Haunting Memories

I don’t really want to write about this, but I know that I have to if I ever have any hope of getting past this. The “this” that I am talking about is so hard for me to say, but I am finally going to put it into words, for the first time. When I was a very young child, probably six years old, I remember being asleep in my bed and waking up and seeing my daddy’s face above me. He was either trying to or he had already had his penis inside of me--he was raping me. My father molested me when I was a child. I cannot remember if it happened only once or if it happened more than once. I only remember that one episode so maybe it did only happen that once. Maybe my reaction made him feel so awful that he just couldn’t do it to me again. I don’t know. Pat says that she highly doubts that it was only once that he violated me, because that’s just not the MO of a child molester. But I keep trying to remember and I just can’t. I only remember that one incident. But I know it did happen that one time. I am as sure of that as I am my name. I remember it like it was yesterday. It is that clear in my mind. I can even remember how badly it hurt. I remember him telling me to just wait a minute and it wouldn’t hurt anymore. But the pain never stopped.

I never could figure out why, the whole time I was growing up, I hated him so much. I used to think that it was because I remembered the fights he and Mama had when I was so young. But that wasn’t it. I know that now. Now I know why I always hated him so badly. Now I know why I used to wish he were dead. Now I know so much.

I want to get over the bouts of nervousness that I have when I am sometimes alone. It seems to happen when I am not thinking about “it.” Usually, when I am very busy I’ll start to feel like I am not inside if my body and I am looking down on myself. I’ll start to move very fast at whatever I am doing and I feel very shaky and nervous. My movements get faster and faster and no matter how much I talk to myself and tell myself that I am OK and that everything is alright, nothing seems to work. I end up having to go and wake Nancy up and get her to just hold me. Then I begin to calm down and soon I am alright again. I want those episodes to stop.

I wish this had never happened to me. I am so sorry that this happened to me. It is just something else that has screwed up my life. It is one more reason that I am the fucked up person that I have turned out to be. It’s no wonder that I have made so many bad choices in my life. It’s no wonder that so much has turned out so badly for me in my life. Look at all that has happened to me and happened in my life. Pat says I am a survivor. Yes, I guess I am a survivor, I have survived a lot. I remind myself of one of those old Timex watch commercials, “Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’” Yep. That would be me. I have taken so many beatings but still, I keep going. I mean, I saw my daddy hang himself, for God’s sake, had to beg my drunk mother to cut his sorry ass down, so he could beat her ass some more, no doubt, and still, I am here. Still I have some of my sanity. Well, that could be a matter of opinion, too. Maybe I’m as batty as a friggin’ loon, too. Who the hell knows, at this point? I sure don’t. Some days I think I am sane and then other days I know I am nutty as a fruit cake.

How can a person be molested as a child and then not know anything about it until she is 50 damn years old? How did I suppress this information for all those years? I have only been positive that this happened to me for the past several months and then I denied it for as long as I could before I finally nearly lost my mind and had to tell someone. So I went to Nancy with it. Like I do everything else. I am convinced that I would die without Nancy. Sometimes she can even make the nightmares stop. The nightmares are the worst part, you know. So many nights I sit up because I am so afraid to go to sleep because I know that he is going to invade my dreams. He has done it so many times. I now think he was the bear chasing me in those nightmares that I used to have as a child. I would be running and running as fast as I could away from this huge bear and I was always in our house. The chase would always end in the bathroom. I would wake up just before he caught me…every time. The reason I now think that it was him is because the dream always took place in whatever house we happened to be living in when I had the dream. He was always there.

Oh, how I hate him for what he has done to me. He’s been dead since 1989 and I really do hope that he is burning in hell.

Let's Make Judges Be Held Accountable

I'm sitting here watching Oprah's show today and like her, I am also mad as hell over what this country accepts when it comes to NOT protecting our children. Oprah says that we have to change the laws and demand that if a man is caught molesting a child the FIRST time then he needs to be sentenced to life in prison. We all know that this never happens and all too soon these sick perverts are let out to roam the streets and do it over and over again. She's told of men who have rap sheets miles long and of children who have been killed by men who have
been convicted over and over again. She asks the question, "Why are they not in prison?" The answer is as simple as the solution to the problem. It's the JUDGES that sit on the benches who allow these guys out of prison and then, when they kill again and agin they defend themselves by saying, "I had no idea of the seriousness of the problem." But then that judge is not held accountable. I say that the judges who allow the child molesters out of prison, especially before they finish out their sentences, SHOULD be held accountable and they themselves should be sentences to jail for ACCESSORY TO MURDER! If we would demand that the judges that allow these men out of jail be held accountable, then I guarantee you that no more would be allowed out before they have served their entire sentences. No more would we have the problem of child rape and murder running rampant the way it is. And unless and until people stand up and MAKE our lawmakers and our judges be held accountable for their irresponsible actions, it will not stop. Laws will never be changed. As much as we tell our Senators and Representatives to vote the way we tell them too, once they get to Washington, they do what they want. They vote whichever way their party wants them to vote. America has no say anymore. But if we will DEMAND that ALL people, no matter who they are, be held accountable, then and only then will we see change in this country and then our children will be protected.

Reprinted from "Read Reka's View"

Morality Issue?

This news article caught my eye earlier today and started me to thinking about morality. I understand that Christian schools have a right to make their own rules. I even agree with them; most of them. My kid attends a Christian school for a lot of those morality issues. But where do we draw the line? And do the lines need to be drawn?

I have to admit that this one has me a little bit confussed. On one hand there is a non-traditional family, but a family, none the less, who cares enough about their kids to pay for their education at a Christian school. This tells me that this family makes enough money to be able to afford the high cost of this education. This couple has been together for more than 22 years, according to the article, so that tells me that they are "stable people." I am assuming that their children are relatively well-adjusted because I am nearly positive that if there were anything in these kid's backgrounds that the news media could dig up as negative, they would have done so. The same is true of the parents. Therefore, everyone must be a law-abiding, tax paying citizen or else, I am sure, it would have been reported. We all know how the news media loves to report on the negative, especially that of the gay community. On the other hand, we have a school, who, from everything I can tell, has no prior problems with this family or the children. Some teacher or administrator simply overheard one of the kids talking at a school function and realized that her parents were gay, so she was kicked out of school because it is apparently against school policy that a student have a gay parent. To me, this sounds as if this particular school believes that children of gay parents are not worthy of a Christian education. Isn't this school passing judgement on this child? Aren't they passing judgement on what this family is deserving of? And isn't it God's job to judge? As I said, this one has me bumfuzzled.

I am fully aware that the school is within it's right's legally. However, I am thinking that kicking a child out of school for this reason, has got to be against the law, Right? At any rate it has got to be unconstitutional.  And in their judgement ANYONE knows that they are doing God's job...the judging. God judges not a school or any other institution. This is just WRONG on so many levels that it breaks my heart. And I am getting tired of asking, "What is this world coming to?" From my point of view, itss already come to judgemental people, terrorists, immorality, a place where bullying is alive and well, hatred, and a host of other things that, in my mind, constitutions making this world and evil place. This is just NOT right.

Even The Everready Bunny Gets Tired, Sometimes

I think that every now and then every one of us goes through a time during our lives when we are feeling like whatever we touch, or try and accomplish, we end up getting the finger. I know that there are times that I feel that way. I always try as hard as I can to do the best that I can with what I have got. I'll admit that what I've got ain't much, but I make the best of it. I'm human, so yes, I have been known to complain and I have also had myself a pity party or two; but never at any time, have I ever just sat back and allowed somebody else to take care of my responsibilities for me. I have handled every one of those myself. There has even been times when I have handled someone else's responsibilities

Remembering 9/11

I know that most everyone in our country today is thinking about that terrible morning four years ago when those airplanes crashed into the world trade centers and then into the Pentagon and then into that field in Pennsylvania...and we learned that it was a terriost attack, in our own country, with our own planes. How could such horror happen in our country, right under our noses? Then we began to learn how this terror happened. We learned that the government had been warned, but ignored the warnings. We heard of FBI ineptness. We were told that Saddam was behind the attacks. We were told that he was hiding weapons in his country. So we investigated. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. But still, our government insisted he was hiding them and he must attack. So finally, we did just that. And after several years and countless loss of life, there are still no weapons. We have been lied to. We have invaded a country that quite probably never did attack us in the first place, seeing as all the terriosts were of Saudi Arabian nationality, not Iraqui. But it's the Saudi's that are the friends of our President's. Those are the people he flew out of their country before the attack on Iraq to protect them. And now gas prices are at an all time high; those same friends that our President has protected are making millions and millions of dollars selling oil to this country. And our President is still protecting them. And this morning, on the anniversary of the attacks on our country, while the relatives of the victims of the people who's lives were lost in the Trade Centers and in the Pentagon and in that field in Pennsylvania are honoring their husbands, their wives, their sisters, their brothers, and their children, Bin Laden has sent us yet another threat to terrorize our country...and our President continues to lie to us.

Our dead deserve a better legacy than this. Our children deserve a brighter future than this.