What NOT To Say To Say a Victim of Sexual Violence

What NOT To Say

To Say a Victim of Sexual Violence

By Kathleen Hoy Foley

Recently I received a communication from someone who shall remain anonymous—okay, it was my brother-in-law.  For some time now brother-in-law has known about my ordeal of abuse, rape, impregnation by rape, rescue by the confidential adoption process, and stalking by a crazed adoptee obsessed with Kumbaya fantasies.  Up to this point, however, brother-in-law has chosen silence.  Many families are good at ignoring the smelly elephant stomping about in the family loop—Phil’s relatives excel.  Over time, the burden of lugging around his family’s cold shoulder became exhausting and oppressive and ultimately Phil and I quietly disengaged from all contact.  

Evidently our silence disrupted the strict order of hierarchy, duty, and obligation that controls the mechanics maintaining the all-is-peachy façade so vital for preserving comfort inside the family circle.  When Mass cards, concerned phone calls about weather conditions in our area of the country, and invitations to this or that event proved ineffective in wrangling us back into the sibling fold, and after a subordinate emissary sent by brother-in-law failed to persuade, brother-in-law broke his silence.  Hence his note.  Lucky me.  Had brother-in-law truly been the wise man he fancies himself, he would’ve kept a lid on his trap, or at least feigned a bit of the humility he preaches before he opened it. 

I simply cannot express how grateful I am to know that, despite what brother-in-law knows about me, his good opinion of me has not changed.  I am glad he actually put this in writing.  When I’m feeling low, I can always reread his magnanimous judgment of me and once again experience the wonder of his generosity.  Especially because of what happened to me, you know, down there.  How very fortunate I am that brother-in-law is willing to forgive me for being repeatedly raped, then impregnated by rape.  Indeed I am honored that he does not hold this messy ordeal against me.  I will think about his charity the next time he goes into the hospital to have the thick, foul smelling mucus drained out of his sinuses.  Maybe after being inspired by his benevolence, I will be inspired to forgive him for having such a disgusting nose.  I will have to consult my oracle cards on this.

I am also thrilled to know that brother-in-law has permanently inked me in on his prayer list.  Nightly, it seems, he petitions Jesus on my behalf!  Using my name no less!  Apparently uttering my name is an extra high blessing to be taken very seriously.  Only, he should’ve asked me first before bothering.  If ever there’s a place I never want to be, it’s stuck inside brother-in-law’s head right next to his stinky, clogged sinuses.  In fact, I do not appreciate being slapped on anyone’s prayer list.  Depending on intentions, prayers can turn abusive.  I won’t go into details, but if you’ve ever been the target of a predator’s obsessive, fanatical prayers, you know what I’m talking about. 

Good works are what I value.  If brother-in-law actually wants to do something truly beneficial, victims of sexual abuse—including girls and women forced to bear catastrophic pregnancies—need many loud, supportive, courageous voices especially in his Church where brother-in-law is a leader.  Lying in bed in his boxers pleading with Jesus doesn’t do much for me or other rape victims, including those hiding in shame inside his own family.

Besides I broke up with Jesus.  This parting of ways was not amicable, but the relationship was unhealthy from the beginning.  Jesus wore out his welcome.  He had to go.  Brother-in-law has no business pestering Jesus and dragging him to my door.  Me and Jesus have a truce, sort of, as long as Jesus respects my boundaries.  We both have work to do.  I go my way.  Jesus goes his.  It works.  Brother-in-law needs to leave it there.

Brother-in-law is blind to this, but I am a loaded shotgun with a hair trigger aimed at the belly of ignorance.  And look who decided to walk right into the crosshairs.  However, because I don’t want to rape brother-in-law’s dignity, I’ll keep it toned down: No “civilian” (defined as someone not engaged in battle with the lifelong consequences of sexual trauma), brother-in-law included, need ever, EVER offer an opinion on the nightmare endured by victims of sexual violence.  “Civilians” have zero entitlement to opinion, judgment, or observations—which always reflects their personal and religious prejudices—about which they know nothing.  It’s this way: Gays are entitled to speak about the gay experience.  They know.  I don’t.  Brother-in-law and all “civilians” need to step away from the moral high ground, stop flapping their gums, and become educated on the realities of sexual abuse and the covert violence culture and religion continues to perpetuate against victims. 

