Rachel Thompson's Blog, page 14

August 30, 2015

These Are The Reasons We Need Female Heroes

ph. PASQUALE VITIELLO via magdeleine.com

(Photo credit: Pasquale Vitiello)

Please welcome author Samantha Bryant to the blog as she shares her views on the female hero.

In real life, the hero-women in my life are older than me. My mother, my grandmothers, my aunts, mentors, colleagues, teachers, other writers. It makes a logical sense: I look to those who have already “been there” to learn how best to traverse the rockier landscapes of my life. While I can be inspired and influenced by younger people, and often am, I look to the elder women in my life when I am in serious need, when I need saving.

Maybe that’s why I became disenchanted with the female heroes I could find in movies, TV, and books. It could also be because I’m getting older myself, and I find it harder to see myself in these eternally single and childless twenty-something women. I’m impatient with their overdramatic situations and narcissism. Their stories are forever trapped in beginnings, without forward motion and change. Too often, they make me want to roll my eyes right back at them.

Underage and Underdressed

There’s been a good spate of strong female characters of late (even if some of them seem to take “strong” a little too one-note seriously). I’ve been happy to see them: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Black Widow from the Avengers series, Lisbeth Salander from the Girl Who series, Katniss Everdeen of Hunger Games, Tris Prior of Divergent, Princess Bubblegum of Adventure Time, Agent Carter, all the clones on Orphan Black, etc. Women who have skills, brains, and talents who use them to save themselves and others.

The frustrating thing to me has been that, even in stories about amazing women, we still worship at the altar of youth. Think about that list I just made. Not a gray hair or stretch mark among them. Several of them still respond to “girl” without feeling insulted or weird.

When I’m feeling cynical, I see it as a reflection of our society’s obsession with youth, especially when it comes to women, especially in Hollywood. By the time a woman gains enough experience to know what she’s doing, large segments of the population are ready to write her off as over the hill, like her worth lasts only as long as her fertility. Ask any actress over forty. That’s why they all seem to be developing their own projects, producing and directing as well as performing. Because otherwise, it’s over to the corner in the role of “mother” or “grandmother” (who is tertiary to the story, at best).

After all this time, are women really still primarily valued in the world at large for surface traits like physical beauty? How disappointing. Would anyone care that Black Widow knows a dozen different ways to kill with her bare hands if she weren’t also sleek in her black jumpsuit and strikingly beautiful with her vibrant red hair? Compared to icons like Wonder Woman and Supergirl, Black Widow is demurely dressed in practical combat gear (and don’t get me started on costuming).

When I’m feeling more sanguine, I can see it as wish-fulfillment. We glorify youth in our fiction because we miss it and know that we could do it so much better now than we did when we had it. “Youth is wasted on the young,” as they say, which is probably why our young female heroes are such paragons of physical prowess as well. We’re living the “if I knew then what I knew now” vision through them, giving them skills at twenty-two that, more realistically, would take fifteen years more experience of trial and error to develop. Skills that would come with scars.

Don’t get me wrong: I like this shining paragon kind of character much better than I liked the weepy doormat victims of the past., but she’s still too often not a fully-developed, well-rounded, interesting person. A strong female character isn’t really any different than a strong male character: she just needs to be a fully developed human, allowed to have flaws, history, motivations and doubts. Some wrinkles in her face as well as her psyche wouldn’t hurt either.

Where are all the grown women?

Thank goodness, grown women are starting to show up out there. Recent years have brought Helen Mirren as Victoria in Red and Judi Dench as M, both amazing and complex female characters, distinctly feminine and definitely dangerous, though neither is the “star” of her particular vehicle. Ming-Na Wen’s portrayal of Agent May on Agents of Shield gives me hope for the entire superhero genre. She’s a woman with history and experience, treachery and expertise. I’ve been thrilled to see more of these women showing up on the imaginary hero landscape.

Now, I want more women like that who also have people they love in their lives. There are plenty of loner heroes, not so many heroes with a family. Why are all women heroes broken and tragically alone (as opposed to by choice)?

At least we have Helen Parr of The Incredibles. Even if she still lets people call her girl, she does have a husband, home, and kids, as well as superpowers.

My Axe to Grind

That’s why I wrote Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel. I wanted to consider the idea of a woman hero, someone who was already established in herself before the strange new life-changing element (in this case: superpowers) comes in. Someone with adult life considerations.

I wanted characters I could really connect to—and that means women who are women, strong and flawed and interesting, just like male characters. People with enough years under their belts to have experience, and history. I wanted a superhero story about full-grown, capable and flawed women with lives, jobs, families and responsibilities. Women like me and my friends, but with superpowers.

Like Toni Morrison said, “If there is a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

So, I did.

Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel is my attempt to show the heroism of grown women. Besides dealing with the sudden onset of superpowers, my characters are also facing conflicts in the rest of their lives: relationships, work, families, society. The main characters range in age from thirty-two to sixty-seven. One is a mother to young children, two to grown children. One is a grandmother. Two are horrified at the very prospect of children. They are diverse in other ways, too: attitudes toward love, money, careers, and race.

Superhero fiction has been a great venue for exploring what it means to be a female hero. I love speculative fiction for its ability to take on issues without feeling like you’re doing anything more than playing. Ideally, I want a fun story that leaves the reader thinking. I hope that’s what I’ve written: thinking woman’s heroes.

About the Author:

Samantha Bryant is a middle school Spanish teacher by day and a mom and novelist by night. That makes her a superhero all the time. Her debut novel, Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel is now for sale by Curiosity Quills. You can find her online on her blog, Twitter, on Facebook, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on the Curiosity Quills page, or on Google+.

About the Book:

Going through “the change” isn’t easy on any woman. Mood swings, hot flashes, hormonal imbalances, and itchy skin are par for the course. But for these four seemingly unrelated women, menopause brought changes none of them had ever anticipated—super-heroic changes.

Helen discovers a spark within that reignites her fire. Jessica finds that her mood is lighter, and so is her body. Patricia always had a tough hide, but now even bullets bounce off her. Linda doesn’t have trouble opening the pickle jar anymore… now that she’s a man.

When events throw the women together, they find out that they have more in common than they knew—one person has touched all their lives. The hunt for answers is on.

Broken Places is available NOW from Booktrope. It's already hit #1 on Women's Poetry and Hot New Releases on Amazon! Broken Pieces is still going strong, #1 on Amazon’s Women’s (paid) Poetry list.

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All content © 2015 by Rachel Thompson, author, unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided a link back to this page and proper attribution is given to me as the original author.

Pictures courtesy of Pasquale Vitiello via Magdeleine and Pixabay

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Published on August 30, 2015 01:05

August 26, 2015

The Reasons Reverse Sexism Doesn’t Really Exist

I am not sexist and I don’t condone violence. You might disagree with me after reading this post.

The Spark: A Little History

I shared a question on my Facebook wall the other day: what do you have an irrational fear of? Hundreds of people answered (I started things off with my perfectly rational fear of spiders because, spiders) and with a few exceptions I’ll note in a moment, people opened themselves up, sharing what truly frightens them, from the seemingly silly (cherry tomatoes?) to the downright horrifying (elevator cables snapping, airplanes crashing). I loved how many people cared and supported one another, sharing stories about their true fears.

The response was amazing!

The notable exceptions: about five or so men who said, “being asked my irrational fear on social media.” They all basically laughed it off in the same *wink wink har har* manner, at different times, without reading the thread to see that other men had already said the exact same thing (and then there’s the one guy who, apropos of nothing, made an inappropriate comment about my ‘tantalizingly red hair’), which I ignored completely — I’m supposed to be flattered?

Realizations

I realize these men thought they were being funny, original, possibly hilariously comical however, this was a post on my wall where, if you don’t know me at all, I often ask people to write what scares them, to reveal their vulnerabilities. I found it terribly disrespectful of these guys to joke around this way, not only to me but also to the brave, wonderful people who had gone out of their way to share their fears with others in such a public way. We really had engendered a bonding camaraderie which these guys ignored completely by injecting this type of immature tomfoolery.

I realize that some men (not all men, so if this doesn’t apply to you, good men of the world who would never do this and didn’t do this, I’m not talking to you and am not lumping all men into a category of ‘all men are dicks,’ because I appreciate and respect you, truly), will never share their true fears with anyone, especially themselves, let alone in a public forum– so the easy answer is to go on someone else’s wall and criticize or make sarcastic comments. Yes, some women will do that, too. (In fact, one woman did make such a comment in a non-humorous way — she explained that if a future employer saw her comment, she was afraid she may lose out on a job opportunity.)

I shared my frustrations in a different post, accompanied by an ironically focused humor meme which states: “boys are stupid, throw rocks at them,” — see screenshot of my post with the cartoon below. I’ll even link to this post so you can see all the replies for yourself (though you’d have to friend me to see it in its entirety). What’s interesting is that because I made the observation that it was only men who made goofy comments on my original post, combined along with the obviously satirical cartoon, people accused me of being sexist. Oh, and promoting violence.

My Response Post

RachelintheOC, RachelintheOC.com, Facebook, feminism

The Offending Screenshot

The Cartoon That Incites Violence

Clearly, a threat.

What I Believe

I focus on supporting what I love and not bashing what I don’t, but I must, in this case, stand up for what I strongly believe in. By stating my observation that 90% of these silly comments were made by men, people accused me of being sexist.

Interesting.

“Here’s what’s strange, and what’s extraordinary

Nothing changes, but nothing stays the same”

~ Room in my Heart, Jonatha Brooke

(copyright, Jonatha Brooke)

I don’t promote negativity. I promote compassion and polite discourse. I believe in humor (in fact, I wrote two best selling satirical humor books). When I received comments such as ‘if that cartoon were of girls having rocks thrown at them, you’d feel different,’ or ‘do you literally believe boys are stupid and should have rocks thrown at them?’ I feel I have to respond.

No. I posted a humorous cartoon that I thought, as educated adults, people wouldn’t take literally. That is my mistake. One of the Four Agreements is: don’t make assumptions, so that’s on me.

The Bigger Issue

But there’s a bigger issue here (so get your rocks ready):

I simply do not feel it’s possible for men to be oppressed in the same way women have been throughout history and even now (particularly given that men control 95% of the clout in media), so I disagree with the straw-man argument that women oppress men — it’s a false equivalence.

Feel free to throw your rocks now — or maybe your dictionary (which, by the way, was created by men).

I love this article by Melissa A. Fabello, Co-Managing Editor of Everyday Feminism, on Everyday Feminism, which breaks down why sexism against men (aka, reverse sexism) is just not possible. Sure, women stereotype men, just as men stereotype women. Sure, there’s prejudice and discrimination against both genders, which totally sucks. However, reverse sexism isn’t possible because these four main tenets would have to be true:

1. It Is Pervasive

It is woven throughout social institutions, as well as embedded within individual consciousness.

2. It Is Restrictive

That is, structural limits significantly shape a person’s life chances and sense of possibility in ways beyond the individual’s control.

3. It Is Hierarchical

That is, oppression positions one group as “better” than another.

Dominant or privileged groups benefit, often in unconscious ways, from the disempowerment of subordinated or targeted groups.

4. The Dominant Group Has the Power to Define Reality

That is, they determine the status quo: what is “normal,” “real,” or “correct.”

In order for women to perpetuate reverse sexism in ways that consistently and influentially impact society (including my post about throwing rocks at boys), any and all of the above would have to be true, and they’re not — at least, not at a comparable level. The ‘tit for tat’ argument doesn’t work here.

What makes me the most sad about all this? Women deal with sexism on the daily on social media just by being on social media. Sure, men get it too, but on the same level? Not even close. See, it’s not about tit for tat. That’s the point! I’m not denying that sexism happens to men — what I’m saying is that it’s not comparable.

(I have male friends who are being harassed by female bosses in their jobs as I write this — it sucks and I support these dear friends in going after these women to the fullest extent they possibly can. I hope these women are fired for their abuse of power. I’m not a denier. It happens. Again, my point is, on the whole of society in general, the scale of incidence is much lower for men.)

Read this amazing article by best selling Booktrope author J.C. Hannigan on social media perversity, or one of my past articles on similar topics, or this article from the fabulous Chuck Wendig on how women are treated on the Internet (and for the record, I love when men support women — the more the merrier). And don’t even get me started on what Trump has the nerve to say about women, Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell being only the most recent examples (bimbo, pig). How is this acceptable at all?

And if you think I’m just making this all up, the fact remains that women continue to make 78 cents to the dollar compared to men, a gap that has remained largely unchanged for more than a decade. The problem is even worse for women of color (Source: Economic Justice).

Beyond Sexism

Apart from all of that, what upset me most about the incident: people attacked me for sharing a frustration, an opinion they didn’t approve of, on my account, on a space I’ve created, developed, and branded over many years. See, what I love about social media is while it’s indeed social, about building relationships and connections, I don’t need anyone’s permission to post what I want — I’m an adult woman, and as long as what I’m posting is within Facebook’s guidelines (no porn, no promotion), do I need to ask for anyone’s approval or consensus? No, I don’t.

Neither do you. It’s not my policy to come over to your wall and tell you what to post, criticize your opinions, or bully you for your beliefs — it baffles me that people feel it’s their right to do the same to others. This is why people become depressed (read more about Social Comparison Theory here), create plastic veneers of themselves, or post nothing but happy cat videos and rainbow-crap inspirational quotes — nobody wants to be R E A L because what happens when we reveal our true selves? People laugh, bully, and criticize and that hurts if we take it personally.

I’ve thought seriously of shutting down my Facebook account this past few days but I won’t, and you know why? Because of the advocacy work I do with childhood sexual abuse survivors, raising money for the Joyful Heart Foundation, the real-life friendships I’ve made, the Gravity Imprint I direct for Booktrope, and the BadRedhead Media client work I do and love — all are tied into Facebook. That’s what I take personally and means more to me than anything else, next to my babies.

I have taken to shutting my Facebook down on Fridays (as many of you know, I take #FFF: Facebook Free Fridays) already and will continue to do so; perhaps, I’ll carry that over to other days as well because frankly, I don’t need the negativity and does it really matter anyway? Not to me. I keep doing what I do, posting what I want, and writing my stories. I encourage you to do the same.

Most likely, this article will feed the negativity and I accept that, but like my Facebook wall, this blog is my home, too.

I welcome your respectful comments.

