Category: you matter

April Is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

I was sexually assaulted for the first time in Junior High when a boy touched my crotch as he walked past me getting off the bus. I was raped by by boyfriend a few years later when I was fifteen. I didn’t break up with him immediately because he threatened to tell people, especially my mom, that I’d had sex with him if I broke up with him.

In the ultra-conservative, Christian church I belonged to at the time, having sex before marriage was equivalent to murder; it was just about the ultimate sin. If my mom found out that I’d had sex, she’d call me slut, whore, easy, and I’d endure lecture upon lecture about how I was used goods, that no man would ever want me know, how I had given up that ONE GIFT that I had to offer my future husband. How do I know she’d do that? I’d heard her talk about other people plenty of times, she did not keep her judgement to herself.

Later, when I’d end up alone with that boyfriend, if he wanted to have sex and I didn’t, he’d remind me,

“We already did it, so what’s the big deal?”

Or, “If you really loved me you would.”

Or, “So, you don’t want to be with me anymore, fine. Leave me. See who’ll want used goods like you.”

Or, “If you don’t, I’ll go tell everybody you’re a slut and that we have sex all the time.”

Or, “I bought you dinner, you owe me this.”

When I was fifteen years old, I was just scared to tell him no. I didn’t want anyone to find out what he did to me. I felt dirty, used, embarrassed, worthless, and unlovable. When I finally did tell my mom what happened she told me I had to marry him because I had sex with him. I was shocked!

As an adult I know that is coercive rape, when I was a teenager, I just thought I was too weak to say no. When I finally reported to the police what happened a few months later, when I found the courage to break up with him, even the male police officer I reported to, told me nothing would happen because I kept having sex with him. I told him it was because I was scared to say no. I told him that he hit me. None of it mattered, because I stayed.

Coercive rape is rape. Period. End of story. It doesn’t matter why you stay. If coercive rape is happening to you, most likely the entire relationship is dangerous and you need an escape plan to get out safely. Do what it take to keep yourself safe, but plan an escape.

Here are some resources:

https://www.rainn.org/resources–National Sexual Assault Hotline information

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Healing and a Thought Spiral

This post is going to be a bit different than most. I usually write specifically for this blog and I have a personal journal. Sometimes what I write in my journal inspires what I what for this blog, but usually they are completely separate writings. Today, I am going to write here what I wrote in my personal journal yesterday after what was an extremely difficult night for me.

March 25, 2022

I’ve been avoiding sitting down and writing this for most of the morning. I woke up at 5 am and was able to go back to sleep until 7:30 ish. It’s now 9:37. I’ve been working so hard at avoiding this, that I actually did my physical therapy exercises for my hip, which I haven’t done in well over a year.

I’ve been having trouble falling asleep this week and last night was no different. I went to bed about 10, as usual, and was just laying there, wide awake, while my thoughts stampeded around in my mind. It was all random thoughts running through, like all the different animals from the stampede scene on Jumanji, a few related, but just passing by, keeping me awake none the less.

Suddenly, one of the thoughts separated from the test and attached itself to me. Before I realized what had happened, I was taken into a thought spiral and held there until my heart was racing, I couldn’t catch my breath, and tears were forming in my eyes. I wanted to leave, but I was frozen in place, I felt trapped.

That’s me at the bottom laying in my bed.

I was able to eventually calm myself down by taking deep breaths and repeating to myself, “I’m safe,” over and over, out loud with each breath I took.

When I finally fell asleep, I had weird dreams all night. Of course, I don’t remember them, but one of them woke me up and I had to remind myself that I wasn’t married anymore, well technically I am, but not really, we’re just waiting for the courts to catch up to us. When I woke up that time, I thought he was in bed with me. Needless to say, it tool me a little bit to fall back to sleep.

I don’t understand why I feel like I’ve made so much progress, then BAM, I get thrown backwards.

Learning From the Past

From mid-January to mid-March of 2015, I was on the jury of a sexual harassment civil lawsuit. Four women were suing their former boss for sexually harassing them in the workplace and making a hostile work environment because of their gender.

It was two grueling months of testimony that brought up a lot for me. As I sat silently in the jury box, listening to the women tell their stories from the witness stand, listened to what they endured and how they felt, brought up emotions that I thought I had dealt with long before. Then deliberations were intense, we deliberated so long, that another jury was chosen, the trial completed and the verdict read, before we were done.

