Physical and Emotional Scars

I had a "unpleasant" doctors visit a couple of months ago.

I do have internal physical scars that cause pain at times. Not too much pain. But enough to remind me of how they got there. They are inside me. So long ago, I told him he was hurting me. He didn't listen. That's where the scars are, exactly where I told him he was hurting me. 

They bear witness.

I decided I should republish the blog. I don't need to add to it. Some of the old articles list themselves as new, but they are old. It bears witness to a long painful journey.

We keep our sunshine on Facebook. But life comes with some hard things.

Just as my scars are a constant reminder to me of one who would not hear me, I must always listen to others who are suffering. My scars ensure my empathy for others who are not heard.

 I have other pursuits in life, and don't want to achieve my goals through 'victimhood'. So I leave this here. 

I have important things to do on my journey. After witnessing hells, I see the path not just for myself but for others.

Life doesn't have to be this way. We can choose a better path.

 

Empathy for Spiders

At 16, my bedroom was the basement. I had a bathroom off of the side, and two storage rooms off of the bathroom. The bathroom had a jacuzzi tub in it. But when I tried filling up the tub, and turning it on, dead and living hobo spiders would come out of the pipes. Sometimes I would take the time to run it, and take out all the spiders. But that was usually just too much work. The basement was filled with Hobo spiders. I wasn't too afraid of spiders. When I found a spider near my bed, I would take a long piece of toilet paper and drape it down to pick up the spider. Then I would walk the spider quickly over to the toilet and flush it down the toilet. Even though I knew the spiders could bite me, I never had the heart to kill them. One day I looked at my pillow, and their sat a big, huge, ugly spider in the middle of my pillow. By the time I returned with my draping toilet paper I couldn't find the spider any more. I was a little uneasy putting my head on my pillow that night. But I did, and went to sleep. If a spider hung out at the opposite side of my room, I left it alone. Now that I know how plumbing systems work, I m pretty sure their were not as many spiders as I thought. I was probably flushing the same spider down the toilet each day. One morning I woke up with a huge welt on my right thigh. It was 2 1/2 inches wide and about a half inch high. It was huge and just below my P.E. short line. The girls at school thought I was a freak. The next night I went to bed and thought, Well, it didn't kill me. If I m sleeping it won't scare me. So whatever. And I went to sleep just fine. Well, now I know Hobo spiders are actually quite dangerous. Looking back I know I should have killed them all. Instead, because I had empathy, I kept living in a situation without ridding myself of the danger in the room. I didn't have the heart for the ugly process of killing big, fat spiders. Empathy for spiders, not a good thing. How does this relate to domestic violence? Hmmm.

