Children Without Voices

Chapter 1

2011-08-08T02:54:00.000-07:00

Why is childhood so important? Many will say just let it go, don't go back! I really didn't think there was a need to. While many may not think the lives of five children that lived many years ago is so important. Why write a story that psychologist and psychiatrist believed was made up, who would believe it? Why write about it in the first place? I thought the best thing was the old adage" let sleeping dogs lie." But here is why it is so important when you are a child, those early years lay the foundation to who you are as an adult. It doesn't mean that it rules your life, but truthfully when you need to turn to something you have what you have been given in the tool chest of survival.

It would seem that this is not a story of secrets,for as many people who deny that children could have lived through such a life, it was well documented. Why didn't the community help? Where was the extended family? There are pages upon pages documented. The police had been summoned to our home more often than not. I hated the sounds of the sirens and the craziness that was called childhood. How far back does the mind drift. Articles in the newspaper documented many of the stories. Upon my fathers death, the articles surfaced and the story goes on. So it is not some big secret, the newspaper people were aware, the radio people were aware, the police were called in so many times surely they knew children lived there. What was it written off as ? attempted suicide, assault, domestic abuse, mental health. I am not sure what outsiders saw when looking in. It was that we didn't have the usual signs of child abuse. We were educated, dressed clean, the house was scrubbed. Yet other people knew school teachers knew, school psychologist knew. One even reached out to help the youngest sister, but golly gee they needed the signature of the abusers to give a child help. Now that makes little sense, you ask approval to help a child who is not flourishing in a abusive home.

Why do children protect their abuser? One is they are taught well to hide the truth. But this wasn't the case most of the truth was documented in the media. On the other hand " silence is golden" and fear strikes a dagger that pierces the heart and soul. The best way to end up beaten and bruised was to speak about it.

I could only go back as far as the years I was placed here on earth, so I turned to my eldest sister to fill in some of the early years. She had extraordinary responsibilities placed on her. She filled the position of cook and mom , big sister. There is a strange connection because though we all lived it, we didn't speak about it even among ourselves. What was there to say? We all saw, experienced and felt it. As children we escaped the best way we could by pretending that we came from a semi normal family.

I looked back at the houses we lived in and I couldn't get past the doors to the homes. Virgin way has now been replaced by a new highway and all I can really remember is the yard. It was fenced in and Morning Glories grew along the fence. It was here where things escalated, my father lost his job, the house was taken for back taxes and until all was said and done, we would have little food, no gas or electricity and everything we had would be left behind.

I was honestly to young to remember the first time my mother attempted suicide. I am not even sure it was the first time, it was the most memorable occasion as it did hit the nightly news and the papers. Life was spiraling quickly out of control My father refused to return to work as he said he couldn't deal with the embarrassment of his wife jumping off the 16 th street bridge. But did it ever occurr to him what his own children were going through at school. They had to face the name calling and the awful way children can be to one another. I think that is why Lex became the fighter. Little in stature, she threw a mean punch. She fought to protect any dignity as she protected us anyway she could. Her Childhood was being stripped from her, more so then the rest of us, as she was the oldest. Domestic and child abuse is unlike any other situation in that it is repeated so often that it becomes ingrained within, like a blue print to your soul. There wasn't a day that we didn't look into our mothers eyes to see what we were in for that day. I have lost track of how many times she attempted to murder my father. She shot at him, she stabbed in with a butcher knife in the back and again in the stomach, she went after him with a hatchet, she broke his head open with I am not sure with what. Fear it was our first platform in which to launch into life. Had she succeeded in killing him or herself, the story would have been over before it had a chance to start. But it wasn't over, it happened over and over again from childhood on. The more aggressive my mother was with my father the more aggressive he was with the children.

I can't remember inside the houses we lived. I don't know why. Even when I close my eyes I can only get as far as the doors. We were moving every year a new house. I can't see beyond the doors, can't see the walls or the rooms. It is as if I can't open the doors to the houses. Like I cut those years out of my memories. It was almost as if this was the norm and we learned how to survive each day. I am not sure the physical wounds are serious as the emotional wounds. Barriers and walls were being built, ones that would limit and control our destiny. Though my sister would tell the stories of theft for food, going hungry and sewing clothes out of rags. Those responsibilities did not fall on me. I think it is rather odd that we learn to balance both the insanity in which we lived with our need to fit into the real world. As I try to understand the position of each sibling, I find myself drifting back to my own view of this hell that had been built here on earth. I try desperately to remember what went on in those houses, but it is as if those ten years of my life had been cut from my memory. Everything that is that behind those doors. There are situations as a young person I do remember, but they all seem to occur in the streets or in the school, where we found our greatest escape. I was seven years old and I walked half way home from school with another classmate. She was always so nice and obviously smart. She asked me one day, " why do you shake so bad? " I shrugged my shoulders, as I really didn't know why I shook so badly. Bad enough that it was drawn to the attention of my teachers. I do remember being sent to the principals office, it was a woman, older a little on the heavy side. She turned to the woman at the desk get her parents on the phone. We had no telephone and so she pinned a note to my dress. I remember the dress it was a cotton with a pattern of squares in colors of dark purple, gold and with a white peter pan collar. My shoes were always the same, black and white oxfords. I can remember details of what I had on that day and I can remember walking home , but I can't for the life of me see open the doors and see inside the house. I wanted to fill in the void, the missing parts of my life and to this day I cannot. It is almost as if my life began at ten years of age. Not be cause life was better at that point, maybe it was that I learned to live in the dysfunction or that it was the first time I was in a house for more than one year. I keep going over and over the places in my mind and I find it disturbing that all I can see existed how side of the houses where we lived. I can see the river, I spent allot of time down there. Playing outside, going to the park, school, church, I can remember everything to a point. It was always cold and I remember throwing the blanket over my head, listening to screaming and crying and the destruction. I don't see it but I can hear it. I am afraid to move and even more afraid to look. I think it is a frightening time, my brother is gone he joined the military and my older sisters ran away. It only leaves me and my baby sister. I sit here and as I type the words I literally try to open the doors with my mind. To enter a place where I have not been for ever fifty years. I felt I needed to do this as my life now parallels with the past. In order to understand where I am now, I must remember where I have been. My eldest sister said that I was magnificent at blocking out what was going on around me. Did I block it out or did I see and hear more than any child should? Lex tells her version of being so bruised that in the summer she had to wear heavy winter tights so that when she put on her blue gym suit no one would see the bruising. Lex being the oldest knows more about me than anyone . She said I was very sickly as a baby and that she was so afraid I was going to die. I had most childhood diseases, whooping cough, chicken pox and measles well before I was a year old. My father who was the disciplinarian as well as the caretaker was also the abuser. I think that sends mixed signals. The man who cares for you, feeds you is the same one who strikes fear. Lex said that father walked the floors all night with me, because I could not breathe nor stop from choking. She said he was sure I would die. How does one hurt the person or people they deem to love? I am confused by this. As I think back to as far as I can remember, I knew that it wasn't right. I think I learned to day dream early in life, it was away of escaping. You can go anywhere your mind will let you. With my eyes closed, I went to the birds and the flowers and the trees, that is where I was free from fear. There was nothing that could be found to hurt you there. nothing. I don't know who I am or why I am here. I do know that I love the sound of the train humming. I wish it could last forever, because the noise brings silence to the fighting, the breaking of glass and to the pain.

Lex is not here to care for me, she is not here to take me away. I am sent to live with my aunt. I don't know how long I am there. I remember that she had a nice bed, clean and pretty with big fluffy pillows. I know not to touch anything to look but not touch. This is a lonely time for me , my family is not around me, my baby sister is not here. I feel lost, empty and frightened in another way, not for my life. I feel like I will never see them again. I know it is winter close to the holiday, but I don't think there was a Santa Claus or a Christmas tree.

I feel agitated, why am I here and why do people now want to know about an abusive family? I believe I can't change the present until I accept the past. I thought to myself how can this make me stronger? What good can come from this. I want and don't to unlock the doors of the past, for they are walls of blood. I am troubled as the woman who I call mother, was and is capable of murder. I was reading the newspaper at an insane person who opened fire and killed innocent people, what makes her different. She destroyed so many lives and she refuses to take responsibility. She must know how she altered lives. I don't feel so forgiving, I know she was ill but I still cannot find total forgiveness. This was our destiny and she rerouted the path in which we traveled. She lined it with fear and I have learned fear so very well. I want to love her and I hate her. In church we are taught to forgive but I am afraid forgiveness will take down the shield and reveal the vulnerability and she will take advantage of that.

I choose Love

2011-02-05T09:24:00.001-08:00

I don't know which is worse the silence or the

evil that is spewed from his mouth.
~

I understand the imprisonment that is chain free.

I am aware that one evil seed can grow and spawn itself upon the world.

There are only two choices, you either chose to live in love or with hate. I don't believe you can have it both ways.

The Silent Treatment

2011-01-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

I thought there wasn't any other form of abuse left to experience. I had been physically abused, verbally abused and sexually abused. But there was another form of abuse that I did not realize I was having inflicted upon me. It has been six weeks and I have been in the mist of the silent treatment. If I try to speak he close his eyes or rolls them in his head so only the whites show.He refused to speak to me as though I don't exist. The holidays were much the same he spoke to everyone but me. I didn't know what was happening, I tried to have a discussion to more of the same. I was making myself sick because I was caught up in the unknown, would he hurt me again, himself. I hate guns is it better he doesn't talk to me than pull a gun on me. So many questions and I did not have the answers. I don't sleep so well and I didn't know what to do. I searched the silent treatment online omg it is another form of abuse, it is another way for him to have control. I was shocked and relieved, that what I was feeling and experiencing was real.

I am experiencing all kinds of emotions both physical and emotional. I want to at this moment throw up as I thought I have come so far there can't be anything else he can do to me. My symptoms are real, what I am experiencing is real. I am being punished because I stepped outside of isolation and spoke to someone. He accused me of doing things sexual and otherwise. I was desperate for contact with another human being. I didn't realize the full extent of this abuse, until believe it or not I opened a face book account and realized that 35 years ago when he came into my life he made everyone exit. I have spent my life without a friend and without family.
I thought to myself ok this is real how do I handle it?

Unitelligble Mayhem

2010-11-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

The misunderstood infliction of one soul upon another.

The Poster Child for Abuse

2010-11-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

I really didn't know where to start with this post. Each dysfunctional family has a blue print unique to that individual situation. There are still many similarities between the various abusive families, sometimes the connection is drug abuse, alcohol abuse, financial situations, illness and health issues and can also be ignorance, lack of education and others times its simply being caught up in the cycle of abuse. There is no trauma to the heart, soul and mind that is less or worse than another. To the children involved each is very, very serious. A slap across the face, a beating till a child can't walk, sexual abuse, verbal, fear, hatred are all ugliness in the weak threads of life.

Many of us don't look like the average poster child for abuse. But that does not make the crime against humanity any less painful. Even when we don't realize it, we are in a cycle which will provide the next generation of child abuse. Can we stop it? Will we stop it? Some will and some won't. I believe with all my heart that children are born pure. I had at one time believed that a child who grows up to an evil adult was born of a bad seed. But the more stories I hear of child abuse, I find that they each lack various ingredients necessary for a stable and healthy atmosphere. How do we give love, peace, respect, to children who have never experienced those various emotions. To a child who has been stripped of their individuality and ingrained with fear from early on in life.

Fear is what and abusive child is taught early on. It can make a child hide within them self, become hateful, angry, lonely and lost. I think in this era we are blessed with technology which allows us to educate, understand and share in our own personal stories. The more we open up and the more we talk about it, the more we reveal what power the abuser has on a child way after they have grown up.

I wish there were easy answers and I could save the world and all the children in it. A child is born to be loved and with love I believe we can change the outcome if only one child at a time. The poster child for abuse is not one but many, of every color, ethnicity, income brackets and place in the world. There are the children that are obvious who live on the streets who have no restrictions placed upon them and they are easier to recognize.There are many more who don't fit the look of the obvious poster child and yet the cries are just as loud and their pain and their needs. I am not sure why such ugliness exist in the world, but it does. I cry for the many children who will never get a chance to break the cycle of abuse and for my sister who's smile was removed way to soon from this world. The only way we will ever slow down the cycle of abuse is to intervene earlier in the lives of children and parents alike. Yes there are classes now for young parents and youth groups and yet this is still not enough to stop the violence. What will it take? We have enough money and resources on this earth that no one should starve, go without shoes, or lack quality education. Each child that is born gives us an opportunity to make the world better. Guidance and education are part of the intervention process. They say that people get what they earn and that the wealthiest people at the top of the chain deserve what they have and that the share no responsibility to those who they feel are leeches on society. I am talking in dreams of a Utopia , it all seems so easy, just replace hate and greed with love. Just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love.just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love. Just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love.just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love. Just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love.just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love. Just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love.just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love. Just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love.just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love. Just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love.just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love, just replace hate and greed with love,just replace hate and greed with love.

I was hoping if I said it enough times I could make it a reality... but unfortunately hate and greed exist and will prevail as it prevents us from curing the world of the viscous seeds of abuse.

May you be blessed with the holiday spirit everyday of the year

2010-11-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

I think of each day as a holiday, a celebration of life. I always keep a turkey in the freezer for when my own children come home so that we will be able to enjoy each others company and celebrate and eat. When you are sharing a moment or a day with friends and family it is a true thanksgiving despite the holiday calendar.

I have not always made the right decisions when it came to my own intermediate family. I tried so hard not to pass on my own childhood dysfunction. I guess you would say that I struggle with the past even to this day. Not necessarily with the stories or the facts of the individual violent episodes branded to my soul but with my ability to deal with, understand and in someways know what is right and wrong.

As an adult I made every attempt to hide the negativity and to treat each situation differently as not to repeat the errors of my parents ways. Yet in some bizarre way I found myself in a situation that was eerily familiar. How I react and I struggled to surface above it was much different than my mother and yet it was as if we dealt with the same situations in our unique way.

I do believe when you have a supportive cast you are much more able to comprehend and rise above circumstances, such as financial, control, heartache loneliness as well illness, accidents and yes dysfunction. I find that like many I nearly drowned in the pressure and stress that became an everyday occurrence. I feel that it is important to be taught survival skills and I find it ironic that what is normal behavior to some is not to others. I have at many times waited till I couldn't take anymore to stand up for myself, like a rat backed into a corner fights back.

I think we shouldn't take children for granted. I spent a lifetime trying to hide abuse from my own children. Did I think because they didn't see the actual physical hit, twisting of arms, control and verbal abuse that they didn't know it was happening? What did they see, hear or understand? I know that I am not the same person I was earlier on in my marriage. I have learned that it takes a combination of factors to create the victim and perpetrator scenario. I do to this day battle both spiritually and physically to be stronger, smarter and more capable of preventing a negative situation from reoccurring.

Sometimes I find that I am so afraid of standing still that I may fall back into old habits and learned behavior of the norm for a dysfunctional family. I indulge in work so that I don't become weak and comfortable. Maybe it is the dreams that we are taught early on for a world that doesn't exist. In a dialogue with a friend of the family he said " I am not a stranger to tragedy" None of us are we all will at sometime meet face to face with death, sickness, finances and our own personal struggles. We are of course all human and will bare the trials of our human weakness. What separates us is the knowledge and our own survival skills as well as our own abilities to prevent stress and anxiety from taking hold and leading us down the wrong path.

As many of you prepare to celebrate the holidays be reminded of those who are alone, lost and struggling to find their survival suitcase. Sometimes it is a smile, a wave hello or goodbye, little things can become major things in the life of a person who is lost spiritually.

Suicides are typically up during the holidays. Many times it is because we see it as a big family get together. Many have no families, some are estranged and others have not realized that gifts and over indulgence in food does not make a holiday. Laughter, happiness, sharing and bonding creates memories that will carry a person through life.

Happy Thanksgiving! Share a kind word, a smile, a hug...

The Adult Child

2010-10-20T23:47:00.001-07:00

I was watching a movie of a true story about a woman who was on death row. Throughout the story they tried to convince not only the jury but the viewer that it was because of the womans childhood or lack of upbringing that made her a candidate for murder. I can't remember exactly when I had a conscious understanding of right and wrong but I knew from very early on what didn't feel right or seem right. In many instances we do have roll models that reflect right and wrong. We look to adults in youth groups, neighbors, relatives and yes even other children and their families, etc. Even before we are introduced to the world beyond our own we have an internal understanding of what is expected or what is society's normal. I tried to think about my emotions and my thoughts in what I believed was a world of turmoil.

I can remember being ten years old very clearly. There was a merge of personality still part child and another part of me entering the world of adults. I always thought that any stability that I had came at this particular time but I also had a deep and profound understanding of the dysfunction in which we as children were raised. I thought it was pretty amazing how much you know and understand as a child without even discussing it with anyone. Repeatedly watching attempted murder is like watching a murder being carried out over and over again. The irony was that it was like the Bill Murray movie " Ground Hog Day" it was the same violent and disruptive life style over and over again. I don't believe we became numb to the violence but on the contrary we learned to recognize the signs and expect the worst. My mother was an obvious key, as it was her actions that prepped us both early in the morning and through out the day. I can remember laying across the bed and thinking about all the negativity with in my own life. I don't really recall wondering what my brother and sister thought, in many ways we each were looking for our own out. I believe early on that it was about own survival. The 60's came with their own set of problems, it was a time of rebellion and change in society's structure, especially closer to the 70's. People were talking more and less was being hidden in the closet. Because we really knew it wasn't right, it forced each of us to leave home at an early age, to find an escape. My brother was the eldest he joined the military, my eldest sister fought and earned her right at 16 in the courts when she won her right with minor emancipation. The third born was pregnant as a teen and ended up marrying the baby's father and of course dying way before her time. I went to live with my brother after his release from the military and my youngest sister left in her teens on a road of most would expect from a troubled teen. Choices we were at the age where we could decide to get away and we did. But no matter where we run the memories come with us. Almost all of my life I had this internal drive to run, run as far and as fast I could,but no matter where I went I had to deal with all that happen. I couldn't run fast enough nor far enough and I couldn't hide. The beginning of writing was the first step in standing up and accepting the past as a chapter that happened. Turning the pages and looking ahead to the future without the need to run was not easy but necessary. I understood at this time the importance of facing our ghost and acknowledging that in many ways our tools to achieve were limited to what we were taught as a child. Do I believe my parents loved me, strangely enough I do believe my father did, I thought my mother regretted having children. She always said she didn't want girls and she had four of them. She hated domestics cooking, baking and I can guess really what I learned about all the necessary skills of homemaking came from my eldest sister Lex. I can't ever remember her lovingly combing my hair an when I try to think of the time that was positive with mother in those early years I find it almost impossible. Except for one day when I was really small and I had to have an operation on my feet, I remember crying as they took me from her, " I want my mommie, I want my mommie" In most situations that is what a child wants is to be loved and I guess that is why even though it's wrong we love our abuser. Love is a need no different than food and water and a essential part of our internal human being. Whether our love comes from a dysfunctional parent or an abusive spouse, we seek and need to be loved. I am not sure why that is so, doesn't seem to happen to everyone that way, but as much as I love my parents, I hate them for what they did to five innocent children. I am not proud of that anger that has remained inside of me for so many years and letting it go is in itself therapeutic. I spent the better part of my life trying to understand why my parents were like this and the obvious always surfaces, they were two people who were never meant to come together and have five children. The love between them was weak and they didn't have what it takes to rise above the negative chapters of life. I shall not carry their guilt and yet when push comes to shove I have done all I can to continue to walk without ruffling feathers. Why? Because I am so aware of what people are capable of and I have learned that fear is the ultimate motivator in a dysfunctional family. Once that trigger of fear is pulled the gears are in motion and a life is altered.

