July 21, 2010
Freedom Is A Natural High
For this month's Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, our host, Dr. Kathleen Young, wanted to do an Independence or Freedom theme in honor of Independence Day (July 4th) here in the U.S. My recent wilderness camping trip really got me thinking about when I feel the most free. It is definitely when I am out in nature.When I am looking at a glorious sunset, taking a wildflower hike or watching birds, I feel like everything can be right with the world. At these precious moments, I believe that I totally belong. I am not a freak or an alien, but part of the intricate web of life.
Maybe the nature fix is so good for me because I've grieved over the fact that the "parenting" I received as a child was anything but natural. It is not natural for a mother to have no protective instinct for her offspring. It is not natural when predators reduce their victims to something less than human; stripping them of their inborn right to humanity, respect and dignity.
This leads me to another thing that Dr. Young said when she called for submissions for this carnival: "My first thought was how fitting, given that today we celebrate Independence Day in the U.S. I then started thinking about the meaning of independence for survivors and our culture as a whole. For me, this naturally leads to thoughts about dependence, unmet dependency needs and interdependence." I believe that all God's creatures are interdependent because we are all connected. What we choose to do in our lives has global and universal consequences. Because we are all connected, we cannot pretend that our actions do not effect the lives of beloved, divine others.
I also firmly believe that people who are damaged and afraid--not willing to look at the wounds they need to heal--allow evil to enter in because they do not feel connected. They don't feel connected to God, to nature, to other human beings.
Maybe, for me, it was something as simple as my constant habit of tree climbing during my childhood summers that kept me open to my connection with nature. Whatever it was, I have always found nature healing and comforting. I'm so glad that my love of nature helped me to stay connected to the divine and, eventually, succeed at breaking the multi-generational cycle of abuse from my "family" of origin.
I now have a new family that I've created with my husband and son. And, I will always have my universal family; a belonging with all God's creation.I belong.
I am connected.
And I am free.
Labels: advocacy, aftermath, appreciation, beauty, being human, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, breaking the cycle, comfort, freedom, grounding, human dignity
March 27, 2009
Free The Slaves!
Today is International Free The Slaves Awareness day.
I was definitely a sex slave to my father. If I did not perform one of my "job duties" to his satisfaction, punishment (torture) was swift, cruel and inhumane.
Even before I retrieved the repressed memories of my childhood sexual abuse, I always remembered the verbal abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, etc. I have always felt like my birth guaranteed my parents free slave labor.
With my mother, it was free domestic labor. My sister and I would stand on chairs, as we had the sole responsibility of the family dish washing starting at age seven. We were not yet old enough to reach the kitchen sink. I got so good at scouring toilets, scrubbing bathtubs and mopping floors, that by age 11 I decided to farm out my cleaning skills to the neighbors and I actually got paid for it.
After my parents divorced, the duties I was expected to perform for my mother increased. Her two favorites were forcing me to give her foot massages and rubbing her head when she had a headache (which was daily).
You may call these childhood memories "incest," "parentification," "not age-appropriate" or simply, "chores."
What these memories feel like to me--then and now--adds up to pure slavery. I had no freedom. I had no choice. I had no means of escape.
It seems to me that, when we think of slavery on a large scale, we think of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. We think of Africans being shipped across the ocean, sold, forced to do menial labor, beaten, whipped and treated as less than human--treated as animals, or even below animals. Many of us in the US think of Abraham Lincoln, The Civil War, and The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.
We think it's over.
Indeed, slavery is illegal world-wide. But, it's far from over. In fact, as the United Nations recognized its International Day of Remembrance of The Victims of Slavery on Wednesday, March 25, it reminded us that some 100 milli0n Africans were forced into slavery in the 200 years of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Today, FTS--Free The Slaves--estimates that 27 million people are enslaved at the present time.
Folks, that's Right Now!
Have you heard this statistic about modern-day slavery? Think you heard wrong? Well, have you heard any of these terms: child labor, exploitation, trafficking, sexual slavery, child soldiers? These are all forms of modern-day slavery. If you go to the Unicef website, at www.unicef.org, you will find a whopping 22 pages of related articles on modern-day slavery, sprinkled with the terms I've mentioned above.
Since many of us haven't thought of slavery since our US history classes in school, let's do a refresher on the definition of slavery. FTS defines slaves as being "forced to work without pay under threat of violence and unable to walk away." Think this is something that only happens on some remote island, far, far away? FTS provides a glogal map of modern slavery occurrence. There, the US is highlighted prominently, along with China, Russia, India and South American and African countries. Each country/region gets categorized as "slave labour used both internally and exported" or "receiver of slave labour and products."
Here are some statistics you may not know, from the FTS "Top 10 Facts About Modern Slavery:"
FTS believes that we could totally end slavery within 25 years. But we must educate ourselves about the problem. We must raise awareness. Below, I've listed a couple more sites that you can visit to educate yourself about modern-day slavery and raise your own awareness. If you want to help us raise awareness in the blogosphere, go to Bloggers Unite.
I was definitely a sex slave to my father. If I did not perform one of my "job duties" to his satisfaction, punishment (torture) was swift, cruel and inhumane.
Even before I retrieved the repressed memories of my childhood sexual abuse, I always remembered the verbal abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, etc. I have always felt like my birth guaranteed my parents free slave labor.
With my mother, it was free domestic labor. My sister and I would stand on chairs, as we had the sole responsibility of the family dish washing starting at age seven. We were not yet old enough to reach the kitchen sink. I got so good at scouring toilets, scrubbing bathtubs and mopping floors, that by age 11 I decided to farm out my cleaning skills to the neighbors and I actually got paid for it.
After my parents divorced, the duties I was expected to perform for my mother increased. Her two favorites were forcing me to give her foot massages and rubbing her head when she had a headache (which was daily).
You may call these childhood memories "incest," "parentification," "not age-appropriate" or simply, "chores."
What these memories feel like to me--then and now--adds up to pure slavery. I had no freedom. I had no choice. I had no means of escape.
It seems to me that, when we think of slavery on a large scale, we think of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. We think of Africans being shipped across the ocean, sold, forced to do menial labor, beaten, whipped and treated as less than human--treated as animals, or even below animals. Many of us in the US think of Abraham Lincoln, The Civil War, and The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862.
We think it's over.
Indeed, slavery is illegal world-wide. But, it's far from over. In fact, as the United Nations recognized its International Day of Remembrance of The Victims of Slavery on Wednesday, March 25, it reminded us that some 100 milli0n Africans were forced into slavery in the 200 years of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Today, FTS--Free The Slaves--estimates that 27 million people are enslaved at the present time.
Folks, that's Right Now!
Have you heard this statistic about modern-day slavery? Think you heard wrong? Well, have you heard any of these terms: child labor, exploitation, trafficking, sexual slavery, child soldiers? These are all forms of modern-day slavery. If you go to the Unicef website, at www.unicef.org, you will find a whopping 22 pages of related articles on modern-day slavery, sprinkled with the terms I've mentioned above.
Since many of us haven't thought of slavery since our US history classes in school, let's do a refresher on the definition of slavery. FTS defines slaves as being "forced to work without pay under threat of violence and unable to walk away." Think this is something that only happens on some remote island, far, far away? FTS provides a glogal map of modern slavery occurrence. There, the US is highlighted prominently, along with China, Russia, India and South American and African countries. Each country/region gets categorized as "slave labour used both internally and exported" or "receiver of slave labour and products."
Here are some statistics you may not know, from the FTS "Top 10 Facts About Modern Slavery:"
- At least 14,500 slaves are trafifcked into the United States each year
- Slaves work in fields, mines, brothels, restaurants...even homes
- Slave owners use many words to avoid the term slavery, such as "debt bondage," and "bonded labor"
- Around the world, the average cost to turn a human into a slave is only $90
FTS believes that we could totally end slavery within 25 years. But we must educate ourselves about the problem. We must raise awareness. Below, I've listed a couple more sites that you can visit to educate yourself about modern-day slavery and raise your own awareness. If you want to help us raise awareness in the blogosphere, go to Bloggers Unite.
- While FTS is a movement/charity in the US, Anti-Slavery is international
- Justice Sunday is this Sunday, March 29. Get details at UUSC, The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Labels: abuse, advocacy, awareness, Bloggers Unite, child abuse, child labor, freedom, human dignity, human rights, inhumanity, sexual slavery, survivors, torture
August 20, 2007
Looking at What I Don't Want to See
You know how Scrooge had the Ghost of Christmas Past to point things out for him? That's how I feel with a dream I had last night.
Earlier in the week, I felt like my therapist was suggesting something that I just couldn't see at the time.
This dream last night was like that long finger of the ghost, pointing. It was like a voice in my head, directing and asking, "Look! There. Can you see it now?" What I hadn't wanted to look at, but finally saw, was the scarier, crueler origins of my ever-present fear of rejection.
In the beginning of the week that just past, I was so proud of myself. I stayed present and I stayed safe while I was assertive, stated my boundaries and stood my ground during a difficult confrontation. I felt stressed and tired from the confrontation, but I felt good about myself and I didn't dissociate. I even asserted myself as I insisted on some time-out for me for self-care.
Yee haw! I was on a healthy roll!
Then, WHAM! I got stopped in my tracks. I immediately felt bad about myself--rejected and unlovable--after some perceived social snubs by some wealthy parents of students at my son's school. Uh oh. I could almost feel myself getting smaller. I could sense the old, familiar urge to run away and hide. I had to grab my cozy blanket and rock in my rocking chair to comfort and ground myself, in order to resist the dissociative urges.
I felt a bit better after talking it out with my husband. He agreed that some of the behaviors I endured were snobby and rude. Pardon the expression, but I just have no patience for people who act like their shit doesn't stink just because they have money and live in a big, fancy house!
Aaarrrgghh! How did I end up in this situation again?! The people in our immediate neighborhood have different values and priorities. They don't act like snobs. They are very down to earth.
But now my son has to deal with this at school. Just like I did. My high school, for instance, was full of kids who got brand-new cars the day they turned sixteen and went off to expensive, private colleges after graduation. This one girl, I'll never forget, never repeated the same stylish, put-together outfit in the six years I was with her at junior high and high school. I was lucky if I could mix and match enough to pull together a week's worth of clothes without repeating anything!
Anyway, in therapy, I had been casting my nets, so to speak, in search of some junior-high-aged part that, perhaps, I needed to work with on this rejection issue. I feel bad that I dismissed a part who was obviously hurting and calling out for attention. I didn't think she "qualified" because she's younger--between the ages of six and eight, I think. I've always thought of my social rejection era as being somewhere between the ages of 12 and 18; especially concentrated in the junior high years.
That's the time, after all, when I had to endure the social scenarios like walking up behind a group of girls I thought I liked and overhearing them say, "Nobody tell Marj where we're going. We don't want her to come." I was mortified. Back then, I did, literally, run away to hide my embarrassing, unacceptable, unlikeable self.
The dream I had last night started out in this oh-so-familiar way, with the pretty, popular girls rejecting and snubbing me. Ho Hum. That again. Then, the dream took a more sinister turn. In this version of my nightmare, all the popular "kids" look about college age and all live together...like some kind of co-ed fraternity or something. For some reason--even though I know I'm not welcome, not "allowed" there--I go up to the door and one of the resident guys lets me in. He's kinda giving me the tour of the place and being really friendly and nice to me. How strange.
I keep glancing at the front door nervously. I keep thinking, "What is this idiot doing? Doesn't he know that he'll be an outcast if the others return and find him being nice to me?" By the time the others do return, his hideous plan is revealed. He has lured me there in order to enslave me there permanently as his personal step-and-fetch servant!
At the end of the dream they're all standing around, snickering and laughing at the fool--me--who is cleaning and carrying and delivering every whim and desired thing to this guy. The same guy who was once so nice and kind to me is now ordering me about, criticizing my work and belittling me with insults. He is treating me as less than human.
Less than human.
That's what I was in real life. I was stripped of my most basic human dignity, rights and respect, the respect that all humans--child or adult--have an inherent right to. Why do we do it? As a species, why do we stoop to inhumanity? Why do we fool ourselves into thinking it's "us versus them?" How do we allow our ourselves to treat our fellow humans, our brothers--OUR OWN CHILDREN--as less than human objects?
Instead of recognizing that we re all connected--that we are all one--we strip these other divine souls of their humanity. We take an equal--a being that has come from the same source of light and love as ourselves--and we beat him down and strip him of all his rights and human dignity, until he is nothing more than an IT. That's what the plantation owners did to the slaves. That's what the Nazis did to the Jews. That's what my parents did to me.
I was set up. How was I ever supposed to stand up for myself, love myself, or find any social acceptance after that?
My old therapist used to accuse me of taking on too many of the world's problems. But it was my problem It is my problem. As unthinkable as it may seem, this is what parents can do to their own child. This wasn't black vs. white or Christian vs. Jew. This was a case of a parent reducing their own innocent, precious child to an object--an IT--for their own sick pleasure and convenience.
I know this to be true. But, I'm still not quite comprehending or accepting it.
It blows my mind wide open.
It breaks my heart in two.
Earlier in the week, I felt like my therapist was suggesting something that I just couldn't see at the time.
This dream last night was like that long finger of the ghost, pointing. It was like a voice in my head, directing and asking, "Look! There. Can you see it now?" What I hadn't wanted to look at, but finally saw, was the scarier, crueler origins of my ever-present fear of rejection.
In the beginning of the week that just past, I was so proud of myself. I stayed present and I stayed safe while I was assertive, stated my boundaries and stood my ground during a difficult confrontation. I felt stressed and tired from the confrontation, but I felt good about myself and I didn't dissociate. I even asserted myself as I insisted on some time-out for me for self-care.
Yee haw! I was on a healthy roll!
Then, WHAM! I got stopped in my tracks. I immediately felt bad about myself--rejected and unlovable--after some perceived social snubs by some wealthy parents of students at my son's school. Uh oh. I could almost feel myself getting smaller. I could sense the old, familiar urge to run away and hide. I had to grab my cozy blanket and rock in my rocking chair to comfort and ground myself, in order to resist the dissociative urges.
I felt a bit better after talking it out with my husband. He agreed that some of the behaviors I endured were snobby and rude. Pardon the expression, but I just have no patience for people who act like their shit doesn't stink just because they have money and live in a big, fancy house!
Aaarrrgghh! How did I end up in this situation again?! The people in our immediate neighborhood have different values and priorities. They don't act like snobs. They are very down to earth.
But now my son has to deal with this at school. Just like I did. My high school, for instance, was full of kids who got brand-new cars the day they turned sixteen and went off to expensive, private colleges after graduation. This one girl, I'll never forget, never repeated the same stylish, put-together outfit in the six years I was with her at junior high and high school. I was lucky if I could mix and match enough to pull together a week's worth of clothes without repeating anything!
Anyway, in therapy, I had been casting my nets, so to speak, in search of some junior-high-aged part that, perhaps, I needed to work with on this rejection issue. I feel bad that I dismissed a part who was obviously hurting and calling out for attention. I didn't think she "qualified" because she's younger--between the ages of six and eight, I think. I've always thought of my social rejection era as being somewhere between the ages of 12 and 18; especially concentrated in the junior high years.
That's the time, after all, when I had to endure the social scenarios like walking up behind a group of girls I thought I liked and overhearing them say, "Nobody tell Marj where we're going. We don't want her to come." I was mortified. Back then, I did, literally, run away to hide my embarrassing, unacceptable, unlikeable self.
The dream I had last night started out in this oh-so-familiar way, with the pretty, popular girls rejecting and snubbing me. Ho Hum. That again. Then, the dream took a more sinister turn. In this version of my nightmare, all the popular "kids" look about college age and all live together...like some kind of co-ed fraternity or something. For some reason--even though I know I'm not welcome, not "allowed" there--I go up to the door and one of the resident guys lets me in. He's kinda giving me the tour of the place and being really friendly and nice to me. How strange.
I keep glancing at the front door nervously. I keep thinking, "What is this idiot doing? Doesn't he know that he'll be an outcast if the others return and find him being nice to me?" By the time the others do return, his hideous plan is revealed. He has lured me there in order to enslave me there permanently as his personal step-and-fetch servant!
At the end of the dream they're all standing around, snickering and laughing at the fool--me--who is cleaning and carrying and delivering every whim and desired thing to this guy. The same guy who was once so nice and kind to me is now ordering me about, criticizing my work and belittling me with insults. He is treating me as less than human.
Less than human.
That's what I was in real life. I was stripped of my most basic human dignity, rights and respect, the respect that all humans--child or adult--have an inherent right to. Why do we do it? As a species, why do we stoop to inhumanity? Why do we fool ourselves into thinking it's "us versus them?" How do we allow our ourselves to treat our fellow humans, our brothers--OUR OWN CHILDREN--as less than human objects?
Instead of recognizing that we re all connected--that we are all one--we strip these other divine souls of their humanity. We take an equal--a being that has come from the same source of light and love as ourselves--and we beat him down and strip him of all his rights and human dignity, until he is nothing more than an IT. That's what the plantation owners did to the slaves. That's what the Nazis did to the Jews. That's what my parents did to me.
I was set up. How was I ever supposed to stand up for myself, love myself, or find any social acceptance after that?
My old therapist used to accuse me of taking on too many of the world's problems. But it was my problem It is my problem. As unthinkable as it may seem, this is what parents can do to their own child. This wasn't black vs. white or Christian vs. Jew. This was a case of a parent reducing their own innocent, precious child to an object--an IT--for their own sick pleasure and convenience.
I know this to be true. But, I'm still not quite comprehending or accepting it.
It blows my mind wide open.
It breaks my heart in two.
Labels: child abuse, human dignity, inhumanity, rejection, seeing the truth, social acceptance
