Re-model 4 Life

Interview with Matt Atkinson, author of Resurrection After Rape

2009-10-30T19:11:00.009-05:00

This will be the first in a series of interviews with authors, activists and other individuals who are making a difference in the lives of individuals, their community and the world at large.

Today, I am talking with Matt Atkinson, author of Resurrection After Rape and a therapist specializing in the treatment of trauma related to abuse and assault. He has won national awards for his expertise in the treatment and prevention of sexual violence. By way of disclosure, I should mention that I am a rape survivor and include Resurrection After Rape as part of my healing and support network. In addition, I am a member of the discussion group associated with the book.

In short, Matt is not a random stranger, but someone I trust and respect for the work he is doing to help those of us who struggle with the effects of trauma in our daily lives.

Let’s get started.

How did you become interested in working with trauma survivors?

Originally, I intended to just work with Indian tribes here in Oklahoma. My focus during graduate school was Native issues in social work, right down to my thesis on incorporating traditional culture into client care. I started working with some of the tribes here to develop cultural programs in Indian housing communities, and these programs were very successful. Just as funding cuts killed our local program, tribes across the country began requesting me as a trainer, and I traveled to other reservations and tribal colleges to teach community leaders how to recreate the very program we'd just ended back home. One thing I noticed in that work was the high prevalence of intimate partner violence (Indian women have the highest rates of victimization of any group in North America), and while tribes have been innovators in anti-drug and anti-alcohol programs, IPV had been almost invisible in tribal grants and services.
It was by chance that I saw a job posting that sought a person to develop and direct domestic violence/sexual assault prevention education programs in Oklahoma. They wanted someone with experience teaching youth, ability to speak in public, cross-cultural experience, and familiarity with research. What they hadn't expected was a male applicant, and the notion was scandalous at first. I began working as a staff director for a DV/SA crisis program in the 1990s, and at first my job was routine: go into schools and present a scripted curriculum. I found, though, that my real education about intimate partner violence, including sexual assault, happened after classes when school students would ask, "can I talk to you alone?" Teen girls were crowding around me day after day, divulging stories of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in their relationships. For many, I was the first person they had ever told. These became the real-life faces and voices that transcended the raw statistics I'd memorized but never emotionally comprehended before.

The more I heard, the more I realized that simply educating for prevention was a step too late. It was already happening. People needed opportunities to talk and question, and to trust the information they were getting, because they were confused and ashamed. As time passed, I found that this problem overflowed the stereotypes we have all learned. It was happening to every age group—including the seniors at churches where I spoke. It was happening to boys and men, too. It was happening to gay and lesbian people. It was happening to members of every background I could see. One psychiatric hospital began inviting me in to do presentations for their groups of patients, and every time I referred to dating violence or sexual assault there was always widespread relevance. I think that is where I finally saw the need to cross over from basic education to specialized counseling for victims of trauma. I saw people who were lumped under diagnoses like Major Depression, Panic Disorder, Personality Disorder, PTSD…but what they almost always had in common was violent trauma. Therapists were treating the effects, not the causes.

What is your philosophical approach toward healing?

Aside from all the clinical symptoms of trauma, I see one major, fundamental wound that pervades sexual assault: the sense of being personally severed from the rest of life. Victims of sexual assault tell me in the best terms they can that they feel expelled from the "circle of life" by their trauma. Cast out of the garden. Disconnected. Amputated from the body of humanity. Rejected even by God. This senses of being personally extracted from a place of belonging in the web of life isn't something you can quantify with a diagnosis; it's a deeply personal, spiritual wound. I think that traditional therapies fall short because they fail to help the survivor reintegrate him/herself with life. There is something wrong when over 90% of rape victims say that traditional therapies just didn't cut it. The mainstream approach to counseling is so constricted by a lack of innovative care, fear of risk, and the economics of insurance that the more existential forms of healing are not only omitted, but seen as "weird" anymore. The truth that compassion must play a role in the relationship between counselor and client is taboo; the importance of symbolic ceremony to commemorate healing is missing in most therapies; treatment is oriented toward stabilization of symptoms rather than restoration of power, wholeness, and connection to life.
My idea is that the power, honor, and status of healing belong to the survivor, not to the therapist. I become very uncomfortable when I am flattered by a client, because while I appreciate that they value my role in their healing, ultimately it is their work to do, and thus their honor that results. The older Freudian notion of the therapist wielding power in the treatment relationship is horrifying to me, especially when working with a survivor of trauma who most needs their power and authority restored. So my philosophy is treatment of rape is a deeply-collaborative process of restoring the survivor's strength of body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

Socially and politically, what do you see as the most urgent challenges faced by today's survivors of rape, sexual assault and abuse?

Socially, we continue to be a victim-blaming society. The first fear felt by rape victims moments after the assault is, "Oh my God, nobody will believe me!" Our cultural stories about rape mislead us into myths that rape could be prevented if women simply changed their lives to avoid men's violence, that victims of rape are always female and always guilty of "putting themselves in that position," that rape is an extreme form of sexual behavior. Most peoples' concept of rape is that it is something very bad done by psychotic creeps, so it's a good thing it's rare. The truth is that it's increasingly perpetrated by men we would regard as "normal" in any other way, responding to constant conditioning that links sexuality with power and domination, and it's very common.
Politically, I find that rape treatment and crisis programs are in constant danger of being de-funded, because resources for rape victims are seen as optional privileges rather than matters of social and moral justice. I also think politicians are prone to the misguided notion that resources for trauma survivors—shelters, community education programs, law enforcement trainings, medical trainings, therapist trainings, and clinical care—could just as easily be provided through charity at the local level. Sadly, we have seen that is just not true; sexual abuse and assault programs always enjoy sentimental support in the public mind, but without corresponding material support. That's why before 1994 there were only 15 women's shelters in the United States, and women had to pay for their own medical rape examinations. Following 1994—the Violence Against Women Act—the number of shelters has jumped to around 2,000 and medical care, including forensic examinations, are funded. These services simply would not exist if there had not been the political will to create and sustain them. James, I share your left-libertarian views on the rights of people to make personal choices over their lives. Support for resources like these are one area in which I think public funding (read: "government") is simply essential, because these resources vanish otherwise. I think it reasonably falls under our responsibility to uphold personhood, rights, liberty, and property.

What inspired you to compile and publish Resurrection After Rape? What is unique about this healing resource compared to other offerings available to survivors?

I had worked with over 500 rape survivors, both men and women, in counseling. And without exception, they were remarkable people with amazing strengths and stories, even if they did not recognize those strengths themselves at times. I have read nearly every book currently in print about rape trauma, plus countless research articles, and participated in dozens of trainings. What I noticed, though, was that over and over the research, workshops, and guidelines were produced in the voice of the academic or counselor. For years, I heard psychologists and social workers offer training seminars on their research, or read books by therapists about their agenda. What was missing were the voices of survivors! We had tons of research, but survivors remained invisible and mute throughout. The irony is that all of this research and training was somehow supposed to equip us to "empower" survivors, and yet the actual form of the work continued to deny survivors a lead position. When I wrote "Resurrection," my plan was to include the writings, stories, and even artwork of survivors so that their lives, in their own words, would become the predominant demonstration of empowerment, rather than yet another book by yet another therapist writing only about their techniques. Dozens of survivors enthusiastically offered abundant writings and artwork, and it became apparent that survivors wanted desperately to share their achievements, but had been waiting for any way to add their voice to the field of rape work. What was amazing is that as word of the project spread, survivors approached me to ASK for their stories to be included; I did not have to recruit a single contributor. It was as if being able to share their stories for the benefit of others was a long-sought form of healing as well.
Also, there are a lot of topics that continue to be "taboo" even in clinical research, and yet real-life survivors struggle with the daily. For example, hardly any book about rape recovery addresses issues like promiscuity after rape, or having a physical sexual response during rape, or anger at God after rape, or self-injury and sexual trauma. And yet these are issues that many survivors try to cope with. Their absence in books only contributes to the survivor's sense of shame that their secret struggle is perhaps "too grisly" for rape recovery books to even discuss. In some cases, books on rape recovery have even been so gentle, so "chicken soup," that survivors can't relate. Rape recovery is a terrifying, exhausting, bewildering, and sharp-edged process; it's not poetic, pastel, and dainty. Resources that perfume rape recovery are easier to read, but ultimately not helpful. I'm intrigued by the number of readers of "Resurrection" who have written to me that they have hurled the book across the room in fury, avoided it, cursed it ("that damned book!"), and then come back and resumed the work. To be that pissed off and yet continue takes real courage.

What other projects are you working on or planning in the next few years?

In my career, I'm about to start a new project where I'll be planning and creating fifteen new rape crisis programs across my state, from the ground up. In rural areas where there are no services for rape victims, I'll be working for the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault to develop medical resources, law enforcement trainings, education curricula, and counseling programs.
I'm working on two new books. In "Resurrection," everyone's favorite section is the "letters to future survivors" at the end. So I'm going to develop a book just of those. Rape survivors, male or female, will be able to write personal letters of encouragement and advice to the "next wave" of victims who need to know they are not alone and outcast. A whole book of these letters will be a tremendous resource. And I'd like to expand the project to other books for survivors of other struggles: breast cancer, loss of a child, depression, families of suicide, etc.
The other book I'm working on is called "The God of Wounded People." It's an eclectic—meaning "weird"—book because it's partly my own spiritual autobiography, partly a workbook, and partly a manifesto about the innate worth of people who have survived trauma. Since so few therapists are comfortable including spirituality in clinical work, this book will look at the role of spirituality in healing from trauma.

Suppose that you had millions of dollars at your disposal from an anonymous donor with the sole caveat being that you must use it as you see fit for the betterment of sexual trauma survivors. How would you use those funds and what type of programs would you implement?

Is this a hint? Do you have a check for me, James?
Seriously, this would be my dream. My own dream: A residential resort setting (NOT hospital in-patient) in mountains, with nearby trails and lakes. People come voluntarily and stay in a safe, secluded setting with other survivors. An emphasis is placed on social aspects of recovery, such as group bonding and activity. Canoeing, horseback riding, hiking, campfires at night, and fun activities (the real kind, not the "cut out construction paper" crafts you do in a hospital. I'm thinking, midnight broom hockey! Gab fests!)
Therapy is done in group work with lots of available individual attention. With mountain air all around, being asked to journal is not a chore--just find a tree and sit in the mountains and write.
Therapists would be creative and unconventional. The mindset of therapy is equality and collaboration with the client, not authoritarian counseling. Therapists would be encouraged to participate in all aspects of treatment, including the group work AND the social experience, joining cadres of clients for coffee, roasting marshmallows over campfires with them, joining them in the sweatlodge, sitting in circles with them to talk and joke. The term "boundaries" would refer to conditions over use of touch or harmful action, rather than a term that segregates client and therapist from a holistic collaboration in all aspects of recovery.
The use of art and creativity would be primary. Mural paintings, collages, medicine bags, and other right-brained processes would not be excluded form the work. Clients would contribute to the maintenance of the treatment grounds: caring for horses, assisting in meals and cleanup, etc. The program would be available on a sliding fee scale, so that unlike other "resort treatment" programs it does not exclude all but the wealthy.
This is my DREAM. Other people may crave riches for personal gratitude, but I wish I had a couple of million dollars to start this kind of facility. Nothing like it has been tried, and I believe it would become the world's model program for survivors.

Finally, what would you say to someone who is reading this interview and wondering how to take that first, brave step toward healing?

1. Forgive yourself for how difficult the recovery process is. This is not like getting over a cold. Recovery from sexual trauma is the most difficult thing you will ever do in your life, and it is so worth it! When people pressure you to “get over it”, don’t feel guilty—they just don’t understand that this is a wound that can go all the way to the soul.
2. Find a way to start talking about what happened. Hiding your experience makes it feel like something shameful, something you can’t handle. Little by little, come out of hiding and begin to speak about your experiences. This can be a therapist, one honest friend, or an online support resource like dailystrength.org.
3. Journal! Hand-write rather than typing, and write at east 20 minutes a day. Don’t use your journal to endlessly describe feeling ugly, weak, or shameful; use your journal to fight back against darkness and purge those things onto paper.
4. Take good physical care of yourself. It’s hard to re-conceive of yourself as a powerful, worthy person if you are depriving yourself of nurturing. Eat healthy, sleep, take medications properly, free yourself from abusive relationships, and respect your body. Do not use food, drugs, or self-harming behaviors to avoid difficult emotions. Recovery is not a beauty contest, but it is a process of finding your worth again.
5. Seek and study as much information as you can find about your trauma. Find the best books and gather information, because it makes the symptoms of trauma less frightening and more manageable.

Conclusion

I would like to remind readers that while you may not personally have been forced to endure a traumatic experience, you do know someone (most likely several people) who deal with PTSD and other emotional and physical symptoms related to such experiences. Healing is not an easy task, but rather a committed and difficult journey with many steps, detours and sometimes – dead ends. There is no such thing as simply “getting over it” or “leaving it in the past”. The effects, even decades later, can continue to manifest themselves in the lives of trauma survivors in ways visible and hidden.

Countless individuals and organizations who give of their time and expertise to help those of us on the healing journey are so important and I am happy to have been able to take a moment to highlight the wonderful work of one such individual. Thank you Matt for agreeing to participate in this interview series and for all of the work you do on behalf of survivors everywhere.

For those readers interested in learning more about the resources mentioned above the following links have been provided:

Resurrection After Rape (official website of the book) - http://www.resurrectionafterrape.org/
Resurrection After Rape Discussion Group - http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/resurrection-after-rape
Daily Strength – http://www.dailystrength.org
Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault - http://www.ocadvsa.org/
Violence Against Women Act - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act

TBTN at Randolph College: Recap

2009-10-20T00:08:00.001-05:00

I was booked for a Take Back The Night event on October 14th. The faculty sponsor and the chair of the event were both excited to have a male speaker as they've not had one for a TBTN event in the past. The marching portion of the event at Randolph College (formerly Randolph-Macon Women's College - now coed) was rained out, but a modified program was conducted indoors at the Student Center.

Given that the event was scheduled for 7:00 pm and I had to drive three and a half hours to get there, I expected to be tired. Fortunately, the campus coffee shop was still open so I got my medicine and was refreshed and ready to talk. I started out the night introduced as the RAINN Speakers Bureau speaker and talked about my own experiences and healing process, covered several myths about rape and survivors (provided by members of Pandys, MaleSurvivor and DailyStrength), took questions afterward for several minutes and then the mic was opened up for student participation. The majority of questions had to do with my experiences as a male survivor of a female rapist.

As is typical at such events, several students came forward and shared their own stories. After hearing me talk about the woman who raped me, one of the attendees of the event came forward to discuss how her female best friend abused and eventually raped her in middle school. She angrily shared that she had never talked about it before because she was told what a lot of people are told and unfortunately many believe - that girls and women don't commit rape or sexual abuse. A male attendee also related being abused by his female babysitter as a child, something he had never talked about publicly. I gave him my card and let him know he can contact me when and if he is ready to talk about it further. Several women talked about their experiences with CSA at the hands of male family members or teachers.

Listening to the stories is always hard, but inspiring, especially when someone breaks the silence for the first time. I am proud of all of them for showing up and for those who bravely got behind the microphone and shared their pain publicly. It was a very emotional 3 hours and I think nearly everyone cried at some point during the night.

A student from the college newspaper was present to cover the event. I gave her my card, answered a few followup questions and asked her to email me the story when it was published.

I slept in the next day after as I didn't get back until after 1:00 am. Seven hours of driving and three hours of highly emotional and triggering discussion was very draining. I am tentatively booked as a speaker for a RAINN Day event at another Virginia college. They are still working out the date and other details. I will post a recap following that event.

"Comfort Women" Still Waiting on Japan to Own Up to the Past

2009-08-28T15:54:00.001-05:00

Peace X Peace on "This Story Will Not Die" A Cry from Korea for Human Rights and Peace:

During World War II, many thousands of women were forced to serve the Japanese army as sexual slaves. The majority were from Korea, and many came from China and Japan, but women from the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Dutch East Indies, the Netherlands, Australia, Indonesia, New Guinea, Burma, and other nations were also interned and abused in the hideously mis-named "comfort stations."

This subject always makes me both sad and infuriated. Perhaps part of this is based on my participation in civil liberties activism and the empathy that requires. On the other hand, I am also a rape survivor and that drives this topic home harder for me. As bad as my PTSD can be at times after being raped twice, I cannot imagine the trauma these women deal with on a daily basis or how many committed suicide or died young due to injuries acquired in these horrible rape camps.

Survivor and activist Won Ok Gil has been telling her story for years in hopes it will serve as a warning to future generations:

It has been many years since the war ended and I have never been able to live as a true human being. I am 82 years old and I have still had no contact with my family. I am sick from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I have had four surgeries on my stomach. But out of 234 survivors who came out, only 91 are still alive. I have come out with the goal of letting everyone in Peace X Peace and other organizations know about my life. I want at least one of us to receive a full apology from the Japanese government that will send a message to the current generation about what can happen in war. One of our goals is to build a museum where today’s generation can learn about the past and connect it to the future. Right now the Japanese government is not taking responsibility for its actions. Japanese school children do not learn about Korean comfort women. They need to learn this. Maybe then all the regrets and the feelings that I have will be resolved."

The fact that the government of Japan is still using weasel words to give half-hearted apologies indicates cowardice and a lack of compassion. While I cannot stand with Won in Seoul during their weekly demonstrations, I’ll be thinking of her and her sisters each Wednesday…

Relevant Links:

http://www.peacexpeace.org/Peace_X_Peace_Blogs/?p=797

http://www.womenandwar.net/english/index.php

http://www.peacexpeace.org/content/

http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3480/79/

Technology, tool used by victims, abusers in domestic violence

2009-08-04T12:26:00.001-05:00

Technology, tool used by victims, abusers in domestic violence

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Confidential address programs fall short in protecting privacy

2009-08-03T10:38:00.003-05:00

Nineteen U.S. states, including California, offer confidential address programs for the ostensible purpose of protecting victims of crimes such as domestic abuse and stalking. Victims count on these programs to protect them from their abusers, but privacy protection in the Internet age has become much more difficult. Technology now enables abusers to penetrate or work around confidential address and other programs—and many abusers do so.

Read More ...Confidential address programs fall short in protecting privacy

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Healing Out Loud

2009-07-27T23:26:00.003-05:00

Penelope Trunk, discussing her child sexual abuse, on How to decide how much to tell about yourself on your blog:

So what I’m telling you here is that I’m scared of secrets. I’m more scared of keeping things a secret than I am of letting people know that I’m having trouble. People can’t believe how I’m willing to write about my life here. But what I can’t believe is how much better my life could have been if it had not been full of secrets.

So today, when I have a natural instinct to keep something a secret, I think to myself, "Why? Why don’t I want people to know?" Because if I am living an honest life, and my eyes are open, and I’m trying my hardest to be good and kind, then anything I’m doing is fine to tell people.

That’s why I can write about what I write about on this blog.

I can understand Penelope's point here. I disclosed the details of my own rape a year ago my blog. In order to heal from this secret I felt I had to set it free and in a way that prevented me from ever lying to myself again. In the end, I've heard from many people who've endured similar experiences. In trying to help myself, I ended up helping far more than I could have ever expected. Further, I wonder how different my life had been if I hadn't spent nearly twenty years in denial keeping secrets in shame.

Of course, like Penelope has experienced on her blog, I was treated to "wisdom", insults and other child-like "logic" from cowardly anonymous critics, including my own personal full-time anonymous hater who apparently has nothing better to do than obsess about me. Most negative response were just judgmental and immature individuals hiding behind the internet to say things online that they'd never say in person. The internet makes some personality types actually believe they are being brave by leaving angry and insulting messages when others disclose painful experiences in a healing manner.

Particulary disturbing was one poster who basically told Penelope that being raped as a child is no big deal compared to loss of a limb in war or a long-term illness. I always find it fascinating when people play the "others had it tougher card" as if that is some kind of ultimate wisdom that should automatically be accepted without scrutiny. I'm sorry, but is that poster really saying they have a way of measuring years of being raped and beaten as a child vs. loss of a limb and can prove one is worse then the other?

Really??????????

What is the scientific formula for such a measurement?

Or perhaps that person is okay with children being raped and thinks it is not a big deal?

As far as the whole 'women don't want men who've been abused nonsense' also being peddled in the comments – really? As a rape survivor, I beg to differ. There are plenty of compassionate and loving women out there who are not repulsed by wounded men and are willing to go the extra mile to help someone they love.

I'm sorry, but what several of Penelope's critics are doing is known as victim-shaming and it is reprehensible and unacceptable behaviour. Often it is done in self-defense in order to make their own choice about hiding similar experiences seem more palatable or the individual doing so is an abuser themselves or covering up for an abuser. Or perhaps they just want to pretend the world is sunshine and rainbows and popsicles. Either way, people who think like this are the reason why most rape and sexual abuse survivors feel ashamed of what was done to them and compelled to suffer in silence on a regular basis.

Kudos to Penelope for breaking the silence unapologetically. Anyone who doesn't like it, should thank their lucky stars they don't have to live with the flashbacks, nightmares, sexual dysfunction and other wonderful side effects of rape trauma syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.

It is not a competition for who has suffered the worst. It is just painful and some of us choose to heal in the open, rather than suffer in silence just so certain people can go on pretending bad things only happen to bad people and not the nice person sitting next to them.

Entry also posted at: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3459/79/

Spousal rape is rape! It is time for the offender to be called the rapist that he is! Spousal rape victim speaks out helps to change law in Illinois

2009-07-01T12:34:00.003-05:00

A special thank you to Regan Martin, a brave victim of spousal rape for coming forward to help shed light upon this devastating criminal epidemic that impacts millions of domestic violence victims.

Spousal rape and martial rape is RAPE!

Tragically millions of domestic violence victims are raped by their intimate partners and this aspect of advocacy has not yet been addressed well enough by the domestic violence organizations nationally for victims to feel comfortable speaking about it.

Spousal rape is a crime that most victims are ashamed of and do not want to bring up or report to advocates, law enforcement, prosecutors or their physicians.

Spousal rape is a crime that needs to be better understood by counselors, law enforcement, advocates, medical examiners and prosecutors so that more spousal rape victims will feel comfortable speaking up and more importantly be taken seriously.

Rape is rape!

If you are a victim of domestic violence or spousal rape you are not alone!

www.SurvivorsInAction.com
"No Victim Left Behind"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A special thank you to New York Attorney Caroline Johnston Polisi, a WeNews Commentator for writing about this very important topic.

Spousal Rape Laws Continue to Evolve
Run Date: 07/01/09
By Caroline Johnston Polisi
WeNews commentator

Remnants of the "marital rape exemption" still exist in many states' laws, even though all 50 states now criminalize spousal rape. Plea bargains can also lead to more lenient sentencing. Caroline Johnston Polisi looks at how these laws have changed.

(WOMENSENEWS)--The scars on Regan Martin's wrists are a painful reminder of a past filled with violence and fear. While handcuffed behind her back, Martin's husband brutally beat and raped her, leaving her bloody, bruised and severely injured on the floor of their Crete, Ill., home.

The 2005 incident began, police reports say, after Martin refused to have sex with her husband John Samolis.

Sadly, Martin's story is not uncommon among American women. Studies indicate that between 15 and 25 percent of all married women have been victims of spousal rape and some scholars suggest that this type of rape is the most common form in our society.

Unfortunately, for survivors like Regan Martin, modern U.S. law still retains vestiges of a misogynistic past.

Creation of "Marital Rape Exemption"
The so-called "marital rape exemption" has been embedded in the sexual assault laws of our country since its founding. In its most drastic form, the exemption means that a husband, by definition, cannot legally rape his wife. The theory goes that by accepting the marital contract, a woman has tacitly consented to sexual intercourse any time her husband demands it.

The concept dates back to 18th century common law, and was articulated by English jurist Matthew Hale as follows: "The husband cannot be guilty of rape . . . for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract, the wife [has] given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract."

Over 200 years later, American lawmakers were not ready to do away with the marital rape exemption, as shown by the Model Penal Code. Drafted in the 1950s, the code states that: "Marriage . . . while not amounting to a legal waiver of the woman's right to say 'no,' does imply a kind of generalized consent that distinguishes some versions of the crime of rape from parallel behavior by a husband. . . . Retaining the spousal exclusion avoids this unwarranted intrusion of the penal law into the life of the family."

States embraced the Mode Penal Code's endorsement of the marital rape exemption. In North Carolina, for example, until 1993, the penal code's definition of rape noted that a person could not be convicted of the crime of rape "if the victim is the person's legal spouse at the time of the commission of the alleged rape."

Victim's rights advocates, lawyers and politicians fought tirelessly to reverse these laws across the country.

States Begin Abolishing Exemption
In 1976, Nebraska became the first state to abolish the marital rape exemption. Other states slowly followed.

The New York case, People v. Liberta, illustrates the modern repudiation of the doctrine. In 1984, the New York State Court of Appeals finally decided that there was no basis for distinguishing between marital rape and non-marital rape. The court noted that "a marriage license should not be viewed as a license to forcibly rape [the defendant's] wife with impunity" and struck the marital exemption from the statue in question for violation of the state and federal Constitution.

Currently all 50 states criminalize spousal rape, but remnants of the marital rape exemption are still present in many states' laws. Most states, like California, for example, define spousal rape as a separate (and lesser) offense than stranger rape.

Evidently, Regan Martin's husband also believed that spousal rape should be a lesser offense. He exhibited a commonly held assumption among perpetrators of the crime: that husbands have property rights in their wives' bodies.

"He thought he had every right to do what he was doing because he was her husband," Cherry Simpson, Regan Martin's mother, told Women's eNews.

However, since Illinois law has abandoned the spousal rape exemption in cases of forcible or violent rape, Samolis was initially charged with unlawful restraint, sexual criminal assault (rape) and aggravated domestic violence.

But the case never made it to trial.

Plea Bargaining Away Charges
Plea bargains can be useful because they allow governmental prosecutors to make practical compromises in cases they believe might not prevail in court. They are also used in cases in which gathering evidence would be too costly and time consuming, saving taxpayer dollars and preserving judicial resources.

But Regan and her family believe that in cases of alleged rape, plea bargains should never be allowed.

"Rape is rape and to plea bargain it away is unacceptable. This is just an epidemic for judicial expediency," said Simpson.

Samolis accepted a plea bargain in Regan Martin's case. He agreed to plea guilty to the lesser crime of aggravated domestic violence and in return the district attorney would drop the rape and unlawful restraint charges.

The news that Samolis would not be prosecuted for the rape devastated Martin and her loved ones. Samolis ultimately served 19 months in prison for the aggravated domestic violence charge. The average time served for a rape conviction is about five years, according to a U.S. Department of Justice Study.

In response, Martin and her family are working with Illinois Congresswoman Debbie Halverson, a Democrat, to draft a bill that would prohibit prosecutors from offering plea bargains to alleged rapists.

A spokesperson for Halverson's office said the Congresswoman is "trying to figure out a legislative solution to this problem. Because of the nature of the laws involved, at this time we are not sure whether this needs to be addressed in the federal jurisdiction or state jurisdiction level."

Regardless of whether or not the bill gets passed, Regan Martin's story and her fight for the evolution of criminal sexual assault laws is a powerful reminder of how far the United States has come in terms of spousal rape jurisprudence and, perhaps, of how far we still have to go.