The Excuse for Abusing Your Wife

It was 2:30 am. I was so tired. I put our four little children to bed earlier, and after taking care of everything that needed to be done, I was finally in bed with my husband. My oldest was 7 and my youngest child was only 2 1/2 weeks old. I was crying, I told him what he demanded hurt and I felt demeaned. I told him the baby was going to wake soon, and I would need to nurse her, and I hadn't slept yet. He demanded. While the lights were off, I had tears in my eyes I kept drying. I knew I couldn't appear weak to him. Any weakness was an excuse for anger. The degradation I felt was so complete my heart ripped inside. I fought an overwhelming desire to die. I finally told him I couldn't do it anymore. I shouldn't have to put up with a wife who complains about pain or feeling demeaned during sex. He said angrily. Did he understand how much he was hurting me, body and soul? The events leading up to my child's birth, and after, with two deaths in the family, and everything my husband had done, left me emotionally and spiritually destroyed. I was scared and confused. Over the last few months my husband had become suddenly crueler and angry for reasons I couldn't begin to understand. He kept saying I was controlling him. I never told him what to do. I accepted the choices he made for our family. If I was just really kind and loving during this traumatic time, he would come back to his senses. I just had to put up with and forgive his cruelties during this period. It was going to pass, and the good husband I once new would come back. And our family was going to be okay. My children needed him as a father. You can't raise good children without a good father. He was going to look back on all of this with sorrow and remorse. His state of mind was temporary. He was going to get better. I just had to endure. But when he said those words, I shouldn't have to put up with a wife who complains about pain or feeling demeaned during sex. I suddenly realized, all those times he hurt me during intimacy, he knew. It wasn't accidental, he didn't just forget that that same thing hurt. He didn't care. He took pleasure while knowingly inflicting pain. I can't say what happened next. Later, hen he was done, we laid there as he explained to me what he likes and doesn't like. He grabbed different parts of my body, and told me how he wanted them shaped by my working out. He told me exactly how long he wanted my private hair. He told me he deserved a prettier wife. I needed a body like Jamie Lee Curtis and a butt like Jennifer Lopez. He lectured me until the baby woke, I got up, got her out of bed, took her too the living room and nursed her, bewildered. Every night for years, I remembered that night. He's never said he's sorry. Even when I confronted him years later. Over those last few months, he kept talking and obsessing about me controlling him. He said I was only kind to him to control him. He related many of the kind things I had done through our marriage and explained to me that he knew I just did them to control him. He told me that our last two pregnancies were just to control him. The first of the two, we decided together, he took a year off of school, and got a job with insurance so we could have the child. The second of the two, I told him if we got pregnant, our child would be disabled due to the medication I used that month. He didn't listen, he used force. And I forgave him, overwhelmed by the possible consequences. Then he was angry about those last two pregnancies. Why had my husband, my eternal companion, the father of my children, become so cruel over the last few years of our marriage? He would ignore me when I told him he was hurting me. He would hold my wrists when I tried to push him away from doing something I wasn't comfortable with. Until I finally accepted that I had no say. I accepted that for now, I would have to feel pain. How could a man who goes to church every Sunday, and reads the Bible justify this. I thought he loved me. I thought he was just going through a difficult time. Since kindness provoked him as a tool of manipulation, and I was determined to prove my love by kindness, the marriage didn't end well. For years his behavior confused me. He never expressed the slightest remorse. He stood before me with confidence so many times. How is that possible. Years later I read about the Hutu/Tutsi and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. In Bosnia the Serbian's were taught that the Croatians and the Muslims were using every means necessary to subjugate and control them. The Serbian army used rape as a major weapon to punish the other two populations for their actions. In Rwanda, the Hutu's were told the Tutsi women were using there feminine abilities to seduce, control, manipulate and pollute the Hutu population. The Hutu's targeted and slaughtered the women. In a marriage, once a man becomes convinced his wife is using intimacy to control him, his whole nature changes. Intimacy in no longer an act of love and bonding. It's about control, and a place where a man can punish a woman for trying to control him. See the standard Rhetoric of Hate The woman doesn't have to actually be controlling the man, he just needs to believe it. It's very easy to twist reality to convince a man his innocent wife is trying to control him. The Savior taught that we all have control over ourselves. If all you have is a mite, you still have the self control to decide to offer it up to the Lord. If someone is cruel, we can exercise ultimate self control by reciprocating with sincere kindness. But once someone becomes convinced that kindness and Christlike values are used only to control and manipulate others, all actions provoke them. Christ was crucified by those who believed all his kind service, healings, teachings, were just manipulations to take away their power and control of the people. The righteous assert self control and agency by unearned kindness. The cruel assert their power by cruelty and aggression.

Why Women Stay

Women who stay with those who hurt them are often asked "Why". Why do you continue to love him? Why does she stay with him? Why does she let him hurt her? Women stay for a collage of reasons. There's Stockholm Syndrome, low self esteem, the belief she deserves maltreatment, for the children, the expectation that the emotional investment will eventually pay out, the belief he will change, the belief his abuse is only temporary, not understanding she's actually being abused, the desire to be a good Mormon, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, fear of making it on her own, the list goes on and on. If I can control myself, I want to write about only two of those reasons. Yesterday for the first time a friend of mine expressed a drive that has driven me for decades, that she too has. Frequently, when I look at someone, I see who they are, and who they are meant to be. Now when I say Who they are. I m deceiving you. It should be past tense. My faith teaches that our spirits all stood together before our Father God before we were born, that we rejoiced at the plan for us to have a chance at life and prove ourselves here. We all chose to be here, and we felt love for each other, felt the love of God, and wanted to help each other grow. Each of us has a great potential, but their is no fate or destiny, just a specific calling we can choose to live up to or not. When I say Who they are it's really a sense of Who they were in the presence of God. When you look on someone with the mindset of who they were before God and who they are meant to be your heart is filled with a passion for the individual. You love them without reserve, and you hope their life will be filled with events that will lead them to their own greatness. While this beautiful view of others fills you with compassion, a desire to help them on their way, and even be a part of it, it has a hellish side affect. By the first few decades in life, so many of us are off track and lost our faith, hope and charity. Some have become emotional predators to others. Many have completely lost themselves in their challenges and are no where near who they were meant to be. Sometimes women like me are so filled with the vision of another's potential she simply can't see what he has chosen to become and is. She's blind to the danger of now, and what they are choosing to become. She cannot accept who he is Now. And/Or Seeing his choice not to become all he was meant to be is pure hell. She wants to shake him and say, Can't you see what you were meant to be? Why are you choosing less? That old nurturing drive kicks in. She may try to help him back on track. During the worst of my own ordeal, the image of being tightly strapped to the back leg of a stampeding elephant filled my mind. Viewing in Mosaic is one other reason it can be hard to leave or see in the moment. When I look at someone, every memory, every event, every emotion I have ever felt toward them surfaces to create one larger picture and combined emotion. Every time I see him, even now, I remember hearing his voice for the first time, the first time I felt his hand take mine, our first date, our second and on, I feel his hand holding my head as he kissed me across the altar and refused to let go, I remember him the night his mother died, I see him sit discouraged at terrible setbacks, I feel him pick me up over his head and spin me, I hear him say ditto , I see him hold our first new baby, I hear him tell me he wants to bash our new son's head into the ceiling and the intense fear, I feel him hold me as I cry at night, I see him work hard day after day in school, I see his mother telling stories of him, I remember every sacrifice and trial faced to help him achieve his desires, comforting him, and it goes on and one. The most powerful memory was our marriage. The overwhelming sense of peace, being in the right place, at the right time with the right man at our wedding. An overwhelming peaceful sense of this is good, and this is right, remembering that every day. Every event, every memory is always there. The love, the abuse, the fear, the hope, the incredible joy, and the incredible pain. It is the whole picture I have at the moment that drives me. A present hurtful moment is out weighted by a vast mosaic of life. Thus in the moment of one very cruel act, it is still difficult to become angry. It is not until the number of cruel moments in the mosaic memory overwhelms the sweet. It's hard to become angry in with your husband when every morning, every day you remember the feeling of the first time you kissed. One singular terrible event rarely out weighs the many other memories. Those who see in mosaic take a long time to become angry. A mosaic view and mosaic emotion made it difficult for me to understand his anger at simple events. He saw in the present, and each event of the present was powerful enough to overwhelm everything else. I could not relate to that. But I knew and sensed that for him, if I did anything or appeared to do anything wrong, in any moment that would be it for him.

