Why would anyone?

Wow. I forgot I had been working on this. I suppose I should thank a certain all caps using child  for drawing my attention momentarily  back to my blog. I've been too busy dealing with health issues and PITA crashing computers and lack of artistic inspiration to muck about in the past much lately.

Looking through the posters and stories over on Project Unbreakable really drove home the fact that far too many people are told "No one will believe you." And far too many say it was true, too. Why? First, I don't understand why  there are stupid people who are so desperate for any attention or want to hurt someone so badly that they would falsely accuse someone of rape. Let's face it, sexual assault (especially against a child) is THE worst thing you can accuse someone of. Even murderers will go out of their way to torture a pedophile or spouse abuser in prison. Murder at least CAN sometimes be "justified", after all.  You have to be severely fucked in the head to cry rape to "get back at" someone. You have to be a total vindictive asshole to want to ruin someone's life so completely because you feel slighted in some way. Mature people learn to walk away and get over things rather than deciding to become a wrecking ball aimed at someone's life by falsely accusing them of things.

Second, I don't understand why "They're lying" or "Maybe if you didn't (insert action), it wouldn't have happened." would be anyone's first reaction. So many of the victims over there said that their FRIENDS didn't believe them or said "I thought you wanted it." Far too many of them were raped by people who claimed to be their "best friend", usually but not always a male. What the hell, people? So you think your friends and family members WANT the kind of shame/blame shit sexual assault victims are going through?? Why would a doctor administering a rape kit say something so stupid as "Are you SURE you were raped? You don't seem to have much bruising."??  Does it not occur to people that someone who has been told they'll be killed might be AFRAID and unable to move or resist? Yeah, a rape victim so enjoys the "attention" of having a speculum rammed up inside an already sore vagina, snapped wide open (usually PINCHING because you bloody men have no fucking clue how sensitive that area is *scowl*) and having swabs rammed up there in the hopes the rapist actually left some evidence. Oh, and then there's the humiliating "attention" of having photos taken of your injuries. Sounds delightful, doesn't it:?

I have a lot of respect for the women who take a rapist off the street by going to the ER IMMEDIATELY and reporting it. Waiting for even just days runs the risk of prosecuting someone with no evidence and I'm not real fond of the idea of prosecuting someone on words alone. A persuasive enough person can call together a horde of "witnesses" who will say whatever they want them to. Without some sort of evidence, I can't say it's right to lock someone up. We have legal process for a reason and that is why it's important for  a woman to be brave and keep it from happening to another. I've got friends on both sides of this fence, either raped/molested and gone without justice or falsely accused.  So I kind of have a rather unique perspective. I AM one of those who were molested and never got justice. The bastard died peacefully in his sleep so I didn't even get the vengeance of him suffering in death. Kind of lame, really. But would I have tried to take him into court with nothing but my own words? No. Especially not when I was the only one at the time who willingly spoke of it. No. I would have recognized the futility of that option and just kept up our little war of occasionally bitch slapping each other to acknowledge he was, indeed, still a scum sucking piece of shit and I was not, with no exceptions, going to ever allow him to molest me or my nieces again.

I  know I sure as hell didn't "want attention" when I was 12 and trying to suss out with my siblings what the hell all of the crap I suddenly had crashing down on me was about. I mean, when you fall to your knees because you all of a sudden have back all those blank spots in your childhood memories and they are horrifying, the very last thing going through your head is "Oh, boy! Everyone is going to be paying attention to me!" In fact, that NEVER went through my head at all. What when through my head was "Why did my brothers keep running off and leaving me there by myself with him?" "How much did he do to the other girls before I caught him at it and stopped him?" "Could I have stopped him sooner if I'd been more brave and told Mom?" So many other painful and confusing thoughts hit me. Having people pay attention to me abecause my sperm donor was an evil, abusive piece of shit was definitely NOT something I wanted.

I definitely didn't want the feeling of needing to protect everyone for the rest of my life, either. Do you have any clue how fucking exhausting it is to always be on guard, trying to keep the "bad people" from hurting the innocents of the world? I have to stop, examine and make a call any time I see anything remotely messed up. Do I get involved or am I just being paranoid because of my life experience? What if I blow and off and it turns out I was right, but I did nothing? What if that mother goes home and drowns that kid or beats it to death? It makes me responsible for that, doesn't it? Intellectually, I know it doesn't. Sure. But tell my psyche that. It's something I have to deal with every day.

In my experience, I've seen what I call Defender types and Victim types, an odd sort that's a blend of those and  the Outright Denier among abuse survivors.

Defenders usually spawn from abuse survivors who started to fight against their abuser while still stuck with them. They're the older siblings who stand between their abuser and the little kids. They are the ones who fight every inch of the way, giving the abuser nothing freely and causing as much damage as possible in the process. What fuels them is not really quantifyable as anything other than sheer will. Defender types have that "protector" mentality like I do. Often they're tough and armored outside and a mess inside like me, too. They can be a dangerous foe in combat because they will do whatever it takes to stop harm from coming to an innocent, even if it means they die instead. It's hard wired and as difficult to control as a wolf's prey and territory drives. It's how we raise ourselves up from what happened to us. We pull ourselves out of our suffering by saving others from similar fates. It's the only way we see to make what happened to us MEAN something other than nasty evil stuff. We OWN it, USE it to give others protection and strength that maybe we didn't have when we were abused. It's how we manage to keep on keeping on. This type, if they finally get free of their abuser generally NEVER allow anyone to do that to them again. People who try find themselves kicked to the curb like my ex husband and one of my ex boyfriends. My philosophy is "I didn't put up with that shit from my daddy and I sure as fuck won't put up with it from any other man."