Caroline Johnston Polisi is an attorney in New York City. She has volunteered for Sanctuary for Family's Courtroom Advocates Project, helping victims of domestic violence obtain temporary restraining orders against abusive husbands in the Bronx and Manhattan Family Courts. The project seeks to educate victims about the legal remedies available, assist them with safety planning, help them draft petitions and advocate on their behalf before judges.

Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.

One Year of Being Awake (TW)

2009-06-05T22:29:00.001-05:00

A year ago, a friend woke me up from an 18 year sleep.

We began to talk about bad drinking experiences and I told her a little about my experience with the woman who eventually raped me. I was still calling it something else then. I was still denying my pain and blaming myself.

She calmly told me, "you were raped." I took a breath and the walls started to crash in on me. Waves of panic, fear and shame competed for my attention as the realization of her words began to take root.

I was raped. Me. James. Raped. Victimized. Hurt. Those words carry so much weight and I could not acknowledge them for so long. Now I was unexpectedly forced to confront them.

My body was used without my permission. A woman took something she had no right to receive. In her wake, she left me emptier, sadder and confused.

I felt victimized. Nauseous. Powerless. Ashamed. Emasculated.

How did I not see it myself? How did I go on about my daily business for so many years as if nothing had ever happened? Why did it feel like a switch had suddenly been flipped in my brain that lit up that dark room in the corner where you hide your ugliest fears from daylight?

Well, the answer to that is that I didn't go on unaffected. I simply did not recognize how the psychological damage had been manifesting itself in my life and in my intimate relationships with women. It would take several months, tons of therapy and a lot of talking and reflection to see that picture more clearly. I'm still sharpening the focus on a daily basis and I stumble around blindly on occasion. Nearly 20 years of cluttered up denial takes a great deal of effort to clear away.

A year later, I'm less raw in some ways. I have faced down some of my demons, but there are many left to purge. As more layers of denial have been peeled away I find new things to confront, new challenges to face, and new reasons to be sad, angry or numb.

Going forward, I'm going to try to remember how far I've traveled over the last year. I'm going to ignore that mixture of shame and numbness that has been creeping into me lately, as it seems to do in unpredictable cycles. I'm going to begin my second year awake with the knowledge that I now know what happened and I've faced it as best I could with the tools at my reach.

I will keep building on the progress I've made. I'm going to stop beating myself up for feeling bad on days like today, when the anxiety, shame and sadness take turns occupying my head and heart.

I'm going to live.

This entry also posted at: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3425/79/

2009-06-01T21:09:00.003-05:00

Cara of The Curvature on University of the Pacific Says Date Rape is Not Rape:

I want to point out is not why this man is an asshole, or why students definitely need to get SAFER on their campus — it’s how the general rhetoric surrounding rape upholds this man’s views. It’s why I frequently put the "date" in date rape in scare quotes. Because I believe it’s a shitty phrase.

I think that in some ways, the phrase "date rape" has indeed been useful, in the sense of getting out the idea that there’s more than one rape scenario, and it’s not all men jumping out of bushes. And I also know that some survivors, including a close friend I had once, find it comforting and prefer to use it, rather than just the term rape. And I have no interest in taking away people’s right to identify and name their experiences as they wish.

But far too many people have taken the concept that there is more than one "kind" of rape and twisted it into a hierarchy. Yet again, we’re back to the concept of "real" rape and the idea that most rapes don’t deserve the label. Now, we have two different classes popularly accepted in society — date rape and rape. Or, it could be said, date rape and real rape. After all, the "date" modifier is there for a reason.

Cara is responding to ridiculous and unnecessary comments made by Richard Rojo, a spokesman for the University as reported by Recordnet.com:

Pacific spokesman Richard Rojo said Thursday that the school does not consider the incident to be a rape.

"We would call it date rape," he said.

Rojo said the university considers "outright rape" and date rape to be different, in that date rape does not involve "a rapist jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly."

He said, "These are people who knew each other. ... It's a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities.

"It doesn't make it right. It's a sexual assault, and that's why the university took action in this matter."

Rojo is clearly downplaying the seriousness of the rapes by using deliberately weaker language while simultaneously trying to appear to take the matter seriously. It is a transparent and repugnant display and one the University needs to address immediately. Why is this arbitrary distinction so desired and important that Rojo felt the need to elaborate at length?

The woman who raped me did not jump out of the bushes. She used a spiked drink to subdue me, and then employed blackmail to keep me compliant once the effects of the drugged drink wore off. Given that I met her earlier in the evening, I guess that just makes it a "social situation" and not "real rape", regardless of the outcome.

Ugh. Somedays I really just hate people…

Relevant Links:

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090529/A_NEWS/905290324/

http://thecurvature.com/2009/05/30/university-of-the-pacific-says-date-rape-is-not-rape/

Rape and Healing

2009-05-19T22:44:00.001-05:00

Cara from The Curvature on What Does It Mean to Heal?

I know that not all survivors suffer from some sort of post-traumatic stress. I cannot speak to those experiences. In fact, I cannot speak to a single experience that is not my own. But I sure as hell know that almost 11 years later, I definitely don’t feel “healed.” Better, certainly. I don’t think about being raped every day, after all. But I don’t know when I will. I don’t know if and how it will happen. Subconsciously, it also affects my relationships with regards to trust; I know this.

So healed? Healed? No. No, I am not fucking healed. And while I wouldn’t begrudge finding out someday that I’m wrong, I’ve basically accepted that “healed” is something I’m never going to be.

In short, I am okay. I have been okay for some time, and I will be okay. But I will never be the way I was pre-rape, or “get over it.” To go back to this “bruising” metaphor — you can’t see the bruises unless you look for them, and they don’t hurt in just general life. But if you press on them, fuck yeah, there’s pain.

Like Cara, I've wondered about healing too. I'm trying, but I don't see it as a destination I'll find and then be all better forever again. Am I better now than I was a year ago when the memories came back to smash me to bits? Yes. Am I healed?

No. No. No.

I have good days, where I don't see her or feel her or sense her. Then, I have days like I did yesterday when I wanted to scream, cry, put my fist through a wall and curl up in a ball all in one afternoon.

While things are improving, the end result is that I was still raped and that has deeply transformed me in ways you can see and in ways you cannot. Cara's analogy with the surgery scars was perfect. There was a change made that cannot be unmade. I will continue to get better, but there is no going back. There is no mental eraser to make it all go away.

If you find one, let me know...

This entry also posted at: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3412/79/

I'm guesting on A Book and A Chat on Sat. 3/21

2009-03-19T20:33:00.001-05:00

I'm guesting on A Book and A Chat on Sat.,3/21/09, 10 AM CST, 11 AM EST
Call-in Number: (347) 237-5398
Here's the link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Across-the-Pond/2009/03/21/A-BOOK-AND-A-CHAT-with-Beth-Fehlbaum

Here's the Promo the show is using:

Beth Fehlbaum’s tragic childhood was the inspiration for her first novel. Fehlbaum grew up in the Dallas area and has been teaching for 10 years. She said she began going to a therapist to help deal with childhood sexual abuse about four years ago. “I wasn’t handling my life very well. All the tricks I had used to keep from thinking about it weren’t working anymore,” she said. “I was living in a place of anxiety and fear.” Fehlbaum said her therapist suggested she write a novel. She said she wrote the book over a six-month period in 2007. “It took me four months to pull myself out of my own head and get beyond my own pain and grief to be able to tell someone else’s story,” she said in a question and answer with The Lariat Online. “But once I was able to do that, to look at the experience of sexual abuse and recovery from an observer’s standpoint, the story flowed.” Her book, “Courage in Patience,” is a fictional account of a 15-year-old girl, Ashley Nicole Asher, who is sexually abused by her stepfather. Fehlbaum said the first two chapters are about the character’s past, and the rest is about recovery.

A Fallacy of Choices

2009-01-25T22:47:00.001-06:00

Yesterday (Saturday), I had my weekly therapy appointment to deal with the mental ghosts that haunt my brain since the memories of my repressed rape returned last summer. We went a little lighter this week as last week was very difficult and I slept for several hours afterward. This time, I took about a three hour nap due to the emotional exhaustion that such therapy can cause. I had no idea that thinking and talking about an old, neglected trauma I feel on a regular basis could be so physically draining. This week we worked on acceptance of the rape as being beyond my control. We talked for a while before we worked on the EMDR portion.

For the last week, I've been thinking hard about the rape and my own coping thoughts. For a long time, I've thought that I was faced with a decision between continuing to be raped or hurting my pregnant rapist. To be more specific, I've thought the choice existed once I woke up from the effects of the drink she had spiked at the club. While I was unconscious, there was no choice as she had already been raping me. I've labored under the misconception that the choice began when I woke up. Yesterday, I was struck by an epiphany with regard to my previously perceived choices.

I did not choose between being raped or hurting her. I chose not to hurt her. That was my only decision. She chose to rape me. Why was it so hard to connect those dots? Why did I not get it? I only made one decision - not to inflict harm. The rest of the decisions were made by the woman who decided to hurt me.

Over the summer, I had spoken with a close friend about the rape. She cried and later told me that she was proud of me. She said that she loved me even more knowing that I would not hurt a pregnant woman, regardless of how much she harmed me. As much as I know she is right about my decision not to harm my rapist in my own defense, it is hard for me to feel anything but ashamed for being raped by a woman I could have easily overpowered. I'm getting over it daily, sometimes a day at a time, sometimes an hour, and on bad days - minute by minute.

My therapist told me I should be proud of myself and that I have made great progress by realizing this simple fact. I wish I could feel proud right now but I'm still a little raw and I've been ignoring my emotions since I left her office yesterday morning.

I'm just tired of beating myself up over someone else's choices. It is on days like these that disgusting vermin who shame rape survivors or deny that rape is traumatic (and yes they exist, just ask me) find easy prey among rape, sexual abuse and sexual assault survivors.

Also posted at:

http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3345/79/

Healing and Living

2009-01-13T02:29:00.001-06:00

Erin Merryn in Learning to survivor:

"After pouring my heart out being so open and honest in my last post I often wonder about others out there who are survivors and how they do it? What have you done in your life to continue to heal your life? How do you cope with your memories? As many know I write to continue to heal. I also speak to large audiences and do not flinch in any sort of anxiety, crowds do not scare me not even when I talk about sexual abuse. Instead they fire me up, empower me to reach those listening, knowing that at least one person in that crowd will walk away a changed person, a voice discovered, a secret to reveal."

What has helped me? Well, crying when I can no longer contain it. Journaling daily and diving into the civil liberties advocacy work I've been doing for 10 years. I find distractions and I try to leave the world a little better than I found it. I can't change the past, but I can change how I react to it.

Like Erin, I chose to break the silence on my own experience. I was publicly shamed by men who felt their manhood was threatened by admitting that a woman could hurt them. I was doubly shamed by women who wanted to make sure that other women were never exposed as predators. In a small amount, that shaming continues today. I no longer feel the need to acknowledge such disgusting and worthless individuals.

I prefer to focus on those people who contact me because they were touched by my story, or have a brother, boyfriend or husband suffering in silence. They are worth my time. They are the reason I speak out and they are the reason I refuse to shut my mouth. The shamers have nothing to offer but hatred, immature behaviour and gender-based stereotypes and bigotries. I have no use for such empty souls.

Nearly 20 years down the road after so much silence and denial, I realize that she hurt me at a level I never comprehended until lately. That hurt will not last forever - at least not at the level it is today. While I will always carry some of this pain around and the healing will be a lifelong project, it will lessen with effort and I will learn to be happy again. I choose to survive and work toward learning how to thrive. I'm not there yet, but I'll get there eventually. In the meantime, if I can help someone else along the way then I'll consider the time well spent.

Relevant Links:

Erin Merryn: http://erin-merryn.blogspot.com/2009/01/learning-to-survivor.html

This entry also posted at: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3335/79/

The Theme of Hope (Review of Courage in Patience)

2008-12-31T16:48:00.000-06:00

The Theme of Hope, December 31, 2008
By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Beth Fehlbaum's first novel COURAGE IN PATIENCE reads more like a memoir from a caregiver (who in this book happens to match Fehlbaum's full time career as an English teacher) than a fierce diatribe against abuse - and that is what makes this very well written book so readable. Child abuse - 'child' including the years from birth to adulthood - is a major problem in this country, and indeed around the world: the media barrages us daily with third world country tales of child labor in all manner of 'work' in addition to the external abuse inflicted on children whose parents are removed by war and bloodshed. And while Fehlbaum concentrates on sexual abuse of the central character Ashley by her stepfather and the 'blind eye' abuse by her mother, she manages to share all manner of abusive practices that bring light to issues we all may be ignoring - racial, prejudice, homophobia, physical deformities, etc.

Fehlbaum understands how to build a story well - her introduction of the central character Ashley Asher begins with enough humor and gentleness to make us care for a young girl in dire circumstances. The story of the novel is well described elsewhere - secretive sexual abuse, confrontation, alienation, sources of solace and protection and the tremendously important role teachers can play as the watchdog and supportive arm for young abused children. For this reader the story reads best in the portion of the book devoted to peer community assistance as focused on the little town of Patience, Texas. It is here that the novel rises above the usual tale of the abused child and enters the realm of finding support through sharing the various kinds of child abuse among groups of friends. If the novel becomes a bit preachy at the end - an attempt to focus the message of the book that by the time of the conclusion has already been clarified - the rest of the book more than makes up for this flaw. Fehlbaum knows the language of the various youngsters and writes credibly in their conversations, a fact that makes this book more sensitive than many on the subject.

COURAGE IN PATIENCE is a fine read and an excellent resource for those who are undergoing abuse or are still recovering from the scars of the many forms of abuse the book addresses. Spread the word: Beth Fehlbaum has added to the library of novels with a helpful message. Grady Harp, December 08

The Significant Impact of What's Her Name

2008-12-31T02:37:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon I saw the film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" inspired by the short story of the same name authored by F. Scott Fitzgerald (http://www.online-literature.com/fitzgerald/jazz-age/6/). This caused me a bit of an epiphany as I sat in the theatre.

The moment that really clicked in my brain was when Button (as read by his daughter in his diary) said that sometimes the people who have the most significant impacts on our lives are those we don't remember well - as he unsuccessfully attempted to remember the name of an elderly friend and mentor. I can think of several of these people in my own life who significantly impacted my life in positive and negative ways.

One such person did impact my life due to a chance encounter that I could have never predicted. I don't remember her name. I can't see her face. I vaguely recall her stature and hair. Yet, she changed me in ways I still do not fully understand.

She made me doubt my trusting nature. She gave me insecurities and fears that I am still fighting to overcome. She has also taught me that I am much stronger than I could have ever imagined. Her callous act contributed greatly to the man I am today. I am not saying it was worth it - not at all. I would rather have learned more about myself in a different manner.

She was not memorable. However, her choices that night have left a lasting impact. She manipulated me. She drugged me. She raped me. She hurt me. She has forever changed me. However, she does not own me.

And I can barely remember her...

Also posted here:

http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3323/79/

Growing Home For the Holidays

2008-12-26T21:39:00.001-06:00

Growing Home For the Holidays

“There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats: For I am arm'd so strong in honesty That they pass me by as the idle wind, Which I respect not”
--Shakespeare
December 24, 2004, I Fed-Exed a letter to my abuser, asking him to please stop making comments about my body. I was 38 years old, 100+ pounds overweight, with an out-of-control binge-eating disorder being the most obvious sign of my distress. The armor of fat with which I had coated my body was nothing, compared to the problems inside my head. Simply put, the life I had with my husband and three daughters was in peril because I had been playing "Let's Pretend," as in, "Let's Pretend That I Was Not Sexually Abused Throughout My Childhood"-- and the tricks I had used to cope weren't working any more. I was on my way to CrazyTown, and I was taking four other people with me. Something had to give. It was to the point that I had no choice but to choose another way, and that way was honesty --with myself and everyone around me.

The first step to dealing with reality, at least the first step that involved my extended family, was the letter that set the first boundary I had ever had with the man who crept into my childhood bedroom at night for years, and who felt entitled to comment on my body even as I was nearing age 40.The consequences of the letter were immediate. My husband, children, and I followed through on the planned Christmas Eve visit to my abuser's home. I know: crazy, right? I was so naïve that I thought that he would understand my request and do as I asked. Instead, I discovered my abuser hiding in his bedroom, his wife not speaking to me, and other family members clearly unhappy with what I had done. Subsequent communications with his wife made clear that she was unwilling to discuss, in any way, shape, or form, what had happened to me. It did not matter that my life was falling apart because of it. According to her, it was all my problem. Period.

I spiraled into such a depressed state of mind that my husband did not allow me to drive, for fear that I would follow through with the idea of plowing my car into a bridge column. The suicidal feelings that surface in the face of rejection are still my demons, but they have lessened dramatically over the past four years. The things that have saved me from self-destructing are the love of my husband and daughters, a kick-ass therapist, hope that pain will go away, hatred of that which is wrong, and resilience~perseverance that are fueled by my family's love, my therapist's guidance, and infinite hope for healing.

I suppose the feelings I have at Christmas now are akin to what I would experience if my abuser's wife died four years ago-- it's like an annual reminder of what I have lost. I loved her so much. I love her so much. I love the person I thought she was. It is the juxtaposition of who I thought she was, and the person she has been in the face of the truth I have to live in my recovery, that is hardest on my heart. December 24, 2004, was like being thrown into an icy lake. I am still trying to catch my breath from the shock. I don't know that I ever will, but I sure am trying.

As a child, I loved the holidays like nobody else. I started playing Christmas music in August. I decorated my dollhouse elaborately, and the family residing there not only understood my holiday lust, they embraced it. They didn't have a choice. I created in that miniature world what I craved in my own reality.

The holidays following 2004, however, marked the advent of something I had never experienced: dread of the holiday season. I wished I could just skip November and December completely: just go to sleep around Halloween and wake in time to go back to living on January 2nd of the new year.

I never shared those feelings with my children, though, because I felt a responsibility to provide the same sort of Christmas that they had always known, complete with elaborately decorating our house. I did the best I could. My mind was shit and I inevitably descended into a sort of spacey, emotional state that lasted about a week or so. But my family was very supportive and understanding. It was not easy for any of us. It still isn't.

The stockings were hung on the corner cupboard with care, just as always, but some things changed forever from the holidays of the past. For one, no more Christmas cookies or baking marathons. Facing the truth about my eating disorder meant the end of baking,decorating, and pigging out on sugar cookies. I no longer churned out baked goods with the intensity of a professional bakery, and I no longer numbed my feelings with sugar and lard.

The biggest change, though, was where we celebrated and who we celebrated with. All my life, and all of my children's lives, we had spent Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve at my abuser's house. Things were great, do you get that? Things were great and the holidays were magical, as long as I didn't face the truth and I didn't ask any of the people who were there when I was growing up to face it, either. It was when I set a boundary that things blew apart. That was not allowed. When I did that, I lost the person I thought of as my best friend: my abuser's wife. I thought of her as a person who was always there for me. There are days that I still can't believe our relationship is what it is, now: non-existent.

I look back at who I was then and I know without a doubt that there is no way, NO WAY that I can ever go back and be that person again. Beth, circa 2004 and before, the one who kept silent and smiled and played the game of "Let's Pretend," is dead. I don't even know her any more. Likewise, my own extended family does not know me-- the person bent on recovery from childhood sexual abuse; the person dedicated to living as authentic a life as humanly possible; the person still trying to catch her breath from the plunge into the icy lake of Christmas 2004. They knew a pretender, and the pretender is dead.

I thought about writing this piece for the past several days as I prepared for Christmas 2008. I was struck by the difference in my little family's life, when comparing 2008 to 2004.

I cooked my first full-blown Thanksgiving dinner, this past Thanksgiving. My family and I made the decision that we would stay home this year, rather than putting out feelers to my mother-in-law or my husband's brother and his wife, to see what they were doing for the day. For the first time since 2004, our little family knew that we were "enough" for each other, and my mind has healed enough that I was able to do the sort of mental gymnastics required to pull off something like Thanksgiving dinner.

It is only in undertaking holiday family dinners 100% on my own that I have an understanding of the work that goes into them. My abuser's wife always made it look so effortless-- and, if we still had a relationship, I think I would ask her how she managed to do that.

I am motivated by love for my family, of wanting them to have the best possible experience. I think she was motivated by the same thing. But I do not understand how that kind of love exists in tandem with the sort that demands secrets and the sacrifice of my innocence and right to my own body, to not having it taken by someone else. I do not understand the coexistence of love with deliberate indifference. I do not "get" how I ceased to matter and it leads me to believe that in fact I never really did, to her. It makes me wonder too, how it is that someone who is so gracious a hostess to everyone can be so conditional with her love for me.

Christmas Eve, I cooked my very first Christmas dinner. My youngest daughter came up with a family Sweet Potato Casserole recipe, and I found my grandmother's Cornbread Dressing recipe in a stack of recipes and cookbooks I inherited from her. I avoided looking through them before, because it hurt so much to think of her and the holidays. But I have healed enough now that I am able to do things like look through her recipes and see her handwriting, without it undoing me completely. The sweet potatoes and my grandmother's dressing were the two entrees my children had missed the most, in the years since we lost the relationship with my extended family. I searched the Internet high and low for a recipe that seeemed close to the traditional Butterhorn Rolls. Didn't find the exact one, but the one I did find, my children said was even better than the family recipe. We invited my brother and his wife. Their attendance at our table was beautiful not only because they were there, but because he and I were estranged for many years and are now closer than we have ever been in our lives. It was the first time since we reconciled three years ago that we have gone through an entire visit without really talking about the painful journey we endured to reach today. We have an appreciation for one another that was distinctly lacking when we were growing up.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, we hosted my husband's family: 18 people in all. We had people seated all over the place and I fell asleep sitting up in bed last night, but we did it. At the end of the night, my husband said, "Thank you for hosting such a fun evening." He says that I get better at preparing the traditional foods every time I make them, which gives me hope for next year, when I will be brave enough to actually attempt stuffing the turkey and trying [sigh] again to make gravy. So far, pan gravy eludes me. Thank God for the stuff that comes in a jar.I look back at what I have lost, and I look at what I now have-- and even though it's been a walk through hell --and it ain't over yet-- I can see a day in the future when the ache in my chest isn't quite as sharp as it still is today. I have hope, and I have home. I AM home. And that is more than enough for me.

Win a free signed copy of Courage in Patience, a story of hope for those who have endured abuse

2008-12-13T06:08:00.002-06:00

E-mail me your favorite story of someone you know showing courage. The deadline is Saturday, Dec. 20. I'll choose the top five stories and they will be posted on my blogspot, http://courageinpatience.blogs... AND if I choose your story as one of the top five, I'll send you a signed copy of Courage in Patience, in time for Christmas! (United States only guaranteed arrival in time for Christmas).

Check out Courage in Patience by visiting my site, http://courageinpatience.blogspot.com Ch. 1 is online!Beth Fehlbaum, author

2008-12-03T18:12:00.002-06:00

Fresh Fiction Review of Courage in Patience

From: http://freshfiction.com/dev/review.php?id=22334
Ashley Asher had a father she never knew, but a stepfather she wished she didn't know! Her mom loved her new husband to the point that she denied his emotional and sexual abuse upon her own daughter. Not unusual, just very sad!

Left in desperation and guilt, Ashley found a confidant in her teacher. As by law, her teacher reported the abuse. Let the healing begin!

Ashley was reunited with her father and a stepmother who had the courage to defend not only her new daughter but a whole classroom of students who struggled with real life issues. A remarkable woman in her own right, she too had suffered in life, making her the perfect role model to peak discussions and trust in the classroom.

It was the perfect setting for the healing process to take place on so many levels, but when the parents found out that their little town was inundated with real life, they wanted to sweep it under the rug, and would stop only short of a mob lynching.

Real and poignant, COURAGE IN PATIENCE takes a stand on injustices and abuse of every nature. No one is safe from life and this beautifully written book addresses it with honesty and the kind of consideration worthy of intense discussion and thought. In her writing, Ms. Fehlbaum addresses the issues with realness and optimism refusing to deny the actual possibilities of abuse and its consequences, at the same time giving hope to the victims of such crimes.

A book that will etch its words on the reader's heart and mind. Amazing!!!

Women's Advocacy Site Reviews Courage in Patience

2008-11-29T17:37:00.001-06:00

Dorothy L., creator of the site, Women's Self-Esteem (http://www.womensselfesteem.com/), wrote a review of Courage in Patience, a story of hope for those who have endured abuse.
I will be chatting with readers on Sunday, December 7, at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Please be sure to join me at http://www.womensselfesteem.com/chat.html
Here's Dorothy's review… and, I'd like to thank Dorothy for the valuable contribution her site makes to women's health. Thanks, Dorothy!

Have you ever felt like an abused wild animal trapped in a cage with just enough room to pace back and forth, all the while just patiently waiting for that one second to break free and run?
Courage In Patience will make you feel just like that as you read the revealing and somewhat offensive story of Ashley Asher. This young girl lived a life as a victim of abuse not only by her stepfather but also through her own mother's inability to take a stand for what is right and what is wrong.
Through Ashley's Journey of hope and survival you will also witness the unveiling of several other more silent & subtle forms of abuse, such as hypocrisy, racism, small town mentality, tainted christian morals and even deliberate ignorance.
Not only does the author Beth Fehlbaum do an exceptional job of expressing how a kind heart, a true love and respect can penetrate any barrier of negativity, she chooses a word in her title that spells survival in a different way.."Courage". Without courage to move forward, Ashley would have never been able to break free of the cage of abuse she was forced into!
Womensselfesteem.com highly recommends: Courage in Patience as a true story of hope and strength. The purpose of this book is to also teach and inspire all victims of abuse toward the understanding that abuse is not acceptable and it is something you can stop!
Beth Fehlbaum had the Courage to share with her readers the most intimate, private, horrific experiences of her life in hopes that her words can save even one victim.
Do you have the Courage to read her book and move forward in turn?

Interesting Discussion at JREF

2008-11-26T10:26:00.003-06:00

When I told my story online about a rape I endured many years ago, I knew it would periodically spark debate and discussion threads at various places on the 'net. After 11 years as an activist and online publisher, I've gotten used to that concept. So, as I monitor my site activity reports weekly (like most site owners) for interesting incoming links, I usually click back and given them a quick read.

Over the last few days, a new forum poll on sexual assault at the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) has morphed into a discussion of female on male rape. Interestingly enough, the person who started the thread is a woman who fought off a rapist, but is now calling into question the possibility of a woman raping a man.

(sigh) Here we go again with the pre-conceived notions, sexist ideas and ridiculous bigotry attached to genitalia. She goes down the old, worn path of repeating the oft circulated myths that an erection = consent, that women can't orgasm during a rape, etc. Blah, blah, blah, myth, myth, myth, lie, lie, lie...

Fortunately and surprisingly, the vast majority of the posters on that thread are not letting her get away with it, contrary to the norm when an "authoritative" female voice decides that she knows everything about male biology. Sorry if I sound a little bitter, but this ridiculous nonsense gets old fast.

I've not weighed in on the thread and I'm not going to either. I don't need that aggravation in my life after dealing with so many knuckle-dragging morons at Pajamas Media in July. I did read the thread at JREF from beginning to end and I'm pleasantly surprised to see how many people actually "get it" and can discuss this topic without the childishness that seemed systemic at Pajamas Media. Surprisingly, at least one other man came out with his story of being raped by a woman, another who endured CSA by his mother, in addition to several women and another man who talked of being raped by a male attacker.

If you want to read it (very strong trigger warning), the link is here:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=129384

While I am thankful that telling my story is changing some minds and sparking a healthy debate, I'm still wracked with the familiar muscle tension in my arms after reading the thread. I assume that will get easier with time...