I forgot to mention in the Redirecting Guild article the effect guilt has on an abuser during counseling. As abusers redirect their guilt and retaliate against their partner every time they are confronted by their conscience, going through abuse counseling can be traumatic for both parties. I've heard plenty of stories and see it with my own eyes. The abuser attends a counseling session that confronts his abusive nature. The abuser then comes home and takes his guilt out on his children and or partner in a dramatic episode.

Families of Abusers

Originally published in 2012

Conscience Impairment. (CI) The prefrontal cortex of our brain, is where doctors claim our conscience sets. Any Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) can severely damage this section, especially in early childhood. Just as we can loose our hearing and eyesight, we can loose our Conscience through no fault of our own. Those without a functioning Conscience are often referred to as sociopaths. Sociopaths have no sense of right or wrong. They do have a sense of their own personal needs and wants, and this replaces their conscience. However one of the basic needs of the Sociopathic form of Conscience Impairment is social respect. They want people to love them, and will conform to the social dictates of who they are with to achieve that affection. The Conscience Impaired will conform instantly to the morals of whomever they are with. Just as the blind need guide dogs, and the deaf need closed captioning, lip reading, and sign language, or prosthetics, the Conscience Impaired need others to provide a conscience. They use the people around them as sort of a prosthetic conscience. Depending on the degree of Conscience Impairment, if the people around them have high moral standards, the Conscience Impaired, will be guided by them, and can even make it to heaven. Believe it or not. However if the Conscience Impaired is surrounded by those with a low moral code, or those who turn a blind eye, and allowed secrecy, the Conscience Impaired will wreck havoc. There is no cure for these forms of Conscience Impairment, only management. Unfortunately, the Conscience Impaired make the cover up of their disability a full time job, and few are aware of their condition. They crave secrecy. Usually by the time you figure come to understand them, you ve been literally raped robbed, or even murdered. The Conscience Impaired feel no remorse or guilt. They may be upset or ashamed when discovered but they have no remorse for hurting others. Others often mistake no conscience with a clear conscience. Because they appear the same. The Conscience Impaired interact confidently and sweetly, and are even charming. There is no way to read them. They can lie without any flinching. The Conscience Impaired depend on secrecy or privacy to get away with cruelty. They are severely secretive as it is necessary to maintain dual realities. The Conscience Impaired will only commit cruelty if allowed secrecy. They only act out when they can get away with it. While most people advise running from the Conscience Impaired, it's not always possible. By the time you figure out they have no conscience, it's too late. The family of the Conscience Impaired makes the difference of how honest, and fulfilling the life of the Conscience Impaired can be. The family is strategically best suited for managing the individual with Conscience Impairment. Their are four kinds of Families of Abusers in times of personal crisis I would like to look at. Yes there are more varieties than these, but for the sake of my limited knowledge, I will focus on only these four. The individual members of the abusers family may fall in to separate categories creating a interesting Family Ensemble. If the abuser is Conscience Impaired, each family can make a huge difference. Because most of the Conscience Impaired are not caught by the Civil Justice System, the family is the last line of defense. A. The Actively Involved Family. The Actively Involved Family (AIF) participates in many aspects of each members life. Beyond birthdays and special occasions. They talk several days a week to each member and know what is happening in each others lives. They are nosey and may be very annoying. This family is actively involved in helping each other through the regular adversities and joys of life. The potential for hidden abuse is lessened but not completely eliminated in this family. The AIF may not be nice, or beautiful, charming or tactful. They may even be a bit mean, but they do have an idea what is happening in the family and just knowing that the family of a potential abuser knows what is going on eliminates secrecy, and can be one of many deterrents of more severe abuse. B. The Passive Family with Integrity (PFwI). The PFwI are not involved enough to deter serious or fatal abuse and personal crisis, but when confronted with the reality of their family members abuses and crimes, the PFwI take the time to learn the truth, then stand up for the truth and their daughter-in-law or sister-in-law. The PFwI will tell the abuser they need help, encourage the abuser to repair and pay for their crimes, attend anger management and church, go to prison, and seek protection for the abused and even provide aid to the abused wife themselves if necessary. While abuse can and does happen in this family, as with the Mark Hacking family, the PFwI steps up to the plate to a swifter resolution of the crisis. The brothers of Mark Hacking confronted Mark to find out the truth. And though it took time, Mark Hacking provided the information to the police to find Lori Hacking's body. Mark Hacking eventually plead guilty and the nation watched a relatively quick resolution. While Lori died, at least her family heard the truth in the end. The PFwI understand