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Published on August 26, 2015 10:39

May 9, 2015

The Reason Batman Failed the Boys Who Idolize Him by @willvanstonejr

Please welcome new contributor Will Van Stone Jr. to the blog! Will has been a huge help with #MondayBlogs and I’m pleased to have him to share his Superheroes & Survivors series with us.

Damien Wayne is a rape baby. Wayne. As in the son of Bruce Wayne. Batman. One third of DC Comics’ Holy Bloody Trinity. No, Batman didn’t force himself on Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy or Catwoman. The Dark Knight was roofied.

Raped.

This could have been the single greatest story arc in the history of DC Comics –

outdoing the company’s own Knightfall in every frikkin way imaginable as the strong, brave, heroic Batman dealt with his sexual assault at the hands of Talia al Ghul while suddenly forced into the role of raising the ten-year-old boy created through her heinous act. He’d have been a role model for boys who desperately need one by showing that shame and fear and pain can be overcome; that a rape victim can become a rape survivor.

Could. Have. But didn’t. Instead, it was used to launch the career of Gotham’s newest Boy Wonder (that’d be Damien, by the way). Really? Like, fucking really? Was the rape even necessary? Nope. If the only point was to add another name to the Bat-roster, there are other ways to give Bruce a tween kid. After all, he and Talia were married during the time Damien was conceived and while it’s rare, married people do, on occasion, have sex. Yes, the consensual kind.

Listen, I’m not against rape in fiction; I’ve written plenty of scenes depicting it. But don’t ever use it to just shock your audience. Do something with it. Make it matter. Don’t be lazy.

BATMAN AS IDOL

Batman is an idol to boys everywhere; dreams of being just like him with his good looks, easy way with women, heroic deeds and endless cash are more common than hot-for-teacher fantasies. Okay, so I made up that last part and actually have no idea which is more common but I’m trying to make a point here, a’ight? Anyway, there’s a strong fascination with The Dark Knight which is why even crap like Batman Forever and Bat-nipples– er, I mean Batman & Robin still drew big crowds and bigger piles of cash. Everyone loves him (even when he sucks Robin eggs), and kids look up to him.

So why not use him for the good he represents? I mean, it’s not like Survivor-Man’s out there, defending boys’ from the innate fears and shame they feel.

Imagine you’re a ten-year-old boy. Or thirteen or sixteen or any goddamned age you want (cause totes not the point), in a world that tells you time and again boys don’t cry and other such nonsense and something bad – like, sexual assault, maybe? – happens. You don’t know how to handle all that messed up shit in your still-developing brain but you’ve seen how Real MenTM deal with stuff so you go with that example and try it; you bury it and pretend like nothing’s wrong.

Cause that’s what happens on TV. And in films. And in books. And in those loud songs you listen to. Except in those shows and movies, you don’t see just how much damage denial can cause. In your self-imposed solitude, you became so well acquainted with Shame, that bitch becomes infused to your DNA. You don’t always see that Shame and her steady, Pain, may stay hidden but while the lights are low, they’re getting busy. And eventually, the doctor gives Anger a slap on the ass and the little tyke’s runnin’ around raising hell in no time.

Such a healthy lifestyle, eh? All because you couldn’t save yourself (not that that’s really a thing, duh) and couldn’t say one teeny, tiny four-letter word.

H. E. L. P.

BATMAN WITHOUT FEELINGS

Batman, and DC could’ve changed that. They could’ve set an amazing example by simply having Bats show a little goddamned emotion over being bloody violated. He could’ve fallen apart while locked away in the Batcave, or questioned his masculinity or, I dunno, talked to someone about all those feels!

Yes, even Batman has feelings. Mostly the angry kind, but they are there.

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a fucking example of healthy recovery!

(I know, I know, that’s a Superman thing. Calm yourselves.)

Anyway, when DC had the opportunity to write a good, helpful, hopeful story of recovery, what’d they say? Nah, fuck that. Just make it a thingless thing and move on cause that’s what Real MenTM do. Oh, you raped me? Eh, whatevs. Oh, and I’m a daddy, too? Yea, I got this. You get back to your criminal ways, woman. I’ll be fine. I’m Batman.

Epic. Scale. Fail.

Did you know DC spent over two years milking Knightfall? The Caped Crusader was snapped in bloody half by super-steroid abuser and masked maniacal madman, Bane, and took the time to work his way back to whole (actually a very good story and available in three real big books), while he questioned whether he would ever again be the Batman he was before the battle that almost killed him. But when it comes to sexual assault, he wastes no time pulling on the old cape and cowl, and saving the good citizens of Gotham. Not even a damn mini-vacay to San Diego.

The message is loud, and painfully, clear: if someone breaks you, take the time to rebuild and come back stronger (and kick the ass that kicked you) cause, grr, arrgh, Real MenTM and whatnot. But if some makes the sex with you without you even wanting it, here are some magical Popsicle sticks, now build a bridge and get the fuck over it.

No one cares, Junior. And, hey, at least you got some, right?

Oh, Bats, you’re so much better than those stupid, outdated – and dangerous – stereotypes lazy ass writers have thrust upon you. I know, wording.

Now, as writers, we’re not necessarily responsible for teaching anyone anything; we don’t have to make PSAs showing it’s okay to cry when it hurts or that feelings aren’t just some silly girlie thing. Truth be told, we don’t owe anybody jack. But we should always strive for honesty in our stories and treat them with as much authenticity as the genre allows.

And, really, no matter what kind of story you’re writing, be it historical fiction, epic scifi or trashy mommy-porn, rape is rape (I’m looking at you 50 Shades). It doesn’t change depending on the where, how, whom, why or when. And the reactions, from assailant to victim to former Boy Wonders promising to support you (oh, wait, that didn’t happen) will run their courses… if you let them. And you should, unlike DC.

Seeing it’s okay to react with tears, words or screams (to name but a few) is something boys don’t have the luxury of seeing nearly enough to be useful. There is no Lifetime movie telling boys’ honest stories about overcoming abuse (though they do occasionally skip their Evil ManTM flick of the week for one), so about 49% of the population doesn’t get to learn that Shame isn’t their only friend.

Hear that, DC?

BUT WHAT IF…

Imagine (what, I’m a writer; imagination is key) if Batman actually reacted to discovering he’d been (date-)raped and acted… human. His relationship with Damien would’ve been affected in much more realistic ways than the crap they threw together. He could’ve questioned his (and society’s) long standing ideas on what it meant to be a man – a man in a world where men can’t be raped, especially by a woman – and how to reconcile his past with his future.

Y’know, real, bona fide feelings and emotions that attach themselves to a victim while they make that long, sometimes scary journey to survivor; the strength, the pride, the courage he’d have to reclaim. He could’ve helped redefine what being a man is and boys could’ve learned that having a penis doesn’t mean you have to be hard and cold and pretend everything is fucking peaches and cream. If he had taken a moment to confide in Alfred, Tim (the best Robin), or Selina (Catwoman – who, depending on the version, has herself been raped), we could’ve seen a grown man, a goddamned superhero, let down his guard and confront Shame with the help of his friends and family.

He could’ve talked about it instead of blowing it off and getting straight back to business. So refreshing.

DC could’ve done that, with only a few short pages. They could’ve given hope to some poor, broken little boy afraid to tell people his big, scary secret for fear he’d be ridiculed for not liking it. Cause, y’know, even little boys always want it cause of penises, even when they don’t know what the hell it is.

If Batman had faced what happened to him, shown some kind of pain inside it caused him, if he allowed himself to feel and trust and open his damn mouth, then we would have a new model of Real MenTM to show our boys, one that could’ve led them to a better place.

Instead, we get a shrug, maybe a grunt. Cause according to DC, and so much of pop culture, that’s what Real MenTM do. They don’t share. They’re hollow. And they only want one thing.

Even when they don’t know what the fuck that one thing is.

Connect with Will on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, and check out his books on Amazon!

Top picture courtesy of pixabay, middle picture courtesy of Will Van Stone Jr.
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Published on May 09, 2015 01:10

May 6, 2015

#MondayBlogs Giveaway May 2015

Since I created #MondayBlogs in late 2012, even I’m shocked at what an amazing success it has become! Thousands participate each week, generating more than 5,000 tweets! And it is because of all of you that we can say that with a lot of pride and a big ol’ smile! As a thank you to all you wonderful #MondayBlogs tweeps, we launched an ongoing, monthly giveaway contest in April and we couldn’t be happier with the response!

The Featured Monday Blogger giveaway is our way to say thank you for participating in #MondayBlogs by giving you more exposure for you and your blog. Each Monday for one month, you could have a different tweet sent out by @MondayBlogs to all our followers and be featured on IndieBookPromo.com!

Who doesn’t want more blog traffic and a free feature? #MondayBlogs

Nice bit of exposure, don’t ya think?

That sound like something you’d be interested in?

If so, enter now!

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Featured Blogger April 2015

Nillu Nasser Stelter

Happy Sharing,

Rachel, Will, and Kate

Please note that due to the popularity of Indie Book Promo guest posts will be scheduled according to availability. If you cannot wait for your post to be up you may decline the prize.

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Published on May 06, 2015 06:00

May 3, 2015

Abuse Survivors, It’s Time to Heal Ourselves by @TruthisHers

I’ve been in recovery from my childhood abuse for thirty years. For the last 18 years I’ve worked with thousands of survivors as both a therapist and a trauma recovery coach. Healing from childhood abuse is a complicated, lengthy and tricky process. Survivors need a lot of help and support to navigate recovery.

But there are three million reports of childhood abuse, involving six million children, every year (Childhelp). One in four girls and one in six boys will be subjected to sexual abuse before the age of eighteen (Centers for Disease Control). The United States doesn’t have nearly the amount of resources that are needed to help that many victims. If a child or adult survivor is lucky enough to get counseling or mental health support the frequency and quality of services are often less than adequate.

Every day I talk to survivors who don’t have access to counseling or therapy, either because they cannot afford it or because the services simply don’t exist where they live. Other survivors can access counseling, but they need more than the one hour of help they’re getting every week or every other week. That is not enough support for someone in the thick of recovery from childhood abuse.

LACK OF HELP

I wish it were. It would be wonderful if we could process the years of painful shame, despair and betrayal that we feel. Believe me, we would love to have it be that simple and easy. But it isn’t. Abuse doesn’t disappear with a finger snap, even when we work as hard as we can with helping professionals who are highly educated in abuse recovery. But when we don’t have services available, or those that are available are not from professionals educated in abuse recovery, we can work and still not gain an inch of ground.

When I began seeking counseling for my childhood abuse, my HMO decided I was only in need of therapy every other week. When I asked why I couldn’t see someone more frequently I was told that they didn’t want me to become dependent on therapy as a source of support. Immediately I was ashamed of wanting more help, because obviously only weak, dependent people wanted such a thing.

So I stumbled and fought my way through my abuse with only two hours of therapy per month. This was before the internet existed, so I couldn’t turn to the Web for support groups, chat rooms or discussion forums. There were no Twitter Chats or Facebook groups available to me. I couldn’t even find any in-person support groups for childhood abuse survivors.

I was in so much emotional pain. But instead of offering me more help, the providers at my HMO made me feel worse. I was told I wasn’t feeling better because I didn’t want to, that I must be motivated to stay stuck in my pain because I got pleasure from it. They made it clear that my inability to recover was my fault. I was malingering, weak, and unwilling to change.

Eventually, feeling like my pain was my fault, I attempted suicide. Thankfully, I panicked and called 911 after consuming a lethal dose of medication and alcohol. I endured one more useless, demoralizing stay at my HMO’s psychiatric ward.

After that, summoning a courage I didn’t know I possessed, I walked away from the shoddy and meager resources my health care provider was offering and found a private therapist. She recommended a private psychiatric hospital program designed specifically for survivors of childhood abuse. I borrowed the money and admitted myself.

MY TURNING POINT

That hospital stay was my turning point. It was the first time my mental health providers treated me like a valuable part of my treatment process. They didn’t shame or blame me for not making progress in my recovery. They listened to me, valued my input and understood the depth and breadth of my pain. They educated me about abuse and how it affects victims. Then they established a treatment plan with my therapist for my release. Included in that plan was receiving therapy twice a week. With their help and the additional support, I finally began making substantial progress in my recovery.

I was lucky. After fighting through years of inadequate help, I finally got the amount and quality of support I needed. Many survivors have not been as lucky. Every week they show up in my email inbox, Twitter stream, and Facebook feed spilling pain from their hands into mine. They need help that our mental health system either doesn’t have available or is unwilling to make available.

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE

It has become clear to me that if survivors are going to receive the amount of help and support they need, that it is going to have to come from someplace other than the current mental health system. Where, instead, will it come from? Us, fellow survivors.

We need to establish a network of trained survivors who will support and help their peers.

We need a system of frequent, open meetings and peer sponsors like the addiction field has with the Alcoholic’s Anonymous model. I’m not advocating 12 steps for survivors, but I am strongly advocating the system that provides support groups offered around the clock in virtually every city in the United States. I am advocating a system of sponsors, where a peer further along in their recovery will mentor and support a peer just beginning process.

Why do I want this system of meetings and support to be lead by abuse survivors, rather than professional mental health providers?

First, because there simply aren’t enough mental health providers to facilitate the number of meetings needed to support the millions of survivors who need help.
Second, I believe abuse survivors are best helped by other abuse survivors. An abuse survivor never would have limited me to two hours of therapy a month because they know the painful complexities of recovery. An abuse survivor never would have shamed me for not recovering with that inadequate amount of help. We understand one another in ways non-survivors don’t.

Of course there are exceptions, and of course, not every abuse survivor can provide good peer support. I’m not advocating that all abuse recovery work should be done by survivors. There should still be the involvement of therapists and psychiatrists, as there are now. But this model of relying heavily upon recovered peers as support and recovery help has been used very effectively in the addictions field for years. I have no reason to doubt it wouldn’t be as effective in the field of abuse recovery.

We desperately need the field of abuse recovery to change. Survivors are suffering every day, some of them turning to alcohol, drugs or suicide to alleviate their pain. We cannot, however, depend on the mental health system to help us. We have waited too long with little to no results.

It’s time for survivors to come together and solve the problem for ourselves. We need to launch a grassroots movement to coordinate and provide some of our own care through a network of peer support meetings and mentors. And we need to do it now, before more survivors are lost to drugs, alcohol, incarceration and death.

It’s time to stop depending on others to save us and start saving ourselves.