In the end two of the plaintiffs we ruled he was not guilty of, one we ruled he was guilty of, and one we couldn’t reach a decision.

During the trial, I couldn’t talk about anything I was going through. I know everyone gets that instruction and I’m sure that most people go home and talk to their spouses or friends about the trial, at least a little bit to ease what they’re going through, but I literally couldn’t because our friends knew the defendant. They would hang out with us and talk about their friend’s court case, I’d have to go to the bathroom, then come back and change the subject.

Once the trial was over, I went to dinner with someone I thought I could talk to about how the case made me feel. I had been talking for about twenty minutes, when they looked at me and asked, “Are you ever going to stop talking about this?” I immediately stopped, but it sent me into a spiral into depression and anxiety that I hadn’t experienced since about 1999.

By the fall of 2015, I wanted out of my life. I felt like I just made every one’s life worse by being in it, that I was a burden to every one, especially my family. I went to counseling, that helped, slowly, but it did. By the winter of 2016, I wanted to be here again. In all of it, I never made any attempts, just a lot of fantasizing about how much better every one else’s life would be if I was gone.

In March of 2016 I started a Facebook miniseries that I called “You Might be in an Abusive or Controlling Relationship if…”, a memory of it popped up this past week. On March 9, 2016 I wrote “If  your significant other in any way belittles you, demeans you or makes you feel like you don’t deserve better, you are in an abusive relationship.”

There were eleven posts in total, all of them things that I have had people do to me in my life. When I wrote the first one, I was scared. I had told people about my past experience in abusive and controlling relationships, but I had never put it out there for the world to see. I am so glad I did.

I wrote that miniseries for a very specific reason, to help a friend who I couldn’t talk to, but knew she’d see that on Facebook, but it ended up helping me too. It helped me heal. It led me to write my book, it led me to more healing from past trauma and learning to be my authentic self, instead of always being who people want me to be. (This is still a work in progress.)

We all have things in our lives that we can learn from. If we don’t learn from the things we’ve been through, we’re doomed to repeat them, I’m a prime example of that. I did NOT learn from my high school relationship, or my parents. I’ve been having to learn the lessons from those relationships for a long time.

Take time to see the patterns of hurt and pain in your life, even if its not abusive, and learn from them. Learn what you really want and go for it, ask for it, be your true self.

What If?

I often have my students use their critical thinking skills by answering what if questions.

What if the Britain had won the Revolutionary War?

What if John F. Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated?

What if the nuclear war hadn’t been used against Japan?

What if you were born into a family with billions of dollars?

What if you were born to a mom in prison?

What if you were a teen parent?

This type of questions get students out of thinking about what did happen and into thinking about other possibilities. It can open their minds to seeing other options so when they are faced with making decisions, they may be able to see multiple ways to handle the situation.

A few days ago, I played a dangerous game of “what if?” I asked myself the question, “What if my parents had taught me that it’s okay to say no.”

I learned from a very young age, that the answer to a request from my parents was always, “YES!” If we answered with a “no” there were consequences from being forced to do whatever it was through coercion or being yelled at and belittled. The consequences always involved feeling unloved.

As I grew up, I believed that if I loved someone, and they loved me, I wasn’t allowed to say no to them under any circumstance, no matter how uncomfortable I was with the situation.

What if my parents had taught me that it’s okay to say no?

Would I have been sexually abused and raped at fifteen years old by an eighteen year old student leader at church?

Would I have left someone who loved me and offered me a safe place because my mom refused to let me date him?

Would I have married someone who used me to cover up the fact that he liked boys and treated me more like a roommate than a wife?

I eventually had to stop the what if game, because it was leading me down a very deep, dark, rabbit hole, that left me curled in the fetal position in tears. I have a great life with two amazing kids, my own house, a decent job, but sometimes, the what if game gets the best of me.

Now I know that it IS okay to say no to people. It’s all about setting boundaries. If they love you, they will still love you, even if you have to say no every once in awhile.

Ideal Culture Conflict

In sociology I teach my students about ideal culture and real culture. Ideal culture is the values and norms that a society claims to have while real culture are the values and norms that a society actually lives in their day-to-day lives. I also teach my students that we have society as a whole, like all people on earth, but that is also broken down into many different sub-groups, like people living in a country or region; people who identify as a specific gender or no gender, people of a certain ethnic group, friend groups, religious groups, political groups, families, what job you have, etc.

Basically, society can be broken up into many different types of groups and within each group there is an ideal culture and then there is what the people of that group actually live out every day. The ideal culture is usually unattainable, but most people do their best to get there. What’s that old saying? Aim for the moon, if you miss, you may hit a star.

I have grappled with this idea my whole life, but only recently, with my therapist, have I realized it. We are taught by media and society that families are supposed to be safe places to learn and grow. That we are supposed to be able to trust our parents to be there and take care of us when we need support. For many people, that’s their truth and I’m so thankful for them, but for me and many people like me, that’s not the case. Our families were a place of constant heartache and deep wounds that followed us from childhood into adulthood that we are still working on healing from so they will stop affecting our relationships and our lives.

this is just a picture I found online, I have no idea who they are.

When I was twenty years old I married the guy I had been dating since my senior year of high school, who was a youth pastor. I had this idea that marriage was going to be a partnership and that we’d be happy. Not long after we were married, he told me that he didn’t think he’d ever be happy being married to me. As a Christian woman, I had been taught that it was up to me to keep my husband happy, so for the next five years I did whatever I could to make him happy. I did whatever he told me to do and basically lost myself in the process of becoming the woman that he could be happy being married to. This nice Christian man that I had married was actually a controlling abuser, who ended up getting arrested for abusing boys. I divorced him.

The biggest conflict for me has come from the evangelical church and many people who call themselves Christians. I was raised in a Pentecostal church and switched to a Baptist church when I was twenty-six years old. They both claim to live by what the Bible teaches.

To me that is when Jesus says “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. (From Matthew 22:37-40)

Yet it seems to me, that many Christians have all kinds of rules about who they have to love and who gets into heaven and who gets to be considered Christian. A few of the churches I attended, actually taught that there were denominations within Christianity that were not “real” Christians and would not go to heaven when they died.

They didn’t show me love when I was sexually assaulted by a leader in their children’s ministry or when my ex-husband was arrested. Both the churches that I was attending at those times asked me to no longer attend. When my ex-husband was arrested, that pastor disparaged me so badly from the pulpit, that my friend wouldn’t even tell me what was said.

I know that ideal culture and real culture are not the same. I know that ideal culture is unattainable, but the people that have been in my life, from these small, little sub-groups of the larger society, seem to have not even been trying.

I know that nobody is perfect. I know that I’m not perfect and I never will be, but I hope that strive every day to live up to the best in the ideal society. I know I won’t attain it, I am after all a flawed human being. I also need to remember that everyone else is a flawed human being, none of us are perfect. None of us will attain that ideal culture, but I can surround myself with people who strive for that, who actually hope for that type of world, who don’t just pay it lip service and then behave in a completely opposite way.

Here’s to the hope of getting close to our ideal culture!

New Year, New Chapter

Our lives tell our story. They begin at our birth, and they end when we die. They are constantly being written, sometimes by the choices we make, sometimes by the choices others make and the effects of those choices.

There are good parts, bad parts, terrifying parts, tearful parts, ecstatic parts, hopeful parts, and every type of part you can imagine in between. I don’t know how the past few years have been for you, but I’ve felt like I’ve been writing my story while riding a roller coaster that got stuck upside down. The thrill and fun of life had slipped away and I was hanging on for dear life hoping to make it to the end without falling off the ride.

I found this quote a few months ago. There is nothing about my life that I can go back and change, it’s all happened already. The consequences of choices that have been made have been and are being lived with. I can’t change any of that.

I’m learning that I don’t have to live with the festering wounds. I don’t have to ignore the trauma and the damage that it’s caused and “just get over it,” as I’ve been told in different ways so many times in my life. I can get help in healing those old wounds and in the healing process I can begin to write a new ending to my story.

The ending to my story will hopefully be one of mental and emotional healing, where I continue to work through the traumas of my past so they no longer affect my present or future. An ending where I am comfortable being me. I know it’s not always going to be easy or perfect, but I’m looking forward to writing this new ending to my story.