Happiness

2010-10-15T06:55:00.000-07:00

I pretty much digested the past and though I recognize that there is a part of me who stood witness to the crime of abuse. The merging of the present and the past allows me personally to move forward. I believe that denial and secrets just place added grief on a person, as if we are to continue to carry on the ills and guilt of domestic abuse. There are many who surface above and yes are survivors and that is truly a positive direction. How, when, where and why, it seems to all be part of our intended journey. Don't get me wrong I don't think we were necessarily intended to experience such negativity, but I do believe because of our human weakness and strengths we were able to experience and gather knowledge maybe in hopes that we will someday rid our world of such violence.

I rarely go back for one major reason we can't change the past and also if I dwell a little to long I get nightmares. You need to know when to step back and when to step ahead. All we can really be sure of is in what direction we will lead our life for the future, what do we pack in the suitcase to take along with us. With the passing of my father and my mother up in age, I feel as if a chapter has come to an end. So many tears have fallen those which are behind eyes and no one can see. I think at times we are taught to search for a fairytale ending and that in itself sets a person up for a fall.

I have been thinking about my future and what I want from it. That is always difficult because we have a variety of expectations for ourself and for our children. There is a gray area where the decisions we make today will lead us down the path of tomorrow. I can' honestly say there are days I rather just roll over and pull that blanket over my head and not get out of bed and other days where the bigger picture is just that much more clearer. Of course I want what everyone wants to be happy. Happiness is a form of contentment and that contentment has nothing to do with possession. Being in the arms of someone who loves you so is happiness, with that kind of happiness you can surface above anything and everything. What makes you happy?

There is Hope

2010-09-28T10:03:00.000-07:00

I spoke with a friend today and though many times I think enough has been said, I am encouraged to write, educate and document moments of my own life. My dear friend said "give other people hope." I thought about that where I have been , where I am now and where I am going and what it took me to rise above it. It is true that writing in itself is therapy. In documenting my life I have been able to surface above it the negative. I am not sure where to start, so I will start from the beginning of my young adulthood.

Family life was extremely dysfunctional. I worked from an early age and attending school left really no time for socializing with people my own age. When I met the man who would become my husband, I look back and I don't really know what I thought. Life seem to be a day for a day with many struggles. Dysfunctional a family we were still taught morals, so there were many red flags, control being one of them, aggression, possessiveness and poor decision making skills. These are a few red flags that you recognize in a person but don't in your teenage years know what they mean. It was simple things at first, closing off contact with other people, not letting me have time with girlfriends, threatening my employer, staying at my place of work all day. At first I like many young women confused some of these signs with wow, he really likes me. Sometimes and I believe this to be true, dysfunction needs two pieces of a puzzle in interlock. You can't be an abuser, unless the other partner allows themselves to be abused. So I realized not only with my own daughter but with other young women that it was so important for them to understand the red flags of dating. What is socially a part of the norm and not is important for us to recognize and to get away before one becomes a part of the sickness. There were other issues that were never really acknowledged, how one treats you, compassion, respect and the importance of not giving in or up ones own personality.

Somethings were a minor adjustment, not seeing eye to eye, morale and religious convictions and our choices and responses to life. Of course you love a person or you wouldn't commit to trying to make a marriage. If a person and I mean any person, friend, lover or partner of any kind, belittles,downs your look, clothing, body, personality than one must take a serious look at whom they choose to surround them self with. At no time should one feel less than, hurt, Verbal abuse is real and it doesn't just hurt but it sets in motion the key of dysfunction insecurity. Once insecurity is unlocked abuse is set in full function.

Most things appeared minor some of it I just brushed aside. Flaws in ones character and the unrealistic set of goals where neither see eye to eye are all something to take note of. But I think it did start with sex, men will say " women use sex to control a man" and a woman says" that "man uses force in sex to exert his position as ruler" In reality aggression really has no place in a loving relationship. There is definitely a good and bad feeling that can be had. It is seems like the steps that chip away at a persons being are started even before they realize it. Sex between two people should be a loving experience and yet there are so many crazy things people do that just don't feel right.

I chalked a lot of the red signs up to being " old school" But as I am learning it is not about old school, or even the victims insecurities abuse is about the abusers insecurities. It is amazing how many have problems where alcohol and drugs have no part in.

If sweet talk doesn't work use fear. The abuser has many tools in which he uses to control his partner. They are extremely confusing because sometimes they are camouflaged as being a sweet action when in reality they are placing guilt. Many people have heard it, Look what I do for you, I am so sorry, it will never happen again, but I love you, I didn't mean it to happen.

Neglect, many people don't think of neglect as being abused. Oh but it so high on the abusive list. We as humans have many needs to be met, some of them are interaction, growth, education, community, this is where isolation comes in. These are all very, very minor and some may thing abuse is not yet prevalent. But as they say the wheel is being set in motion and period of outburst are part of the abuse pattern.

Easier at times to recognize the good in a relationship than to dwell on bad. If you have a good re pore and you have trust, respect, compassion and love, with no gaps in between than you will have avoided the foundation that is set for abuse.

I found that abuse is also a pattern. That there are steps to it. I have heard referred to as the honeymoon stage. It is where they are on good behavior and everything seems positive, promises of change. But that gives way to episodes that are unforgivable. One person doesn't need to be beat black and blue to be abused. Pulling hair, kicking pushing,bending arms behind their back, belittling are all unexceptionable behaviors. Some situations escalate and others seem to avoid the major explosions.

Breeding Fear it is amazing that a person doesn't need to be hit to create a situation which breeds fears. I can remember several situations, I try to forget them but some of the more difficult ones remain. I can see his face he is filled with hate and ugliness, I am not sure what is wrong, he has the gun in his hand, he is in the middle the yard and bullets are flying through the air, he is screaming, I am not sure about what,yelling for the neighbor to come out to kill him. Why is he doing this? I don't think to call the police oh it would be such an embarrassment, it would end up in the paper and everything. I need to calm him down, he is ranting, I am not sure about what, screaming about a car on the road cutting him off. None of it makes sense, I am afraid and not, I grew up in a dysfunctional home, I had myself convinced I could handle it. I talked him into putting the gun down after about twenty minutes of him screaming and shooting the gun off. My son running through the woods to get the dog that got loose, ducks the bullets flying past him. I don't think it was right to try to handle the situation, he had been on a verge of a break down many times and each time he reached for the gun to kill someone else or to kill himself. I was taught to be afraid of the system as much as I was afraid of the man who gave me more of a dysfunctional life. Here I am telling people to get help, but I didn't believe help was out there, part of me still doesn't that is the sad part, I don' t believe real help is out there. We are taught to fear the police, the courts and the system which threatens to disrupt an already disruptive life.

Fear from the abuser, fear of the system, fear of letting out those dirty little secrets.

Crazy is ..bringing children into a world and not loving them.

2010-09-23T20:33:00.001-07:00

Spoke with someone from when we were kids. It made me think about a time that I had pretty much digested. One of the questions was why? Why was my sister so abused and she was. My father called it discipline, but it was anything but. You don't beat children till they bleed, you don' t make them stand on rock salt bare foot in corners till they can no longer stand. Yet that is exactly what my father did. It was a rather strict life style you either followed the rules or you were punished sometimes it was, no let me rephrase that, it was always unnecessary punishments.
My sister was very attractive she had sunshine in her eyes and a warmth in her smile. Dating was forbidden, talking to boys were off limits. I can honestly say that I don't really know why he chose to punish so aggressively. Could have been laughter or smiling, or being children. Lights out, than lights better be out or he would come up those stairs swinging that belt. It is funny if I think about it I can actually here the shuffle of his footsteps. I didn't want to go back, " don't you dare move!" if you jumped or cried he would swing that much harder. I remember the later years easier, if my sister skirt was wrinkled it would be a reason to beat her, if she put make up on, if her hair wasn't fixed right, if she spoke to a boy, if she was late coming home from school, if the dishes were not clean enough, if the table wasn't set, if she smiled, if she laughed, if she cried.
Didn't want to go back...no I didn't, but here I am. I see the gravel, the empty lot over grown with weeds, the railroad tracks, the river. the greyness of it all. I am not sure why my parents are yelling, my elder sister always got yelled at. "Take your little sister to her room," almost as if mother was prepared for an argument with my father. Get the little ones out of here! breaking glass, screaming, all night long, I couldn't sleep unless the train was going by... I learned to love that hum. I was nine years old, this particular argument escalated. My mother grabbed a knife, my father tried to take it off her, she was stronger than you would think a woman could be. My father turned to go out the door. Not once, but twice she placed the knife in his back, he called out for my elder sister as he fell to the ground. My brother and sister tried to stop the bleeding, it seem like forever till the ambulance came to take him to the hospital. Like the many times before and after he refused to name my mother as the perpetrator. Can't sleep, can't cry, holds my dolly. Every thing will be okay, daddy will be alright. Mothers eyes red filled with tears and rage. Why was this happening, did she hate him so?
The next day was quiet, my older sister spent the day cleaning broken glass. I went outside to play ball, the other children were not allowed to talk to me. Stay away from her, her parents are crazy. "Your mom is crazy, your mom is crazy!"Some of the children whispered, others chanted. I can remember their names, one day they were friends playing and riding a bicycle the next they were told to stay away from me. Was I bad? Is this why my parents did that? I was afraid, I was alone. We never spoke of it, we never asked questions. It was the secret that everybody knew. It was a rather confusing time, two people who held each other, hated each other so much that they destroyed each others lives. I talked to my Dolly's allot, I escaped into a world of fantasy. Children can be mean, did they know we were hurting inside? did they know we were confused?
I spoke with my eldest sister recently, she said"momma should have died when she jumped from the bridge" She said it would have been over, instead it happened over and over again. The short years of childhood were filled with violence, suicide, ugliness, punishments verbal and physical. The knives are hidden everywhere, don't touch them momma will be mad. They are under the sofa, under the pillow, in my bed, under the cushion of the rocker.She said "If he comes back in this house I'm gonna kill him" I heard the polices sirens I ran to the window, momma yelled at me" she said "run, run to the window, look for your daddy!" Were they taking daddy are they taking him away again? I feel like I am in the room I can see her holding a hatchet she is really mad, she really is mad at him, she keeps repeating she is going to kill him. She yells really loud to my sister, "I told you to get these children out of here. " She grabs my hand and puts my coat on, we go to the park and my sister see's her friends, I play on the swings. I am alone, "don't play with her, her parents are crazy." I have been alone my whole life, keeping the secrets so well hidden, that I myself had forgotten them, or did I?

No Fairytale

2010-08-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

My mother was quintessential princess, who married a frog who stayed a frog. I think we go about life trying to change one another. In all reality it is impossible to change a person who doesn't seek to change.
I was thinking about Mother today. After my parents finally went their own ways. Mother succeeded in ways far beyond what people would have believed possible. She went back to college late in life earned a medical degree and worked at the hospital till her late 70's. My father on the other hand lived a miserable lonely existence.
One person can bring another person down to a level that doesn't mesh with society's standards. My father wanted to keep her isolated from the world,mother was a people person and she thrived on the interaction.
The years flow and though some of it is rather grainy. My sisters battle with the courts for minor emancipation and winning it in her teens, shed led on the possibilities if we believe. The part most overlooked is the network in which we are involved and how one decision affects everyone all those within the network. Sometimes this happens in a good way and not such a good way.
I was asked if my life parallels my mothers,there are similarities and not

Survival

2010-08-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we do what we have to, it's called survival. Life is a fine tuned network involving many people. How and why is as unique as there are individuals. There are sometimes common factors that put us on the same stage of life or down the path of experience. I had wished many times that I had the knowledge which I gained through maturity but all in all there had to be some underlying reasoning behind all of our experiences. My sister always said it is one day at a time, sometimes I think it is minute by minute. Get through each minute, dissect it apart hold to the positive and let go of the negative. That doesn't mean we forget but we don't allow it to control our lives. Life is so short and it is crucial that we understand our involvement in redirecting the journey in a positive manner.
Most is important is your safety both physically and mentally, there are no right and wrongs only what works best in a particular situation. Shame has no place in the book of survival, we are not responsible nor shall we take blame for those who refuse to seek help. In my experience, there is no easy way, or any one particular right way to deal with life. The best thing to do is keep lines of communication open and believe...

ugh

2010-06-19T08:29:00.001-07:00

Is is possible that a person can be to kind? Do we open our heart and reveal our vulnerabilities without even being aware? Is the web which is spun over many years capable of being removed? They are a few of the questions that I find many of us confront. It is not easy saying to know and sometimes it is our inability to see in advance that places us in a path of self destruction. I think we are capable of allowing ourselves to become victims. Being to optimistic without really taking in the reality places us on a roller coaster. Getting off the roller coaster taking some doing, that which leads us to the web. It is not always possible to remove all that we are spun into, but hopefully enough so that we can break through and breathe in new territory. Education is so important, knowing our position and what is available to us.
I am a bit sad today, borderline depressed.

Discipline or Abuse

2010-06-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

I again question if ever aggression should be applied to discipline? I find it troubling, whether domestic or world wide issues. Though it has been said history repeats itself, I was sure as a people of the human race that we would have advanced to be smarter. It seems obvious that there are a few building blocks which are instilled, greed,jealousy, hatred and ignorance.With these general negative components to the human mind, we continue to breed people who don't understand that the walk through salvation comes with acceptance and love. It is sad enough that we have errors in judgment with nature that we don't need to compound the problems.

There is one thing that I have lived by my whole life and that is treat others as I want to be treated, this in itself eliminates a lot of ugliness, to bad everyone doesn't apply this to their daily actions. The world would definitely be a better place.

Lost but not forgotten

2010-05-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Speaking with a woman in her seventies yesterday one of the first things she said was I have been married for 54 years. Before I had a chance to say congratulations she had already spit out how mean he was and the physical and verbal abuse she had endured through out her marriage. Her bond with her children, her decision to stay in a marriage with a violent alcoholic and her new independence since his death. One thing that took me by surprise was despite the visuals scars that could be seen on her body she shared a little information that since his death it has been a transition to sleep alone. As I listened my mind raced, Saint, Martyr or Victim? Five children, no drivers license, her parents gone at an early age, isolation, no siblings. Wow! I thought how badly the odds were stacked against her.
One of the other women who was working their today was quite opposite in her early 20's married and divorced the first year of her marriage. Independent, confident and appeared on track, though inside still suffering from the broken dreams of a future with whom she had believed to be her partner in love and life.
The two women dealt with life in the times that they lived through. One endured, one got out before children were introduced to a marriage. I thought there is a method to God's madness on the road we travel, but honestly the power and the answer lie with in us. Education being key, I knew more than ever that maybe it wasn't about how to get out that was so important but identifying the poison traits of dysfunction before you ever enter into a relationship. I compared the two stories one had a support, friends family and a network, the other was alone in the world, without friends, isolated and alone. I now realized the importance of the network and the new found ability to swallow and digest the signs of a victim. What were the common factors those who were seriously abused had a heart. It was almost as if the predator was hand picking their choice of victim for life. Those who they could string along with promises, only to over and over disappoint them with outburst and strikes against the soul.
As the conversation with both of these women continued my only response was to them, I don't know the answer or the why of it. I only know that we experience what we do for a reason. What have you learned what difference can you make in another persons life. As I was introduced to various members of the family of both women, the elderly woman who found strength in her children and the younger woman who had an extraordinary bond with her daughter, I shook my head to the evils of being human that had surfaced in both of these womens lives.
Some of us feel trapped and others strong enough to stand up for ourselves. One has to remember the fear and lack of fear in both of these situations. The younger woman feared staying a relationship, the other one feared for her life at the thought of getting out. As I hugged each woman felt their struggles on the journey, I also felt their courage to share, educate and allow me a glimpse of their trouble world.

2010-05-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

I attended a seminar and it was I wouldn't say irony but the similarity of stories amongst the women were frighteningly common. It wasn't like I was inquisitive it started rather unexpectedly.The woman in the hotel shop was talking about weight and I told her that walking and running was a good way to speed the metabolism, she went on to speak about the damage to her knees from her ex husband who repeatedly abused her. But the stores didn't stop with her, women who were high profile some how began sharing their stories with me. One of the women said you have a presence about you and I happy to have made your acquaintance. I thought what and why is that people felt they could easily open up and it occurred to me, as one woman said recently "you are so real. " Real? Does that mean they know I relate? That I am open? That I understand? What did real mean in this situation. After so many stories and the different ways people deal with situations it was more clear to me that fixing the woes of the world was more difficult than preventing them. Here is where my dreams begin as I saw prevention as a way of identifying the red flags before a person ends up in a relationship, with the stalker, abuser, insecure,dysfunctional, insanity, distrustful person.
Many of the women said the flags were clear but it took them years to understand them and many divorced and many did not. My mine a bit frazzled jumped to our youth, teaching people the importance of respect and trust should begin at home but if not than it is our place in society to give especially to our young women opportunities that will allow to avoid negative situations that would be harmful to them in the future.Rarely are the their not signs, some and many of them, had hard working partners, who didn't drink or do drugs and yet they were in violent situations. So many times it was asked if it is a learned behavior?
One woman she had a softness about her and a quality that was quaint it was hard for me to believe anyone could hard this mild mannered gem. She spoke of the stalker mentality, she said early on she thought that must mean he loves me. The choosing of clothing, the dressing up to attract other men, just to prove that you belong to them. We are possessions, we are not owned, we are not to be paraded. The lack of trust that a person does not even give space to an individual is not a sign of love, it is a weakness and a sickness that only gets worse at time goes on.
Imagine you are at a all woman's convention and a husband shows up he see's a man there, could be a speaker, waiter, musician. He gets unruly and he accuses his wife of lying and the threatens are verbally and he shouts I want to punch you in the face right now. You are a liar he yells, you said there would be no men. After the episode he says how much he loves you, than he is back to himself that you are embarrassed to be with him. No where in his scenario is there any signs of love.

Isolation is the tool of a controller.

Choosing your clothes and make up is not a compliment, as every woman is capable of choosing her own wardrobe.

Having women friends is not a crime and the mutual bonding is necessary for growth.

2010-04-20T08:36:00.001-07:00

I don't think God expected us to travel it alone and no matter how much strength you are provided, it is nice to have someone else walk along side you. I thought I could share that and that I could lean my head and not worry for once in my life. No judgement, fear, anguish, sorrow, sympathy or hatred, but never less a journey where I truly reach out and find that person reaching back. Weep not of yesterday for love will surely guide the way.

In the Eyes of the Devil

2010-04-19T04:07:00.000-07:00

Believe

I recognize the flame of hell and through his eyes they dwell,
with threats and anger to ensure that the pain is truly felt. Tiny
little pieces is what he said to me, I'll bury them so deep
that no one will ever see.

