the signs of child abuse. Do a search online. Learn more about how to stop child abuse. Ask a survivor of child abuse what you can do to help them feel valued and safe. Give your child a hug and tell them you love them. Tell them they can come to you to talk about anything.
Patricia

Finding The Answers---Do You Have Them All?

How do you condense one very eventful week into one article and not have it go on and on and on? You start at the beginning of just one day. I am going to start with today, Sunday, March 15, and go backwards. On the surface, my week doesn't look eventful. I was sick with a stomach virus and diarrhea for 3 days. Where was my week eventful? In my mind and heart, I made several important connections this week.

This morning when I opened my emails, one of the first ones that I read was from Lance over at the blog, The Jungle of Life. Every Sunday Lance does a "Sunday Thought For The Day" article. Today's article was the words and a youtube video about the song "Circle of Life" by Sir Elton John. The video is of Sir Elton John singing the song "Circle of Life" while you watch scenes from the making of the movie "The Lion King". You can click on the following link and go watch and listen to the youtube video:
http://www.jungleoflife.com/2009/03/15/sunday-thought-for-the-day-43/
Come back here when you are finished.

Sir Elton John's music was a hit starting in the 1970's when my husband and I were dating and then married. He has always been a favorite of mine, long before he became a knight in England. When "The Lion King" came along, I watched it with my children. I loved it and the song "Circle of Life". Both are so metaphysical in meaning. Thanks Lance, for reminding me of all of these memories today. This was a great way to start a glorious day.


Next, on my morning trip to the bathroom, I read the December 28, 2008 (which was also a Sunday) article (Hey, so I am behind. At least I am finally reading it.) of Daily Word, December 2008, page 42. It says,

"I am grateful for the constant flow of God's blessing in my life.
Gratitude
I welcome this day with a thankful heart. Beginning my morning in this way cultivates an attitude of gratitude not only for special occasions but for every day.
As I arise from a peaceful night, I give thanks to God for rest received and for blessings to come. This sets a positive tone, one that attracts life-enhancing experiences to me.
Sharing a simple 'thank you' with others generates good feelings. My gratefulness is contagious and becomes a positive, attitude-changing influence."

Next, I read this morning's March 15, 2009 Daily Word on page 29. It starts out with the words,
"Trusting in God, I am fulfilled.
Centered
When events do not turn out as I planned, I don't let myself become bogged down in disappointment or allow my enthusiasm to wane. In prayer, I bring myself back to center. I turn my perspective around so that I see things in a new way and celebrate the good that is always there for me. . . . ."

"Turning around to face my good, I realize that what might have at first discouraged me will prove to be the dawning of a greater, more fulfilling experience."

I will leave you on your own to gather what the above statements might mean to you personally. If you want to share in the comment section below, you can. I am still sorting through my own stuff right now so am not yet in a place of sharing it with you.


On the past few Wednesday nights, I have gone to an Al-Anon meeting with my friend. When she asked me to go to these meetings with her over a year ago, I didn't realize that I needed the meetings as much as she did. I don't live with an alcoholic. I haven't since I was 19 and left home. What I do live with is myself and my husband. Both of us are adult children of alcoholics. Those patterns of behavior seem to be engrained within both of us and still get activated in times of stress like I wrote about in last week's article "More Patterns of Behavior Means More Awareness" which you can find at:
http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-family-patterns-of-behavior-means.html
At this week's Al-Anon meeting which was on the topic of "You are only as sick as your secrets.", I was aware of a part of me that some call "the watcher". A part of me was watching and listening to what was being said and to my reactions to what was being said.

Usually as I am listening to every speaker, I am planning what I will say when it is my turn, rehearsing it in my mind. This time, instead of rehearsing, I touched the part of me that I have been holding back from the group. To a degree, I do this all the time. I think we all do. It is easier for me to do this because of the childhood belief that I need to protect myself from you or you will hurt me. One of my secrets that I got in touch with but haven't shared with the Al-Anon group is that they scare me still. (I haven't shared it because as I was typing the last sentence, I just got it myself. So you can see, I am still figuring out some of the lessons that came at me this week.)

What I did share with the Al-Anon group was that when I came into Al-Anon in 1989, I didn't trust women at all. In my mind, women were more likely to judge me harshly because of the incest than men were. (This was my belief. I don't know if it was true or not but it was my belief.) For awhile, trusting women less than men didn't make sense to me because it was men that sexually abused me. What I said in the meeting was that I thought women would judge me harshly because the women in my childhood were judgmental.

My mother who was always angry but rarely voiced it. Silence was my mother's weapon of choice. I have attracted people to me with that trait until I learned that their silence wasn't a weapon unless I allowed it to be. I also found out that if I didn't act out their anger, then they were more likely to voice it for themselves. Voicing it makes it possible to deal with the anger. With anger came judgments.