An Attitude of Gratitude: Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T04:36:00.003-06:00

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I'm not sure if it's my "To-Do" list that has catapulted me from my bed at three a.m., or my writing muse. There's a half-empty can of Diet Coke on my kitchen table, and my iPod shuffle is playing a mix of Chuck Pyle, Bachman Turner Overdrive, The Foo Fighters, Three Dog Night, Rilo Kiley, and Shawn Colvin*. A jug of Murphy's Oil Soap is right next to my laptop and I started a load of laundry, but I'm not holding a dust rag in my hand and my house doesn't smell all fresh and lemony yet, so I'm going to chalk this up to an early morning rendezvous with my writing muse, rather than the good-kind-of-pressure I feel from the list of things I need to accomplish before all three of my daughters, my husband's family, and some friends converge upon our home for Thanksgiving.
I spent many nights at this table during the winter and spring of 2007 when I wrote my first novel, Courage in Patience, a story of hope for those who have endured abuse, and perfecting the conditions (see list*, above) necessary for accessing the story of Ashley Nicole Asher, age 15, who finally gets up the nerve to face the truth about her life and in the process finds out what it means to be free. It's a theme that, prior to entering therapy four years ago to deal with stuff that happened to me when I was a child, was foreign to me. It's like I didn’t realize how lost I was until I started to get found.
When I first entered therapy, my psychologist (who is awesome, by the way) told me that the road I was embarking on would be like a barefoot journey from Texas to Alaska and back, with all the weather along the way. There have been times I have been convinced that the easiest thing to do would be just to give up, step in front of an eighteen-wheeler, and welcome the relief it would be to find out what roadkill feels: NOTHING. Vultures, schmultures, right? These are very common feelings for people who are working on recovery from childhood sexual abuse. But, like the Tom Russell song says, "It goes away."
On this day before Thanksgiving, words fail me when I try to describe how grateful I am to have an amazing support system in my husband, three daughters, and therapist. Even when I wanted to lay down and die, these five people are the biggest reason that I kept going even when learning to be an authentic person and refusing to lie to myself any more hurt like hell. I'm past those feelings now, and I thank God for blessing me with people who loved me through the darkest days. Sometimes that love was (and is) the tough kind of love, the kind that let me know that even though I didn't see myself as a strong person yet, they DID. They DO. And now I do, too.
I am a teacher as well as a writer. I know that a lot of the time, the only time you hear about teachers is on the news when they do despicable things or their school district (cough- cough Dallas ISD) mishandles its money and has to lay off a bunch of hard-working innocent people who poured themselves into their vocation every day and trusted their administration to do its job. But here's some news from a teacher that you may not hear enough: I LOVE MY JOB. Standardized testing and the minor imperfections of my vocation aside, I LOVE MY JOB. It nurtures the most fundamental parts of who I am as a person.
It's the dog-days of school before the Christmas holidays, and I can guarantee you that I'm not the only teacher with the count-down posted on the board and updated daily. But I don't mind going to work, and I recognize that that's not something that all people can say. I get up every day and I get to go work with amazing people. My partner teacher and I, in addition to working well together, genuinely like each other, and that is a blessing. We are in sync with our approach to our students and we support each other. I have worked in situations before when I witnessed team members at each others' throats. But I've been very lucky. The faculty and staff at my school are all about the kids and teamwork, and, on top of that, we have fun at work. What more could I ask for?
Every day I am privileged to work with children who I love as if they were my own. My students are people who, just by being themselves, allow me to see the world through their eyes and to want to make this world a better place by helping them reach for the stars, regardless of where they are coming from. I am passionate about social justice because it MATTERS, both on the microcosm of the playground and as we see it unfold on the world stage, when a child born into a mixed-race marriage and raised by a single mother can achieve the highest office in a country-- and, under his leadership, I have no doubt that the United States will once again be respected in the international community. A wise person once told me that hope is the opposite of fear. My students and their parents have hope for the future. Our country chose hope. And I do, too.
On this day before Thanksgiving, I am grateful that hope exists. If I didn't believe in the power of hope, I would have, sometime during these past four years, chosen the roadkill option.
I am thankful for my support system. I am thankful for the rough patches on my journey to recovery, because those dark places have made the light that I'm going toward even brighter. And, on this, the day before Thanksgiving, I am grateful that I can now get to work, preparing for a celebration of gratitude by cleaning a wonderful home that my husband designed, that our family built on his family's land, in beautiful East Texas, in the United States of America. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Inspiring Letter from a Survivor

2008-11-19T21:13:00.001-06:00

As long-time readers know, I am a rape survivor and only recently began to work on healing from that long ago trauma that I had repressed for nearly two decades. In late June, I told my story publicly online in the hopes that it would help me heal and possibly assist another person who had not yet found their voice.

Today, I received an email from a female rape survivor that I wanted to share with my readers:

"Hi, you don't know me but after reading your story and learning a bit more about you I wanted to know how brave and inspiring I think you are. As a female survivor I've only just started to tell people who don't have to know after 6 years. I know how hard that's been for me and I know how much ignorant people can add to pain with their wrong and often stupid opinions. I can only guess that a male survivor feels the same things a female one does and then some more because of social ignorance. I think you have shown extreme strength in sharing your story with the whole world. You are helping to raise awareness in a much denied area. You story will help survivors (male and female) everywhere,it will also help the loved ones of survivors understand that these things don't always happen how people expect. I am greatly moved by your actions,if you can be brave enough to tell the world then maybe I can be a little braver in my daily life. I had lots of issues with naming my rape,but I doubt I had as many as you. I also had to deal with doubt and the judgement of uninformed idiots,I imagine this has been more so for you. I think you are a very strong and brave person. I think you are an inspiration. I hope one day I can be as brave as you and do something to help raise awareness of this disgusting crime (I need to get a lot stronger first!). You are an amazing survivor and I wish you well on your healing journey."

On the days when I feel violated all over again and just want to scream at the top of my lungs at the inhumanity of worthless, victim-blaming rape apologists and enablers, I get a message like the one above.

And it makes my day. This is why I told my story publicly. This is why I endured the shamers, emasculators and apologists. This is why I will not cower in silence any more.

My correspondent has no idea how much her message means to me. When I spoke out, I was speaking for me. I was speaking for her. I was speaking for hundreds of thousands of silent survivors who have not yet found their voice.

And after 18 years of silence, I refuse to shut up for anyone anymore...

Also posted at: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3293/79/

Recap: Our Love Should Not Hurt

2008-11-06T23:17:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I participated in a panel discussion on domestic violence and sexual assault. The event, titled "Our Love Should Not Hurt" was sponsored by the Alpha Chapters of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity at Howard University in Washington, DC. About 75 or so Howard University students were in the audience. Quite a few secondary survivors were there for their friends or significant others. About 1/3 of the audience was male. There were 5 female panelists and 1 male (me). Domestic violence was the first topic and I was happy to see it covered quite well to even include violence perpetrated by women against men and also verbal abuse. Several of the male students were very interested in the verbal abuse portion of the discussion. Been there, done that...

One young woman spoke about her friend who had emailed her about an attack she had endured several years prior. The survivor asked her friend not to ask her about the email or even acknowledge it in person in any manner. She just wanted her to know it had happened. The young woman broke down in tears several times while asking the panel how she can help her friend. I got a few minutes to speak to her after the event. She thanked me for speaking out. I thanked her for believing her friend. That part is so important - the believing. So many people are so willing to assume that someone they know would lie about being raped.

One of the questions was directed at me with regard to how a man would know if he had been raped. I told my story - the Cliff's Notes version - as part of the answer. I was not prepared for the audible gasps from both the audience and other panelists. I've gotten used to the idea of a female rapist as it happened to me, but I forget that it is not what people expect when they hear from a male rape survivor. They expect the rapist to be another male.

I was extremely nervous as this was the first time I spoke publicly about the rape. Everyone was supportive and after I was particularly touched by the kindness one of the other RAINN speakers showed me. This was surprisingly therapeutic (while simultaneously draining emotionally) and I look forward to working with RAINN on future outreach efforts.

Also posted at: http://jameslandrith.com/content/view/3273/79/

Texas Teacher Admits She Drew on Personal Experience of Childhood Sexual Abuse to Pen Courageous Novel. "It's High Time I Stop Hiding," Author Says

2008-10-19T13:33:00.003-05:00

(Press Release, Oct. 20, 2008): Beth Fehlbaum, a long-time English teacher, drew on her experiences as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse to craft her debut novel, Courage in Patience, which released September 1, 2008, from Kunati, Inc.. Kunati was ForeWord Magazine's 2007 Independent Publisher of the Year.

Courage in Patience is the story of fifteen-year-old Ashley Nicole Asher, who is sexually, emotionally, and physically abused by her stepfather, from the age of nine. When she at last tells a trusted teacher what has been happening to her, Child Protective Services steps in and Ashley is removed from her mother's home then reunited with her biological father, who has not been a part of Ashley's life since infancy. Through the summer school English class taught by her stepmother, Ashley learns to face her greatest fears and, along with other teens, discovers just how strong she is.

"It is important to me that I identify myself as a survivor of sexual abuse, because I want others who may have suffered at the hands of another person to know that they are not alone, and that that there is hope for recovery," Fehlbaum said. "People who are sexually abused experience every inch of their lives as covered in shame. And the message I have for them is, 'The shame does not belong to you. It belongs to the person who stole your innocence.' "

Initially, Beth Fehlbaum did not openly identify herself as having what she calls 'the life experience' to write a book like Courage in Patience. Instead, she attributed her knowledge of what it is like to be sexually abused, to working with abused children over the years in her capacity as a teacher. "I realize now that that was just more hiding-- and, to tell you the truth, I don't want to hide anymore. I've spent enough of my life in small, dark, places, and the time has come for that to end."

Childhood Sexual Abuse is all too common. According to statistics from Darkness2Light.org,
"The statistics are shocking
• 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 18. (96)
• 1 in 6 boys is sexually abused before the age of 18. (96)
• 1 in 5 children are solicited sexually while on the internet. (30, 87)
• Nearly 70% of all reported sexual assaults (including assaults on adults) occur to children ages 17 and under. (76)
• An estimated 39 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse exist in America today. (1)
Even within the walls of their own homes, children are at risk for sexual abuse
• 30-40% of victims are abused by a family member. (2, 44, 76)
• Another 50% are abused by someone outside of the family whom they know and trust.
• Approximately 40% are abused by older or larger children whom they know. (1, 44)
• Therefore, only 10% are abused by strangers.
Sexual abuse can occur at all ages, probably younger than you think
• The median age for reported abuse is 9 years old. (64)
• More than 20% of children are sexually abused before the age of 8. (76)
• Nearly 50% of all victims of forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object, and forcible fondling are children under 12. (74, 76)
Most children don't tell even if they have been asked
• Evidence that a child has been sexually abused is not always obvious, and many children do not report that they have been abused.
• Over 30% of victims never disclose the experience to ANYONE.
• Young victims may not recognize their victimization as sexual abuse.
• Almost 80% initially deny abuse or are tentative in disclosing. Of those who do disclose, approximately 75% disclose accidentally. Additionally, of those who do disclose, more than 20% eventually recant even though the abuse occurred.
• Fabricated sexual abuse reports constitute only 1% to 4% of all reported cases. Of these reports, 75% are falsely reported by adults and 25% are reported by children. Children only fabricate ½% of the time.
Consequences of child sexual abuse begin affecting children and families immediately. They also affect society in innumerable and negative ways. These effects can continue throughout the life of the survivor so the impact on society for just one survivor continues over multiple decades. Try to imagine the impact of 39 million survivors."
Health and/or Behavioral Problems:
• The way a victim's family responds to abuse plays an important role in how the incident affects the victim.
• Sexually abused children who keep it a secret or who "tell" and are not believed are at greater risk than the general population for psychological, emotional, social, and physical problems often lasting into adulthood.
• Children who have been victims of sexual abuse are more likely to experience physical health problems (e.g., headaches).
• Victims of child sexual abuse report more symptoms of PTSD, more sadness, and more school problems than non-victims. (10, 16, 55, 72)
• Victims of child sexual abuse are more likely to experience major depressive disorder as adults. (55, 72)
• Young girls who are sexually abused are more likely to develop eating disorders as adolescents. (16, 40, 89)
• Adolescent victims of violent crime have difficulty in the transition to adulthood, are more likely to suffer financial failure and physical injury, and are at risk to fail in other areas due to problem behaviors and outcomes of the victimization.

Fehlbaum says her decision to go public came about because of a realization: "Courage in Patience is about courage. It is not 'an abuse story'-- it is a survival story, as evidenced by the bravery shown by all the teenagers in the story who face life-changing events head-on. A huge part of Ashley's ability to begin to heal comes from her witnessing acts of profound courage, all around her."