Submit Your Essay for our 2015 #NoMoreShame Anthology created by me, Bobbi and @AthenaMoberg http://ow.ly/MmcLU to be published by my publisher, Booktrope! Theme: Community.
Pictures courtesy of unsplash
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Published on May 03, 2015 06:10

April 30, 2015

Top 3 Reasons Censoring Your Writing Is Holding You Back

There will be cursing today. Run away if that bothers you. I don’t mind.

Do you worry what others think about you? Do you sit at your computer screen, paralyzed to type what you really want to say for fear of what your mom, husband, brother, friend, or best friend from second grade might say? Maybe you have shared your writing and been burned, relationships severed, friendships or family relationships strained or even ended. Or maybe those around you are so threatened by the possibility that you will share your abuse story that they actually threaten you.

Others people’s problems are other people’s problems. Don’t take that shit personally. #WriteWhatScaresYou

Fuck that shit. As Cheryl Strayed says, you need to write like a motherfucker. What does she mean by that? Does she mean write with papers everywhere, cartoon balls of trash flying across the room, keys tapping to the beat of Copacabana? (Let’s hope not. We’ll never get that song out of our heads.)

No. She means that you need to own it. Own your shit. Write your shit. Ignore the voices or others, get in your head, your heart, grab your soul and write the shit out of that shit. This resonates with me because that’s how I wrote Broken Places (my latest release) and Broken Pieces. Let’s deconstruct.

CENSORSHIP ITSELF

Why are you censoring yourself? If I came up to you and stood over your shoulder, read your latest paragraph, and told you, “You can’t say that!” what would you say to me? Because if you said that to me, I’d tell you to go the hell. Not only because this is my book, but because who are you to tell me what to write? Isn’t this my book? My work? My story? My name?

Does their name go on that book cover? Are they the ones spending countless hours writing and rewriting the work? No. So fuck em.

Yet, people attempt to tell us daily what we should or shouldn’t write about, right? It amazes me, to be honest, that others who don’t know our story, or who think they know our story intimately but can’t possibly because they don’t live in our heads and haven’t felt our emotions or lived our lives, want to censor us for what we may or may not say. What makes them so scared?

Scenario #1:

I shared a Brene Brown quote the other day about having courage and vulnerability when sharing your story, and someone replied that when she’d done so, people had chastised her, she’d lost good friends and even family members because her truth upset them too much, so she’s done. She’s ‘taking a break from truth.’

That saddens me deeply. I’m not judging her — she’s had enough of that. What saddens me is that she is allowing others to make that decision for her, letting them dictate what is okay or not okay to share, because they are embarrassed that she shared her abuse story: now others know and can’t deal, which really is just another form of shaming her for something she didn’t do.

THE LOOP OF SHAME

Someone abuses us, we don’t tell because we are ashamed. When (or if) we do tell, we are shamed because it’s embarrassing and shameful to us — what child (in many of these cases) wants to say that an adult used our body for physical pleasure? It’s sick and twisted, and yet here we are, alone, forced to wrap our young, innocent minds around these confusing acts, with nobody to talk to, nobody to help us understand that we did nothing wrong.

Fast forward to adulthood: we choose to write about it as a form of whatever: catharsis, healing, therapy, or simply sharing so others will know they are not alone, only to have our loved ones shame us for sharing, or further chastise us for going public in some way. Shaming a survivor is one of the most selfish acts there is. We’ve survived the abuse — dealing with your discomfort isn’t our issue. It’s yours. If you can’t get over yourself, oh well.

But survivors don’t have to accept that. We have a basic human right to speech. You have a right to tell your story.

Scenario #2

One fellow, T, shared his story in a public Facebook post, and with his permission, I’m sharing his story here with you today. T’s sister immediately chimed in to scold him for ruining the family name, embarrassing her, accuse him of lying, of creating current drama when all that happened in the past, and on and on. I complimented T on his courage and she came after me, warning me to keep my mouth shut, to stay out of their family business, etc.

What I love about the survivor community is that we support each other, and we understand that many people don’t understand that we have a right to tell our stories. We don’t do it for pity or attention (more on that in a moment), but as a way to heal and bond with others who have also survived, and to help educate non-survivors what it means to live the lives we do, to deal with this shit on the daily.

REAL OR IMAGINED RISK

Sure, there’s risk involved in opening up those dusty doors of honesty. I’m not immune to the coughs and sputters of family and friends, even strangers who may or may not judge me for my words, or who place blame on me for their behavior. I’m been called a liar, an opportunist, one person even went so far last week as to accuse me of ‘prostituting myself for profit and attention,’ and I’m told often to just move on (as if I haven’t).

I find it interesting that people equate sharing my story with victimhood or ‘being stuck in the past,’ when that’s not the case at all, yet they are determined to tell me that yes, that must be so.

Truth is, those are not my issues.

Scenario #3

I wrote a guest post recently as part of my Broken Places blog tour, and the host shared it, as hosts kindly do. Someone on Twitter replied that basically I was ‘playing the victim’ by sharing my story, compelling people to feel sorry for me. Fortunately, people supported me without me saying a word (I don’t respond to those types of comments). If you know me at all, you know that I am anything but a victim…but, these kinds of comments aren’t uncommon.

I wasn’t offended. If anything, I want to thank this person for reinforcing that I’m on the right path to help remove the stigma of child sexual abuse, or any abuse, survivors have to face. This person is a light for me — further helping me to realize that I still have a lot of work to do. In a strange way, I find comfort knowing that my advocacy work is not done, and I have many more people to reach with my story.

Ignorance needs an audience so that sexual abuse survivors have one, too.

Please join me any Tuesday 6pm PST/9pm EST for #SexAbuseChat with my cohost Bobbi Parish, also a survivor and certified family therapist who specializes in treating childhood sexual abuse survivors. We recommend using Tweetchat to participate — log in using your Twitter account, enter the hashtag once, and it does it for you for the remainder of the chat. Easy.
We are also taking submissions for the next #NoMoreShame Anthology Project (published by the Gravity Imprint I’m directing for Booktrope). I’m also the Communications Director for Stigma Fighters, a fabulous group that removes the stigma from all mental illness, created by Sarah Fader. If you have a story to tell, submit to them directly by visiting their website here.
If you’d like to sign up for my free sexual abuse resource list, click here.
Broken Places and Broken Pieces are currently #10 and #11 on Amazon’s Best Sellers Paid list for Best Women’s Poetry! and both are temporarily priced at only $4.99. This is how I share my story, through poetry and prose. I’m currently working on Broken People, due by Christmas.

pictures courtesy of royalty free picography
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Published on April 30, 2015 13:01

April 19, 2015

Bullied, by Guest Steven M. Cross (@stevecrosswords)

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Please welcome booktrope author Steven M. Cross as he shares his story on bullying.

I despise bullying. I hate it, and that’s why I wrote a book about it. The ironic thing is that my intense dislike of it happened not so much because I was bullied but because of one incident where I was the one who bullied.

My sixth grade year was memorable for a lot of bad reasons, but two events especially stick out most in my mind. One of my supposed friends started calling me a racist name that I won’t get into because I didn’t look as Caucasian as he thought I should have. It was really the first time I had experienced any kind of bullying. The one event though that helped to shape who I am more than any other had to do with a boy I’ll call Johnny.