and believe in the process of personal repentance or reformation. The PFwI understands it is better for society and their brother or son to pay for their crimes now, and even possibly reform, than to smooth it over and let their brother eventually face God without any prior attempted resolution. C. The Family of Solidarity (FoS). The FoS protect their own without regard to others. They have no idea what happening between the abusive husband and his wife. The FoS do not care what the truth is. They may take a superficial glance at what is happening in the abusive situation in order to tell themselves they know what is happening and justify the abuser. Abusers in this family do what they want without regard for the truth, then manipulate the truth to justify themselves. If their families are ignorant enough, the perpetrators don't even need a portion of the truth, they can fabricate complete lies to justify their brutality without question from their families. If the abused wife turns to them for help, they will defend their brother/son to the bitter end. The FoS will mock, belittle, reprimand and simply be annoyed by the abused wife's cries for help. They believe they are strong by standing up for the abuser to the point of blind ignorance. They may consider the abused wife's cries for help as mere slander, and defend their Family Name . Some may consider ignoring the wife's cries for help as righteous because they are above listening to such filth or participating in ugly squabbling. The Scott Peterson family is a prime example. They believed in their son/brother to the bitter end. The Peterson families denial of reality perpetuated the crisis for years as the nation watched the trial of Lacy Peterson's murderer run on and on. These families live without loyalty to principles of a true code of honor to a higher law, but to the law of self. They follow the false principle of If you want to do it, feel compelled to do it, than it must be right. This is a terrible principle to teach the Conscience Impaired. Everyone feels compelled to do things that are wrong at times. If we fail to recognize that they are wrong, we need those around us to correct the Conscience Impaired. D. Last but certainly not least, we have the Manson Family Values, (MFV). The MFV doesn't care about why or if, but will even help justify murder of the abused wife and even provide a sock to shut up her annoying cries of help, and hand the husband a shovel. They follow the three's s, Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up. The Manson Family Values family is like the wolves in the forests of Idaho. Happy little families take their cherished dogs camping with them. If the dog is off the leash, the wolves will cheerfully call for Fifi. The wolves will send a female ready to mate to lure the family dog to play. After the beloved family pet Fifi joins the wolf pack to play, the wolves may play a little. But in the end, they turn on the innocent happy dog and eat it. But the good news is. Despite how overwhelming it feels during the crisis of abuse, there is a God. When the Laws of Men fail, and families fail, the Universe has laws of physics and truth and justice that cannot be denied. Each of these families will eventually get their true reward by acts of God. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This law of physics applies to all aspects of the Universe. Where and when justice is denied by man, sit back and watch. It may take time, and insane patience but the Justice of the Universe can be quite eloquent. And if you let the Universe provide it, rather than taking things in your own hands, the punishment is better that what you could ever come up with, and your hands are clean of any crime. If you want to, God is still the God of the Old Testament, and you can even give suggestions. God has declared, Vengeance is mine . When God executes justice, He makes sure it's done right. Another resource for managing the Conscience Impaired, is church. Yes Church. Many people are shocked and horrified when they find out Brother Smith rapes little boys. How could a man so sweet, so faithful, so doctrinally intelligent be so bad. The church must be false. Organized religion provides a great place for the Conscience Impaired to learn correct behavior. The Conscience Impaired has a need to fit in. And Organized Religion provides a way for the Conscience Impaired to learn every moral code to fit it. The Conscience Impaired are attracted to church, because most people who attend are trusting and loving and earnestly seeking good, and it lends them respectability. They would never know what is lurking behind the Conscience Impaired charming smile. While it seems sick, Church provides a list or right and wrong, social training, sometimes a small degree of monitoring. The Conscience Impaired's ultimate goal is fitting in and hiding their lack of conscience. As long as the Conscience Impaired is kept focused on fitting in, in a public environment they can be kept in line (at least a little). However, the serious drawback to the church going Conscience Impaired is too many innocent willing victims. Active church attenders need to use common sense. They need to avoid the pitfalls of assuming righteousness by appearance, and follow basic rules of personal and family safety. Regular church attendance by someone else is no excuse to soften the rules you live by that protect you. The Conscience Impaired need to attend church, if we follow personal safety guidelines taught in Elementary school, with everyone, it's not a problem. And always remember sisters, if you see Brother Bundy with a broken leg, trying to get his groceries into his VW Bug in a dark secluded section of the parking lot, call a Brother from church to help him out, don't help him yourself.

Integrity in Relationships

A dishonest man married to an honest, intelligent woman, is the most miserable man on the planet. It's too much work, stress, and emotional fatigue for him keeping his wife in place and blind to the truth. He believes that nothing can bring him more joy than leaving that awful woman and finding a woman who loves illusions, and never ask questions. At least for a while. Sadly, true love is found when you can put the entire truth on the table, and still be loved. The joy, true peace and relief that come from honesty and true unconditional love are immeasurable. I enjoyed a breakfast years ago with an older couple. It was the man's second wife. Being young and even more naive than I am now, before the breakfast, I thought, How amazing it is, that this man with such a checkered, unfaithful past, of 21 years of cheating, found a woman willing to marry him, and take a chance on him. How much he must really love and appreciate her for all she was willing to risk on him. At the breakfast it was disturbing to see how poorly he treated her. As I looked on them, I realized, he lied to her about who he was. She had no idea. No one in his family ever bothered to warn wife number two. The man treated her as though she was unworthy of him. After years of marriage, it seemed to me that he then hated her for her ignorance. I m sure that when they first married, he was delighted with his love for her, and her love for him. I looked at her and saw that her love for him was real and deep. I was sad because I knew that if he told the truth, she would still love him, it would be hard, but she would forgive him. The wife already invested so much in him. But his fears and conditional love held him back. Every time she told him she loved him, her words fell as invalid. He never told her the truth. She didn't know who he really was, because of his lies. Thus in the end, her words of love simply built his anger and resentment toward her. He was too blind and ignorant to see she could really love him unconditionally if he would just tell her the truth. He eventually found comfort from a waitress and left his wife. When you establish a relationship on lies, it brings temporary joy and leads to disaster. The first reason some one lies to build a relationship, is to impress in a world where love is conditional. They believe they have to lie to be loved. They cannot love unless the other meets certain criteria, and expect the same from others. A dishonest man is happiest (from his range of happiness) when those around him love him for this lies, never question him, believe in him and never check anything. But sadly, in the end everything he has work on amounts to nothing. I man I knew lied on his application under pressure, to enter a prestigious graduate school. Just before his graduation, his wife found out. She was devastated. When she heard him defend his application, and try to convince her the experience he claimed on it was true, and saw how comfortable he was in the deception, she began to wonder how many lies she had been told. While he was thrilled to get in, after graduation, he expressed how disappointed he was at the lack of joy in his graduation. After graduation, he had to continue the lies in applying for work. This led to more dissatisfaction and stress in the marriage. Of course the marriage ended. Why waste time lying to build futile relationships and achievements that can only end in grief. How sad that these men may never know the true happiness that can only come from a life of integrity. In comparison the joy these men could have felt if they told the truth. The graduate degree would have been real, the love would have been real. They deprived themselves of meaningful relationships and accomplishments.

Memory

One difficult aspect of domestic violence, verbal abuse, and sexual abuse, is you as the victim remember everything. Your remember his tone of voice, where the children were, what conditions existed that gave you the illusion that you had no choice, and had to submit. You remember the smells, and even every one of the millions of thoughts that raced through your mind. But here is the catcher: during events significant to the individual, or emotional stirring events, the brain releases more chemicals that bond memories. Meaning we remember the events that are significant to us. Too often the abusers see nothing emotionally stirring about the event, or feel the significance of what they are doing. They really don't care. The abuser often remembers little, because quite honestly, they really don't care. While what they did to you was so meaningful and destructive to you, it means absolutely nothing to the perpetrator and never will. You of course, remember absolutely everything.