The Victim type is one I have a LOT of trouble understanding. They're like a loyal to a fault puppy who will keep crawling back to lick the very boots that kicked them. Sometimes it's not because they're just that submissive. Sometimes it's because their own psyche deludes them into forgetting they were kicked in the first place. Or, perhaps, it deludes them into thinking the abuse is how love is expressed. Even if they manage to get away from the one who initially abuses them, they tend to end up right back into circumstances which allow another predator to put them right back into the abuse cycle. Sometimes it's a conscious thing because they're seeking love. Sometimes they don't even realize what they're doing because they don't remember.  Often the Victim type believes so strongly all the lies they were told by their abusers that they feel they aren't worthy of being treated decently. They feel they deserve not only what theyir abuser did to them, but also whatever anyone else may choose to heap upon them. I used to help get women out of abusive homes and into safe houses where they could get help . SO many I talked to had been raped or beaten by their own parents and, when they became adults, their brains said "pain equals love". So they ended up with men who emotionally and physcially battered them. Sadly, they were often the ones who went back eventually, believing all the bullshit "Baby I Promise" lies told to them by their abusers. Things would be all peachy keen for a week or a month and then there would be another call for help. Sometimes they died before they could call for help again. It was both crushingly sad and maddening at the same moment when that would happen. I often wondered, "Why did she go back? She was SAFE! She was overcoming all the bullshit! Why the fuck did she jump back into the manure pile after all the counseling she's had??" I've never found any satisfactory answers to those questions. I have asked before. Most of them said they went because they were afraid... afraid he'd hunt them and/or their children down and kill them as he always threatened.

The blended type of survivor often doesn't even recognize themselves as a survivor. They'll step in if they see imminent danger to an innocent, but only to a point. If the situation is too scary, they may say something, but back away if threatened. They may draw a line where they would NEVER stay with someone who hits them. Yet, if someone is only verbally or emotionally abusive, they may not even recognize that it IS abuse.  The few I've met who are like this kind of function in their own little plane of existence which only lightly touches ours.  They try their damnedest to make our horrid world match their sunshiny plane and then seem puzzled when it can't be made to mesh nicely. They're not exactly oblivious to the abuse they suffered, but they don't really acknowledge it, either. It's as if it's kind walled off like my memories were as a kid. They just make it to adulthood with the walls still up. They kind of peek over the wall occasionally and go, "Hmmmm. What's this? Oh, well, time to make cake." Then, sometimes out of the blue, they'll look you dead in the eye and say something like "All those dreams I've had about my brother... they weren't dreams, were they?" All you can do is pat their hand and say, "No, honey, they weren't." All you can do is hope that some day they'll really understand the scope of what they've been through.

Outright Denial is, unfortunately, one of the most knee-jerk defensive mechanisms human beings have and, possibly, the most destructive as well. The Outright Denier has told themself so often that nothing like that could POSSSIBLY have happened to them that the memories are locked in a box, covered in concrete and sunk to the very darkest depths of their own psyches. A Denier doesn't get that some of the issues they have as an adult are spawning from their abuse earlier in life. They do things like take drug or become alcoholics in an effort to feel better. But these are not solutions.  These things becomes crutches that prop them up  and then hooks that pull them down. They'll rage about their bad luck and take that rage out on others, not even realizing they are perpetuating what they grew up with. They have such blinders on that they often don't even recognize that the wall in their psyche exists. They don't realize that there are huge chunks of childhood where there simply is nothing.  They're like my brothers who have quite angrily denied what their own father did to them right in front of me. They angrily espouse the virtues of the one who beat them bloody in front of their little sister. The Denier often raises their abuser up on a pedestal as if to worship them as some sainted hero, turning them into the very opposite of what they really were. Of all  survivors, this type is the least likely to succeed in finding a happy life. Because they haven't dealt with what is causing all of the negative emotions in them, they never overcome the issues these emotions generate. They can't find the strength to say "Well, I'll show them." because they don't realize they NEED to. I guess for some people the betrayal of having someone who is supposed to love you and protect you do horrific things to them is just too much for their mind to process. So it gets shoved down never to be acknowledged again. Or maybe it crashes in eventually and they can no longer deny.

I get that, having had my own very painful WTF moment. But, in the case of my siblings, it just angers me that they refuse to stop trying to make ME the villain. I've met so many people whose families have just ripped them to pieces because an Outright Denier shouts "How dare you foul the name of our good and sainted, blahblahblah.?!" Then it becomes a rallying cry and the next thing you know, the person who spoke the truth is on the defensive and running for cover from the entire family. Only sometimes that person is someone like me who says, "You know what? Fuck you people! In fact, UNfuck you! Why should you have any fun? You have no clue because YOU didn't live with them!" Sometimes we survivors who are very aware of what was done to us don't run. Sometimes, not only do we not run, we may just charge you and punch you in the face for being an ass. Sometimes we just sit back and go, "I pity you the day your wall comes down. You go on and git. I don't want you in my life anymore." Regardless of how exactly it plays out, we know that it's necessary if we ever want to glue all the pieces we have left back into place.