The Crazy One

In the past few weeks, I have felt myself reverting back to that uneasy label that lurks in the back of my mind, waiting to come out when I am not feeling strong or when I am feeling so completely and utterly different from the rest of the world.  The label 'the crazy one' is probably one that I gave myself in my teens when my emotions and despair were so extreme that I almost died.  Perhaps it was a label that came from being hospitalized at 16. There is nothing like the diagnostic and somewhat paternalistic environment of a mental hospital to reinforce that 'crazy' label.  I remember coming back to school after that hospitalization feeling like I carried a scarlet "C" for crazy.  For years after, I felt like family members tiptoed around me, that I was someone to be watched and shielded from the world. Internally, this label kept me from reaching out for help, from expressing who I was and sometimes left me walking around feeling like I had something to 'prove' in this world; to prove that I was strong and not 'crazy'.

Somehow in my late teens and 20's, I found myself  in a relationship with someone who deeply reinforced my feeling of difference, who made me feel like I was 'nothing', who made me question my own reality and everything around me. As most good abusers do, this person was skilled at making me feel like no-one else would love me, that I was internally flawed.  No matter what he did to hurt me, he could always it turn around and make it my 'fault'.  This person knew how to keep the focus on himself while at the same time making me feel like nothing, like my world was only him.  I remember the only times of 'joy' I had in those years in my 20's were when I could get away from him. When he was not around, my young daughter and I could be free for a bit and I actually could feel connected to her and to myself away from him.  My relationships with others, who helped me reflect my beauty back to me probably saved my life.  Without them, holding me up and pushing me forward, I may not have made it through this crazy time when my world was 'him' and 'I' was often completely lost. 

Recently, I was embroiled in some drama that involved close family members and extended family members who do not know me at all.  This drama involved my close family members defending each other against attacks by some 'not so nice' extended family members.  The interesting part of this 'drama' was that, in spite of the fact that I was just expressing my feelings, an extended family member wrote one of my close family members expressing concern about my emotional state!! Additionally, I was attacked by another extended family member(same family) for one of my blog posts that basically just expressed the facts of the situation while expressing how I felt about that same situation.  Somehow all of this gave me that 'uneasy' crazy feeling.  In the instance of the blog post, I felt that someone was completely shredding 'my character' and I questioned and re-read all of  my communications with this person, trying to find my 'craziness' to see if he was right.  In the case of the other family member who sent the 'concerned' e-mail, I reverted back to questioning my own sanity and wondering if I was indeed, 'just too sensitive'. 

I realized that that family drama triggered those old feelings in me; feelings that were prevalent throughout my teens and 20's.  Somehow when dealing with extended family members that had no empathy for my feelings and made me feel like nothing, I found myself 'back' in that relationship where I learned to feel like I was 'nothing'. Expressing my 'truth' and my 'anger' had once again turned me into the 'crazy one'; the one who was just too emotional.  Luckily, now I have enough awareness and self esteem that I know not to buy into another person's ideas of who I am.  However, it is sometimes difficult to escape from those body memories that come up unbidden when triggered by narcissistic people.  There is just something so mind-blowing and utterly confusing about people who have no empathy, never take responsibility for their actions, and always make the other person 'the bad guy' or the 'crazy one' when they are backed into a corner. 

It took me a long time after that long abusive relationship in my 20's to regain, or even find a self beyond him.  It also took me many years to recover from a hospitalization in my teens that made me feel like the 'crazy' one, that instead of giving me skills and self esteem, gave me shame. As I learn to speak out from my heart and be more of who I am, I realize that some of who I am may make some people uncomfortable.  But, for those who choose to attack me for those feelings or express faux concern about my 'mental state', there is absolutely nothing I can do but ignore them.  Some people are just not worth interacting with.  No matter how hard I try to wrap my head around a person's behavior(particularly a narcissist), it will always be impossible to understand.