My hope for everyone in 2022 is that you don’t let your past define you. That you see who you truly are, who you were created to be, and find a way to be that best version of you that you can be.

Love you all and Happy New Year!

This is Me!

Top of the Empire State Building 10/6/2021

In the movie The Greatest Showman Keala Settle sings, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of,” in the song This is me. The first time I saw that movie, that song brought tears to my eyes. The very thought that people might accept me as I am, with all my broken parts and scars, was too much for me to believe. I felt as if I was somehow responsible for how I became broken and got those scars; as if it were my fault that people treated me in ways that left me broken, shattered, and scarred when I put myself back together.

Growing up I was often told that I was too much or not enough which left me feeling like I always had to try harder to be who people wanted me to be so that they would love and accept me. In the process I hid who I really was. I became invisible and believed that I was worthless. My value was completely defined by how other people saw me because I saw myself as completely worthless, without value on my own.

In 2016, I wrote my book, Worthless No More. It was extremely healing to write it but I realized that I was still basing my worth on how other people saw me, not on any value I gave myself. After seeing the movie and hearing Keala Settle sing the song, especially the line, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of,” I decided that I needed to work on myself.

I have spent much time the past few years, and very intense time the past year and a half with therapists, working on myself. I now know that I am valuable as a human being. My value doesn’t change based on another person’s ability or inability to see it. I also no longer hide who I am or try to be who I think they want me to be, because, “This is me.”

If you’re struggling with knowing your own worth, I can tell you that you are extremely valuable just for the simple fact that you are a human being and living on this planet. You deserve to take up space. You deserve to speak your voice. You deserve to be who you are.

Coercive Control-Domestic Violence Awareness Month

https://www.advancediversity.org.au/coercive-control-brochures-aim-to-reduce-abuse/

Many people ask abuse victims, “Why’d you stay?”

The answer is not always easy. Many people don’t even realize they or someone they love are the victims of domestic violence because it can be subtle and slow. The abuser is usually not going to start out right away by beating their victim, that would be too obvious; they have to first win them over.

In the beginning the abuser may shower their victim with gifts, they may seem too good to be true, showing much love and affection. This often is when somebody claims to have been “swept off their feet.”

After the victim is thoroughly invested and believes they can’t live without this person and the abuser can no longer keep up the charade of being a loving caring person all the time, that’s when the coercive control begins.

It will probably be small at first. A hurtful comment, when the victim says something about it the response will be that the abuser was “just joking” or that they are being “too sensitive. Who knows, it might be both.

It may escalate to isolation, maybe not blatantly by saying “You can’t hang out with that person.” It could be subtle. A comment about how much they don’t like hanging out with that person, can they skip the get together this time. The next time you want to go they might tell you how much they just want to spend time with you, with nobody else around, how special that would be, just the two of you. Pretty soon, you’ve cancelled on your friends so many times, they quit inviting you.

Another form of domestic abuse that usually progresses slowly is sexual coercion. This happens when one partner is in the mood for a little adult fun and the other says no. The one who wants to play is hurt and takes it out on the other person by lashing out in some way; pouting, telling them “I feel like you don’t love me when you say no,” giving them the silent treatment, etc. Over time the victim begins to feel like they are unable to say no to sex.

It might even escalate to sexual assault, rape, and physical abuse. Usually by the time it escalates to this level, the relationship has been abusive for some time.

Leaving also isn’t safe or easy. Victims can lose their friends and family when they leave their abuser; they can lose their entire support system. They can also lose their life. And the abuse doesn’t end just because the relationship does.

According to Battered Women Support Services, 77% of domestic violence related homicides occur upon separation. The same organization states that there is a 75% increase in violence upon separation for at least 2 years!

That means that for a huge percentage of victims, staying in an abusive relationship might actually be safer than leaving it. For those who do leave, the abuser still finds ways to be violent and controlling for up to two years. So leaving the relationship doesn’t mean leaving the abuser. It can be even worse if there are kids involved.