Rape-Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (RR-PTSD)

Originally published in 2012.

This morning was peaceful and pleasant. I planted some cucumbers, and some other plant I can't pronounce or spell. It has pretty little flowers, doesn't require too much water or good soil. It's supposed to chase away the squash bugs that destroyed my huge cucumber, cantaloupe, and pumpkin plants last summer. I planted some pansies too. My older daughter stayed home today, she wanted to read C.S. Lewis's Prince Caspian. I stole it from her when she wasn't looking. I sat down in my little garden room in the warm sun and began to read. Fauns, dwarfs, and little aggressive mice. Four little children, two boys, two girls on a wonderful adventure in a far away world. I was surprised by how much of the story I forgot. Suddenly, as I m reading, disgusting images fill my mind. I feel like vomiting, my face writhes in disgust. I feel sick inside as I remember and I experience a full body cringe. Shaking my head briskly, I just put it out of my mind, and go back to reading. I finished the book and returned it to my daughter. I went outside, adjusted my apple tree, and sorted through my summer vegetable seeds. My daughter and I left to raid the stores of their discount seed racks. Rape-Related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (RR-PTSD) Sometimes it takes a while for RR-PTSD to develop. Sometimes it's instant. There are many phases, symptoms, and challenges those of us who suffer from it face. Redirecting my thoughts is a key to survival and functioning. When my mind was suddenly overcome with a grotesque memory, I went back to business as quickly as I could. I found things of beauty. I planted something I valued in the hopes of something good coming from them. I went back to my life, my garden, my children. In the past, those flashbacks used to completely disable me. I could feel the complete shame, degradation, physical pain, his eyes, hear every word he spoke, the confusion. Most people can't understand why spousal rape is harder to recover from than stranger rape. With spousal rape, the man who took pleasure in degrading you is the same man who lifted you up and spun you over his head in romantic joy while dating. He's the man you sacrificed for. He's the man who covenanted to love and protect you. In the LDS church, he's your eternal companion. Your children are bound to him. You have a need to work things out, help him overcome his weaknesses. At the same time, you are overwhelmed with fear, shame, and inescapable powerlessness. With spousal rape, you live in the world of the rapist. They define your life. Because he defines your world, you have to help him get better, so your own world can get better. He replaces both God and self. Until you escape. I watched a PBS special on a woman who was raped by two strangers. After they were sentenced, years later she had to attend their parole hearings once a year to plead for the prison not to release them. It showed how much it traumatized her each year. Man, that's nothing. Few spousal rapists are ever convicted, caught or reported. Countless women cope and share children with the man who raped them. These women live in a split confusing reality. With spousal rape, the more intense the relationship, the more painful and challenging the recovery. My advise for coping and recovery, gardening and chocolate. I just don't believe gardening can be beat. You walk outside, feel the sunlight, plant something that will grow, feed you or beautify your new world. If a plant misbehaves, you can just tie it up. Brother Brigham said we are supposed to make the whole earth as the Garden of Eden. I m starting with my yard. The dishes in my sink can wait. There is no joy for me in washing those dishes. But flowers, trees, soft grass under the toes, they define a new beautiful world I can have power in.

Parent Alienation by the step Parent

This was originally published in 2012

Imagine the cruel step mothers from all those terrible children's stories, but the father isn't even dead.

Do some step mothers see the adolescent daughter as competition?  Then persuade the father the child is corrupt in order to alienate the child from the father?


When a man has an affair, the adulterous women he is with, will try to alienate the man from his wife.  She will encourage him to believe every negative thought about his wife, and try to point more out to him.  She will help him to see the evil in his wife.  The man, looking to justify  himself, loves it, and feeds on it.


A "wicked" step mother/parent can do the same with the father and the child.  Just like the woman luring a man from a sacred relationship, a cruel step mother can use all the same tactics to drive a wedge between the "competing" daughter and her father.  These step mothers are of the same character as a woman luring a man from his wife.

This of course, is most likely to happen when the father once showered love on his daughter, and the step mother resents it.

If a young girl, who once felt showered with love by her father, is painfully alienated from her father, the consequence can be devastating and even fatal.  As the child is alienated, of course she will act out and give the step mother more rotten material to work with.

It's pathetic that some men are so completely well, without any sense of reality that they fall for this.  There is a special place prepared for such men.



A good man who really loves and cherished his sweet beautiful daughter, who understands his God given commandment to protect his precious daughter, who remembers those tender childhood little girl moments, could never do such a sick thing. It's hard to believe that such a father's love was ever real.



A woman who has inner strength and confidence would never do this to a step daughter.  A strong faithful women has nothing to fear from a cherished step daughter.  A strong confident women who has confidence in her relationship with her husband, would never do this.  She would welcome her step daughter with open arms.



These women who alienate children from their fathers,  are easy for most moms to spot.


I have so much more to say on this, but I can't.  When you see one you love suffer, and are powerless to change the heartache...  To see a child face a life threatening diagnosis, and still be refused by a parent they desperately love, words cannot describe my loathing, and heartache.  It's profoundly amazing how dark and twisted a mind can become that a father cannot even begin to recognize real love.

We are each responsible for our relationships with our children. 

I asked God a question 10 years ago when I was in the hospital with a ill newborn.   If a man has no natural affection for his children, and no desire to fulfill his fatherly duties to the child, is the father's heart then,  so corrupt that it's better that the father leave anyway?

Is it better to let such a "parent" walk away? 

Ten years ago, I acknowledged that it is probably better to just let a man like that leave.   But the thought of any of my children not feeling love from their father was so heart wrenching to me that I did a bad thing.   I decided to use reverse psychology aggressively to get him to take an interest in his children.  It was a lot of work, but it worked for a while.  I figured my kids would at least have a chance to decide for themselves when they were older what to do with their relationships.

I could never do it again.  There is no greater way to torture a woman than to force her to watch her children suffer. 

Learned Helplessness

Originally published in 2012 

My lovely naughty little boys used to love to take the pillow cushions off their Grandpa's couch, stack them, and leap onto them. 

Grandpa was kind and patient to let us live with him while we prepared for my husband to return to school. But the boy's daily ritual of massacring Grandpa's couch cushions was too much for me. I found six huge pillows for 50 cents each, then went to Wal Mart and bought some cheap fabric. I spent all day working on them. The boys were thrilled when I gave them six gargantuan pillows and told them to leave grandpa's alone. Now they could leap off the cushions from the couch to the pillows. When my husband came home, I bragged about my wonderful solution to the dilemma and my efforts, hoping he would be proud. He declared sternly, I... Did...Not...Tell...YOU...To...Do...That. I walked away confused. What did I do wrong? Did he not want the pillows for the children? As fall came and Christmas neared, I went to the dollar store to check out the loot. I found some lovely picture frames. They had cute wire picket's and deep green metal leaves. I realized with the money in my pocket I could finally purchase a gift for each of the in-law families. I planned to buy a frame for each family with a picture of our the children in it. We were always so financially strapped while my husband went to school, I felt guilty and horrible not to give a gift each year to the families. Other women seemed to have the creative talents I lacked in created cute inexpensive gifts. Thrilled, I bough enough and drove home excited to share my plans with my husband. Once home, I pulled one of the frames out for my husband to see as I shared my plans with him. He was furious. These are disguising and ugly. Natalie, when you give picture frames, you are imposing your taste on everyone else. Take these back, they are too ugly. He was furious and steaming. He gave me a lecture on imposing my tastes on others. I couldn't understand. I love the gifts I get from others that represent their tastes. Each time I look at past gifts, I see the personality of the giver and I smile. Anyway, we took the children to the park, and He yelled at the kids telling them to smile and sit right for the camera. It's funny how the pictures came out looking so cute. Now when I see smiling family photos representing a happy family, I wonder, what was really going on in the lives of the family members. What is real? I took half the frames back to the dollar store and bought standard wood style frames to give out. I felt disheartened and confused. As Christmas came closer, I pulled out our Christmas decoration boxes. I couldn't find Christmas stockings I liked for our family. Our children needed their mother to make them their special stockings to keep forever remembering their childhood. I dug through my fabric box, but I couldn't find any red fabric. As I though, I remembered my old shiny, royal purple prom dress my mother made for me. I dug it out of a box, and laid it on the floor. I sat staring for a while, contemplating how to get the most Christmas stockings from the dress. My husband walked in. I shared my plans with him for my prom dress. You are not going to make ugly purple Christmas stockings. My mother was an interior decorator. She knew what colors work, and what colors don't work. Do not make ugly purple Christmas stockings! He commanded. Hurt, confused, and sad, I put the dress away and pulled out the odd mismatched Christmas stockings for the holidays. Sister Brown at church was an oddball. She was there through the night my mother in law died. She sat there whispering, Go toward the light. Yeah. Anyway, Sister Brown approached me at church on Sunday, Oh Natalie, Marilyn made the most beautiful Christmas stocking, and I know she wants your beautiful daughter to have it. I can just hear her telling me how much she wants her granddaughter to have it. It's so beautiful. I will bring it for you next week. Great, more wonderful dead mother in law rhetoric. Thank you Sister Brown, that will be wonderful. I replied. She said the same thing every Sunday, and always responded as kindly as I could. Finally one Sunday, we sat behind her in Church. Sister Brown declared, I brought the stocking Marilyn wants A to have. And she pulled out a bright royal purple furry Christmas stocking, exactly the same shade and tone as my prom dress. I was stunned in silence. Obvious, Marilyn was watching. Marilyn knew. She knew what I was going through. Marilyn knew every time I showed initiative my husband cut me down. Marilyn knew every time I made an effort my husband degraded me. She knew my spirit was being killed a little bit more each day with her son. Marilyn knew her name was used to kill my spirit. And she knew, but could do nothing while she watched. Until I pulled out my royal purple prom dress. Learned Helplessness Every effort I made was cut down, for years, until I completely lost my ability to think for myself. I always waited for permission and to be told what to do. I became completely incompetent. If I came up with my own ideas, my husband cut them down. If I obeyed his exact commands, he would cut me down. As my own family values a hard work ethic, they seemed to think I was lazy when at family gatherings I sat and did nothing to help. They didn't understand I was waiting to be told exactly what to do. One of the hardest processes I went through after he left, was to think for myself. I would practically beg any stranger off the street to tell me what to do. I begged God to tell me what to do. The Lord just asked me what I wanted. He gave me whatever I wanted, but I just couldn't seem to understand and learn what to ask for. After years of parenting without my husband at my side, I ve learned again how to think for myself. Today my son asked me how much I paid for my piano. "I worked and saved $2,400 and bought it." "Did Dad yell at you?" He asked. I smiled, "No, I bought it before I met Dad."

