This Time It's Personal

Right around the time I was leaving my OCPD ex, and voraciously reading everything I could on OCPD and hoarding, I came upon an interesting website called My Mother In Law Is Still Sitting Between Us. In it the author chronicled her boyfriend's efforts to clean out the hoarding house of his mother, who'd recently passed away.

Besides the train-wreck fascination of the pictures, the writing! Snappy, funny, insightful, and never mean-spirited or nasty. I fell in serious girl crush. And after finding that the author lived next door, so to speak, I got in touch with her. Once I convinced Sid I was not a crazy stalker-person, we did meet, and became good friends. I lured her into joining my writers critique group. Her voice and ideas were good for our group, and getting out of the house and talking about writing was good for her.  I frequently commented on her blog, and she was a frequent commenter here.

Her boyfriend is also OCPD, and the unhappy relationship dynamics that so many experience, that *I* experienced, were also part of her experience. He was a drinker/she was a drinker, even after it began to create serious health problems for her. She cut back.

Still, the relationship was eating her up on the inside, especially when, over two years into the clean-up process of the hoarding house, there was no end in sight. And of course, he could neither give it up nor hire someone to help. I tried to support Sid, as best I could, without pushing or telling her what to do.

It frustrated me to watch her spirit get eroded over time, drip, drip, drip, but still, it wasn't MY job to save her. She did have a supportive family. And Sid was the stubborn kind of person who needed to do things in her own way, in her own time. So mostly, I was the listening ear who understood, and who told her what a great person she was.

One of my online friends has pointed many to an excellent book called, "When the Body Says No," about the damaging health effects that accumulated stress may have on a person. See, sometimes if WE don't learn to say no, the body says it for us, by getting sick.  Or we swallow our feelings with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, shopping...

Sid was the kind of caregiving person who poured herself out for others.  She took pride in being STRONG, not asking for help, but giving it to others. She blogged and worked part time and was active in Children of Hoarders. She co-founded a local group called SoCalLady Bloggers. On October 8 she appeared as part of this streaming video chat on hoarding on Huffington Post.



Her ex was not and is not a bad person. In his own way, Greg, too, is heartbroken. He was the reason she was found, still clinging to life, after she missed a scheduled meeting with him and he would not let it go. I am very grateful that her parents and I got to say goodbye to her when she was still technically breathing, rather than after lying dead in her apartment for days. But his own overwhelming anxieties did not allow him to SEE how sick she was, or to help her in any meaningful way.  As she described here when she was going to visit her parents, very sick, and he got hung up on the cheapest train fare.

After another hospitalization this summer following that train trip, during which the b-f was anxious, bossy, "knew" more about what she needed to do than the doctors, and demanded attention and energy she simply didn't have left in her to give him, she realized that though she still loved him deeply, if she stayed with him, it would literally kill her. She'd already been making emotional plans to leave; her parents helped her out financially, and she moved into her own place a month ago.

Sid was SO happy in her new place. She could eat, walk, work on the computer, and breathe, without being criticized. She was so proud, showing off her new place - which had been IMMEDIATELY unpacked, no boxes hanging around for her! She showed me her cool rooftop patio and talked about having a party up there, excited, because her ex never wanted to have people over. She still loved him, and they were friendly, trying to work out the sale of their house amicably. She was taking her meds and NOT drinking and working hard to regain the weight she'd lost during the summer, but she was still so frail...

The damage to her body was too great, her remaining physical resources too low. She had a heart attack just a week ago due to the chemical imbalance in her body, and then another, in the hospital. No alcohol found in her system.

Last Monday I sat with her parents and her ex, in the hospital. Both before and after they turned off the respirator.  Today is her "Celebration of Life."

She was beautiful and vibrant and funny and 43 years old.

I am angry and heartbroken. This did NOT have to happen. For all of you still with a disordered partner - I am not telling or urging you to leave.  Only you can make that call, if or when it is right for you. But please, please, PLEASE, do not pour yourself out entirely for your partner and other people, until there is not enough left for your own body or soul. It may be the hardest thing you will ever have to do, but learn to put yourself FIRST.