Some background is needed here. Johnny was a little strange. He looked strange – like a miniature adult with a cleft in his chin like Kirk Douglas’s. His social skills were not strong, and he didn’t do anything cool like play sports or collect baseball cards. And gasp, one of the worst things of all – he was a preacher’s son. Most people made his life hell by bullying him constantly. Most of the time I felt sorry for him, but I never bothered to say anything or stop anyone.

One day, during recess, for some reason I have never been able to fathom, I shoved Johnny to the ground. Usually, this kind of thing ended most interactions with Johnny. He’d get up, maybe start crying, and run off. This day, for some reason, he decided to make a stand. He came up and swung at me – missing by the way.

The moment of truth. My manhood. My reputation. Both were at stake. I punched Johnny once, maybe twice, and he crumpled like a house of cards. He cowered on the ground and covered his head and face. I sat on his back and punched him several times with uppercuts. I felt horrified at what I was doing because I could have literally punched him into unconsciousness, and he would not have resisted. It was like the first swing he took at me sapped all his strength.

I stood then, backing up in horror at what I’d done. Tears came to my eyes. I don’t know why since I wasn’t the least bit hurt. It didn’t matter to me that I had won one of the most coveted schoolyard awards: beating a kid up. A girl, one of the prettiest ones in our class, looked at me. “Why are you crying? You beat the shit out of him.”

Johnny jumped up, tears already streaming down his face, his lip and nose bloodied. He ran for the teacher, to tell on me. I deserved to get paddled or expelled. I started the fight without any provocation whatsoever. Yet, when we both faced our teacher, he said, “Boys, I think this was just a misunderstanding, and you need to apologize to each other.” I didn’t know why at the time, but this made me feel worse.

I felt so much guilt. Then, Johnny exploded with anguished sobs. I can’t remember his exact words, but he cried about how everyone always picked on him even when he did nothing. He cried because everyone hated him because he was a preacher’s son. He cried for several minutes. I stood in stony silence and wished I were dead. When his anguished sobs finally quieted to sniffles, sixth grade continued as if nothing happened.

Terrified that my mom or even worse, my dad, would find out that I got into a fight at school, I confessed to my mom. She asked me what the fight was about. This was my chance to come clean, to confess my sin, and get my forgiveness.

I thought for a moment. “He was picking on one of my friends,” I lied and dropped my head.

My mom said, “You should take up for your friends.” As far as everyone was concerned, the incident was closed.

But it wasn’t.

You know what they say about Karma. I think, about this time, my predisposition to bipolar disorder kicked in. I guess it could have been the first hints of puberty too, but I got a little strange. For the next four years, I learned exactly how Johnny felt.

Hardly a day went by during those four years when someone, including teachers, didn’t bully me. I think the only thing that kept me from killing myself was that I was more afraid to die than I was to live. Though I am surprised about this too because during this time period, I had a friend who killed himself. I remember asking myself at the time, was he more cowardly or courageous than me? Most of what I experienced I have blocked out, but every once in a while, some long-forgotten memory pops through my walls and stabs me with new pain.

I have never forgotten Johnny even though he moved sometime during our sixth or seventh grade year. I don’t know what happened to him, but I do know that he changed my life forever. I went into teaching because I wanted to be better than some of the teachers I had during school and because I wanted to be just as good as some of the others. I went into teaching because I wanted to help people like Johnny to realize that school is not the end of the world, that it is, in fact, just a small fraction of a fraction of a slice of it.

I try to prevent bullying of every kind, and I think I can honestly say that I have never intentionally hurt any student who has entered my classroom door in the 30 years I have taught. I sincerely believe that most of my teaching career is, in some way, my attempt to prove to Johnny that I was not a bully and that I am truly sorry for what I put him through on that playground over 40 years ago.

About the Author:

Steve Cross’s first successful writing project was a play about a werewolf that his eighth grade English class performed. Though the play was never published, the warm fuzzy feeling from its public performance has never quite left Cross, who continues to sink his teeth into a variety of writing projects. His first publication was a haiku, followed by two middle grade novels published by POD publishers and a young adult novel published by Buck’s County Publishing.

A fanatical St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan; a lover of all kinds of YA fiction, as well as the writings of Dean Koontz and Stephen King; a fan of all kinds of music – from Abba to the Zac Brown band, Cross dreams of the day he will write a best-selling novel or sell a screenplay for seven figures, so he can retire and write more best-selling fiction. Until that day, he and his wife Jean, Missourians born and bred, will continue to toil in the field of education and live in peace with their two dogs and two cats and wait around until their daughter Megan and son-in-law Sean give them grandchildren to spoil.

Connect with him on: Twitter, Facebook, Facebook author page, or his website.

All content © 2015 by Rachel Thompson, author, unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved.

Permission is granted to use short quotes provided a link back to this page and proper attribution is given to me as the original author.

Pictures courtesy of pixabay

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Published on April 19, 2015 05:10

April 15, 2015

Self-Promotion Sucks…Because You’re Doing It Wrong

There have been a few posts circulating recently about how authors who self promote are basically assholes, because self-promotion doesn’t work to sell your books.

I agree.

Wait, before you freak out on me, She Who Is A Marketing Person, let me explain…or as I always say, let’s deconstruct.

YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG

You shouldn’t be ‘self-promoting,’ you should be marketing smart. Marketing your work correctly. Branding yourself with focus, sharing interesting content, articles, blog posts, quotes, graphics, throwing in the occasional humor, i.e., cat videos, Nutella pictures, whatever, NOT ‘Buy my book!’ posts repeatedly, ad nauseam, until we want to poke you (or ourselves) in the eye. Repeatedly.

Sadly, most people on Twitter or other social media channels tend to leave messages (DMs or tweets) like these (actual examples from my timeline just today):

Hello Friend, would you be so kind to give my book trailer a like/comment? I’d appreciate it. Thank you! http://linkblahblahblah

Hi @RachelintheOC! I’d love it if you would buy my book, review it, and tell all your friends! http://linkblahblahblah

Love your site! Please like mine, buy my books, and let’s party!!!! http://linkblahblahblah

(don’t even get me started on all the exclamation mark cheerleading)…

It doesn’t take a genius to see that these are not effective ways to sell books and there’s a really good reason for that: Twitter (and other social media channels) are ineffective channels for selling books. They are, however, quite effective for networking, relationship building, listening (if you are doing any listening, which these writers are clearly not), and sharing information — all of which can lead to sales.

STOP SELLING AND BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

When people start on social media, they see millions of potential book buyers (wrong. who is their demographic? not everyone on Twitter), so, like an excited puppy who pees in the house, they decide to run amuck and leave messages of all kinds, everywhere, with no focus, no strategic marketing behind them, just a brain dump of random ‘buy my book!’ messages. Very few even look at the Terms of Service each channel provides where spam guidelines are clearly defined.

In the examples I give above, those writers sent the exact same messages to hundreds of others victims, er, people, clearly in violation of Twitter’s TOS, of which they are blissfully unaware…til enough people report them for spamming and Twitter suspends their account. Boom. We are all subject to the same TOS, and yes, Twitter does refer to them as the ‘Twitter Rules.’ I’m not the Twitter police — I’ll report spammers because they are annoying and should know better (doesn’t anyone read anymore?).

