The True Story of My Life #20 (1998)

I was in community college. I still worked for the Rose's at first. I took classes around their schedule as much as possible. I began volunteering at the ENNL center, which is like ESL. ENNL stands for "English as a Non-Native Language". ESL is "English as a Second Language". It's pretty much the same thing but ENNL is, I guess, more "pc", because for some people, they are not learning a second language, but possibly a third or fourth. My supervisor was wonderful and we got along well. I did some housesitting for her later. She was also Jewish! She sort of embraced it, and sort of tried to disown it. I'll call her N. She had gone to Harvard too, I believe, and had a master's or something in English Literature. She and I also had music in common--we were both singers and both of us were actually fairly good.

She was the first person to introduce me to Latin magical realism, after she read something I had written--a fiction piece. She said my style or writing reminded her of Isabel Allende. I didn't know who that was. N. told me the way I wove magical scenes or dream scenes, into reality scenes, was just like her.

So I had to read Allende of course! But I didn't read her work right away. I was curious and picked up "House of Spirits" and skimmed through at a bookstore but didn't read it. I saw what my supervisor was talking about in the similarity. I actually read a couple of her books years later, after 2004, after I had moved to Wenatchee, Washington. I probably wouldn't have read the "racy" short stories when I was younger, before I'd gone through more in life and changed my perspective on some things. Reading Allende, at the time I did, was important for me. It affirmed I was not alone, as a writer and feminist. This was something I treasured in reading the stories of those I never met in my immediate life but knew had existed in either reality or someone's imagination.

My favorite book by Allende is a compilation of short stories with one tale which is somewhat raunchy, but something about it...is just SO good! It's the one about the woman who is a prostitute (there goes the prostitute theme again, which, by the way, is nothing I've tried) or maybe she's not a prostitute, she just takes in a LOT of lovers, and then one day, someone special knocks her for a loop and she falls in love after one night, and they jump onto a horse and ride away. I've got to find the title for that story. Update! It's from The Stories of Eva Luna. I'm pretty sure the short story I liked, from this book, is called "(I have to omit this until I find out which one it is--i made a guess that could be wrong)". I liked the writing in this one, and the spirit.

At any rate, I was surprised to find my writing was very similar, and style was similar, and I'd never read anything of that genre before. I DO know I tend to write in a concentric way, I think, or in tangents, and then come full circle, and in my fiction writing, I do like to blend the spiritual or magical with reality.

N. gave me the book "Paula", by Isabel Allende, when I was moving out of state. She said her mother, or someone like a mother, had passed it on to her, and now she was passing it on to me.

The ENNL center was in the multicultural center. I loved it because international students milled about there, and came into the room, sometimes just to chat and kill time. I heard some fascinating stories from people from Asia, Middle East (before 9/11 because a lot of them left afterwards), and the former Soviet Union. I initially thought I would volunteer there and meet some Spanish speakers who wanted to trade English lessons for giving me help with my Spanish, but as it turned out, only 2 people, in 3 years of my work there, came in who spoke Spanish. I ended up dating a couple of Middle Eastern men I met there, and later at Portland State, one from U.A.E. whose family had a lot of money and owned a lot of camels, and one whose apartment was decked out in full warrior regalia. I had international students coming in and thinking I was a foreigner too; they guessed I was from Eastern Europe or Iran. It was only Americans who thought I was Irish ("because of your red hair").

I had some lousy classes, but took speech, which was required, and later took debate, which proved to be one of the most useful courses I've taken in my life. I also took some English classes from a quirky professor who was every bit the absent-minded professor. She was very creative, to say the least, and always had something spilled on her shirt, or was making a mess on the lecturn--the type to constantly backhand her coffee as she's suddenly getting excited and chalk is flying across the room and barely staying on the board.

I was very disappointed with community college except for a few classes. I had felt more challenged in my AP high school classes, so it was a bit of a setback. Debate was the one class that challenged and stretched my mind, and tested my ability to stand up publicly. Even though I had a lot of experience singing solos publicly, that was different. I could sing, but I wasn't a showboat. I didn't move around the stage and dramatize. I just stood there and sang my song well, making maybe a few hand gestures. Singing is also rehearsed. Public debate is not rehearsed. I wasn't very good at impromtu speech--it was my worst area, but I did well at forensic speaking or debate, where 2 people on a team argue against 2 other people on a team. I think it's the iron-sharpens-iron idea. Hearing other people talk gave me ideas and then I could either expound upon with my better idea, or tear down. Everyone in that class was pretty talkative, except me. I did a lot of listening. I dated a few of the guys on the debate team. By far, they were more intellectual than the others I met around campus. It was a lot of fun. I probably owe my ability to stick up for myself and protest publicly, or to dare to, to my debate teacher, Larry Galizio. I actually wasn't going to be allowed to the team when I only passed the mandatory speech class with a B. I think you had to have an "A" and I didn't. But I did my best to persuade them to allow me to try. It didn't come natural and my knees would shake and I got tension headaches when I was speaking in front of a group, but I was determined to overcome my weakness, or improve.

I remember one woman in that class who was a MAJOR brain and the girl was freakin' working at Fred Meyers as a checker. This woman knew more than most Ivy's I've known personally, had an incredible memory, and superior arguing skills. She knew everything about NAFTA, UNISCO, the IMF, and a million other government organizations I'd never heard of. And then one of the guys I didn't date really, but had a strong intellectual attraction to, introduced me to the theories of Ayn Rand. I played my first game of poker with that group. I also had my first taste of good sushi with one of the guys I dated. I'd tried sushi before and didn't like it, and then I had GOOD sushi, and was hooked.

At some point that summer, I was 23 or 24 years old and I was tired of waiting around for "Mr. Right". All the guys I dated didn't last very long, because I wouldn't even let them hold my hand. Others wanted to keep dating but I knew, most of the time, whether I wanted to see someone further after 1 or 2 dates. I went through so many men and none clicked. I decided I was going to just "make out!" for the hell of it. I had only made out with one person in my life 'til then. I just wanted to kiss someone and maybe a little more, but not much more.

I accepted a date with someone I knew from work. He was an acquaintance, but not a friend. He flirted with me and asked me out. I said okay. He picked me up and we were going to go to the park near Lake Oswego and just talk. First he went to the grocery store with me and bought some cheese, an apple, and spent a long time selecting a knife. For cutting the apple with. He made a big deal about it and instead of buying a regular apple paring knife, he bought one which was a little heavier, longer, and sharper. I remember standing there, thinking twice, but I worked with him, so I dismissed the doubt. He also bought a bottle of wine. I didn't drink AT all at that time in my life. Basically, never. I didn't even know what tolerance was or what it might be for me.

We went to the park. We had wine, and 2 glasses was far too much for me. We kissed and then the police came. Wondering who was at the park that late. One of the officers looked at me with a look I still remember, in concern and with a penetrating look, and something like guilt. They waved us on. I said I wanted to make out so he took me to his apartment. This didn't signify anything to me as my high school boyfriend never took anything the wrong way. Going to eachother's house or apartment meant nothing, and he was always respectful of me and stopped when I wanted to stop. He was my only measure of guys were like on a date, in the kissing arena.

I told him, this co-worker, before we kissed again, that I was a virgin, and I didn't want to do anything more than kiss and make out but nothing else. I told him this in the car and in his apartment. His roommates were gone he said. I made out with him a short time and then he pinned me against the floor, and held my wrists down. I told him to stop. He refused to stop. He unbuckled his belt and I still remember the sound. I yelled at him to stop and get off and he forced me down harder with his whole body and began threatening me. He was so forceful and became so angry, I thought about the knife he still had on him. I thought about his roommates not being home. No one would even hear me if I screamed. I knew already that he was stronger than me. I thought I was in danger of dying if I didn't go along. So I put my mind outside of the situation and stopped fighting. I was hoping to play dead, hoping he'd go away. He didn't go away, and he even held me down as he put on a condom. Which may be the strangest sounding part, but police believed me when they pulled his file later. One said he must have been a pretty big guy. Maybe he was more like 200 or so lbs, I really don't know. I also don't know how he did it, but he was sitting across me and was very heavy and I couldn't move. He used his legs, which were very strong, and his other hand and rest of his body. He was about 6' or so and maybe 180 or more lbs, I don't know, just stronger than I was.