My grandmother and mother were always angry at each other since before I was a child. I could always feel the judgments going back and forth between the two of them without understanding what it was about. I know they loved each other and they were also angry with each other.

I think that I have probably shared the story about one of my maternal aunts telling me that I was going to Hell because I was wearing shorts. I was about 5 or 7 years old at the time. A part of that child must have believed her because that is still a strong memory of mine. She was never one of my favorite aunts. I was afraid of her as a child. As an adult, I felt angry with her for being such a religious fanatic. Now I can see how unhappy she was. I can forgive her.

I can forgive those women in my life who were judgmental and who taught me to be judgmental. For me to fear being judged, some part of me is still judging me or I wouldn't be afraid. I can take this a step further and forgive that judgmental part of myself. She is still a child afraid of being hurt. I can take her into my arms and into my heart and hug her until she doesn't hurt any more. Usually my solar plexus is where I feel all of this. My heart is what feels this and hurts for the little girl. I think that I need to go and just sit with this for awhile.

I hope that by sharing the above process it will help someone else to heal what may still need healing. As you can see, I still don't have it all figured out for myself. Isn't that what this life is all about---finding the answers for yourself?
Patricia

Genealogy Gave Me Roots And Patterns

Genealogy is one of my hobbies. My husband inspired me to give it a try about ten or so years ago. I never knew that finding out about my ancestors would really give me roots, a feeling of belonging to somebody, a history that could actually be traced through many people and to many places. I am excited by finding out about the famous, infamous and the common folk that I came from. I haven't actually traced my lines to anybody who is famous yet. Someone actually traced one of my husband's lines back to being related to most of the kings and queens of Europe in the 1700's.

Something else that I found from genealogy is that with some of the stories that my aunts have shared with me is how the line of abuse has come down from one generation to the next. With that knowledge, I can see why some of the abuse was done. It was what each generation before was taught.

Some things are passed down generation to generation. One good example of this would be the value of being thrifty that was taught by the generation that lived through the Depression of the 1920's and 1930's. I see this trait in my mother-in-law who was born in 1922. Thriftiness can be a good thing especially with the economic problems that the U. S. is beginning to experience today.

One of the things that I discovered is that the abuse didn't start with my dad or grandfather. It goes all the way back to my great-grandfather. It makes me wonder how much farther back the abuse went.

My great-grandfather William Thomas Caldwell was married three times. The first wife died shortly after giving birth to a daughter. At the burial of his wife, Thomas wanted to put the baby in the coffin and bury her with her mother. The baby girl was taken and raised by a neighbor family. I wonder if that baby girl was ever told the story of her birth. How horrible that story was. The first born son of this marriage was raised by the parents of his mother.

Next Thomas Caldwell married and had five children before the second wife filed for a divorce. This was in the early 1900's before divorce was popular. With the divorce, the lady also filed for a restraining order to keep him away from her and the children. I had no idea that you could even get a restraining order that long ago. I know this because I have a copy of the divorce papers that were on file in the Magnolia Courthouse from Columbia County, Arkansas.

My great-grandmother was the last wife of Thomas Caldwell that I have found evidence of. Someone at RootsWeb.com posted that Thomas went to Texas and married a fourth time while he was still married to my great-grandmother and that he got arrested for it. I haven't been able to prove this marriage.

The story that my aunts shared with me about my great-grandparents were that they separated when my grandfather was a small boy. The reason for the separation was that Thomas had tried at least twice to poison my grandmother. When she found out about it, she kicked him out. One of the boys stayed with my great-grandmother and the other one went with Thomas. A few years later, my great-grandmother died and both boys from the marriage to Thomas lived with Thomas. Thomas was my great-grandmother's second husband. The two boys from her first marriage were raised by her parents after her death.

The last time that my grandfather saw his father was on my grandfather's wedding day. The few times that my grandfather talked about his father, he didn't have anything good to say about the man.

I hope that you understand the reason for me sharing this family history with you is to show you that abuse can be generational. If it is, it is your responsibility to not pass the abuse on to the next generation---your children. The abuse can be stopped.
Patricia

Incest---86% Would Believe Their Daughters

Dr. Phil did a survey on his site recently that asked the question, "If your daughter came to you and said that your husband had inappropriately touched her, who would you believe? Daughter or Husband?" 86% said they would believe their daughter. 14% said they would believe their husband. That makes me feel good. One of the biggest fears of mine that kept me quiet was the fear that my mom wouldn't believe me if I told her about the incest. You can't imagine how crippling that fear is unless you feel it for yourself. To me, the abuse was more acceptable than the fact that my mother might not believe me. That is a very sad state of affairs.

