Maya - Defeats

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Sometimes Walls Can Be a Good Thing

A friend posts today:

"I just found out that a man I admired, a man I've HUGGED and had great conversations with, whose music has featured heavily in my life's soundtrack, has been charged with (and admitted to) possessing child pornography. As a survivour of child sexual abuse who was used in and exposed to child pornography, I stand today for the children whose lives are forever changed by those who exploit them. FU, XXXX!"

and I had responded to her: "Keep your head up. It is disappointing on many levels when performers lead so different lives than the persona that they project towards the public. They are cowards and no one should feel that they should need to continue to support them. I know that I have crossed off many in the past years, and will continue to do so. Pray that they get their just desserts in life. Put your wall up against them and know that you are a beautiful, beautiful woman with much to offer others connected with your life. (((Hugs)))"

There are times that we must put up our walls against people who fail us, let us down, and don't serve for us to be able to move forward in our lives, it is perfectly fine to to put up those walls. We need to be able to keep moving forward in our healing journeys in our lives. When that is your own family member, it is harder to do that - yet, when we have been so traumatized in our lives by whoever abused us, we must be able to give ourselves permission to set aside all the negatives in our lives in order to provide ourselves the best possible environment to heal. A soldier cannot heal while being in the middle of war surrounded with conflict; even they need their space where they can heal properly; why would then would we expect to be able to be healed in mind, body, and soul surrounded by others who are not conducive to being healed.

I have, personally, had to distance myself from negative folks, folks that pose conflict and drama in my daily life, as well as choose not to support performers (and other people/personalities) who choose to be abusive themselves to others (no matter who is at the crux of their abuse). The way I see it, life is much too short and their is nothing condusive and/or healing about being subjected continually to these people. Why should we reward their abusive behaviors by supporting the performances that they do.

True, if that is their means of being able to turn their lives around, they may deserve a second chance -- after all, we have long, long lives to lead; however, that doesn't mean that I, as a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault, need to accept them into my life. Likewise, if you are and/or have been a victim of abuse, it is perfectly fine for you to put up those walls. Own your healing process and exclude those out of your life who are going to hinder and/or put up barriers to your own healing process. Allow yourself time to heal and be healed, however long that may take. We don't owe them any of our energies that could be better spent on our healing process. Keep looking forward, surround yourselve with healing and positive people, rebuild your emotions and well being, and take of yourself.

Today, I give you that permission to do so!!!



To all abusers:

Please don't expect survivors to appreciate your music/craft, etc. just because everyone else does who aren't re-living and being re-victimized all again knowing that you have been abusive in the past. Bye-gones are not bye-gones. It's not as simple as that. Recognize and know that when you abuse, you affect many who have been affected by the same and/or similar form(s) of abuse that you did to another person. While you may deserve a second chance in life, please prove it by never continuing to be abusive ever, ever again. It will take a long time before anyone can trust you again. If you are truly deserving of a second chance, you will have to rebuild and earn that trust back, and for some that just might be never, depending on how extensive the abused were abused. That's just the way it is going to be.



To all musicians:

Victims/survivors/thrivers need more positive songs/lyrics in their lives. Don't be singing about how you abused your girlfriend, wife, mother, etc. Don't be singing about how you sexually assaulted someone and loved it. Try singing about, meeting the love of your life and respect them and treating them that they are the most beautiful person on earth. Try to begin rethink your life and how what you say will and/or may affect others, possibly re-victimize them, even if they think that they might have been far along that healing journey. To change your life, you must actually lead a more violence free life yourself - and lead by example!


18 comments:

  1. It is very heart breaking to find out this about the people that you admire. This is the reason you don't put people up on an pedestal. Very well said Kathryn!

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    1. Thank you so much. I agree, but I also disagree to a degree. I think we all need role models to follow in our lives -- those that inspire and aspire us. One must recognize that, too, things are not always what they seem to be. People have outside, private lives and may not always project their true emotions and feelings though. It doesn't hurt to recognize their fallacies and not to think that, just because they sing fun, warm and loving songs for instance, they don't have a personality that they are putting on for the public eye.

      Just as we often try to keep our private lives private to heal, they sometimes do too. I think most of us will recognize that they are raising children, taking vacations, going to college, getting married and going to funerals just like any other person. It is when we learn that they are abusive to others, acts that we as a society feel is wrong and we have been wronged by in our very own pasts, it becomes discouraging.

      I think of a lot of that discouraging moment comes from the rocking of our world to determine who is telling the truth and who's not, who's living evil lives of crime and abuse, etc. It doesn't hurt to not put folks on pedestals, as you say, it provides ourselves walls that can serve to protect ourselves when we find out the horrible truth about them.

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  2. Wow that is completely awful. I can't imagine the feeling of finding that out. Very inspiring article! Thank you for sharing. :-)

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    1. Yes, it's like a blow to the head when you find something like that out, especially when you have experienced even something very similar. Your immediate knee jerk reaction is about those poor kids that were subjected to him, and then the yuckiness swarms all over of whatever had traumatized you. Not a good feeling at all. Then a bit of anger sets in extra loud about that being someone knew, loved/admired, and even trusted yourself.

      Thank you for your comment. It's helpful to know how your writing impacts others.

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  3. I agree - it is so important to surround ourselves with positive people and to not let in negativity or abuse. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. You're quite welcome! As long as we keep negative folks around, we keep festering in that and the light at the end of the tunnel remains forever dim.

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  4. Im sorry to heart it. That's why i don't rely on man alone.. If that man falls you fall. At the end of the day he/she is just a human just like you. Its one reason why i don't fanatic famous people..

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    1. It does make it much more difficult when we are fans of someone who may inspire and/or aspire us. I wouldn't say not to have these role models in our lives at all; they serve a purpose in letting us know that they are people out there reaching for the stars and give ourselves hope that we, too, can reach for those stars (if only we are so motivated to do so). It does pay to be not quite so fanatic about the person we admire; it helps to protect our emotions when we find out that they aren't so perfect (and, especially, when they put on such facades that hide the truth of the criminalistic acts they are committing.

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  5. that is such a sad thing when someone you look up to ends up doing something as horrific as that.

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  6. It is very sad to hear that people do these horrific things. We really have to watch out for our children.

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    1. Oh, absolutely! We do have to watch out for our children.

      Their role models are often the singers that they follow -- Brittney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Justin Beiber, etc. -- and, yes, even Miley Cyrus who once was being followed as Hannah Montana, the character on the tv that many believed that she was Hannah Montana in real life too. It doesn't help that the show was about a star singing and having a life behind the scenes. It was so very believeable that, when it came to end the character, the children weren't able to understand the transition as readily -- and Miley decided to take a drastic change to upheave the Hannah Montana fans and create a new agenda for her new personality in the songs. What parents had believed were safe to listen to are now having to rethink whether or not they want their children to be listening (and, especially, watching the filth/pornographic movement) and changing to the adult that she prefers to be.

      It's also being a hard lesson to the children to understand that the character wasn't cast with the understanding that Miley's true personality matched that character.

      Take that, along with the same degree of intensity and gullability of the children to believe, and apply that to a lesson about not trusting folks that may approach them. We, as parents, have the challenge of teaching their children who to trust instinctively and who to give rise for caution, without them not ever being able to believe and trust again.

      In this case, spoken about above, we have to be cautious of who we expose our children to as well. Some how, we need to protect without being too protective that they don't learn to distinguish the reality of it all on their own as well, which enables ourselves to fine-tune our intuition skills.

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  7. I agree that we should never put people so high up that we don't see what is really going on from the inside or outside.

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    1. True... but don't give up hope. Not all folks that we put up as a role model/admiration, etc., are criminals and/or doing criminal acts. When one is a victim of trauma, it is important that we keep our walls up just in case.

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  8. I have learned a lot lately and really make it an effort to have only positive people in my life.

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  9. I'm sorry to hear all you've been through. You're correct, we need to rid our lives of negativity and we have that choice!

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    1. Thank you! This was, though, much more about what my friend had experienced that day and the same thing that many victims/survivors experience throughout the world. The ramifications go far beyond the fact that they discovered that this guy was into child pornography. I believe most folks hear the story and say, "What a shame that he's doing such awful things?"; yet to the person that has experienced being victimized, the emotional scars are jarred loose and resurfaced. The pain of the victimization reverbates throughout society to everyone that is affected by the abusive.

      There is hope for all victims to heal, but it certainly doesn't mean that it won't be jarred when something pops up so close to home. Keeping up some degree of the walls, help to keep the negativity out. :)

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