Barriers and blockades to hinder as we go with insecurities
abundant, but deep inside I know. Troubling the sickness
that seems to come and go, control, fear and anger from
his wicked spirit grow.

I climbed the nearest mountain and stood in disbelief,
that the world was surely waiting and the seeds of
love were flowing free. Following my foot steps to
the top of the ravine, I reached for a branch and
found him close to me.

You can keep the sim chip your threats a disease,
for there are no tears left to follow in the world
where fear no longer feeds. Wicked is the spirit,
sorrow the game, but I am free to travel and
there is no stopping me.

One last tear has fallen and I wipe it tenderly,
for the spell of love was broken when you
again threatened me. My journey is just
beginning and I know not where it leads,
but surely I can do it, I just need to believe.

I Got Flowers Today

2010-04-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

Got Flowers Today

I got flowers today.
It wasn't my birthday or any other special day.
We had our first argument last night
and he said a lot of cruel things that really hurt me.
I know he is sorry and didn't mean the things he said.
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today
It wasn't my anniversary or any other special day.
Last night, he threw me into a wall and started to choke me.
It seemed like a nightmare.
I couldn’t believe it was real.
I woke up this morning sore and bruised all over.
I know he must be sorry.
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today,
and it wasn't Mother’s Day or any other special day.
Last night, he beat me up again
and it was much worse than all the other times.
If I leave him, what will I do?
How will I take care of my kids?
What about money?
I’m afraid of him and scared to leave.
But I know he must be sorry.
Because he sent me flowers today.

I got flowers today.
Today was a very special day.
It was the day of my funeral.
Last night, he finally killed me.
He beat me to death.

If only I had gathered enough courage and strength to leave him,
I would not have gotten flowers today.

I wasn't going to post for awhile but I found this poem and it didn't leave my mind, actually its been going through my mind over and over, as I got flowers today. It is ironic all that we are to know, identify each issue, recognize the signs to avoid a violent episode at any cost, be the sole decision maker, psychologist,, analyst, etc. Living life trying to avoid pushing the wrong buttons, wondering what is going on in someone's head is not living. Not every situation is the same and as my sister said some people have it worse. I always hated that line, "someone else has it worse, how it touches each of us, what we get from it , the not so pleasant memories and also the mixed messages and the troubling lessons, they all become a part of who we are.

I again have to remember the people who I began writing for, it actually was a young a woman, a stranger her name was Jessie. I told Jessie nothing about myself, on the other hand Jessie told me an awful lot about her situation. Jessie made me promise I wouldn't forget her, I have since lost the piece of paper with her name on it, but the rose that she placed in my hand still burns a vision and her memory haunting.

Jessie has two children and she is in caught up in one of the most extreme abusive situations. Her husband is in jail and she fears his release. I don't know what people expect of me and how can I make a difference? I am not sure, the years have gone by and I have battled my own insecurity and stepped in unknown territory to prove my worth. The decision making is difficult and I wonder exactly what road lies ahead and in what direction shall we journey. When you live by love and faith is your guide, it is very difficult to understand those who strike out in anger and with hatred towards someone who they claim to love. That will always blow my mind. How many times must a person be threatened? Where in the equation is does abuse and hatred become equal to love? The hills high and the roads long and each step seems to go slowly, leading in the direction where the reality of the dysfunction and the awarness leads us to resolving the traits of weakness in the lives of those who exist in a dysfunctional world. I always hated that word dysfunction, as many people are functioning in really cruel situations.

At one point you understand your own backyard and than you see beyond it. Sadly enough this is not limited to a city, state country, as all over the world seeds of evil get their start behind the doors of fear.

He who initiates the fear has already lost in the game of life,

for love spans beyond the dysfunction to bring peace.

We are the moment

2010-04-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

I won't be posting for awhile, but you can feel free to read through past post. The weather is beautiful, it's the busy time of year and I like to take advantage of it while it is here.
I still believe people are very judgemental and that they might not be able to see the spirit through the stories. I hope that is not the case.
There are many reasons why people do what they do, why they make the decisions and why they endure all they do. Honesty, truth and faith are crucial to understanding the path we are placed on. I was reading a book years ago, it was generally about why every one's journey is different. Once long ago an acquaintance said" it is great to have emotions don't allow them to lead." I think that is difficult in my case, some refer to it as having a heart. Actually I hear that a good bit you have such the heart. This ability to see the plight of others, to feel the plights of others and to take into consideration all those who are entangled in the web. In the eyes of truth our experiences and decisions are factored in to what is best for everyone.
I speak with many women and I can see the similarities in the stories and in the experiences. The differences come about in how we deal with it. I want to shy away from the stereotypes and the judgement call of right and wrong. I'd like to say different. It is called character and it's being formed way before we even acknowledge it. The good and bad of it.
I was asked what am I doing to implement changes in my life?I have to say that I have my dreams, my wants and my desires and that I have placed them aside to walk a path of knowledge. The knowledge that is attained is as important as that which is given. I am receiving the power of life that this merge of spirits creates. My path is unique to me, I have learned to devour and digest and at that point let go of the past and walk into the light of the future. What does the future hold? I don't know, I know the gift is here, right now into the moment. I have met some extraordinary people online at work and in my everyday life. There is a sharing of the moment that is expressed through all that we do.
I am the moment! What I do to day will in no way alter the past, but it will lead me to tomorrow. Many people or I must say most people don't know my history and I am not sure of that is good or bad. I survived, I am a being of love, one of spirit, one of joy and I am being directed in away that will help others, that is the opportunities that have been granted to not only myself but al of us. I listen to people who have read the books, they think they have the answers, but the answers are in those who have experienced and understand the weak threads of humanity. Anyone who believes they have never been touched or entwined in these threads are kidding themselves. We are all here to experience and these experiences are different for each and everyone of us. Different stories, the say book, the book of emotion. What are the emotions? Happiness, sadness,pain or joy, excitement, anxiety, they all represent our inner dealings with life. It all might come for different reasons, sometimes we feel it with the passing on of a life, a failure in our personal life's, breaks up, struggles of many kind, work, lack of balance.
I call this time in life, my time, yes my time! Why it is so, in this time of opportunity by guiding myself down the right roads I am able to reach out and help others in turn, I believe I am helping myself. This is part of the plan to take the knowledge that I have attained and use it as a prevention tool, to improve or direct myself and others down a more peaceful and enlightenment filled process. Can I be everything to everyone? Big mistake even trying, in reality all we can be is all that we are and " to our own self be true" They are important words because we like to lie to ourselves. I would be kidding myself if I didn't look reality in the eye and admit that I have not yet reached my own goals on a personal note. Yes I want to wake up to those morning kisses, but also I know that I am not willing to sacrifice again who I really am. The person who is able to walk beside me, has to be willing to appreciate and respect all of me, where I have been, who I am and all that is ahead of me. I am not sure I am willing to be as trustful as I once was, I am a bit leery.
I gave a speech recently and after the clapping and hands waving, a woman stood up and said "but you are so darn happy!" Well, let me say this we do not have to give power to those who try to victimize, we are stronger, we are leaders in our community, friends and mothers and most important as I take this moment to speak for those who have fallen victim, we are women and children. It is true that we cannot alone change the world, I believe together we are an extraordinary group of people who not only can but are making a difference.
I need this time away on the blogging, but I ask you that you review your life and realize that there are options. It is not always so easy, but with faith and love I believe anything is possible. I myself have fallen into a trap believing that there is some fairytale ending in life. No fairytale but as we learn how to deal with stress and reach out to our friends we find that we can rise above. Sharing in our stories brings us a new opportunities and also teaches us there are many ways, not one but many ways to live a happy life.

I love all of you for your support and understanding and for the emails and the kindness that has been shared and a special thank you to Gail for our childhood bonding. Remember we are not defined by the paths in the journey but what we do with what has been attained on the path in the journey.

Trust

Faith

Respect

Peace

and

Harmony

are equal

to our

happiness!

The Child Who Would Become a Woman and the Woman who is still...

2010-03-30T03:33:00.000-07:00

I shared my "children's blog" with a friend, it's not often that you reveal the layers of your life from childhood to the present. I found it to be some what emotional allowing a person that close to you, inside of you, inside your heart and your mind. I read through some of the diary like post that I had written over the years and it all seem to begin and end with the insight of a ten year old. I am not sure why it was at ten that my memories are so clear. It was a new home, stability, hope and the first step into adulthood. The house bordered a wooded area and I remember that being a retreat through all four seasons. I guess I was a bit of a tomboy and climbing the wild cherry and apple trees and hauling them home for my mother to make pies. In some ways you hold to those good moments to get you through the not so. I don't think our life was in any sense normal and I laugh at the word and my request to the Lord for normal.
The image is clear, I can see my childhood bedroom as if I were sitting in the bedroom right at this moment and gazing out the window. Through the backyard you could see the school right across the street, I only attended that particular school for 6 months. Patriotism, I painted my room in fire engine red and white and blue against the clerk at the stores opposition to it. I remember him saying " no one will be able to paint over those dark bold colors." What was so important about this time period, this age of ten? Time before that is fuzzy and very unclear, almost like still pictures that have yet to be focused in on. I woke early this morning and it was as if I was in that bedroom,it was that clear and my thoughts at that time were as clear to me as my thoughts of today. There was never any doubt in my mind that I grew up in a family who suffered from mental health issues and also that there was is still a stigma attached to it. There are those who will say that those stigmas are no longer there, I beckon to disagree. I have always been a bit prone to want to see changes implemented, those which lean on the prevention side, rather than waiting till a person and a family suffers before stepping forward. I guess that is a bit difficult to recognize the signals and maybe not. There are triggers in life that signal a individuals need for help.
The ten year old part of me is very important because it was at this time I recognized and understood the plight of my parents. Also it was when I declared that I would personally bring an awareness or make a difference in the world. Some dream for a child? but I do believe as I did those many years ago that we can change the way people see and feel and react to stress in their lives.
The keyword that brought the visual back to me was the word "hope" When you are young and through out your young life you maintain that hope as you get older you realize it is not all as easy as that. I have always had this fear of leaning on another person, there is a comfort that comes with that, you would think that comfort is good! I never realized that I had placed a shield around myself, invisible maybe, but it allowed people only so close, before backing away. Do they see me? Do they understand? Afraid yes! Afraid to not be strong, will they or can they make me stronger, can I lean my head upon their shoulder and relax and let my guard down, remove the shield? So many questions that you ask yourself. It is important the friendships we create, the partnerships we form and the journey that awaits us. Crucial is the need to feel that kinship, the acceptance and the walk side by side. Where one cannot only receive the energy but return the love and become a unity which is strengthened, independtly and jointly. Respect and love for one another and a common goal to make the world a better place.
What lesson had growing up in such dysfunction teach? We all see it differently, it affects us all in various ways, for me it was DON'T BREAK THE EGGS! I went through most of life, not breaking the eggs, tippy toeing, analyzing, trying to be perfect in a not perfect world, until I felt that world crumble around me. Be Strong! You are the glue that holds it all together! Am I?

With these hands I form the clay,
and the visual is what will stay.
Hope and faith in a brand new
day and a friendship that grows
along the way.

I am not afraid to hold your hand,
kind and gentle a part of the plan.
The Lord had spoken his words are
true and he redirected the path to you.

Confident in life I stand and rest
assured of the days demands. The
quest through life is to reveal as
surely as to the soul it is to heal.

Control your destiny and free your soul

2010-03-13T13:55:00.000-08:00

I have taken the time to read a few of my readers blogs today and I read about those who have felt suffering at the hands or words of others. Big question they asked were they worthy of a better life? An unequivocal yes! We are responsible as we take control of our destiny. Sane or insane? as long as a person doesn't try to hurt themself or another person, it doesn't matter what people think, only what you think. It takes courage to think outside the box, to dare and make changes, to love one self enough that they begin to see the gifts within them.
If you feel uncomfortable about a situation follow your gut instinct. No one deserves to be abused, called names, hit, belittled, pulling hair, pushed, made to feel inferior, less than, etc. We are equal in the sense that we are all given a gift. Who chooses to use them and abuse them is to be seen. The importance is to focus on your internal being and finding that path which leads you down the journey of choice. I believe that people are reaching out for help and help never comes. What it is people need, I think self worth opens doorways leading a person down a path of distinction.
It is wonderful to hear compliments but the greatest compliment is one you can give yourself. Remember that you have taken the first step to seek change, to journey forward. We may never be able to right the wrongs,but we can learn from the mistakes of others to stop the cycle of abuse in our own relationships as well as others.
I look at my own family and I can tell you that each of them has related to a situation differently, doesn't make it right or wrong. All it means is that each of them see and feel differently about what has happen to them,each is stronger and weaker in different ways. Find the strength in your life, in your spirit and allow it to guide you down a new path. It is not right and never can we condone abuse, but we can have the last say. We can make a difference, bring to light the hurt, the scars and the confusion that is so placed upon us. Our journey lays the ground work for a new tomorrow. If one child is spared and one soul freed, it is all worth it.

Healing

2010-03-12T03:26:00.001-08:00

After I sat down and wrote to the blog, my sister called. We began to talk, she asked " what are you doing?" I told her I was writing on a blog. She said " what about?" Life! She is my eldest sister, there is a tight bond between her and I. She always seem to think she needed to shelter me from everything, from what goes on in life and even threw today. In her eyes no matter how I age, I am her little sister who needs protecting. I read a few of the pieces on the blog. I didn't feel good about it, she is always so strong and she just cried and cried and cried. She said" I didn't know you wrote about that, I didn't know". I told her it's of course my view, how the dysfunction affected me and how I find it to be my release, as if I am " blowing in the wind".

Healing, how we heal, how long it takes to heal, that all varies from individual to individual. How we view the terror in our minds, swallow and digest is also unique to each. Of course I have to remember that my eldest sister was my mother figure and for my sister who passed away the two of them were very close in age and had a completely different bond. For her the death still leaves a sour taste in her mouth, even after all these years. She blames herself for not reacting, fixing it, making it all better, putting a band aid on it all.

It all sheds light on the importance and the results that coming from being either the eldest, the middle child or the baby in a family. I never really gave it much thought but it all does make a difference in what you walk away with. Sis was always the one you leaned on, but she needs someone to lean on. I try to be that person for her, the little sister who has grown up.

I haven't cried in sometime, but the tears are not for me. I cry for Sis because she is in limbo. I sent her a package in the mail with some items that I feel might keep her busy and thus help her to heal.

This is the tricky part with life, the healing process. I had a friend, I guess you can call it a one sided friendship, I needed him and he ended up being a habitual liar. It took me sometime to get over that, but also it taught me how to stand and be accountable for my actions. I mention it only in the fact that it took me years to get over it. Listening, is quite a valuable quality to have, but many of us and I include myself in that fail to listen. Listen when others speak, listen to self,listen to heart and soul. The truth is always there, we just need to listen.

Healing, I don't know if we ever really heal. I know that over the years the blows are softened. It is not about forgetting because our experiences become a part of who we are. The healing process includes both the good and bad that we trail along on. There are a few things we can do to speed up the process, keeping our minds busy, helping those who have not found the courage to help them self and realizing that what happen, though as bad as it may seem is a part of life and the journey.

Why do bad things happen to good people? That is a very important question! I am not sure there is real good answer for that, wrong place, wrong time, there are many reasons we end up in our own little corner of our world. People like to point fingers, but I believe everyone is capable and more importantly able to find the healing process that will work for them. Have faith, think, react, seek, the goodness within your self. I believe everything and anything is possible, love is pure and un-adulterer and it is our first tool that we given which helps in the healing process.

Children are victims, they are the simplicity of life, they lean upon us for lessons of life, to learn, to speak, to find their place in the world. We can make a difference in the world if we look at this beautiful resource, our children. Stopping the cycle is not always easy, but it is possible. Give the children in your world a chance, give to your local boys clubs and children's clubs, volunteer with the children's organizations. Sometimes it's the only good memories some of these children will ever have.

Have Faith...

2010-03-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

It is not like I am afraid to give my name or that I am embarrassed or ashamed. The parts of my life include many other people and I didn't feel it was quite right to at this time bring to light all of my family, due to respect for them. I choose to write because at times I find it theraputic and also to let others know they are not alone. I have spoken locally and still speak when requested, but this forum was not meant to bring attention to me, but to educate and hopefully lead people to the professionals who can help.
It was odd my first instinct when asked what was my name, to hide and if small enought to fit under a big rock, I would have. If anyone is truly interested or would need further information or guidance, I will glady help them in finding or seeking the proper channels in which they can reach out. Anyone who wishes to email in private can email me at autumn_g2000@yahoo.com

Thanks to all who continue to stop by and find some merit in my writing.

When I was a very young child I believe that there couldn't possibly be a God or he would not have let bad things happen to good people. That is a pretty common thought and very shallow when it comes to faith. I do believe we journey for a reason and that the gift to communicate to others is a part of my journey. I do this on many levels, both in my local community and on a national level. There are those who like to keep their hands clean in helping people by raising funds for awareness and help and that is wonderful as well. But I truly believe that to reach people and to give people alternatives is as important as the shelters, the schools and the organizations that are out there. God is love and to see it any other way is the frightening reality of our world. If everyone dare to keep the faith and the love within them and allow that to guide them, we will see that the world morph into a better place.

It is not so important who I am nor is it as important who speaks for those who cannot. What is crucial is that people understand that their are options,that we are human and there is no one right way. As common as the experiences seem to be from one victim to another, each is still very unique to the heart and soul of each person. Please remember that education and experience is so important to bringing and end to the evils of abuse.

Unseen Pain

2009-11-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

The worst is not the lash out at the flesh,

but the strike against the spirit.

I realized there are many ways to die,

I have felt the death of my soul.

Our Prayers and Condolences

2009-11-06T13:42:00.001-08:00

It seems trivial to write about any ones own person war today, when all you have to do is listen to the news to hear the horror stories. There is two similarities in all of it we have a predator and a victim. People don't choose to become victims, it can simply be a of circumstances, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A warped sense of power is all it takes to destroy a life, how sad is that. For the victims and families of the Fort hood military base in Texas our prayers go out to those who have died and those who continue to struggle in the hospital. Young men and women just into adulthood, who signed on with the military to defend our country and yet it is those within who have taken them down.

The ugly truth of reality is that evil exist and thrives.

Caught in the web of dysfunction

2009-11-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

I have always been bothered by those who place judgement on a victim who has endured long term abuse. The circumstances around each situation is unique to those who find them self in this predicament. One comment recently that still leaves sour a taste is that" the victim must thrive or love the drama. " This statement alone speaks of ignorance and how little those who have not experienced any form of an abuse understand.

Imagine for one moment you are the fly in the web, the hard you try to pull away the tighter the silk becomes until you can almost not breathe. What is silk web made of ? It is filled with an abundance of circumstances, fear, insecurity and a list of weaknesses that are yet to be revealed in each individual case. One of the main concerns I have is the erosion of confidence as well the lack of independence. The vulnerability which enables a person to be caught in the web may be triggered by ones empathy, forgiveness and in truth heart. Sometimes it as simple as our Christian upbring which teaches us to forgive. This in itself allows for repetition.