What Does Forgiveness Mean To Me?

As you all know, I have been reading several books on the subject of forgiveness and I have been sharing information from those books. Well, I am reading another book called "finding forgiveness, A 7-Step Program for Letting Go of Anger And Bitterness" written by Eileen R. Borris-Dunchunstang, Ed. D.

The book gives writing exercises which I am going to do to see what emotions come up for me and to see if I have any more forgiveness work left to do. The first journal exercise is to write about what forgiveness means to me. So here goes.

What does forgiveness mean to me? Forgiveness means not being in extreme emotional or physical pain because of the tension of holding in all of my rage. It means not making myself sick from the stress of holding it all inside of me like a volcano or a pressure cooker with the pressure set too high, just waiting to blow up.

I had to quit writing for a minute because I started coughing so I have some resistance to doing this exercise. I am willing to be willing to do these exercises and the forgiveness work that follows.

Forgiveness means letting go of the rage and seeing the hurt underneath that the rage has been covering up. I am in a safe place and in a safe relationship that allows me to do this work now.

Forgiveness allows me to nurture and love myself without blame or guilt getting in my way.

Forgiveness means I can let go of the need for revenge and hate and realize that justice doesn't always happen in the manner that I expect it to.

Forgiveness means feeling compassion for myself and others who have lived with incest and other forms of abuse and survived. It is also feeling compassion for those who didn't survive.

Forgiveness, for me, means seeing my dad, Raymond, as the wounded child that he was. Raymond hurt so bad inside that he couldn't control his reaching out and hurting others. I can clearly see that Raymond only felt in control when he was controlling others. He was a frightened child stuck in his own pain and not knowing how to get out. That is why he drank and became an alcoholic. I can only imagine the fear and guilt that Raymond lived with daily. I can feel compassion for the frightened child that was Raymond.

I can't tell you the date or time that I started forgiving Raymond. It was a gradual process of letting go a little at a time. It doesn't mean that I don't sometimes find myself angry at what he did. More often, today, I sometimes find myself sad because of the way the incest affected my childhood and my life as an adult.

Grieving is part of the process of forgiving. I have grieved for the parents that didn't love me the way that I wanted to be loved and cared for. I have grieved because I didn't love myself enough. I have grieved because I was so afraid. I have grieved because of the imaginary family that I always wanted that never existed. I have grieved for the young woman who wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night. I have grieved for the girl who wanted to be honest and wasn't because of the family secrets that she was forced to keep. I have grieved for the little girl who just wanted her daddy's and momma's love. All of this has been a part of the process of forgiving that I have experienced.

Forgiveness has also been about the freedom to become me --- to come out of hiding and out of fear which keeps me from really living.

Forgiveness has become a gift that I have given myself. It had nothing to do with Raymond and everything to do with me.

Forgiveness, for me, was a change of attitude. Where I once saw darkness, I now see light. Where I once had tears, now I have laughter. Joy is part of my life today. Fear rarely visits.

Forgiveness enables me to see the lessons that I have learned that make me the wonderful, powerful, loving, compassionate woman that I am today. Today I have the courage to reach out to others.

Forgiveness has released hate from my life. I no longer hate myself or my body. I love me.
Patricia

Related Articles:

Acknowledging Your Grief And Releasing It --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/acknowledging-your-grief-and-releasing.html

Grieving Again --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/grieving-again.html

Forgiveness Starts With A Decision --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/08/forgiveness-starts-with-decision.html

Healing And Letting Go Of Repressed Emotions --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/07/healing-and-letting-go-of-repressed.html

Forgiveness, Done In Layers --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/ 06/ forgiveness-done-in-layers.html

Breaking The Silence---Incest May Be A Part Of My Life Series---Part 4 --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/08/breaking-silence-incest-may-be-part-of.html

Family Secrets---Incest May Be A Part Of My Life Series---Part 5 --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/family-secrets-incest-may-be-part-of-my.html

Forgiveness Is For You, Not The Other Person --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/forgiveness-is-for-you-not-other-person.html

Prelude To Forgiveness --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/prelude-to-forgiveness.html

Childhood Memories ---http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/10/childhood-memories.html

Compassion Begins With Me --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/11/compassion-begins-with-me.html

Compassion, The Ultimate Act Of Love --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/12/compassion-ultimate-act-of-love.html

A Day In The Life Of An Incest Survivor --- http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2008/02/day-in-life-of-incest-survivor.html

Family Secrets---Incest May Be A Part Of My Life Series---Part 5

In this series, I have been talking about "breaking the silence" for several weeks. In my last article, K-L left a comment that said, "The biggest clue for the insidious nature of the abuse came for me when I read that you didn't tell your sister until you were in your late 20's . . ."

K-L went on to say, "I just can't imagine . . . because it says so much about the huge amount of blame and responsibility you must have taken on as a child for this happening to you.
Why should the abused be afraid to speak up, be afraid to stand up, be afraid at all . . . ?"

You can find the article which inspired this comment at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/08/breaking-the-silence-incest-may-be-part-of.html .


According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, "Secrecy is the practice of sharing information among a group of people, which can be as small as one person, while hiding it from others. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret."

Under "Natural and sociological secrecy" Wikipedia continues, "Humans attempt to consciously conceal aspects of themselves from others due to shame, or from fear of rejection, loss of acceptance, or loss of employment. On a deeper level, humans attempt to conceal aspects of their own self which they are not capable of incorporating psychologically into their conscious being. Families sometimes maintain 'family secrets', obliging family members never discuss disagreeable issues concerning the family, either with those outside the family and sometimes even within the family. Many 'family secrets' are maintained by using a mutually agreed-upon construct (an official family story) when speaking with outside members. Agreement to maintain the secret is often coerced through 'shaming' and reference to family honor." This information plus more comments about secrecy can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy. This description of secrecy could have been written about my family.

Here are some of the lies and secrets that I grew up with.
1. Having sex with him meant my daddy loved me.
2. What we were doing was a secret that I couldn't tell anyone, especially my mother.
3. As long as I did what I was told then Daddy would still be faithful to my mother rather than going out with other women. He told me this.
4. My dad told me when I was older that men only wanted one thing from women and that was sex.
5. Sex was shameful and something that you did in secret.
6. Girls should not have babies unless they were married.
7. Pregnant was a dirty word.
8. Protect my mom from being hurt, at all costs.
9. Grown-ups are always to be obeyed, no matter what they tell you to do.
10. Never let anyone see you cry. Tears are a weakness.
11. No one was allowed to get angry except Daddy.

Yes, as K-L said, the secrets of incest are insidious. Incest affected every part of my life. I learned not to trust anyone, including myself. If you grow up in a safe and loving environment, then you learn to trust. I didn't.

Instead, I learned to fear. I can't tell you how old I was when I learned to be afraid. Because I lived in constant fear, I wasn't even aware of it until the night that I decided that I had to leave home or lose my mind. I was 19 years old. Fear had kept me home longer than most young adults.

I recognized fear for the first time on a Friday night. Daddy had been drinking since he got home from work around 6:00 p.m. I don't remember specifically what my sister was supposed to have done that my dad got upset over that night. Most of the time, if my dad and sister were together in the same room, an argument would start. My sister was a typical rebellious teenager in the early 1970's. With our family life, she was given plenty of reasons for rebelling. I remember that she smarted off at my dad trying to defend herself from his verbal attack.

Daddy decided that he was going to use his leather belt and whip her with it. This whole incident took place in my mother's kitchen. My mother, brother and I were present listening to the argument between my dad and sister. When dad started taking off his belt, I stepped between my dad and sister. He told me to get out of the way. I told him that I wasn't going to allow him to hit my sister with that belt. He told me that he would whip me instead.

For the first time ever, in my life, I smarted off and told him to go ahead if he thought he was big enough. My mom and brother then stepped between dad and me. Daddy hit my brother with two swings of the belt before my mom could stop him.

My sister and I ran out the back door and around the house and down the road. We didn't know what to do. We just ran down the road away from Daddy and his rage.

It was at that moment, running down a dark, empty, country road, with no where to go and no one to run to, that I felt and knew terror for what it was. At that moment, I knew that I had lived in terror for a long time and hadn't recognised it for what it was before that night. When we realized that we had no where to go and we couldn't run anymore, we walked back home and went to bed. The next day was "normal" with no one talking about the night before.

So, for me, terror was the biggest secret of all. I had not been aware, before that night, that terror had been my constant companion. I now had the awareness.


Many more years passed before I had the tools to face the terror and begin to whittle it down to a manageable size. In an ACA meeting, I admitted to myself and everyone else that the fear that I was carrying around was this blackness that filled the entire room that I was in. The weight of it had been almost more than I could bear at times. That was the night that I began releasing the fear. Small bit by small bit, I chipped away at the fear. Today, fear is no longer my constant companion. I have learned that facing the fear is well worth any minor discomfort. Each time that I face my fear, I become stronger than I was before.


If I got sidetracked from my original point of the story and confused you, I apologize. When I start to write about the incest, I have learned to go where the story takes me. All of this needs to be shared so that others can understand and heal from that understanding, starting with myself. Thank you all for taking this painful journey back to my childhood with me. If one person sees themself in my story and starts to heal because of it, then revisiting this pain is worth the trouble and the loss of sleep on my part.