The Brick Shithouse in a Hurricane

***Trigger Warning*** Child Abuse

I am an empath. I feel everything! My own feelings and the feelings of everyone and everything around me. I’m in tune with all of the energy that flows around me.

I’ve heard some folks refer to it as a ‘gift’. If I know anything for sure, it’s that I wouldn’t wish this ‘gift’ on anyone. Sometimes it’s a wondrous and beautiful thing, but more often than not it feels more like a curse, especially lately.

When I was a child my father would punish me for being too sensitive. Showing emotion was a sign of weakness. It wouldn’t get me anywhere in life. He figured we all needed to ensure that the only thing people ever saw in us was strength. It was how he was raised. It had been literally beaten into him.

He said that if I wanted to get anywhere in my life I needed to learn to stand strong like a brick shithouse in a hurricane.

Sadly, I was excruciatingly weak...

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I cried when I was two years old and fell and broke my arm. He said that I would miss out on a lot of living if I wasted my time crying over every bump and bruise. So I got up, swallowed my tears, and went sledding, then out for dinner and to the movies without another word. I let out an occasional whimper of pain, but that just annoyed everyone.

It wasn’t until the next morning that they took me to the hospital and found out that I had broken it. It was Sunday and my mother was in a rush to get 7 kids ready for church. I couldn’t put my arm through my dress sleeve, so she grabbed it and yanked it through. I let out a blood-curdling scream. Her face went ashen when she finally saw that it had an odd bend to it and it was horribly swollen and bruised.

I cried when my grandpa died and again when grandma died, too. Dad asked me what good I thought my tears would do and said it wouldn’t bring them back. Nothing would. That just made me cry harder which in turn made him angrier.

On his deathbed, he beamed with pride as he told me he’d seen that I’d grown into a woman that was tough as nails and could ride out any storm.

He had no clue of the storms that brewed just beneath the surface. I had no clue of the shitstorms yet to come.

For me, emotions strike before conscious thoughts. It gets very overwhelming trying to maintain a calm facade while also sorting out my own emotions from those of someone else and trying to carry on a conversation and process all of the information I’m bombarded with.

Those are the times that I remind myself of the brick shithouse in a hurricane. I swallow the raw emotions and force them deep into the depths of darkness with the rest of the shit I’ve seen and dealt with all of my life.

Lately, though, the storms just keep coming. There’s no eye to this hurricane, no calm before the next storm hits.

The mortar is starting to show signs of wear. Last week my granddaughter flipped her lid and screamed at me when I told her I was okay. She said she’d seen me crying. She knew that I was lying, I am not okay.

I took a deep breath and told her that actually, I AM OKAY. I told her that it’s normal to be sad and cry with all the things we’re facing right now. Even though it goes against everything that I was raised to be, I told her that not only is it okay to let it out, but sometimes it is even necessary.

This week another gust has blown in.

I haven’t had a chance to repair the cracked mortar from the last one, yet I’ve been told by authorities that I can’t talk about what’s going on now. It’s under investigation. If I say or write any of the details before the investigation is completed it could ruin the chances of justice being served.

With every fiber of my being, I want to rage and scream!

This is a path I’ve walked before. I know for a fact that the chance of justice actually being served is very slim if it exists at all. This is the exact road that has made this brick shithouse a force to be reckoned with.

I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I can honestly tell you from firsthand experience that trying to bring pedophiles to justice is more traumatizing than sexual assault.

I have helped far too many friends and loved ones try to navigate their way to seeing justice served upon monsters. We are mandated to report child abuse, but the minute it is reported the victim and all witnesses are told that they must remain silent and let the investigators do their job. They can’t even discuss the matter amongst themselves.

Sadly, I have never actually seen a case where the perpetrator ended up serving any time. Children are by their very nature, unreliable witnesses.

They aren’t allowed to discuss the matter with loved ones and lean into the support that could be offered up to them by those who they are truly comfortable with. That could very well taint their testimony.

Instead, they are forced to rehash every nitty-gritty, ugly, and embarrassing detail of the event with complete strangers in unfamiliar settings. They are pushed to provide details that are often far beyond the realm of their understanding, like exact dates and times.