I hope that this post has helped you understand a little bit more about why so many people stay in abusive relationships. They aren’t easy to see, even if you’re living it, but especially if you aren’t. If somebody you know is in an abusive relationship, be there for them, listen to them, hear what they aren’t telling you.

https://ncadv.org/2021DVAM— National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

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https://www.thehotline.org/embed/#?secret=jO6eZo7ABYNational Domestic Violence Hotline

https://www.rainn.org/— National Sexual Assault Hotline, Chat, and Website

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic violence is also known as Intimate Partner Violence or IPV. It is defined as the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, and emotional abuse. I believe everyone should be aware of it, know what to look for in both the victim and the abuser. Be able to listen for what is NOT being said, see what’s happening behind the scenes. We can’t do that if we aren’t aware of it.

*Just a note to start with, all of the statistics and information used in this blog will be from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV.)*

1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have been the victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.

Abusers don’t begin by hitting their partner, they are usually charming and win over their partner with acts of kindness and love. Once the partner is attached the abuser will begin the abuse cycle by exerting various form of coercive control. These tactics can include isolation, degrading, micromanaging manipulating, sexual coercion, threats, stalking, and punishment as well as physical abuse.

The partner has now become the victim of domestic violence and may not even be aware of it because it was so insidious and subversive. The abuser will have broken down the victim to a point that they may feel helpless to leave. Sometimes the victim may fight back in what is known as reactive violence. The victim tends to see reactive violence as a way to get the violence against them to stop, a form of self-protection, or a way to restore the dignity that has been destroyed by the abuser.

Abuse victims will often attempt other means to end the violence against them before resorting to reactive violence. These tactics include negotiation, appeasement, threats to leave, or actually leaving the perpetrator, getting help from others, threats to expose the abuser, and threats to hurt the abuser emotionally, economically, or damage their property.

It is often difficult for the victim to leave their abuser for a variety of reasons which can include that they feel isolated, depressed, or helpless. They might be embarrassed of the situation, they might withdraw emotionally, they may be financially unstable, have religious or cultural beliefs that reinforce staying in the relationship, or feel like they have nowhere to go.

Also, many times, when the victim does finally leave their abuser, the abuse doesn’t end. The abuser continues with their attempts to control their victim. Sometimes, it is after the victim has left that the abuser murders them. Sometimes, the leaving is the most dangerous time in a domestic violence situation.

All of this is a lot to take in and might be difficult to understand for somebody who is lucky enough to have never experienced domestic violence, but there are almost 35% of women and about 31% of men in California alone that have experienced domestic violence. Become aware so that you can be a friend to someone who is hurting and an advocate to someone who might need it.

If you’d like more information or you need help in a domestic violence situation here are some resources for you to check out:

https://ncadv.org/2021DVAM— National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

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National Domestic Violence Hotline

https://www.rainn.org/— National Sexual Assault Hotline, Chat, and Website

Tell Your Story

Have you ever loved somebody so much it hurts?

Have you ever loved someone who didn’t know how to love you back without causing you pain?

Have you ever had to end a relationship to save yourself?

Once upon a time I was a broken little girl.

My parents did the best they could while they dealt with their own mental health issues, but I had a terrible childhood. I often wondered if I was going to have dinner at night. I never knew if I was going to be yelled at or “beat with the stick” for whatever I did that my dad didn’t approve of, which seemed to change from day to day.

No matter how much they hurt me, no matter how much I lived on egg shells, no matter how much they belittled me and made me earn their love; they told me they loved me. They told me it was for my good. They told me it was to teach me a lesson.

What I got out of all of it was that love and pain went together. I learned that those who love you also hurt you. That set me up for some messed up relationships in my life. Significant others that told me they loved me, but treated me as though I didn’t matter at all.

I believed I didn’t matter. I believed it was my job to keep them happy. I believed my happiness needed to take a back seat to everyone else. I was a nothing, and I was treated as second place to everything else in my significant others’ life.

Many people ask why I stayed with them. Heck, I was married to one for five years! One reason is that when you learn that you are nothing, that you don’t matter, that it’s your job to keep others happy and put yourself last, that those who love you also hurt you, then the way they treated me was completely normal to me.

When I finally realized my worth; when I finally realized that my happiness mattered; when I finally realized that I mattered and I began to expect and ask people to treat me better. I asked them to speak to me with respect. I asked them to be my partner instead of my superior. I asked them to pull their weight in the relationship and not leave all the work up to me.

Guess what happened!

I was called names. I was told I was being emotional. I was told I was starting fights. I was told I was yelling. I was told that I was being too much.

What I learned was that I did nothing wrong by asking to be treated right.