When he did what he did, I told myself I wanted it to happen, in my head, even though I didn't. It was easier to lie to myself then, and put the blame on myself than to believe another human being could do such a thing. I didn't enjoy it. I was held to the ground, and I felt a hate rising up within me and felt it was maybe that I hated God. Or maybe didn't hate God, but was turning my back on him because this was happening. The only thing he said after raping me, was a sarcastic, "So what would your Dad think of a JEW fucking his daughter?!"

I don't know for sure whether he was Jewish or not. He said he was, and that he was from Coos Bay. His name I will include after I finish this post and go back to it to add the name. ___________

Afterwards, he drove me home in a white SAAB he said wasn't his car, but belonged to someone else. When I was home, I walked into my roommate Halea's room, said flatly, "I had sex", and walked out. I stayed in my room and I don't even remember if I cried. I did write a poem in symbols, about being raped. I knew I had been raped, but somehow I blocked it out and couldn't acknowledge it. I thought maybe it was my fault. My fault for wanting to make out to begin with, so this was what I deserved. My fault, it must have been, because I didn't fight tooth and nail and scream and kick anyway. I felt guilty and to blame for doing nothing.

I was no longer a virgin, so I felt worthless at first, in my view of christianity and it's value placed upon virginity. I had believed the act of sex, in marriage, was a "seal", a covenant between two people. In a way, it was referred to in the Bible as a kind of blood offering. I wondered what I should do and looked to the Bible. I read the Old Testament about Tamar, who was raped and then her rapist was supposed to marry her after he raped her but refused so she lived alone the rest of her life. I thought it must be that the only person I could be with was this rapist. That I was supposed to stay with him, which may sound strange, but it was my way of thinking then. I would do anything, practically, to do what I thought the right thing was to do.

I thought once someone lost their virginity, if they were a christian, that the "seal" was broken and therefore you were bonded to the person for life. Tamar's rapist was supposed to marry her. So maybe I was to stay with this guy and be a good christian and forgive him, and act as his "wife" even now, and then he would become a christian too, and that was "God's plan". Maybe that's why it was allowed to happen.

So I stayed with him and even sought to please him, in a very bad state of mind, where I even remember why he wouldn't touch me for awhile the next time, and just sat there drinking wine. This was the second time maybe? I wasn't intimate with him long. He took me to see "A Clockwork Orange" by Stanley Kubrick a day or so after he had raped me. He made a big point of it, telling me I had to see it. I was extremely disturbed by the movie, which I felt was wacked. I wanted to get away from him but felt I had to stay with him.

I talked to him about God, about my faith, and he looked so incredibly guilty, and as though he felt sorry when I did. I talked to him without anger or malice, with care and concern for him. I believe now that the entire thing was premeditated to some degree. I still don't know why he said what he said after he raped me. I hadn't ever brought up Judaism around him, though I may have spoken of my father, but I don't think so.

After a week, the shock wore off enough to where I finally wanted to find the good girls way out. I wanted to find a way out, with validation there was a way out, from my religion. I called up several pastors of various christian churches and asked them, annonymously, what I should do. I asked them if I had to stay with him. They all seemed incredulous I was even asking. I told them, I understood society would say no, but what about God, what about what the Bible said? I had to get enough "no's" before I could do it. I finally made the break. After I did, I froze up when he came around or showed up at work.