They are grilled about ways that they may have made it seem like they wanted it and made to feel like it was somehow their fault that these creeps couldn’t keep their hands to themselves. Worse yet, they are saddled with guilt when trauma clouds their memory.

We’re taught early on that talking about our private parts and sexual activity is supposed to be private and adult conversation. It’s not appropriate to talk about these things with just anybody.

We teach our children to come to us if somebody touches them inappropriately or makes them uncomfortable. We are mandated by law to report child abuse of any kind, but when we do we are actually prolonging the trauma as our children are repeatedly put under pressure to be able to provide all of the uncomfortable details in a manner that will stand up under the scrutinizing questioning of a defense attorney.

More often than not our children are far too vulnerable to withstand that kind of pressure, especially when they aren’t free to discuss it with those who truly love and care about them.

We come forward out of a desire to stop the monsters from hurting anyone ever again. That’s seldom the outcome though.

I’ve seen far too many cases reported and investigated. I don’t recall any of them ever going to trial. I have only ever seen one man receive any kind of repercussion for his deviance. He was red-flagged by Child Welfare.

Truth be told, it means nothing to him. It would only ever come up if someone did a criminal record check with a vulnerable sector search.

Legally, one can’t even warn others of the danger posed by these people without potentially facing slander charges.

The judicial system victimizes survivors of sexual abuse.

They don’t provide or even allow for healthy processing of the trauma, despite their claims of supporting victims.

I’m trying to brace myself to stand strong in silence regarding the incident itself while delivering a young girl to interviews with investigators and whatever other hoops they expect her to jump through.

She has visions of seeing the man who repeatedly groped and fondled her go to jail. I keep telling her not to set her heart on that outcome.

I tell her I love her and I’m proud of her for being brave enough to follow through. I tell her that no matter what THEY say, she should never feel ashamed of what has happened to her. It wasn’t her fault!

I emphasize the fact that no matter how hard they try to press her to tell them details, there’s no shame in telling them that she doesn’t remember.

I really hope that she’ll tell them point-blank that memory lapses are a natural trauma response!

It’s a phrase I will repeat over and over again until it’s firmly engrained in her memory. She has absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

I’ve given her advice for the next time something like this happens, as it almost certainly will. She was shocked when I informed her that she has every right to beat the ever-loving fuck out of anyone that touches her when she has told them not to. Her body is hers alone and she can take any means necessary to defend herself. Self-defense is perfectly acceptable.

I have told her that there’s a very good chance that it will happen again. Far too many men out there have no control over themselves. They are pigs that think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. When she encounters one, it’s important to make a lot of noise. Being loud about their indecent behavior empowers her and leaves them feeling small and facing the shame of the people around them. It’s not her shame to carry, it’s their’s and she’s more than entitled to make them own it!

We desperately need to change the narrative surrounding sexual abuse!

The ‘Me Too’ movement was a start, but it really didn’t go far enough.

It’s all well and good to break the silence and stand together in support of our fellow survivors.

The most important thing is all too often glossed over or completely overlooked. We are not defined by this one thing!!

There’s no need to spend the rest of your life saying or feeling that you are a victim of sexual abuse!!

We can overcome sexual assault, but we do have to let go of the victim mindset if we want to heal and move forward. We are strong and brave! We are forces to be reckoned with! We are not victims… we are survivors!

We can and should be able to name the names and kick some ass!

Our bodies are our temples! When somebody makes an attempt to desecrate the sanctity of our temples we need to stand up, like the warriors that we are! We need to be strong, loud, and proud and defend ourselves and our right to be respected!

It’s the deviants that are the ones that should be hanging their heads in shame and hiding away from the world in fear of the repercussions of their atrocities, not us!

Yes… there’s another storm brewing and this one threatens to take down the brick shithouse. This storm is bubbling up from within.

I’m not going to let the justice system stifle and victimize this young lady!

If her wound is too fresh to stand up for herself when they try to make her feel guilty for any of this then I will be her voice!

The brick shithouse will explode into a full-on shit storm, the likes of which no one has seen before!!

This story was originally published here:

There is an update posted here: