Thursday, February 28, 2013
In Search of Self, Love & Love of Self
Our sense of self develops as our awareness of the world develops. When we are infants, and perhaps even toddlers, the world and ourselves are one, there is no differentiation. This was demonstrated to myself and my husband when my daughter was three. My husband yelled at the cat (I think she was scratching at something) and my daughter burst into tears. She and the cat were one. The cat got in trouble, so she (my daughter) was in trouble. Differentiation of self goes hand in hand with development of potty training skills. Not only does there need to be a certain level of control of bodily functions, but there needs to be an awareness, that just because things come from your body, that does not mean they are parts of yourself. Children who have difficulty with differentiation of self from the world, even though they may have the ability to control bodily function, may in fact NEED to have their excrement next to their bodies in order to connect them to the world. kind of like an umbilical cord of poop. This in fact is proof that they CAN control their bodily functions but have not developed enough self awareness to no longer need that umbilical cord. We then discover that our actions do not control the actions of others or the environment (although everything is relative). Just because we yell, does not mean the lights are going to flicker. When we cry it doesn't rain. As we grow older we find that although we are separate from the environment, we can indeed impact it. When we pinch our sister, she cries. If we throw a ball at the window, it might break, or bounce off and hit us in the nose. Use of this becomes more sophisticated, so that we get what we want. If we make a certain face, we get laughter, if we say certain words that we hear, but don't understand, we may get punished for it.
Self-awareness changes in leaps and bounds once we start attending school. We no longer have attentive and admiring adults waiting on our every word and admiriing our every action. We are in fact, in competition for the attention of adults as well as attention from our peers. We know that we are different from the world, and are becoming aware (sometimes painfully) that we are different from each other. Extroverts and clowns get the laughs. If we talk out or misbehave we get punished and ostracized or admired depending on the deed and sometimes the peer group and sometimes who the transgressor was. We begin to start developing an awareness of physical beauty and physical prowess. We realize that there is a hierarchy dependent as much on what we look like, as what we do. Gender may also play a role in the hierarchy, dependent on our age, and WHEN we came of age. People with hygiene issues (smells), looks or physical and behavioral differences outside the norms are set outside the hierarchy as a sub-group all of its own. Class performance and intelligence does affect this hierarchy, but can not get you a place in the hierarchy all on its own. In observation, classroom observations and discussions with my children, there is a greater acceptance of children with special needs and an inclusion or maybe an add-on to the hierarchy. This probably is more due to the mainstreaming of children with Special Needs in compliance with Public Law 94-142, implemented in 1975, which required all states to educate ALL CHILDREN no matter their mental or physical abilities, rather than some magical generational enlightenment.
When I was in High School, 1971-1975, I think I was barely past the need for some type of umbilical cord, though perhaps not composed of poop. Somehow, when I started 5th grade in 1967, it became common knowledge that I had skipped 4th grade. I don't recall ever announcing it to the world, but may have divulged this information innocently, when asked what school I came from last. I don't know. But it seemed to be common knowledge, and followed me through my school years like a cat. I do know that I was completely absent any of those physical skills which elicit admiration. I remember when I was in First Grade in Mississippi, hiding in the playhouse rather than participating in kickball during P.E. Since I had the utmost difficulty staying upright on my two legs this was no surprise. I still have scars on my knees from constantly falling down on sidewalks until I was in fifth grade; no matter whether walking, skipping or running. It wasn't helped by the fact that little girls of that time were expected to wear dresses, not pants, and Mary Jane shoes with slick bottoms and those little anklet socks that never stayed up, but fell down to under the bottom of your heels, so that you got bloody blisters on the backs of your heels. Why they developed clothing that tortured children, I don't know, but I was mightily tortured.
I was painfully shy, could not engage in conversation with most males my age (the better looking, and more popular, the less likely the interaction, but if our worlds did collide, I likely ran away, was incoherent or burst into giggles). I carefully avoided Physical Education during my years in High School except for the one year during my Sophomore year when the whole family was out-of-state, or there would have been even more reason for infamy. I was however, looking back on it now, a Band Geek. A place where I was nominally included. I think being in band is like being a satellite in the heirarchy, rather than an included planet. I wanted desperately to belong. To anything, anywhere. Heaven knew, I did not belong in the Power Dynasty that was my home once my mother was no longer there. Knowing what I now know, I'm just as glad I wasn't in a position of power, because the price was too high. So, my teenage years were a struggle for self-discovery, acknowledgement by others (acceptance was only possible in the classroom and in band, but not in the social hierarchy that operated outside of class). I was mostly ignored at home, and given nominal acknowledgement of my deeds. I went on one date in high school, which did result in some sort of kiss, but which does not resonate in my memory. My High School years were quite angsty, filled with badly written poetry, struggle for recognition by others, and a striving to discover ANYTHING about myself that I felt good about. I was stuck between the extremes of no or minimal acknowledgement by my father, blown out of ANY competition with my younger sister, and my mother who thought ANYTHING I did was WONDERFUL. This total over-the-top, unearned encouragement is not any good for developing self-esteem, because then you don't trust anything that comes out of that person's mouth, because they obviously weren't paying attention or weren't part of the REAL world.
My daydreams/fantasies, involved me becoming mired in some impossible situation, stuck, lost, hurt, and some handsome young male coming to rescue me and falling in love with me for simply being utterly devoid of talent and unable to rescue myself...I guess. Feminism had not yet found Kismet. So, then at the age of 16 I am immersed in a University Town. A MUCH LARGER microcosm. When I or I and a roommate walked down a street, there was whistling, and incoherent phrases thrown from rolled down car windows passing by much too fast. I was suddenly asked on a plethora of dates. I had no idea what to do, and didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings so I said yes to them all. The dates were fine, but then there was that indefinable time after the restaurant or the movie or the concert when you were in the car, but they didn't let you get out to go into your dorm room. THEN there was kissing, and pawing and groping. There were tongues in the ears, and your discovery of what it was like to kiss a smoker (yuck! still). And I didn't know the rules. I guess I still don't. No front touching, no down the pants, but I guess frenching was allowed. Eventually, I would build up the courage to say no to 3rd and 4th dates, if they were just too painful. I never dated the same guy more than a month, sometimes I would move on, he would move on or it was mutual.
But self-discovery was progressing, because I found a female best friend. We became roommates, went to each others homes on the weekends. I was the third wheel on dates (this was before I was more established on my own Voyage of Discovery). She enjoyed my company. Dressed me up, taught me how to use make-up better. I began to discover things about myself that I liked, that I got better at. I also discovered alcohol during my sophomore year in college...and I was hilarious when I drank (at least I thought so). And apparently bullet-proof and invincible. I recall a chugging contest against Frat boys which had the unfortunate consequence of me vomiting in the back seat of a Firebird while the driver was trying to pick up girls at Sonic. I would go to random Frat parties alone or with friends, concerts. I engaged in silly stunts and learned dirty jokes which are still the only jokes I can remember. There were even boys who developed crushes on me. I thought I fell in love my Senior year, but he spooked when I informed him. Everything changed when I was raped while partying with friends in Juarez Mexico. My carefully guarded virginity was a moot point. I went on the pill, and stopped saying no. This led to some repeat encounters, but nothing longlasting. This level of emotional attachment and interaction continued after College Graduation, through a year of Peace Corps, and through a return year stateside while I worked as a barmaid. I YEARNED for love, for attachment, for someone's complete and total admiration. I went for the good-looking, the self-involved, the bad boys. It didn't helped that I worked in a bar. Every married couple that worked in that bar divorced. Co-worker romances didn't work, and pick-ups were a dead end. But slowly, with each man, I got closer and closer to someone who wanted to know ME, someone who would like me for ME. I got very close to true romance, with a sustained relationship with a cowboy from Las Vegas NM. Even went home with him to meet his family which was incredibly intimidating because his mother ran a working dude ranch, wrangled horses and cattle and cooked on a wood-burning stove. Take THAT for feminism. This relationship collapsed when I found out he was virulently, violently bigoted against "Mezcans", and wouldn't go anywhere unless you could get there by pick-up or horse. I was a hiker, a camper, a Sierra Club girl, and a daughter of Civil Rights Workers. But he was gentle and attentive and set the tone for the next guy.
So, as they say, you can't look for love, it finds you...when you least expect it. I had a possibly budding romance with a guy who had crushed on me all through college, and kept in touch with me through the Peace Corps and connected with me on my return to the states. I had always only thought of him as a friend, but was considering moving him up to the next level. Only prob was he lived in North Carolina, far from the Southwest State I lived in. So, I quit my bar job, and worked as a Girl Scout Camp Counselor in a camp in the mountains with a girlfriend. I was sick of guys and wanted to work where I wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of them. And met the one man my age, the camp aide. He fell head over heels, but I was still passing through. He left notes in French in my sleeping bag, in my cubby in the Break Room. We started spending our 2 hrs and our 24 hrs. off together, very discreetly and by the time anybody figured it out, it was the last week of camp and old news. But I was still planning to leave...until I got the phone call. "I've met somebody." "Well, so have I!." And I had, but hadn't allowed my heart free rein. I had plans. Until those plans were changed. But each man I saw, dated, "hooked up" with, was closer and closer to what I finally ended up with. My expectations were changing, but so was my understanding of myself and my needs.
They say you can't be loved until you love yourself. But I don't think I loved myself, until somebody showed me that I WAS lovable, and beautiful and swept them off their feet. I began to see myself as others see me. But doesn't it also have to do with self-worth and competence. I had become so used to being a failure at home, especially when compared with my multi-talented sister that I didn't try, or my efforts would meet with failure, because I picked activities that I would ALWAYS fail at, because those weren't MY talents, they were hers. It took a long time to figure out what my talents were, and I believe I'm still discovering. But I did find a career that I could be passionate about. That was ME, made me feel, made me alive, and made me feel like I made a difference. We are not a dish, that you add all the ingredients together, cook and you are done as a person, you are complete, finished. We are always BECOMING, evolving, changing, learning. We are discovering our weaknesses and building on our strengths. And if we are lucky, our partners stay with us and learn how to love the constantly evolving and changing us, and us them and discover together. You develop wisdom, and change jobs to ones that nurture your soul, and nurture and renew the friendships that make you more you and add to your life and sense of discovery.
So here's to discovery, and love and life and change, and love!
Peace,
Kismet
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
...And After Incest
I'm struggling. I feel/felt this was a story that should be shared (Setting the Stage for Incest). That keeping quiet allows such things to perpetuate. I struggle wondering if this is truly my story to share. Then I remind myself, that I am the only one to have MY viewpoint of this story. There was very positive and strong response to "Because I Am a Female". However, there have been only 2 views of "Setting the Stage for Incest". So...
Part of me wonders if I am sharing TOO MUCH. Should I stop talking. Or should I just trust in the Universe that the people who need to read my postings about Incest will. I gogled Incest yesterday, and was completely nauseated that there was a website entitled Incest that claimed to have videos involving children both male and female, animals, etc. My God! I know that kind of stuff is out there, but I DON'T want to know THIS!
So I struggle on. To know the complete story, I want to put human faces and souls to the players. While a little...okay, maybe a lot eccentric, I don't know that as a family we were completely out of the norm. Definitely odd, but until I found out the truth, I would not have said that any of us were monsters. I still don't know. I still love each and every member of my family dearly, even my adoptive father. But my heart hurts. I still maintain relationships with every member of my family, except for the youngest. She severed relations with myself and my mother about 13 years ago. Altho she has friended me on Facebook, she doesn't communicate with me. I am still not exactly clear why our relationship was severed.
So the players....
My mother. Born and raised in Mississippi...deep south. We always think of Mississippi as a hotbed of racism, but there is some kind of creative vibe that runs through Mississippi that resulted in Mississippi and Delta Blues. and a plethora of authors including William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and John Grisham. My mother has a brother who is 8 years older than her, and to hear her tell it, devoted his childhood to torturing her. Her father taught Math at Columbia University until his death from Tuberculosis when my mother was three. I think this loss affected her throughout her lifetime, and seemed to be part of a lifelong quest for attention and reassurance. My mother met my biological father at a southern university where she was majoring in Drama. This young man of Scottish descent from the East Coast opened her eyes to activism, and they both became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement. My mother, with my sister and I in the stroller, participated in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August of 1963. This is the venue at which Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his infamous "I Have a Dream" speech and we three were there. In my memory I saw lots of knees and legs. My ears remember the beautiful voices raised in Song. My mother took us as children on forays to lunch counters in Maryland in racially integrated groups. My father was in a group of racially integrated Freedom Riders from California that rode the train to the racially segregated train station in Jackson Mississippi. There the Riders were promptly arrested. The goal was to "fill the Jail" with protestors. Unfortunately, most of the Riders didn't have the opportunity to even see the jail as they were promptly billeted in the expansive Mississippi State Prison where my father spent 3 months for "Breach of Peace". During this time, my mother willingly raised an 18 month old, and a three year old by herself. My mother was very passionate about Civil Rights, activism, and quite anti-war. Through my mother, my sister and I were introduced to music, especially Folk Music and Folk Dancing. She was a member of the Sierra Club, and the reason why I joined the Peace Corps. My mother found the conservative, small, southwest university town that her new husband brought his family to, a huge departure from Berkeley. She had always worked, but gamely volunteered at a Community Resource Center which matched up people in need to services such as mental health, day care, Crisis Hot Line, etc. She eventually attained a Masters in Psychology at the local university, and an Educational Doctorate in Child Psychology from a university in Colorado. Once she was divorced and no longer responsible for her two college aged daughters, she focused her life on supporting and finding adequate educational placement for our very gifted younger sister. Throughout her lifetime, our mother has had a passion for all genres of music; mastering the guitar, and Alto and Soprano Recorders which she played in a variety of Renaissance Musical Groups. She was very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism. She became a talented historical costumer, and sewing continues to be her passion. She is a gifted writer, and has been editor of a variety of newsletters and other informational formats. She was and continues to be an avid reader. She is a lifelong Democrat and Episcopalian and very liberal in her political views. As I matured and came to know my parents as people in their own right, I came to understand that it was miraculous that their marriage lasted for 10 years. My parents were exact opposites in temperament, religion, politics, child-raising strategies and world view. The one area where they were compatible, was in there passion for travel and the outdoors.
My adoptive father was raised on a farm in the Midwest; the eldest son with a younger sister and brother. He lost his father to a shotgun accident (traversing or climbing through a fence) when he was a late teen. He was no stranger to hard work either on the farm, or in a variety of manual labor jobs throughout his working career. His grandfather on his mother's side was an old-fashioned country doctor. Both his parents learned how to fly, and the family owned a Piper Cub airplane. After his father's death, his mother attended University to obtain a degree in Medical Records. After High School, my father joined the Army where he served as a Private First Class. He worked in the Caterpillar Factory and used the GI Bill to obtain his undergraduate and masters degrees in Geography. He did not marry until he met my mother when they were both 30. He was an avid photographer and used his children as "size markers" in the numerous slides he snapped for use as instructional aids in his Geography Classes. He has a passion for teaching, and loves to share his geological and geographical knowledge with anybody who will listen. The same is true for engaging in long conversations with strangers. He was never a physically demonstrative person, rarely initiating kissing of his wife in front of his children, allowing his wife to kiss him on the cheek, but never on the mouth. He never initiated hugging, but would allow himself to be half hugged, raising one arm so the hugger could get close to his body, and be patted by that arm. He loved to intimidate my High School friends, but was in reality very mild-mannered and approachable. He was never a casual or social drinker, but did drink with the intent to get rip-roaring drunk on Everclear when going through the break-up of his marriage and subsequent divorce. Ever since I can remember, he has ALWAYS worn an outfit consisting of black oxfords with dark socks, denim workpants, white short sleeve undershirt,and either long or short-sleeved button-up broadcloth shirts. The only variation to this, except for suit and tie on special occasions, was a pith helmet when hiking to protect his bald head from sunburn. He loathes wearing ties. He is a lifelong eccentric, with an almost ritualistic approach to everything, having to do every task in a uniform and predictable way. Woe be to you if you could not replicate exactly every step when he taught you a task. I remember being called "fathead" and "dud" quite often. He is an excruciatingly slow eater, and a genetically-disposed hoarder of papers ,covering every horizontal surface with tidy stacks of important papers. He was released from his teaching position at the university in the late 70's through a Reduction in Force imperative. He was involved in a lengthy, lawsuit with two other professors. The lawsuit was ultimately decided in their favor, but any compensation was consumed during the appeals process. He ultimately went back to school to get an elementary/secondary education teaching certificate in Science in order to support himself after resolution of the lawsuit. Though he loved teaching, he regarded the middle schoolers that he taught with disdain due to their behaviors and lack of commen sense. He seemed to prefer teaching girls to boys. He only taught at this level long enough to secure retirement benefits so that he COULD retire. His political views are extremely conservative and he is an avid watcher of Fox News. I can no longer remember whether he was an atheist or agnostic, but he was very conversant with the bible and delighted in talking rings around Jehovah's Witnesses who would innocently and unknowingly ring the doorbell. Despite his unbelief, he always made sure that my sister and I had transportation to church when my mother was no longer part of the household.
Both my parents are highly intelligent and love words, puns and word games. They could both be members of MENSA if they wanted. As, I've matured, I've noted that both are a little out of the norm as far as social skills. My father is more comfortable in social settings, but self-selects. My mother loves settings where she can be the center of attention.
As for myself and my sister....I guess growing up, we could be called a study in contrasts. I had difficulty learning how to read, not "getting it" until sometime after Christmas in First Grade. When we lived in Ohio, my mother attended some classes at the University there. During this time, both my sister and I were given a series of Aptitude Tests. As a result, when we moved from Ohio to the Southwest, my sister skipped 2nd grade and I skipped 4th. My sister seemed to me to be extremely confident, excelled at school and was able to hold her own in activities which required physical aptitude. I couldn't walk without tripping over my own feet, run without kicking my own ankles, and was miserable at any type of competitive sports. She was shorter than I and curvy. I was tall, and except for my "blossom butt" didn't have any accompanying curves until I was 30 and pregnant with my first child. I was painfully shy, would be overcome by fits of giggles in close proximity to boys (especially good-looking ones), prone to crimson face and ears, and still have not mastered small talk. My sister appeared to me to be comfortable in any setting, and from an early age, attracted the attentions and company of males, especially men 10-20 years her Senior. From my perspective, she appeared supremely self-confident. There was deifinitely sibling rivalry, not unusual in siblings so close in age. Except for the boobs tho, I don't recall being envious of my sister, but I was definitely intimidated. I was close to our Mom, she was close to our Dad.
Once our parents were out of the picture, we were much closer. Throughout life, although I was the elder, she hit all the milestones, except for H.S. Graduation, first. Menstruation, breasts, dating, first kiss, marriage, children. We kept in touch and called each other often. We were present for each other's weddings. After we left home and began jobs, then became wives, my sister continued as she started. She excelled in her studies, being very physically active, teaching herself auto and home maintenance, ultimately refinishing all the woodwork in their Cape Cod house and re-wiring and remodeling the kitchen and the basement. I noticed though, there was a hesitancy in her interactions, especially with her husband, which I did not see when she was a child OR an adolescent.
My sister mastered post-doctoral level work and ultimately accepted an endowed chair in the Chemistry Department at a top Ivy League University.
I taught Special Ed., and got my Masters in Occupational Therapy, and worked in an outpatient clinic with Special Needs Children.
When her memory of her abuse returned at the age of 30, everything changed. She shared that she no longer remembered much of her childhood. and anything that she DID remember was bad. No good memories, no positive interactions with parents. As time progressed, I think more memories have come back to her, to the point that she denies that she said she lost her childhood memories. But now, it's not the same. We have almost no shared memories of our time growing up. Even though we were in the same household until she was 14 and I 16, it is as if we were in different families. And even now, it is as if we are in parallel but non-intersecting universes. We can be in the same room, having conversation together, but our recollections of these events are completely different. For the most part, we can no longer reminisce without getting into arguments. My sister has gone through extensive counseling to deal with her revelations. I've had to go through counseling to figure out how to let go of the need to reconcile our memories. Her past is hers, and mine is mine. We can't share fond memories because they're completely different. The biggest thing I've had to let go of is the need to be right, because it just won't ever happen.
My mother loathes and does not keep in touch with my adoptive father. Both my mother and I have lost my youngest sister, my sister's daughter, our mother's granddaughter. My sister's children have never in memory met their grandfather.
When I asked my father why he had relations with my sister, he says simply, "I fell in love with her." When he refused to tell his present wife about his relationship with his daughter he said only, "We agreed not to talk about our past love affairs." as if my sister was simply an ex-girlfriend of his. He still acts as if my sister was unfaithful to him when she married her husband. We can't discuss this in any way that makes sense to me. So we don't. I have a current relationship with my father, but I will never forgive him for what he did to my sister, and the many ways it twisted our lives.
In exhausted hopefulness,
Peace.
Kismet
P.S. In proofing this for publication on this Blog, I feel that I have lost the thread of relevance, but have spent so long writing this, that I can't just bury it. So, I am setting it free to let it journey into the universe. If you read and can use this to at least increase your awareness of Incest ,good. I will not expect this to have increased your understanding of incest, because, I can't understand any part of incest. I just know that it is a twisting of both sexual and spiritual love and destroys families and people.
Part of me wonders if I am sharing TOO MUCH. Should I stop talking. Or should I just trust in the Universe that the people who need to read my postings about Incest will. I gogled Incest yesterday, and was completely nauseated that there was a website entitled Incest that claimed to have videos involving children both male and female, animals, etc. My God! I know that kind of stuff is out there, but I DON'T want to know THIS!
So I struggle on. To know the complete story, I want to put human faces and souls to the players. While a little...okay, maybe a lot eccentric, I don't know that as a family we were completely out of the norm. Definitely odd, but until I found out the truth, I would not have said that any of us were monsters. I still don't know. I still love each and every member of my family dearly, even my adoptive father. But my heart hurts. I still maintain relationships with every member of my family, except for the youngest. She severed relations with myself and my mother about 13 years ago. Altho she has friended me on Facebook, she doesn't communicate with me. I am still not exactly clear why our relationship was severed.
So the players....
My mother. Born and raised in Mississippi...deep south. We always think of Mississippi as a hotbed of racism, but there is some kind of creative vibe that runs through Mississippi that resulted in Mississippi and Delta Blues. and a plethora of authors including William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and John Grisham. My mother has a brother who is 8 years older than her, and to hear her tell it, devoted his childhood to torturing her. Her father taught Math at Columbia University until his death from Tuberculosis when my mother was three. I think this loss affected her throughout her lifetime, and seemed to be part of a lifelong quest for attention and reassurance. My mother met my biological father at a southern university where she was majoring in Drama. This young man of Scottish descent from the East Coast opened her eyes to activism, and they both became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement. My mother, with my sister and I in the stroller, participated in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August of 1963. This is the venue at which Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his infamous "I Have a Dream" speech and we three were there. In my memory I saw lots of knees and legs. My ears remember the beautiful voices raised in Song. My mother took us as children on forays to lunch counters in Maryland in racially integrated groups. My father was in a group of racially integrated Freedom Riders from California that rode the train to the racially segregated train station in Jackson Mississippi. There the Riders were promptly arrested. The goal was to "fill the Jail" with protestors. Unfortunately, most of the Riders didn't have the opportunity to even see the jail as they were promptly billeted in the expansive Mississippi State Prison where my father spent 3 months for "Breach of Peace". During this time, my mother willingly raised an 18 month old, and a three year old by herself. My mother was very passionate about Civil Rights, activism, and quite anti-war. Through my mother, my sister and I were introduced to music, especially Folk Music and Folk Dancing. She was a member of the Sierra Club, and the reason why I joined the Peace Corps. My mother found the conservative, small, southwest university town that her new husband brought his family to, a huge departure from Berkeley. She had always worked, but gamely volunteered at a Community Resource Center which matched up people in need to services such as mental health, day care, Crisis Hot Line, etc. She eventually attained a Masters in Psychology at the local university, and an Educational Doctorate in Child Psychology from a university in Colorado. Once she was divorced and no longer responsible for her two college aged daughters, she focused her life on supporting and finding adequate educational placement for our very gifted younger sister. Throughout her lifetime, our mother has had a passion for all genres of music; mastering the guitar, and Alto and Soprano Recorders which she played in a variety of Renaissance Musical Groups. She was very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism. She became a talented historical costumer, and sewing continues to be her passion. She is a gifted writer, and has been editor of a variety of newsletters and other informational formats. She was and continues to be an avid reader. She is a lifelong Democrat and Episcopalian and very liberal in her political views. As I matured and came to know my parents as people in their own right, I came to understand that it was miraculous that their marriage lasted for 10 years. My parents were exact opposites in temperament, religion, politics, child-raising strategies and world view. The one area where they were compatible, was in there passion for travel and the outdoors.
My adoptive father was raised on a farm in the Midwest; the eldest son with a younger sister and brother. He lost his father to a shotgun accident (traversing or climbing through a fence) when he was a late teen. He was no stranger to hard work either on the farm, or in a variety of manual labor jobs throughout his working career. His grandfather on his mother's side was an old-fashioned country doctor. Both his parents learned how to fly, and the family owned a Piper Cub airplane. After his father's death, his mother attended University to obtain a degree in Medical Records. After High School, my father joined the Army where he served as a Private First Class. He worked in the Caterpillar Factory and used the GI Bill to obtain his undergraduate and masters degrees in Geography. He did not marry until he met my mother when they were both 30. He was an avid photographer and used his children as "size markers" in the numerous slides he snapped for use as instructional aids in his Geography Classes. He has a passion for teaching, and loves to share his geological and geographical knowledge with anybody who will listen. The same is true for engaging in long conversations with strangers. He was never a physically demonstrative person, rarely initiating kissing of his wife in front of his children, allowing his wife to kiss him on the cheek, but never on the mouth. He never initiated hugging, but would allow himself to be half hugged, raising one arm so the hugger could get close to his body, and be patted by that arm. He loved to intimidate my High School friends, but was in reality very mild-mannered and approachable. He was never a casual or social drinker, but did drink with the intent to get rip-roaring drunk on Everclear when going through the break-up of his marriage and subsequent divorce. Ever since I can remember, he has ALWAYS worn an outfit consisting of black oxfords with dark socks, denim workpants, white short sleeve undershirt,and either long or short-sleeved button-up broadcloth shirts. The only variation to this, except for suit and tie on special occasions, was a pith helmet when hiking to protect his bald head from sunburn. He loathes wearing ties. He is a lifelong eccentric, with an almost ritualistic approach to everything, having to do every task in a uniform and predictable way. Woe be to you if you could not replicate exactly every step when he taught you a task. I remember being called "fathead" and "dud" quite often. He is an excruciatingly slow eater, and a genetically-disposed hoarder of papers ,covering every horizontal surface with tidy stacks of important papers. He was released from his teaching position at the university in the late 70's through a Reduction in Force imperative. He was involved in a lengthy, lawsuit with two other professors. The lawsuit was ultimately decided in their favor, but any compensation was consumed during the appeals process. He ultimately went back to school to get an elementary/secondary education teaching certificate in Science in order to support himself after resolution of the lawsuit. Though he loved teaching, he regarded the middle schoolers that he taught with disdain due to their behaviors and lack of commen sense. He seemed to prefer teaching girls to boys. He only taught at this level long enough to secure retirement benefits so that he COULD retire. His political views are extremely conservative and he is an avid watcher of Fox News. I can no longer remember whether he was an atheist or agnostic, but he was very conversant with the bible and delighted in talking rings around Jehovah's Witnesses who would innocently and unknowingly ring the doorbell. Despite his unbelief, he always made sure that my sister and I had transportation to church when my mother was no longer part of the household.
Both my parents are highly intelligent and love words, puns and word games. They could both be members of MENSA if they wanted. As, I've matured, I've noted that both are a little out of the norm as far as social skills. My father is more comfortable in social settings, but self-selects. My mother loves settings where she can be the center of attention.
As for myself and my sister....I guess growing up, we could be called a study in contrasts. I had difficulty learning how to read, not "getting it" until sometime after Christmas in First Grade. When we lived in Ohio, my mother attended some classes at the University there. During this time, both my sister and I were given a series of Aptitude Tests. As a result, when we moved from Ohio to the Southwest, my sister skipped 2nd grade and I skipped 4th. My sister seemed to me to be extremely confident, excelled at school and was able to hold her own in activities which required physical aptitude. I couldn't walk without tripping over my own feet, run without kicking my own ankles, and was miserable at any type of competitive sports. She was shorter than I and curvy. I was tall, and except for my "blossom butt" didn't have any accompanying curves until I was 30 and pregnant with my first child. I was painfully shy, would be overcome by fits of giggles in close proximity to boys (especially good-looking ones), prone to crimson face and ears, and still have not mastered small talk. My sister appeared to me to be comfortable in any setting, and from an early age, attracted the attentions and company of males, especially men 10-20 years her Senior. From my perspective, she appeared supremely self-confident. There was deifinitely sibling rivalry, not unusual in siblings so close in age. Except for the boobs tho, I don't recall being envious of my sister, but I was definitely intimidated. I was close to our Mom, she was close to our Dad.
Once our parents were out of the picture, we were much closer. Throughout life, although I was the elder, she hit all the milestones, except for H.S. Graduation, first. Menstruation, breasts, dating, first kiss, marriage, children. We kept in touch and called each other often. We were present for each other's weddings. After we left home and began jobs, then became wives, my sister continued as she started. She excelled in her studies, being very physically active, teaching herself auto and home maintenance, ultimately refinishing all the woodwork in their Cape Cod house and re-wiring and remodeling the kitchen and the basement. I noticed though, there was a hesitancy in her interactions, especially with her husband, which I did not see when she was a child OR an adolescent.
My sister mastered post-doctoral level work and ultimately accepted an endowed chair in the Chemistry Department at a top Ivy League University.
I taught Special Ed., and got my Masters in Occupational Therapy, and worked in an outpatient clinic with Special Needs Children.
When her memory of her abuse returned at the age of 30, everything changed. She shared that she no longer remembered much of her childhood. and anything that she DID remember was bad. No good memories, no positive interactions with parents. As time progressed, I think more memories have come back to her, to the point that she denies that she said she lost her childhood memories. But now, it's not the same. We have almost no shared memories of our time growing up. Even though we were in the same household until she was 14 and I 16, it is as if we were in different families. And even now, it is as if we are in parallel but non-intersecting universes. We can be in the same room, having conversation together, but our recollections of these events are completely different. For the most part, we can no longer reminisce without getting into arguments. My sister has gone through extensive counseling to deal with her revelations. I've had to go through counseling to figure out how to let go of the need to reconcile our memories. Her past is hers, and mine is mine. We can't share fond memories because they're completely different. The biggest thing I've had to let go of is the need to be right, because it just won't ever happen.
My mother loathes and does not keep in touch with my adoptive father. Both my mother and I have lost my youngest sister, my sister's daughter, our mother's granddaughter. My sister's children have never in memory met their grandfather.
When I asked my father why he had relations with my sister, he says simply, "I fell in love with her." When he refused to tell his present wife about his relationship with his daughter he said only, "We agreed not to talk about our past love affairs." as if my sister was simply an ex-girlfriend of his. He still acts as if my sister was unfaithful to him when she married her husband. We can't discuss this in any way that makes sense to me. So we don't. I have a current relationship with my father, but I will never forgive him for what he did to my sister, and the many ways it twisted our lives.
In exhausted hopefulness,
Peace.
Kismet
P.S. In proofing this for publication on this Blog, I feel that I have lost the thread of relevance, but have spent so long writing this, that I can't just bury it. So, I am setting it free to let it journey into the universe. If you read and can use this to at least increase your awareness of Incest ,good. I will not expect this to have increased your understanding of incest, because, I can't understand any part of incest. I just know that it is a twisting of both sexual and spiritual love and destroys families and people.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Setting the Stage for Incest
Caution! Contents of this post are emotionally charged, graphic, and will make you feel uncomfortable. I feel I must share this, because the beginnings look very innocent, but in fact are very insidious. If it helps anyone recognize it, deal with or just connect with the emotions, this post will have accomplished something. Nothing can ever compensate for the pain that was caused. But it will bring pain and secrets into the sunlight, where evil cannot survive.
I am an older sister. My sister is one and a half years younger than me. My earliest memories begin in Georgetown. My mother and biological father were married in 1956 (I could be wrong on the year). I was born in 1958 and my sister was born in 1960. I was all legs and elbows. In first grade, I had to get glasses. My sister was beautiful and elfin. She had limpid blue eyes and was always the coquette. There is a picture of her on the front page of the Washington Post, at Georgetown Children's Home at the age of 4 years, staring out the window, all brown ringlets and big eyes. The caption reads "Waiting for Mom". It was taken because George Town Children's Home was multi-racial. I think it was taken after my parents had separated, but before they were divorced. My parents were deeply in love and very active in the Civil Rights Movement. However, by 1964, my biological father who was brilliant, was having more and more difficulty. He had problems keeping jobs, was becoming paranoid and delusional. By 1965, Mom decided that she must divorce him in order to keep us, his daughters safe. In order to obtain a divorce, she moved to the Virgin Islands, and my sister and I spent 9 months with my Mom's mother and my Mom's aunt in Laurel, Mississippi.
By 1966, my Mom was resettled in Berkeley CA with a job and a roommate and sent for us to live with her. I finished up first grade and started second grade there. My stepfather was an old college friend of my Mom's roommate. He was an Assistant Professor in Geography at Ohio University, and met my mother in the fall of 1966 while traveling through the United States before returning to his job at the university. It must have been a whirlwind romance. My stepfather met my mother in October of 1966, but had family obligations. He returned to Berkeley and asked my mother to marry him, and we were made a family on November 11, 1966. It was my mother's second marriage, my father's first. We finished out the academic year in Athens, but relocated to a small university in the Southwest in 1967.
My stepfather, to this day, loves to teach and share knowledge. We had some growing pains becoming used to a new father. I remember having to lick the bottom of his shoe (which I watched him use to step on cockroaches) because I stuck my tongue out at him. He loved Geology, Geography and we travelled each summer through different states and National Parks. Our stepfather adopted us in 1970, and our birth certificates were amended to show him as our birth father.
Life progressed in a small Baptist town in the southwest. We had a 3 bedroom home in a transitional neighborhood. Dad would read out loud to us in the evenings from one of his thousands of paperbacks that covered an entire wall of my Mom and Dad's bedroom. We went on trips in the summers. He taught us how to give Indian Sunburns, and make hairballs on your arms (my sister and I both had hairy arms). He gave us horsey rides and we would get spankings for our occasional indiscretions. He often pinched us on the bottom to tease us (I later learned that not all Dad's did this to their children.) As we grew older, we were allowed to hear jokes with sexual punchlines and innuendos. We would all snuggle in bed together on Sunday mornings.
I can't remember when I started sleeping in the nude. But I think it was when I started High School. I know it was at the direction of my adoptive father. I grew, my sister grew. We had two sabbatical summers in Corvallis OR where my father did coursework in preparation for his Doctorate. When I was 12 and in the 8th grade, I went through that painful year for mothers, where there pre-adolescent daughters hate them. This lasted for a year, but we survived.
In 1971, my youngest sister was born. When my little sister hit 12 and the 8th grade, my mom and dad were each working on coursework for Doctorates, and the whole family had moved to Greeley Colorado, so my parents could study at the University of Northern Colorado. It was a busy, hectic time. I was a sophomore in High School. My sister and I slept in bunk beds in the same room, and our one year old sister slept in a crib in her own room. My father and mother attended classes, and my father supported us in addition to his sabbatical stipend by working at 7-11 on weekends and nights. My sister and I attended school, made friends and took care of the baby. And then the hate year started. It was bad. Tensions between my mother and sister were terrible. There was screaming, shouting, crying. My father would support my younger sister, and not my mother. Everybody would be shouting, the toddler crying, and I was the observer and attempted peacemaker. My sister stopped tormenting me and tormented my mother. By the summer, my Dad and younger sister were working on a bedroom downstairs for her, so there could be peace and quiet, and so the house would sell faster. I think my sister started sleeping down there at night even though it was not finished. I found out later, that it was at this time, when my sister and Dad (I was rarely included) were supposedly working on the room, that my Dad came to my sister and told her that my mother had told him to teach my sister how to have sex. I was absolutely clueless.
By the time, we moved back to our "hometown" after the Sabbatical Year, my Mom had found a job out of town, actually out of state, and was living there with our youngest sister. My younger sister had always been the nominal favorite of my Dad, and this became more intrenched. Where before I had ridden my bike and taken the bus to school, all of a sudden, we were driven to and picked up from school by our father. When it came time for my sister to get a flute to play in the High School Band, she got a silver Gemeinhart. Mine purchased two years earlier was a nickel-plated Wilson, whose nickel-plating was falling off, giving it a leprous look. My sister never got over the hatred of my mother, and their relationship was bordering toxic all through my sister's High School years.
My parents never lived under the same roof again. The relationship between my Mom and Dad was distant and full of arguing. In retrospect, I believe that my father fueled the antagonism between them so that he wouldn't be discovered. When we returned home, my sister and I were now in separate rooms. We were both sleeping in the nude as did my Mom and Dad. My sister and I would be invited to "snuggle" in bed with my father in the mornings before school. I know...red flag, but I swear nothing ever happened to me or in front of me, in or out of bed. Years later, I asked my Mother about this, and she had no awareness that we were in bed with our Dad during our adolescent years. I had no idea of the wrongness of this. I really thought this was normal. I did notice however, that my sister often "snuggled" with my father in the mornings before school, without my presence.
My junior and senior years in high school were hellacious. I was obviously odd man out. Obvious advantages were given to my sister, and she used her position to her advantage. We became distant, and fought a lot. I think my father also encouraged this to protect himself. I knew something was wrong. I did not have the imagination or experience to realize what was really happening. I was naive and absolutely clueless.
I left home for college right after High School Graduation in 1975. My Mom and littlest sister were still living out of town, so that left just my father and sister. My sister started taking correspondence courses so that she could graduate High School in 1976, one year earlier. The summer before her Senior Year, she spent in Laurel Mississippi, living with our grandmother and great aunt while she took Classes. My sister graduated in the spring of 1976. In the Fall of 1976, my parents divorced. The greatest tragedy, besides this whole story, is that Mom was given custody of me, and Dad was given custody of the daughter he had been having sex with since 8th Grade. Still, nobody knew. Not me, mother, my grandmother, nobody.
My sister lived with my father for two more years while she attended the University at which he taught. She studied Chemistry and Biology, worked in the Lab and for one of the town physicians. She graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1978, a full year before I graduated from college, even though I graduated High School the year before. This means she got a double degree in two years. Even more surprising, my sister moved to Alaska to live with my mother and littlest sister while she gathered security clearance to work at Los Alamos. It didn't make any sense then, that she would choose to live with my Mom when their relationship was so fractious. She dated MUCH older men while she lived and worked there. None of this made any sense. I know now, the additional coursework, the early graduations, were the only way my sister could safely escape her abuser. I never lived at home after I graduated, visiting only on random weekends, and attending Summer School all four years.
Before, I left for the Peace Corps, in 1979 shortly after I graduated from college, I met my sister in Santa Fe for a farewell visit. Striking still, our luncheon was paid for by an older gentleman who had struck up a conversation with her while waiting for me. I remember asking her at that time, if anything sexual had happened between her and my father, because by that time he had sexually approached me. I think he only did it, because she had left home by that time, and he never approached me again. She denied anything. But she truly did not remember. She suppressed the memory until she was 30, married to a lovely man and had two children.
She wrote letters to all of us. We were all devestated, confused, astounded. My mother felt extremely guilty that she practically GAVE her middle daughter to her abuser, but my mother had no clue.
In retrospect, I can see it clearly. The conditioning us to sexual innuendos. I thought I was so mature, because I wouldn't get offended by sexual jokes (I figured out later, that maybe I should have.) The bottom pinching, sleeping nude. The family interrelationships that suddenly went bad.
I confronted my father once my sister remembered the abuse. He never denied it. I never severed our relationship, but I never allowed my two children, a boy and a girl to visit or be alone with their grandfather the times that he visited us.
My father was remarried to a lovely woman by the time my sister had her revelation. In fact, she and her husband, myself and my future husband, were the only attendees at my fathers marriage in 1984. My sister was even pregnant with her first child at the time.
I share these excruciating details so that you will see how my sister and myself were prepared in advance. We accepted things that were unacceptable because we didn't even know they were wrong. My sister was brilliant enough to escape her abuser's clutches early, but it was still 6 full years of sexual abuse. Nobody to turn to, no one to save her. My father even took her to an OB/Gyn out of town once because there was a pregnancy scare. I can't even fathom what a nightmare that time was for her.
Though I begged him to, my father never sought out counseling or treatment. I also begged him to tell his wife, whom I loved and respected. My sister herself, told his wife, when my sister and her husband started caring for her husband's nieces. The neices started living with my sister and her husband because they were removed from their father's home when he approached his older 14 year old daughter for sex. She told her paternal grandmother, and both girls were immediately removed from the home. This additional awareness of the prevalence of incest/childhood rape became the impetus for making my father's wife aware of his sexual abuse of his own daughter.
I do not know the whole story, but feel there is value in telling my side. Teach your children at an early age right and wrong touch. Teach them that no matter WHO approaches them, even if it is a family member who they know and love, to tell. Most childhood sexual abuse is pepetrated by family members or somebody close to the family and trusted. It is better to be hyper-vigilant and mistrustful than to deal with the ruin that comes from being victimized by those who should protect you.
I thank you for reading my story. If you can help someone by sharing this story please do so. Though this story is 34 years old, our lives are still devestated by it.
Peace,
Kismet
I am an older sister. My sister is one and a half years younger than me. My earliest memories begin in Georgetown. My mother and biological father were married in 1956 (I could be wrong on the year). I was born in 1958 and my sister was born in 1960. I was all legs and elbows. In first grade, I had to get glasses. My sister was beautiful and elfin. She had limpid blue eyes and was always the coquette. There is a picture of her on the front page of the Washington Post, at Georgetown Children's Home at the age of 4 years, staring out the window, all brown ringlets and big eyes. The caption reads "Waiting for Mom". It was taken because George Town Children's Home was multi-racial. I think it was taken after my parents had separated, but before they were divorced. My parents were deeply in love and very active in the Civil Rights Movement. However, by 1964, my biological father who was brilliant, was having more and more difficulty. He had problems keeping jobs, was becoming paranoid and delusional. By 1965, Mom decided that she must divorce him in order to keep us, his daughters safe. In order to obtain a divorce, she moved to the Virgin Islands, and my sister and I spent 9 months with my Mom's mother and my Mom's aunt in Laurel, Mississippi.
By 1966, my Mom was resettled in Berkeley CA with a job and a roommate and sent for us to live with her. I finished up first grade and started second grade there. My stepfather was an old college friend of my Mom's roommate. He was an Assistant Professor in Geography at Ohio University, and met my mother in the fall of 1966 while traveling through the United States before returning to his job at the university. It must have been a whirlwind romance. My stepfather met my mother in October of 1966, but had family obligations. He returned to Berkeley and asked my mother to marry him, and we were made a family on November 11, 1966. It was my mother's second marriage, my father's first. We finished out the academic year in Athens, but relocated to a small university in the Southwest in 1967.
My stepfather, to this day, loves to teach and share knowledge. We had some growing pains becoming used to a new father. I remember having to lick the bottom of his shoe (which I watched him use to step on cockroaches) because I stuck my tongue out at him. He loved Geology, Geography and we travelled each summer through different states and National Parks. Our stepfather adopted us in 1970, and our birth certificates were amended to show him as our birth father.
Life progressed in a small Baptist town in the southwest. We had a 3 bedroom home in a transitional neighborhood. Dad would read out loud to us in the evenings from one of his thousands of paperbacks that covered an entire wall of my Mom and Dad's bedroom. We went on trips in the summers. He taught us how to give Indian Sunburns, and make hairballs on your arms (my sister and I both had hairy arms). He gave us horsey rides and we would get spankings for our occasional indiscretions. He often pinched us on the bottom to tease us (I later learned that not all Dad's did this to their children.) As we grew older, we were allowed to hear jokes with sexual punchlines and innuendos. We would all snuggle in bed together on Sunday mornings.
I can't remember when I started sleeping in the nude. But I think it was when I started High School. I know it was at the direction of my adoptive father. I grew, my sister grew. We had two sabbatical summers in Corvallis OR where my father did coursework in preparation for his Doctorate. When I was 12 and in the 8th grade, I went through that painful year for mothers, where there pre-adolescent daughters hate them. This lasted for a year, but we survived.
In 1971, my youngest sister was born. When my little sister hit 12 and the 8th grade, my mom and dad were each working on coursework for Doctorates, and the whole family had moved to Greeley Colorado, so my parents could study at the University of Northern Colorado. It was a busy, hectic time. I was a sophomore in High School. My sister and I slept in bunk beds in the same room, and our one year old sister slept in a crib in her own room. My father and mother attended classes, and my father supported us in addition to his sabbatical stipend by working at 7-11 on weekends and nights. My sister and I attended school, made friends and took care of the baby. And then the hate year started. It was bad. Tensions between my mother and sister were terrible. There was screaming, shouting, crying. My father would support my younger sister, and not my mother. Everybody would be shouting, the toddler crying, and I was the observer and attempted peacemaker. My sister stopped tormenting me and tormented my mother. By the summer, my Dad and younger sister were working on a bedroom downstairs for her, so there could be peace and quiet, and so the house would sell faster. I think my sister started sleeping down there at night even though it was not finished. I found out later, that it was at this time, when my sister and Dad (I was rarely included) were supposedly working on the room, that my Dad came to my sister and told her that my mother had told him to teach my sister how to have sex. I was absolutely clueless.
By the time, we moved back to our "hometown" after the Sabbatical Year, my Mom had found a job out of town, actually out of state, and was living there with our youngest sister. My younger sister had always been the nominal favorite of my Dad, and this became more intrenched. Where before I had ridden my bike and taken the bus to school, all of a sudden, we were driven to and picked up from school by our father. When it came time for my sister to get a flute to play in the High School Band, she got a silver Gemeinhart. Mine purchased two years earlier was a nickel-plated Wilson, whose nickel-plating was falling off, giving it a leprous look. My sister never got over the hatred of my mother, and their relationship was bordering toxic all through my sister's High School years.
My parents never lived under the same roof again. The relationship between my Mom and Dad was distant and full of arguing. In retrospect, I believe that my father fueled the antagonism between them so that he wouldn't be discovered. When we returned home, my sister and I were now in separate rooms. We were both sleeping in the nude as did my Mom and Dad. My sister and I would be invited to "snuggle" in bed with my father in the mornings before school. I know...red flag, but I swear nothing ever happened to me or in front of me, in or out of bed. Years later, I asked my Mother about this, and she had no awareness that we were in bed with our Dad during our adolescent years. I had no idea of the wrongness of this. I really thought this was normal. I did notice however, that my sister often "snuggled" with my father in the mornings before school, without my presence.
My junior and senior years in high school were hellacious. I was obviously odd man out. Obvious advantages were given to my sister, and she used her position to her advantage. We became distant, and fought a lot. I think my father also encouraged this to protect himself. I knew something was wrong. I did not have the imagination or experience to realize what was really happening. I was naive and absolutely clueless.
I left home for college right after High School Graduation in 1975. My Mom and littlest sister were still living out of town, so that left just my father and sister. My sister started taking correspondence courses so that she could graduate High School in 1976, one year earlier. The summer before her Senior Year, she spent in Laurel Mississippi, living with our grandmother and great aunt while she took Classes. My sister graduated in the spring of 1976. In the Fall of 1976, my parents divorced. The greatest tragedy, besides this whole story, is that Mom was given custody of me, and Dad was given custody of the daughter he had been having sex with since 8th Grade. Still, nobody knew. Not me, mother, my grandmother, nobody.
My sister lived with my father for two more years while she attended the University at which he taught. She studied Chemistry and Biology, worked in the Lab and for one of the town physicians. She graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1978, a full year before I graduated from college, even though I graduated High School the year before. This means she got a double degree in two years. Even more surprising, my sister moved to Alaska to live with my mother and littlest sister while she gathered security clearance to work at Los Alamos. It didn't make any sense then, that she would choose to live with my Mom when their relationship was so fractious. She dated MUCH older men while she lived and worked there. None of this made any sense. I know now, the additional coursework, the early graduations, were the only way my sister could safely escape her abuser. I never lived at home after I graduated, visiting only on random weekends, and attending Summer School all four years.
Before, I left for the Peace Corps, in 1979 shortly after I graduated from college, I met my sister in Santa Fe for a farewell visit. Striking still, our luncheon was paid for by an older gentleman who had struck up a conversation with her while waiting for me. I remember asking her at that time, if anything sexual had happened between her and my father, because by that time he had sexually approached me. I think he only did it, because she had left home by that time, and he never approached me again. She denied anything. But she truly did not remember. She suppressed the memory until she was 30, married to a lovely man and had two children.
She wrote letters to all of us. We were all devestated, confused, astounded. My mother felt extremely guilty that she practically GAVE her middle daughter to her abuser, but my mother had no clue.
In retrospect, I can see it clearly. The conditioning us to sexual innuendos. I thought I was so mature, because I wouldn't get offended by sexual jokes (I figured out later, that maybe I should have.) The bottom pinching, sleeping nude. The family interrelationships that suddenly went bad.
I confronted my father once my sister remembered the abuse. He never denied it. I never severed our relationship, but I never allowed my two children, a boy and a girl to visit or be alone with their grandfather the times that he visited us.
My father was remarried to a lovely woman by the time my sister had her revelation. In fact, she and her husband, myself and my future husband, were the only attendees at my fathers marriage in 1984. My sister was even pregnant with her first child at the time.
I share these excruciating details so that you will see how my sister and myself were prepared in advance. We accepted things that were unacceptable because we didn't even know they were wrong. My sister was brilliant enough to escape her abuser's clutches early, but it was still 6 full years of sexual abuse. Nobody to turn to, no one to save her. My father even took her to an OB/Gyn out of town once because there was a pregnancy scare. I can't even fathom what a nightmare that time was for her.
Though I begged him to, my father never sought out counseling or treatment. I also begged him to tell his wife, whom I loved and respected. My sister herself, told his wife, when my sister and her husband started caring for her husband's nieces. The neices started living with my sister and her husband because they were removed from their father's home when he approached his older 14 year old daughter for sex. She told her paternal grandmother, and both girls were immediately removed from the home. This additional awareness of the prevalence of incest/childhood rape became the impetus for making my father's wife aware of his sexual abuse of his own daughter.
I do not know the whole story, but feel there is value in telling my side. Teach your children at an early age right and wrong touch. Teach them that no matter WHO approaches them, even if it is a family member who they know and love, to tell. Most childhood sexual abuse is pepetrated by family members or somebody close to the family and trusted. It is better to be hyper-vigilant and mistrustful than to deal with the ruin that comes from being victimized by those who should protect you.
I thank you for reading my story. If you can help someone by sharing this story please do so. Though this story is 34 years old, our lives are still devestated by it.
Peace,
Kismet
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Warning: Mad Liberal Woman's Political Rant
I pick red today, because that's what I'm seeing! RED! Just came off of Facebook where an old childhood acquaintance shared a page called "I can share anything I want about Barack Obama's Picture". Then there were 3 before/after makeover pictures with the 3rd showing the rear end of a horse as the before, and Our current PRESIDENT's picture as the after.
REALLY!!??? Then it hit me. Yea, of course. In social media, where the majority of your audience is nameless and faceless, or you know the rest and perhaps assume their politics are the same, I suppose you can say anything you want about, well....anything. But there's a price. I felt the same about George W. But I was very careful about what I said around the people I loved and respected who supported George W. It is much easier to insult people that you don't know isn't it? It is good to have places to vent and safely verbalize our frustrations and anger. But to insult, generalize and categorize to an unknown, faceless audience with a diversity of opinions and thoughts, completely blocks a give and take conversation, particularly any kind of purposeful political discourse. It is only when we can get past our anger and our fears, that we will be able to HEAR what others are saying, find our commonalities and move forward, as people, neighbors and a nation.
Yes, we DO have freedom of speech. But that does NOT mean we can say anything we want without expecting response and repercussions. When we insult, we can expect anger as a response. If we demonize whole groups of people as liberal or conservative or pink-hiny'd fascists; we render the individuals in those groups as nameless and faceless, and see only our differences. Then we don't care about their responses, because we already hold them in the greatest disdain. Our purpose then becomes to find more and more proof that they are idiots, digging the hole deeper and deeper, so that we don't have to hear what they say, see or acknowledge them. There! We were right all along..they're ALL ass hats.
Is this the nation we want to be? Like school yard children yelling at each other from different sides of the playground, fighting over who gets the swings, the slides, the soccerballs, the tetherballs. Believe me, there ARE enough toys to share. But if one group corners all the toys, then one group has to go without. Is that our purpose in life? To get all the toys at the expense of others? I can only play with one ball at a time (all puns intended). How many balls do you need to be happy?
I would like to think that as a nation, we have gone beyond school yard chants and slanders. Maybe the brits have it right with all the yelling and booing and name calling expended in the House and Parliament. Here, we splash it on billboards and Facebook, Twitter. Yes, we can comment, but is that a real conversation/discussion? Because it seems to me that it leaves out the most important component of REAL conversation. LISTENING, HEARING, EMPATHIZING.
When I get really frustrated, I try to remember that we were the first Democracy. We were created from whole cloth from the hearts and souls of men who had only experienced rule by the church, by the crown, and by might. They imagined something better. Something where every voice can speak, where everyone has an equal right to live and breathe, think and work for something better. They were very limited at first in sharing these "equal rights", originally encompassing only white, landed, males. But as mankind has advanced, this new concept of equality has been expanded to more and more human beings of all types/genders/backgrounds, etc. who live and breathe. Even after 200 years, I don't think we're all the way there yet. We're still an experiment. We're still evolving. As the concept of humanity involves, so does our self-government. Our entire history as a nation, has swung like a pendulum. Time and again, different factions of our population have used their might and their money to try to seize control of the laws, and legislation to give themselves the advantage. Look at the Railroad Barons, the Coal extractors, different individuals who have created economic dynasties by exploiting the natural and human resources of this country.
But we have always believed that we are the country where "the little people/the average man" can rise. I wonder sometimes if this is a story we tell ourselves to make us feel better as a nation, and not the reality. I know that currently this is not true. A child born to his "economic class" in the U.S. has a much higher chance of ending life in that same class than his counterpart in many other "democratic" countries. But as I said, the pendulum swings. We have the means to make the myth, the dream come true. We are a nation that has produced Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's, Malcolm X, Hilary Clinton, Madeline Albright.
If we lift every voice, hear every voice, we will find our way. If we stick our fingers in our ears, and yell insults loudly like spoiled children, we will wander and we may find it hard to find our way back.
Peace,
Kismet
REALLY!!??? Then it hit me. Yea, of course. In social media, where the majority of your audience is nameless and faceless, or you know the rest and perhaps assume their politics are the same, I suppose you can say anything you want about, well....anything. But there's a price. I felt the same about George W. But I was very careful about what I said around the people I loved and respected who supported George W. It is much easier to insult people that you don't know isn't it? It is good to have places to vent and safely verbalize our frustrations and anger. But to insult, generalize and categorize to an unknown, faceless audience with a diversity of opinions and thoughts, completely blocks a give and take conversation, particularly any kind of purposeful political discourse. It is only when we can get past our anger and our fears, that we will be able to HEAR what others are saying, find our commonalities and move forward, as people, neighbors and a nation.
Yes, we DO have freedom of speech. But that does NOT mean we can say anything we want without expecting response and repercussions. When we insult, we can expect anger as a response. If we demonize whole groups of people as liberal or conservative or pink-hiny'd fascists; we render the individuals in those groups as nameless and faceless, and see only our differences. Then we don't care about their responses, because we already hold them in the greatest disdain. Our purpose then becomes to find more and more proof that they are idiots, digging the hole deeper and deeper, so that we don't have to hear what they say, see or acknowledge them. There! We were right all along..they're ALL ass hats.
Is this the nation we want to be? Like school yard children yelling at each other from different sides of the playground, fighting over who gets the swings, the slides, the soccerballs, the tetherballs. Believe me, there ARE enough toys to share. But if one group corners all the toys, then one group has to go without. Is that our purpose in life? To get all the toys at the expense of others? I can only play with one ball at a time (all puns intended). How many balls do you need to be happy?
I would like to think that as a nation, we have gone beyond school yard chants and slanders. Maybe the brits have it right with all the yelling and booing and name calling expended in the House and Parliament. Here, we splash it on billboards and Facebook, Twitter. Yes, we can comment, but is that a real conversation/discussion? Because it seems to me that it leaves out the most important component of REAL conversation. LISTENING, HEARING, EMPATHIZING.
When I get really frustrated, I try to remember that we were the first Democracy. We were created from whole cloth from the hearts and souls of men who had only experienced rule by the church, by the crown, and by might. They imagined something better. Something where every voice can speak, where everyone has an equal right to live and breathe, think and work for something better. They were very limited at first in sharing these "equal rights", originally encompassing only white, landed, males. But as mankind has advanced, this new concept of equality has been expanded to more and more human beings of all types/genders/backgrounds, etc. who live and breathe. Even after 200 years, I don't think we're all the way there yet. We're still an experiment. We're still evolving. As the concept of humanity involves, so does our self-government. Our entire history as a nation, has swung like a pendulum. Time and again, different factions of our population have used their might and their money to try to seize control of the laws, and legislation to give themselves the advantage. Look at the Railroad Barons, the Coal extractors, different individuals who have created economic dynasties by exploiting the natural and human resources of this country.
But we have always believed that we are the country where "the little people/the average man" can rise. I wonder sometimes if this is a story we tell ourselves to make us feel better as a nation, and not the reality. I know that currently this is not true. A child born to his "economic class" in the U.S. has a much higher chance of ending life in that same class than his counterpart in many other "democratic" countries. But as I said, the pendulum swings. We have the means to make the myth, the dream come true. We are a nation that has produced Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's, Malcolm X, Hilary Clinton, Madeline Albright.
If we lift every voice, hear every voice, we will find our way. If we stick our fingers in our ears, and yell insults loudly like spoiled children, we will wander and we may find it hard to find our way back.
Peace,
Kismet
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Live Loud
Joy Alert! Unless you believe in reincarnation (not necessarily decided, myself, one way or another), we only have this one life to live. How is it that we forget that? Many of us live from day to day, tied to our jobs, living for the weekends. Encasing our hearts in the everyday drudgery of earning a living and trying to live life to the best of our ability.
I have done so, and fight being dragged into the abyss of just surviving. But when I can remember joy, when I can laugh and dance, I say LIVE LOUD!! Sing when you can do so, laugh with gusto, cry with meaning. Be it all! Use all your senses! Smell, live, taste, bite, stomp through life. Grasp colors between your hands, hurl rainbows to the sky! Dance with lightning bolts, run in the rain! Dig in the earth! Seek out the growing things, the seeds of life and roll in the dirt, dig in the weeds. Plant, pick and smell the flowers, and for God's sake at least eat the Carnations (they are edible as are violets).
Let your hair down, and if you have no hair, paint your scalp or sculpt designs. Heck, paint your HAIR! Wear wild hats and bright colors. Stomp in your boots and LAUGH OUT LOUD!
And yes, life can be and is A BITCH! But then, so can I be! Stop 'living only for the weekend'. Find a job that feeds your soul as well as your stomach. Come home and listen to all your old records and CD's. Have a rock'n roll supper, a six-pack of beer and you are the DJ listening only to your old favorites, and you don't have to drink the whole six pack. Or go wild and drink Non-diet Coke!
Talk to your plants, animals, children. They will all listen, and depending on the age of your children, talk back. Hug, kiss, love. Don't forget to tell your loved ones that you DO LOVE and CHERISH and COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM! And if this is no longer true, FIX IT! If you can't fix it, GET OUT! Life is much too short to live without love. Have consensual sex as often as possible, but don't forget to do it with JOY (and protection)! And preferably with LOVE, I think it's much better that way!
Live your dreams. The biggest obstacle to your dreams is you. yourself, deciding that you are not worthy of your dreams or incapable. This is NOT true! Where there is a will there IS a way! But as in all things, make sure that this is what you really want. The best dreams are the ones that feed the soul and not the pocket book. Wealth is transient, LIVING IS REAL, life is the real wealth.
Take trips, walks, hikes, rides, drive a car, a motorcycle, ride a llama, a horse, an elephant. Love your neighbor. Find someone who you dislike on sight, and learn to like them. Find yourself and learn to love them. Do not let life go by without adventure. Take a picnic, in your living room, on the roof, in your car, on the lawn, in the wildnerness, in a canoe.
Do somersaults on the lawn, and teach a child to make daisy chains. If you do not know how to make daisy chains, have a child teach you.
Watch a thunderstorm, smell the ozone, jump at the thunder. Grin in relief! Swim in a lake, and feel the mud squish between your toes, hobble on the pebbles and grimace at the slime. Find a bed of moss and marvel at the tiny structures, and the microscopic flowers.
Find and count the different colors of algae you can find on the rocks. Go to a stream and collect wonderful and exotic rocks and make a rock garden in your own yard. Plant moss, and iceplants, succulents, and pinwheels, wild violets, hen and chicks, stonecrop and phlox.
Write a song, a poem, a story, a sonnet and sing/tell/whisper it to your lover. If you have no lover find one by not looking, but by finding yourself. Look hard! You are there! You may not have met yourself yet, but I promise you, there are surprises you are unaware of! Find yourself and love your body! If you don't love your body change it! Don't diet, just move! Dance, wiggle, jump on a tramp, yoga, jump rope, swim, walk, hike, bike, roll on hills (watch out for the goose poop), golf (be your own caddy). Whatever you look like, find something to love. Do it now, because as you age, you have to become more creative and start just picking the individual body parts you like.
Find a baby and nuzzle it's soft head, and smell its sweet neck (with permission, please). Make a wild painting with lots of colors. If you hate messes, then use your hands and take a shower. Do what is against your nature, and figure out why. Live life, loud, racously, gloriously and most all of with joy!
Go to a foreign country, learn a new language, learn the piano (but baby your brain, it gets harder to learn as we 'mature'). We are not the only or the biggest or most diverse country in the world. There is so much to know, to see!
Roar your name into the wind! Sit on the prow of a boat and race the birds through winding channels, the wind blowing through your hair, the spray landing on your skin, eyes, eyelashes, and laugh, no hands!
Find joy! Again and again. Share it. Make it your life's mission to find and share as much joy as possible.
Be loud, be joyful, be raucous! And then, when you are tired. Sit down and smile and treasure the silence.
Peace & Joy,
Kismet
I have done so, and fight being dragged into the abyss of just surviving. But when I can remember joy, when I can laugh and dance, I say LIVE LOUD!! Sing when you can do so, laugh with gusto, cry with meaning. Be it all! Use all your senses! Smell, live, taste, bite, stomp through life. Grasp colors between your hands, hurl rainbows to the sky! Dance with lightning bolts, run in the rain! Dig in the earth! Seek out the growing things, the seeds of life and roll in the dirt, dig in the weeds. Plant, pick and smell the flowers, and for God's sake at least eat the Carnations (they are edible as are violets).
Let your hair down, and if you have no hair, paint your scalp or sculpt designs. Heck, paint your HAIR! Wear wild hats and bright colors. Stomp in your boots and LAUGH OUT LOUD!
And yes, life can be and is A BITCH! But then, so can I be! Stop 'living only for the weekend'. Find a job that feeds your soul as well as your stomach. Come home and listen to all your old records and CD's. Have a rock'n roll supper, a six-pack of beer and you are the DJ listening only to your old favorites, and you don't have to drink the whole six pack. Or go wild and drink Non-diet Coke!
Talk to your plants, animals, children. They will all listen, and depending on the age of your children, talk back. Hug, kiss, love. Don't forget to tell your loved ones that you DO LOVE and CHERISH and COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM! And if this is no longer true, FIX IT! If you can't fix it, GET OUT! Life is much too short to live without love. Have consensual sex as often as possible, but don't forget to do it with JOY (and protection)! And preferably with LOVE, I think it's much better that way!
Live your dreams. The biggest obstacle to your dreams is you. yourself, deciding that you are not worthy of your dreams or incapable. This is NOT true! Where there is a will there IS a way! But as in all things, make sure that this is what you really want. The best dreams are the ones that feed the soul and not the pocket book. Wealth is transient, LIVING IS REAL, life is the real wealth.
Take trips, walks, hikes, rides, drive a car, a motorcycle, ride a llama, a horse, an elephant. Love your neighbor. Find someone who you dislike on sight, and learn to like them. Find yourself and learn to love them. Do not let life go by without adventure. Take a picnic, in your living room, on the roof, in your car, on the lawn, in the wildnerness, in a canoe.
Do somersaults on the lawn, and teach a child to make daisy chains. If you do not know how to make daisy chains, have a child teach you.
Watch a thunderstorm, smell the ozone, jump at the thunder. Grin in relief! Swim in a lake, and feel the mud squish between your toes, hobble on the pebbles and grimace at the slime. Find a bed of moss and marvel at the tiny structures, and the microscopic flowers.
Find and count the different colors of algae you can find on the rocks. Go to a stream and collect wonderful and exotic rocks and make a rock garden in your own yard. Plant moss, and iceplants, succulents, and pinwheels, wild violets, hen and chicks, stonecrop and phlox.
Write a song, a poem, a story, a sonnet and sing/tell/whisper it to your lover. If you have no lover find one by not looking, but by finding yourself. Look hard! You are there! You may not have met yourself yet, but I promise you, there are surprises you are unaware of! Find yourself and love your body! If you don't love your body change it! Don't diet, just move! Dance, wiggle, jump on a tramp, yoga, jump rope, swim, walk, hike, bike, roll on hills (watch out for the goose poop), golf (be your own caddy). Whatever you look like, find something to love. Do it now, because as you age, you have to become more creative and start just picking the individual body parts you like.
Find a baby and nuzzle it's soft head, and smell its sweet neck (with permission, please). Make a wild painting with lots of colors. If you hate messes, then use your hands and take a shower. Do what is against your nature, and figure out why. Live life, loud, racously, gloriously and most all of with joy!
Go to a foreign country, learn a new language, learn the piano (but baby your brain, it gets harder to learn as we 'mature'). We are not the only or the biggest or most diverse country in the world. There is so much to know, to see!
Roar your name into the wind! Sit on the prow of a boat and race the birds through winding channels, the wind blowing through your hair, the spray landing on your skin, eyes, eyelashes, and laugh, no hands!
Find joy! Again and again. Share it. Make it your life's mission to find and share as much joy as possible.
Be loud, be joyful, be raucous! And then, when you are tired. Sit down and smile and treasure the silence.
Peace & Joy,
Kismet
Why Is There No "White History Month"? Video
Hilarious, but oh so true! More about this subject later. Watch, comment, share.
Peace,
Kismet
Friday, February 22, 2013
About Me and Why I'm Writing
Well! This adventure seems to be addictive! 78 views in two days!! Have no idea if this is a lot, but it has blown ME away! I am giddy! I do apologize for it being so difficult to comment, that nobody has commented. If you know me from Facebook, and have tried to comment but been unsuccessful, will you please message me and let me know what the problem is?
ALSO THANK YOU FOR SHARING!! I have gotten very positive feedback from my piece on Adam Lanza.
So, what will this Blog be? In one word, ME. For years now, I have cogitated about and pondered on everything, from current events to historical dilemmas, personal issues to familial issues; what it means to be a person, a soul, a citizen, a female, a daughter, wife and mother. I have very strong opinions about EVERYTHING, but strive to be open-minded, aware, and educated. I do have a tendency to become extremely passionate about something and run with it without being aware of or acknowledging some major piece of information. In my awareness of this flaw, I do try to combat this, but am not always successful. I DO change my mind, and reserve the right to do this on this page, especially when struck with a new or novel viewpoint or new information. I am human and because of this, am flawed, but as a human, I also have the right to express my thoughts and opinions. That people actually take the time and energy to read these thoughts and opinions, amazes me and makes me exceedingly grateful that it is so easy to reach so many people.
This page may contain personal experiences, thoughts, opinions. I also write poems, but am trying to get some of them published, and this requires that they not have had a life on the Internet, so am not sure yet that I will share these, tho I WANT to.
I love whimsy, and fancy myself an optomist. Some people may find me naive, but I prefer the word hopeful. I have been blessed with a variety of experiences in my life. I have lived in ten different states, traveled to/thru all the states, except for Maine, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, and Missouri, an exception I hope to correct within this lifetime. I have traveled to Mexico, Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Kenya, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho and the Republic of South Africa.
I started kindergarten at age 4, skipped the 4th grade and graduated High School at 16, starting University at 16. I have an Undergraduate Degree in Elementary Ed. with Allied Endorsements in Early Childhood and Special Education. I have a Masters in Occupational Therapy. In my life's work, I have been a babysitter, house cleaner, Avon Lady, Agricultural Aide/Research Assistant, High School English and Geography Teacher, Bar Maid, Waitress, Water Well Rigger, Telephone Opinion Surveyor, Girl Scout Camp Counselor, Manual Laborer, Special Education Self-Contained Classroom Teacher, Pediatric Occupational Therapist working in schools and outpatient clinic, and OT working with adults in Acute and Rehab Settings.
I love the outdoors, hiking, biking, camping, photography, canoing and watching nature. I will watch people fishing, but do not fish myself. I have never hunted, but have owned and shot BB guns and recurve bows. I am a total bookworm and have been called a nerd. I love classical, blues, some jazz, bluegrass, folk, hard and classic rock, heavy metal, New Age, and some country, especially the older stuff. I played the flute through High School, but was probably just mediocre despite lessons and practice. I have played piano, but not kept up and still occasionally play the soprano recorder. Music is still a very important part of my life, and if I am not listening or dancing to it, it is playing in my head. I have composed whole symphonic pieces in my sleep, but never been blessed with this skill in real life, altho I would not be averse to trying sometime. I do stained glass, batik and have sewn whole outfits as well as a sleeping bag.
I have been married for 27 years. I have a 22 year old daughter who has graduated from college and is in the midst of an Americorps year. My 19 year old son is a Freshman in Wildland Restoration (terrestrial).
I mourn my life as it was, as my current health has curtailed most of the above activities, most significantly, my ability to earn a living. I was a Pediatric OT for 14 years, and once I had the energy to miss anything, dearly missed the families, children and other professionals I worked with. I suppose you could say I was passionate about my livelihood, and do miss being able to be a positive force in people's lives.
I share this information. Not to brag, apply for a job or win awards (is there an award for living?), but to let you know the experiences from which I pull my viewpoints and stories. If you know people's backgrounds, their stories make more sense. I'm not sure I consider myself an "expert" on anything, but I feel I am a competent mother, and have shared my experience and expertise with other professionals and students in the areas of Special Education and Occupational Therapy especially in Sensory Integration and dealing with the Developmentally Challenged, and persons with Autism and Sensory Processing Disorders, and Fibromyalgia. When I am comfortable with the subject matter, I enjoy talking in front of people especially about things of which I am passionate.
I consider myself a questioning Christian. I was raised, baptised and confirmed Episcopalian. I attended church every Sunday for 10 years, taught Sunday School and led the High School Youth Group. During my health struggles, I have done tons of reading and as a result have questions about my faith, not so much Jesus, but the INSTITUTION of Christianity. I DO NOT believe that Christianity is the only way, and I am not a prosthelytizer. I try not to judge, and do not appreciate others of my faith judging for me in my faith's name. There will be tons more on this subject later.
So...I think you for your time, your ears, your hearts and your comments, if this page will let you share them. I appreciate the opportunity to take this journey with you. I hope we learn and share together, and especially share our humanity. For this life is a gift.
Peace,
Kismet
ALSO THANK YOU FOR SHARING!! I have gotten very positive feedback from my piece on Adam Lanza.
So, what will this Blog be? In one word, ME. For years now, I have cogitated about and pondered on everything, from current events to historical dilemmas, personal issues to familial issues; what it means to be a person, a soul, a citizen, a female, a daughter, wife and mother. I have very strong opinions about EVERYTHING, but strive to be open-minded, aware, and educated. I do have a tendency to become extremely passionate about something and run with it without being aware of or acknowledging some major piece of information. In my awareness of this flaw, I do try to combat this, but am not always successful. I DO change my mind, and reserve the right to do this on this page, especially when struck with a new or novel viewpoint or new information. I am human and because of this, am flawed, but as a human, I also have the right to express my thoughts and opinions. That people actually take the time and energy to read these thoughts and opinions, amazes me and makes me exceedingly grateful that it is so easy to reach so many people.
This page may contain personal experiences, thoughts, opinions. I also write poems, but am trying to get some of them published, and this requires that they not have had a life on the Internet, so am not sure yet that I will share these, tho I WANT to.
I love whimsy, and fancy myself an optomist. Some people may find me naive, but I prefer the word hopeful. I have been blessed with a variety of experiences in my life. I have lived in ten different states, traveled to/thru all the states, except for Maine, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, and Missouri, an exception I hope to correct within this lifetime. I have traveled to Mexico, Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Kenya, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho and the Republic of South Africa.
I started kindergarten at age 4, skipped the 4th grade and graduated High School at 16, starting University at 16. I have an Undergraduate Degree in Elementary Ed. with Allied Endorsements in Early Childhood and Special Education. I have a Masters in Occupational Therapy. In my life's work, I have been a babysitter, house cleaner, Avon Lady, Agricultural Aide/Research Assistant, High School English and Geography Teacher, Bar Maid, Waitress, Water Well Rigger, Telephone Opinion Surveyor, Girl Scout Camp Counselor, Manual Laborer, Special Education Self-Contained Classroom Teacher, Pediatric Occupational Therapist working in schools and outpatient clinic, and OT working with adults in Acute and Rehab Settings.
I love the outdoors, hiking, biking, camping, photography, canoing and watching nature. I will watch people fishing, but do not fish myself. I have never hunted, but have owned and shot BB guns and recurve bows. I am a total bookworm and have been called a nerd. I love classical, blues, some jazz, bluegrass, folk, hard and classic rock, heavy metal, New Age, and some country, especially the older stuff. I played the flute through High School, but was probably just mediocre despite lessons and practice. I have played piano, but not kept up and still occasionally play the soprano recorder. Music is still a very important part of my life, and if I am not listening or dancing to it, it is playing in my head. I have composed whole symphonic pieces in my sleep, but never been blessed with this skill in real life, altho I would not be averse to trying sometime. I do stained glass, batik and have sewn whole outfits as well as a sleeping bag.
I have been married for 27 years. I have a 22 year old daughter who has graduated from college and is in the midst of an Americorps year. My 19 year old son is a Freshman in Wildland Restoration (terrestrial).
I mourn my life as it was, as my current health has curtailed most of the above activities, most significantly, my ability to earn a living. I was a Pediatric OT for 14 years, and once I had the energy to miss anything, dearly missed the families, children and other professionals I worked with. I suppose you could say I was passionate about my livelihood, and do miss being able to be a positive force in people's lives.
I share this information. Not to brag, apply for a job or win awards (is there an award for living?), but to let you know the experiences from which I pull my viewpoints and stories. If you know people's backgrounds, their stories make more sense. I'm not sure I consider myself an "expert" on anything, but I feel I am a competent mother, and have shared my experience and expertise with other professionals and students in the areas of Special Education and Occupational Therapy especially in Sensory Integration and dealing with the Developmentally Challenged, and persons with Autism and Sensory Processing Disorders, and Fibromyalgia. When I am comfortable with the subject matter, I enjoy talking in front of people especially about things of which I am passionate.
I consider myself a questioning Christian. I was raised, baptised and confirmed Episcopalian. I attended church every Sunday for 10 years, taught Sunday School and led the High School Youth Group. During my health struggles, I have done tons of reading and as a result have questions about my faith, not so much Jesus, but the INSTITUTION of Christianity. I DO NOT believe that Christianity is the only way, and I am not a prosthelytizer. I try not to judge, and do not appreciate others of my faith judging for me in my faith's name. There will be tons more on this subject later.
So...I think you for your time, your ears, your hearts and your comments, if this page will let you share them. I appreciate the opportunity to take this journey with you. I hope we learn and share together, and especially share our humanity. For this life is a gift.
Peace,
Kismet
Thursday, February 21, 2013
On Frontline's "Raising Adam Lanza"
I watched Tuesday Night's Frontline (Feb. 19, 2013) Newtown Special "Raising Adam Lanza". It broke my heart and I will tell you why. Adam is the 1 in 77 male births that will be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Adam is the face of the children I treated as a Pediatric Occupational Therapist for 14 years. By the time I stopped working in Dec. of 2002, 85-90% of my pediatric population had a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder or autistic like behaviors. I would usually be the last in a string of health professionals that very exhausted and beleaguered parents would come to. Every parent of this class of children that I worked with were Parental Heroes, if not downright Angels in my eyes. By the time they got to me, they were confused, exhausted, in tears, and all they wanted to do was to help their child. Many of these parents were blamed by "Medical Professionals" (mostly physicians) for their child's behavior, when the exact opposite was true. These people had endured children who were non-speaking, didn't play, didn't intereact with people, ate weird things, demonstrated repetitive non-purposeful and often self-injurious behaviors. Many of these kids can't stand to wear clothes and are escape artists, even learning to unlock key locks which were above head height at the age of 4 years. I had at least two families that I had to write letters for because they would escape the house buck naked and the police would be called and the Dept. of Family Services would be called in on suspected abuse. These children are often Sensory Defensive, which means that their nervous systems interpret normal input (light, clothing, food, sounds) as an attack and kicks in the fight, flight or fright response. Fight or flight is clear, fright looks like complete withdrawal and often involves self-comforting repetitive behaviors such as rocking, hand flapping, screaming, repetitive sounds, head banging, even masturbation in order to try calm their nervous system (much as a baby sucks to calm itself or quiets to rocking). This Sensory Defensive Disorder also means that painful input is often not correctly processed, and since they show no protective skills or safety awareness constant vigilance is necessary in ALL SITUATIONS. Too much environmental input can result in "meltdowns" or "aggressive behaviors", again the Fight, Flight, or Fright Response. Studies show that the Autistic Brain has 40% fewer of the structures which act as filters to the brain so that it is not bombarded by all the input that our sensory nerves are capable of sensing. Imagine being able to see the molecules in the air between you and the face of your mother, the light beams, hear the fluorescent ballast on the lights, the ticking of clocks, feel the individual fibers of your clothes. Is it any wonder they are Sensory Defensive and pull into their own little world?
It is very exhausting and lonely to be a parent of such a child. Very often, at least one parent of a child with Sensory Defensiveness also has Sensory Defensiveness. In talking with many parents, as children one of them also had "Autistic Like Behaviors" (as described above), and may have even been in Special Education. As you can imagine, life with a partner with these challenges (which often have NOT been identified or addressed) is very challenging, and when you add in a child with the ASD diagnosis, the marriage can often not withstand such pressures. To a man, every parent I have worked with has searched endlessly for therapies, treatments and educational placements for their children. Most school districts are struggling to deal with the onslaught of ADD and ADHD children which are the norm now, and are very challenged to deal with this still new inundation of children with Autism. Participation in the educational system as a parent is a daily drain of being an advocate for your child, and waiting on tenterhooks for the "meltdown" calls, or notifications that the police have been called to deal with the physical behaviors (this was done in my school district with children as young as 6). I feel for the educators, having an 8 year history in the Educational System, 4 yrs. as a Special Ed. Teacher, but I find the idea of police officers with a 6 yr. terriifying and ludicrous.
When watching Frontline, I saw in Nancy Lanza, the parents of my patients. Someone who knew things were not right with her son and was trying desperately to find her son the help and support that he needed. Her constant searching for the right educational placement was a failure of the educational system, and was NOT her failure as was inferred by one of the educators interviewed. It is necessary when working with these kids, that you DO allow occasional withdrawal back into their own worlds, because the REAL WORLD bombards them, and is a constant challenge and often unmanageable. I viewed her use of firearms in target practice as an effort to involve Adam in behavior that is viewed as normal. Parents here in Montana take their children hunting very young. Guns and hunting are part of the culture. In Newtown, CT as in much of rural America, hunting and guns are also the norm. As a parent of a child with autism, the more normal the activity, the more optomistic you are that your child can have as close to a normal, functional, fulfilling life as is possible with such a challenging diagnosis. And in this realm of normal teenage behavior, video games are also an accepted, and widespread activity, especially among males. The majority that appeals to boys this age are violent, and I imagine that Adam was attracted to the immediate results and satisfaction of hitting a target, as he was in real life with target practice, AND AS IS THE INTENDED DESIGN OF THIS TYPE OF GAME. Extensive research shows that there is NO link between violent target oriented video games and the player's own violent behavior.
Normal interactions with peers are very challenging. People with Asperger's are very verbal and facile with words, are usually ultra-gifted in many areas, may even be what is known as "savant". They often have a fascination with numbers and patterns, and visually repetitive input (some of my patients would rewind movies and watch only the credits over and over). I do not know how Adam would have perceived his final task. Empathy, and abstraction to feelings of others are great challenges for persons with Autism/Aspergers. I am not excusing, but I am explaining, where this child and this mother came from, because I am too familiar with their history...up to the end. I just want to say, in ending. Autism is NOT a mental illness. It is a Developmental Disability just like Down's Syndrome is, like Cerebral Palsy is, like any number of genetic/birth disorders that children can be born with. With one in 88 births being a child with Autism, we as an educated society are going to have to deal with these children and their families, in our schools, our neighborhoods, our homes, even in our workplaces (there is actually a higher number of Autistic births in families who have inidividuals that are engineers). Adam's last act is an aberrant behavior not associated with Autism. By adulthood, most individuals have learned their limits for social interactions. With the planning that went into this, I cannot even begin to understand what his expected purpose or outcome was. I can tell you that I could probably decipher and understand the contents of his bedroom better than any Police Investigator can or anybody that does not have extensive contact and training in the treatment of Autistic Individuals.
There. I have said my piece. My heart goes out to ALL the children and families...the vicitims, the survivors, and the families of children with Autism who have had a very bright, and distorted light shone upon them.
Peace, Kismet
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B70v0zNYtq1qTm5mekZYV1p1Y3c
It is very exhausting and lonely to be a parent of such a child. Very often, at least one parent of a child with Sensory Defensiveness also has Sensory Defensiveness. In talking with many parents, as children one of them also had "Autistic Like Behaviors" (as described above), and may have even been in Special Education. As you can imagine, life with a partner with these challenges (which often have NOT been identified or addressed) is very challenging, and when you add in a child with the ASD diagnosis, the marriage can often not withstand such pressures. To a man, every parent I have worked with has searched endlessly for therapies, treatments and educational placements for their children. Most school districts are struggling to deal with the onslaught of ADD and ADHD children which are the norm now, and are very challenged to deal with this still new inundation of children with Autism. Participation in the educational system as a parent is a daily drain of being an advocate for your child, and waiting on tenterhooks for the "meltdown" calls, or notifications that the police have been called to deal with the physical behaviors (this was done in my school district with children as young as 6). I feel for the educators, having an 8 year history in the Educational System, 4 yrs. as a Special Ed. Teacher, but I find the idea of police officers with a 6 yr. terriifying and ludicrous.
When watching Frontline, I saw in Nancy Lanza, the parents of my patients. Someone who knew things were not right with her son and was trying desperately to find her son the help and support that he needed. Her constant searching for the right educational placement was a failure of the educational system, and was NOT her failure as was inferred by one of the educators interviewed. It is necessary when working with these kids, that you DO allow occasional withdrawal back into their own worlds, because the REAL WORLD bombards them, and is a constant challenge and often unmanageable. I viewed her use of firearms in target practice as an effort to involve Adam in behavior that is viewed as normal. Parents here in Montana take their children hunting very young. Guns and hunting are part of the culture. In Newtown, CT as in much of rural America, hunting and guns are also the norm. As a parent of a child with autism, the more normal the activity, the more optomistic you are that your child can have as close to a normal, functional, fulfilling life as is possible with such a challenging diagnosis. And in this realm of normal teenage behavior, video games are also an accepted, and widespread activity, especially among males. The majority that appeals to boys this age are violent, and I imagine that Adam was attracted to the immediate results and satisfaction of hitting a target, as he was in real life with target practice, AND AS IS THE INTENDED DESIGN OF THIS TYPE OF GAME. Extensive research shows that there is NO link between violent target oriented video games and the player's own violent behavior.
Normal interactions with peers are very challenging. People with Asperger's are very verbal and facile with words, are usually ultra-gifted in many areas, may even be what is known as "savant". They often have a fascination with numbers and patterns, and visually repetitive input (some of my patients would rewind movies and watch only the credits over and over). I do not know how Adam would have perceived his final task. Empathy, and abstraction to feelings of others are great challenges for persons with Autism/Aspergers. I am not excusing, but I am explaining, where this child and this mother came from, because I am too familiar with their history...up to the end. I just want to say, in ending. Autism is NOT a mental illness. It is a Developmental Disability just like Down's Syndrome is, like Cerebral Palsy is, like any number of genetic/birth disorders that children can be born with. With one in 88 births being a child with Autism, we as an educated society are going to have to deal with these children and their families, in our schools, our neighborhoods, our homes, even in our workplaces (there is actually a higher number of Autistic births in families who have inidividuals that are engineers). Adam's last act is an aberrant behavior not associated with Autism. By adulthood, most individuals have learned their limits for social interactions. With the planning that went into this, I cannot even begin to understand what his expected purpose or outcome was. I can tell you that I could probably decipher and understand the contents of his bedroom better than any Police Investigator can or anybody that does not have extensive contact and training in the treatment of Autistic Individuals.
There. I have said my piece. My heart goes out to ALL the children and families...the vicitims, the survivors, and the families of children with Autism who have had a very bright, and distorted light shone upon them.
Peace, Kismet
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B70v0zNYtq1qTm5mekZYV1p1Y3c
Housekeeping
Hmm...I can get to this page from one link on Facebook, but not another. Am exploring, and trying to get assistance from Google, because one of the responses, even says that my domain name is still available? If anybody is wise about this, please message me on Facebook.
Beginnings
Well. I have begun. I don't think I've ever made the transition from thinking to doing quite so quickly in my entire life, as I am a Master procrastinator! (genetic, I assume). I am starting out on my Kindle, but my word predictor keeps gobbling all my words, so here I shall end my post and continue my computer.
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