Suffer the little children not...

October 7, 2014

Dear Readers,

Each of us has different causes that are near and dear to our hearts. Mine is in October ~ Domestic Violence Awareness month. Every October, I share something from my heart on my blog.

It was in October 2002 that I spent 30 days in the Women's Shelter that I worked to establish. It was a major turning point in my life and I truly believe that God worked a miracle in me and set the seed of doing a blog.

I am a survivor, a mentor to women going through this atrocity, and an educator seeking to make the public more alert to the signs, symptoms, and recovery process.

If you've grown up in a family where a certain "act" is considered normal, you're probably going to perpetuate the "act" and not think twice about it. Normal is really abnormal if that makes sense. It is only when the "act" is brought into the light that people begin to realize that maybe there should be some house cleaning done.

Every family seems to have at least one person who is a bit strange. There were a couple in my family. Excuses were given, behavior was swept under the rug, and the damage was done over and over again. I wish my mom and dad were alive so that I could ask more questions ... not to judge but to understand. Domestic violence doesn't just all of a sudden start ... it's carried forward from generation to generation.

There were times that my mother would open up to me about her relationship with her father, her brothers, her mother, and my father. All I knew was how her life affected mine. I never heard the words "I love you" nor was I hugged and told I was special. (Since my love languages are quality time and words of affirmation I suffered, acting out with withdrawal and anger) Although she could not bring herself to hug me or voice her love, in her later years, she did show love in the ways she was comfortable. I am grateful for that.

The tragic reality is that anytime someone has been (or is being) abused, children are affected. In my case, I learned that I wasn' worthy and allowed people to hurt me. The tapes from my childhood ran deep manifesting themselves in ways I couldn't even begin to understand.

I have flashbacks of me (as a child) running in the dark and sobbing uncontrollably. I have flashbacks of my father screaming at me telling me how worthless I was and that I wouldn't amount to "a hill of beans." I have flashbacks of my uncle telling me that I was the ugliest kid he'd ever seen. The strange part in all of this was that I was a good kid... The battle wasn't mine, it was the hurts and events of life that shaped my own parents and family of origin.

In Childhood Trauma Therapy, I learned that my "smarts" probably saved my life. I withdrew into my own world and made it beautiful.  I was sexually abused before I was 5. You're asking me how I know that. As a very young child, I had an abnormal interest in sex (I do remember that) ~ things that a young child would not know about and would have bouts of extreme anger when threatened. The mind has a way of protecting us ~ trauma is buried deep and can be erased or distorted as if it never happened. By the time I was 8, my life began to be somewhat normal and continued that way until my college years. You might even say, I was kind of a prude. My own self-destruct began with my first marriage and rolled on until 2004. It was then that I had to stop looking at being a victim and start living victoriously. Praise Jesus!!

I remember the taking of this photo vividly. My mother had gotten this dress for me to wear for a professional photo shoot at Vernon's Studios. I put it on, could see through the top of the dress, and was horrified. I kicked, screamed, and wept uncontrollably. I had reached an age when I wanted to cover up my body and became obsessed with protecting it. I was a fierce one to reckon with when it came to what I wore and how much of my body could be seen.

If you're a grandparent, parent, other relative, friend, teacher, or acquaintance: how can you recognize signs of abuse in a child? Children may show emotional problems, cry excessively, or be shy. They may have difficulty making friends and use violence for solving problems at home and school. They have a higher risk of becoming drug or alcohol abusers and may even cut on themselves to relieve pain. Often times, they are involved in abusive relationships as the batterer or the victim. Children who are experiencing stress may show it in different ways ~ difficulty sleeping, bedwetting, over-achieving, behavior problems, withdrawing, stomach aches, and diarrhea.

After many years of self examination and therapy, I had to face my own abusive patterns and make amends not only to God but to those I hurt. I became an advocate for battered women and abused children allowing my own pain to fuel awareness. I spoke out and was asked to join the Board of Directors that established Hope's Door (the first women's shelter in Collin County). My passion was education and I served on the Speaker's Forum. My own abuse made the front page news and my poem was called Jane's Poem by those that read it. I will not be quiet ... my blog was my avenue of walking in the light. I do not blame, I share MY STORY and MY REACTIONS to what happened to me as a child and as an adult.

It's been quite a journey ... believe me, not one for the faint of heart. There are so many blank spots in my childhood that I may never remember. I've asked my  friends and cousins to help me fill in blanks and some have been gracious to do so. Thank you!

I do want to share this... For many years, my mother was a case worker for Family Services in Pope County, Minnesota. She had such a heart for the children and for the people she worked with. She worked tirelessly to investigate and to report abuses. In her own way, I think this was her way of making right some things from her own past. I am choosing to admire that and thank God for the work she did.

Recently, there was a case in that same Pope County that involved the death of a small boy.  It was February 2013 when Eric Dean died an agonizing death at the hands of his father's live-in fiance, Amanda Peltier (she has since been convicted of killing him).  Family Services had been notified many many times and for whatever reason, those notices went by the wayside. I am sure that now that little Eric's death has been covered across the nation, some changes will be made. It is sad for me to think that it took death to raise awareness but that is so often the case.

The only answer to this problem is to treat domestic violence and emotional/sexual/neglect of children as a crime. We MUST right societal values that reinforce men and women to act aggressively in violence against children.

Miss Dottie

Dear God,  You loved the little children and spoke so often about them. I love the paintings of You with them gathered about you. I ask that you bless the efforts of all those who are raising awareness of the violences committed against our children. Forgive me, Father, for the wrongs I have committed in raising my own children. Ignorance is not bliss. The holes in my memory haunt me yet I know that You have opened some of those dark corners to reveal enough to answer some of my questions. For those seeking their own answers, I ask that You go before them opening doors to wellness. With truth comes freedom ~ let us embrace that freedom and not be afraid to speak out. Some are afraid to come forward for fear of what people will think and say. Move mightily in their hearts, Lord.  Let the healing begin one person at a time, one family at a time. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!! Amen, it is so!!