It is somewhat easy to distance oneself from toxic people, but it is not nearly as easy to distance oneself from a society that is full of 'expectations' of 'normalcy'.  These expectations shame and exile those of us who may seem 'out of the norm', sometimes driving us underground to isolation and even death.  If we are lucky, we find others like us and realize that we are beautiful in all our craziness.  We are able to share and give back to the world.  If we are not lucky, we are often exiled(with varying diagnoses) into groups of others who are dysfunctional and lost, only to struggle through life unfulfilled and sad.  In order to change all this we need to learn to embrace our 'crazy' selves and be exceedingly gentle with them.  When we meet someone who may seem 'different' or maybe even a little bit 'crazy', we need to open our hearts and minds and listen.  For me, strength comes in finding others walking this path of growth and authenticity.  If we can learn to embrace our differences, band together and reach out, perhaps us 'crazy ones' will begin to change this sometimes baffling and cold world.  We can harness that we which sets us 'apart' and pierce through the crazy making world of  'normalcy' and create a better world. 

A Letter To My Beloved Friend, Heidi A.

It has been almost 7 years since you left us.  It's been 7 years full of turmoil, pain and rarely, joy and laughter.  I miss you my friend; sometimes with great pain and longing.

Grief has taken me places my heart and soul never visited before.  It has taken me into the darkest of holes and back up into the light, at times. I have done things I am not proud of and retreated away from life and parenting in ways that have been less than healthy.  There have been times that I have felt so ripped to shreds that I did not know if I would survive.  I remember walking into my house when I got back from your memorial service in Portland; collapsing in tears when I saw my oldest daughter, realizing that you would never see my girls grow up. Knowing that you would not be here to share this crazy life made me feel lost and afraid.

From the first time I saw you standing in that hallway of our first apartment with your parents, I knew that we would be friends.  Our friendship grew that first year in college, and then waned when I was lost in a relationship that was full of turmoil.  We would always re-connect and grow with each other, even after we both had times of absence, stuck in our own traumas and scared to reach out to each other.  Even in painful times, we knew how to make each other laugh, to listen, and to reflect love to each other.  Ours was a deep friendship ,borne of pain, that grew stronger as the years went by. You 'got' me in a way that no-one else could. 

Since you've been gone, I have suffered the loss of my dad to dementia, career issues, trauma with parenting, the loss of our beloved family cabin and much more.  Every time I am going through something big, either good or bad, I miss you.  I miss being able to call you up on the phone. I miss the realities that you would reflect back to me.  I miss the fact that you could always show me my 'goodness' even when I was feeling horrible about myself.  Your friendship taught me to love; to open my heart.  When you left, I felt that heart shut down.  It is still hard for me to open my heart again because it was beyond painful to lose you.  I don't know that my heart could deal with that kind of pain again.  But, it has and it will because life is impermanent and death happens.  

The weekend you disappeared, I called your house to talk to you.  Your partner's mom answered the phone.  There was something odd in her tone and she said that your partner would call me later.  I got off the phone confused.  On a beautiful, slightly windy February morning, your partner called me and told me you were missing.  My mind reeled in confusion.  For three weeks, I held out hope that you would be found alive.  But, Sunday night in late February, your partner called and told me your body had been found in Laurelhurst Park in a pond.  My mind shut down and I immediately booked a flight to Portland.  I had just suffered one of the biggest losses of my life.  Even 7 years later, there are no answers to what happened.  And there probably never will be.

7 years later, I still sob thinking about it.  Your loss can hit me just as hard 7 years later as it did that Sunday in February.  I've learned that grieving is a spiral; sometimes there is peace and gratitude and other times, there is anger, pain, and deep sadness.  I've learned that friends that you make in shared grief can distance themselves and rip the scab off the wound with their absence.  I've learned how very loved you were by many; how you affected everyone from your work to your personal life.  I've learned that a deep friendship like ours is rare and that many don't understand the deep love that friends can feel for one another. I consider you my soul sister, as much a part of my family as my blood relatives.  Your loss hit me so hard that it took at least 5 years for me to get a grip on it, to stop constantly numbing myself and decide to live.

Every year, I dread this month, the month of your death.  I long to be enlightened, to celebrate who you were and not be so sad about your loss and the lack of answers surrounding your death. But, I always find myself grieving.  The spirals are not as long and the moments of peace are longer, but the sadness hits hard sometimes and all I can do is feel it.