The following dates remain in her extended tour:
October 25: Barnes and Noble, 4916 S. Broadway, Tyler, Texas
November 1: Barnes and Noble, 18030 Hwy. 281 North, San Antonio, Texas
November 8: Borders, Preston @ Royal, Dallas, Texas
November 15: Hastings, 2404 Texas Ave. South, College Station, Texas
November 22: Barnes and Noble, 2415 Soncy Road, Amarillo, Texas
November 29: Hastings, 2200 E. Veterans Memorial, Killeen, Texas
January 10: Barnes and Noble, 4100 Deer Creek, Highland Village, Texas
January 31: Barnes and Noble, 5129 Blanche Moore Drive, Corpus Christi, Texas

Chapter One, Courage in Patience, by Beth Fehlbaum

2008-10-13T20:07:00.001-05:00

(c) Beth Fehlbaum, 2008

CHAPTER ONE
We go on—because it is the hard thing to do.
And we owe ourselves the difficulty.
Nikki Giovanni

My name is Ashley Asher. That’s right, go ahead, and laugh. Apparently, my parents thought it would be “cute” to make my first and last names nearly identical. My family and friends call me Ash. My mother calls me by my first and middle names, Ashley Nicole. Her husband, Charlie, thought he was real clever and called me Ash-Hole.
I’m fifteen years old, and I live in Patience, Texas, an East Texas town of about 3,000 people. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would end up going to a school where the unofficial year-round footwear is flip-flops, and people pronounce the word cold like this: code.
Sometimes I think I miss living in a place where there are things to do on Friday nights besides cruise the aisles of the Wal-Mart in Six Shooter City (yes, that's the name of a real place), or see one of the two movies showing in Cedar Points. There’s even less to do in Patience, although pasture parties, where a bunch of underage, redneck, high-school kids bring illegally obtained beer to somebody’s pasture and see how shit-faced and stupid they can get before they run out of beer, are a common occurrence.
If I’m going to be completely honest, though, I'd have to say that I've been alone for so much of my life, I wouldn't know what to do if I suddenly had a social life. I’m a quiet person who loves to read and write more than anything in the world. There’s just something special about falling into worlds created by other people. I spent a lot of time pretending that I was somewhere else when I was still living at home, I mean with my mom, and I think that helps me write stories, too.
My dad. Sounds so funny coming from my mouth, because I never knew him until last summer. He and my mom split up when I was three months old and, except for child support checks and sporadic birthday cards, I never heard from him.
The way my mom tells it, my dad was always a loser, which leads to a natural question: why would she sleep with him if she knew that? He was one year ahead of her in school, but they may as well have lived on different planets. She was a cheerleader, honor student, daughter of a doctor and accountant, and ran with the popular kids.
He didn’t know his bio father, but he had a succession of stepfathers through his life. My mother, the Queen of Bad Decisions, says my dad's mom had terrible taste in men. I guess she would know about such things.
Dad excelled in auto mechanics, computer science, getting wasted on weekends, and talking girls into doing his English homework. Mom used to tell me that he had this way of charming a girl to get what he wanted, whether it was an essay on A Tale of Two Cities or her panties ending up on the floor. Since my dad never knew his father, his older brother, Frank, was always more like a father to my dad than a brother. Frank is ten years older than Dad, but he seems a lot older than that.
There is only one picture of my father and mother together, and it is from his senior prom. He is tall, dark, and gangly in his navy tux. His dark brown hair is puffy, and he's wearing aviator-frame eyeglasses. Mom is over a foot shorter than Dad, although her highlighted, permed hair is a good eight inches high. Otherwise, standing next to him she is tiny. Even though the picture was taken from at least ten feet away, her eye shadow is a frosty silver that makes her green eyes gleam. Her face is rounder than it is now, and she looks like she has been laughing, smiling in a way that I never saw very often. As much as she hates my dad, she used to say that he could always make her laugh. Must be part of his charm.
Her dress is snow-white satin, off the shoulder, and she tells me she tanned for weeks so she would look really brown in contrast to the stark white of her gown. Looking like a bride must have done something to her judgment, because they treated prom night as if it was their honeymoon, and, surprise! I was conceived. Mom’s parents, Nanny and Papaw, were horrified—not only because she got knocked up, but at the type of guy who did the knocking up. My dad never has fit in with the country club set. Papaw, an OB-GYN, set up my mom with a friend of his to give her an abortion.
When Mom told Dad what Papaw had arranged, my dad hit the ceiling and said that nobody was gonna kill his kid. He talked my mom into running off with him, and a preacher married them in Patience, Texas, where Uncle Frank lived on land that has been in their family for generations. Sometimes I wonder if my mom wishes she had kept that appointment with Papaw’s friend.
They lived in a camping trailer behind Frank’s house while my mom attended her senior year at Patience High School, and my dad went to work as a mechanic in Frank’s shop. Mom says they fought all the time, because my dad had a terrible temper. He would fly into rages where he would only feel better after he had destroyed something, like when he threw their tiny black-and-white TV out the camper door into the mud then went after it with a sledgehammer. After he had his tantrum, he would go sit in the shop with
Frank and drink until he thought my mom was asleep.
I was born in January of my mom’s senior year. School was out for Spring Break when Mom packed me and all her stuff up in the car my dad gave her for Christmas—a dented up, brown four-door Datsun. We headed back west on Highway 175 to La Salle, Texas, back to the two-story red-brick house in a fancy part of town that Mom grew up in. Back to a bedroom that, unlike her bunk in the trailer, was lacking in field mice nesting in her shoes and the snake that shed its skin around her hot rollers. Nanny and Papaw welcomed back Mom with open arms, praised her for her return to sanity and civilization, and donated her old Datsun to Goodwill before she'd been home for twenty-four hours.
My dad never came after her, never questioned her leaving. Papaw’s golf buddy, a divorce attorney, took care of all the paperwork to annul the marriage, which means that legally the marriage never took place, so I don’t know what that makes me. They sent the papers to Dad, and he signed off on everything, including paying support to the child born to their non-existent marriage.
Mom finished her high school studies through a correspondence program and attended community college, earning her medical assistant certification. Then she went to work in Papaw’s office, and we did okay for ourselves. She even bought a small house in an old neighborhood in the center of La Salle, and my days there were carefree. When we got home in the afternoons, I’d go play outside, and my mom hired teenagers to watch me during the summer, so I had the Kool-Aid commercial-type summer, where kids play outside all day then come in at night when the streetlights come on.
My life changed forever on the night my mom met Charlie Baker. Nobody in Mom’s Third Thursday Bunco group thought he’d ever go for someone like her—no longer high school cute, a little overweight with a big caboose, and saddled with a kid. Mom’s friend Neshia was dating a guy who worked highway construction. His friend Charlie had just been transferred in from West Texas. Charlie was six feet tall, with a very short haircut and a shy, closed-mouth smile. He has six-pack abs in one of the pictures I have seen of him from that time. In it, he is wearing a red-and-white-striped Speedo, and he's posing like a model.
The guy in the peppermint stripes looked nothing like the Charlie I came to know: the pot-bellied alcoholic madman with wild auburn hair, almost clear gray eyes, and a shiny gold front tooth. Charlie’s appearance is off-putting to people who don’t know him. His long bushy hair seems to have a mind of its own, like Medusa’s hair of snakes. When Charlie is pissed, he radiates hatred, and it is scary. When Charlie chases you down with the intent to tackle you, it is downright terrifying.
The Bunco group held a singles night, and Charlie was there. I was there, too, playing waitress to the adults as they played the game and progressed from table to table. I was enjoying my job—I'd done it before—and I didn’t mind being the only child in attendance. Charlie paid a lot more attention to me than any of the other guests did, even my mom’s friends that I knew. I kept telling him that my name was Ashley, but he insisted on calling me “Kiddo.” It is a name I would come to hate.
The next night, Charlie took Mom and me to a carnival that was passing through town. I was riding the bumper cars, and when I got rammed from behind, I bit my tongue—hard. It stunned me, and I sat with my bloody tongue hanging out of my mouth, while other bumper cars zoomed around me. My mom called my name, but I could not focus enough to move. I was frozen. Out of the crowd, Charlie bounded across the floor, dodging bumper cars and looking for all he was worth like a super hero. He scooped me up out of the seat and dashed back to my mother with me.
“Gotta keep that tongue in your mouth when you drive bumper cars, Kiddo,” he said, winking, as he gently set me down. I felt like Lois Lane when Superman rescues her from being squished by a meteor. I'll bet there were actual stars in my eyes.
My mother and I were sold on him that night, but Charlie sealed the deal by bringing me toys and games every time he came over to our house. Four months later, in a ceremony held in Nanny and Papaw’s living room, my mother and Charlie were married. After years of being without a daddy, I finally had one.
Within a few months of the marriage, Charlie announced that he wanted to start his own construction business. He decided we needed to move to Baileyville, so he could land construction contracts easier than he was able to in LaSalle, which was overrun with the same sorts of start-up businesses. Nanny and Papaw were not happy about it, and neither was I. I loved my house, my neighborhood, and the only school I had ever known. I heard Nanny and Mom arguing about it on the phone, and Mom said, “Mother, I am married now, and my loyalty is to my husband. I am selling the house. We are moving, and that is final.”
We moved in the middle of the school year to a very small town and a ramshackle house out in the country. There were no other houses around ours, so I had no other kids to play with. When I got home from school each day, my only companions were the turkeys, geese, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and two stray dogs that wandered up and adopted us. My mom went to work for a podiatrist’s office in town as an assistant, and, irony of ironies, the only construction contracts Charlie could land were in Northside, right next door to LaSalle, so he went to work early and arrived home late most days. I got the feeling that things weren’t going too good. Mom asked Charlie about money all the time, and he didn’t like her questions one bit.
About the same time, my body decided it was time to start puberty, and my mother insisted on getting me a training bra. A true tomboy back in my old neighborhood, I hated the idea so much that I insisted on spelling the word, b-r-a, instead of coming out and saying it. It was hell, getting used to having straps around me and over my shoulders. On the inside, I kicked, screamed, and cursed Mother Nature for making me a girl.
To make matters worse, Baileyville has a long history of white-on-black racism, and most of the African-American students hated white people, whether they knew them or not. As if being white wasn't enough of a flashing neon sign that said, "Hit Me," I hit a growth spurt and got too tall for the clothes I had. There was no money to buy me new clothes. When my mom talked to Charlie about asking Nanny and Papaw to help us out so I could have some clothes, Charlie screamed at Mom, told her how stupid and fat she was, and said that if I wasn’t so fat, I would still be able to wear my clothes.
Who was this incredibly mean person? Where was the guy who risked life and limb to be my white knight on the bumper car ride?
My fourth grade school year, instead of dressing like an eight-year-old girl, I wore the fashion choices of a twenty-six-year-old woman. I had to wear my mom's clothes to school—and cowboy boots. The only shoes in our house that would fit my feet were some thrift store cowboy boots. Charlie said my feet were as big as beaver tails, like I could do anything about their size. He said that if my feet weren't so abnormally large, he'd buy me Adidas or Sketchers to wear, like the other kids had.
So here’s the deal: I am one of maybe ten white female students in an all-black elementary school. The black kids hate the white kids because for years and years, white people had treated black people like shit. My boobs have, against my will, burst upon the scene. I wear my mom's old lady clothes to school, and, in spite of its rural location, nobody, but nobody, wears cowboy boots to school. Oh, and my best friend is a rabbit named Cinnamon. Or she was. Until Charlie killed her.
I always had a creepy feeling when he got that look in his eyes and started breathing funny like he did when he was alone with me. Less than a year after they married, he gestured to me to sit on his lap. I did so, enjoying the idea of having a daddy like my friends did. I got so relaxed and content there, I dozed off. He started rubbing my brand-new breasts. I wasn’t actually all the way asleep, but it freaked me out so much that I pretended I was.
The next morning, a Saturday, my mother told me to go outside because Charlie wanted to talk to me. I approached him like I would come up on a King Cobra, full of dread and feeling like a tightly wound spring. His back was to me as he bent under the hood of our car, changing the oil.
"Mom told me to come out here. Said you want to talk to me," I spoke to the sky as I watched a black vulture circle over something dead.
Turning from the engine, he said, “Kiddo, slap my hands.” He paused as if waiting for my response.
"What? Why?" I played dumb, hoping that none of what happened in that chair had really happened. I was nine years old, and I already knew what he was doing was wrong.
"Last night … in the green chair …" Now it was his turn to stare somewhere else.
I tilted my head and, in a very high voice unlike my normal one, I said, "What chair? When?"
He smiled that closed-mouth smile from his "model" picture and said, “Never mind, Kiddo. You can go back inside now.”
My heart pounded in my ears as I walked away from him. The morning sun was blinding and felt hot on my hair.
Next time he patted his lap and smiled at me, I pretended I did not see him. When he grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me onto his lap, however, it was hard to fake being blind.
Not long after that, I walked out to the barn on a cool fall day to hang out with my friends, all of whom were covered in either feathers or fur. As I approached the rabbit cages in the barn, I saw Charlie facing the back corner of one of the stalls. He had killed a possum in that exact spot just a few days before. It had stood on its back legs, facing him full-on and hissing as it bared its mouthful of pointy teeth. He whacked it with a shovel and it either fell over dead or just looked like it was dead, "playing possum." Sort of like my faking being asleep.
"Is there another poss—" I began, and he turned to face me.
His penis was hanging out of his pants.
"What do you think of it?" he asked me. His hands were on his hips, legs wide, reminding me of the way Superman stands—like the super hero I used to believe he was.
Never having seen a man's privates before, I told him what it looked like to me: a fire hose.
Charlie smiled widely and looked pleased. I turned around and walked back to the house, the mental picture of Charlie's pose playing over and over in my mind.
A month or so later, I caught pneumonia and was very sick. When my mother could not miss any more work to care for me, I began to stay home alone. Then Charlie started coming home in the middle of the day. It's not like his job was right down the street, either. We lived a good hour and a half away from Northside.
I heard the back door open when I was in the bathroom on the toilet. I pushed the door closed and locked it.
"Ashley?" he called. I remained silent. I could hear his voice getting closer.
"Ashley? Oh, I see. You're playing hide-and-seek with me, aren't you?" He kind of giggled.
"No, I'm going to the bathroom."
He jiggled the doorknob. "Why's the door locked?" I heard him walk away, come back, and then the doorknob was being taken apart. He stuck his fingers in the doorknob hole, opened the door, and stood watching me.
I didn't know what to do. Stay on the pot with my short nightgown pulled as far down over my legs as I could get it—only to realize that doing so exposed my breasts—or stand and pull my panties up and hope he wouldn't see my privates when I did so? He took a few steps back into the hallway, kind of like a cat playing with a mouse.
I tried to get away from him—I know that much—but the next thing I remember is crawling on the floor with my panties around my ankles, and feeling a sense of wonder at how weak and shaky my arms and legs were. I don't remember anything else. My memory is sometimes like a videotape that's been taped over too many times. There's the movie, there's the movie, there's the movie, then, oops! Pure static, a mess of lines, no picture. What happened there? It's anyone's guess.
Within a few days of whatever it was that happened, Charlie announced to my mother that because I never paid any attention to our rabbits, he was going to kill them all. And he expected her to cook them. I freaked out. Even though I did pay attention to the rabbits—I fed them every day, held them, and talked to them all the time—I felt so guilty that those rabbits were going to die because of me! And there was Cinnamon, who I actually did have a relationship with. Well, as much relationship as a nine-year-old girl can have with, let's face it, a rodent of sorts.
"Mom, do something!" I begged my mother as she stirred together a box of macaroni and cheese.
"I'm going to cook them, Ashley, but you don't have to eat any," she said, completely missing the big picture. I ran to the barn, determined to say the right thing to save my rabbits.
I tripped over a bucket when I heard the screech of a cage door being opened, and rounded the corner in time to see Charlie smack the black rabbit, Scooter, in the back of the head. I squeezed my eyes shut and just started pleading. "Please, Charlie, please don't kill the rabbits. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Whatever I did, I'm sorry. Please."
He held Scooter so that I got the full effect of how dead he was. "You never pay any attention to these goddamn things, so why do you care? They're all diseased."
Then why would you want to eat them? I wonder now, but at the time I couldn't even think straight. "Please, Charlie, at least don't kill Cinnamon. Please. She's mine. You gave her to me. You said she was for me to raise."
He tossed aside Scooter, his skull crushed and bloodied by the tire iron Charlie held in his right hand. "Go on, Ash-Hole. Get out of here."
"Please!" I shrieked, hysterical, but he stepped toward me with the blood-covered end of the tire iron angled as if I was next.
"Get out of here!" he roared.
I ran toward the pond, stopping only when I reached the bank, where I threw myself down on my stomach and screamed into the dirt. I looked up and saw Charlie raise the tire iron in the air and bring it crashing down upon the back of Cinnamon’s head. Her body convulsed once, then hung limp. He had killed the other rabbits inside the barn, but brought Cinnamon outside, within view of the pond.
The next night, my mother served Charlie fried rabbit.