Why do we trust?

Trust is a precious thing. 

As you trust people, and they live up to it, your faith and appreciation for them grows as you learn you can depend on them. But sometimes, we are placed in positions or situations, where our trust seems misplaced, and we are severely disappointed. What about those times when we pray, and ask God if we can trust someone with something important or even precious to us. God often answers with a peaceful feeling of encouragement to trust, or may warn us to Run! . If prompted to trust, we follow the prompting and trust. To our shock, we are sometimes disappointed as the recipient fails to live up to the trust. Some disappointments can be brutal and unimaginable. So why do we trust? If God is real, and really loves us, and really tries to communicate with us, why would he allow or even encourage us to trust someone who failed us in then end? These events can shake our faith, our perceptions of the universe we live in. They lead us to question our very relationship with our maker. Trust in others is not about their living up to trust. Trust is about faith in God. Faith that our Heavenly Father can deliver us from evil, from the consequences of failed trust. Faith that God is watching over us, and that he is all powerful. Faith that he knows our potential, and everyone else's potential. Faith that Heavenly Father is looking after our eternal interests. Each of us chose to come to earth, to live, to receive those parents and family we were given. Hoping our parents will be kind loving, and living angels in our lives. But so many children, are born into death, suffering, drug addiction, even a mortal hell in war torn countries. That first trust is betrayed at birth for so many children. When we pray and ask God if we should trust someone, His answer is often not dependent upon the worthiness of the recipient of our trust, but that we SHOULD trust. The answer does not say that the recipient of our sacred trust will live up to it. Why does God ask us to trust. Simply because people need a chance. People need to be able to prove themselves for good or for evil, to succeed or to fail, in any given situation. After they fail, they may even need another chance. However, sometimes they need to be locked up. Trust, isn't about who we trust living up to it. Trust is about giving others opportunities to succeed. A chance at life, to be brave, to be kind, to feel God's love, to grow. Trust, is about faith in God, that he can deliver us out of the circumstances of other's failures. The more Faith you have in God, faith that he loves you, faith that He wants you to experience those things that will help you grow, and others, faith that He is nurturing you and others, faith that He is after your best interests, the more YOU are able to have trust in others, and not even worry about if they fail you. I m not telling you to hand your baby to that scary looking stranger. But, trust as much as you safely can. Pray. But don't become angry with God after the people you trust fail you. Somehow, somewhere, there is a purpose. Sometimes we don't see the real fruits of those failures for years to come. But there is a purpose. Heavenly Father is the greatest strategist and choreographer of life. Sometimes His plot takes years, decades, and eras to finalize. There are times, after someone has truly proved themselves as dangerous, that we do need to run. God will deliver you from that.

Parenting Tactics

For some parents, Abandonment, threats of Abandonment and verbal abuse are the only tools in their parenting toolbox.

The first rule of parenting is to let your children know that you always love them, and will always be there for them.

If your intent is to drive your children to self-harm and suicide just to make your ex suffer.