I think marijuana should be dropped to Schedule II by the federal government. However, I also think the structure of the schedule has to change to allow for federal funding for scientific research.
Instead of having just Schedule I & Schedule II, where the first doesn't allow research and medical prescriptions but the second one does, there should be an inbetween phase at the very least, which would be a Schedule designated for permissions for research.
That way, evidence can be collected and creativity is allowed to flourish. But I'm confused too, because there has been federal funding, which is why we allow Marinol right? So I guess I need to do more research and figure out what the rules are.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
My Correspondence With FDA
Dear JP,
(part omitted, about how it worked for me because I've already written about this on my blog)
...There is something wrong when most of the U.S. and European doctors are supporting the medicinal use of marijuana, and it is proving effective for some, and yet it's listed as Schedule I. It's very strange that cocaine is Schedule II and I should be getting in less trouble for using IT than marijuana. Maybe cocaine is good for numbing the eye in surgery and for pain relief or something, but marijuana is good for glaucoma and could perhaps prevent the need for cocaine and a major surgery if marijuana was being prescribed to defeat blindness. I quit taking marijuana (maybe tried it 6-8 times total) after 2 months. I want to experiment more and want to do it legally. How must researchers and good doctors feel as well! I'm supposed to say, "Okay, well I'll just go ahead and suffer the rest of my life because this plant I could grow in my backyard is a big Schedule I no-no?" I don't want state approval, I want federal government approval. I am as honest as it gets, and I wouldn't spend time writing about this, to try to find a legal way to use a drug recreationally. It's beginning to look like the federal government cares more about the loss of revenue from pharmaceutical companies that push Topamax and triptans, than the loss of it's citizen's lives. How much money would be lost, to the makers of triptans (ALL forms!), Migranol, muscle relaxants, narcotics/Demerol, and anti-seizure meds, if marijuana eliminated the need for acute treatment because it prevented them to begin with? Now combine that loss with revenues from anti-seizure meds (because marijuana is supposed to help with these too). Those drug companies do a lot of business with big government, especially Republicans. And of course the DEA doesn't want it legalized, because how many of them would lose funding and jobs? What are THEY going to do? Go out and become pot farmers themselves instead? It is morally wrong to withhold the potential for good medicine by placing something on a list which prohibits scientific research. For that matter, I am going to look at the other things on the Schedule I list, because it seems to me that most drugs have at some point in history, been found to have a positive effect on the body or they wouldn't be used. It's not like Arsenic and pesticides are on the list. Everything on the list should be open to research. Banning something from even having scientific studies done on it, is going to hinder progress in America, not help it. If the main concern is that putting something on Schedule II opens the drug up to being legally prescribed by a doctor, before it's been tested long enough, and Schedule I means no testing can be done, period, someone needs to think outside of the Schedule box and change the structure of the Schedules. Schedule I-A could mean something has been tested for decades and has no use and is harmful to humans, Schedule I-B could mean research is allowed and supported, but doctors cannot legally prescribe yet. I believe marijuana should be placed on Schedule II and then someone needs to go over structuring of the whole schedule business and open the doors to science. Again, if you ever need my testimony or would like to review my medical records in addition, let me know. Thank you for your clear answer in the meantime, and for your concern in protecting the public from harm. I don't think only potheads want to legalize marijuana anymore--I tend to think, rather, that those opposing it have no personal experience with severe pain and disability. Sincerely, Cameo>
Subject: RE: FDA comment> Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:35:06 -0400> From: DRUGINFO@fda.hhs.gov> To: cameocares@live.com> > > Ms. Garrett:> > Thank you for writing the Division of Drug Information, in the FDA's> Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. > > Thank you for your comments regarding smoked marijuana as a medicine.> Marijuana is listed in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act> (CSA), the most restrictive schedule. The Drug Enforcement> Administration (DEA), which administers the CSA, continues to support> that placement of marijuana in Schedule I under 21 U.S.C. 812(b)(1)> (e.g., marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently> accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack> of accepted safety for use under medical supervision). FDA concurs with> this position. A growing number of states have passed voter referenda> (or legislative actions) making smoked marijuana available for a variety> of medical conditions upon a doctor's recommendation. These measures are> inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the> rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven> safe and effective under the standards of the FD&C Act. Accordingly,> FDA, as the federal agency responsible for reviewing the safety and> efficacy of drugs, DEA as the federal agency charged with enforcing the> CSA, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as the federal> coordinator of drug control policy, do not support the use of smoked> marijuana for medical purposes.> > You can read FDA's entire statement on this issue at> http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01362.html > > > Best regards, > > JP> > Division of Drug Information > > Center for Drug Evaluation and Research > > Food and Drug Administration > > This communication is consistent with 21CFR10.85(k) and constitutes and> informal communication that represents our best judgment at this time> but does not constitute and advisory opinion, does not necessarily> represent the formal position of the FDA, and does not bind or otherwise> obligate or commit the agency to the views expressed. > > > > > -----Original Message-----> From: OC Webmail > Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 4:16 PM> To: CDER DRUG INFO> Subject: FW: FDA comment> > > -----
Original Message-----> From: ] > Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 11:58 PM> To: OC Webmail> Subject: FDA comment> > > E-Mail: > > URL: > > Comments: Please refer to Advisory Committee:> > Dear Committee,> > I want to thank you for the research you've approved, for study of> marijuana for medicinal use. I have recently discovered marijuana, at> 33 years of age, to be effective in prevention of extremely severe> migraines I've had for over 10 years. I have documentation of trying> every available remedy and preventative medicine, and nothing worked.> The best thing for aborting my migraines was DHE (ergotamine), but the> only thing which has worked to drastically reduce or lessen the severity> of my migraines is marijuana, smoked in extremely small amounts. It was> mild and had no noticeable side effects. I had tried Topamax (lowest> dose possible) and that stuff made it impossible for me to even think at> all. I had to quit after a few days. They don't call it "Dopamax" for> nothing. I hope you will allow further research of marijuana for> prevention of migraine and also, to study WHY it works and what is being> targeted exactly, in order to one day find a possible cure. I tried it> for 2 months on personal trial and then quit, because I didn't have a> legal permit. I am now awaiting a permit from my state (WA) and yet my> heart goes out to others who suffer with migraines. I've lost so much> because of them and had to go to ER so often it was an economic stress> to the state as well. The problem is that this treatment is not yet> approved by the federal government and moved to Schedule II. Please> consider this as my testimony in support of moving marijuana to Schedule> II. I would be more than happy to provide anyone with full copies of my> medical diagnostics for migraine (menstrual migraine with some> musculoskeletal probs too) and records of all the treatments and> medications I tried before marijuana. You may contact me at any time.> If I may be of any help, please email: . Thank you.> Sincerely,> Cameo L. Garrett
(part omitted, about how it worked for me because I've already written about this on my blog)
...There is something wrong when most of the U.S. and European doctors are supporting the medicinal use of marijuana, and it is proving effective for some, and yet it's listed as Schedule I. It's very strange that cocaine is Schedule II and I should be getting in less trouble for using IT than marijuana. Maybe cocaine is good for numbing the eye in surgery and for pain relief or something, but marijuana is good for glaucoma and could perhaps prevent the need for cocaine and a major surgery if marijuana was being prescribed to defeat blindness. I quit taking marijuana (maybe tried it 6-8 times total) after 2 months. I want to experiment more and want to do it legally. How must researchers and good doctors feel as well! I'm supposed to say, "Okay, well I'll just go ahead and suffer the rest of my life because this plant I could grow in my backyard is a big Schedule I no-no?" I don't want state approval, I want federal government approval. I am as honest as it gets, and I wouldn't spend time writing about this, to try to find a legal way to use a drug recreationally. It's beginning to look like the federal government cares more about the loss of revenue from pharmaceutical companies that push Topamax and triptans, than the loss of it's citizen's lives. How much money would be lost, to the makers of triptans (ALL forms!), Migranol, muscle relaxants, narcotics/Demerol, and anti-seizure meds, if marijuana eliminated the need for acute treatment because it prevented them to begin with? Now combine that loss with revenues from anti-seizure meds (because marijuana is supposed to help with these too). Those drug companies do a lot of business with big government, especially Republicans. And of course the DEA doesn't want it legalized, because how many of them would lose funding and jobs? What are THEY going to do? Go out and become pot farmers themselves instead? It is morally wrong to withhold the potential for good medicine by placing something on a list which prohibits scientific research. For that matter, I am going to look at the other things on the Schedule I list, because it seems to me that most drugs have at some point in history, been found to have a positive effect on the body or they wouldn't be used. It's not like Arsenic and pesticides are on the list. Everything on the list should be open to research. Banning something from even having scientific studies