At school, the fourth-grade boys ran up to the girls who had breasts (a lot more girls’ chests had erupted in fourth than in third), and acted as if they were going to grab them. They got a kick out of the girls' shock, stopped just short of touching, and said, as they made squeezing motions, “Cush! Cush!” I always wondered why the teachers didn't do anything about it. Were they blind? How could they possibly look the other way?
Between the boys at school and Charlie, I was under constant scrutiny from creatures of the male persuasion. I became very self-conscious about having breasts, and at night, before falling asleep, I tried to claw them off my chest. I still have deep grooves in my skin where I scratched myself senseless. I hated them. I felt that if it weren't for those damned things, my life would still be pretty easy. Before going to sleep, I would pray to God to please take these things back; I didn't want them and never had. Imagine my disappointment upon waking each day.
We did not live in Baileyville long, just about eighteen months. Charlie’s business had taken off in Northside, and I felt relieved when we left Baileyville behind and returned to the suburbs of Dallas. I think I was hoping that the Charlie I lived with in Baileyville would go away, never to return, and the-good-guy-rescuer-of-bloody-tongued-girls-on-bumper-cars would return to take his place.
In Baileyville, even though I wasn't an outsider because of my skin color, I had a sense of awkwardness about myself that came from within. I knew that what was going on in my house was wrong, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
Charlie chose our new house, another fixer-upper. It had three bedrooms. My bedroom was right across the hall from my parents' room, and my bedroom connected via a bathroom to the guest bedroom.
The doors were hollow and made of flimsy pressed wood. Somehow, the guest room’s bathroom door kept getting a hole smashed all the way through it, so there was always a large, irregularly-shaped peephole in it, about the size of a CD. There was a towel rack in the bathroom behind the door, and I kept catching hell about slamming the door into the towel rack.
The thing is, I hardly ever even opened that door. My great-grandfather was living with Nanny and Papaw by then. On days that Nanny needed a break from him, he would be delivered to our house to do handyman work. Great-Grandpa would go from room to room with a little toolbox, looking for stuff to fix. I don't know how many jars of wood putty he went through on that door. The repair job looked awful, but it didn't matter, because wood putty over a hole in a hollow door is futile, unless the door is never opened or closed. Within a day or so of being repaired, SMASH! the hole was back again, and I was blamed.
I had successfully "operated" a shower curtain for years, able to pull it closed and keep it closed when I was taking a shower, but when my mom replaced my clear shower curtain with a solid maroon one, I apparently forgot how to use a shower curtain correctly. Within days of the new curtain being put up, Charlie was bitching, saying that I was so stupid I didn't even know how to keep the floor dry when I took a shower. To prove his point, he brought us back to the bathroom after I had showered and showed us the standing water on the floor. It hadn't been there when I got out of the shower, I knew, because not only was the floor dry, but I was obsessed with keeping the curtain sealed up against the sides of the shower and along the inside of the tub. Showers were like this: scrub scrub STOP check the curtain for gaps; scrub scrub STOP check the curtain for gaps. Some people found bathing relaxing; for me, it was training ground for becoming an obsessive-compulsive.
He acted like it was a huge imposition, having to spend the money and all, but the next day, Charlie took a day off from work to install crystal clear glass sliding doors.
I think I knew he was watching me shower, but I didn’t want to believe it. I could sense someone watching me, but I told myself that it was my imagination. One day, however, feeling really put out with being spied on, I slid open the glass door, stepped out into the bathroom, and stared directly at the hole. I saw his eye, gray and unblinking, watching me. I don't remember anything except that eye. My mind kind of shuts down when I'm freaking out.
Ever the one with a plan, I stuck a thumbtack through the thin wood of the door right above the hole and hung a towel over it, ending his personal peep show. Or so I thought. But Charlie became more determined and started opening the door a crack. So I pulled out the drawers next to the door and stuffed towels between the drawers and the door, so the door couldn't budge at all. Not being able to view me bathing anymore only made him bolder in his pursuits at other times.
He came into my room at night, with my mother asleep across the hall, and ran his hands over my body. I fought back by always sleeping on my stomach and making myself into a human burrito with my blankets, regardless of the warmth of the season. You know those dreams where you just know something terrible is about to happen, like a tornado is coming toward your house, but your feet are melded to the ground and you can’t move, can’t scream, you … freeze? That's what every night was like.
I was in sixth grade by then, the tallest girl in my class, at five feet, three inches. I haven't grown an inch taller since sixth grade, but my body continued to take on curves, sprout hair everywhere, and look like that of a woman, even though I was still a little girl inside. A more and more angry little girl.
For some reason (note that I am being sarcastic here), I fell into a bad mood and stayed there. My mother threatened to make me go live with my father if I didn’t behave, if I didn’t shake the “ugliness” that I had been in for so long. That was her big threat: she would call the faceless person who, in her mind, left me when I was three months old, because he had made no attempt to see me, ever.
I made up my mind to call my mother to my room the next time Charlie touched me. I wanted her to catch him. Getting my frozen body to cooperate, though, was a different story. I could only cry out into my pillow, and the sounds that came out of my mouth were muffled cries, like "Murgh." I squeezed my eyes shut, my eyelids sealed tight. Every muscle and bone in my body tried to form a wall against his attempts to turn me over by sliding his hands under my breasts or hips. My body was locked, rigid, and it took an incredible amount of strength to will my eyes to open, but I forced them to, because I needed to see him in my room, so that I could believe it was really happening.
There he was, his white underwear looking blue in the moonlight, as he stood next to my bed.
The next morning, I told my mom that someone was in my room at night, and she told me that I must have been dreaming, or that it was because I had been reading a science fiction book about space aliens. Obviously, she said, I dreamed that those aliens were trying to abduct me, and maybe I shouldn't read any more of that book.
She told Charlie what I said, and I heard her talking on the phone to my aunt about it. She talked about it so much, I'll bet she even told people in line at the grocery store.
"There must be something wrong with Ashley," she told whoever would listen.
From then on, Mom and Charlie told me that I could not tell my dreams from reality. I began to believe that I was crazy. My grades started slipping; subjects I had once been strong and confident in, like math, became impossible to master. Mom insisted that I ask Charlie for help with it. He threw my book at me and told me I was not only crazy, but I was stupid too.
When I was in seventh grade, a local church began to evangelize by passing out flyers announcing "pizza parties" on Friday evenings. I had already become suspicious of other people's motives for being nice to me, so I wondered why strangers would want to feed me pizza. What I found out was that the "parties" were really revivals, and the idea of a man yelling hellfire and brimstone stuff at me was more than I could take.
Believe it or not, we were members of the Methodist church. It was, in fact, one of the few places I felt safe and loved. People did not really know us; they had no idea what we were like at home, but they accepted our masks. Charlie was head of the landscaping committee, and my mom was a lay leader, a member who helped lead the congregation. I'm sure the people who told me how lucky I was to have such wonderful parents would be shocked to know the dirty little secret of Charlie's nighttime activities.
I think the reason I felt so loved at church was that the minister told me that God IS Love. God didn't create ugliness in the world. God was not a punishing god. God was there to hold you up when you thought you couldn't take anymore. The God I knew didn't list conditions for His loving me.
I didn't have any close friends, but when my classmates came back to school on the Monday after the "Give Your Heart to Jesus and Have a Slice of Pepperoni" thing, they carried Bibles, pamphlets, and holier-than-thou attitudes toward anyone who wasn't there.
"Have you been saved, Ashley?" Korey Hendrix asked as he slid into his seat to my right in first period math class.
"I … think so. I mean, we don't use that word in my church, but I've been baptized," I said, as I finished writing my heading on my paper.
"And how were you baptized? Did'ja go under water?" Korey never even acknowledged that I took up space in the row next to his, unless he wanted to borrow a piece of paper or have me pass a note to Sherry Brown, who he was going out with. Why was he so interested in me now?
I had a bad feeling about this. "No, the minister put some water on my head."
"Did you pray this prayer?" Mary Hood chimed in from two seats behind me. She recited what amounted to: "Jesus, I know I'm a horrible person and I don't deserve Your love, but the wretched piece of crap that I am humbly asks for You to lower Your standards enough to allow me to be called one of Your children. In Your name, I pray. Amen."
Of course I replied that I hadn't said a prayer like that, even though I had never known any belief but Christianity. I was a "cradle Christian." But apparently not the right kind.
"You're supposed to pray this prayer and cry a lot. It's how you know the Devil has been washed out of your soul," said Korey, turning to the back page of his pamphlet.
"If you didn't cry, how can you really know you've been saved, Ashley?" I jumped when she spoke; I didn't realize that Cynthia Morris was standing to my left, looking down at me.
There were so many more happy and peaceful born-again zombies surrounding me at school, I began to wonder if they were right. Maybe God was punishing me for being the wrong kind of Christian, by allowing me to be spied on, groped, pulled at … you get the idea. I thought, "If I can get some of what they've got, I'll have some of their peace too." And maybe God would smite Charlie, or at least make him leave me alone.
I never went to one of the pizza parties, but I did start riding my bike down to the Christian bookstore in my neighborhood. It was one of those bookstores that put books about Catholicism and Buddhism in the "cult" section. I spent hours poring over the literature, to the strange looks of the clerks. I mean, how many twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls spent time in the self-help section of their store? I couldn't afford the hardcover books they had on "how to bring happiness to your home," but I did buy little soft-cover gems like The Jesus Person's Pocket Book of Promises. In it, I found over one hundred numbered promises Jesus had made to me, most of them regurgitations of the prayer my newly blessed friends had cited as The Way, written from Jesus' point of view, which only people who attended pizza party revivals, certain churches, and were baptized the "right" way were privy to.
I was in so much pain and so angry all the time, I figured I would try anything once, or twice … or countless times. Maybe I was so fundamentally flawed, I wasn't even doing Christianity right. The thing was, I couldn't cry. I prayed that damn prayer so many times on my knees beside my bed, like it said to do. Then I'd wait for the uplifted, "saved" feeling that would happen when the Holy Spirit filled my body and soul, but it never came. Maybe I was such a worthless person even God had turned His back on me. I became angrier then, and curious about the nature of evil. How did bad people come into the power they had?
I biked to the library and checked out a book on Adolph Hitler, the baddest of the bad that I could think of. Why did people listen to him? How did a person who was so evil become so powerful? I wanted to know.
When my mother saw the book on my desk in my bedroom, she snatched it up and insisted that I take it back immediately. "I will not have that man in my house!" she railed. "He was a tyrant and an evil person!"
"Yeah, I know, Mom, that's why I want to figure out why people listened to him."
"No! Get that book out of my house!" she flung open the front door and let me know that if I didn't take the book back to the library immediately, she would throw it into the street.
You know, it almost makes me laugh. My mother's high sensitivity to the presence of evil in a bunch of pages bound together with glue and a cover, coexisting with her complete refusal to acknowledge the real Satan sleeping next to her each night (when he wasn't trying to pull me out of my covers, that is). It's freakin' surreal. I could laugh at how clueless she is, if it weren't so painful.
As Charlie's pursuits and mental games became more intense, the survivalist within me really started to emerge. Or the terrified coward. It's pretty much a toss-up. Like Hitler and my stepfather living at one point on the same planet, there is a tough, take-no-prisoners survivor—and a pathetic wimp—living together inside of me.
Dr. Matt, my therapist, who I've known since last summer, explained it to me. See, there's this thing called fight or flight. People have had these instincts since way back when. It's like a decision your body and brain make to help the human race keep on keepin' on. During fight or flight, you go on autopilot. It's not as if you take the time to rationally stand in the face of a charging bear and say, "My, my. How should I handle this?" The adrenaline in the body shoots off the scales, and decisions are made by that shot of natural speed. I don't know about other people, but when I experience fight or flight, I pretty much don't remember what happens. It's like waking up from a dream when you never were asleep to begin with; you were just an animal doing what you had to do, to be safe.
Defiance and a bad attitude toward the world were wearing on me, besides not working in terms of keeping Charlie away. I don't know if it was a rational decision or one born of panic, but I started sleeping in my closet on some nights. I had a walk-in closet with two clothing racks, one above the other. I also had a lot of toys and junk in my closet, which assisted in helping me hide. Folding myself into the space behind my lower rack of clothes, I’d adjust the long stuff like my coat, robe, and dresses so that there were no "holes" in the space between the upper and lower racks, and I could (hopefully) not be seen. I crouched on the floor the way you do when you have a tornado drill at school—you know the position, put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye. Then I'd tuck my feet in with the clothes on the bottom rack. All in the dark, of course, because I closed the door behind me and left the light off. It was incredibly hot in there—stifling hot. Charlie didn't believe in wasting money on air-conditioning, either, and during the summers, it would get so hot behind those clothes, I'd feel like I was going to pass out.
Sometimes I'd stay in there a little while, just until I felt safe again. Most of the time, though, I woke up on my side in the morning with carpet imprints on the side of my face, as well as the occasional straight pin stuck in my leg. I didn’t sleep very well in my closet, but at least Charlie wasn’t trying to unroll me from my blanket cocoon. And it wasn't like he could say to my mom, "Cheryl, when I went into Ashley's room to molest her just now, she wasn't in bed. Do you happen to know where she is, so I may get whatever it is that I get out of doing that to her?"
I hid in my closet during the day if I was alone with Charlie and picked up on the vibe that I was about to be jumped. One way I got a hint was if he watched me, staring openly at my chest. Another way was if he acted really, really nice to me, like asking me how my day was going. I am automatically suspicious of any man who is nice to me. My first thought: What does he want? Gotta want something; he's being nice. It took me forever to know for sure that I could trust David, my dad, who I live with now, and Dr. Matt. Before them, I thought that all men had a thing for little girls. If they hadn't tried anything with me yet, it was just because they hadn't decided to, yet. It was only a matter of time, I thought.
Since Charlie had broken the locks on my bedroom and bathroom doors, I had no way to keep him out of my room. I tried putting my kid-sized desk chair under the doorknob, and he broke the chair in half coming through the door. My mother was steamed when she saw the chair, and I told her that I leaned back in it until it broke. With the exception of never finding me in my closet, the one place in my life where I had control, Charlie was all-powerful. He even claimed to know my own mind better than I knew it.
A couple of years ago when I was thirteen, I was watching a cop show on TV, and I made a comment about how cute I thought this one actor was. Things had been going well at home, at least in terms of what our home was like, and I felt pretty relaxed with my mom as we sat and watched TV. Charlie was returning from the bathroom, walking through the room behind the sofa when I said it, and he went off on me.
“You want to screw him! You said you want to screw him!”
"No, I didn't."
"Cheryl? Did you hear what that little slut said? She just told you she wants to fuck that guy. That guy's old enough to be your father, Ashley." He came around to the front of the sofa and charged both of us. Mom tried to stand up, and he pushed her back down.
"Charlie, I really don't think—" She held up her hands as if she was surrendering.
"Shut up, you stupid bitch! I'm sick of not being respected in this house! Nobody in this house respects me!" He left the den and when he returned from their bedroom, he carried a rifle.
"Charlie, what are you do—?" Mom said. I pulled my knees up to my chest, but Mom didn't seem concerned, given the presence of a firearm and all.
"She said she wants to fuck that guy. You don't believe me. You don't believe what I said, so you're calling me a liar." He staggered a little, bumped into the side table next to his oversized chair, and knocked his drink and bowl of peanuts to the floor.
"No, I'm not, Charlie. I would never." Her tone was even and calm.
"Get out of my house! If you don't respect me, you can get out of my house!" He pointed toward the front door with the barrel of the rifle.
My mother laughed at him, and I thought she had lost her mind. In the voice she uses with me when she thinks I'm being unreasonable, she said, "Fine, we'll leave."
"If you come back, I'll kill you! I'll kill you both!"
It was about ten o’clock at night when my mother took me and we started driving the streets of Northside. I kept begging her, “Let’s leave him, Mom, please, let’s leave for good. We can get an apartment. I'll get a job or something.”
"You're too young."
"No, I'll–I'll clean houses or something! I'll baby-sit every weekend! Please, Mom!"
"You're right, Ashley. We should get a place of our own. But I need to set some money aside first," she said in that same calm voice she had used with Charlie. We crossed the bridge over the highway and entered La Salle, where she grew up. I hoped we were going to Nanny and Papaw's house.
"Are we going to Nanny's?"
She did not answer me at first, then, in a broken voice, she said, “I just don’t want to be alone. I can't. I can't do it. I … he loves me, Ashley. I know he does. He's just drunk. He doesn't mean any of it. It's the alcohol talking, not him. He's such a good person. You know that." A sob escaped her throat.
At midnight she pulled into a McDonald’s drive-through and ordered a chocolate shake and small order of fries. It's one of her favorite combinations. She asked me if I wanted anything. I said, "No." What I wanted, she was not willing to do.
Neon store signs blurred together as I stared silently out the window through my tears. I wanted to tell her then, tell her everything he had been doing to me, but I couldn’t get the words to come out. She was already so upset. I hated it when my mother cried. It was always my fault, like this, our having to leave the house, really was. If I hadn't opened my mouth about that actor. I thought back to the time Charlie went on a two-day bender and only called home once in a while. My mom was hysterical; all she did was cry and wait by the phone. When he called she begged him to come back, asked him what she did wrong and promised she would change, do whatever it took for him to come back home.
At one a.m., my mom was listening to a Beach Boys CD. We had driven down my grandparents' street but not stopped, and I was brainstorming a way out that would not require the cooperation of my mother, that would not make my mother cry, and that would make Charlie stop touching me. All in my head, of course.
Even now, I have a hard time ever getting my mind to stop planning an escape route or a place to hide if things get dicey. My radar is always up and checking the screen for changes in other people's behavior toward me and how they are feeling, because if I've learned anything, it's this: people act out from their feelings. It's something I'm still working to get over, because Dr. Matt says it's not healthy to be so tied up in what other people think, feel, and do. It's like I assume that betrayal or rejection are inevitable, and I want to be prepared for it so I can stay safe, or at least not hurt as badly as I will if I'm not on my guard.
Charlie was unpredictable: creepy-sweet to me when my mom wasn’t around and brutally cruel to me when she was. As we drove toward our end of town, I could hear in my head Charlie's reasoning for the way he treated me. Just a couple of weeks before, he was at the kitchen table cracking pecans, and I was making a piece of cheese toast in the microwave. Mom was not home.
"Do you know why I'm mean to you, Ashley?" he gently asked.
I shook my head and watched my cheese toast revolve in the microwave. Crack went the teeth of the nut cracker against the pecan shell.
"I'm mean to you so you won't trust me. You can't trust me. I don't want you to trust me." Crack. Crack.
I stared at the toast. Am I cooking this too long? Is it going to be rubbery?
He continued. "You know what? You are a sexy girl. You are a foxy little thing. Crack. You can do anything you want, Ashley. You can sleep with any guy you want, and you could tell me, and I wouldn't tell your mother.” Crack. Crack.
Dammit, I'm sure I ruined this toast. It's going to be all tough now. I was afraid that would happen.
"But if you ever tell her what I've done; why you Crack can't trust me, I'll leave her. I will. I will BE … Crack ... GONE … just like that. And you'll have to tell her why I left.
"Just don't come home pregnant. If you ever come home Crack Crack pregnant, I'll leave. Just like that. I'll leave if you come home pregnant. I couldn't TAKE IT if you got pregnant!" He lifted the newspaper he had been shelling pecans over, and dumped the fragments in a paper grocery sack next to his chair. He stretched out his fingers, popped his knuckles, and prepared to start the next round of pecan shelling.
The cheese was beyond bubbly, actually starting to grow brown spots on the surface, and the door of the microwave was filling with steam, but the sight took on a dreamy quality as I stared at it so long that it blurred before my eyes. I knew Charlie had had a vasectomy four years before. I don't know why I thought about that in connection with his pregnancy comment, but I did. At the time of his surgery, he was quite obvious about his discomfort, and my mother's sympathy for his pain was all she talked about. The nine-year-old I was didn't want to know about his shaved testicles. I don't think I would want to know about them at the age of ninety-nine, for that matter. I didn't want to know about his stitches and how they itched and if his incision was puffy. Leave me out of it, for the love of God.
"Your mother … doesn't like sex. She hates sex. I … have needs, Ashley. Needs that your mother doesn't want to meet." Crack.
DING! Thank God. My cheese toast shriveled to what resembled a piece of varnished wood, I took it out of the microwave, threw it in the wastebasket next to the microwave cart, and went to my room to do my history homework. You know the sound a seashell makes when you put your ear up to it? That's the sound I hear in my head when I mentally go someplace else, when where I am gets to be too much. Whoosh.

Every once in a while we would stop. Mom didn't grab her cell phone from the charger before we left, and she would get out and go to a pay phone to call and see if Charlie still wanted to kill us. I watched her insert quarter after quarter. I guessed that he was answering the phone—that's why it cost her a new quarter each time—then slamming it down when he heard her voice.
She came to the car and dug around in the ashtray for a coin. "Do you have a quarter?" she asked.
I shook my head, "No."
She lifted the floor-mat. "Oh, here's one!" she said in her light, happy voice. Her shoulders slumped as she trudged back to the phone booth. A car load of bandanna-wearing guys in a low-rider came thumping by our car slowly, the eyes of its occupants scanning my mother's backside and trying to get me to look at them. I looked down when I saw what they were doing. Every cell in my body wanted to lean over and lock her door, like I had already locked mine. I fought the urge to roll up her window and leave her to their mercy, while I had at least managed to delay their attack by being inside the car. I couldn't just throw her to the wolves like that, could I?
I wanted to honk at Mom, to make her turn around and see that we had a more immediate threat than Charlie just then, but she did not turn around to acknowledge the thump-thump of the gang's stereo system. Her shoulders remained slumped, her head bowed, as she listened to ring after ring after ring, which Charlie ignored.
God apparently still listened to me even though I had flunked out as a Christian, because the low-rider moved on, its deliberately slow retreat reminding me of a shark choosing to let its prey live another day, swimming off into the ocean depths.
Around two a.m., after another ten minutes of her standing in the dark and listening to the phone ring, we drove back home.
"Mom, he said he'd kill us. He's going to shoot us. We should call the police and make them go in first." I knew as I said it that my mother would never involve anyone else in our family's business. What would people think?
"He's probably passed out. He won't even remember this in the morning, Ashley Nicole. It's the alcohol talking, remember? We're going home and going to bed."
There were no lights on in the house when we drove up, not even the familiar light we always left on above the kitchen sink.
"I want to stay in the car. I'm afraid to go in," I told Mom as I leaned my seat back.
"Don't be silly," she said sharply. "It's not safe for you to sleep out here. Get yourself out of that car and come in with me. Now."
I slowly got out of the car, the urge to crawl on my hands and knees overwhelming me. "Come on!" she hissed from the front porch.
She knocked on the door. No response. She put her key in the lock and turned it slowly. I expected the door to blow off its hinges.
Gingerly she eased the door open, and whatever objects Charlie had piled up against it went clattering to the floor. Mom laughed nervously. I held my breath.
She pushed the door open all the way, flipped on the light switch in the foyer, and I gasped at the destruction. Charlie had torn the curtains from the den windows and stacked piece upon piece of furniture and heavy objects in front of the doors and windows. The sliding glass door was secured not only with the lock, but with broken pieces of a kitchen chair, as well. The shutters in the front room were closed up so tightly, you'd think we lived on the coast and a hurricane was coming.
A pile of shiny objects glinted against the dark oak parquet floor, and upon closer inspection, it was clear that my mother's collection of elephant figurines had been destroyed.
His rage seemed pretty much contained to the room in which I had uttered those words, as I watched an actor toss his blonde hair and slide his sunglasses onto the neck of his shirt: "He's cute. I wish I could meet him."

I knew how afraid my mom was of being alone. And more than that, I was afraid of being taken away from her. I figured if I told what was happening to me, I would be taken away from my mom, like the foster kids we had were taken away from their parents. A few years ago, my stepdad saw an ad in the local paper pleading for foster families. He was a foster kid himself, and he decided that we needed to open our home to others the way that somebody else took him in.
The story goes that Charlie ran away from home when he was fourteen, and was walking on the highway in an ice storm, wearing just an old white t-shirt and holey jeans, when a nice man pulled his car over and offered him a home. Charlie worshipped the family that took him in, and he declared that we, too, needed to share what we had with others, by being a foster family. The screening process did not involve me at all. I was kind of hoping it would, because if they asked me if everything was okay at our house and I told them it wasn't, maybe they could make Charlie leave. No such luck.
We were a foster family to girls between the ages of eight and twelve, the only gender and age bracket my parents said they would be willing to take in. I guess Charlie's generosity did not extend to boys. For about a year, one little girl at a time occupied our guest bedroom. Suddenly, we stopped being a foster family, though it was never discussed with me. Now I wonder if any of those girls were abused, too.
Those poor girls came through our house, and I saw how messed up they were. I wondered why they didn't stay with any of their other family members. I didn’t know my father, but I never thought of him as another place I could go. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t want me.
Besides not wanting to hurt my mother, I also was afraid that if I told, I could be put into a house like ours. From talking to some of the older girls I shared a bathroom with for anywhere from one day to three months, I learned the reason they had been taken from their original families was the same reason I wanted out of mine. In those girls' eyes, there was desperation, grief, and complete confusion as to why they had been sent away from the one person who was supposed to be willing to die for them, if the situation arose. I wonder what they saw when they looked at me.

** Courage in Patience is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble