Rachel Thompson's Blog, page 9
July 22, 2016
This is Why I Wear The Mask of Congeniality
The divorce was final in December, but the relationship doesn’t end, does it? You think it will, but it won’t. You want it to be amicable, wearing your mask of congeniality while the stabs of resentment surface, sizzling bubbles forming faster than you can slap them back down. “Quiet,” you whisper, “someone will hear,” as if people hadn’t noticed the tattered ashes already.
It’s all about the stuff, things I don’t even care about, that I didn’t know I had. He wants it all. Fine, take it. A beach umbrella, a French press, the Disney blankets. Nothing expensive he can’t replace which he suddenly cannot live without now and Must Have Right Away. For his trip to TomorrowLand, apparently.
We’re supposed to share the children’s expenses, as agreed to in court, yet somehow that’s never the case as I receive collection notices for his debts unpaid. We also agreed not to fleece each other, keeping it amicable — no alimony, no child support. You take this, I take that, share expenses and custody 50/50. Seems so simple. Ha.
Nothing about the wrenching of lives is simple, no matter how much we desire it. He’s got a new girl, already engaged. I’m happy for him, truly. I’ve got a new guy; we’re taking it slower. I only want us all to be happy. Somehow, still, he’s angry at me for wanting to be free of him. So that’s my debt, paid in full. With a new interest rate, added daily.
Life is so much bigger than his petty whatever it is…narcissism? I’m too close to know, to add a label to behaviors I don’t understand and frankly, don’t have to care about anymore. As long as my kids are cared and provided for when they’re with him, and here when they need to be, my requirements of him are minimal.
All that’s left now is The Money — the one thing that plagues most couples when they’re together still stands before them with an ax to grind when they’re not. Did you pay this? Will you pay for that? Never ending questions unanswered because our children are under 18, and one of them will be for awhile.
I could choose to be angry, resentful, and upset — I’ve run through all those emotions, believe me — but now I choose resolution. I’ve always chosen resolution, but there are steps to grief — divorce is a death, you see. I tried to skip over those stepping stones of grief because I asked for the divorce. I thought I was special and could skip right over those hot coals. Nope, turns out I’m no different than any other human whose been through this.
Dammit.
We are not matched on this rocky path, nor likely will we ever be.
Compassion sits me down and tells me he’s struggling — with money, with anger, with control — he needs time to figure out how to sit with this new suit of armor, deflecting my readiness to make it easy on us all.
Frustration questions, “Why?”
Impatience says, “Dude. Own your shit.”
Exhaustion pushes me to the couch where I sleep and wake up fatigued because the emotional toll hasn’t eased, the anxiety that another bomb is headed my way.
Worry says “I’m wasteful.”
So, on goes my mask, as I step around this emotional minefield, picking each word with thoughtful care, afraid of another explosion. And what happens when I get to the other side? Is there even another side?
When I remove the mask occasionally, I breathe in cleansing air, relax, and focus on loving, writing, and work, grateful for the strength and support of loved ones, family, friends. And a good lawyer.
The process is long, and not easy. And even when it is, it isn’t.
photo courtesy of unsplash
Would you like to be part of my Broken Pieces Pay It Forward Initiative? Purchase a copy for yourself, fill out an easy form on my site, and I’ll gift a copy from you on my dime to a friend in need!
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places (now published by ShadowTeams NYC and Lisa Hagan Books) on Amazon now!
Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here. Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
Join Rachel for #MondayBlogs every Monday, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday,
and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday. Learn all about it by clicking on events here!
The post This is Why I Wear The Mask of Congeniality appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
This is Why I Wear the Mask of Congeniality
The divorce was final in December, but the relationship doesn’t end, does it? You think it will, but it won’t. You want it to be amicable, wearing your mask of congeniality while the stabs of resentment surface, sizzling bubbles forming faster than you can slap them back down. “Quiet,” you whisper, “someone will hear,” as if people hadn’t noticed the tattered ashes already.
It’s all about the stuff, things I don’t even care about, that I didn’t know I had. He wants it all. Fine, take it. A beach umbrella, a French press, the Disney blankets. Nothing expensive he can’t replace which he suddenly cannot live without now and Must Have Right Away. For his trip to TomorrowLand, apparently.
We’re supposed to share the children’s expenses, as agreed to in court, yet somehow that’s never the case as I receive collection notices for his debts unpaid. We also agreed not to fleece each other, keeping it amicable — no alimony, no child support. You take this, I take that, share expenses and custody 50/50. Seems so simple. Ha.
Nothing about the wrenching of lives is simple, no matter how much we desire it. He’s got a new girl, already engaged. I’m happy for him, truly. I’ve got a new guy; we’re taking it slower. I only want us all to be happy. Somehow, still, he’s angry at me for wanting to be free of him. So that’s my debt, paid in full. With a new interest rate, added daily.
Life is so much bigger than his petty whatever it is…narcissism? I’m too close to know, to add a label to behaviors I don’t understand and frankly, don’t have to care about anymore. As long as my kids are cared and provided for when they’re with him, and here when they need to be, my requirements of him are minimal.
All that’s left now is The Money — the one thing that plagues most couples when they’re together still stands before them with an ax to grind when they’re not. Did you pay this? Will you pay for that? Never ending questions unanswered because our children are under 18, and one of them will be for awhile.
I could choose to be angry, resentful, and upset — I’ve run through all those emotions, believe me — but now I choose resolution. I’ve always chosen resolution, but there are steps to grief — divorce is a death, you see. I tried to skip over those stepping stones of grief because I asked for the divorce. I thought I was special and could skip right over those hot coals. Nope, turns out I’m no different than any other human whose been through this.
Dammit.
We are not matched on this rocky path, nor likely will we ever be.
Compassion sits me down and tells me he’s struggling — with money, with anger, with control — he needs time to figure out how to sit with this new suit of armor, deflecting my readiness to make it easy on us all.
Frustration questions, “Why?”
Impatience says, “Dude. Own your shit.”
Exhaustion pushes me to the couch where I sleep and wake up fatigued because the emotional toll hasn’t eased, the anxiety that another bomb is headed my way.
Worry says “I’m wasteful.”
So, on goes my mask, as I step around this emotional minefield, picking each word with thoughtful care, afraid of another explosion. And what happens when I get to the other side? Is there even another side?
When I remove the mask occasionally, I breathe in cleansing air, relax, and focus on loving, writing, and work, grateful for the strength and support of loved ones, family, friends. And a good lawyer.
The process is long, and not easy. And even when it is, it isn’t.
photo courtesy of unsplash
Would you like to be part of my Broken Pieces Pay It Forward Initiative? Purchase a copy for yourself, fill out an easy form on my site, and I’ll gift a copy from you on my dime to a friend in need!