done on it, is going to hinder progress in America, not help it. If the main concern is that putting something on Schedule II opens the drug up to being legally prescribed by a doctor, before it's been tested long enough, and Schedule I means no testing can be done, period, someone needs to think outside of the Schedule box and change the structure of the Schedules. Schedule I-A could mean something has been tested for decades and has no use and is harmful to humans, Schedule I-B could mean research is allowed and supported, but doctors cannot legally prescribe yet. I believe marijuana should be placed on Schedule II and then someone needs to go over structuring of the whole schedule business and open the doors to science. Again, if you ever need my testimony or would like to review my medical records in addition, let me know. Thank you for your clear answer in the meantime, and for your concern in protecting the public from harm. I don't think only potheads want to legalize marijuana anymore--I tend to think, rather, that those opposing it have no personal experience with severe pain and disability. Sincerely, Cameo>
Subject: RE: FDA comment> Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:35:06 -0400> From: DRUGINFO@fda.hhs.gov> To: cameocares@live.com> > > Ms. Garrett:> > Thank you for writing the Division of Drug Information, in the FDA's> Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. > > Thank you for your comments regarding smoked marijuana as a medicine.> Marijuana is listed in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act> (CSA), the most restrictive schedule. The Drug Enforcement> Administration (DEA), which administers the CSA, continues to support> that placement of marijuana in Schedule I under 21 U.S.C. 812(b)(1)> (e.g., marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently> accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack> of accepted safety for use under medical supervision). FDA concurs with> this position. A growing number of states have passed voter referenda> (or legislative actions) making smoked marijuana available for a variety> of medical conditions upon a doctor's recommendation. These measures are> inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the> rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven> safe and effective under the standards of the FD&C Act. Accordingly,> FDA, as the federal agency responsible for reviewing the safety and> efficacy of drugs, DEA as the federal agency charged with enforcing the> CSA, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as the federal> coordinator of drug control policy, do not support the use of smoked> marijuana for medical purposes.> > You can read FDA's entire statement on this issue at> http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01362.html > > > Best regards, > > JP> > Division of Drug Information > > Center for Drug Evaluation and Research > > Food and Drug Administration > > This communication is consistent with 21CFR10.85(k) and constitutes and> informal communication that represents our best judgment at this time> but does not constitute and advisory opinion, does not necessarily> represent the formal position of the FDA, and does not bind or otherwise> obligate or commit the agency to the views expressed. > > > > > -----Original Message-----> From: OC Webmail > Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 4:16 PM> To: CDER DRUG INFO> Subject: FW: FDA comment> > > -----
Original Message-----> From: ] > Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 11:58 PM> To: OC Webmail> Subject: FDA comment> > > E-Mail: > > URL: > > Comments: Please refer to Advisory Committee:> > Dear Committee,> > I want to thank you for the research you've approved, for study of> marijuana for medicinal use. I have recently discovered marijuana, at> 33 years of age, to be effective in prevention of extremely severe> migraines I've had for over 10 years. I have documentation of trying> every available remedy and preventative medicine, and nothing worked.> The best thing for aborting my migraines was DHE (ergotamine), but the> only thing which has worked to drastically reduce or lessen the severity> of my migraines is marijuana, smoked in extremely small amounts. It was> mild and had no noticeable side effects. I had tried Topamax (lowest> dose possible) and that stuff made it impossible for me to even think at> all. I had to quit after a few days. They don't call it "Dopamax" for> nothing. I hope you will allow further research of marijuana for> prevention of migraine and also, to study WHY it works and what is being> targeted exactly, in order to one day find a possible cure. I tried it> for 2 months on personal trial and then quit, because I didn't have a> legal permit. I am now awaiting a permit from my state (WA) and yet my> heart goes out to others who suffer with migraines. I've lost so much> because of them and had to go to ER so often it was an economic stress> to the state as well. The problem is that this treatment is not yet> approved by the federal government and moved to Schedule II. Please> consider this as my testimony in support of moving marijuana to Schedule> II. I would be more than happy to provide anyone with full copies of my> medical diagnostics for migraine (menstrual migraine with some> musculoskeletal probs too) and records of all the treatments and> medications I tried before marijuana. You may contact me at any time.> If I may be of any help, please email: . Thank you.> Sincerely,> Cameo L. Garrett
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
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.
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.
My Son Losing Bond
What is sick about this CPS case is that my cousins, who don't even know my son at all, get to spend more time with him than me, and have bonded to him more.
My son seems to be losing his bond for me and CPS doesn't care and does nothing about it. He is young and they just don't care.
Still, he watches me, and no one else, when my aunt takes him away. He focuses on my face the whole time, and first gets a sad and confused look. Then he just watches.
For my son's sake, they are not even thinking about how it will be to return him to me, at all, ever, and how the transition should be made by keeping our bond intact so he's not confused when he leaves my aunt's family. But I don't think they want that. They have already proven to me they have zero interest in ever returning my son to me. They wouldn't let him see me for weeks after I asked, and have done several other things to try to screw up my ability to even MAKE it to visitation. Nothing is about my son's best interests. They want only to have their way, and to make me pay they only way they think they can.
Personally, I hope and pray to God that those responsible and in charge, who have exerted their "power" and "authority" for their own (check your motives) personal satisfaction, pay dearly for this. I pray to God that they are made to pay for this and what they continue to do to me and my son.
I also pray for strength to write about everything, with clarity, and to not lose focus that my best way of getting my son back is not to fold, but to publicize all that's happened in my past, and how it has led to this. Right now it's about me, because no one knows differently or knows what has been involved and who has been involved and why.
My son seems to be losing his bond for me and CPS doesn't care and does nothing about it. He is young and they just don't care.
Still, he watches me, and no one else, when my aunt takes him away. He focuses on my face the whole time, and first gets a sad and confused look. Then he just watches.
For my son's sake, they are not even thinking about how it will be to return him to me, at all, ever, and how the transition should be made by keeping our bond intact so he's not confused when he leaves my aunt's family. But I don't think they want that. They have already proven to me they have zero interest in ever returning my son to me. They wouldn't let him see me for weeks after I asked, and have done several other things to try to screw up my ability to even MAKE it to visitation. Nothing is about my son's best interests. They want only to have their way, and to make me pay they only way they think they can.
Personally, I hope and pray to God that those responsible and in charge, who have exerted their "power" and "authority" for their own (check your motives) personal satisfaction, pay dearly for this. I pray to God that they are made to pay for this and what they continue to do to me and my son.
I also pray for strength to write about everything, with clarity, and to not lose focus that my best way of getting my son back is not to fold, but to publicize all that's happened in my past, and how it has led to this. Right now it's about me, because no one knows differently or knows what has been involved and who has been involved and why.
Ego Booster
What happened to my sort-of-ex?
Besides generalities, like "hi" and "see you later", he did say something I thought was great for writing about.
I noticed something. Won't say what, but I liked it, even though it was strange. He stood up to me without saying a word.
I said, "You're stubborn, huh?" and I was smiling.
He stopped what he was doing, looked at me with a dagger-dark eye, and said, as he brushed by me, "No comment."
I wasn't sure whether it was "no comment" because I'm stubborn too, or if the point was "no comment" because he's onto my blog and my writing about him. "No comment" Ms. PostMyBusinessAllOverTheInternet.
Just the day before I was researching just how one can apply for an AP card. I want one!
Missin' the kissin' though.
Sometimes, you go through shit and just feel you look it too. But I got noticed by someone who had that, I don't know how to explain it look, more than once. Sort of serious, and not flirting, but that, "I feel really guilty for checking this chick out (intake of breath) and I want her but I hope she doesn't notice".
There was that, and I also got a number from a hottie. Haven't called! Still thinking...It's hard to be a thinking woman. Sigh.
Besides generalities, like "hi" and "see you later", he did say something I thought was great for writing about.
I noticed something. Won't say what, but I liked it, even though it was strange. He stood up to me without saying a word.
I said, "You're stubborn, huh?" and I was smiling.
He stopped what he was doing, looked at me with a dagger-dark eye, and said, as he brushed by me, "No comment."
I wasn't sure whether it was "no comment" because I'm stubborn too, or if the point was "no comment" because he's onto my blog and my writing about him. "No comment" Ms. PostMyBusinessAllOverTheInternet.
Just the day before I was researching just how one can apply for an AP card. I want one!
Missin' the kissin' though.
Sometimes, you go through shit and just feel you look it too. But I got noticed by someone who had that, I don't know how to explain it look, more than once. Sort of serious, and not flirting, but that, "I feel really guilty for checking this chick out (intake of breath) and I want her but I hope she doesn't notice".
There was that, and I also got a number from a hottie. Haven't called! Still thinking...It's hard to be a thinking woman. Sigh.
Source of Trauma
I'm sure certain people would like to claim I have trauma from being my friend dying in the car accident, or being held hostage, or being raped. Hmmm. Valid idea. It would seem convincing to believe all these things simply resulted in my being "damaged". Nothing is further from the truth.
My damages came with the Mt. Angel Abbey incident and what they and their lawyers did to me. And frankly, they've not let up, and their little piece of work with the editors of The Willamette Week has caused snowballing damage, which I couldn't fight because I didn't have the money for a civil lawsuit for defamation.
If I have any mental health issue, it's a mild form of PTSD because of what THEY did to me. Everything before, was random enough and not intentional to change my entire perspective of the world and who I could trust. I also know that, given a break from the constant crap and harassment, and given an opportunity to hold the proper persons accountable, my "PTSD" would disappear. Is it even PTSD or simply always being in a position of having to defend myself and MY SON, against harm, at all times? If it's not this, it's that.
I think certain people don't want me to disappear with my son and suddenly find myself living a perfectly normal and happy life, where those who have harassed me to no end and defamed me, cannot find me.
Before I go anywhere, they want a tidy diagnostic which will, they hope, exonnerate them, and discredit me.
I can point to the politics involved in every single problem I've had in the last decade. Every single problem. If it's not someone directly defaming or harassing me, it's someone assuming what others say is true and then treating me without respect and going along with the crowd.
So how did this all start? Did I go from calm and contained one day and then suddenly start "getting into trouble"? Or were others involved in trying to create an appearance of my getting into trouble, when they were the troublemakers to begin with?
There have been specific people who have attempted to alter my history, my reputation, and even my record with law enforcement, to cover themselves.
I don't think anyone should pass judgment on me until I've finished writing about what happened, and my story is out. My story may sound incredible, but it's true and can be verified. My main problem is that I've never had the money for a good civil attorney, and no lawyer ever had the guts to take my case pro bono, knowing who I was up against, and how they would be up against the same thing.
Even being raped, was by someone I didn't have a counselor relationship with or an uneven balance of power. It was more random, and I can accept that. What I can't accept is church and government corruption. Both are fields purporting to serve the public interest, and when the lines are crossed, it puts more than myself at risk.
I think they hope no one will believe me, first of all. Secondly, I think they figure if anyone does, they'll be afraid to cross them and will have made their message using me as an example. Finally, I think they enjoy watching people suffer and get a kind of satisfaction from it, I suppose to make up for their self-esteem problems, fears, and jealousy.
At the time I was raped, I was ashamed. I was engrained in society and church philosophy that made me "damaged goods" in a particular way, and at least subconsciously I knew it. My own father knew and said it took nothing away from me and said nothing about me--it said something about the offender(s). But still I pondered whether I would feel vulnerable sharing this. I didn't worry so much about being viewed as less-valued. I worried someone would get sick satisfaction out of hearing how I had suffered and I didn't want them to have that. I also worried that it would stigmatize me, but I already saw how it did, with law enforcement. And suddenly, you're the one they worry about, and every married man or single man even, feels he needs another person along just in case "she might say I tried something".