I quit my job at the tutoring center. Everytime I saw him, I could hardly breathe. I was hypervigilant and basically, just couldn't move. I couldn't think about my work. Then, I still ran into him on campus so I withdrew from all of my classes. I got "W's" for all of my classes that term because it was too late to get a refund.

My roommate Halea cried after I told her "I had sex". She was so disappointed in me. Other friends were disappointed in me. And for awhile, my heart hardened. I was angry inside. I decided to get back and do whatever I wanted so I found a guy I liked well enough, and while he wanted to take things slow, I just pushed it and had sex with him. Almost to get back at God, that I was CHOOSING this, so THERE. The guy didn't have any objections, but he'd said he was more interested in me and didn't want to ruin things prematurely. I told him it wouldn't. The guy I chose happened to be one of the nicest guys I've known. I cried every time, afterwards, sometimes sobbing, and told him I just felt guilty because I knew I shouldn't be doing what I was doing. He was sweet, smart, read a lot, and played Scrabble with me. We went out, and he introduced me to his whole family. I became genuinely attracted to him and there wasn't anything lacking except I started to feel guilty about what I was doing and that I should be married, and this guy was younger and wanted to be a rock star. Literally.

I decided to go to counseling on my own. I went for 3 months, and cried almost the whole time, every time. I cried all the way through some sessions and felt so wiped out, I had to have my appointments scheduled for later in the afternoon so I could go home and take a nap. I was too exhausted to do anything after the counseling. I didn't tell my counselor I was raped. I just told her I had started having sex but felt it was wrong. She said I was too hard on myself and wanted me to see me the way God saw me, as pure, beautiful, and good.

I asked my boyfriend if he'd go to church with me because I wanted to go back. He agreed and was very supportive. But of course we still did everything else. So I wanted to try taking breaks and still be together. He even agreed to a 2 week break where we weren't around eachother but talked on the phone, to "cool things down". Which didn't work. And I was still crying, but quietly, silent tears I brushed away so he didn't notice. He got very serious about me. He was considerate and kind, and funny, and worked just across the street from me at a gas station so he could come over for his "lunch break". We never had lunch, which was fantastic, I thought, but a source of guilt. Then he gave me gold cross earrings for Christmas, out of respect for my beliefs, and I felt horrible because I'd given him a big box full of prank toys including a kazoo and silly putty. He tried to be positive and said it looked like fun, in a slow, this-is-dawning-on-me way. He looked at the music book that came with the kazoo. He'd told me his dream was to be a rock star and I give him a kazoo. How supportive. I suddenly thought, "I hope he doesn't think I'm making fun!" He picked the items out of the box one by one, I think he thought there was going to be something better at the bottom of the box. I guess I was just being lighthearted and silly with the "childhood toys". He opened this up at the station with his coworkers and I felt so bad because I opened his gift to me first. His coworkers were really respectful of me, and wouldn't even look me in the eye. Hmmm...or they were hearing a few good stories...I know one night things happened in full view of the livingroom window and maybe this is why the sales guy across the street later asked me if I wanted to stay in HIS house to "keep it up while I'm out of town". (I should add, the lights WERE off so I don't think anyone saw anything...well, there were some lights from the Christmas tree). The coworkers though, were also very good to me and were like pals.

I couldn't live with the guilt. I had to break up with him to become "the nun" I was supposed to be until/if I were ever married. We tried to keep our hands off of eachother and couldn't, so I broke up with him. I explained why, and he couldn't believe me. He thought he'd done something wrong, and he hadn't. He hadn't done anything wrong. So he starts to cry and I felt like crap. I didn't cry back. Maybe I got teary eyed. He called me up later and asked if I would meet him for coffee. I said yes, of course. So we met up and he tells me he's sorry he didn't tell me before, and I must have found out about his "past". Huh? He had a past? He was only 20 years old.

He tells me how he went to Juevie or real jail? for a sex crime, or misdemeanor. He had been 18 years old and messed around with a girl who said she was older but was only 16 or 17. They didn't have "1st degree sex" but her Dad found out they'd done something and called police. After he tells me all of this, and says he should have told me earlier, I had to tell him, "No, thank you for telling me, but it's not that, and I didn't know anything about it. It was for the reason I said before." He looked crushed. Telling me about this big secret hadn't made a differnce and wasn't the factor to begin with.

Did I think less of him for telling me? No. I was suprised because he and his family were so middle-class, and lived out in the country in West Linn or Wilsonville, and it seemed impossible for him to find or get into trouble out there.

I didn't hear from him after that. I saw him at a parking lot, swinging a shopping bag with a happy look on his face once, and I was in my car and tried to duck so he wouldn't feel self-conscious knowing I had seen him. I think he saw me because his happy face disappeared and then I drove off. It was random seeing him, but I was glad he looked happy.

As for me, my counselor said I made miraculous and impressive progress within 3 months and felt I had recovered myself. I wasn't crying anymore during visits.

I was afraid I was going to get an STD from the rapist guy so I went to an OBGYN for the second time in my life. I reported the rape to them, because by then I could accept what had happened. They tested for everything and no problems.

I had only been to an OBGYN once before in my life, because I'd heard it was necessary after age 18. So I went in when I was about 21 or so, because I didn't know what it was all for, but didn't want to end up with some problem, so I went in. The first doctor I saw was a man who wouldn't even touch me, and told me if I was a virgin there was no need. So then I wondered what the deal was--why did everyone go then? so I went to the next one, who was a woman, who didn't believe a word I said when I told her I'd never had sex. She took one look at me, attractive, in my 20s, coming to her clinic in St. John's, and simply didn't believe me. Until she did the exam, and THAT's really how I think I lost my virginity--to the speculum.

I felt a horrible pain and yelled, "OUUUCH!!!!!" in an angry voice, and she said, "OH!" and then couldn't say she was sorry enough. There was blood everywhere. Her hands were shaking and, basically, that's how I technically lost my virginity...

(I don't think it counts.)

After my first exam, I didn't have another until after I was raped. I didn't report anything to police right away. Just doctors.

What really helped me to accept what had happened to me (the first sexual assault of my life, I guess) was when I was talking to this woman from church, a young woman who had been to college, and I told her what had happened to me in tentative measure. Either I told her or she told me about what had happened to her. One of us said, "Oh my gosh. Me too." She called it date-rape. I'd never heard anyone use that term before her. I had been too ashamed of my response, in not fighting until I was beaten up or killed, to tell anyone, or even believe in myself very much. But her response had been the same. And it had happened more than once in college. Usually involving alcohol, when she was drunk and the guy was not. She had felt she had to survive.

I later heard the phrase, "You did what you had to do to survive. You trusted your instincts at that moment and did what you felt was necessary to protect your life." I had thought I must be the only one to react this way--to "play dead". I was confused. I had thought rape was only when the man or woman was bloody and beaten and knifed, and hadn't processed how some people escape with their lives by hoping their attacker will just go away. ANd then I was confused by why I stayed with him and I found out THIS was also very common. Which seems strange, but it's a lot like the response of a battered woman. And for me, I had strange, very orthodox ideas about what my religion required of me.

It wasn't until a couple of years later that I reported it to police, and I plan to write about how that went down and how I was treated (some good things, some bad) and how my attacker had suddenly left the country, after, I believe, he got tipped off that he was being investigated by the police. I also believe I know who or what party tipped him off.

From the time of this rape, it was maybe a year later that I met the monks of Mt. Angel Abbey. By the time I was going there, I had been abused. I was recovered, and happy, and thriving, and my social calendar was full. I had my entire life before me. But I was the product of a conservative christian school in my teens, strong beliefs in my 20s, and then a rape, and I didn't go to a monastery to "seduce a monk" as their lawyers and the WW claimed to all. I never even wore anything besides loose clothing, covering me head to toe, because I didn't want to be noticed for my body. I also went to the Abbey library because I felt it was safe. I just wanted to read and not be disturbed and at the public libraries, I was always approached by men.

Basically, I didn't feel I had to share my "life story" with anyone. Even when accused later of all kinds of things I'd never done, which were incredible to think I had done. I had lawyers assuming I had slept around or something and saying, "You know they will ask you about your sex life and questions will be difficult." I said, "What kind of questions?" He said, "How many men have you fucked?" I said to him, shocked but calm outwardly, "I don't think I'll have a problem with that question." He sat back, surprised I didn't cringe, and looked at me. I didn't tell him, "Guess what? for your information I was raped, and then I had a relationship and got out of it and that's it. Then I was slandered by a bunch of monks and their lawyers who tried to cover for what THEIR guys tried to do to me next."

I didn't tell people, because it was none of their business, and because even if I HAD been with a lot of people, that didn't mean I hadn't been raped, or that someone tried to assault me, or that later I was assaulted again.

My theory is that the reason women don't come forward more, is fundamentally because men who have sexually assaulted women themselves, and excuse their own actions, are the ones in charge of representing women, investigating, reporting, and judging them. And some women are just as bad as the men, usually women who married straight out of high school or college, who maybe were with someone who had their back.

A woman has the right to date, make out, and do whatever she wants, and be respected when she says "no". I'm finding most women, including myself, haven't even been aware of the severity of what happened to them, and the laws out there, and what an endemic this really is. For all the talk about "sexual harassment" in the workplace, nothing is done for people who actually report sex crimes to police and law enforcement. Unless, perhaps, they were not the passive and shocked with terror type, and instead of trying to play dead to save their lives, their brains told them the better option, for them, was to be aggressive and hit and strike, and scratch and claw, and chew and bite, and mangle someone.

I had never hit or physically fought anyone before in my life. I didn't even think I knew how. I was taught NOT to fight others. I didn't have self-defense techniques. If I hadn't been with 2 other women when I was held hostage, I wouldn't have thought, "Do you think we can take him?" and been confident we could get him. I wasn't confident in my own strength and thought it might work against me, and then I punished myself later when my mind played tricks with me and the shock started to wear off.

I tried to push him off and repeatedly yelled at him to get off, said "no" loudly, and said "I mean it!!!" I didn't even know how to swear.

Next, came monks and their lawyers who knew about all of this, and didn't mind defaming me anyway, to save themselves.

I had a "friend" I had thought was my friend, whom I later discovered was in with the catholic church lawyers all along, tell me repeatedly NOT to report my assaults to the police. She claimed to be a big feminist. She told me I was about the 6th woman she knew who had been sexually assaulted in college, or on a date, and that almost everyone she knew had been, but, she said, she said reporting it would cause more problems. She claimed her best friend never even told her husband, and hadn't, to that day.

This is NOT a woman's shame. I'm fucking sick with what I've seen in the way society has treated ME and treated other women. And women are not going to get ahead and ever be "equal", in ANY way, until they shake off the shame and tell society to fuck off, and start reporting what happened. Those same guys are doing it to others, and their buddies are covering for other buddies, and half of them end up in law enforcement.

The idea that a man can shame another man, by raping or sexually assaulting "his woman" is also archaic. It is a physical assault like any other, and the shame is on the attacker, not the "reputation" of the survivor. The idea that women are somehow permanently damaged from this kind of assault, and cannot have normal relationships or sexual relations, is also a myth. It is as easy to recover from a sexual assault as any other kind of assault. Unless society is preventing one from moving forward, by making a much bigger deal about it than is necessary.

Women are still valued and measured by sex. Virgin? Whore? With very little inbetween. Even the boyfriend I was with after my rape, when I told him I felt guilty for having sex with HIM, instead of waiting until marriage, said something to me about how maybe I was the "other kind of woman", and he didn't mean it in a mean way. He had very high respect for me, and showed it with his actions all the time. He was even falling in love with me and probably would have stayed with me a long time if I'd wanted to. It wasn't him. It was the idea society feeds all of us with.

I used to think women had already acheived equality and that there was no point to feminism. I was so wrong. The most glaring evidence is the way women are treated, who are sexually assaulted, and how they are judged and pitied.

Don't fucking pity ME! I want to say. I'm FINE now, but I'm NOT fine with the status quo. I'm NOT fine with the cover ups and degradation of women's characters and reputations.

My experience didn't permanently damage me. That first rape, or sexual assault, was a long process that I processed. I didn't take medication, myself. I faced it head on, as things were revealed to me. I didn't deny myself the time I needed to heal, nor did I ask for too much. By the time I met the monks, I was a little more conservative and grateful to be back in "God's good graces". I was even MORE religious than before, feeling thankful that God had forgiven me for so much. I loved Him even more, knowing the extent of His mercy and grace. Not that I felt I needed forgiveness for the assault, but for my personal choices afterwards. I had been through a lot, but had made it through with dignity and strength and felt a better person for it.

But after these monks and their lawyers did what they did to me, knowing I was of excellent reputation and character--flawed, but innocent and sincere, and only concerned about finding the truth and wanting religious direction and counsel--after they brought their campaign against me, THAT was when I suffered damages.

THAT was the trauma. Random events I handled just fine. It was harder to handle a random event by another human being which involved a bodily assault, but I handled it fine. What I couldn't handle, was then being abused by people I got to know as my counselors, whom I trusted and even loved as fathers and brothers, who I went to confused about my feelings and my beliefs, believing they could help me.

They wanted a piece of my ass too. Which wasn't what I went there for. And what they did to cover themselves and some other insights and questions I had about dogma, is, like I've said, beyond repair and beyond the mercy of Christ.

Sorry, but before my Jesus forgives anyone, he repays them, on THIS earth, in THIS lifetime, with JUSTICE.

Every man, woman, and child who is abused similarly deserves justice in THIS lifetime. Not comforting words about how one day there will be a Judgment Day, and that they should just "move on" and forgive and forget, but we deserve justice in this lifetime, and there are those who will continue to deny us this unless we do not give up and demand the respect we deserve.

That means, despite the example others have tried to make of ME, for speaking up for myself,
having the courage to speak up for yourself anyway. It means praying, sure, but also putting those prayers into action and practice.

When enough of us do speak up, things will change for the better. Keeping quiet doesn't help anyone other than the attackers and co-conspirators. I think of truth like that proverb about "wisdom" and how it's found in the depths of the sea, and who can find it? When you do find it, to bring it up to the light, you show it off. You don't care if YOU like crap from the diving, you want to show off what you've found, something of worth and beauty. Despite all the trouble, what I've found and have recovered from my experiences, is worth more than rubies. It is worth even more than my own personal reputation. If I have had to be tortured and buried alive, simply to one day have a story to tell that is valuable to someone, and to society, it's worth the trouble.

Sometimes, I think about the Pharoah of Egypt and the story of how God allowed his heart to be so hardened, but used this as a canvas for the plagues and then the miraculous delivery of the slaves. It's not just a story for the Israelites, it's for everyone. I think about the story of Job, and how his suffering was allowed to test his faith, which was later rewarded with blessings for his family. And, I guess, Joseph, in jail for something he didn't do, for 7 years, until someone found something valuable in him and began to believe in him, and realized the wrong person had been falsely accused.

I didn't mean to go off on philosophy and analysis. I was only planning to write out another part of my life story, but I sometimes can't resist including the reminders or lessons I've learned.

This post is dedicated to the victims of clergy abuse, men, women, children, and of all kinds of abuse including rape, sexual assault, emotional abuse, expoitation, physical assault, and anything else which might constitute abuse. It won't be the last time I dedicate such a post to them. It seems like this post would be dedicated to women who were date raped or something, but I have a better place for that dedication, because other things happened to me later which made me realize how bad this situation is for women. My abuse, however, began with clergy. That is where I began counting my damages and suffered from the cruelty of others who would not relent.