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places (now published by ShadowTeams NYC and Lisa Hagan Books) on Amazon now!
Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here. Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
Join Rachel for #MondayBlogs every Monday, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday, and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday. Learn all about it by clicking on events here!
The post This is Why I Wear the Mask of Congeniality appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
July 14, 2016
What if There’s No Forever, Only Tonight? by guest @LorenKleinman
Please welcome my guest, esteemed poet and novelist Loren Kleinman back to the blog.
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
I’m in love with the past, haunted. As a writer I live and love in that peculiar space of remembrance, of blurred memories and travels to far off places that I’d forever be in love with like all those boys and places I’ve travelled to. There was no way of knowing how much in love I’d be with the people and places that inhabited my life, this great wilderness under the tall trees.
I’d almost not seen how my life was so beautiful, so mine. I’d miss the mundane, the wind whistling through my cracked window scattering the pages of my novel to the floor, and the long walks through the wooded paths overlooking Mount Katahdin. I didn’t know then that I needed that forest, that I needed those pebbles under my feet and the faded pine needles. And I didn’t know that falling in love with my life would be a culmination of moments, of loss and heartbreak, of breakups and breakthroughs, of disaster and shame and time.
At 23, the road seemed an endless sentence behind the hood of a pick up truck. I smoked my last cigarette and the music blared drum and bass. I wanted so much then to be a famous writer. What did I know about being a writer? I wanted to pour myself on the leather interior, spread my legs, and let my fingers slide in, tilt my head back and forget about ever growing older.
Tonight the stars glitter over the houses below my seventeenth floor window. I wonder about the last summer and the summer before that. The night I took my shirt off under the cherry blossom in the school yard and grabbed the joint from the hand of a tall, blond boy. I think about the longing in my gut for more wine and the sky. How it pulled back my hair, my heartbeat like a silver bullet to the chest.
I left for the University of Sussex in the summer of 2004 to go to writing school and to be closer to that blond boy I met that one summer—Aroosh, Aretski—Polish love. I’d be able to get my Masters while he got his Masters in his hometown of Warsaw, Poland. I convinced myself that by moving closer to him that we’d be closer, that we’d see each other more, that he’d fall harder in love with me—that he might even propose and we’d be forever. Those memories fill me up and make me glow like a hot doorknob.
I had spent the whole summer packing my bags for England, watching my father cry for the first time each time he saw me folding clothes into my suitcase. I watched my mother sigh and help me find a suitable coat for winter. I watched my clock, counted down the days until I’d be closer to Alesky.
I placed the one-way tickets on my nightstand and my head filled with images of us seeing each other for the first time in the airport. I knew I’d get there and walk through the airport, run off to the queue to an elevator and into his arms. But there was no way to know how it would unfold or how much more I’d love the idea of him. I closed my eyes and drifted off to the side of the alarm clock.
The next morning, the coffee danced through the kitchen. The eggs spat on the pan, sizzled in the storm of things I’d miss. I wandered my eyes over the long wooden table, ran my fingers on the suitcase handle and the keys I’d leave behind. I already missed the northeast highways and paved black tar strips. I took a deep breath, a step out the door towards the black town car. Inside it, someone I’d never met before nor would meet again.
The air smelled of fried food and booze, and the Newark Airport buzzed with the sound of rolling luggage. I found the nearest bar, drank three glasses of wine and wrote, “I love you” on the back of a torn off piece of book and stuffed it under a napkin holder on the bar.
On the plane, the pilot announced our take off and we ascended into the air, left the ground. I closed my eyes and squeezed the armrest, prayed to God we wouldn’t crash, prayed to God I’d make it to England to make love to Alesky, to write a book. I twirled my hair for the three hours on that flight and gripped Bukowski.
When I landed, Alesky was not there. In his place, a text message saying he had a paper to finish and that he’d be flying in tomorrow instead. I cried all the way to the queue, held my bags tight in my hand and got in the full bus. I cried all the way to Brighton that afternoon. I felt so alone, so desperate to see Alesky my stomach cramped.
A few days later, we met at the bus stop just blocks away from my flat. His smile stretched the length of his face and we hugged for what seemed like forever and not forever. We made love for five days and didn’t leave the bedroom unless we had to pee or eat or buy more wine from the liquor store beneath my flat.
We spent the full year traveling back and forth from London to Warsaw and meeting in Paris and Berlin and Prague. We’d arrive in these cities in a rush to see one another, desperate to fill the void those weeks apart created inside of us.
There was no way to know that three years from the time we shared that joint that I’d fall in and out of love with Alesky all over Europe, that I’d wind up chasing him more than he ever chased me, and that I’d accept his proposal under that same tree where we shared the joint. I had no idea that we’d break up at least seven more times before I’d sell the ring so I could buy myself a new coat, the last effort to prove to myself I didn’t need his ring to keep me warm. How could I know that two weeks later I’d find out I was pregnant, or that in two more weeks he’d sit with me through the abortion?
There was no way to know that three years from that moment, far away from that small doctor’s office, we’d part ways under that same tree where we first met, and never speak again. And that three years later, I’d meet the love of my life, publish the book I wrote in England and return to Brighton on a book tour, alone. There was no way of knowing that I’d come back from that trip and return to that same tree and write the opening line of my first novel.
I never thought I’d miss Alesky so much or so little. And what if I’d never went to England to be with him? What if I never took a chance on so much, on the unpredictability of my life? Maybe I would’ve never written the poems that had become so much of my healing, of my moving on—that had become so mine so lovely in their shape and face.
All of these moments that make up my story are everywhere, so me, so holy. My past, as close to me as my present and as far away as my future, but I can always return to that tree because that tree is me, that tree is my body and those stories are my branches. Who knew I’d also fall in love with my life, with those stories that built me?
There were times I yelled at myself for moving to England for a man and not for my writing. But then I’d just be denying myself my life, denying myself the chance to fall in love with myself, with the people around me, with the words on the page, with the memory of my first love, of my search for myself.
Tonight I fall in love with my story, all of them, all the boys and jobs and books on my dining room table. I take a deep breath and feel at peace with the keys under my fingertips, fall deeper in love with nails and skin, my dog’s whiskers.
And tonight, especially tonight.
I love tonight.
***
Excerpt from This Way To Forever
In airports, sounds echo off the hard floors as feet and suitcases shuffle. A voice, muffled and bored, intones the next departure. Someone says, hello. Goodbye. I’ll miss you. This standard micro-drama, with no deviation, offers little of import, unlike the people inside. This building is the shell, the bubble that keeps the harried hustle from falling apart and shattering into chaos.
What I’ve realized, though, is that people are the stories, all with unknown beginnings and endings. My favorite stories are the ones about love. Because love never ends up the way we expect. Love is the most uncertain story we’ll ever know.