Tip: Instead, put your link on your bio. Here’s mine:

Share a quote from your book, and say ‘link on bio.’ I do this all the time (if there’s room) and it works. How do I know? I track clicks from Twitter to Amazon using bit.ly. I know exactly how many clicks come from Twitter, and I know that I’m getting hundreds of clicks from Twitter to Amazon each month. Sometimes, thousands — more than if I repeatedly spammed my link in every damn tweet. Does each click result in a sale? No, of course not (and there’s no way to track if it does anyway.)

The only time I suggest that it’s okay to be slightly more self-promotional? If you have some kind of promo going on, i.e., a free book or low-price limited time promotion.

Tip: Pin that promo tweet or FB post to the top of your timeline so it’s the first thing people see (for a limited time, anyway). Once your promo is done, change it up. I usually keep a quote from my most recent work pinned to the top of my Twitter timeline or Facebook page — kind of like a tease — with a ‘link on bio’ mention.

More Tips: You can also spend a few bucks on paid advertising (Google AdWords — not AdSense which is totally different and not at all effective for what we are discussing here — or Facebook or Twitter ads), put out a newsletter (email marketing is still extraordinarily effective as long as, again, you’re not spamming people and hey, Mailchimp is free), run a contest of some sort, start a street team who loves and supports you and your work and is willing to put out the word for you…it’s almost laughable how many options there are other than spamming your ‘Buy my book!’ tweet repeatedly.

Don’t be that clueless writer and if you are, don’t rationalize your cluelessness because your transparency is showing. Educate yourself, be a smart marketer, do the thing. Work on your entire author platform and be professional.

And think about this: aren’t you a writer? If you can’t write more than ‘Buy my book!’ in a tweet repeatedly, why would anyone want to buy said book? Duh.

LOSE THE ENTITLEMENT

When I asked a writer recently not to spam me, she YELLED AT ME IN ALL CAPS that I should share my good fortune (that I’ve spent seven years building, day in and day out) with all the newbie authors out there (apparently, she’d not heard of #MondayBlogs, my stupid cheap promo sites, my free blog posts (on BadRedheadMedia, BookPromotion.Com, IndieReader, Huffington Post), or the many other advocacy projects listed on my bio), and by me not sharing her free book promotion (again, I offer free book promotion on my promo sites if she’d bothered to read my bio), I am a selfish bitch and other choice names I won’t repeat here.

That kind of entitlement has zero place in the author community, and buys zero happy points with me. As I tell my kids, ‘you get what you give, and you give what you get.’ I give of myself in so many ways, and in return, these relationships have more than given back to me in ways I never imagined — personally, in business, in advocacy, and yes, in sales. But I never once have demanded anyone do anything for me, ever. I am not a princess who stomps her foot and tells others what they need to do for me or off with their head!

I no longer ask people not to spam me simply because I won’t take the time to educate them anymore — the abuse and vitriol these spammers direct at me just isn’t worth it. So I block them. Who has time?

Tip: Follow readers, bloggers, reviewers, as well as other writers but not only other writers. I see this happen far too often: authors hitting up other authors. Who is your demographic? Who is your ideal reader? Is it another author? No. Then you’re doing it wrong.

BE HUMBLE AND BE PROUD

Wait, what? How can you be both? It’s a fine line.

When Broken Places went free last week, I was shocked, truly and deeply shocked, at how many wonderful souls shared my free promotion without me asking them to do anything at all. I thanked as many as I could, and ultimately, was honored by the results — #131 on Free overall, #1 on Poetry and Women Authors. Without that amazing support, I don’t know that my book would have done so incredibly well. Now that it’s back on the Paid lists, it’s still ranked quite highly and selling well.

When you do (retweet, share, guest blog, invite them to guest blog, interview, etc.) for others, inform or promote others, offer your platform to others, they are more compelled to return the favor because you have helped them. Don’t do it to get something back for manipulative purposes — I wrote my books to give survivors a voice, not to make a living or to have people begging me to work with them. The more notice my book gets, the wider the audience, and the more survivors it reaches — that’s purely a win/win.

If that helps give a wider audience to the Gravity Imprint I’m now directing for Booktrope (stories of trauma and recovery), great! I’m happy to wave my pride flag. The authors in this imprint are extremely talented, and their stories are incredible. I can’t wait to bring you their books. Our first releases, out very soon by Lindsay Fischer, Dana Leipold, and Beth Stoneburner, are all compelling and I am so fucking proud of the work they’ve done.

BE BRAVE

You have given yourself permission to write your book…now give yourself permission to market it. If you wait until after you release your book to start creating buzz, you’ve waited too long. Start long before you release the book — I started two years before I released my first book with blogging and social media — because remember, the focus is not on selling, it’s on building relationships with readers. Are you tired of me saying that yet? Even I’m getting sick of me saying it. Maybe people will get it and I can finally shut up.

Bottom line: look outside yourself and your own work, embrace and follow readers, and don’t be annoying. Market smart, have a damn plan, and be focused. Golden rule, my friends.

All content © 2015 by Rachel Thompson, author, unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved.

Permission is granted to use short quotes provided a link back to this page and proper attribution is given to me as the original author.

Pictures courtesy of pixabay

April 12, 2015

Mary Kay LeTourneau is Not a Lover, She’s a Rapist by @TruthIsHers

In 1996 teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau repeatedly raped twelve-year-old Vili Fualaau, a student in her sixth grade class. Despite a conviction of child rape charges, she served only a six-month jail sentence. Although ordered to stay away from her victim, two weeks after her release in 1998, she was caught in the midst of a sexual encounter with him. He was then fourteen years old. She was returned to prison for an additional seven years. In 2004, after her release, a judge granted her victim’s request to lift the No Contact Order between the two. They married in 2005.

This past Friday, ABC Television broadcast an interview between Mary Kay, her victim, and Barbara Walters on their news magazine 20/20, romanticizing their scandal and detailing their life after their “affair became public.” Affair? Really, ABC? Mary Kay LeTourneau is no lover, and what she was involved in was not an affair: it was child rape and LeTourneau is a convicted pedophile!

When I saw the advertisements for this interview, my stomach turned. Surely ABC wouldn’t be romanticizing child rape during Child Abuse Prevention Month! Surely Barbara Walters would vilify Mary Kay LeTourneau for the heinous crimes that she committed. But she didn’t. In fact, far from it.

I am disgusted with ABC and Barbara Walters, along with the multitude of other news agencies who have reported on the interview, without calling the show producers out for choosing sensationalism over naming the harsh, deplorable crime of child rape. What a way to call attention to the endless lack of awareness in our society of not only the presence of child sexual abuse, but the deep and wide damage it does to victims.

MY STORY

I am a survivor of child rape. During most of my adult life I have suffered greatly with the after effects of the crimes committed against me – depression, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, multiple psychiatric hospitalizations, repeated rapes as an adult, homelessness, and even a suicide attempt. I was in my forties before I was able to achieve stability.

OUR STORY

My story is not atypical. Now, as a therapist and Trauma Recovery Coach, I work with thousands of survivors whose lives have been thrown into upheaval and devastation by childhood sexual abuse. These men and women are in significant emotional pain. Because of that, they struggle to survive in everyday life.

Eighty percent of those in prison were sexually abused as children.
Ninety percent of those with drug and alcohol addictions were sexually abused as children.
Almost fifty percent of those with eating disorders were victims of child sexual abuse.
One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually assaulted before their eighteenth birthday.

The numbers and the resulting damage are huge! Why in the world are we, as a collective society, not up in arms over the horrific story of a sex offender marrying her victim and then raising two children within the midst of that dysfunction? How has it become fuel for gossip and entertainment websites, rather than a fierce push for more protection for child victims from people like Mary Kay LeTourneau?

RAPE IS NOT LOVE

Is it because everything was tied up by the pretty window dressing of a marriage, suburban home and staged family portraits? Perhaps it’s because the victim seems to be a willing participant in the relationship? Did people miss his recounting of his struggles with depression and substance abuse? When he said he felt he was lucky to still be alive, do people chalk up that suicidal ideation as a side effect of media scrutiny rather than his repeated victimization by a sexual predator? This could have been such an incredible opportunity to talk about the powerful, but horribly dysfunctional, nature of a Trauma Bond that develops between a victim and perpetrator. Instead, it’s seen as a tumultuous affair with a happy ending.

Is our collective refusal to see this as unacceptable due to the fact that the victim is male? Would the reaction be different if the student had been female and the teacher male? I think so. We have a hard time believing a male can be raped, even if he was only twelve. The male survivors I work with have the double burden of not only recovering from their abuse, but also battling against society’s judgment of their “claim” that they were abused. It’s heartbreaking and I rage with my male clients for the injustice of the way they are treated. We have outlawed double jeopardy with criminals of child rape, but their victims experience twice the fallout from those crimes every single day.

When we allow media to romanticize and downplay child sexual assault, we laugh in the faces of the victims, shoving them farther and farther into the dark corners of society. ABC and Barbara Walters slammed the door in the face of those who have endured child rape, rather than shining a light onto their experiences. We cannot tolerate that. Please don’t stand by and let them label child rape an “affair”.

DO SOMETHING!

Please reach out to ABC and Barbara Walters, letting them know how they have egregiously failed victims of childhood sexual abuse. You can contact ABC’s 20/20 News here and tweet them at @ABC2020. Barbara Walters can be reached on Twitter at @BarbaraJWalters. This is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Let’s use it to stop child abuse, not promote it as something that leads to “happily ever after.”

What do you think?

Pictures courtesy of pixabay
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Published on April 12, 2015 18:25

April 5, 2015

When the Sirens Wail by @TruthisHers

My anxiety has been an unholy beast these last few weeks. It has been ruthlessly on my heels. No matter how fast I run it is chewing on my ankles. Sometimes I can’t run anymore and it catches up to me, shredding me with its snarling, gnashing jaws. My heart races, my skin sweats, my muscles tighten, I can’t breathe and I am too agitated to sit still. The anxiety screams at me, “Move! Do something! Fix this! Now!” like a drill sergeant in overdrive.

I haven’t felt this level of anxiety in a long, long time. And, true to form, I have been trying to figure out the “why.” I cannot experience a mood fluctuation without trying to root out the cause. I am relentlessly analytical of all my thoughts and behaviors. It’s a hangover from my childhood: if something is amiss it must be because I screwed up somewhere. What was I doing wrong? How was I failing this time? After hour upon hour of rumination I figured it out. It isn’t impending failure that is the culprit. It is looming success. Ironic as that is.

My work as a trauma recovery coach has been going so well. This past week one of our Twitter chats had a reach of 2.5 million users. Holy moly! I have an active practice of private clients, a publishing contract for my memoir, and a RokuTV channel that reaches thousands of survivors every week. My business partner and I have even been invited to a gathering of high powered, successful entrepreneurs later this month.

That’s all wonderful. I’m so blessed and very lucky. Considering I have often been told I had no potential due to my mental illness and abuse history, I’m in a place where I should be celebrating. Instead, I’m fighting back depression and anxiety at every turn.

You see, success and I have a pattern of incompatibility. It and I can’t seem to be able to exist in the same space. Success has a history of gobbling me up whole and spitting me out in tiny little pieces which take for-freaking-ever to re-assemble.

Success makes me anxious for two reasons. First, because when one is successful one can’t usually hide. It’s hard to do both at the same time. And I like to hide. Really, really, REALLY like to hide.

I learned that very young. In my child’s mind that searched for some way to control what was happening to me, I reasoned that it was when I drew my Father’s attention that he appeared in my room at night. I thought if I was as motionless as possible he would not notice me, like an animal whose predators can only perceive motion. I did everything I could to not be noticed. I laid low and practiced the fine art of perfection. If I cause no trouble, I thought, I will attract no attention. Heaven knows, in my family there was certainly no danger of attracting attention for doing well.

But I can’t hide if I am successful. Because then people see me. And, my mind says, “When they see you they will see the awful truth: that you are a fraud, damaged, an imposter.” I might appear to the world to be a good person with her shit together. “But,” my mind screams, “You are not good! You are bad, bad, BAD.”

The possibility of being successful is also anxiety provoking because I might screw everything up and, once again, be judged a failure. Being a failure would prove my Father right; that I was good for nothing but whoring. And failure might also summon the attention of the demons I fight fiercely to keep away, like depression and paralyzing despair.

As I talked about this with my psychiatrist, a rare wonder who does both medication management and therapy, she helped me realize that my typical coping pattern of dealing with things that frighten me is to shatter and scatter. I fall to pieces and then each of those pieces runs to hide separately, making it harder for the demons to find and torment me. As a child I shattered and scattered by dissociating. As an adult I scatter and shatter by abandoning a successful path and retreating to anonymity. I have done it multiple times, throwing away a successful career and disappearing into depression or even once moving to another continent. It was, in my mind, better to run away than to fail.

Now that success looms again, my brain is using anxiety to scream at me “Quickly, before someone sees you or you fail: shatter and scatter! Shatter and scatter!” It claws at me. Begs. Pleads. On some level I am absolutely terrified. In my panic, the far better thing to do is abandon ship rather than ride out the storm. It’s a Go To defense mechanism that I have perfected over my 49 years. I am darn good at it.

So the Shatter and Scatter sirens are wailing again. At full strength. Relentlessly.

But this time I understand their meaning. I know that their message is false. And I will NOT heed the sirens. I hear them. I acknowledge them and even thank them for serving me now and in the past. I will take care of myself and not give away all that I am to please and care for others. I will seek a balance between pursuing my goals and maintaining my mental and physical health. I will NOT scatter and shatter this time.

I have no doubt that, despite my understanding of the anxiety and my determination not to give in to the impulse it’s calling forth, the sirens will continue to wail. At full strength. For awhile. It will take some time to convince them they are unnecessary. They are, after all, doing their job. A job I designed them to do. These sirens are a defense mechanism of my own devising. They exist separate from my reason and logic. They neither trust nor rely on those two parts of my mind to trigger or quiet. I built them to be successful and they are. Again, the irony!

But I will am bigger and stronger than the sirens. And this time, for the first time, I will not shatter and scatter in the face of potential success. Not this time.

Broken Places is available from Booktrope. It’s already hit #1 on Women’s Poetry and Hot New Releases on Amazon! Broken Pieces is still going strong, #1 on Amazon’s Women’s (paid) Poetry list and BIG NEWS: The Broken Collection is now available! Both books together in one set.
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