If I still felt that way, that somehow this was different, or sexual assault is different, from say, physical assault or being held hostage, I would be concerned about all these things and MY reputation. But I'm not. I am writing about the rape the same way I wrote about the hostage situation, and I hope more women will come forward and demand respect, by treating their assault the same way any other assault is treated.
The most trauma I've incurred was not by rape, but in the realization of society's expectations and prejudices, and feeling let down by those in positions of authority and guidance, whom I felt I (and anyone else in the same relationship) should trust.
My damages came with the Mt. Angel Abbey incident and what they and their lawyers did to me. And frankly, they've not let up, and their little piece of work with the editors of The Willamette Week has caused snowballing damage, which I couldn't fight because I didn't have the money for a civil lawsuit for defamation.
If I have any mental health issue, it's a mild form of PTSD because of what THEY did to me. Everything before, was random enough and not intentional to change my entire perspective of the world and who I could trust. I also know that, given a break from the constant crap and harassment, and given an opportunity to hold the proper persons accountable, my "PTSD" would disappear. Is it even PTSD or simply always being in a position of having to defend myself and MY SON, against harm, at all times? If it's not this, it's that.
I think certain people don't want me to disappear with my son and suddenly find myself living a perfectly normal and happy life, where those who have harassed me to no end and defamed me, cannot find me.
Before I go anywhere, they want a tidy diagnostic which will, they hope, exonnerate them, and discredit me.
I can point to the politics involved in every single problem I've had in the last decade. Every single problem. If it's not someone directly defaming or harassing me, it's someone assuming what others say is true and then treating me without respect and going along with the crowd.
So how did this all start? Did I go from calm and contained one day and then suddenly start "getting into trouble"? Or were others involved in trying to create an appearance of my getting into trouble, when they were the troublemakers to begin with?
There have been specific people who have attempted to alter my history, my reputation, and even my record with law enforcement, to cover themselves.
I don't think anyone should pass judgment on me until I've finished writing about what happened, and my story is out. My story may sound incredible, but it's true and can be verified. My main problem is that I've never had the money for a good civil attorney, and no lawyer ever had the guts to take my case pro bono, knowing who I was up against, and how they would be up against the same thing.
Even being raped, was by someone I didn't have a counselor relationship with or an uneven balance of power. It was more random, and I can accept that. What I can't accept is church and government corruption. Both are fields purporting to serve the public interest, and when the lines are crossed, it puts more than myself at risk.
I think they hope no one will believe me, first of all. Secondly, I think they figure if anyone does, they'll be afraid to cross them and will have made their message using me as an example. Finally, I think they enjoy watching people suffer and get a kind of satisfaction from it, I suppose to make up for their self-esteem problems, fears, and jealousy.
At the time I was raped, I was ashamed. I was engrained in society and church philosophy that made me "damaged goods" in a particular way, and at least subconsciously I knew it. My own father knew and said it took nothing away from me and said nothing about me--it said something about the offender(s). But still I pondered whether I would feel vulnerable sharing this. I didn't worry so much about being viewed as less-valued. I worried someone would get sick satisfaction out of hearing how I had suffered and I didn't want them to have that. I also worried that it would stigmatize me, but I already saw how it did, with law enforcement. And suddenly, you're the one they worry about, and every married man or single man even, feels he needs another person along just in case "she might say I tried something".
If I still felt that way, that somehow this was different, or sexual assault is different, from say, physical assault or being held hostage, I would be concerned about all these things and MY reputation. But I'm not. I am writing about the rape the same way I wrote about the hostage situation, and I hope more women will come forward and demand respect, by treating their assault the same way any other assault is treated.
The most trauma I've incurred was not by rape, but in the realization of society's expectations and prejudices, and feeling let down by those in positions of authority and guidance, whom I felt I (and anyone else in the same relationship) should trust.
CPS To Dismiss Case & My Son's Medical Malpractice
One of my main concerns about commissioner Jill Wise was that in the last hearing, she defended my former private practice attorney, against something that I already know is not defensible and is contrary to the ethics rules.
My attorney contacted a public defender in Wenatchee, without first talking to me about it, knowing I was absolutely opposed to it. He also did this, or told me about it, on the last day I was in town before hearing in Wenatchee. Not only that, he faxed a letter to the Wenatchee AG before having me review it first. The reason he says he suggested PD was because of fall-out of financial support from my family.
It wasn't proper, and Jill should know. It also concerns me that the CPS director, Russ Haogen, called me long distance, after CPS hours, at my house, to talk to me about their possibility of dismissing their case against me. He asked me, if they dismissed the whole thing and took it off of the court docket, voluntarily, what would I do? and would I agree to work with them anyway.
Nobody from CPS calls about dismissing a case unless they know they jumped the gun and did a bad deed and are thinking of fixing it. They did this when Judge Hotchkiss was on the case. After this, they told me they had changed their minds and were not going to dismiss it voluntarily.
I talked to Russ Haogen for almost 3 hours that night, when he was proposing they would voluntarily dismiss the case.
Instead, they dug their heels in, and continued to jerk me around.
I have some things to write about which happened just today, and CPS's response to it, but I'll have to write about it later. Suffice it to say, I had to kick a CPS worker out of my own visitation time with my son because she interrupted my visit to hand me another dirty letter about how CPS was not meeting their obligations for certain things because it was MY fault. Then she just stood there and smirked when I asked her to leave. I had to demand, "This is my visitation time with my son, get out of this room NOW" in a calm but firm tone. More on that at a later time.
My problems with monks and their lawyers were one thing. My main problem with Wenatchee is that people here assume a throne by "who has lived here the longest" standards. Most of the people in this office are not very bright. I'm not saying they didn't plod through college and lay low enough, or suck up enough, to get a degree, but these are not Ivy League grads, or even Dean's List material. These people are like daycare workers who somehow got jobs with a passing degree from Pullman. Then they run to "daddy" or "mommy" at the AG office in Wenatchee which is every bit as corrupt as the other Wenatchee state offices. The AGs just push people around who are on welfare, knowing it is only unequal resources that helps them win almost every case, which, incidentally, in Wenatchee, is ALWAYS a case against an "indigent" parent. When is the last time Wenatchee CPS took a child away from even middle-class parents? They don't. They discriminate left and right and play their favors. I swear half of the single women at CPS are screwing Wenatchee doctors and lawyers. I'm sorry, but I've heard indigent mothers speak with more common sense and intelligence, than the state bimbos I have to deal with.
They didn't take my son because he was neglected. They took him to get back at me for "not being very nice." These people are threatened by competence. And they try to make up for their own lack of guts and intelligence, by bullying people around in an abuse of power. Those in power are so sadly lacking in quality genetic material, in this town. I do not recommend that any of these inbreds breed further. Their claim to "culture" and travel is going to Seattle for a shopping spree.
So what will the court recommend, for a special plan of "services" to please CPS, DSHS, and others I've offended in this town? A professional course on ass-wiping? These people need to get a grip, pull themselves up by their droopy underwear, and move on with their lives and accept the fact that I and my son were damaged in childbirth and there will be a lawsuit. They just want to win a fact-finding to put my son in the custody of the STATE so the state can refuse my son the diagnostics he needs, and choose his medical providers.
That's what they're doing right now, and they haven't even won a Contested Shelter Care hearing, which is the first step. If they get custody or dependency goes to the state, the Wenatchee doctors will ensure my son never gets the diagnostics and treatment he needs. They will bury this in their own rewriting of his charts. Again, I had to go to Seattle to even get an X-ray of my broken tailbone and fractured pelvis. They damaged my son and his head injury, if damages show up on an MRI, would be used against them. It easier to say his mother "neglected" him than it is to admit my son's injury was so severe it could be the reason he can't talk. They were wanting to push autism all along and have tried to suggest this before, to me and my family, when no one in Canada agreed, including child specialists. These Wenatchee doctors would love to call this "autism" instead of having his brain injury confirmed. An injury which occured on the left side of my son's head, which is where LANGUAGE skills are processed.
And they refuse him an MRI, the Wenatchee doctors, working with Wenatchee CPS. It was all medical professionals I'd threatened to sue who called CPS, and only after I threatened to sue them.
My attorney contacted a public defender in Wenatchee, without first talking to me about it, knowing I was absolutely opposed to it. He also did this, or told me about it, on the last day I was in town before hearing in Wenatchee. Not only that, he faxed a letter to the Wenatchee AG before having me review it first. The reason he says he suggested PD was because of fall-out of financial support from my family.
It wasn't proper, and Jill should know. It also concerns me that the CPS director, Russ Haogen, called me long distance, after CPS hours, at my house, to talk to me about their possibility of dismissing their case against me. He asked me, if they dismissed the whole thing and took it off of the court docket, voluntarily, what would I do? and would I agree to work with them anyway.
Nobody from CPS calls about dismissing a case unless they know they jumped the gun and did a bad deed and are thinking of fixing it. They did this when Judge Hotchkiss was on the case. After this, they told me they had changed their minds and were not going to dismiss it voluntarily.
I talked to Russ Haogen for almost 3 hours that night, when he was proposing they would voluntarily dismiss the case.
Instead, they dug their heels in, and continued to jerk me around.
I have some things to write about which happened just today, and CPS's response to it, but I'll have to write about it later. Suffice it to say, I had to kick a CPS worker out of my own visitation time with my son because she interrupted my visit to hand me another dirty letter about how CPS was not meeting their obligations for certain things because it was MY fault. Then she just stood there and smirked when I asked her to leave. I had to demand, "This is my visitation time with my son, get out of this room NOW" in a calm but firm tone. More on that at a later time.
My problems with monks and their lawyers were one thing. My main problem with Wenatchee is that people here assume a throne by "who has lived here the longest" standards. Most of the people in this office are not very bright. I'm not saying they didn't plod through college and lay low enough, or suck up enough, to get a degree, but these are not Ivy League grads, or even Dean's List material. These people are like daycare workers who somehow got jobs with a passing degree from Pullman. Then they run to "daddy" or "mommy" at the AG office in Wenatchee which is every bit as corrupt as the other Wenatchee state offices. The AGs just push people around who are on welfare, knowing it is only unequal resources that helps them win almost every case, which, incidentally, in Wenatchee, is ALWAYS a case against an "indigent" parent. When is the last time Wenatchee CPS took a child away from even middle-class parents? They don't. They discriminate left and right and play their favors. I swear half of the single women at CPS are screwing Wenatchee doctors and lawyers. I'm sorry, but I've heard indigent mothers speak with more common sense and intelligence, than the state bimbos I have to deal with.
They didn't take my son because he was neglected. They took him to get back at me for "not being very nice." These people are threatened by competence. And they try to make up for their own lack of guts and intelligence, by bullying people around in an abuse of power. Those in power are so sadly lacking in quality genetic material, in this town. I do not recommend that any of these inbreds breed further. Their claim to "culture" and travel is going to Seattle for a shopping spree.
So what will the court recommend, for a special plan of "services" to please CPS, DSHS, and others I've offended in this town? A professional course on ass-wiping? These people need to get a grip, pull themselves up by their droopy underwear, and move on with their lives and accept the fact that I and my son were damaged in childbirth and there will be a lawsuit. They just want to win a fact-finding to put my son in the custody of the STATE so the state can refuse my son the diagnostics he needs, and choose his medical providers.
That's what they're doing right now, and they haven't even won a Contested Shelter Care hearing, which is the first step. If they get custody or dependency goes to the state, the Wenatchee doctors will ensure my son never gets the diagnostics and treatment he needs. They will bury this in their own rewriting of his charts. Again, I had to go to Seattle to even get an X-ray of my broken tailbone and fractured pelvis. They damaged my son and his head injury, if damages show up on an MRI, would be used against them. It easier to say his mother "neglected" him than it is to admit my son's injury was so severe it could be the reason he can't talk. They were wanting to push autism all along and have tried to suggest this before, to me and my family, when no one in Canada agreed, including child specialists. These Wenatchee doctors would love to call this "autism" instead of having his brain injury confirmed. An injury which occured on the left side of my son's head, which is where LANGUAGE skills are processed.
And they refuse him an MRI, the Wenatchee doctors, working with Wenatchee CPS. It was all medical professionals I'd threatened to sue who called CPS, and only after I threatened to sue them.
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