Is there away out? There is always away out. Sometimes we have to stop struggling, calm down and think our way out. The A plan reveals and alternate path, friends and family who are willing to help,other times it is not that easy, because we have to first work on our own insecurities and find the confidence to stand on our two feet. It is not always as easy as it sounds. The web is a tricky trap, because it is being spun way before you know your even trapped. This is the first step which I call circumstance it leads you in the direction of the web.

I myself have battled the web of dysfunction. Because there is no one way or right way to find that freedom, the road can be treacherous and long. There are many factors that come into play and each must be weighed out. What is right for the individual and the others involved in an extensive part of the release, timing, education, knowledge, confidence and alternatives. Just a few the factors that must be in place as we prepare to make a turn in the journey.

There are for sure very violent cases and these to must be thought out. Having a birth certificate ssn for yourself and your children are the first steps in breaking away. I was surprised for many this was a difficult endeavor as many are stripped of the initial paperwork. Which now days you can apply online. With that in mind there are organizations that are willing to help in bringing back to your life a sense of independence. The many women I have met fall into all age groups. Out here where I live the first thread of the web consist of isolation. Many have no access, to friends, family, transportation or the technology of phone. Hard to believe in this day age that so many are so controlled. There are many women who have accepted the path of a control freak, this to is a form of survival and sometimes the only life a person will ever know.

Rule number one there is no right or wrong, no judgement placed on a victim. How and when they reach for help is as important as the fact they did. Education is golden and to remove the threat of the web, we must first remove each thread of dysfunction one piece at a time.

Thanks Gail. mental health

2009-10-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

Gail recommended this website and after reading a good bit of it, I think it is one worth recommending. Though much of it is about helping directly those who are mentally ill. I did find that they offer information for those who deal with mental issues, of either parents or siblings.

It is not about comparing apples to oranges, though of course their are different degrees of mental health. Dad had his mental disability diagnosed from the Veterans and though he did get treatment, his mental health issues became my mothers and became ours. Sadly enough, a whole family is affected by the actions of one.

My sister doesn't have computer access and though I myself have worked through much of the issues that we lived with and have found and outreach she has not. Unfortunately she is reliving it through tapes and newspaper clippings and so for her the information you provided will help her in many ways. That she is not alone and she can surface above the hauntings of the past.

http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Helpline1&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=70800

Mental Health and Abuse

2009-10-28T12:30:00.001-07:00

Living with mentally ill parents. Mental health issues are unlike any other illness. Unlike a physical illness you can't see it and unlike drugs and alcohol, you have no crutch in which to place blame. To the outside world many mental health issues go unknown. For the children of the mentally ill, It has best been described as a war zone with no obvious sides. Since schizophrenia seems to involve multiple genes, it's certainly possible to inherit only some of them and be affected in a different way. Other conditions such as depression, panic disorder, Asperger's or Autism, or even extraordinarily low self esteem seem to be common among children of parents with schizophrenia. This could be related to genetic inheritance, the general stress of being a primary caregiver to a mentally ill parent, or a combination of factors.

Some children also exhibit symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the result of, as one child who grew up with schizophrenic parents, "growing up in a war zone with no training, no army behind us, [and] no rules."

It's very important for children of mentally ill parents, whether they are formally diagnosed with a disorder or not, to get support for their own difficult situations.

There is also a fear that the apple don't fall far from the tree and that mental illness is contagious or our genetic might predispose us to this mental health weakness.

Whether we are entering a relationship or we are an individual caught up in mental issues, some tabu's need to be removed.
1. Mental health many times has no warning signs and than
again smart people have mental heath issues. .
2. Loyalty to family is not a form of condoning, sometimes
it is guilt, fear and love for family.
3. Social skills, Being shut off from so called normal people produces both physically and psychologically issues,what is normal?
4. Life skills, are sometimes as simple as how do we respond to
negative situations or simple everyday ones.
5 Mental health issues are not contagious but can predispose us to extreme situations of anger, depression and stress.
6. . Fear: Fear of becoming like the ill parent, or fear of becoming ill themselves this may alter their own lives.
7. Love or to not love a parent, to forgive or to not forgive.
Children of mentally abused parents carry an extreme burden that few would undestand unless they themselves grew up in a mental ill family. Secrets that stay hidden in the closet and others that are never so easily hidden all play a nasty game on children.
Who is the enemy? who are we at battle with? who do we love?
what is normal? Can we forgive? how do we remove the stigma
of mental health? Is there a cure? Why me? Can it happen to you?
Sometimes we are predisposed genetically, other times it's social factors as well as circumstances and others factors as time and place.
My mother chose to take her life, she had 4 children and she didn't know where to turn for help. She jumped form the 16th street bridge , the children live her sin.

Giving Advice.

2009-10-17T04:09:00.001-07:00

There is a horrible similarity in many of these stories below they were all trying to divorce, get away or somehow break the cycle of abuse. If I have one goal it is teach to people to be aware of an abuser before stepping into a relationship with one. That overly doting personal just maybe one of the first signs, but there are many red flags. Which we will list at a later date.

This to people who freely want to tell people what to do, many including my own sister took others peoples advice to get out of their present situation and following that advice ended up dead in one way or another, unless you are willing to open your home and keep a person in hiding for some time, advice on how stupid a person is for staying or how they love the drama or that they some how want the abuse, will not be accepted here on this blog.

NO one ask to be abused, No One wants to be pushed around hit, called names forced into sex, everyone does't have the same options in getting out. I am reluctant to mention blogs or particular people, you know who you are and hopefully before you point fingers and put the blame on the victim, you read the countless stores of men and women who tried to get away and succeeded in only to be killed. Lots of Advice not always good advice, that doesn't mean we stay in a situation and take abuse it means every answer is unique to each person.

Remember the old carpenter tool measure twice ,c cut once, think before you give advice, think twice.

There are options and alternatives to seeking family counseling and professional advice, it isn't always black and white.

Tammy Gail Hanna Morris
Beloved Mother, Daughter, Sister, Friend...."Our Angel In Heaven"
March 13, 1959-June 21, 1981
Stalked and shot to death by the husband she was divorcing. His statement at the time of his arrest: "If I can't have her, no one is going to."

Janne L. Walters
August 3, 1957- September 13, 1998
Beloved Daughter, Sister, Mother, Grandmother and Best Friend
Janne's neck was broken when she told her abusive boyfriend to move out. Dearly loved and always missed.

Richard G. "Rick" Whitcomb, Jr.
May 10, 1972- January 19, 1996
"Rick was murdered by his abusive ex-girlfriend, Vickie L. Frost, 5 days after he ended their relationship. She stabbed him once in the chest, severing his left ventricle. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later. She was sentenced to only 7 - 25 years for taking his precious life. Rick is "Home Free" in heaven and we look forward to the day when we will see his smiling face once again."

Anna Mae Cox
Mother, Mema, Daughter, Sister and Believe

Rachel Susan Miller
Beloved Wife, Mother, Sister, Friend
May 27, 1970- April 26, 2000
Stalked and Battered by her first husband. She was called home to God 13 days after the brutal assault. Bruce Daniels changed his plea to guilty to charges of murder before trial was to begin and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Complete transcript of Bruce Daniels Interview with the police is linked below, as is the transcript of his hearing where he changed his plea to guilty. Rachel leaves behind a daughter, two sisters, three brothers and countless friends who miss her very much.

Christopher Nicolas Miller, Unborn Child
Rachel Miller was pregnant with Baby Christopher when Rachel was murdered. Bruce Daniels received no punishment for killing Christopher because of a technicality.
Tyler Edmond Daniels Miller
May 17, 1989- June 11, 2001
Beloved Son, Brother, Nephew, Cousin, Friend
Killed himself because he could not bear the pain of his mother's murder from Domestic Violence by his biological father, Bruce Daniels. Tyler was 12 years old.
Nichole Francine Garrett
Beloved Daughter, Mother, Friend
February 12, 1969- November 7, 1999
Former battered wife, now deceased.
Brian William Craig
February 1, 1966 - July 3, 1989
Heather Lynne Williamson
Beloved Mother, Daughter, Granddaughter, Sister, Friend
May 21, 1976- April 19, 1999
Stalked, Beaten, and Stabbed to death by an ex- boyfriend 9 months after ending their relationship.
Matthew James Williamson
Beloved Son
January 20, 1977- January 20, 1977
Stillborn child, died as a result of a hard blow to his pregnant mother's stomach by his father.
Cynthia Rena Williamson
Beloved Daughter
December 23, 1978- December 23, 1978
6 1/2 month old fetus, died as a result of her pregnant mother being kicked in the stomach with steel tipped workboots by her estranged father.
Melissa Faye Lonon
Beloved Daughter, Sister, Mother, Friend
May 20, 1981- November 5, 1999
Kidnapped and shot to death by her estranged boyfriend and father of their children, when she tried to end their relationship.
Wendy Ann Croote
February 28, 1966- June 24, 1990
Abused Wife and Mother of a young son, pregnant with another son. Shot to death by her husband.
"She was loved and will always be missed. She will remain Forever Young. Love, Mom and Dad".
Baby David Croote
June 24, 1990- June 24, 1990
"Our little darling, we never got to hold you or kiss you. In your Mama's arms forever. Love, Grandma and Grandpa".
Wylea Estee' Smith
Beloved Daughter, Granddaughter, Niece, Cousin, "Lil Girl", Friend
March 31, 1966- August 19, 1994
Stalked and Murdered by an ex- boyfriend.
Desiree'Ann Morgan
Beloved Daughter and Friend, Aspiring model
July 14, 1981- January 4, 1999
Abducted and shot January 3, 1999. She died the next day at age 17.
Rosmari Elaine Celeste Pleasure
September 12, 1963-March 2, 1998
Gunned down by a male acquaintance in the driveway of her Memphis home.
A More Excellent Way, Inc. (AWay) was born in response to this tragedy and is committed to bringing an end to these violent acts that plague our community.
James "Jamie" William McCombs, Jr.
Beloved Son, Father and Friend
February 12, 1973- May 12, 1998
Shot twice with a .22 rifle and tortured by Anthony Allen Myers. Myers, along with his wife, Rebecca Lynn Myers, who is Jamie's ex- girlfriend and mother of his daughter Ashley Marie (deceased November 22, 1997 under suspicious circumstances), confessed and pleaded guilty to Jamie's murder in a hearing on October 27, 2000. Anthony Myers was sentenced to life without parole for first degree murder, 30 years for armed robbery, and 5 years for use of a firearm during a violent crime; Rebecca Lynn Myers was sentenced to life without parole for aiding and abetting murder and first degree burglary after the fact.
Lauren Elizabeth Hafford
Beloved Daughter, Sister, Granddaughter, Niece, Cousin, and Friend
February 17, 1977 - April 13, 1999
Physically and emotionally abused by the man she loved, her husband. She left him, because he did not follow through on promises to get the counseling he needed. She was at work, talking to her sister on the phone, when he shot her in the back of the head at point-blank range.
Gina Marie Lupson-Holden-Young
Beloved Daughter, Mother, Sister, Friend
June 1, 1967- June 9, 1993
Shaun Edward Lupson-Holden
Beloved Son, Grandson, Brother, Nephew, Friend
December 1, 1989- June 9, 1993
Joshua Lee Lupson-Holden
Beloved Son, Grandson, Brother, Nephew
November 10, 1992- June 9, 1993
*All three, Mother and two young sons, perished in an arson- related fire in their home, started by Gina's husband when he doused the home with gasoline, lit a match and walked away unscathed. He was sentenced on October 10, 1995 to three consecutive life sentences.*
Kim Reilmann
February 28, 1964- April 25, 1999
Beloved Mother, Daughter, Niece
"Attacked and beaten in the head with a hammer; several of the 5 blows penetrated her brain. Her husband broke into her home only four days after being released from jail for breaking an order of protection against him. She lived on life support for three days before she died. All her family's love and prayers could not bring our dear Kim back. During her attack her step father went to check on her and he also was beaten with the same hammer by Kim's husband. He has permanent brain injuries to this day. In many cases there is physical violence from the beginning. In our situation, he was never physically abusive to her, not until he realized she wanted a life without him. He is awaiting trial for Kim's murder and the state is seeking the death penalty. Kim is forever missed by her family and her many friends. Her daycare babies will always remember Kim even though they were so young when this happened. Kim is forever loved and sadly missed by her four children, her mother and Aunt Toni."
Sharon Kaye Flick
Beloved Mother
Murdered by her husband December 27, 1988. She was stabbed 40+ times with an ice pick after enduring beatings all day.
Judy Beth (Jones) Coulson
Beloved Sister and Aunt
Murdered by her ex- husband. She was shot twice in the back with a shotgun and died trying to reach the phone for help.
Denise Robin Edwards
Murdered by her boyfriend.
Vincent Sardi
January 16, 1971- February 14, 2001

http://www.angelfire.com/pa4/dvmemorial/

National Domestic Violence

2009-10-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

National Domestic Violence Month is quickly coming to end. We hope that we raised some consciousness about Domestic Violence. Domestic violence usually occurs in the privacy of the home. By speaking out and supporting victims of abusive relationships we hope to encourage through education and awareness the viable options for victims. Sometimes it is merely addressing a problem within the home and other times it may be to prepare a plan of escape.

Survivors

2009-10-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

There are different stages of abuse and various extremes. Treating people less than God intended is never acceptable. The most serious of abuse cases never really ever are exposed. There is a simple reason for that and it either stems from fear or a condition in which we are taught to protect the abuser. Until we accept responsibility in giving althernatives and education to children we will always have those diryt little secrets. I am priveledged to meet the people that I have and watch as they take the reigns and pull ahead beyond their own personal demons.

I want to thank Gail for her sincerity and kindness as she embraces her own journey in a road that has many twist and turns. Someone once said help comes to those who help themself, and this may or may not be true. It never hurts to have a helping hand.

Survivors, empowered by love to gain the strength to overcome.

What is Abuse? - A Warning List
Many people who are being abused do not see themselves as victims. Also, abusers do not see themselves as being abusive. People often think of domestic violence as physical violence, such as hitting. However, domestic violence takes other forms, such as psychological, emotional, or sexual abuse.

Domestic violence is about one person in a relationship using a pattern of behaviors to control the other person. It can happen to people who are married or not married; heterosexual, gay, or lesbian; living together, separated, or dating.

If your partner repeatedly uses one or more of the following to control you;
pushing, hitting, slapping, choking, kicking, or biting
threatening you, your children, other family members or pets
threatening suicide to get you to do something
using or threatening to use a weapon against you
keeping or taking your paycheck
puts you down or makes you feel bad
forcing you to have sex or to do sexual acts you do not want or like
keeping you from seeing your friends, family or from going to work
YOU HAVE BEEN ABUSED!!

Why Stay? Time Might Not Be The Option.

2009-10-16T09:34:00.001-07:00

It always amazes me when people place blame on the victim. Why didn't you leave? File a restraining order? Get a divorce? Leave your home? This site was created not to condone violence and surely not to place more blame on the victim. It is a very powerful negative force that works in an abusive family or relationship. The reasons behind this site are so important because those who step out are criticized. Imagine how many people live in an abusive situation that no one knows about. Upstanding communities, educated, but they hide it all very well.

This is a safe haven, no one will judge you here and if necessary will guide you in the right direction where you can find professional help . If nothing else here you will find other readers are caring and warm and will understand the pain that exist in the darkest corners of your mind.

Twenty four year old Anna Marie Lutz was murdered by her live in thirty eight year old boyfriend. You won't hear big headline stories, because she wasn't a sports player, politician or famous actor or singer. Anna Marie Lutz is one of the thousands of abuse cases that goes undetected until it results in murder. There is no excuse for such violence upon another human being, we all have the option of walking away from a domestic dispute. Anna lived twenty four short years on this earth and her time was cut short by one persons lack of self control and horrendous choice to strike out at a beautiful young woman.

How many women are caught up in domestic violence? I don't believe we will ever know the truth, for as many cases that are revealed, there are that many more that we will never find exposed. Some choose to stay out of fear, others think they can handle it, many feel there is no options or alternatives and many believe they have nowhere else to go. Pride and embarrassment as well as denial reveal itself when options are offered. To reach out in anger and hit a person you claim to love doesn't happen just once, it most likely happened before or will happen again. Anna Maire Lutz was not one of the lucky ones, she doesn't get a second chance to make a choice, to escape, to get away, to live her life.

Discipline?

2009-10-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

How many times has abuse teetered and been taken on as discipline?" Spare the rod and spoil the child" Even though abuse was on the extreme side, I think it was the domestic war that made the most amount of impact in a destructive way. I am not talking the on going screaming and yelling breaking of windows, objects and anything that was breakable. My parents were strict, go figure " dysfunction with a cause" Fear we lived with fear, it had become our lives.
My mother had a clear love hate going on for my father, I think she loved to hate him. She couldn't get away herself, she clearly wanted him dead. Saturdays were the typical cleaning day and flipping the mattress over each week was normal part of cleaning up. My mother had a bad habit of leaving her chosen weapons for the week either under the sofa cushions or bed pillows. It was really weird, you know it doesn't belong their but your afraid to touch it. The list is so long, guns, knives, hatchets, hammers, she just wanted the man dead.
I remember this one day, I thought that the new house and going back home was a sign that the bad memories were behind us. I can't really tell you what they fought about, lot of times it was other people. My mother a people person and my father completely opposite. This one day, my mother grabbed my sister and I and threw us in the bedroom, my father was trying to kick the door in. She called his name out and said get away from the door, she moved the dresser in front of it. He still was pushing the door in and moving the furniture. She cocked the gun and she aimed it at the doorway. Bullet after bullet through the furniture into the door. We stayed in the room with her till early ours of the night. He always left but he always came back. I just don't understand any of it. I don't ever remember talking with anyone about it. You know even as brother and sisters we never spoke about it. I know it was normal, but I can almost say I didn't know what normal was, it was the only life I knew.
The following day my father came back and he fixed the holes in the furniture and the doorway as if it was expected. He always seem to blame us for mothers episodes, " look what you made her do! It's all your fault" It is something how you learn to read people, the eyes really do tell all. We would go off to school and were always afraid to go home. You never knew what to expect, I am not surprised, the teachers always called me a dreamer, little did they know.
We were expected to excel in school, to have straight A's to be perfect little children. Speak only when spoken to in a very structured setting. How could this be, how could such dysfunction expect so much from children, such perfection in such a hellish situation.
It wasn't like the episodes were once in a while they were chronic, day after day, some days worse than others. My father was very afraid of the system, afraid of his own mental issues. He use to threaten us regularly that if anyone ever knew that we would be taken away and never heard from again that it would all be our fault. It is not like the system didn't know, its documented in all the papers, the violence, the suicide, the consistent calls from neighbors for the police. The system knew they even sent social workers to the house. Well they didn't find anything wrong, the house was clean, we were dressed well, there was always food, nothing appeared out of normal. There we stood five children well dressed in a row, quiet, well behaved.
Were we children that fell through the cracks? Did the system not know what to do about it? Can you only help those who want help? I am not sure, there was a big age gap, so my brother and sister were the role models, the housekeeper, the cook, the baby sitters, they filled all the roles that you would expect parents to. They kept the secrets of their pain well hidden.
I remember really cold nights with no heat and only the tics that my mother use to sew. She would sit in the rocker chair her mind a million miles away and she would just sit and sew and sew. My mother she not only went to the doctors for medicine for herself but she also gave the symptoms of my father so she would get medicine for him. Oh the games they played. I try to think what set them off, sometimes it was absolutely nothing. But a calm could become a madness really quickly.
My eldest sister went to court and filed forms for legal emancipation she was fourteen, she gained her freedom by demonstrating her financial independence as well as a place to live. My parents were furious and battled to get her back, once home they beat her so badly she could not walk not sit. She had health issues, she suffered from a kidney disease and that is one of the few things my parents did provide was medical help. She again moved out and I remember the quarelling and the ugliness. We lived by the river at this time, but we were always moving, every year another place, none of them were home. In a huge argument my each parent blaming the other until my mother yelled enough, enough! She took a knife from the kitchen he tried to hold her back and the knife entered his stomach. Wasn't the first time and it wouldn't be the last but it was one of the most serious, he lay out in front of the house nearly bleeding death. My brother and sisters stuffed the wound with bread. The ambulance was summoned and he denied any domestic abuse, he said he was attacked by a stranger.

Suicide

2009-10-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

The story really picks up from mothers view, when asked why she married my father. They were from the opposite side of the tracks, my mothers family well educated, shop owners and professors. My father has lot his father at a very young age, he was twelve years old when his father died from health reasons that were never really clear. Released from the military he gave to my mother a diamond ring, she gave it back to him, telling him she was not ready for a relationship with him or anyone else. He didn't take no for a answer, he said the rings is yours do what you want with it, I don't want it back. Telling everyone in the neighbor they were engaged, it kind of spun out of control. My mothers family was not to happy and the thought of a marriage disappointed all of them. Aware of their nonacceptance of him, just led more to his insecurities. My mother said she was aware that something wasn't right but not sure what it was. His behavior erratic, on their first date he left her in the middle of the movie.

She still had not recovered from the death of her father and again she was asked to wed. After several refusals it was almost as if she gave in. She cared about him but she did not have a passion of love for him. He was stalking, there when she was out of work, in the morning when she went.

Soon there would be a wedding, despite her closeness to her family she went through with the marriage. There were fights at the wedding and he made her return gifts because he felt they were to expensive and were given to shame him. Throughout the marriage it would be the first of many battles his insecurities and love for her mother and family. She used her inheritance and bought them a new house, car and everything they needed.She was use to living in a life style she had become accustomed to. Her now husband, unemployed and not seeking employment placed a burden once the inheritance began running out.

Within a few short years, she lost her father and her first child, the baby brought to term died and though it was laid out at the wake and had a headstone but I never knew why it died. There really was the usual pattern of dysfunction setting in. My father began to isolate my mother, keep her from family. She had recovered from the loss of the first born son and she was again pregnant. As I listen to her tell of unhappiness and disappointment in the marriage, I saw a parallel to my own. It was as if I was going back and forth time, comparing the different stories of our life.

I do believe she suffered from a severe case of postpartum depression as well as dealing with my fathers own mental health issues. Some were relatively minor forms of anxiety and various problems with coping from the war. Uncle Stan he managed to get my father a job with the teamsters and it seemed that it would life the heaviness that comes with the financial woes. She had four children relatively close in age before I was born. It seemed to the outside world as if this was a fairytale marriage.

It was the early 60's when my father became ill, he had a blood infection that hadn't gotten out of control. A false sense of pride and ignorance surfaced and he refused to even apply for aid from the teamsters. First they couldn't pay the fuel bills, no heat, no electric and the children would get dressed by candle light for school. Everything started to slowly crumble. It wasn't as if my father was all so sweet before this happen. What he called discipline was extreme beatings. I think he got off on creating different tools to whip with. There was the razor strap, which was leather straps all nailed to a paddle and the wooden paddle which had holes drilled through them. He named them, hung them in plain sight and never failed to use them. My brother was a calm spirit he never seem to have a violent bone in his body and yet that angered my father even more. Dressing him in little girls dresses his punishments were rather bizarre, sometimes they were to kneel on rock salt in a dress for ours, he seem to like to place us in corners. We would stand so long at times until we would almost fall asleep, if you didn't stand up he would just beat with the razor strap. Bruises, nah it was more than bruises, bleeding, outline of the buckle has it split open the legs. The girls all use to put on dark tights even in the summer tight and were instructed to wear them through gym class. My mother never took to his outburst on the children and the pet dog duke. From near choking him to beating him, crushing his head in the doorway. He was obnoxiously violent on children and animals alike.

Day or night it never seem to matter my parents were fighting and fighting, loud arguments until my mother would start breaking everything in sight. Than early in the am he would call us all out of bed,stand us in a row and say look what you have done to your mother, you have made her upset. My eldest sister she did get a lot of the responsibility but we are made to clean up the broken glass. Sometimes it was windows, the china closet, dishes, pictures. Violence was on the rise my mother rebelled, she was under doctor prescribed meds, but I am not sure what stroke her spirit to become so violent. She use to scream I rather go to jail than live like this. Restraining orders made very little difference, he would leave and come back in the middle night. I can't tell you how many ways she tried to kill him, she nearly succeeded several times, each time he ended up in the hospital he refused to admit that it was my mother who struck out at him in such a violent way.

The episodes became closer and closer together and always a little more bizarre. From her own bouts with depression and her extremes inability to deal with stress caused her to not handle life well at all. She tried various ways to take her own life and my father blamed that for the reason he didn't return to work. He said she shamed him so that he couldn't face the men at work.

It was her last attempt when she jumped off the bridge, that she became the only woman to have jumped and survived. Her injuries severe landed her in a mental hospital.

Domestic Abuse,

2009-10-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

I find there to be Irony in the fact that people know when they are wrong and still continue on a journey of dysfunction. I really don't have memories of my mother before the age of ten. I have seen pictures of her, but I don't relate to the woman. I do remember that her eyes gave away her emotions and that when she knew it was going to be bad, she would say to my eldest sister get the children out of here they don't need to see this. I guess that is why we spent a lot of time down by the river or in the city park.

My father had tape recorded his memories as far back as the death of first child. When he passed away my sister held on to the tapes. She called me troubled and rambling. I said why would you want to listen to them, when we lived them. Let it go! She is not one to let much of anything go. My parents weren't drinkers, my mother would have a social drink maybe once a year. Her vice was condoned, it was medical prescriptions. A rather bizarre situation as my father was extremely violent with the children and my mother with him. Some kind of off the wall circle that encouraged viscous and uncontrollable behavior between them.

Looking back as an adult I now understand more about the social sins of mental health. The time in which they lived and how little is known about the deprivation of the brain and its need for a source of nutrition, health and well being.

Some stories were repeated over and over so many times, between strangers, newspapers and my father, that what we didn't witness we felt we did. Sometimes we saw the blood,sometimes not but the fall out was always there. There is no condoning such violence and as I tell my sister to let it go, I don't ask her to forget but to blow it in the wind, is to free her soul.

I am not actually sure what set it off all the episodes. There was a blend of issues, depression, health and that led to financial as well as personal problems. Suicide was an almost acceptable alternative when you didn't know what to do. My grandfather had succeeded in taking his life,my mother had made many attempts without success and following in their footsteps was my only brother who or more than once had his stomach pumped.

Noise blocking out noise, that is what allowed me to sleep, to this day I need noise to block out noise so I can rest. My father looked down on me as the weak link, I think he didn't beat me because he didn't want to. He was afraid that I would be the mouth piece that would reveal the horrid stories of abuse to children and adults alike. Literally not able to stop shaking from a very young age on, it raised a red flag, Sent to the doctors they were told to bring some kind of normalcy to the home. When all that could be done was I was sent to a private school where I spent seven years. These seven years were a time of healing and though separate much of the time from my siblings I was able to experience a world outside of the daily dysfunction.

I was certain there wasn't any good which would come from reliving the stories but as I see it, there is a certain amount of baggage that needs to be tossed out. Not only is it to help in the final healing process, but also to acknowledge and reveal the hidden secrets of an abusive family.

My mother was seventeen her father had asphyxiated himself by allowing the exhaust into the car. She never truly dealt with the death of her father. She blamed her mother for his death, because she had asked him for a divorce. Though several stories surfaced, a few that he was going deaf and his health was ill. My mother was never really clear on where he was emotionally obviously he was depressed, alone and separated from my grandmother. My mothers closeness with her father left scars on her soul.

It was world war two and many of the young girls wrote letters to the soldiers, my mother wrote to several of the men, my father would be one of them. An attractive young woman my mother dropped out of school in her senior year. She took several jobs as secretary, waitress and in a toy factory. My father had become smitten with her and as the war was coming to and end a new war one on the home front would begin.

No Punishment is fitting ...

2009-10-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

Responsibility for our actions...

Every step closer to hell reveals the weakness of our mind and flesh.

When choices are made and the devil appears,

all that you'll find is sorrow, heartache, ugliness

and fear, as each moment is controlled when the

devil appears.

May his conscience eat away at his denial,

and damn his soul to hell.

Anna Marie Lutz 24

2009-09-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

Religious leaders will say that this was all part of Gods great plan. This is part of Evil, the devil alcohol might have encouraged the violence, the seeds of evil had already been in placed and sowed to allow and outburst to be violent enough to take a life. Violence only has a chance to strike out once you have allowed evil into your being. Alcohol and drugs only heighten the negativity within a person, the seeds of evil have to already exist to allow an unforgivable experience. I say again unforgivable, for no one has the right to cut a persons life short.

This in in honor of Anna Marie Lutz, she lived such a short time,experienced so little and came to such a violent end. May her soul find peace in the arms of the Lord.

The tears we weep are for the many,

the hearts and souls of those in fear,

may they find inside the courage,

to surface above the pain and despair.

Anna Marie Lutz is somebody, she is a daughter, sister, aunt, cousin and friend,etc. Her kindness, warmth of heart and the magic of her soul were taken advantage of by the one person who she entrusted her life. This is a betrayal of a loving spirit. I chose to write about Anna Marie so that her story shall not be forgotten and that her life will not be in vain. I hope people remember not just how she died, but how she lived.

Every thirty seconds another story of domestic abuse happens, some survive and many do not.Marriage, friendship, relationships, partners, none of these titles give a person the license to abuse. Domestic violence occurs in every walk of life and every income bracket. I promised several years back to put a face to domestic abuse and bring to light a horror that still goes unpunished until it is to late. We seem to reward aggression and the traits of aggression in sports etc, I prefer to acknowledge the size of ones heart and their impact on the world around them. It is obvious by those who knew Anna Marie and shared in her life that she is and always will be a beautiful spirit.

In the time it takes you to close your eyes

and open them again someone in the world

has fallen victim at the hands of abuse.

Broken Fingers

2009-09-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

I felt completely mesmerized by the power of the wind, as I watched it dance like a picture in motion high a top the trees. The leaves more than swayed back and forth against the darkened sky, they moved with such speed that it created a sort of shimmer that reminded me of the reaction of oil as it is stirred into water. I felt pulled, as if there was a magnetic draw between my spirit and the hum of the wind as it thrust the hills into a state of an awakening. In one glimpse nature reveals the strength, the weakness and the vulnerabilities that surface between man and earth and the heavens above.

It might be just a little tingle,

like spiders on the nerves,

but to me it is a reminder,

that love never hurts.

Not a pleasant memory,

but I refuse to let it go,

surface reveals a healing,

inside it burns so.

I don't hate him,

I just don't like him very much.

2009-09-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

There are barrier which are never seen

but never the less exist.

To this day I still find the need to run and hide.

To the corner of the attic, where the cobwebs gather.

To the depths of the mind where the darkness is

scattered.Run fast, run and hide,escape the madness,

that controls the mind. To the corners of the attic

where the cobwebs gather .

We can't let go of what is an internal part of our being.

2009-09-15T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have heard dysfunction referred to as a roller coaster or the yo yo syndrome. The up and down through a cycle of good and bad events on an almost routine schedule. I might say I saw life more like a merry go round, you keep going round and round and waiting for it to stop. In all actually there is no beginning or end and thus results in the acceptance of the continuous cycle that abuse creates. Fear is away a major factor in our decisions to react or not react. We are taught to protect those who abuse us in away that seems to place guilt on the victim.

With the anniversary of my fathers death I felt an array of emotions that seemed confusing at best. It was that which people saw as love or respect for him that seemed to be the most unsettling. There was no justifying his actions, the cruelty in which we lived. With my sister gone for so many years now I quickly came to understand that I would never have all the pieces to complete the puzzle. How could her voice be heard? Who would or could understand better what we went through, than the pack made between us as children. There were a few moments we held to that were positive and we kept holding to them. I cried once after her death, walked into a walk in closet,where no one could see or hear and I cried. I cried that she would never grow old and that we would never get to make new memories.

Music and the secrets that was our bond. The music brought a positive side to life and the secrets tied us together. Ironically the last song we sang was new york, new york. It was the last time all the sisters were together. I can remember thinking without anyone else in the picture,just the four of us girls, that we were strong. Arms around each other and dancing and singing. I guess my own vulnerabilities are showing and the fact that at any time our life on this earth can be over, makes you take notice of the simple pleasures.

Da da da , da da da start spreading the news, I'm leaving today.

I want to be a part of it - new york, new york These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray Right through the very heart of it - new york, new york  I wanna wake up in a city, that doesn’t sleep And find I’m king of the hill - top of the heap  These little town blues, are melting away I’ll make a brand new start of it - in old new york If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere It’s up to you - new york, new york

Its a bit ironic how this song about NY became the last memory of when we were all together and now this place seems to have

once again appeared and sharing of happiness. Holds on to those moments in hopes of surfacing beyond the darkness.

Abuse wears a coat of many colors.

2009-09-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

Sometimes abuse is nothing other than an

insecure soul exerting power over another.

Their weakness shall not be my legacy.

I am stronger than that which dares to hold me down.

I will no longer swim in the tears of yesterday.

He strikes out at my heart and each lash but once against my soul

repeatedly pains with each memory.

She wanted it to come to and end,

so we may see a new beginning.

The pain of the spirit hurts worse than any wound to the flesh.

How do we stand up to the fear of a threat? Is a threat merely words? Imprison the flesh my soul is free.

Free the soul...remove the fear.

2009-09-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

It is inconceivable of the pure of heart to understand the depth of evil and the tools in which it uses to invade a spirit. Strike out at the flesh and in time it heals, but the wounds of the mind we can always feel.

They say that time is the great healer,
but open wounds never heal?

Fear is the unseen bars that imprison the soul.

I have been locked in my own prison for so long
,that I had become accustomed to the walls of hell.

What is Abuse

2009-09-01T06:39:00.000-07:00

Abuse is a lethal combination of victim and perpetrator. Is there away of preventing ourselves from becoming a victim? As a child there are less choices and the vulnerability surrounded by circumstances are much more difficult to overcome. As adults surfacing from abusive childhoods, we must learn and reteach ourselves how to recognize and avoid abusive situations.

Avoid Isolation

Limit control by education and independence

Recognize the red flag - Extreme Jealousy is not a compliment

Constant criticism is not acceptable, avoid it

Follow your gut instinct, if it doesn't feel right! it is not right.

People don't change if you see signs of abuse it only gets worse.

Avoid situations that will put you danger, traveling alone,etc

Avoid the I'm gonna save him syndrome, let him save him or self.

If you sense danger, it's danger.

Don't provoke, do!

No to sex is your right!

Caution when entering a relationship.

National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE).

Many people want to think that all abusers are psychopaths or are born defective or in some way cynical self righteous spawns of the devil. In all reality many factors can and do contribute to abuse. In studies it is proven that much is learned in our very youth. Much can be a behavior issue which stemmed from cultural and life or lack of life experiences. Drugs, alcohol and ignorance all can play a part on what and how one deals with the world. The building up of stress in a very poor economy also reveals a rise in abuse and thus proves that many are capable of becoming an abuser on all levels.

Allowing ourself to heal and learn from the past is the best way to prevent abuse in the future. We can break the cycle when we allow ourselves to recognize the first signs of an abusive relationship. Insecurity is the first tool used by an abuser, recognize your own worth and value to your self and the community. This is your first step to avoiding the traps of an abuser.

Why I choose to keep the blog open

2009-08-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

I opened this blog back up as I was reminded why I started it in the first place and that was to raise further awareness of adult abusive actions against a child in a violent or verbal way. As well to allow my sister to rest peacefully, knowing that someone now hears her cries. There have been several people who have contacted me and asked advice and I again plead with you to seek out the avhotline.org or another organization. This platform is to bring a certain amount of peace to the victims and allow them to remove the stigma that comes from self guilt.

Children are our greatest resources and yet the most vulnerable to the ills of the world.Make a difference in a life, share a smile, even that goes a long way into warming a heart.

Jacee Lee Dugard

2009-08-31T03:50:00.000-07:00

The most extreme story of child abuse has once again surfaced. Jacee Lee Dugard, a child and a woman robbed of her innocence. Like many I had read everything on this bizarre story and the infraction on the sanity of human behavior.
Adjusting to freedom is not an overnight one step plan. She was denied the basic human rights and the dignity to flourish within her community, to live and prosper. It will take many many years to find a sense of healing in a period of growth that will have her adjusting to a freedom that has been denied her for eighteen years.
Survival finds us in many a situation. What appears to some as a weakness to not fight back or escape was actually her inner strength to survive. She is a remarkable woman who survived the unthinkable. There can be no justice served as the chapters are written and cannot be erased. With faith I believe new chapters will be written on a long and tedious journey.
If everything happens for a reason what lesson comes from such ugliness? That evil exist as surely as goodness, that mental illness is not in check in this vast space we call earth. That evil condones its rise to power. Are there answers that are not fear laden. When I was ten years old not much younger than Jacee, I saw how mental illness effects a person, how it reflects on the family and how breeds on hatred, violence and self righteousness. Some how in their warp minds they condone their behavior. They justify there actions by some sense of personal power over a situation. She was at the age of awareness when she was kidnapped and so the years before will be her flotation device that allows her to reach to shore and walk away from the many years of evil. In my mind I had wanted so to see a turn around in the mental health field. I see it as the weakest part of society's structure.

The personal story of Jacee Lee Dugard makes me sick to my stomach, unfortunately there are so many more stories that go unheard that never reach the hands of the media. Some of them prisoners in their own homes, prisoners of the mind. Imprisoned by those who claim to love them. Where does this evil get its strength?

Jacee Lee Dugard in not alone, many have not lived to tell the story and others still remain a hidden part of society. Jacee Lee Dugard is a survivor and my heart and my prayers go out to her in her long process of healing. Somethings can never be erased from the soul, but hopefully she will be able to replace the memories with new ones. Start a new journey through the healing process.

What happened to Jacee Lee Dugard is any caring parents worse nightmare. I believe she is stronger than many give her credit for and I have faith that she will surface above this, with the proper time and intervention and the rebuilding of a life.

We cannot compare evils, no crime is worse than another. Though that which is empowered by robbing the innocence of a child has to be the most sick, ugly and evilest of crimes. I feel as sense of joy in her release and also a pain within that desperately tries to understand how such violent hatred gains miles into the weakness of the mind.

The scars are inevitable and are now ingrained in her being, allow her the time, privacy and dignity to heal at her own pace. This is not the story of one child but all children who fall victim to abuse, hatred and evil. If there is something that comes from the telling of her story, it will be of her strength and power to overcome the worst of evil, that which is against a child of the world.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is not to make slight of Jacee Lee Dugard's story. There are many children in abusive situations under the reign of those who claim to love them. As we speak around the world and in our own neighborhood a child, many a child is being abused. How do we stop the sickness and can we have a utopia? I don't see it happening anytime soon, so my prayers go out not for the one child who is now free, but for those who felt the sting of sex abuse, domestic abuse, verbal abuse in the robbing of a childhood.

Bonding with the captor is a survival mechanism, it shows in the many children including Jacee's the ability to survive in the most horrendous of crimes. I commend her for her strength and the power within her that kept her alive. It shows how intelligent a child and woman she is. Fear kept her there, bonding kept her alive and faith gave her hope.

La Fitness,Bridgeville

2009-08-05T04:14:00.000-07:00

In shock over the LA Fitness tragedy, it is just a bit to close home. They call it mainstreaming, where those with emotion physical problems are blended in to work, live and flourish amongst those with out the burden of being socially outcast. Years ago people were wrongly locked away in institutions. Today the complete opposite is going on, there are those who need the structure that comes with being institutionalized for the safety of the community at large. There is something wrong when more emphasis is placed on the rights of a few than the rights of the majority.

Mental health has failed, people who need help do not seek it and those who do are released with medications that may or may not take. The world has changed and I don't believe it is for the better. It has been said many times that " mans worst enemy is man himself" I am saddened for all of mankind as I view around the world evil in progress.

As the story unwraps we will find the motive for the actions of a madman. Excuses will made and the professionals will try to piece together the steps upon that which hate has traveled. Just as the world on a financial scale has tumbled so has the world on a more social level. The media, from news reporters, tv, movies and music should be held responsible for their actions. Those who defend our freedoms including that of speech are made a mockery of. When movies of hatred and violence numb a community to the realization that violence is eminent as the seeds of evil are planted in those who are not mentally stable.

Even a baby bird knows when to discard one if its young. What is on the agenda for our politicians, the rights of prisoners, the mentally ill and the disabled, and the minorities. When will the rights of those who have regard for the rules, who abide by the laws.

We have failed at large to make our world our safer place it deteriorates by the moment. My prayers for all the families and victims of a horrendous crime. May they find peace in the arms of the Lord

The Evils of Abuse

2009-07-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest fallacies that children fall victim to is they believe that they are somehow responsible for the negative actions of there parents. As a grown woman, I still find myself walking on eggshells and wondering what I might have done to set a negative mood in action. This is the strength of the person whom victimizes to cause one to feel as if they are responsible for another persons actions.
I somehow believed that if you push the wrong buttons or caused a situation that you were responsible for the reaction. I am ever so aware how wrong this is and how as a child or an adult we are only responsible for ourselves and our own actions and that we will not and cannot be held liable for the sins of another. I feel a darkness hovering and I want it to go away, but it is lingering like that of the night.

Abuse

2009-06-29T04:36:00.000-07:00

Domestic war is the ongoing storms of life and it happens more often than people realize. What initiates the violence and encourages or feeds the fire? The studies have revealed a common link of low self esteem. But as we look closer we see that it takes a finely tuned and well cast set of characters to perform in a manner which reflects the victim, perpetrator scenario. The stage in which the cast is directed changes scenes many times and thus creates a yo yo effect. What happens behind close doors and what the human mind is capable of enduring is the ongoing struggles of Domestic war. How to identify and recode the weak strains of humanity has yet to be discovered.

In the years following, I realized there was a pattern that seem to reveal itself in my own adult relationship. I found that I quickly recognized the weak strain within my partner and would quickly try to prevent or redirect his anger. As I read the morning newspaper of a man who took the life of his wife, eldest son and himself, I began to review situations in my own life that seemed really no different.

What triggered and outburst? I am not quite sure, I chalked some of it up to his lifestyle working on so few hours sleep, but as I look back I realize that there were other underlying reasons. I conveniently filed the earlier episodes of violence to the back of my mind and looked at one of the more recent occurrences. I found that I became a prisoner of fear in order to smooth ruffled feathers and prevent the seed of evil the nourishment to germinate and grow. It felt as if I had to pacify the moment and stroke the ego of evil.

Abuse

2009-06-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

Spare the rod and spoil the child. Imagine the images of an adult beating a child, lets flip the image and allow a child to beat an adult. No matter how you view it aggression is the evil within that escapes through anger to control with fear.

Abuse it is not a pretty picture, physical abuse is easier to identify but there are many scars from sexual abuse , verbal abuse, emotional abuse and neglect. Sad to know that the actions of an adult creates a domino affect that spirals through many generations. From simple stress, to abuse of drugs and alcohol all or none can be the initators of a abusive legacy.

I continue to write to allow others to know no shame as a victim but to also know that they can change the world one person at a time and that is through their own thoughts and actions.

It is not enough to preach love,

it is more important to live love.

Abuse

2009-06-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

The will to live,

is it insanity or courage?

Dysfunction: all threads need to be mended, as the weave can only be strengthened when the repair is made to the family as a whole.

A child has very little choice... they are victims of circumstance.

It is true that there is a certain amount of healing

which comes with time.

To break the cycle of abuse everyone

has to accept their responsibility.

The seeds of evil sow hatred and violence, weeding

reveals the beauty of a well maintained garden.

2009-06-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

Fear hides behind a wall of silence...

2009-05-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

A bruise to the body is less painful

then the bruising of the mind.

The weak threads ... a symptom of child abuse

2009-05-29T03:21:00.000-07:00

I couldn't have been more than nine or ten years old when I became aware of the importance of a healthy mind and how many issues arise from mental health. There was always a stigma attached to those who were in need of help and that in itself kept and keeps many from seeking the proper medical intervention.

What is the right medical intervention? I am not sure that the professionals themselves know, but hopefully the unexplored folds of the mind will be exposed and the antidote for healthier living without the extremes will be explored.

It is incredible how much advancement has been made in this area over the last one hundred years and still yet so more to understand and learn. The brain a huge chemistry set bases itself upon the workings of the body. There is where the old saying a " busy mind is a healthy mind" comes from.

A woman in her early thirties had been placed on medication to control her mood swings. She said I hated it I neither laughter nor cried, I felt so much like a zombie. Is it all a case of the faulty mind or just a lack of not knowing enough to bring the initial amount of balance?

My plight to bring awareness to the ills of the mind was explored through the ongoing child abuse I had experienced as a child. It is amazing how many views surface from siblings and the lack of similarities between them. Every one feels the flame of the poker in different ways and digest it as their own will to survive surfaces.

Eradicating mental health is based on a judgement call, what is considered healthy and not. It seems that all that occurs in life comes from personal choice making. The different levels of society keep many from reaching out to helping other of different social classes.

If one looks at the axle the world spins on they will see the worlds vulnerability throughout the stars. The same is true for each and everyone of us. If it is so that we are on this earth as the great explorers to expand our knowledge and develop our being than each of us is part of the process and there is no boundaries, societal levels, just a oneness to prepare for the inevitable.

A perfect weave, one which is tightly woven without holes, loose threads, worn and weak threads brings the the mind a beautiful tapestry. It is when the carelessness of abuse of self is allowed that a weak thread is found and through this we fall through. How do we strengthen the thread? We must first decide which needs replaced, tightened or just a bit of reweaving. The social skills necessary to bring this about are found in our earliest steps of life. Here is where the first stitches are sewn. Stitching in Self worth, Respect and love, these three alone can tighten the sloppiest of stitch creating a more uniform pattern. It is not enough to share this tasperty with friends and family but to display our inner self to the community at large helps to improve as we unite in a more central weave.

The cycle of abuse, why does it happen? why do many condone it? Though we are all one in being, we all start the journey with different tools. This is why it is so important what thread we choose from the very beginning. How is anger seeded and how does it grow? Anger is seeded by insecurity and self hate.

Earths greatest experiment is explored through life.

2009-05-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

I am frightened to stand still,

might I be caught up in the darkness.

I am a survivor

2009-05-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

I closed this down for awhile because of a few comments and I realized that its okay that it be read, it happened it was real and it was a part of my life. I am not ashamed for someone else's failure nor am I embarrassed by my experiences. I am a survivor!

I found it amazing all the bad that happens in the world and except for the sensationalized cases in the media, you will never know or hear of all the people who slip through the crack.

There are many changes that are mandatory in the system to really make it a beneficial to all those in need. Early intervention is crucial to bringing about not merely the words of the change but the action of change. Obviously people benefit from positive surroundings as nurturing is very important in providing a stable beginning for our youth to grow.

Change comes for those who want it, allowing hunger to go unfed only promotes more negativity and instibility. Take a walk through the inner city schools and you will see that they have indeed slid backwards. Those who can afford continue to put their children in public schools or move out of the area. What this leaves behind are those who have no alternative. The song children are our future represents our need to bring more youth groups not only to inner city children to the rural areas as well. By giving choices and altnernatives we can save those who are looking for away out in hopes that they take back the love and knowledge to better their own communitites.

If all possible encourage, sponsor or donate your time to your local youth group, if you make a difference in only one childs life, isn't that child worth it?

2008-07-25T17:12:00.001-07:00

I am frightened of my thoughts and I can't see beyond the darkness.

Somethings We Never Forget, nor should we!!!

2008-07-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

It was the first year of marriage not even six months into it and I knew the difference between right and wrong. It had already lacked the first foundation blocks of respect. From waking him up in the morning for work and running to lock myself in the bathroom so he wouldn't pull my hair and punch. His excuse was that he was overly tired. There were other red flags that continued to show themselves. I wanted out, I didn't want to try and figure it out, I didn't want to continue on a path that I had already been born into.
I remember the day clearly, I said we need to talk, my first words to him were, this is not how I expected marriage, I think we need to call it quits before we go any further. It's not about love I said, it is about right and wrong. A different man stood before me, his features changing. He pulled my hair and pushed my face close to him, tears streamed down his eyes, and slowly he repeated the words " no one makes a fool of me, not even you, you are going nowhere!!! alive that is. " That was the very first set of invisible bars that were placed in front of me. The bars of fear, standing on the platform of Pity. He did make an effort, to some degree anyway, to change. The next year we rarely saw each other, I worked full time, he worked full time.
It would have been the second anniversary that I would remember the first time, he would hit hard enough to draw blood. I now understand more about abuse and the stages of violence to the honeymoon phase, and how it all plays on your emotions and consciousness. I would have to say that there was fear in staying and a fear in leaving, the Jekyll and Hyde personalities are complicated to deal with. Somehow they are able to convince you, that your the one at fault.
To a certain degree the more you allow, the more doors of disrespect you open, as physical abuse was limited, "as I told him never again will you touch me, do you hear me?? "This is where control became much more an issue, limiting contact with other people, and verbal abuse, both which eat away at the soul.
Why we do what we do, societal view of failure, the you made your bed, you lie in it philosophy, she must have deserved it mentality, ignorance, pride, insecurity, but definetly not stupid.
It is for Jessie who I write this, her husband sits in prison for beating her, she hides in fear for the day he is released. She has these big beautiful gray eyes and warm smile and she definetly does not deserve all that she has been going through. Because of the courts and her two children, she will never completely be able to go into hiding, as believe it or not, despite his extreme violence he still has rights as their father. My heart breaks for that which I can do so little about, other then to raise consciousness, that no human being deserves to be treated with so little respect for life.
The fuzzy shades of right and wrong cross cultural barriers, but whether it be intimidation, verbal abuse, or physical violence, no one!!! not child, nor man or woman, deserve to be treated in away that strikes out with fear on the heart and soul or physical being. So for all the Jessie's in the world, who have found the courage to stand up and fight back through the system, may the system not abandon them.
It isn't easy to reach out and help those in need, but it can be done. I was walking home from work it was starting to get a little gray and a man and woman seem to be in their late 20's were physically struggling. No one seem to be around, let her go!, he burst out in anger, " mind my own business. " I said let her go or I am calling the police. He released her for a moment and she ran up to main street. Was I frightened of interfering in a situation I was uncomfortable with? Yes, but I would have been more upset had I not intervened. How many times do we close our eyes as to not be involved? How many times do we turn our head? How many times do we say they deserve what is coming to them? How many times do we say it won't happen to us? How many times do we stereo type? How many times will the cyle of abuse carry over? How many must die,before as a whole we really care?

Children learn what they live

2008-07-13T03:26:00.000-07:00

The influence of the nesting years will last a lifetime. We hold the keys that will mold future generations. The good and bad is of our own making and it is up to us to accept our responsibility for rewriting tomorrow. Everyone comes with a level of potential to give back positively to society. What role we play in it rises from the nurture factor, we have the ability to spiritually manipulate hearts, transforming an individual. The platform of life that is built strong and adhered with love, brings stability, with stability all is possible to achieve.

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE

Dorothy Law Nolte

If a child lives with criticism,he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,he learns to fight.
If a child lives with fear,he learns to be apprehensive.
If a child lives with pity,he learns to feel sorry for himself.
If a child lives with ridicule,he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with jealousy,he learns what envy is.
If a child lives with shame,he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with encouragement,he learns to be confident.
If a child lives with tolerance,he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with praise,he learns to be appreciative.
If a child lives with acceptance,he learns to love.
If a child lives with approval,he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with recognition,he learns that it is good to have a goal.
If a child lives with sharing,he learns about generosity.
If a child lives with honesty and fairness,he learns what truth and justice are.
If a child lives with security,he learns to have faith in himself and in those about him.
If a child lives with friendliness,he learns that the world is a nice place in which to live.
If you live with serenity,your child will live with peace of mind.

With what is your child living?

Mother

2008-06-25T19:53:00.000-07:00

It wasn't until I found myself stumbling that I understood her fall, grasped aimlessly that I sensed her struggles and listened to the silence that I acknowledged her cries. Only a fool sits in judgement when the walls of circumstance are layered so heavy that people from outside can't see in and the people on the inside can't see out.
.

Dream On - Aerosmith - MTV Unplugged

2008-06-17T08:52:00.001-07:00

There is a way out

2008-06-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

I find it to be a most frightening realization that the mind is capable of harboring both positive and negative emotions. How many of us have not heard of Jekyll and Hyde? I believe that we are all made of a variety of personalities that is our survival mechanism that allows us to surface through all situations. Unfortunately the mind does go a rye and becomes out of control and there we see that people do have fertile soil of the mind which is capable of growing evil. I find it difficult to understand how love and hatred can grow in the same soil, yet it does and often, one strangles out the other to be the dominate of personalities.
I have always looked at it as the calm before a storm, I found more fear in the positive, loving friendly personality, knowing that at anytime he could change and it was possible that something would set him off. I remember a friend who took one look in his eyes and said he has the eyes of the devil. I do believe that there are powers and sources stronger then we and that evil and good do battle. The army of both good and evil recruit daily to strengthen their hold.
I had looked at this from many levels and wondered exactly what what missing in a personality that was quick to jump to the side of evil. I tried not to dwell, but I must say every time he was close to me, I knew what he was capable of something violent. Some of the memories were animalistic, you teach children not to bite and yet you confront a adult battling and using such a vicious technique to battle. The closer he came to me, the more I feared. I tend to believe it's the extremes that are difficult reminders of what a human is capable of.
One story to many of hostile behavior, destruction and violence, all I can really say is evil does have a foot hold in our community. We can have millions that are law biding, well adjusted individuals but it takes just one to disrupt a whole community. Dwelling on it took me to another level to the seed of evil and how it gets it foot hold in the first place. Then I had to look at the mass of people and realize that IQ, mentality, upbringing and lack of upbringing all played a part on who people are and how they react under stress.
The memories fade but at times I find them surfacing, I laid still in the night and thoughts creeped into all corners of my mind and I imagined all the windows in the house bursting out and shattering at the same time, It was my minds call for help. Help! I said Help!
It is the calm right now, I have been here before, I recognize the pattern that I allow myself to be caught up in. What awaits me, how do I handle it? Maybe I am wrong I tell myself, maybe this time is different, could it be I am just overreacting. Trust yourself, trust instinct, dysfunction is apparent and it frightens me.
I have made changes to control the situations, I had the hand gun dismantled so it no longer could fire, that brought a certain amount of peace to my mind. I also know when hatred is raging that it can carry out its evil in many ways. I wanted to let it all go and to believe I was wrong and that he had changed. My mind flashed back to that moment where he held that loaded gun, ah in the name of love, I can' t live with out you. I was so frightened, he took a beautiful place and introduced it to hell. My eyes swell, but no tears fall. I am stronger and smarter, there is away out and I will not allow senseless emotion to guide me into the arms of evil.

2008-05-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

If I don't win and he does, I die.

I have felt a part of me has been dead for many years.

Is it rape or sex between marital couples?

2008-05-07T23:57:00.000-07:00

Childhood survivors surfacing as adults and how this plays out in the choices of life. I do believe those who have lived with abuse tend to as adults sway to one side or another, to the extreme. They either do everything in their power to prevent a violent episode or they themselves become an abuser. Due to the fact that children do grow up, I find this topic to be important in the journey of self awareness.

It wasn't unusual for him to come home from work at 2 am, I could hear the door open and close but I am so tired, to tired to fully wake up. The children were sick and I finally after hours of cradling them managed to get them to sleep. Days with out sleep my self I felt extremely exhausted. I know his presence is in the room, working a hard labor job and not showering for days on end, I could smell his body odor, a stench and sweat that turns the stomach.
He climbs into bed and reaches to pull me over," not to night I said, I don't feel so well and I haven't seen sleep in days. "Between his body odor and the filth on his clothes the stench becomes overwhelming " He pulls my hair as he places demands upon me for sex and I no longer can hear the words that come from his mouth, none of them seem to have any impact on the next 30 minutes or more. I am so tired and barely able to free myself from him. I struggle, the more I struggle the more I feel him pin my wrist to the bed, his body forcing, his hold on me tightening. I kick he gets even more angry, please not tonight, I have been up for days with the children. I can't see, my eyes unable to focus " I repeat no no!, please, I see three of you!" Coyly he said " aim for the one in the middle. " As tired as I was my stomach in knots and my head throbbing I found that I was instinctively battling him, no !no !I really can't, I am tired and I feel so sick I repeat. His body forcing and I am kicking him off me time after time. After hours of what he felt was foreplay I lay there tears rolling down my face and allow him to finish. He laughs, he just laughs, I can still hear his laughter he said " I knew you wanted it.
Time after time he repeated the very same episodes, more force and more force, he said" if a man doesn't get sex when he wants it no point in being married and a woman doesn't say no to her husband"
Property or partner? I find it hard to believe that this meeting of the body has anything to do with a partnership. Again the scenario repeats itself , I have a fever temp. over a 104 my body in chills, I feel so weak, I have an infection and I can't stand up, you don't need to stand up he said. I think I need to get to a hospital , he just seem to ignore my need for help as if there was nothing wrong with me, like it was all in my head, women don't get sick. This didn't seem to distant him, a high sexual energy he demanded sex often and that could occur sometimes twice a day. This time there was no battle I couldn't fight, I couldn't struggle. I just laid there as he repeated "yes you really are hot! he said, that's the best sex I ever had." Sex! that was about the most accurate word I had heard not love making but a sexual act. Does this act borderline rape or is it indeed a fact rape or he yet a mans right to his partner?
Many small children, no family and feeling helpless, there was no where to run. I can remember placing the children on the bus and the five of us just circling over and over the same city stops. After years of similar situations, I soon learned to not battle to not give him the fight he so desired. With his request for sex no matter how ill, or how weak I started to except what he considered my role in a marriage and I just lay there, without movement and not speaking a word, I allow him to use my body like an object. His verbal abuse now like daggers "having sex with you is like f**king a mute, I trained you to be a whore he said remember that you are only my whore."
Over the years I felt a curtain ,dark and heavy surround me as the curtain began to lift and I clearly began to gain strength to remove myself from the situation, I then found him like a revolving door his personality changing and he begins to cater to get me into his good graces, a vicious cycle and then I find myself again pregnant and unable to cope, both physically and mentally.
Is some of it cultural do women fear to tell because of their obligation to the marriage and to the children? Do women except this role out of fear or out of ignorance?

The legal definition varies within the United States, marital rape can be defined as any
unwanted intercourse or penetration (vaginal, anal,or oral) obtained by force, threat of force, or when the wife is unable to consent (Bergen, 1996;Pagelow, 1984; Russell, 1990). Most studies of marital rape have included couples who are legally married, separated, divorced or cohabiting.
It wasn't until the 1970's society began to acknowledge rape in a marriage and a woman's right to say no. We do know everything about intimate violence as we would like but we are aware that it is a act of aggression and power of one partner upon the other.

Marital rape occurs in all types of marriages regardless of age, social class, race or ethnicity.
In the largest study, Russell (1990) found that women were raped by their partners at a variety of ages; however, almost two-thirds of the wives were first raped by their husbands when they were under the age of 25.

Rape in marriage is an act of violence - an abuse of power by which a husband attempts to establish dominance and control over his wife. Husband-rapist are often men portrayed as
jealous men who find power in dominating their " property" they feel an entitlement that marriage gives them the license to do with what they want.

After many years I have no physical wounds to display, to the outer community there is no signs of gray or bruising. But inside my heart bleeds and my soul felt the abuse of both his verbal and physical memory.

" Sleeping with the Enemy" introduces us to fear, shame and embarrassment and a wound forced to remain open as it continuously lacerated. If nothing else here is a blatant example of lack of respect to another human being and if nothing else we all deserve to be respected.

I felt a need to speak about this so as that I may remove the chains and free my soul.

2008-05-01T17:48:00.001-07:00

What is the best decision to stay because of
the children or to leave because of the children?

2008-04-23T18:21:00.001-07:00

It is so difficult because I love him...

Revenge

2008-04-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

We are our own worst enemy

Speaking with my elder sister, I found her pain, her disappointment and I found that her anger had her on the path of revenge. Is she revenging a wrong or is her resentment getting the better of her spirit? Let it go I said, the sooner you quit punishing your self, the sooner you will heal. She said I have to do it, I have them make them pay.
Something horrible is brewing within in the family, the vengeance in which she is planning on taking will do nothing but disrupt every one's life. My first thoughts are why is she doing this? It's much like misdirected anger, I find she wants to inflict a punishment on family members who indeed crossed the path of injustice. I asked her what will come of it, what do you think you will gain by allowing anger and hatred a place in your heart and soul? Revenge she said, they will pay it is my revenge.
I felt troubled at her words, I felt as if she was taking advantage of a mental health issue of someone who is now gone. So if your not helping yourself and your not helping the person who was desperately in need, then who are you hurting? I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to wish it all away. The turmoil within me is cautious as if there maybe truth to what she says, will she be stopping another hell from happening or encouraging another chapter that consist of page after page of the unthinkable.
I gave it some thought she is talking murder and health issues, if there is truth who will suffer next from the hands of evil and if there is no truth to her accusations, how many family's will suffer from such direct vengeance?
The negativity of the last few weeks is overwhelming and it drains the spirit. Part of me doesn't want the horror to come out. If a person speaks many times the same story, does the story to them gain some measure of reality for them? I see a family drowning with no help to be found, surely they will be there own demise.
Truly it is becoming a horror flick in the making. Where does vengeance fit in, with those who need mental help. With many people independtly giving me their side of the story, I view many beginnings and many endings to the hell that waits.
Nothing good will come of this so revenge, only pain, hatred and evil.

2008-04-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Change and the threat of change does not equate with control,

only fear of the unknown can place such restraints on the soul.

Survivors

2008-04-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the only clear cut way of removing yourself from the negativity is to get as far away as possible. Running away does not always include physically extracting self from the situation, I am speaking of more of an emotional separation. It does seem that certain personalities are more capable of achieving this ability to cross barriers.
A look back in history provides us with an account of those who survived war, prisoner of war, Holocaust and many catastrophic situations. There are several factors involved one is I believe people are chosen to record the experiences in hopes that we might prevent them such pain of humanity from reoccurring.Only through the written word can we explore the negative side of humans to rise above with positive answers. I also believe that in knowlege comes answers and with these answers we can prevent to occurence of human failure.
There are many who don't fair as well and the nightmare follows them to their death. In the great scheme of things we see how vulnerable we really are and hopefully we can overcome the weakness that has become a part of our being. Universally we are a huge puzzle and there are those who spend their life looking for the pieces to the puzzle.
The mind is a great combination lock and we have to continue to try new ways to open it and explore the depth that memory and experience play on adult life.
We are all survivors in one way or another, everyone has at had atleast one negative experience in their life that they had to rise above. There are many ways to strengthen self some look to the Lord, to nature, friendships, medical assoc, etc in hopes of healing and moving past life and death.

The bitterness of life need not remain,
hopefully it makes the sweetness in life
that much more sweeter.

Rejoice in life,
we only get one time around in this body.

Rural Folks

2008-04-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

I felt extremely emotional, after watching the funeral of the peterson from the fire in Brockway Pennsylvania and reading the comments of Barack Obama, I didn't feel bitter I felt sick. Generalizing a group of people felt like being on the end of reversal discrimination. Rural folks don't turn to guns and to religion, there faith is instilled in them and a huge part of who they are, their beliefs are not to be ridiculed. In Pennsylvania rural folks turn to the voting machines, be sure of that. Guns no matter what side of the fence your on guns are part of the America at large, but I have to inform the Senator the guns killing on a daily basis are not hunters in the woods but hunters of every racial and ethnic background in the cities across our great country.

Rural folks the backbone of America!

How many need to die to keep the wealthy even wealthier.

2008-04-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

At one point I thought I would just discontinue writing, that very little difference could be or would be made in a community where the wealthiest of people will never quite understand or care. The Economy is worse then it has been in my lifetime and we don't need a economist to tell us any different. Gas prices are outrageous and a necessity especially for those living in rural areas. The trickle down is showing the increase is expanding to all of our household goods from foods to cleaning supplies.There are many things people do to save a dollar, cut meals, eliminate outings and practice unsafe heating of homes.
I believe the heavy of this does way on our political forum, it tends to cater to what draws attention or votes or both. It wasn't long ago that they broke up ma bell for being a monopoly, yet they have done nothing to alter companies who are taking advantage of the necessities people need to survive.
As much as I didn't want to have touch on this topic again, I have no choice but to try raise consciousness. I had received several calls and letters asking can they turn off our gas if we have young children in the house, are we safe this time of year. I can't pay by bills, I am already holding down 3 minimum wage jobs. The stories ongoing, I look at this as a crisis that hasn't been seen since the great depression. I call it a bit of history repeating itself, a step back into the Mc Carthy Era. There has become a steady increase from those who have and the have nots. For all those who have not read nor lived when people gave there lives for the union, will fail to see what a good union stood for, equality, a fairness for all. You cannot rid life of the problems unless you start with one and work your way up.
We cannot instill morals in a pill, it is a life learning process and the break down of our system that has weakened a social bond. The bottom line is everything is about money, the profit margin, stock holders etc. Unfortunately the middle class are suffering right along side the low income, in an emergency pull your own retirement funds only to be penalized, tax upon tax of your own money. Only those capable of hiring a good attorney seem to be able to bend the rules.
I can' t tell you how many families have lost members due to fires, since I posted the local family within miles of my own home. Many People have resorted back to wood and coal and electric space heaters and still others who are using furnaces can hardly afford the up keep to maintain a safe heating device.
The lowest of income can receive grants but even that goes so far in helping with the high rate of energy bills and the middle income are receiving very little if any help. When more then half of a working families income is going to fuel bills, how are they to sustain a healthy surrounding for their children. Who will halt the greed, who will care about the innocent who are to care for the children who can't for themselves.
This is a direct comment from my local politician, she runs a Dental practice in town and is also on the local council. When speaking of the plight of local transportation problems, her response was that she was aware that it was a problem but they made a choice to live here in a rural area.
Some made choices others have had the land passed down from one generation to the next, true they choose to make rural America their home but they didn't choose to be slighted by the government as this is one of the few counties with out public transportation, they didn't choose illness, they didn't choose to lose their jobs.
Many will commute hundreds of miles for the minimum of wage that barely covers expenses. Others will try and live off the land and many will suffer, especially the children.
In eastern Pennsylvania another family has suffered from a fire, though they have not said what is the cause of the fire only that ten people were trapped and killed and two managed to escape early Thursday from a house engulfed by flames near Brockway, a town of about 2,000 people situated about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The gas was shut off since 2005 and they were using space heaters to heat the house.
Unfortunately there are so many more of these stories just waiting to happen children keeping warm by unsafe electrical appliances. Maybe the fuel company thinks that these people are expendable, maybe these fuel companies believe they are God and can keep necessities away from those who need it. These fuel companies care very little about extending help, they are turning away money because the payments aren't as much as they want to recieve, greed they want and mroe, it seems they prefer to shut off gas to peoples home rather then help them.
I don't necessary want to signal out companies, but I know for a fact that that their stock holders are not doing without, who suffers? society suffers, children suffer and the world who will never get to know the children they suffer.

I believe whole heartily that our country is desperately over looking the working poor. I am not sure this presidential election will make any difference, as it will be much of the same. People who can't even relate to what is really going on around them, it as if they want to breed a separation of the classes.

What can we do? Write to our politicians let them know without change they won't recieve our votes, write to our fuel companies the puc and anyone who will listen. I find this appalling and to close to home to ignore

My prayers go out to the family and survivors. Anyone who cares to follow up on the story can view it at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08098/871121-54.stm

Standing alone we are one in the wind, together we are a wall that cannot be bulldozed down, stand strong stand together, allow your voice to be heard. The tears of many children depend on us.

May God help those who can't help themself.

Understanding is not accepting

2008-04-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

Every adult retains the memories of their youth, it is through this kaleidoscope of events that we see the formation of thought. The process creates our internal response to current situations. So heavily weighs our former experiences that when we reach out in time of crisis it is from our first lessons in life that we pull information or answers to work through a moment in time. Of course we do not stop growing and learning therefore we can alter negative experiences with more positive ones. In reality we are a canvas and it is possible to repaint the canvas many times over, in doing so we do not look to perfect life, but the create a new experience.

Why is it that one can feel so lost in territory they have traveled on a regular basis? I have asked this question of myself many of times. I have been here before then why do I sense such fear? The surroundings may be familiar but the situation that rises up from it, has slight bit difference to it. I feel the daggers of judgement in the words of others, common is the practice to expect others to act or behave in a manner consistent with their own actions. As if condemning another condones their own choice or lack of choice.

In the battle between self and our own inner demon, one can only look inward and react accordingly. Questions we must ask our self, what is it we want? what is it we deserve? and again how can we reach out and respond to the task of achieving our own goals? Each persons wants and desires are very different and only through honest searching of the soul can we find where our wants shall lead us. We are deserving of what all humans are deserving of, the right to explore and experience life. Goals should be attainable, one hour, one day, one lifetime.

I have not felt the fear for sometime, somehow I have been able to release it from my cache of thought. In my outreach to gain a better understanding of myself, I have found that we hand over the scepter to the captors and through a period of growth we take back the control of our own being.

In any abusive or dysfunctional family the major goal is to break the cycle to not pass the pain and experience on to others members of the family. It is possible to break the chains that lock the past to the present. One must first believe they can and through the exploration of self improvement become enriched by the trials of the past and not held down by them. We do this by removing from our shoulders the weight of guilt.

In each adult lives a child, in each child grows and adult, it is alright to allow emotion to remind us of the paths we have already traveled but more importantly to be able to see the options in the roads ahead. Choices have always been there for us, we just need to know when and where to reach out and make them.

Everyday we would drive through town and we would complain to one another that the speed limit was higher then it needed to be with so many children walking to school. It wasn't until a little girl was hit by a pick up truck walking to school that everyone demanded something be done. This is how life is, it's not until something touches or creates an impact in our life, that we then decide to react. Almost as if we don't see the choices before us until we see the outcome. That is very unfortunate for the many who stand to be a victim to the error of our ways.

It has been said "we learn from out mistakes" hopefully we grow from them as well.

Everything comes with consequences

2008-04-10T15:36:00.001-07:00

There are many factors that come into play, thus creating the great sacrifice. In the larger picture it is not always about self, as there are contributing factors to every decision. Creating a house of cards, it takes the slightest movement and quickly they all fall down. We don't invest in the future to watch the great collapse, unfortunately it is our vulnerabilities that occur throughout our life that create the greatest of test. It's as the the children's story the three pigs, have we built a solid foundation of straw, sticks or brick?

Never Gonna Fall In Love Again - Eric Carmen

2008-04-02T15:47:00.001-07:00

Peace

2008-03-26T03:49:00.000-07:00

You hear it all the time from every one in every walk of life,standing on the podium of life to preach peace. It is not enough to preach peace, one must live peace. Example is the greatest teacher. The adage "don't do as I do, do as I say" sets us up for failure, for it is the ultimate weakness, " not I" In these last couple of weeks I have felt the kindness of strangers and have seen how "actions do speak louder then words. "

2008-03-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

glitter-graphics.com

Indeed it is

2008-03-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

Everything is relative!

- Will G. Miller

The dictionary defines relative as existing or having its specific nature only by relation to something else; not absolute or independent: Happiness is relative.

When your body is hotter than the water, you might say the water is cold, when your body is cooler than the water you might say the water feels hot. Is the water hot or cold? The temperature of the water never changes, the circumstances surrounding the touching of the water does.

I shall not run, nor escape for I am free

2008-03-09T03:47:00.000-07:00

This is not directed at the victim but those who are likely to victimize. What initially causes one to lose ground with reality varies like everything in life many instigative factors. It is the limited thought process which cannot or will not accept the "what is". What are the solutions in controlling ones own outburst? First one must seek change, be willing to be better, expect better and fully respect those around us, it does not necessary mean we have to like everything we see but we must release ourselves from resentment and placing the ultimate label of blame.
We have heard that " Patience is a virtue" some of us instilled with more patience then others.
Most domestic abuse situations arise from the destructive pattern called anger. It is very own inner demons that impels us to release negativity upon those closest to us. What are the factors involved that hit the red button leading to violence. Each person needs to self analyze their actions, is alcohol and drugs contributing factors? or is the focusing of one's own failures that has us seeking to place blame by thus punishing and victimizing the innocent.
It has been said that we can only get help if we seek help and the first step is admitting the need for help. There needs to be no religious ties to accomplish meeting with your own spiritual goals.
By mere acceptance one can improve a situation to become fully enlighten enough to grow, heal and place and end to violence in their own world.
Acceptance of self, those around us and present situations is the key to an inner peace, how, when and why we experience anger is simply tied to our lack of acceptance.

ANGER a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; what wrong can be done to abuse a innocent human being? None that I know of!

My drive in writing this comes about by one too many people who point fingers, judge and ridicule the victim. Let's make it clear, no one desires to be in an abusive situation, no one deserves to be in an abusive situation. There is an old adage that I have repeated many times " treat those as you wish to be treated" I find it appalling that there are many people out there who want to put the added pressure on the victim, as if they are responsible for another persons lack of control, alcohol issues, drug abuse. Let us remember that we are responsible for oneself and we cannot make the decisions to improve or seek help.
In a high majority of cases it is the woman and children who suffer at the hands of violence, but I am not sexist as I know clearly that anyone can become a victim of violence.

Are there things we can do with out seeking professional help? this also depends on how much you want to improve your present situation and create a peaceful atmosphere. Yes there are steps that can be taken to combat violent outburst.

First we need to Identify with what causes the outburst to occur. Let's start with 3 important and most common, personal suffering, disappointment and financial hardship. Identifying we have a problem is the first step in seeking a solution, practicing patience is the second step in that when we feel anger rise , we can choose to walk away from situation, we can cleanse our mind by inserting good thoughts, we can liberate our spirit by allowing peace to replace dysfunction. There are many coping skills that are developed to redierct anger and prevent violence from ever occuring in the first place.

I am not by brothers keeper nor I shall take responsibility for his ill will.

Love yourself enough to stand tall....

2008-03-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

I just read a post that said if you just love yourself enough you won’t find yourself in an abusive situation, at least that is the message I received. I was instantly offended as I found that statement to place blame on the victim. If the victim loved them self better, if they were smarter, stronger. “If” is such a big word for someone to place on another. This again is placing a stereotype on who becomes a victim. One of my goals in life was to strip away stereotypes and labels. It is your basic cause and effect, but that is all that is simple about abuse. Adults or children It doesn’t matter, abuse is a sickness and those caught up in the sickness, struggle to keep afloat. I will say it again, abuse has no boundaries, and it knows not race, financial status nor intelligence. It happens to people in all brackets of life; it is well hidden and is likely
the skeletons in the closet. The victim should not be labeled and enabler, fear is a very
strong weapon and very real.

http://groups.msn.com/DOMESTICVIOLENCEABUSE/inlovingmemory2.msnw

“The limit of your self abuse is the limit you will tolerate from other people. If someone abuses you more than you abuse yourself, you walk away, you run, you escape” - Don Miguel Ruiz

I do not believe a person needs to walk away, run away or escape. What we should be directing this to is the people who need anger management or to get counseling for their psychological problems. Should we leave behind friends and family, our home and our life, because someone doesn't seek help. I believe it is a sin that any human being has to run or hide. Help should not come with a stigma and why must it be the victim who seeks help. Those who direct anger at another person is gutless and doesn't love himor herself.

2008-03-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

I find that people would rather believe a lie then the truth when confronted with human failure. It is the core of our being that provides the blue print to a long list of vulnerabilities. If we choose to repeat the same mistakes as history has already documented we will systematically continue on a path of power and greed.

Gene Selection

2008-03-04T03:10:00.000-08:00

Genetic selection, what movies are made of or is it? Scientific testing has encoded the differences of DNA sequences, providing us with unique genetic maps. In genetic therapy diseases are treated by altering or replacing a defective gene. It is possible that genetic selection or genetic therapy can directly effect the future way we diagnose and treat physical and mental illness.
It is evident that there is a genetic predisposition towards violence in many individuals, if we eliminate the gene for violence can we alter the world as we know it and can we finally view a Utopia?
It has been said that there is a fine line between a genus and a insane person, would suppressing a gene also suppress creativity and intelligence? Or is it possible to eliminate the negativity without effecting individual character. There is quite a bit of research that needs to be done be for implementing changes in individuals. Yet there is concern to the misuse and abuse of such futuristic abilities. Are we using our new knowledge to prevent or to control and who decides what is acceptable?
Some say that it would be playing God, but I believe we are given the intelligence to assure that human life continues without destructive behavior. It takes one look on a clear night at the many galaxies above us to realize we have done so little to assure our place in this vast space. We are responsible to explore all the possibilities and stand united to bring peace to an unsettling world. We have a magnitude of wealth and intelligence when we decide to unite with out greed then we will explore beyond the imagination.

Albert Einstein

2008-02-23T08:17:00.000-08:00

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - -- Albert Einstein

Michael Tatalovich

2008-02-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Visnansky chose to end the life of Michael tatalovich a student at Robert Morris Unniversity, but this is not a mourning of his death but a celebration of his life. Michael could have been yours my son, he had dreams and goals much like our own youth. He has four sibilings who will remember him with love and warmth and reach out to him beyond the realm of our earthly spirit. Known by those who came in contact with him that he was bright and kind and his memories of warmth will dance in the nightly stars.
Michael did make a difference in this world, and in everyone who he had touched. His life on earth has been shortened by an untimely death but his memory lives on,rejoice and allow it to guide you in a positive manner.

I believe we need to look more at who the victims are in this cruel world. I was asked once by a woman who was fighting for a man on death row. He has rights she said, he has human rights. No one who violates the human law and chooses to kill in such violent ways has any rights they have been stripped. She said could you pull the switch on a man sitting on death row? I said your damn straight I could and I would look him in the eye while I was doing it. We need to look at the rights of honest good and hardworking citizens, the forgotten middle class who keep the wealthy rich and the poor fed.

Human rights is the reward for those abide by the law.

Tears are of those memories that will never be made,

for someone chose to end a life.

Heartbreak

2008-02-17T12:32:00.000-08:00

A blogger asked if I would define heartbreak. The dictionary defines heartbreak as an overwhelming sorrow or grief. It is the shattering of a heart that finds it difficult to put the pieces back together.
I have written many times that there is no greater heartbreak then a parent living to view and feel the death of a child. We can experience many strong emotions dealing with death, those that come from meaningless violence seems to be the most difficult to deal with. The violent crime is almost become common place, as we hear on a daily basis of those killed at the hands of what appear to be the average person. That is until we begin to peel away the layers of of the outer shell to view the inner workings of being human.
The list is long we have Robert Morris University students gunned down, Illinois Univeristy, Virgina, councel meetings shopping malls and clothing stores, fast food eating places, post offices, etc. It appears unless we barricade ourselves we are all likely to know or be the next victim.
The page is not long enough to try and bring some justice to the innocent people that have been murdered.
Heartbreak, we will all experience it at one time or another and it will likely be from a loss of a loved one, in one form or another whether that be a divorce, death, break-up or illness. Such heartbreak never really heals, time may buffer it but the loss will remain with a person for as long as they live.
All we can do is pay tribute to those who have shined like a star in the night for a short period of time and have given the gift of love in one way or another. So much attention is placed on those ill minded people who are destructive to self and others, and so little given to the those who have brought beauty into the world. So each week I will place a post of one person who has brought joy into the world of those that knew them.

Parenting

2008-02-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

There is no job that could be more difficult or rewarding as parenting. It is a lifelong career that does not ask for a resume of qualifications. If it did how many of us would truly get the job?

Parents playing Favorites

2008-02-17T10:49:00.000-08:00

This recently came up in conversation, the topic of parents playing favorites. You don't have to be from a dysfunctional family to see that favoritism exists in many families. Thus the creation of sybling rivarly is born. Many parents will say they didn't favor one child over another, but the children grow up seeing it differently. Does is exist and to what to degree? Yes it does and the degree of favoritism varies.
It wasn't until my eldest sybling said to me you can do no wrong, you were always daddies favorite, the goody two shoes, that it occured to me that grown adults still rival for the parents attention. Was I favored? The answer to that is yes, I obviously saw my father in a different light then my brother and sisters did. Mostly I think we tend to take on different personalities, I remember becoming the pleaser and sometimes it is for the completely wrong reasons. I surely wasn't blind and I know I didn't want beat, so in a sense you succumb. I think it was more then that, might have to do with bonding and personality. If you break down each child in the family you see that they all have weaknesses and strengths. Dysfunctional does not mean stupid or ignorant, abusers are often very intelligent people. The child who stands to confront it many times feels the anger and falls victim easier. I cannot actually say what went on in my fathers mind, but the truth is he never laid a hand on me and yet I have seen the monster side of him. How could he have two complete sides, did he love one child more or less? Without actually speaking to him on the subject we will never really know. But this I am sure of he saw me as fragile and weak and the words as such flowed off his tongue. So in protecting what he felt was the weak child, was keeping his dirty little secrets well hidden.
Asking parents if they felt they favored, they said overwhelming no. They felt as if they were giving recognition to the child who did his chores, gave less back talk and succeeded in one way or another. This maybe true in some families but it is obvious that favoritism does exist and can does create self doubt in young people and adults. Do we try to become over achievers to in our search for attention or it is the opposite and rebellion shows its ugly head. Psychologically it becomes a viscious cycle as those who are reward for good behavior gain a certain amount of respect and the child that might have failed once will fight their whole life to try and live down the negative labeling.
Sometimes more then enough it is interpetation of an event that leads one to believe it is favoritism when actually it is parents making decisions right or wrong for that particular time. In preventing sibling rivalry a parent must adhere to a few rules.
1. Do not compare one child to another.
2. Communication ,if a decision is made provide a clear answer to why.
3. Provide more family time
4. Look for the positive in each child.
5. Realize that all children are different and respect the difference
6. Jealousy is a natural emotion, which can be lessoned with number 2 communication
7. A parents job is to nurture.
The most important part of a childs life is the caregiver, how we respond, to both the postitive and negative in a childs life will guide them in their adult lives.

We find that sports coaches and teachers, employers and many others are accused of favoriting one person over another. Ask yourself before placing fault or condemning, does the claim have any merit.

The squeaky wheel may get the oil, but we have to becareful if we want that oil or not.

When the monster becomes human

2008-02-15T17:56:00.000-08:00

Everyone wants answers for the rash of mass killings on innocent bystanders both in council meetings, shoppers, student and educators. Have we become a product of our enviroment? The more you look for answers the deeper you must dig into what we consider exceptable.
When I was small we use to have a saturday night tv show and it was about scary monsters, we didn't relate to the characters because they were obviously very fictional, yet frightening just the same. I would sit next to my elder brother and close my eyes and say "wake me up when its over." As a parent you have to be concerned with what your children are experiencing, the movies are no longer werewolves and frankenstein, they are realistic and as common looking as the neighbor next door. It has been explored that violence in this nature numbs a person and that they become almost immune to the visuals. Three movies over the last few years have I walked out on, all of them were because they had unecessary violent scenes which I did not care to view.
There is no doubt in my mind that we have a break down in our moral values. Vulgarity has become exceptable, violence necessary for a movie to get the ratings, sexuality and the marketing of our youth and exploitation in every form possible. Drugs prevalent and exceptable
are seen in the music industry, our schools, theater, parks.
In a small town drugs and parpha. were found in the local park, instead of removing the drug dealers they closed the park to the children and shut down summer park programs. As much as we want the government to stand up and do their part to combat drugs and violence, it our responsiblity as parents and neighbors that must look at the apples that are falling from our own trees.
It is true that we cannot go back in time and we cannot erase the present, this means we must build on the future. It is said that we are a me centered community, putting self before the needs of our children. What changes can we implement for the future, create more walls, build more security devices, home school our children, hide, pretend it will not happen to us?
There is no one answer, everyone must do their part to see changes in the future, doctors, teachers, students, parents, goverment, media, musicians, artist, theater,etc. We all must be responsible to create a change that will bring a form of peace to the world.

The war the we are losing is in the loss of our young to an ever changing world.

The Blame Game

2008-02-04T06:32:00.000-08:00

Memories over the last thirty five years flooded heavily, so much so that I found myself for more then a brief period of time wallowing in them. What was the purpose of this review of the past and why had it over shadowed the day? I first looked at my current position in life, where I was at this very moment and then saw the effects like dominoes each vision becoming a red flag signaling a warming sign. I thought I might be ready to share my story of the prison walls, mortared with insecurities,,circumstances and the czar ruler who helped to form the barriers brick by brick. Then as I excepted my responsiblity in it all, and the choices I had personally taken, the memories began to fade. I had not given them the power to drape a new day.I have graduated from the past and I am exploring the future.

The White Buffalo

2008-02-02T15:45:00.000-08:00

The adage " History repeats itself" is proof of how little we advanced and how weak we are as intellectual beings. We still battle in the name of greed and ignorance. My time spent with the Native Americans brought not only inner peace, it also came with the visions that nature so instills within each of us.

The white Buffalo

One summer many moons ago, the seven sacred council fires of the Lakota Sioux came together in a great union. The sun was powerful and bright and the heat taking its toll as the people were starving for there was no game. The young tribal men went to seek food. Along the way, the hunters met a beautiful young woman dressed in white who controlled the heaves as she floated high above the clouds. One of the men was filled with lust for the woman and tried to seduce her, but as he reached out to touch her, a cloud surrounded and turned into a pile of bones. The beautiful woman spoke to the young man who remained and she said to him, "Return to your people and tell them I am coming." The powerful and magic of this beautiful woman came with a wrapped bundle to the people. The clouds lowering her she stood facing the Lakota Sioux and unwrapped the bundle giving to the sious a sacred pipe, with the pipe she taught them to pray to the gods. "With this holy pipe, you will walk like a living prayer," she said. Standing framed by the land the Sious called home she spoke to the Sioux about the value of the buffalo, the women and the children. "You are of Mother Earth," she told the women and children, "What you are doing is the work of Mother Earth herself "as she turned to walk away, she looked back upon the people told the people and she said " I will return" , she then dropped to the earth and rolled over four times with the clouds surrounding her she turned into a white female buffalo calf. From that day on the Lakota honored their pipe, and buffalo were plentiful.

To this day the Native Americans believe that the coming of the white buffalo symbolizes the coming together of humanity into a oneness of heart, mind, and spirit.

There is much to be said about becoming one with Mother Earth, the inner being guided by Mother Earth and allowing her to lead to a world of Peace. The respect that comes for the world the people and everything in it will shower us with the true gift of love and knowledge. Imagine for one moment one world, one people, working side by side to protect and further Mother Earth. It is not difficult to see how hatred flourish when one looks at the destruction of man upon man, of man upon mother earth.

We have the knowledge, but a sickness rages through
the blood of many, we cannot control or guide hate.

Strip yourself of your worldly goods and what do you find?

Walk into the sun and leave behind fear, hatred, ignorance, greed and power.The mighty skies , the stars , rivers and mountains, seas and the storms yet to come they hold the answers. We are merrily warriors of Mother Nature, battling to bring respect and peace to her inhabit the earth.

Death at the hands of a brother.

2008-01-28T17:34:00.000-08:00

Write your Congress.. make a difference.

Guns

2008-01-28T16:29:00.000-08:00

Death... as easy as pulling the trigger on a hand gun. It takes a second and a person's life can be altered forever or erased, as if they never existed. I never quite took a stance for or against the gun laws. Of course there is the Amendment the gun lobbyist will fight for " the right to bear arms." I don't know exactly how many people die by the means of a hand gun. I do know its one, to many. Reading the local newspaper there are so many stories of the death of young people, senseless crime that continues, when in a fit of anger one person aims a weapon at another.

I am not new to violence, I stood several times in my life beside, in front or behind the person who held a loaded gun. Several times I witnessed domestic abuse as the gun repeatedly went off, one parent aiming at another. I stood in a store where the clerk was shot and killed and then again for the second time, when I looked eye to eye at a stranger knowing he had a loaded gun with the intent to use it. I wish I could say that would be the last time I would personally have to face the violence head on. But then it came even closer to my family and like a bad nightmare I stood , knee high in snow with out shoes on pleading and begging a family member to put down the gun , please put down the gun. I thought of all the things I should say, I cried, I pleaded I begged and I screamed inside and out. A loaded gun, anger, frustration and in a moments time a family can be changed forever.
Recently two Robert Morris Students were killed and one seriously injured, there is no reasoning for it, it happened. 23-year-old Paul Visnansky chose to take another humans life. It goes on all the time. Yet I found this troubling, when arrested the killer said if he could have those 3 minutes back. You can't that is the big problem with guns, once the trigger is pulled your intent was to kill or at least maim . There is no reasoning, many factors could come into play, temper mental illness, drugs, alcohol , theft, the list is so long and none of it makes one bit of sense. You carry a gun you plan to use it.
What is a murder, who is a murder and what does a murder look like? As I see it anyone who carries a weapon is capable of murder, if not why would you carry it? What does a murder look like? they look you and I. What is a murder? It is a human being that chose to make a bad decision, they chose to end a life. The gun lobbyist will say guns are for self defense, yet we know that many owners of guns will become their own victims. People who hunt and target practice claim that handguns are a craft and a skill. I believe any weapon small enough to conceal makes all those around the gun carrier potential victims.
If our congressional leaders work for us, then why are they not amending the laws to protect the " we the people of the united states of America" I do believe in unity we are powerful, if one woman could take prayer which our country was founded on out of our school systems and out of our community at large, then we the people together can change the laws that put guns in the hands of our youth. Someone needs to take responsibility or we all need to take responsibility, for this is our country and we are a democracy and that does not mean making more rules that are not enforced, but enforcing rules that already exist.
The sixties was a troubling time, some saw it has a fight for freedom, but I don't quite see it that way. We the children of the sixties broke down barriers both good and bad. The rigid structure that came with the earlier years were replaced with rebellion and drugs became the expected norm that broke down the infrastructure of our community. People used to think that times were better when they were young, I don't see it that way. Each generation is carrying its own share of violence.
I am not sure why but I have faith in my God and in the people that we can and we will make a difference. Some say it will take the world in its most vulnerable state to bring us all together, to give us the insight to claim peace as our guide. I pray they are wrong and that we are much smarter then waiting for a world tragedy to teach us a lesson.

One Earth, One people, One Chance.

"Guns don't kill people kill",

but the wrong person behind the

hand of a gun will kill awfully fast.

Who is the wrong person and who

makes that judgement call?

2008-01-26T18:44:00.000-08:00

If my heart of paper, the scissors he command and

clip, cut, clip my heart now in his hands.

2008-01-25T14:11:00.001-08:00

Prevention is a lot easier then trying to find a cure...

2008-01-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

I find choice straddled between circumstances and selfishness, as the decisions reflect on all those who are somehow entwined by either the thread of opportunity or the web of deceit.

mountains

2008-01-14T09:31:00.001-08:00

No sooner do you think you have reached up over the mountain to see beyond the horizon, then you meet with another mountain to climb.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

2008-01-04T06:37:00.001-08:00

2007-12-08T02:29:00.001-08:00

I Shall Not Weaken

2007-12-08T02:19:00.000-08:00

I have neither given up nor given in, as I ask the Lord for direction. Lead me unto the light and allow the vision of the past and present to meet in harmony. Troubled hearts are many, weary souls in abundance proclaim, time be the keeper and the reminder is the pain. I shall not weaken in the shadow of the day, though the spirit trembles, the tears now fade away.

The Crossroads

2007-12-02T08:06:00.002-08:00

Dear Mark at www.tobeme.wordpress.com
I am at a crossroad in my life. I find I no longer want to look back and I don't want to stand still and I don't know what the future holds and I don't know where I fit in, in the so called "scheme of things or the bigger picture. " I do know I must forge ahead in whatever that may bring. I am not ungrateful for my experiences both positive and negative for they have been the great lessons of life that have revealed much about human nature to me. I never quite liked having this keen sense of insight, when I was younger it was both frightening and a lonely place.
Sometimes I have nightmares, always different but they wake me in the middle of the night. The encyclopedia says nightmares in adults is usually found in sensitive and creative individuals, I might be guilty of being a little sensitive and creative, but there are times you have to focus to a better place, to new horizons.
Life is new chapters and If I find that in sharing brings a certain amount of peace or knowledge to another I 'll take note and jot it down here in cyberspace.

I just recently said to a good friend, I am a fond supporter of happy beginnings and not happy endings, each day brings just that a new beginning, and I am happy with that. Is life perfect?
One smell of a rose, one glimpse of the kingfisher diving in the waters, one touch of the soft skin of a new born baby and you sense that all is perfect and beautiful in this world of ours. For it is only man's human ways or flaws that see otherwise.

Thank you for you your comment, it is very nice of you to show this compassion and I felt your warmth even at a distance.

I don't like goodbyes... I'll be seen ya.

The Beatles Hello Goodbye

2007-12-02T08:06:00.001-08:00

Hello..hello, I don't know why you say hello I say goodbye.

Children Without Voices

Chapter 1

I choose Love

The Silent Treatment

Unitelligble Mayhem

The Poster Child for Abuse

May you be blessed with the holiday spirit everyday of the year

The Adult Child

Happiness

There is Hope

Crazy is ..bringing children into a world and not loving them.

No Fairytale

Survival

ugh

Discipline or Abuse

Lost but not forgotten

In the Eyes of the Devil

I Got Flowers Today

We are the moment

The Child Who Would Become a Woman and the Woman who is still...

Control your destiny and free your soul

Healing

Have Faith...

Unseen Pain

Our Prayers and Condolences

Caught in the web of dysfunction

Thanks Gail. mental health

Mental Health and Abuse

Giving Advice.

National Domestic Violence

Survivors

What is Abuse? - A Warning List

Why Stay? Time Might Not Be The Option.

Judge not less

yea be Judged!

Discipline?

Suicide

Domestic Abuse,

No Punishment is fitting ...

Anna Marie Lutz 24

Broken Fingers

We can't let go of what is an internal part of our being.

Abuse wears a coat of many colors.

Free the soul...remove the fear.

What is Abuse

Why I choose to keep the blog open

Jacee Lee Dugard

La Fitness,Bridgeville

The Evils of Abuse

Abuse

Abuse

Abuse

The weak threads ... a symptom of child abuse

I am a survivor

Somethings We Never Forget, nor should we!!!

Children learn what they live

Mother

Dream On - Aerosmith - MTV Unplugged

There is a way out

Is it rape or sex between marital couples?

Revenge

Survivors

Rural Folks

How many need to die to keep the wealthy even wealthier.

Understanding is not accepting

Everything comes with consequences

Never Gonna Fall In Love Again - Eric Carmen

Peace

Indeed it is

I shall not run, nor escape for I am free

Love yourself enough to stand tall....

Gene Selection

Albert Einstein

Michael Tatalovich

Heartbreak

Parenting

Parents playing Favorites

When the monster becomes human

The Blame Game

The White Buffalo