No one love story exists, only those we’re told from a young age: man, woman and happily ever after. Forever. But forever and happy are half-baked concepts that make us feel incomplete, even alone.
I used to believe in forever, in the script. The same one that implies falling in love is easy. The one that says love will save us, make us happy and whole. But there’s no script in this story, at least not now, not here, in this airport, as I wait and scrape the cuticles from my fingers.
Today I reflect on my own love story. Not one, but two. The first is about a young, naive girl who thinks a lover will save her, while the other is about a girl who realizes the best kind of love is a choice you make, a promise to yourself. I wanted to write about this. You see, that’s my other love…writing. As I wait in this crowded, story-ridden airport, my fingers fidgeting over picked skin and knees knocking, I think maybe my love is the third story in this mess.
Not that telling a story is easy with its twists and turns, choices and decisions, especially when faced with deciding on an ending. I need to make a choice. There are two guys, two love stories, both walking towards me. The truth is, deep down I know which one makes the most sense. I’m just not sure if there’s sense in love, and I’m not sure who to choose, or even if I’ll choose. At least not until we reach the end.
***
BOOK SYNOPSIS:
Sara Brody thought she had met her soulmate in Tad Bolak, a charming exchange student. Their whirlwind romance includes nights staring at the stars, declarations of love, and promises to talk often when Tad must return to his native Poland to complete his Master’s Degree. But Sara’s idealistic view of Tad and plans to be together when he gets his degree come to a shattering halt when he admits to having a fiancee back home. Heartbroken, she vows to keep her heart safe from men and and focuses on her own studies. Until she meets Ethan. Sara discovers that no relationship is perfect, especially when one still mourns past loves. Tad never gives up on her. Ethan wants her to give their relationship a chance. And Sara wonders what will become of her sense of self if she gives in to either man.
This Way To Forever is available here: 
AUTHOR BIO: Loren Kleinman’s poetry has appeared in journals such as Drunken Boat, Nimrod, Wilderness House Literary Review, Paterson Literary Review, Narrative Northeast and Journal of New Jersey Poets. Her interviews appeared in IndieReader, USA Today, and The Huffington Post. She edited Indie Authors Naked, which was an Amazon Top 100 bestseller in Journalism in the UK and USA. Kleinman is the author of four collections of poetry, and her memoir The Woman with a Million Hearts released 2016 with BlazeVOX Books. She publishes personal essays in Good Housekeeping, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Woman’s Day.
Find Lauren here:
Would you like to be part of my Broken Pieces Pay It Forward Initiative? Purchase a copy for yourself, fill out an easy form on my site, and I’ll gift a copy from you on my dime to a friend in need!
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places (now published by ShadowTeams NYC and Lisa Hagan Books) on Amazon now!
Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here. Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
Join Rachel for #MondayBlogs every Monday, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday, and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday. Learn all about it by clicking on events here!
The post What if There’s No Forever, Only Tonight? by guest @LorenKleinman appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
June 30, 2016
A Maternal Critique of the Film “Joy” by @lauriehollmanph
A Maternal Critique of the Film “Joy”
Joy is the story of the title character, a divorced mother of three children, who rose to become founder and matriarch of a powerful family business. She invented The Miracle Mop and became a success at pursuing her own patent and supporting her large family. The film is a semi-fictional and inspirational portrayal of how Joy overcomes personal and professional challenges to reach the top as a businesswoman.
In the story, only her grandmother and best friend encourage her to pursue her inventions supporting her ambitions to become a strong, successful woman. The film closes with her identifying and helping a young mother develop a new invention. Dressed in a beautiful suit, Joy comments to the youthful woman sitting across Joy’s large desk that she knows how it feels to sit in that seat.
Missing is the Impact on Her Children
Missing from this powerful drama is the impact Joy has on her children, particularly one young little girl whose face is often seen in consternation and potential insecurity, as well as potential feelings for the moments of success of her mother that are acclaimed grandly by those who surround her. Although not at all the intent of the film, this aspect of the emotional drama seems to be forgotten as a deeply important component of Joy’s many ups and downs and ultimately, successful journey. If the film had focused on at least one child whose silent face is seen most prominently in the film, mothers everywhere could reflect upon the impact of their working lives on their children.
What was this child feeling as she grew and watched her passionate hard-driven mother negotiate with people outside her family’s world? Did she feel inspired by her mother, or lost and alone in her mother’s tempest? How complex her emotions must have been.
As single, working mothers strive to make their mark on the world, it behooves us to take into account that they are being watched intently by their children as they grow up in sometimes very heated environments. While emotionally moving and powerfully engaging, the different family members in the film who support and dismiss Joy’s invention must have weighed heavily on the children. How did they understand success and failure? How did they weather their mother’s deep frustrations and disappointments? Where did they fit in? Never was there a deep emotional exchange between this mother and at least this one daughter whose facial expressions responded to the cascades of her mother’s strivings as they impacted this child growing up.
Successful Mothers in the Workforce
In my series for Huffington Post about successful mothers in the workforce, the consensus was that mothering was still their most important job. Nowhere does that come across directly in this film. It is so inspirational to watch Joy create her invention, market it, deal with myriad legalities, and financial crises.
Given that a film can’t do everything, it still feels disturbing that the mother-daughter relationship isn’t prized sufficiently.
The children become one dimensional which is a serious flaw in the film for the mothers who seek to learn from Joy’s voyage.
Laurie Hollman, is a psychoanalyst and author of Unlocking Parental Intelligence: Finding Meaning in Your Child’s Behavior. She has authored an acclaimed series on the Huffington Post entitled “Motherhood and Career.” We welcome your comments below!
Would you like to be part of my Broken Pieces Pay It Forward Initiative? Purchase a copy for yourself, fill out an easy form on my site, and I’ll gift a copy from you, on my dime, to a friend in need!
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places (now published by ShadowTeams NYC and Lisa Hagan Books) on Amazon now!
Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here. Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
Join Rachel for #MondayBlogs every Monday, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday,and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday. Learn all about it by clicking on events here!
Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com
The post A Maternal Critique of the Film “Joy” by @lauriehollmanph appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
June 18, 2016
The Reasons A Sexual Abuse Survivor Asks: Am I Permanently Damaged?
This is just one of the many questions a survivor of childhood sexual abuse asks ourselves every day of our lives. People who have not been traumatized in this way will likely scoff at this question, thinking, “Of course you’re not! Why would you think such a silly thing!” or will actually say to us, “Don’t be a victim,” or “Get over it, move on,” — and when you’ve thankfully never experienced abuse, this kind of question does seem silly, and so of course your responses to get over it make perfect sense to you.
To those of us who have survived early childhood sexual trauma (or any kind of sexual trauma), as I did at the age of eleven, we do wonder, because this is our normal.
Not knowing what normal is? That’s our normal.
Living inside the knowledge that we are damaged (or question whether we are) is a given, a burden we carry inside our souls, and accept with stoic grace because we are different now.
Whatever you do, don’t give away the secret. It’s ours to keep. Whatever you do, hide behind the shadows of the sun.
I used to wear my soft flannel Raggedy Ann jammies as I held my baby sister, rocking her close to my heart, giving her a bottle for my exhausted mother, crying at her silky pale skin, dark fringe of lovely lashes looking at me with wide-eyed wonder. Holding her tiny fingers, I grieved for that ballerina innocence I no longer carried.
Little did I know those desperate thoughts and painful emotions had a name: PTSD, aka Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Not only those thoughts, but also an entire host of other fun stuff like nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety attacks, social anxiety, depression, physical manifestations, perfectionism, headaches, hyper-vigilance, body dysmorphic disorder, and more.
Sexual Abuse: No More Secrets
I kept the secret until I couldn’t anymore (all that is well-documented in my books Broken Pieces and Broken Places, available on Amazon; I’m writing Broken People now)…sheriffs, courts, and trials. But more than that, the secret was making me sick. I was swallowing stomach acid, jumping at whispers, terrified to walk alone. The abuser, the next-door neighbor, a father himself, did his two-year sentence and returned. My family stayed.
I saw him in the morning. I saw his kids throughout my school day; they pointed and laughed. I saw him after school. His wife lost her mind; their front yard became a massive jungle. She rarely came out, but when I saw her, she threw me eye daggers. Despite a security system, I checked the doors every night. I rechecked my windows all night. I never slept throughout the night. I barely slept.
I hardly slept.
Continuing to live next door to the family, to him, for another six years (eight years total after the abuse) created an unbelievable amount of anxiety and stress on me; likely in ways I still can’t comprehend. My parents were adamant we stay – they did nothing wrong. Why should they leave? It’s kind of insane to think about the fact that we stayed all those years, but we did. As soon as I could afford to move out, I was gone.
I don’t blame my folks for not supporting me by moving away; it’s not that they intentionally minimized the abuse or went out of their way to act as if it didn’t happen – they were not educated or mentally equipped to handle it. We’ve talked about it and have a good, supportive relationship. That’s just how it was – they were busy raising three girls on one salary and to them, their reality was: we cannot afford to move. Deal with it.
I moved to college apartments, where I ended up in a date rape situation with a classmate. I moved to the bad boy who broke my heart in way that hurt so painfully it felt good, because I felt something. To recreational drugs, parties, taking eighteen units each semester, working thirty-two hours a week just to graduate in four years to get through it all. Zooming through it all.
Numbing the shadows away.
As I find my way through my thirties and forties, the PTSD, the shame, it’s all there lurking in the background, but not stopping me from pushing forward. Marriage, children, career – having it ‘all’ – for a while, anyway.
Perhaps it’s my resilience, or the way my parents unintentionally taught me to just get on with life, or maybe it’s my own ambition and determination, but I compartmentalize it. Migraines, really my only obvious symptom; at times, my only escape. Or so I think…
Having children – life-changing, of course. And it all comes crashing down. Post-partum depression, anxiety, even thyroid and lingering hormonal changes smack me right in face. For the first time ever, I find myself on a therapist’s couch, in a state of utter panic and deep depression. The first time any doctor of any kind asks if I’ve ever been sexually abused. I cry like a little girl lost.
Time to do the work. I’m forty years old and I recognize that I’d never started to recover from the trauma that happened thirty years ago.
Sexual Abuse Community
As I look back, now that I’m fifty-two, the author of two bestselling, award-winning memoirs where I share my experiences living as a survivor, as a woman, a mother, and how being a survivor has affected my own life and relationships, I realize I can’t change what happened, yet sharing my story is powerful, as is community with other survivors.
After the release of Broken Pieces, people — yes, mostly women but some men, too — started telling me their stories daily through Twitter, Facebook, emails, and blog post replies. I wanted to create some way for us ALL to bond, to form an online community of group support. With the help of survivor and therapist Bobbi Parish, I created #SexAbuseChat in 2013. We meet on Twitter at 6pm pst/9pm est, tackling a different topic every week. Join us simply by typing in the hashtag.
Are we permanently damaged? I’m not a shrink, so I can’t answer that professionally. I can only say that the flashbacks, triggers, and nightmares do lessen with time but never completely go away. The reminders are always there for me, like a film that never stops running, though I have learned how to redirect my thoughts which is quite helpful. I don’t feel the need to numb myself (save the occasional glass of wine or martini). Sometimes, I find myself in wonder that I’m not addicted to anything more than Nutella and writing!
Ultimately, I’ve decided the amount of damage doesn’t really matter that much. How do you measure it anyway? Is there a damage scale? (Probably, but as I say, I’m not a shrink.) I read a lot about recovery, I research, I write, and I actively and passionately interact with and advocate for survivors. This brings me a huge amount of healing as well. Only you can decide if the amount of damage matters to your recovery.
There’s a beauty in recovery, recovery is healing, and healing is grace.
Would you like to be part of my Broken Pieces Pay It Forward Initiative? Purchase a copy for yourself, fill out an easy form on my site, and I’ll gift a copy from you, on my dime, to a friend in need!
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places (now published by ShadowTeams NYC and Lisa Hagan Books) on Amazon now!
Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here. Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
Join Rachel for #MondayBlogs every Monday, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday,
and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday. Learn all about it by clicking on events here!
The post The Reasons A Sexual Abuse Survivor Asks: Am I Permanently Damaged? appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
June 9, 2016
What if Allegations of Sexual Assault are False? by @KW_Writes
“What if the allegations of sexual assault or abuse are false?”
This is the question proposed during a conversation I had recently with a good friend of mine. Domestic and sexual assault have been in the news quite a bit lately, from Amber Heard’s restraining order against Johnny Depp to the six-month sentence of Brock Turner for his rape of an unconscious female.
“If Amber Heard’s stories are even true,” he said, sitting across the table from me in the coffee shop. Random muzak played softly over the speakers, providing background music to the crowds of people rushing outside the window nearby.
I had been people-watching, but at his comment, my head whipped around so fast I feared I might have whiplash.
“If the allegations are true?” I asked, shoving down my knee-jerk reaction, which was to yell, “awww hellll noooo.” Admittedly, I am biased. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I have extended family members – to whom I no longer speak – who insist that my abuse never happened.
“Well, yeah,” he said.
I was speechless for a moment, but I realized two important points: he was speaking from a place of fear, and his statement is not all that uncommon.
Living in Fear of False Allegations of Sexual Assault
I internally took a step back, giving my friend some compassion, and let my rage take the background for a bit. He is a teacher, both in a church and public school. He has been extensively educated about how to conduct himself around children of all ages, especially those with whom he works, mostly teenagers.
I have known for a long time that there are certain activities he will not do if it means he will be alone with students, because that’s what he has been instructed to do to “be safe.” If he has to meet with kids, he makes sure the nearest door is open and accessible to anyone walking by. He tries to meet with multiple kids at once, and has no shades or curtains on his office windows or doors. He has no online relationships with kids at all. Everything is out in the open.
And still this fear persists, of kids who could falsely accuse him of sexual assault or abuse. His life, family, career, and future could very well be ruined.
But is this fear based in reality?
How Often Do False Allegations of Sexual Assault Actually Occur?
“What would be the advantage of somebody making up stories of domestic violence or sexual assault?” I asked.
He considered the question for a moment, lips pursed and forehead crinkled.
“I mean, really, think about it,” I continued. “I think about Kesha recently suing one of her producers for sexual abuse, and about Amber Heard who is chased by the press, and the victim of Brock Turner. I think about my own situation, in which I was ostracized and out on my own at 17 years of age. What exactly would be the advantages to coming forward with this tragic information about your own life? Especially if it isn’t true?”
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center in their Statistics About Sexual Violence, false reports of sexual assault or abuse range from only 2% to 10%. Backed up by The National Center for the Prosecution of Violence against Women, “The realistic and evidence-based estimate of 2-8% thus suggests that the American public dramatically overestimates the percentage of sexual assault reports that are false.”
Our Cultural Stereotypes Regarding Sexual Assault
In other words, we all think that false allegations happen a lot more frequently than they actually do, partly due to what is referred to as “Rape Culture.” We don’t say that men rape women, we say that women are promiscuous. We call it “sex without consent,” instead of “rape.” It’s an automatic assumption that women “get themselves raped” by being drunk, or dressing provocatively, or simply walking around. It’s ridiculously short statute of limitations that vary per state for prosecuting sexual assault.
Is it surprising that sexual assault is the least reported crime? Over 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to police.
The Reality of Sexual Assault Reporting
Sexual assault allegations fly in the face of many of the stereotypes that we believe in our culture. In reality, victims of sexual assault and abuse know their perpetrators and may even be groomed over time. The suspects involved may not fit the stereotype of a rapist or pedophile. There is rarely physical violence or weapons used, and victims may not show physical injury.
Because of the tendency to shame victims instead of perpetrators, the socioeconomic status, age, physical appearance, and mental health of victims may be called out to “prove” that the allegations are false due to a “lack of credibility.” Victims may also feel unsure about their experiences due to the traumatic nature of the crimes perpetrated against them, so they end up not reporting sexual assault until days, weeks, or even years later.
The irony is that rare false allegations of sexual assault and abuse most often resemble the stereotypes, including that the perpetrator is a stranger, used violence during the attack, and there are signs of physical injury, and the victim is hysterical and provides, with absolute certainty, details of the event.
The reality of reporting sexual assault or abuse is that only those who fit the stereotypes are believed, and those reporting sexual assault or abuse do not fit the popular stereotypes.
To quote The National Center for the Prosecution of Violence against Women, “To move beyond this issue of false reporting, one of the most important steps we can take is therefore to recognize that the “red flags” that raise suspicion in the minds of most people actually represent the typical dynamics of sexual assault in the real world.”
There are truly no advantages to making allegations of sexual assault or abuse, false or real. Just ask any survivor who has pursued justice for these crimes in the real world.
Bio: Kelly Wilson is an author and comedian who entertains and inspires with stories of humor, healing, and hope. She is the author of Live Cheap and Free and Don’t Punch People in the Junk. Her latest book, Caskets From Costco, is a finalist in the 18th annual Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards, and has also been chosen as a finalist in the 10th annual National Indie Excellence Book Awards.
As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Kelly writes and speaks about finding hope in the process of recovery. Kelly writes for a living and lives with her Magically Delicious husband, junk-punching children, dog, cat, and stereotypical minivan in Portland, Oregon. Read more about her at http://www.wilsonwrites.com.
Social Media Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilsonWrites
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KW_Writes
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/wilsonwrites
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KellyWilsonWrites
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wilsonwrites/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellywilsonwrites/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/wilsonwrites
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places (now published by ShadowTeams NYC and Lisa Hagan Books) on Amazon now!
Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here. Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
Join Rachel for #MondayBlogs every Monday, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday,
and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday. Learn all about it by clicking on events here!The post What if Allegations of Sexual Assault are False? by @KW_Writes appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
June 3, 2016
Am I Bisexual Because of Sexual Abuse? No! by guest @BobbiLParish
The Destructive Forces of Sexual Abuse
Like every child, I came into this world craving the love and approval of my parents. I wanted nothing other than to attach to them, to feel safe and secure in their care. Unfortunately, my childhood was set aflame and burned to the ground by the destructive forces of sexual abuse, spiritual abuse and depression.
As hard as I tried to contort myself to meet the expectations of those I desperately wanted to love and approve of me, I was always deigned unworthy. The closest I came to feeling love were brief, burning bursts of approval when I was being sexually abused. Those encounters left me smoldering, in pain and starving for the smallest burning coals of affection and reassurance of my worth despite how much damage they caused.
Emerging from childhood, covered in ashes, I was determined to build an adult life that contained the love and approval I craved. Perfectionism and continued contortions to fit others’ expectations were my favorite tools. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted or who I was, only what others told me I should want and do. And so I did those things, with great determination.
Building A Life the “Right” Way
I got a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree, married and had a son. I did all of the “right” things. It didn’t earn me the love and approval I sought. The smoldering pain of my childhood and my unmet need for affection and validation lit my adulthood on fire. Depression and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder consumed me and burned away my flesh to the bone.
I spent decades in and out of psychiatric wards, disabled and homeless. It took me years to find the right help; a trauma-informed hospital, therapist and psychiatrist who taught me how to both put out the flames and heal my burns. After years of hard work, I have not just soothed those burns, but finally figured out that I’m worthy, absent of anyone else’s love and approval except my own. I’m still scarred, but I’m not aflame anymore.
Finding My Joy!
Years of hard work healing gave way to building a life that I wanted to lead, that brought me joy. Finally, at age fifty, I have both a career I love and a family who loves me unconditionally for who I am, not who they want to be. This time, my partner is a woman – an incredible person who wants me to be my best, happy and healthy. Her daughters bring a light and love into my life that are as dear as my son’s love. Together, we have the kind of family that I finally know I always deserved.
And yet people now want to sit in judgement of me because I have built my family with a female partner, rather than a male one. Frankly, her gender is a moot point to me. It’s who she is in her heart and mind that floods me with love and gratitude that I have her in my life. But her gender certainly matters to others.
Like many non-heterosexual survivors, I’m repeatedly confronted with the myth that being sexually abused by a man as a child is the cause of my sexual orientation. So much discussion and even research has been dedicated to this topic. **I’ve summarized some of it below, in case you’re interested in reading it.**
Scientific Research on Bisexuality/Homosexuality and Sexual Abuse
Scientific research has come to no conclusions about the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and sexual orientation. Anecdotal evidence shows no link between the two. Personally, I know that my childhood abuse had no effect on who I am attracted to. It decimated my mental health, ability to attach, self-worth, sense of personal power and my hope for having a happy life.
But who taught me who to love and how to love? Me. I learned it on my own, with the help of some great therapists, through hard scrabble work along with trial and error. I, and I alone, am responsible for my capacity to love and who I chose to love. My childhood taught me pain, and that I deserved nothing but pain. I taught myself how to love and live.
My childhood gets no iota of credit for who I am today. That one is all on me!
**Research:
The Problem With The Belief that Childhood Sexual Abuse Causes Homosexuality/Bisexuality
Am I Gay Because of the Abuse?
Can Being Sexually Abused Determine Sexual Abuse?
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places (now published by ShadowTeams NYC and Lisa Hagan Books) on Amazon now!
Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here.
Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
photo courtesy of pixabay
The post Am I Bisexual Because of Sexual Abuse? No! by guest @BobbiLParish appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
May 27, 2016
Trauma Recovery: Between Resilience and Permanent Damage by @AprylPooley
Why Are Some People Resilient To Trauma?
In my field of PTSD research, the word resilience comes up a lot. Why are some people resilient to trauma while others develop PTSD and other lasting consequences? That’s the million-dollar question so many scientists are trying to figure out by looking at genetic differences between people, hormonal differences, and structural and functional differences in the brain. The answer may help people recover from trauma.
But I don’t think developing PTSD necessarily represents a lack of resilience. It’s a normal response to an abnormal situation that allows one to survive a life-threatening event. Thinking about resilience in terms of recovery from trauma, not in terms of how one responds to trauma, may promote a more useful approach to research and to healing.
PTSD symptoms like hyper-vigilance and dissociation can be necessary for surviving traumatic situations, and the vast majority of people (>90%) who experience trauma show symptoms that resemble PTSD immediately afterwards—but for many people, they are able to recover relatively quickly and return to healthy functioning.
But what about the others? Why don’t they recover? Research indicates that there is a genetic component to the trauma response (people whose parents had PTSD are more likely to develop PTSD themselves) and a hormonal component (women are twice as likely to develop PTSD as men). Are some people biologically doomed to never recover from trauma?
That may depend on how we define “recovery” and “resilience.”
Merriam-Webster defines psychological resilience as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” I would expand this definition to say “an ability to adapt one’s functioning in the face of adversity—and to return to healthy functioning in the absence of adversity.”
PTSD-like symptoms are helpful in the face of trauma, but once you reach a place of safety, they are no longer adaptive and interfere with relationships and healthy functioning.
Resilience is being able to focus on survival instincts when needed, but also experiencing vulnerability when safe.Click To Tweet But the problem is, that for many people, the trauma never stops and safety is never found.
In a society that blames victims of sexual assault for “asking for it,” ridicules people who stay in abusive relationships, accuses veterans of “just looking for benefits,” ostracizes those who speak out about their trauma, and embraces retaliatory reactions to someone showing any signs of struggle, the place of safety required to really heal from trauma can be hard to find.
Trauma and PTSD
The people who don’t develop PTSD after trauma are most likely those who had healthy social support surrounding the trauma. Lack of social support is the number one risk factor for developing PTSD—more than any contributions made by genes, other biological factors, or the nature of the trauma itself. So I speculate that in order to help people recover from trauma, we have to create a society that allows people to talk about their trauma, that validates the range of reactions that come along with trauma instead of questioning them, that focuses on helping people recover rather than finding ways to blame them, and above all, really believing that victims of trauma deserve to be healthy functioning human beings, not outcasts.
I gave a talk at an advocacy conference earlier this year about what people can do to promote the recovery of sexual assault victims. I discussed how trauma affects the brain, active listening techniques, empathy, and I mentioned that victims are not permanently damaged, worthless, or part of an “other” category of human beings, and treating them as such (even though they might believe that about themselves) does nothing but hinder their healing.
Afterward, a renowned psychology professor and former vice-president of one of the largest universities in the country came up to me and said, “Do you really believe all that about not being permanently damaged?” I replied, “Yes, I absolutely do.” He made a point to tell me that he’s been counseling people for decades and that some people have been abused so badly that they will never recover. I agreed that after trauma, a person will never be the same again—there are parts of them that are forever changed—but I really believe that in the sense that one can recover their self-worth and value as a human being, nobody is permanently damaged. He replied with, “You need to tone it down a bit,” and I walked away before I said something silly like, “You need to tone your face down a bit.”
How Do We Define Recovery or Damage from Trauma?
This got me thinking: how do we define “recovery” or “damage?” I know how trauma affects the brain, I’ve seen the brain cells shrinking away and the electrical activity of brain circuits changing. I know how violence and abuse can leave physical and emotional scars that never go away. But still, I do not believe anyone is permanently damaged, because no matter what happens, they are still worthy of love, respect, and support and the only reason they would be permanently damaged is if nobody around them gave them that. Which unfortunately does happen.
On the flip side of this interaction, a professor who designed a popular human sexuality course focused a portion of a lecture on how childhood sexual abuse doesn’t result in any lasting damage in many children who experience it. This particular assertion was really a misrepresentation of research and of reality, so I crafted a detailed review of what the research actually shows and why some studies found that child sex abuse didn’t cause harm (because they defined “harm” in a very narrow manner that excluded, among other things, PTSD—the most common outcome of sexual abuse). To my rebuttal, the professor simply wrote, “Politically it is powerful and emotionally charging to declare that everyone who was sexually molested as a child was damaged forever but I’m not interested in delivering political messages.”
Maybe his thought was that if we tell people they are damaged and can’t recover, then they won’t. But this whole interaction left me wondering what is wrong with me that I was one of the ones who suffered long-term consequences as a result of my abuse?
I found myself teetering on a delicate balance between not wanting to be “damaged goods” and wanting my pain to be acknowledged for what it is, a consequence of abuse and an environment not conducive to healing, not of a weakness or lack of resilience on my part. (To be fair, I don’t think the professor was suggesting that people who suffer long-term consequences as a result of abuse are weaker or did something wrong, compared to those who recovered, but that’s just the way it felt to me at the time.)
So, What Does All This Mean?
It means that some people may never recover from trauma but it’s not because they didn’t try hard enough or couldn’t biologically recover—it’s because we sadly couldn’t find a way to help them quickly enough. It means that just because some people don’t develop long-term traumatic stress responses, doesn’t mean that those who did are “less than” in any way. It means that we need to consider that if someone isn’t recovering from trauma in the way we think they should, maybe it’s because we aren’t giving them what they need to heal—or maybe we need to re-define our perception of recovery. We need to consider that some people will never recover in the way we think they should, but that doesn’t mean they are permanently damaged—it’s up to them to determine what recovery means to them and us (as their fellow human beings) to help them get there.
Everybody responds differently to trauma. Recovery looks different in everybody.Click To Tweet Survivors of trauma will most likely struggle from time to time for the rest of their life, but that doesn’t diminish their worth as a person or brand them as permanently damaged. In fact, in spite of some of the lasting consequences of trauma, many survivors experience what is called post-traumatic growth and find a renewed sense of purpose and vitality that they may have never had otherwise. At the very least, there is no reason to believe that we should ever give up on helping a trauma survivor lead the life the want to live.
***
Apryl Pooley is a scientist by training, a writer by practice, and an artist by nature who strives to make sense of the world around her and help others do the same. She is a neuroscientist at Michigan State University where she researches the effects of traumatic stress on the brain and is author of Fortitude: A PTSD Memoir. Apryl lives in Michigan with her beautiful wife and two rambunctious dogs, Lady and Bean. Read more about her at http://www.aprylpooley.com. You can also find Apryl on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places on Amazon now! Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here.
Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.
photo courtesy of pixabay
The post Trauma Recovery: Between Resilience and Permanent Damage by @AprylPooley appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
A View of the Film CAROL: The Specter of Maternal Self-Doubt
Beautifully choreographed, “Carol” tells the story of a stunning, married woman with a four-year-old daughter. She befriends and then romances a younger woman she meets casually who barely has developed a sense of herself. Their friendship evolves into a deep love that complicates their lives with men who don’t understand them.
The narrative depicts Carol’s need to find herself as a homosexual woman in a society that does not understand her needs. When her husband, a dashing, successful man tells her he loves her and “it shouldn’t be this way,” she agrees. After she has a holiday with the younger woman, they fall deeply in love only to have their relationship shattered by the husband who threatens the loss of Carol’s daughter.
In this film, society has not caught up with the sexual and romantic needs of gay women and bludgeons the sacrosanct bond between mother and daughter. The first agreement to divorce and have joint custody is threatened when the husband no longer can bear the loss of his wife to a world he can’t comprehend. He and his parents encourage psychotherapy, as if her needs are pathological.
The crisis escalates when the husband’s lawyer calls Carol immoral as if she’s unfit to mother and takes away all custody. When her lawyer attempts to counter the decision, Carol collects her raw emotions and gives in to the loss of custody as long as she has visits with her daughter even if they are supervised.
Maternal Self Doubt
Carol is confused about how gay women can mother. Her maternal self-doubts override rationality as she is clearly a loving, devoted mother without supports to counter her husband’s claims. She succumbs to the bitter reality of society at the time that negates the obvious and reasonable understanding that motherhood and sexual preferences do not conflict.
The closing of the story however redeems Carol’s desires as her young lover returns to her with the viewer’s expectation they may have a life together while Carol continues to mother her daughter.
The power of this visual narrative is not only in the stylized beauty of the two women in love, which is of course appealing to the eye and one’s own desires for deep loving relationships. It is the battle within each woman that begins to live inside the audience as they sustain their bonds with the two female characters and their struggles to find themselves. The audience is on the side of the women as they search to fathom their sense of “otherness” in a society that betrays them and preys on a mother’s self-doubts.
How Prolonged Divorce Plans Affect Children
When parents contemplate divorce, it’s usually a long, intense, thoughtful process. It may start with intensive quarreling or silent treatment, building up over several years. Parents often are conflicted as to how a divorce will affect their children, so they take their time contemplating what to do. This makes good sense and often leads to problems being worked out, and even divorce plans being suspended.
However, once the decision is made, a separation occurs. This often involves one parent moving out of the house. At this point, children who have been worried for quite a while seeing the tension between their parents now need a clear explanation as to what is happening. Even the kindest most empathic children first want to know what changes are in store for them. They want to be assured of their safety and security and that their parents’ love for them is not compromised.
However, sometimes following the separation, parents’ doubts renew. They feel guilty and beset with self-blame and a sense of failure. They are sure they want the divorce, but are unsure of the timing that’s best. That’s when the divorce plans, even those with the best legal advice, get prolonged. When months and even years go by with a prolonged separation, children get very confused. They begin to watch their parents closely deciding if their parents may get back together. If there are several siblings, they may all have differing points of view, but the subject preoccupies them and distracts them from school work and enjoyable play.
Sometimes religious reasons for not getting the divorce finalized come into play. Some feel divorce isn’t condoned by their religion and that remarriage is even wrong. This complicates matters of course because it raises matters of conscience.
Other times, friends and extended family start giving their elaborate negative opinions about divorce. Parents who grew up with parents who divorced are loathe to repeat the pattern and are very affected by this advice. They forget some of the positives that came from their parents divorcing such as no more quarreling in the home, more pleasurable time spent with each parent, and successful remarriages and blended families.
Children and Self Doubt
The main issue is that when the divorce is prolonged extensively, the children grow older and more confused. They deserve to know what is happening with their lives. It’s incumbent on the parents to settle their inner conflicts, so they can talk one on one with each of their children and explain the future plans.
Effective co-parenting of divorced couples can smooth the way for effectively helping the children through the transition. This may be done with a marriage counselor trained to help parents set aside their marital differences for the best interests of their children.
Children react very differently. Some are relieved that the divorce is final. They knew it was coming and now feel not only their parents, but they can go on with their lives. Other children are deeply disappointed and even surprised if the prolongation of the divorce gave them false hope and reasons for denial. The latter children need more care to get over the hurdle of their false hopes and see the reality of the divorce.
Divorce can be healthy and benefit all involved if done carefully in a timely manner. Decisions need to be made clearly and soundly and then the children need to be informed openly and honestly especially with regard to how it will affect them.
Laurie Hollman, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst with a recent book that will assist parents understanding their children as they experience divorcing parents, Unlocking Parental Intelligence: Finding Meaning in Your Child’s Behavior , found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Familius and wherever books are sold.
Purchase Broken Pieces and Broken Places on Amazon now! Learn more about all of Rachel’s books here.
Connect with Rachel for social media services on BadRedheadMedia.com.artwork and photo courtesy of Laurie Hollman, PhD
The post A View of the Film CAROL: The Specter of Maternal Self-Doubt appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
May 20, 2016
How to Know When it’s time to Jump the Hoop or Burn the Bridge
Guest post from C
Streetlights, author of the amazing memoir, Tea and Madness and the upcoming Black Sheep Rising, out very soon from ShadowTeams NYC!
I regretted Freshman English the moment my professor opened his mouth and asked us to call him “Chuck”. I didn’t have to be there; I had AP’d out, meaning I earned a 5 on the AP English Exam. I was known as a “Fiver” in that area of Orange County, during a time when The OC was a geographic location and not a sensationalized television show. One of the benefits of being a Fiver meant not having to take Freshman English at the junior college I attended soon after high school graduation. However I had my eye on transferring to a university, and that university would give me far more general election credits for my 5 than my junior college. I endured Chuck so that I could trade my 5 for more advanced classes later.
I would repeat that strategy to myself as being “worth it” throughout the semester whenever Chuck would assign us to attend one of his art openings at a local mall – or fail. Or whenever he would remind us of how many times students had given him perfect evaluations. And every time he would belittle a student in the classroom. Including me.
Chuck loved to question the authenticity of my 5 on the AP English Exam, something that I never divulged to him and still have no idea how he knew. He took a strange delight in highlighting every single comma splice – my weakness in writing – in my papers with a yellow marker and asking me how I managed to pass the exam let alone earn a 5 when I couldn’t write a single paper without any comma splices. I was just 17-years old at the time and ill-prepared to defend myself against such a person. Nor should I have had to.
Yet, my temper always simmered below the surface. I watched him “lecture” – always more his own personal philosophies on life rather than actual instruction – through narrowed eyes, and I refused to join his fawning crowd. I have never fallen into sycophancy well, and this was a man who collected toadies like some collect Pokeman Cards.
The course material was simple, but I didn’t complain. I completed the assigned reading and annotated my textbooks as required. I participated in group discussions, never dominating and never staying silent – the perfect balance. I had the correct answers when Chuck called on me. It infuriated that he only had comma splices on me, and even those were disappearing the more I wrote and improved my writing. It didn’t matter to him. Whenever possible Chuck reminded me that my writing was subpar, would always be nothing more than mediocre, and that I wouldn’t ever survive an English major. According to him, I just wouldn’t ever be able to keep up with the writing that is expected from someone pursuing any sort of Bachelor of Arts degree. It was a long semester.
We were assigned an analysis paper for our final exam in which we were to select a short story from a list Chuck gave us and then analyze it in some way. I wrote an analysis paper on John Steinbeck’s story “The Chrysanthemums” from a feminist criticism and point of view.
This was the 1990s. An antiquated time with no internet and no Google. The ability to use the college’s computer to look up resources at another college was nothing short of miraculous. The card catalogue was made up of actual cards. My classmates and I had didn’t have Sparks Notes available to us. We were the Sparks Notes. It was a simpler time.
Even then I knew my paper on “The Chrysanthemums” was my best. Steinbeck’s characterization of the female protagonist and her change from being unrecognized as a woman by her husband, a woman whose passion is limited to her care and nurturing of her chrysanthemums, is written in a way can only be Steinbeck’s writing. It’s been more than 20 years since I have written that paper, but I can still remember my argument that Steinbeck uses the female protagonist to demonstrate how women are largely underappreciated as intellectual equals to men and they aren’t able to freely express their sexuality without risking emotional and physical consequences.
It was a damn good paper that earned an F from Chuck. The first F I had ever earned in anything other than PE, which is another story for another time.
He dropped my paper on my desk last on the day he returned papers to all of us. The F was, of course, written in stereotypic red ink at the top of the title page. Beneath it he wrote casually, “You must cite all your sources. It’s obvious this is not your work.” I was stunned. Chuck accused me of cheating. I could feel the tears stinging my eyes, the first in the entire semester. I endured his taunts and insults the entire time I was in his class with as much grace and dignity a 17-year old girl could be expected to withstand, but this was far too much.
My words have always been my words. And I have always respected the work of others, even if I didn’t respect the person who spoke them. I was angry.
I walked up to Chuck, not caring that class was about to start. “Show me one time in this paper where I stole someone’s material,” I challenged him, throwing the paper onto his desk. He stared at me.
“The whole thing,” he said.
“You’re saying I stole the entire paper,” I said to him evenly. The entire class was watching us.
Chuck was upset that I was challenging him. “Yes,” he said, crossing his arms. “I am. I don’t believe you wrote this at all.”
I called his bluff. “Prove it. Pull up all the sources I listed in the works cited page and compare them to what I’ve written. Prove I stole it.”
“I am sure you copied it from another source other than what you listed in the back,” Chuck said.
“So you’re saying that I went through the trouble of finding some other source to copy, then listed another set of sources in my works cited page, and then made sure that the direct quotes I used in my paper were also in the same source I copied and also in my works cited page.” The ridiculous idea sounded even more absurd when I said it out loud. “I’ve kept every paper written in this class, Mr. W,” refusing to call him Chuck. “I earned an A or B on all of them. All of them were cited correctly. Why would I suddenly plagiarise the final paper?”
He wouldn’t answer but his eyes were furious. I didn’t care. I was so tired of his bullying not only me but also my classmates. I thought of the lady whose period started and had to leave class early, and how Chuck made fun of her after she left. I thought of the guy who had to miss class one day because he was in jail – something none of us needed to know but something Chuck made sure we all did.
I left my paper on the table in front of him. “I expect a fair grade by next class.” I sat back down thinking of how my dad would kill me if he knew what I just did. He always told me to not rock the boat, and sometimes I just have to jump through the hoops. I was surprised when he said just one word to me after I broke the news to him in case I failed Freshman English, “Good.”
Surprisingly I learned a lot from Chuck. I learned that when it mattered most I would stand up for myself. I learned that sticking with something could sometimes be worth it – when I transferred to the university of my choice taking Freshman English allowed me to use my AP for almost 15 other credits while studying there. I also learned that there while there are times to go ahead and jump the hoop or not rock the boat, there were other times to burn the bridge and refuse to go along with something.
I also improved on comma splices, so there’s that.
After writing and illustrating her first bestseller in second grade, “The Lovely Unicorn”, C. Streetlights took twenty years to decide if she wanted to continue writing. In the time known as growing up she became a teacher, a wife, and mother. Retired from teaching, C. Streetlights now lives with her family in the mountains along with their dog that eats Kleenex. Her new memoir, Tea and Madness is now available.
You can follow C. Streetlights on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Goodreads.
The post How to Know When it’s time to Jump the Hoop or Burn the Bridge appeared first on Rachel Thompson.
