"Blog Day"

The last day of the month, except when I'm completely overwhelmed and forget what day it is, even if I've thought of it earlier in the day. Not even a blip on the radar from disclosing a 'family secret' from anyone who is even remotely connected, not that I expected any necessarily. If anything, I expected someone to be angry. No one in particular, really. It shows just how much people actually link to what's provided in an email signature, or where it might be otherwise located.

It had to come out: the only time I can ever remember while still very young being 'happy' upon finding out that someone had died. He was loved by his mother, the author of a hand written family saga with a much better memory for names and people than I have right now. He was also a child predator, of family members. Nothing all that new given the statistics; it just so happens it was in our family, too. The fact is this came out after the victim(s) were far into adulthood; old enough to be a grandparent themselves. The truth is it came out when it was happening, and nothing was done, nothing I was made aware of.

Maybe there was a threat by a father who was more abusive in a different way; maybe he was never asked to come around again to do 'handyman work' around our house. One thing is for sure, if Grandpa had been told, his nephew (I didn't know he was a blood relation at the time), our family handyman may have mysteriously disappeared, off the planet.

Grandpa was a strong positive patriarch, 'man of the church', and former police officer, with lots of guns, as all the male relatives had in those parts, in those days. Grandpa had no 'record', of course, though had he found out his granddaughter had been affected multiple times by this person, 'heaven only knows' what the consequences may have been. Maybe that was what the adults involved were afraid of in not letting it get very far, at all.

All the child knew at the time was that no one did anything, even when they told. And it wasn't the first time something had happened. There were others, like the next door neighbors before we had moved. No memory if anyone was told until again in adulthood, which was met with anger for causing stress. What about the child? What about feeling at the time that no one would listen or do anything anyway.

Grandpa only had a second grade education, forced to go work in the coal mines at age ten for literally pennies. He was wise and smart, and fortunate to be a hard worker not bound by educational requirements in being able to earn a living and provide for his family, unlike today. I wish he had known enough to go to the police himself after he had retired when I was being bullied in school to recover something precious that we knew who took it. The emotional impact was the same. Don't bother telling or 'pushing it', 'you're not worth it', no one will care enough to make it right: that's how it felt. It's what I won't forget, and how I can remember and feel or understand a child's emotions.

Violated, again

TSA NY: 2 Hands Up Crotch; threatened after 1st one, then again. 'Comply, or U'll B detained'. 5 legal ID's weren't OK: Laguardia.

It's also called re-victimization. Real victims are dead, or are they? Survivors are self-identified. I fall into the latter category, until it happens again.

Anyone who hasn't had anything worse or comparably 'bad' happen to them tend to call others 'self-identified victims', which can be true, up to a point. When violations over the course of time mount upon one another (no pun intended), month after month, year after year, the impact is irreversible, and seeps into the psyche, transforming one's identity, and perspective on the world. Reality is relative; every 'world view is different' there is sometimes no right or wrong; often there is.

What happened at the airport is inexcusable, the 'supervisor' had a sadomasochistic attitude, got off on 'power and control', insensitive to who she was groping or that exploiting her 'position' would set into motion further trauma from violations that began in childhood and continue to this day. It only comes back and becomes crippling when someone who uses the excuse of 'doing their job' imposes on the rights of others at will or on a perverted, sadistic whim, at the expense of a mother on her way to visit a child who has been through similar trauma, having disclosed what has happened in her absence.

What goes around comes around? Let's hope so, on both counts, and to all the others who project their 'needs', 'justified' in the false context of 'responsibility', onto those who cannot defend themselves.

Testimony

Testimony for Hearing 1/09:

Today we must mention again that 30% of survivors and families who make it into shelter are able to find housing. It’s another issue as to why they don’t make it and the subsequent deaths that are unverifiable as directly connected remains a serious concern.

Where the remaining 70% go has also been unverified, though it is known that many are faced with the unavoidable choice of returning to abusive households, to either become homeless again, or worse. This is a well known fact in the advocacy community.

What these realities do to mothers and their children is devastating in and of itself, if they are able to escape safely even once, let alone multiple times.

Widely available statistics conclude that 75% of most incidents occur while women and their children are attempting to escape, or thereafter, which either leads to homelessness, loss of support, return to the abuser, or more homicides.

We encourage you to consult on how children and women become legitimately disabled as a result of ongoing domestic turmoil over years of exposure to physical, emotional, and mental abuse, the most ‘minimal’ condition being ‘Complex PTSD’, which often goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

Your research would not be complete without looking to Lundybancroft.com, and Legalabusesyndrome.org, where findings have shown after in-depth research that ‘conditions’ are natural responses to violence and abusive, biased litigation in both women and children that follow them through the rest of their lives, with profound long-term effects impacting the gamut from health factors to functionality and ability to seek or find living standards where a productive and improving quality of life can exist and thrive.

To make things worse, obtaining a ‘diagnosis’ or labels have proved to harm women in litigation for custody of their children, though their states were natural to the traumas they continue to endure. Mr. Bancroft goes on to say that the most expedient remedy for the conditions incurred by mothers and children is simply reunification, so they may heal and be given the opportunity of a life free from abuse by both batterers and the system.

A case last year involved a mother who had been put in a wheelchair by an abuser who went on to use her ‘disability’ against her as a form of unfitness as a parent to their children in a matrimonial custody dispute. These practices and others have been far from uncommon.

With these considerations strongly in mind, we are requesting another or improved, expanded category in housing developments, so that these families, who are most always women and children, may have more opportunities for lives free from abuse and to remain safe.