I know that you are not gone my friend.  You are inside of me every day.  You are in nature, in your most beloved place, the place where you found so much peace from a world that was sometimes full of turmoil. You enriched my life in so many ways.  I will never forget your keen intellect, your long detailed stories, your laughter, your stubbornness, your rage, your quest for justice for the young and vulnerable, your unconditional love and so much more. Our friendship is irreplaceable.  I will always miss you, but you will always be in my heart.  This journey of life, no matter where it takes me, will always be traveled hand in hand with you, my soul friend.

Still Angry

There is a lot to be angry about.  A mental health system that is so broken that it rarely helps people recover and at best helps people maintain 'stability' instead of pushing people to be their fullest selves regardless of diagnosis.  A healthcare system that is still broken; that puts profits before people and doctors are unable to spend quality time with patients, often missing critical details that could mean life or death.  A pervading racism that is rarely acknowledged or often vehemently denied.  Rape culture persists; making the victims 'suspect' while perpetrators are given standing ovations. And these are just a few things that make my blood boil, that make me want to scream, hide or run away.  They are things that seem so large that it is easy to throw in the towel and just say it is all too much to even think about.

Personally, I re-cycle through my anger at myself for things I have done that hurt people.  I continually spiral through my anger at others who have hurt me.  Sometimes I think I have found something like 'forgiveness', only to have that old anger hit me again with surprising force.  The events in my life that caused the most trauma stick with me; the feelings don't just go away. Not surprisingly, one of the feelings that comes with all of these traumas is anger. It is a part of my being that I can't seem to erase by either 'healthy' or 'unhealthy' means.  The dream of lasting forgiveness, towards myself, towards others, seems out of reach much of the time.

Our culture has a strange relationship with anger.  Much of our self-help psychology professes avoiding and getting rid of anger.  In the Big Book of Alcoholic's Anonymous, Bill W. says 'If we were to live. We had to be free of anger'.  This is just one example of many similar sentiments that have popped up in the past century as 'pop psychology' has gained a foothold in our culture.  It is hard to escape hearing statements like 'let it go', 'it is what it is' and 'forgive and forget'.  My experience says that much of the time these statements are said when the 'listener' feels uncomfortable with a feeling being expressed to them.  It seems we have a deep and abiding discomfort with the sharing of almost any emotion; especially anger.

I wonder at the root of all this avoidance of feeling.  Could it be that we are taught to deny our feelings so that we can be more subservient in a culture that is far from just?  Could it be that the teachings on suppression of anger have taken away our revolutionary thought and instead, promoted endless navel gazing?  Could the diagnosis of almost any extreme emotion as an 'illness' cause suppression and despair?  Could this avoidance of feeling actually create violence and hopelessness by making us so terrified of our emotions that we don't know how to cope except to turn it against ourselves or others? 

Our rapid media cycle gives us a plethora of issues to be angry about for brief time periods until the next issue.  Sometimes, this anger comes out in comments on social media and even attacks against other people.  It's easy to hide behind a computer and spout out hurtful anger when you don't have to face any consequence of it.  What if we could learn to transform our anger into real social change instead of easy reactionary anger that does not help anyone?

In order to do this we need to be willing to be uncomfortable and open our hearts to other views, even when they make us angry.  Anger seems like a healthy response to an often unjust world.  If we can learn to speak out, utilizing our feelings as fuel, we can open people's hearts, helping them see things in ways that they hadn't before.  Beyond speaking out about the things that make us angry, we also need to act to change this world that sometimes hurts our hearts so very much.

I am a strong believer in the quote 'if you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention'.  I am often guilty of seething in my anger, letting it take up my time and energy towards no useful end.   As I grow older, I learn that I want to use my anger as fuel; fuel to write about the things that anger me and educate people to facilitate real change.  I want to use my anger to soften my heart. Sometimes all I can do is feel without judging or trying to extinguish it.  When, I have the courage to feel, I can turn my anger into something productive.  We all need to have that courage, to open our hearts, feel, and most importantly, move to change the many things that are unacceptable in this world. 

At War With My Body

For at least 30 years, I have been at war with my body.  This body that has birthed 2 children and survived years and years of self destructive behavior has stalwartly endured my attempts to kill it off, my disdain, and my attempts to dissociate from it.

When did it start? This deep disdain?  I vividly remember seeing a picture of my brother and I taken when I was in my early teens.  I thought I looked horrible.  Within a few years, my war started in earnest with starvation and eventually, bulimia.  I was a shy, awkward, smart teen who never had a boyfriend or a girlfriend; never asked on a date, never asked to a dance.  I thought that there was something deeply flawed about who I was.  Somehow I bought into the societal ideals that said that I was nothing without a romantic relationship; that there was something very wrong with me.

At 16, my depression grew deeper with trauma in my life and I almost completely stopped eating.  This led to an obsession with food and my body that lasted several years and almost ended in death.  As I grew thinner, I remember several people commenting on how good I looked.  In my sick mind, I assumed that meant the thinner I was, the better I was.  Soon, the thinness was not very attractive; I was skeletal.  At my lowest point I was 5'5",78 lbs and probably close to death.  It took years to recover. Somehow a yearning to live kicked in and my obsession with food and my body gave way to a grudging acceptance that I needed to eat; but very little acceptance of my body.

As I recovered from my eating disorder, I experienced rape and later, domestic violence all in a period of about one year.  During the rape, I remember that a large part of it was spent completely dissociated and outside of my body.  When I experienced violence against me, I experienced a similar dissociation.  The year I was pregnant, I remember walking around in a fog, completely numb to the pain I was in.  This period started a lifelong struggle with cutting.  I did not know how to express my feelings or ask for help, so turned against my body, yet again, by cutting it.  In some ways, it grounded me back in my body by allowing me to experience my deep pain in a physical way.  Perhaps it was a way to return to my body, a way that no-one understood and many were completely baffled and disgusted by.  I did not have the tools to cope with my pain at being violated sexually and physically so I reverted to self destruction.

The external violence against my body amplified my self destruction and detachment, but the deep dislike of my body started well before the violence.  I can't help but wonder how this body hatred settled into my bones, my life, so very easily.  My mom recently told me that one of  my grandma's would not go to her church because she was ashamed of her ankles.  I know my mom and my other grandma were no fans of their bodies either.  As women, maybe we were taught in subtle and not so subtle ways, that we were our bodies and when our bodies did not fit with societal ideals, we turned against them rendering ourselves disconnected from them.  In some ways, perhaps, disconnection was almost a form of rebellion; taking our much maligned and sometimes desired bodies out of the equation taught us to build up other parts of ourselves, beyond our bodies. If we felt we could not own and love our own bodies, we could at least cultivate and love our minds, hearts, and souls.  Sadly, this rebellion kept us from having a full human experience.

Reconnecting with swimming this past year has helped me reconnect with and love my body, at least a little bit.  The water is one place I can feel calm and strong inside my body beyond the limitations of daily chronic pain.  My youngest feels this body connection and calm while dancing.  But, if we did not have our physical capacity to do those things we love, I would hope that connection and peace would remain beyond what our bodies could 'do' and stay with us, deep in our bones no matter what our limitations.  Our bodies are part of our expression of our life here on earth and good or bad, disconnection from them seems both sad and painful. If I could teach my girls one thing, it would be this: we need to ignore the messages we have learned and embrace this human experience in our body with all of its limitations and imperfections.

As I age, I still feel the inward judgment that comes from societal ideals of beauty and attractiveness. In the past 10 years, I have become a larger person, weighing twice as much as I did when I was 16. I still don't like to look at myself in a mirror, especially naked. I have never felt attractive and  still sometimes treat my body like an unwelcome stranger.  My war with my body continues at times and it is difficult to avoid detachment and be 'in' my body with all its messy feelings and imperfections.

As I enter 'middle age' and the second half of my life, I no longer want to be at war with  my body.  I want to love it, in all its imperfections and limitations appreciating what it has done for me and its amazing capacity to survive in spite of my attempts to harm it and kill it.  I want to embrace all the sensations that come with being in a human body, the pleasure and the pain.  Finally, I want to nourish this body, learning to take care of and be 'in' it, instead of constantly warring against it. I want these things for my girls and for all who are at war with their bodies, may we find peace and finally love these bodies we were born with, beyond societal messages and beyond the pain that others have inflicted on them.  May we end the war and truly experience all of who we are.

End of Year Letter with Just A Slight Edge of Gloom

The end of the year is a time for reflection.  I can look back at 2014 and see a lot of positives and a lot of negatives.  Right now, I am in a state of sadness about an ongoing situation in my life that seems to have no end and no resolution.  It is hard to muster up the New Year's cheer today.  For those that have followed my blog, it is related to My Daily Nightmare blog post and the sadness around all this feels like it is going to suck me under.  But, I will push forward and attempt to write and maybe find something in this year, in this day that is worth writing about.

This year was a year of firsts for my youngest, who continues to push forward in life with passion and determination.  First solo, first car and driver's license, first job, and first surgery.  Driving took her further away from us and closer to adulthood; it broke my heart a little, although I tried let go. Her incredible solo punctuated her love for dance and showed others how talented she really is(although I had known it all along, of course).  Tonsil surgery was brutal, but she made it through with a little help from many friends who helped her keep her mind off the pain.   She continues to push forward, much too fast, with much enthusiasm and energy. Her ability to see and create magic and beauty in the world inspires me every day.

Last year, about this time, I was getting ready for big toe joint fusion surgery.  This terrified me as 2 previous foot surgeries had been failures.  Although recovery wasn't easy, this surgery has actually been a success.  I no longer walk around with my big toe in constant and chronic pain.  With effort and a little pain, I was able to hike 3 miles last summer with my sister, niece and my youngest.  This would have been impossible before the surgery.  It's incredible how freeing and amazing it felt to have health insurance, get something taken care of and be able to do things, like yard work, that I had not been able to do for years.  I still deal with chronic foot and back pain, but at least that foot is somewhat better.

One of the most pivotal parts of the year for me was quitting a job which I hated with no 'safety' plan or back up in place.  This decision was one of the wisest decisions I have made although it continues to be terrifying.  I took the time to figure out what I wanted to do and learned how incredibly burned out I was by day to day client work and fighting with systems.  It is yet to be known whether it is a line of work that I will return to, but the break has been extremely helpful.  The break led me to writing again.  I started blogging and have absolutely loved it.  No matter what happens, I know that I did the right thing because the decision led me back to doing something I love, no matter where it leads(and a lot of bonding with  my little pack of dogs!!).

Most importantly, this year has been a year of helping people.  From helping my mom with recovery from knee surgery to helping my youngest recover from tonsil surgery, I was able to be there for my family. In March, we were blessed with a strange and unforeseen(long story) visit by a young man with mental health issues we had never met who had nowhere to go and did not know what to do. This young man was one of the most forgiving young people I ever met and he touched my heart. My partner, my youngest and I were able to be there for him in concrete ways that helped him get to the next place he needed to go.  I am always grateful for the opportunity to help my closed loved ones, but in this case, I was very touched by the three of us and our ability to come through for this young person we had never met.

Writing this blog post has shown me that sometimes, in writing, I realize the good things and can open up my own heart even in the midst of extremely trying circumstances.  There was more to this year: there was theft, filing a restraining order, a great road trip with my partner, a crazy bad camping trip, the loss of our family cabin and some of the upheaval that has plagued us for quite some time. But, the good still shines through: my partner finding a new hobby she was passionate about(fishing), me rekindling my love of writing, and my youngest continuing her amazing life journey and dedication to her passions.

As the Grateful Dead would say, it's been another long strange trip.  Most of my years are.  I am grateful that I found new friends this year to share my journey.  I am grateful for my family and my old friends who love me.  2015 will bring new journeys, heartaches and joys. All I can wish for is to continue growing as a parent and a person and continuing to help people through my writing and more.  Sometimes my heart feels too open, too broken down, and too much for this world, but somehow those little pieces of hope just help keep me pushing through.  Thanks to everyone who helps keep the pieces of my heart from flying apart. With all my love.

From Despair, Into Action

I enter the end of the Christmas season with the usual lack of Christmas cheer.  The kids will probably be critical of the gifts.  The world is filled with tragedy.  My baking and wrapping skills aren't up to par. A few situations in my life are not getting any better. I feel like I have little power to change one of them, and plenty of power to change the other, but lack motivation.

One of my biggest lurking feelings is a feeling of despair.  Reading the comment threads on subjects related to racism, rape, and homelessness has caused me to reflect on the lack of kindness and compassion that seem to be pervasive in our society right now.  Another things that troubles me is a lack of attention to huge horrible things that happen, like our countries drone program and the fact that the Taliban recently slaughtered 145 people, mostly children.  It seems, we either want to hide our heads in the sand or lash out in 'black and white', us vs. them ways that don't serve any of us.

This feeling of despair is not new to me.  I have felt this 'weight of the world' feeling since I was a small child.  It has not served me well in many ways.  But, it did make me an excellent case worker, someone who had big compassion for my clients and an ability look at solutions.  Being a case worker broke my heart, over and over again.  Seeing a system that was so broken, that did not serve my people in the ways they needed to be served killed me a bit inside.  It left me feeling powerless and burned out.  So, I have taken a break and started writing again, an old love rekindled.

Somehow, I need to learn to turn that despair into action.  Blogging has helped ease my powerless feelings.  It has given voice to my personal experiences while hopefully helping others learn from my past and my insights into my experiences.  In ways, it has helped me combat the powerless feelings that I have when I read hateful comments on Internet threads.  My hope is that maybe in my little way, I am doing my part to combat the hatred, to educate people about things like rape, racism, mental health stigma, domestic violence, and more.  I can only hope that it is better than staying silent about these things and wanting to hide in a cave. (although writing does not always take away that 'hide in a cave' feeling)

This Christmas, I also try to have gratitude to turn around that despair.  Sometimes, this works and sometimes it fails miserably.  Many times, I throw up my hands in hopelessness, feeling like I don't know how to parent or even be much of an adult.  So  many things happened this year in the world 'triggered' me and filled me a sense of powerlessness.   There are days that everything seems freaking crazy and that there is nothing to do but despair.  It's my fall back, I am far from an optimist.

I do see that change happens sometimes.  In my home state of Wyoming, gay marriage is now legal. This is something I would never imagine happening in my lifetime.  We have a religious leader, the Pope, who is talking about deep and important issues regarding class and poverty.  Personally, I see the inherent goodness in people; from rallying around people who have loved ones with cancer to people in recovery helping each other in concrete and helpful ways that change lives. The Black Lives Matter protest movement is working to address systemic issues that pervade our culture regarding race.  We cannot afford to be disheartened because all around us, we see that change can happen, sometimes very slowly, but we cannot give up.

Perhaps my despair is actually a gift that pushes me to speak my truth.  It has inspired me to move, to speak about the issues important to me in my personal and professional life.  My despair has almost killed me, but it has also given me a strength and insight that I would not have without it.

This Christmas, I can look back at all the horrible things that have happened in the world and get completely bogged down, or I can choose to re-commit myself to making change in the ways that I can.  I will choose to re-commit myself to being a better parent, to teaching my kids that the latest, greatest gifts and purchases are much less important than the connections we make with people; that through their gifts of writing, dance and art, they can make changes in the world in their own small ways. I will choose to continue following my passion to speak out through writing about issues that are important to me, particularly about our mental health system and changes that must be made.  I will choose to continue learning to connect with new friends and expand my circle of people to make my world a little more 'large'.  Finally, my hope is that we can all learn to speak out a little more when we see injustice, that we can choose to help, instead of harm, that we can make space in our hearts for the suffering of the world and use our own unique gifts to keep pushing forward and change this crazy world.

Who Is The Victim?

My consciousness is not ready to let this topic go.  Camille Cosby's statement on her husband's rape filled me with anger and helped me realize that I still need to speak about this issue.  One blog post was not enough.

When I was 14 years old my world changed.  My coach was arrested for statutory rape.  My world shattered.  He was a man who I spent hours of my life with, who I looked up to, loved and respected. Innocence was lost.  No longer could I trust my instincts.  It did not help that I soon found out that many knew, but, I was one of those who didn't, who was completely blindsided.  I was sickened and sad and had nowhere to turn.  The next year I almost starved to death.  My psychiatrist in the mental hospital I was in at 16 assumed that my trauma was somehow linked to my coach and would try to get me to admit abuse.  The problem was I was never abused by my coach, but the trauma of losing my innocence, of losing someone I looked up to had wounded me deeply.  The clueless psychiatrist refused to see that sexual violence has vicarious victims. Writing about it now, almost thirty years later makes my palms sweat and fills me with anxiety.  These traumas hold on to us.  

As vicarious victims of this crime, we spent hours of our lives year round with this coach. From him, we learned a lifelong passion and life lessons.  It was hard to grasp that he had done something wrong.  It was stunning and sad.  For some, these feelings made them lash out at the victim with great vigor.  I remember being baffled by this also.  They could not grasp that this figure that they loved could do something wrong, or that it was wrong to have sex with a minor, and even more so when you are in a position of power.  Many made the victim the 'wrong' one in this case.  It was a case of extreme bullying which I am sad to say I did not speak out against, but only watched in silence.

Watching this ostracism and bullying taught me that it was extremely frightening and isolating to report a rape.  It kept me from reporting my rape my first year in college. Perhaps if the adults in our lives would have been more open, would have come out and talked to us about how wrong it was,  maybe things would have been different. The victim left our school and life went on.  All of us shell shocked and unsure how to process what we had been through, we just pushed forward.  I don't know if anyone realized how traumatized we were, how much losing our sense of safety and trust affected us. We learned to vilify the victim of this crime and to silently cope with our conflicting emotions in sometimes destructive ways.  

Unfortunately, I have seen this same type of victim bullying in the  Cosby case. For me, these very public rape cases have triggered me and filled me with anger when I see victims blamed yet again. When Camille Cosby compared her husband's rapes to the UVA rape case and said that the UVA rape case 'proved untrue', she was bullying that victim.  I felt sick for the victim in that case as Rolling Stone's poor journalism has thrown her story into question and people are now throwing it out there as an example of false rape reporting. Camille Cosby is using it as an example of why we should think her husband is innocent.   I hear Camille Cosby asking 'who is the victim?' and I cringe inwardly.  In this case, I do not understand how her denial can run so deep as to claim that over 20 women are making up the same story.(a story that isn't new to her since a case was settled in 2006 with Cosby which had 13 witnesses with similar stories, many of whom are coming forward now) Why say anything in this case? Why bully the victims of her husband and the victim in the UVA case?  To many, it is very clear who the victim is, Camille Cosby and it is not your husband.  

We want to believe that sexual predators look a certain way.  It's hard to believe that they are often perfectly nice people in many areas of their lives.  But, the reality is that many sexual predators are like Bill Cosby and like my coach.  They are sometimes good parents, good friends and even 'role models'.  They don't 'look' or 'act' scary and this makes it harder for us to believe and support victims.  We do not want to believe people like our good 'father' figure, Bill Cosby or my 'fun' father figure, my coach are criminals in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This mantle of respectability and kindness give predators a great deal of power with victims and with the people around them.  It contributes to burying allegations of sexual crimes and blaming the victim.

I think of the men and women who I know who have been sexually abused as I read this latest round of victim blaming.  I think of people who have been abused by siblings, by acquaintances, by fathers, by strangers, by teachers and by coaches.  I knew what it was like to love and respect a sexual predator. When, I found out he was a predator, my heart was broken.  My feelings were so mixed up because I could not accept reality.  Our culture refuses to accept the reality that men and women who are 'respectable' can be predators.  We  need to wake up.

When men and women come forward with sexual harassment or rape allegations, we need to confront those who immediately question and shame victims.  We need to know that in spite of how someone may seem to us, they indeed may be sexual predators. Our culture is rife with examples of victim blaming that starts sometimes as simple as a 'boys with be boys' attitudes when girls are harassed in schools.  It starts with something as simple as abuse of boys by women being laughed off and ignored.  As victims, we need no longer remain silent.  We need to fight back in ways that make things different for our children.  All of us can no longer sit silently by and tolerate victim blaming or sexual abuse on any level.