Tag: love

Stop Silencing Victims

Lately, I have been dealing with a lot of my past between writing and releasing my book and and being part of a news story that aired last Friday night on abc7news.com.

I have read and heard responses from so many people who are proud of me and the others that I am proud to call friends, for standing up and telling our stories. It hasn’t been easy, but it is necessary to help others.

I have also been asked, “what took so long?” Or “Why now after all these years?”

What is the answer to these questions?

Society, as well as our abusers, silenced us.

Our abusers told us they’d do worse things to us if we told. Or they convinced us that nobody would believe us anyway.

Maybe we believed our abusers. Maybe our abusers were right, nobody believes us. If you watch or read that news story above, people didn’t believe the victims when they told what happened to them.

The pain we suffer from the acts of abuse however aren’t what keeps victims silent; it’s society that keeps us from telling our story.

Society tells us it’s our fault, because of what we’re wearing, or not wearing, o because of what we said or didn’t say.

Society says we must be lying because so and so is a nice upstanding member of society.

Churches tell us that our worth lies completely in our purity and that nobody wants to marry used goods.

Parents tell us to wait until marriage to have a sexual experience because that’s what good kids do.

We are shamed into silence. We don’t want people to know we’re “used”, that we’re no longer “good”. We don’t want to be accused of “asking for it.”

The pain caused by the act of abuse is mild in comparison to the pain caused by being shamed into silence.

Keeping silent kills marriages and families. Keeping silent allows the pain to bounce around inside until you can’t take it anymore. Keeping silent is the most painful thing a person can endure.

When a former victim decides to speak out, listen to them. Know that for them to tell you their deepest pain is difficult and they know you can’t fix it, but it’ll ease their burden.

If a former victim decides to speak out, encourage them to file a police report if they are an adult, if they are a minor, do it for them, go with them, hold their hand and offer them a piece of your strength.

Sometimes victims may speak up years or decades after the abuse, because they can’t carry the burden any longer. Allow them to. Healing can take a lifetime, especially when the abuse is buried deep inside.

If a former victim tells their story, believe them. The vast majority of us are not going to make this stuff up; society is too hard on victims for us to want that.

I hope that every victim of every abuse gets the nerve to speak up and tell their story. Maybe then the abusers will be too scared to continue, but I don’t think that will happen until society stops silencing victims.

 

 

We All Have a Story to Tell

I didn’t write a blog yesterday because I had an extremely busy day, that ended with a Book Release Celebration. I was surrounded by family and friends and friends who have become family as I celebrated, my lifelong dream of becoming an author.

For those of you who were unable to make it to the celebration, I will share with you here, what I shared with them last night:

“I was encouraged to write my story for several reasons, but mostly so people will know that they aren’t alone in their struggles. Students continuously tell me things that are going on in their lives, thinking that they are the only one who has a parent who belittles them, or a significant other that mistreats them or a friend that isn’t a real friend or whatever their struggle is.

I also want people to know that your worth, your value isn’t based on how other people see you or treat you. Each person is a valuable human being because we are made in the image of the Creator. When somebody hurts us, it is a reflection of them, not us. Our value isn’t changed by the pain and hurt we endure.
Worthless No More tells part of my story, from age 14 to 26. My story isn’t over yet and neither is yours. Our stories are being written day by day through our experiences. We can allow the story to be written for us, and believe what is written about us, or we can make the conscious choice to write our own story, by how we choose to respond to things and what we believe about ourselves.
When I was younger I believed I was worthless because that’s how I was treated. I just wanted to be loved and accepted and many of my decisions were based on those desires. Because of my family, I mistakenly believed that love and pain went together and allowed my high school boyfriend to mistreat me because I though he loved me. I had learned that you accept the pain to have the love.
I eventually got out of that relationship, and right into another one. He treated me well, but my mom didn’t like him, so to earn her love, I broke up with him and began dating a good Christian boy who wanted to be a youth pastor. The problem was, he didn’t love me, he loved controlling me. I still wanted to be loved though, so I put up with it and married him.
When the marriage ended so did the life I had worked so hard to create for myself. I could no longer live my life looking for love from others when I didn’t even love myself. It was the lowest I had ever felt. I was completely empty and broken. I believed all that I had been told about myself, I was worthless.
That’s when some incredible friends of mine, Kim and Jeff, tricked me into seeing a counselor. That was the best thing that happened in my life up to that point. In counseling I learned that we don’t have to believe the words that people say about us. We can replace our negative self -mage with a positive one. I also learned that the only way to find true love and acceptance from others is to love and accept yourself first.
Each one of us has a story to tell. We’ve all had struggles to survive. When we have the courage to face our stories that’s when we begin to heal from the past and create a new story, page by page, day by day. As we live our stories we learn that every moment passes, the good and the bad. We try to hold on to the good memories and forget the bad, however the bad memories, the struggles, the pain we endure are the moments that help us grow and show us the strength we never knew we had.
Remember when we were kids and we experienced growing pains? That was our bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons growing and stretching to help us become stronger and taller. That’s what the bad moments are for our character, the pain makes our emotions grow and stretch until we are able to handle and heal from things we never thought possible.
Good times pass as well and we remember them, take pictures and celebrate them. Those are the memories that give us hope in the bad moments; that let us know that even in the midst of the struggle we can know that moments pass and good will come again.
We all have a story to tell, I published mine, that doesn’t make it any more important than yours or more difficult than yours. Every story is important. Each person has their own personal story that helped them grow and become strong and amazing. When we know that we are not alone in our struggles, that we each have a story that is being written day by day, we can be there to remind each other that the bad moments pass and that we can learn from them.
Being a part of other’s stories allows us to be there to help people celebrate the good moments, because they will also pass. Thank you all for the part you’ve had in my story and helping me celebrate this dream come true of becoming a published author.”

Book Release Celebration

So I know that most of the people who read my blog were already invited to the book release celebration on Friday June 9th at 7 pm, but thought I’d put it out there again, just in case you haven’t seen the invitation yet.

If you can attend you can text me at the number on the flier or email me at the link at the bottom, right hand corner of this page.

I’m busy making plans for the event, arranging desserts and beverages for everyone. My friend, Kim, is making her famous cupcakes and you don’t want to miss out on those. There will also be cookies and brownies and whatever other goodies I can think of and come up with. There will be other people there that you can get to know their story.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone, especially people I don’t get to see very often. I’m also looking forward to answering any questions you may have about the book.

I can’t wait to see you and talk about my book.

I am Worthless No More!