Child Abuse Survivor

I cant say that I was really aware of this organization until I got an email from someone at CASA-Nashville yesterday. I did want to bring them to your attention though, if you live in the Nashville area:

I work with Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Nashville, Tennessee. We are a nonprofit organization that provides trained community volunteers as Special Advocates for abused or neglected children whose cases are currently in the court system. As you know, it is a huge challenge to serve all the children in our area who need a voice in court and a caring mentor. Last year, we were able to serve over 600 children, but 2300 cases of abuse and neglect came through the Davidson County court.

To raise awareness of child abuse and recruit more dedicated volunteers, we recently began a fundraising campaign in partnership with Network for Good.

We have a donation “badge” online for individual donors (http://www.networkforgood.org/pca/Badge.aspx?BadgeId=108465), and we are entered in a contest to recruit the most unique donors to our badge, for the chance to win $50,000. This would make a huge difference in serving many more children who badly need a safe, permanent, nurturing home!

If you are interested in assisting our effort, or simply in learning more about CASA, please visit our website at www.casa-nashville.org.

If you don’t live in Nashville and want to make a donation to your local group you can check the National website for a group near you. I never had to go through Family Court or Protective Services myself, but I can only imagine how difficult that would be to deal with at such a young age. It’s nice to know that there are people out there willing to help kids in that situation.

I’ve been off-line for a couple of days, enjoying some vacation time with the wife. Tonight we’re in Boone, NC with free wi-fi so I’m spending just a little bit of time getting caught up on some things. One of those things is pointing out that the October Edition of the Carnival Against Child Abuse is up. Check it out for some interesting reads.

At least, that’ll give you plenty to read while you wait for me to have some more writing time.

The fine folks at Hyperion Books contacted me about doing a review of Ten Points, by Bill Strickland. They even sent me a free copy of the book to review on the blog.

Disclaimer, they did send me a free book, on the other hand, now that I’ve read and reviewed it, I’ll be running a contest, of some sort, in the near future to give the book away, so I’m not really getting any benefit from agreeing to review it, aside from reading it for free.

Discalimer #2, I’m not a book reviewer by profession, nor do I claim to be one, so remember, this isn’t the New york Times Review, just one survivor’s opinion.

First off let me say this about the book. If you’re looking for the typical child abuse memoir, with the typical chronology of the abusive childhood, followed by the troubled years, followed by a long journey of healing, you will be disappointed by this book. On the other hand, that’s exactly what I liked about this story. This wasn’t yet another memoir about the struggles of healing from a broken childhood, this was a story set during one particular bike racing season, when a 39 year old man takes on the physical challenge of trying to score ten points in the weekly races at the request of his daughter.

It’s a story about working towards a difficult goal, and learning about yourself in the process. In this case, it’s learning to identify, and overcome, the “monster” that rages inside of abuse victims.

Now, granted, as a fellow 39 year old who has been interested in bike racing since I was a little kid and used to watch the Tour de France on televison, obviously the story was going to hold my attention. The descriptions of riding in the pack, or the physical demands of sprinting toward a finish line are told in such detail that I can easily identify with the struggle. But even if you’re not all that interested in bike racing, I think the all too common themes of struggle, of identifying how those things you’ve tried so hard to put behind you still affect you on a daily basis, and of learning to live with them, will be useful to survivors of all types.

For example, one of the themes that struck me as I read this story is the fear and shame of failing at a goal. Many survivors, myself included, struggle with  failure in ways that other people don’t seem to comprehend. Even the smallest project can become a source of great frustration, even rage, when we are unable to complete it, or the task will simply consume us until it is completed, no matter how unimportant it may really be. Many survivors live with a very strong sense of shame about what happened to them, as if their failure was a cause of being abused as much, if not more than, the abuser. Failing at any task, no matter how small, means reliving all that shame that has built up over the years in the present. Shame is a very powerful emotion, and the avoidance of shame is a very powerful motivator. To some extent that is natural, no one wants to fail at any task.  To the shamed survivor though, it’s not just about this one task. The current task is a symbol of all the shame and failure he/she has lived with for many years.

That’s the beauty of this story, because it does take place over one short period of time, and focusing on one task as symbolic of all the tasks that go into a life, it gives you insight into the inner workings of a survivor as he focuses on one task. It shows us, without any sugar coating, how painful abuse can be, even long after the actual abuse has stopped. More importantly, Bill shows us these details while weaving a wonderful tale of competition around all of these other themes. Well done.

Tags: BillStrickland, TenPoints, HyperionBooks

Yes it’s been a full year since Marj started the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, and from the look of this month’s carnival, hosting over on her blog, this may be the best one yet! She’s got 30 posts linked in this edition, so there’s plenty to read, and talk about. Please, take a look, and visit all the contributors.

While you’re there, be sure to thank Marj for starting the carnival, and for all the work she puts in as well!

i got an email today from Ani Star from My Dissonance letting me know that I had been added to her collection of survivor blogs. Naturally, I had to go take a look at her collection, and wow, it looks like quite a list of survivors! I’m going to be busy checking out some new (to me) blogs.

The fine folks over at Friends in Tech, a group that includes your’s truly, have updated the on-line child safety flier. Go get yourself a copy, and feel free to print it and hand it out to any parents who could use the information.

Check out the links in it as well. There’s a lot of really good information on keeping kids safe on-line as well as off.

Actually I got an email from Andy, with a couple of links:

 

I thought I’d pass on these observations I’ve found for you to consider, ponder and maybe even comment on.

The first is from Alice Miller, and comes from her website:

http://www.alice-miller.com/flyers_en.php?page=3 (the 12 points)

The second is from a search of wikipedia for the psychology of torture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_torture specifically this quote:

“It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.” Judith Herman

Thanks, Andy. As far as my thoughts, the first link, to Alice Miller’s “the Roots of Violence”, I’m not sure I completely agree with. She paints a very utopian picture at the end of a world in which all violence is utterly unthinkable because all children have had a good upbringing. Not only does the realist in me think that’s ridiculous, but I also think it’s a very dangerous way to think. Blaming all of the world’s violence on poor childhoods provides too easy an excuse for people to not take responsibility for their own actions. If I were to do something violent, it would be because I chose to do that, as an adult, right now. It would not be because somewhere in my childhood that’s how I learned to act, nor should anyone allow me to use that as an excuse.

Besides, I really do think that there is some violence that is inherent in the human condition and always will be, even with the best of childhoods. Children are not the completely innocent angels of Alice Miller’s world, only corrupted by the discipline of their parents, they are fallible and prone to selfishness, just as adults are.

The second link is an interesting area of research, and I think the quote is also an interesting one. It is always easier to not know something than it is to acknowledge it and thus have to do something about it.

Interestingly enough, I think that tendency is also human nature, but a nature that can be overcome if we choose to.

I found this post about the statistics of on-line predators compared to the level of panic about on-line predators quite interesting. I’ve been aware for a number of years that focused media attention on any issue can greatly impact how people act, regardless of what the actual risk might be. How many people won’t travel overseas or do other things despite the fact that millions of people do it safely every single day, because of the impression they get of how dangerous it is? This is pretty similar.

It seems like the area of protecting children is especially susceptible to this sort of behavior. Naturally, most parents feel the need to do everything they can to protect their children, and that’s an instinct we really don’t want them to lose, for sure. But, it can be very easy to see the media stories about on-line predators, or registered sex offenders and conclude that your kids will be safe simply by moving to a neighborhood that doesn’t have any registered sex offenders in it, and keeping your kids off the Internet. The truth, however, is that you’ve actually done very little to protect your kids by doing those two things, because you’ve eliminated only two very small risks.

The truth is that, no matter how much you might try, you can never eliminate all the risks that your kids face. At some point they have to go outside your house, to school, to a playground, to the store, and they are at some risk then.

I’ve always been an advocate of teaching your kids to deal with risks as opposed to trying to hide them from all the risks. Let’s face it, many of you reading this were abused, and many of you were abused long before there was any such thing as the Internet, let alone on-line predators, and many of you were abused by people who had never been charged with a sex crime, heck many of you were abused by members of your own family. What would have served you better growing up, having your parents move you to a “safe” neighborhood and keeping you away from strange adults, or teaching you about predators, how to handle them, who to tell, etc.? I know which one would have done me more good.

The 7th Edition is up over at Sadly Normal. As always it looks like there’s quite a lot of reading material over there. Since we’re traveling to visit family I’m going to have to just look forward to reading it when I’m back home.

Hope you all have a great holiday!

Lisa from Sadly Normal will be hosting this months edition of the Carnival Against Child Abuse. She’s got some great suggested topics listed for the last edition of the year, as well as an offer to host your writings if you don’t have your own blog.

Her topics have got me thinking a bit. Hopefully, I’ll have some further thoughts to contribute to the carnival in the form of blog posts about those thoughts in the next few days.