A-Z - Unchosen Relationships - When You Can't Get Away

Sibling! (Photo credit: Gus Dahlberg)

We can choose our friends, but we can't choose our family. For the letter U today, I'm going to excerpt and comment upon the excellent piece from Out of the Fog.

Unchosen relationships are relationships with family members who suffer from personality disorders.

 And other mental illnesses.

Unchosen is a term used to describe those of us who did not choose their relationship to a person with a personality disorder. Some of us have parents with this disorder; others have a sibling, in-laws, or other familial relationships. We did not choose this relationship the same way a person chooses a relationship to a partner with or a friend with a personality disorder. 

With a spouse, love partner, neighbor, boss, co-worker, we can choose to leave the relationship, to move, to change jobs. It might be painful and very difficult, but we can get away. It's harder to get away from family, or to abandon a family member (sibling, parent, child) who has married a dysfunctional person; however, in those cases, we are normally dealing with the unpleasant in-law from an adult, rather than a child's, perspective.

For instance: someone who grew up with a personality disordered parent will have had a vastly different struggle than someone who had a relatively normal childhood, but ended up with a disordered partner. That doesn't mean the "Unchosen" person's pain is any greater or any less than the "Chosen" person's pain, but very often, the abuse and inappropriate behaviors modeled during his or her formative years will have deeply affected the Unchosen Non child's core sense of being (and well-being), and may have long-lasting impacts on trust, self-esteem and the ability to form or maintain healthy relationships in adulthood.

In the paragraph above, "non" refers to a child without a personality disorder.  Being a "non" as compared to a person with a personality disorder does not mean everything is a-ok with us. In fact, a non may have many other Issues, and behave inappropriately and harmfully to self and others, too.

I can personally testify that it is really hard to choose a healthy love relationship, when you have no friggin' clue how to recognize it. If there are no models in your family of origin, how do you even know what one looks like? TV and movies? Books?  

cast of Leave It To Beaver

I know that my own relationship with my OCPD ex was in large part an attempt to heal wounds left by my relationship with my narcissistic, alcoholic father. Sadly, my ex was just f---ed up in a different way. In large part because I was used to dysfunction, I missed the red flags, and when I did see them, I thought, well, now, with my adult skills, I could fix him.

When the personality disordered individual is a child, the pain and disruption is experienced by the entire family. Adults feel responsible, trapped, frustrated and depressed. Non-personality-disordered siblings feel fearful and neglected as their parents focus on the problems created by the disordered individual. 

Partly because of poor understanding of where mental disorders come from, there is the guilty assumption by parents that if only one had loved the child enough, been patient enough, done the right thing, his/her mental disorder would not be so severe. Or, possibly, there may be guilt for passing down defective genes or eating or drinking the wrong thing during pregnancy. Siblings may have very mixed feelings, especially as teenagers; sometimes loving their troubled sibling to pieces, other times perhaps even wishing s/he were dead. 

The Unchosen Relationship

To be in an unchosen relationship is difficult and often traumatizing. We are told repeatedly by society and well-meaning people that we "must," "should," "have to" (fill in the blank) because they - the personality disordered - are family. 

"After all, he is your father." Boy, if only I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me!

We are often asked to overlook continued abuses because the person is ill. In other instances we are expected to “be the bigger person” and stuff our emotions so as not to upset the ill family member. We are asked to parent our parent while still trying to have a life of our own. 

People who haven’t been where we have been truly have no idea what we live with. Some of us are constantly torn between trying to protect and heal ourselves and trying to have some sort of relationship with our families, however dysfunctional they may be. Others have decided that they no longer want a relationship with the ill family member. Many of us have been subjected to a lifetime of emotional, verbal, physical, and sometimes sexual abuse. These abuses do not disappear just because time has passed or because we are adults. Sometimes the worst scars cannot be seen.

In this section, you may see terms like NC (no contact) or LC (limited contact). Many people choose one or the other, or drift back and forth between them trying to find a balance with which they are comfortable. Some choose to try and tolerate what they can, when they can, knowing they are unable to completely remove themselves from a parent or other relative. Understand that what works for one simply does not work for everyone.

After decades of trying to begin a new relationship with my father, as an adult, which efforts were ignored and/or abused by him, I decided upon LC. It was the best way for me to forgive his past offenses and remember the good things about him (which I could count on my fingers). For myself, I couldn't "deal" with fresh offenses and his constant attempts at emotional manipulation.

My oldest sister chose to become more involved, supervising his finances and getting him placed in a good veteran's home facility, but even she drew the line at bring him into her home, or even into our state. Our other sister's choice was similar to mine, LC. When our father died last year, our middle sister chose to attend the memorial service, in support of our oldest sister. I chose to stay away - also in support of our oldest sister. Because once people began spouting the usual post-death BS about what a great guy the man was, I would probably have lost it and spoken up. This would have hurt my sister to no good purpose.

So I don't judge people who don't visit their parents or mentally ill siblings; don't call them, or make other efforts to avoid contact. It may show an admirable amount of restraint that they don't accidentally-on-purpose poison the person who's brought so much pain into their lives.

An Unchosen Perspective on Boundaries

It can be difficult to maintain or define boundaries when you are involved in a familial or otherwise unchosen relationship. Often, we are taught as children "not to make waves" or to “just get along;” that is, to not assert or define our own boundaries. As children we want to please our disordered parent and get along with a disordered sibling or relative; however, a personality disordered individual lacks appropriate personal boundaries of their own. This can result in inappropriate affectionate gestures and lack of personal privacy for the child. 

 This is why we should never "make" children kiss Aunt Clara, or sit on Santa's lap.

When our own personal boundaries are routinely broken, the message we learn is that our own needs and feelings don’t count - we are required to accept how others treat us without question. As we grow into adults, these lessons can become our way of life. We often feel taken advantage of, feel used or feel that our desires are unimportant. We become frustrated and angry that our boundaries are violated yet we are unable to express what, exactly, our boundaries are. 

In a healthy relationship, there are always boundaries. Children should be able to have their own special toys that they are not expected to share, for example, especially if they have a "special" sibling who tends to break or destroy much of what s/he plays with.

Constant yielding to a parent, sibling or relative becomes second nature. We lose our own sense of self and often find ourselves in unhappy relationships, jobs and life situations. The early lessons - that our feelings, views and opinions don’t count - continue to dominate our lives, sometimes subconsciously. 

We may feel we are only worthy if/when we are pleasing someone else. If we're doing something purely for ourselves - reading a book, watching a movie that nobody else in the household wants to watch, getting a massage - we may feel selfish, weird. 

This can result in poor life choices, from entering into careers or occupations that are a poor fit for us, to marrying the person we “should” rather than the person we love. The yielding to others we were taught as children can spill over into every relationship we have as adults. The consequences can be disastrous and painful. It sometimes feels as if we are living someone else’s life. 

Because we don't have our own sense of self, we may Rescue others and follow the pattern assuming responsibility for how we "make" others feel. I know people who keep themselves quite busy being problem scouts - spotting and "helping" other people's potential problems before they even have a chance to notice and take care of the issue, themselves.

Then the problem scout wonders why her adult children don't seem to show any initiative, or make poor decisions on the rare occasion they do decide something for themselves.

Learning to enforce boundaries takes practice and patience. Yet it can be done - and lead us to a healthier, happier life. You can read some more ideas on setting healthy boundaries in our boundaries section.

And here: Boundary Betty.  Boundaries are different than walls, but it may help to think of them as castle walls. Something from the outside is stopped on the other side of the moat. After thorough examination, either the drawbridge is let down and it's invited in, or it's turned away.

When we have weak or no boundaries, anything someone says to us, does to us or even does around us gets hustled right in. We arrange our universe around what we think is gong on. Somebody makes a strange face - we must have done something to annoy him. (When the reality is, maybe he's just suppressing a fart. It's not always all about us.)

Types of Unchosen Relationships

There are distinct categories of non-personality-disordered individuals who call themselves “Unchosen”:

Children of abusive parents

Children of abusive mothers

Children of abusive fathers

Children abused by their siblings

Parents of children who hurt themselves and others

Children forced to live in an environment where someone else is abused.

Please take note of the last. Even if the child is not him or herself battered, sexually or verbally abused, it is not healthy for children to live in an environment where they regularly witness one member of the household abuse another. Perhaps Grandpa has come to live with the family and he's a raging a-hole to his adult daughter, the child's mother. Perhaps the mother is personality-disordered and regularly tears the father a new one.

Yes, "splitting the household apart" might be painful and quite difficult. But please, consider that you may be training the child up to recreate a household just like the one s/he grew up in.

I get that leaving is not always possible. I know my mother wanted to leave my father, but when you have a young child, and are terminally ill with cancer, your options are limited. Besides which, that was the early 1970's, and women had only a fraction of the legal rights in divorce they have today.

Still, there were avenues she could have explored: moving in with friends or family members, perhaps. If she had the physical and emotional strength to pursue them. I don't blame her; I understand that when you live with someone whose view of the world is black-or-white, your own thinking tends to become that way as well. You fail to see there are not two choices; there are probably two dozen choices.

There are always options.  Please, please, please, do not bring children into the world when you are in a dysfunctional relationship, thinking that a baby will make everything better and help your partner heal. And if you already have children, please consider whether continuing in a household where a severely dysfunctional person lives is healthy for them. Leaving or throwing out the disordered person are not the only choices; I know a woman who actually sent her children away, to live with some family friends who acted as guardians for them. It broke her heart, and yet, was probably much better for them than continuing in that household.

My A-Z theme is Issues related to Mental Health or Mental Illness.

Are you in any unchosen relationships 

with a mentally disordered person?

Is this a new thing, or did it begin when you were a child?

How has it affected the way you see the world and relationships?

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chap 6 - When the Guards Come Down & Becoming Less Guarded

Source: shannondarrough.com via Jackie on Pinterest

This post continues with When the Guards Come Down and Becoming Less Guarded from Chapter Six.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

When the Guards Come Down

Though most obsessives have trouble trusting, depending upon, and revealing themselves to other people, no one ever completely avoids any of those things.  No matter how capable we are, modern life forces us to depend upon one another for such necessities as food, education, medical care, and much more.  Some dependencies are so inescapable and routine (e.g., having to get water from the city water supply or bottled water vendors) that most people, obsessives included, don't think much about them.  However, when circumstances arise that persuade one to acknowledge dependency in a new area - to consult a doctor, for example, or seek help from an accountant - anxieties may arise.  Discomfort also results when some normally suppressed feeling, such as anger, suddenly surfaces.  <snip>

Guarded obsessives commonly view any betrayal of their trust as conclusive "proof" that their original guardedness was justified.  "If I have a friend, and he tells even a small white lie or is even slightly dishonest, I say 'Aha!  He lied!  That proves I can't trust him.'  I subject him to unreasonable standards.  He has to be one-hundred-percent trustworthy of I don't feel I can trust him at all."

Becoming Less Guarded

Becoming less guarded is not something that can be "worked on" all alone, in the privacy of one's study.  For all the pain it can cause, a pattern of interpersonal guardedness is extremely difficult to change, and such change must take place within living, breathing relationships.

• Remind yourself that no one and nothing can be one-hundred-percent dependable.  Other people - less obsessive people - understand this and still manage to trust and depend upon one another.  Do you tell yourself that's because they just aren't as smart as you, that they simply don't see the risks or appreciate the dangers?  Do you think they'll all be sorry someday?  It's not that these people don't don't see the risks of opening themselves to others.  Instead they know that many of the best things in life - such as a send of connection and closeness with other people - are worth the risks.  

• Don't be tripped up by your tendency to think in extremes.  No one is suggesting you should share intimate confidences with every stranger that you meet.  A reasonable amount of discretion will provide you with some protection from hurt, rejection, and exploitation.  But when it comes to guardedness, there is a middle ground, and people who find it are less lonely and isolated than those whose protective shells are too thick and hard.

• Try to be conscious of the fact that your guarded behavior is likely to cause the very rejection, isolation, and unloved feeling that you fear.  Realize that other people are very apt to misinterpret your guardedness, taking it as a hurtful indication that something in them is causing you to hold yourself at a distance.

• It takes determination and patience to become less guarded.  Prepare yourself to see changes occur slowly.  In individual and group therapy, guarded patients will sometimes begin this process unwittingly by revealing emotions in a "weak" moment.  At such times they often feel humiliated and frightened.  Sometimes they weep.  But then they usually realize that nobody has rejected them.  The world goes on.  In fact, the others, sensing how difficult it is for them to open up, often respond with special empathy and warmth.  Over time, the guarded person gradually is able to reveal more and more of the real self beneath the facade - the spontaneously experienced feelings and thoughts.  And often, for the first time, he or she begins to experience what it's like to feel truly understood and still cared for - something that never before seemed possible. <snip>

***

Some of us chatted about this online one night, about how unless you live in a cave or shack, Unabomber style, you're dependent on all kinds of people.  I think I'm safe in saying no one is reading these words on a computer they built by hand of components they personally mined from the earth, with electricity likewise generated by a system they devised themselves.  (And even if they did, who's providing the Internet connection, hmmm?)

Source: 25.media.tumblr.com via Kara on Pinterest

On the rare occasions my ex revealed a fear, a hurt, or weakness, I felt so much closer to him, while his guardedness made him feel distant.  His anger and disappointment at my failure to be perfect, which he used to justify why he couldn't trust me, I found crazy unrealistic.  For example, if he felt a need to rant until one o'clock in the morning, on a night when I had work the next day, and I told him him I had had enough and was going to bed, he felt I had failed him, didn't care enough about the relationship.  See!  Betrayal!  Untrustworthiness!

If you are looking for reasons not to trust someone, and you look long enough and hard enough with a virtual magnifying glass, you will find imperfections.   With OCPD, there's a very appropriate verse from the Bible about removing the beam/log from one's own eye, before trying to locate the speck/mote in another's.

I've blogged about this before, but because my ex wouldn't open up, because he was afraid I would hurt him, and he'd end up alone, he pushed me away.  And... ended up alone.

If he had been willing to put in the very long, hard, scary work of letting down his guard, would thing have been different?  Maybe not, if he didn't address all the other OCPDnesses that killed our relationship.  Or maybe, if he'd let his guard down, he would have been able to see them.

Your thoughts?

The Victim Is Always to Blame... Or Overlooked

Image via WikipediaHave you been following the Penn State Uni child rape saga?

One thing I find encouraging is at least more people are talking about the rape culture.  That includes the presumption that somehow the victim "deserves" to be assaulted, based on what s/he wears, or behaves, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Like the Congo, or Latin America, or being a boy on the grounds of Penn State in the company of a pedophile.

In a nutshell: Jerry Sandusky, who was the Defensive Coordinator for the Penn State football program for many years, was investigated in 1998 for inappropriate sexual conduct with young boys.  He was not formally charged, but he did retire in 1999.  (See timeline on Huffington Post.) As an alumni, he continued to have access to the grounds, an office on site, and other perks.

He had regular contact with young boys via a charitable organization he created in the 1970's called The Second Mile.  This program targeted children with absent or dysfunctional families (which made them particularly ripe for being victimized by someone with ill intent).  These children were taken by Sandusky to football games, guested for overnight visits in his home, given lavish presents, and brought onto the grounds on Penn State University on a regular basis.

According to the report of the Grand Jury, in 2002 a then graduate assistant (28 years old, 200 lb former quarterback) testified he walked in on Sandusky anally raping a ten-year old boy in the showers of the football building.  Said GA did not rescue the child, or call the police, but did call his daddy for advice, and then reported what he saw to Joe Paterno the following morning.  Who did not call the police, either, but kicked it upstairs, to his superiors.  Somewhere along the way, the anal-raping was minimized to "a little fondling." (After all, everyone knows it's perfectly normal and socially acceptable for a grown man to take a boy into the showers and fondle him, right?) PSU took Sandusky's keys away, and sternly told him - no more bringing boys onto the grounds!

Nobody called the police.  Nobody tried to track down the victim to find out if he was okay.  Nobody contacted The Second Mile, where Sandusky continued to "mentor" more young "friends," to suggest that maybe somebody should keep an eye on him.  Nobody said word one when for years afterwards, Sandusky squired other young boys from The Second Mile on outings, sat with them in the stands, brought them to the dinner table for meals with all his Penn State U buddies, including Paterno.  Somehow, nobody expressed the slightest squicky feeling about this whatsoever.

When arrests were being made and the stink about this got too big, the Penn State trustees fired President Graham Spanier and JoePa, and while there hasn't been much of a backlash about Spanier, a number of students are very upset - about Paterno.  How could they fire him - and so ignominiously?  After all, he wasn't a molester - he's just one of several people who didn't call the police.  He didn't see it himself, he was simply told by someone (trustworthy, who also relied on his judgment).  JoePa was a decent, honorable guy, who continued a relationship with the alleged molester and his young "friends" in the following eight years or so.

Can you imagine?  Somebody has come to you and said, "I saw this guy raping a ten year old in the showers," and being able to turn off that visual?  To share a meal with this guy, even as he's got another ten year old sitting right beside him?  "Pass the salt, please, Jerry."  But this is what happens in families where there is incest, there's this weird doublethink going on where everyone pretends it's not really happening, la-la, I can't hear you.

Something like this happened in several families I know, where many family members were more upset about the incest or domestic violence being made public by the victims, than by the actual incest or violence itself.

This is typical of rape culture - an acknowledgment of the victim(s), almost in passing - yes, wasn't that dreadful? and then a quick mental shift to salvage and protect the reputation of the accused - or the institution they represent.

In an (even more) appalling note, right now at Penn State some of the students are making jokes about "being Sanduskied."  In front of, though they don't know it, the sister of one of the victims.

This is why it is so hard for rape victims to come forward.  Rather than the blame being cast upon the rapist, quite shortly the victim's life gets put under a magnifying glass.  If s/he has not led a spotless life, then somehow s/he was "asking for it."  Or, there's evidence, perhaps, but not enough evidence.  Dominique Strauss-Kahn ring any bells?

People who are assaulted are almost always in a position of much less power than their rapist.  They may be children, smaller, drugged, or under extreme economic pressure; they may be on the losing end of a war or weapon. Those who do come forward, against the odds, are incredibly brave souls.

Nobody wants to imagine himself being assaulted in a shower, or anywhere else.  It makes sense that we want to find reasons/excuses to put the victim at blame.  Because, if in some way, the victim made it happen - then we can simply not do what they did, and we will be safe.

The ugly truth is, no matter how careful we are, no matter how we dress or what we drink or how carefully we choose our dates, we, or those we love, could still be raped or assaulted at any time.  So how do we deal with that without freaking out?

Partly, by fighting back.  By saying, this may be how it is, now, but it isn't the way it has to be.  This is part of what SlutWalk is about, to start bringing about a change in the social consciousness: Rapists, not victims, cause rape.  If we want to end rape, instead of trying to teach women and children 120 ways to Tuesday to protect themselves and not "cause" a rape, we need to end rape culture.  We need to end a culture that says it is acceptable, even rewarded, when we take from or bully those who are weaker than ourselves.  Whether it is a 50-something man raping a 10 year old boy, or corporations that take government subsidies to move American jobs overseas (and to pay their top execs huge bonuses), it must become socially unacceptable for the strong to victimize the weak.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

PSU Students gather to express
solidarity & support for the rape victims

And on bystanders... We need to make bystanders more interested in doing what's right, than doing the minimum amount required by law to cover their own a$$ (if they even do that).  We need to stop demonizing and punishing those who "squeal," "snitch", or "rat out" people who are behaving badly.

Then there was an interesting take on this by "Marna Nightingale," one of the commenters on the thread below (Omelas State University) on why the grad student didn't intervene when he saw the child being raped, or do more to speak up afterwards, when his father and everybody else was telling him, hey, no big deal:

I DO feel genuinely badly for that grad student, and I absolutely could have been one of those adults and I am grateful to God that I am not.

I hope to Hell I never am, but I have to say that looking over my past life, the times I’ve most obviously failed to act on a moral imperative have been those times when I’ve seen – something that I knew was wrong, and I was sure of my facts, but I was also up in a situation where this had been going on for awhile and so everyone around me was Utterly Sure That Everything Was Normal and Fine. And I am sure anyone looking at me would have said that I was obviously Utterly Sure That Everything Was Normal and Fine, too, while my brain was slowly turning Oh My God That Is Horrible What Do I Do into Everyone Is Calm and Cheerful so That Can’t Have Been What Happened, Right? Right? Please Let That Be Right, I Don’t Know What To Do Or How To Start Doing It.

And after a few hours or days or weeks, somehow… Everything WAS Normal and Fine. Except… not.

I’m not terribly brave. All I can do is to try to remember that I do that, and admit that if I do that and fail to act I deserve to pay the price of that.

This is a mindset I think we all need to be conscious of.  That horrible things, done over time, and with the agreement and apparent social pressure to act like everything is fine, just fine, can innure us to terrible injustice.

Just because it's been like this for a long time, doesn't mean it has to stay like this.  We can all think, we can all act responsibly.  We can all speak out against injustice, even if it means people won't like us.  Even if it costs me my job, I hope I've got enough moral fiber to not see a child being raped, and just close the door - literally or figuratively.


I can't get out of my head the testimony that the GA opened the door to the showers, saw the child and his rapist, and then left the room.  Maybe he was in shock, okay, he still could have dialed 911.  According to his testimony, he thought they both saw him.  That poor boy must have thought/hoped he was going to be rescued.  What must he have gone through, when that door closed again?  And all the poor kids that received "personal attention" from Sandusky, afterwards.  How can we possibly make it up to them?

Related articles

• Penn State Scandal Tiimeline (huffingtonppost.com)
• Joe Paterno Is NOT A Victim (collegecandy.com)
• Joe Paterno fired, Penn State president Spanier out (aol.sportingnews.com)
• Penn State students riot over firing of coach Paterno (windsorstar.com)
• Omelas State University (John Scalzi)
• Survivors of sexual abuse appalled by Penn State unrest (cnn.com)
• Sport Media Asks Molestation Victims What This Means for Joe Paterno's Legacy (the onion)

What's your take on this?
Do you have a rape victim or bystander horror story?

Have you had to share meals with an abuser?

It's Not Really Rape If... Busting the Myths

Britney Spears via Wikimedia Commons
Is Britney a "slut"? Or a healthy young woman,
secure in her own sexuality?

Yep, this is a blog about OCPD and mental illness and setting boundaries, and this post is going to be about rape, which is also a boundary violation, in more ways than one.  So shut up, lay back and enjoy it, as they used to say.

One of the enduring myths about rape is that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”.  This myth is so pervasive and widespread that members of the Toronto Police, among others, have voiced it as "truth," because they believe it is the truth.

The facts?  Do rape victims provoke the attack by wearing "provocative clothing" or otherwise "asking for it"?

• Wanting attention, even wanting consensual sex, is not the same thing as wanting to be forced, coerced, or drugged into unconsenting sex.  As Caitlyn commented on the original article that stirred up the SlutWalks movement (more on that later) "Blaming the woman for wanting to look attractive is like blaming a store owner for having such nice and expensive things in his store, after the store is subject to an armed robbery.  Clearly the owner should cover up and hide all the nice things so no one wants to steal them."
• A Federal Commission on Crime of Violence Study found that only 4.4% of all reported rapes involved provocative behavior on the part of the victim, and most of this consisted of nothing more than dressing or walking in a way that is socially defined as attractive.  In murder cases 22% involved provocative behavior (as simple as a glance.)
• Assault victims range in age from days old to those in their nineties.  (I never thought of Onesies or flannel nighties as "slutty," did you?)
• Women who live in countries with conservative dress, or who wear it in Western countries, such as Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Mennonite, LDS - also experience rape.
• Women, children and men who have limited mental capacity are often sexually assaulted.
• Women in the US Armed Forces are more likely to be assaulted by a fellow soldier than killed in combat.  Men in the US Armed Forces are also experiencing sexual assault in record numbers by "straight" soldiers, often by a group of them.  Both male and female assault victims are typically young, low-ranking and vulnerable.  The dynamics are similar to prison rape.  It's all about exerting Power Over another human being.
• Most convicted rapists do not remember what their victims were wearing.

There are a lot of people who pay lip service to "Rape is not about sex, rape is about violence," but they don't truly believe it.  Deep down, they believe the myth that men rape because they are desperate for sex, their wives are frigid or they can't get a girlfriend. 

Men rape because they want power and control over someone weaker than themselves. They use their penis as a weapon to control and humiliate their victim. They rape because their own lives are inadequate and unfulfilled. They do not rape for sexual satisfaction. Most rapists do not enjoy the sex, they say things like "I didn't enjoy the sex, just the fear in her eyes."  Rapists often don't ejaculate.

Rapists also may have problems achieving or maintaining an erection.  Many assaults are committed with foreign objects forced into a man or woman's body.

Many women and men in Canada and the United States are getting fed up with victim-blaming, along with the myths and misconceptions that still - still! linger about rape and sexual assault.  Therefore, groups around Canada and the US are holding SlutWalks to help educate the public about the sad realities of what rape is, and what it isn't. 

Being assaulted isn’t about what you wear; it’s not even about sex; but using a pejorative term to rationalize inexcusable behaviour creates an environment in which it’s okay to blame the victim. 

Historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly negative connotation. Aimed at those who are sexually promiscuous, be it for work or pleasure, it has primarily been women who have suffered under the burden of this label. And whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “Slut” is being re-appropriated.

We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result. Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or work. No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault.

<snip> We are asking you to join us for SlutWalk, to make a unified statement about sexual assault and victims’ rights and to demand respect for all. Whether a fellow slut or simply an ally, you don’t have to wear your sexual proclivities on your sleeve, we just ask that you come. Any gender-identification, any age. Singles, couples, parents, sisters, brothers, children, friends. Come walk or roll or strut or holler or stomp with us. This has become a global movement, with Satellites happening all over the world. See if there’s one in your city.

I'm joining SlutWallks LA on June 4.  There will be some fabulous guest speakers and wonderful volunteers, including co-organizer Hugo Schwyzer of the Good Men Project, who wrote a wonderful editorial on Why Men Should Join SlutWalk, including some very poignant hopes and wishes for his own daughter.

Why does it matter if many men and women believe things about sexual assault which are simply not true?

From WSCAP:

Rape myths are not just a set of harmless beliefs. Rape and rape myths are destructive forces. They do not fall on deaf ears, nor are they said in a vacuum. Although some people may think they are just “saying words” or holding on to innocuous beliefs, rape myths have profound impacts. They hurt. They hurt individuals, they hurt survivors, they hurt families and they hurt communities. They encourage silence, shame and pain. They shift blame away from the perpetrator, and, ultimately, keep us believing that sexual violence is natural and normal. And, most assuredly, perpetrators count on us believing them in order to continue perpetrating sexual violence.

People who believe rape myths sit on juries.  They serve on police forces, the D.A.'s offices, become judges.  They write our laws.  They make it possible for a culture of victim-blaming - and raping - to continue.

Rape myths lead to otherwise intelligent men like Ben Stein reasoning that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was unlikely to be a rapist because he could not think of any economists who had been convicted of violent sex crimes.  Unfortunately for BS (hey, those are his initials, blame his mama,) The Daily Show has a research team.  They shortly proved that, by the same line of "reasoning," that economists are actually "the rape-iest profession going."

Myth: Rapists are 7 feet tall, and covered with rank hair.  (Or, perhaps not that exactly, but obviously creepy and menacing, like Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear.) 
Rapists look just like anybody else.  They are often married or have a steady girlfriend, even those who assault other men.  They come from all walks of life, all economic levels, all races, and all ages.


Myth: Rapes are spur of the moment. 
Actually, 90% of group rapes and 60% of single assailant rapes are planned.

Myth: If s/he doesn't say no, that means yes. 
Not in the case of minors, people with limited or diminished mental capacity, people who have been drugged or have given alcohol to the point of unconsciousness, or who are otherwise not able to give their consent.  Know what means yes?  Yes means yes.

Myth: It's not really rape, if you've had sex together before. 
Yes, it is. Even if this person is your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend.  No means no.

Myth: If they enjoy other sex acts with you, even though they've always said they don't want to participate in anal sex, it's okay to insert a penis or other object into their anus when they're deeply asleep.  
No, that's still rape.  And an excuse of "Gee, I missed, I didn't realize I was in the wrong place" is especially lame if you are a prominent gynecologist.

Myth: women don't need abortion coverage for rape, because they should always be prepared.  Like keeping a spare tire in the trunk. 
However you feel about abortion rights, that has to go down as one of the most brain-dead things anyone has ever said.

What other myths have you heard about rape?  

It's not really rape if...