Ask me.  Ask Phil.  Read my books.  Read all our blogs and articles.  Listen to our taped interviews posted on this website.  The information is available.

In his “lovely” note, brother-in-law could have simply stated, “Kathleen, I am so sorry about what happened to you.”  That’s all any “civilian” needs to say to any victim of abuse: I’m so sorry that happened to you.  Say it.  Mean it.  Those few words have the power to warm a wounded soul.  Said often and by many, those few words—I’m so sorry that happened to you—can transform a wounded soul.  Jesus would not argue with that.    

President Barack Obama’s initiative to combat sexual assault on college campuses

 Post by Philip Foley

We celebrate President Barack Obama’s initiative to combat sexual assault on college campuses.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/22/obama-college-sexual-assault_n_4643852.html

Laura Dunn (formerly of PAVE) from SurvJustice.Org, http://www.survjustice.org/ bravely spoke publicly of her sexual assault while a college student.  Ms. Dunn’s courage to speak was instrumental in supporting Kathleen on her journey to continue speaking through her books and articles. Tragically, We also had a niece impregnated by rape in college.

President Obama’s initiative needs to be expanded to include all high school and junior high schools.

In the last several years, the news has covered the tragic story of several high school girls who committed suicide as a result of being raped and the public humiliation and blame that was vested on them.

Kathleen was in high school when she was impregnated by rape. Our goddaughter was raped by a high school teacher. Several of Kathleen’s fellow students were victims of unreported sexual assault by a teacher. This was not a secret to anyone attending the school, however, no one took any action.

We reached out to Kathleen’s former high school, sending a copy of her book to every educator in the school. We wanted to provide information for these educators, hopefully making them more alert to the signs of current students who are being sexually abused.  Our effort was met with total silence.  We even followed up with the Superintendent of Schools who stated he would look into the matter.  Again, total silence.

The Obama administration’s report  "Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to action," http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sexual_assault_report_1-21-14.pdf says that 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted at college but that only 12 percent of student victims report the assault.

The report was compiled by the White House Council on Women and Girls. It says nearly 22 million American women and 1.6 million men have been raped in their lifetimes. The Ms. Foundation for Women, http://forwomen.org/, reported in The Road to Equality that the number one victims of rape are children aged 17 or younger. This supports our call to include all high and junior high schools.

We totally support the President’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, chair of the Council on Women and Girls, stating that men must be involved to combat the problem.

The report also declares that the criminal justice response to sexual assault is too often inadequate.  As a former police supervisor I recognize this problem, however, I believe the criminal justice system and it’s requirement to overcome “reasonable doubt” places victims in a very venerable emotional and physical position. Perhaps the criminal justice system is not the best place to attack this epidemic.

The New Book Is Coming Soon

Sorry we have been away so long.  The new book took longer to edit than we thought.  Looks like it will be ready by late April or early May.

We are offering our books for free and will have details on our web site soon.

Should you like to order the new book; Breaking Through Silence, A No Nonsense Love Letter to Women just email us your name and mailing address and we will send you a copy after the printing process is completed.

Phil

GETTING READY

GETTING READY

By Phil Foley

We are suspending our blog for a couple of months while we are preparing to print Kathleen’s new book, Breaking Through Silence, A No-Nonsense Love Letter to Women.

Every one who has read the manuscript—including me—has had a powerful reaction to its contents.  Personally, it put me on a surprising path to seeing and understanding what I assumed had no explanation and no reason to be understood.  I certainly never fathomed that a book my wife wrote for silenced women would lead me to personal transformation.  The discoveries I made as a result of its words were difficult to confront.  Yet the truth written in its pages, along with my determination to grasp and respect the living damage of old wounds has opened up my life in ways I did not know were possible.  Other first readers have had similar experiences.

Breaking Through Silence, A No-Nonsense Love Letter to Women will be available soon in such an enticing manner, you may find yourself saying yes to the possibilities that await you within its pages.

In the mean time you may want to check out the works of powerful female writers like Mary Daly, Gloria Anzaldua, Andrea Dworkin, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul just to name a few.

We will return to our blog after our work is finished.

THE DIVINE CONNECTION of ADOPTION

THE DIVINE CONNECTION of

Adoption

By Kathleen Hoy Foley

Some months ago I was interviewed by Inside Edition.  TV reporter, Les, rode into town on his high horse which, by the way, doesn’t mean much out here since we have our own celebrity who actually earned her prominence.  Robin, a local teen entrepreneur, established Hot Diggidy Dog over twenty years ago looking to earn money for college tuition.  In the years since, her little hot dog cart has become the destination for Jersey shore-goers trekking to the beach, and anyone else happening by the middle of nowhere on a sweltering summer day in need of refreshment.  Around here, Robin is an authentic celebrity.  Les with his upmarket, urban attitude and television cockiness?  Phony as they come.

As gentlemen go, Les wasn’t one.  No surprise there.  Five words: tabloid television, bottom feeder reporters.  Still, as a woman silenced by sexual abuse, my mission is to give voice to the truth and to make that truth available to as many people as possible.  Inside Edition showed up and created an opportunity. 

From his first words it was obvious that Les’s objective was to humiliate me into submitting to the standard adoption fairytales—the pitiful loss and longing fantasies that I’m so bored with I could spit—and to trivialize the trauma I’d experienced from both the rapist and the stalker adoptee.  Seems Les wanted rape and stalking to look like ordinary activities that most folks engage in from time to time.  Since I’m not a viewer of Inside Edition, I never intended to—and didn’t—watch the interview.  Good thing.  Les pulled more than a few malicious, bottom-feeder-reporter-tricks.   But Les’s conduct is not the point.  Les did what bottom feeders do.  He’s no different from any other abuser.  They are all in the business of violence.

Abusers like Les—a manicured, well-dressed, good looking guy—conceal their hostility and aggression in their restraint, in their swagger, in their arrogance, all too easily mistaken for self-confidence.  Abusers can always be identified by the misery they spread, by the harm they inflict, by their sly rhetoric and veiled prejudices, and by how they support their bigotry while justifying and encouraging the abuse of others.  Les-type abusers don’t flaunt their cruelty.  They dress it up as innocent and wholesome.  Who could see much less hear the whisper of truth beneath Les’s style and finesse?  So, withheld from viewers of Inside Edition—buried under Les’s attempt to degrade me with condemnation and shame—was the highest, unwavering truth that adoption is the divine connection of a real person to his/her real family.

* * *

The real family awaits, calling out to its ‘beloved’.  When the call is answered, the real family steps into the human crisis and brings its ‘beloved’ home.  The joy of that union, the elation of the newest family member coming home at last, transcends the path of anguish that ushered their ‘beloved’ safely into their arms, into their protection, and away from the menace of emotional and physical chaos.  The real family encircles their ‘beloved’, uniting him with his kin in the deeply personal love story of family. 

Long before the ‘beloved’ finally arrived, the real family already knew their ‘beloved’ as one of them.  The real family remained nearby, always ready, always waiting, always looking forward to the homecoming of their ‘beloved’.  And in a manifestation of the Divine, at long last the ‘beloved’ did come home.

* * *

To comprehend the reality, the power of such love and to even begin to grasp the profound concept and genuineness of real family, the ‘beloveds’ whose path to their destined families was circuitous, need to reject the typical, cultural lies and misteachings about adoption.  The ‘beloveds’ must refuse to abuse themselves with violent and soul-destroying terms like abandoned, thrown away, given away, bastard, unloved.  They have to pull upon their courage and conquer the seductive lie of ‘entitlement’ before it contaminates their lives and destroys all that retains profound and authentic value—the unconditional love that defines their real families.

Unfortunately bottom feeders like Les, who remain mired in self-hatred and trapped in the storm of their own anger, deny and ridicule the truth of real families.  Pile on opportunists looking to make a buck by feeding off pain and exploiting fear—adoption and all its related sub-categories are a gigantic money-making industry—and the truth disappears.  And ruthlessness rides free on the waves of rage.  Before you know it, victims of catastrophic pregnancies are being exposed like criminals; DNA samples are being demanded of private citizens; and hypothetical entitlements become law. 

When the ‘beloved’ is blind to the hidden agendas of bottom feeders and cannot see that self-created misery, misdirected anger, and emotional fear—not noble intentions—are what motivates bottom feeders, the ‘beloveds’ start trusting the abusers and the bonds of real family start breaking. 

To fully appreciate the unconditional love offered by his/her real family, the ‘beloved’ has to challenge the lies and fantasies promoted by bottom feeders, and recognize them as the abusers they are, responsible for eliciting and provoking false agony.  In order to experience profound love, the ‘beloved’ has to accept that the pinnacle of all there is, of all he is searching for is already present.  The ‘beloveds’ need to understand that the emotional wholeness they seek resides within them and is supported and enhanced by their real families.  Love does not exist in the excavation of the dark gutters of pain and violence—the playgrounds of abusers like Les who disguise lies and endorse the destruction of real human connections.    

Fantasy families are perfect.  Real families are not.  A misled ‘beloved’ needs to recognize what is authentic and cherish the reality of his real family and the divine connection that called him to his real home.  Every family is flawed.  All families harbor secrets and abuses.  Addictions and failures.  But the real family tries.  It is bound together with shared love and history, sorrows and joys.  And within its traditions and memories the real family holds every member in its forever heart.  That is transcendent.

Robin is real.  The oasis she created out here is real.  Gulping down an ice cold diet soda at Hot Diggidy Dog after a long walk on a blistering summer day is true bliss.  Les?  He rode out of town on the same high horse he rode in on.  And honestly?  He looked fine up there—like a strapping hero on horseback.  Too bad he was anything but. 

MY COUSIN ALSO DRANK THE KOOL-AID

MY COUSIN ALSO DRANK THE KOOL-AID

By Lisa Marie

Guest Blogger

I had to write you after reading your blog.  I too had a family member who drank the Kool-Aid and believed the fairy tale promoted by those supporting adoption reforms. 

My cousin, an adoptee, lived an ideal life just like Little Bill.  Her parents wanted her more than anything.  Just like Little Bill she was coddled, not just by her loving parents, but by aunts, uncles and cousins who were 10-15 years older than her.  She was the baby in our family that everyone loved.  She always had her original birth certificate.  It was a private adoption; the biological source sent the original copy to the lawyer who gave it to her parents.  My cousin was never interested.  No need, she had her family.  She married and had children.  It is a family story how much her oldest looks like and acts like his grandma despite no common DNA.  

Several years after my cousin's parents died, she became aware of the adoption reform movement and fell for the fairy tale they promote.  Her mother's sisters (who were very close) kept telling her, we are her family.  Most cousins told her the same thing.  Her elderly aunts warned her about the can of worms she was opening.  My cousin didn't want to hear it.  She believed the fairy tale.  Exactly as you said, she was looking to fill the vast emptiness she was told she was supposed to feel. 

My cousin was very excited to find out that her biological source had married and had children.  My cousin now had siblings!  After spending most of her inheritance traveling back and forth to another state, buying a trailer to be near her biological source for the purposes of convenient visits, while helping the biological stranger out financially, my cousin discovered that there was no warm and fuzzy connection. Though it took her a while to realize it.

Sadly, my cousin would not listen to reason from her family who opposed her choices.  She did everything she could to try and fit in with the biological strangers.  It cost my cousin in the end.  The elderly aunts were deeply hurt and their once-close relationship suffered.  

One aunt helped raise my cousin for her first 5 years while her mom worked.  They were extremely close.  My aunt felt that it was her job to look out for her niece when her parents died and she knew she failed.  My cousin had a new family now.  Those were the people she decided to listen to.  She ignored her real family—the ones who truly loved and cared about her.  

Eventually, my cousin lost the house her parents worked so hard for and most of the money they saved so she could have a good life after they died.  Ultimately my cousin came back to her real family.  It seemed she realized that talking about the stranger grandpa didn't have any meaning, not like reminiscing about her beloved grandpa who used to rock her on his knee and taught her how to drive. 

Hearing about the stranger grandma wasn't the same as remembering her beloved grandma making Easter cookies from the recipe she brought over from Italy. 

My cousin learned that no matter how blonde haired and blue eyed she is or how much Irish blood runs in her veins, she will always be Italian with all the mannerisms, sayings, and customs of her beloved Italian family.  She learned what family really means.  As far as relationships go, genes are unimportant.  People have many blood relations they don't know, don't need to know, or want to know, or will never know.  

Families are the people who love you, who have been there for you your entire life, for both the good and the bad.  At best, biological strangers are just acquaintances.  It was an expensive lesson for my cousin, drinking that Kool-Aid and wanting the fairy tale. 

Many people are drinking the Kool-Aid and believe the fairy tale that is being promoted by those in adoption reform, especially those in the legislature.  Only 11% of adoptees obtained a birth certificate in Oregon, 2.5% in Illinois, and less than 800 in RI obtained their birth certificates.   

We seldom see those numbers, though the public always hears about "the happy reunions" in the media.  You would think that the legislature would do a little research before voting on a bill to change adoption.  Instead they drink the Kool-Aid being served by those with the loudest voices, those who think they are entitled—the same voices, the same people that go around the country to promote adoption reform. 

I recently wrote to a journalist asking why he only told one side of the "adoption story" which included an Adam Pertman (a militant adoptee) interview, of course.  I gave your website out and a couple of other places where he can get the other side of the story along with the National Council for Adoption, which supports mutual consent.

I told him that it is articles like his that promote the fairy tale.  He did not respond.   

Meanwhile people like my cousin and your uncle are destroying their families based on the lies they are told—the lies they believe.  It's a sad story. 

PRACTICING VIOLENCE

PRACTICING VIOLENCE

By Kathleen Hoy Foley

Occasionally I think of my uncle, Bill, a "paragon" of decency who founded a soup kitchen to feed the homeless, yet carried such a vast emptiness in his heart that he led himself and others to practice violence against my elderly mother, his invalid sister, and me, his niece.

My uncle was adopted as a little guy.  The story was pretty straight up.  An orphanage.  A kid.  And a family that wanted him.  And was he ever loved!  He was coddled, pampered, and as the youngest in his family, revered.  You know the saying: the sun rises and sets.  It was all there for Little Bill.  Too close to my age to call him uncle, to me he was just Little Bill, and I was taken with him.  Every time he said my name and pronounced it in that Evans’ way—Kath-ah-leen—I swooned.  Did I mention how much I loved him? 

He doesn’t sound like a guy who would ever practice violence.  Practicing violence sounds like swagger and fist fights—a gang on the street corner looking for trouble.  It conveys the ring of guns and blood, and bodies sprawled across the pavement.  That's the television version.  In reality, most violence is much more subtle.  In real life, practicing violence is an established art form so quiet, so acceptable it goes unnoticed except by those who are its target.

Somewhere between college, marriage, kids, carrying on the family business as a baker extraordinaire, and founding that soup kitchen for Ohio’s homeless, Bill decided that as an adopted person he was entitled to more.  He drank the cultural Kool-Aid, attracted a lot of destructive people who practice a lot of violence, and before long, Little Bill succumbed to practicing violence himself shrouding it in his sorrow and need and entitlement.

It is no surprise then that Bill attracted a predator—an experienced stalker well versed in practicing violence while pulling on heartstrings: the predator adoptee that had been stalking me and creating havoc in my life for years.  Bill knew this, but invited violence in anyway.  Which would have been fine if he’d kept all the aggression and cruelty they instigated together confined to his family, to his life. 

Except that’s not how violence works.  The rallying cry of violence is YOU OWE ME!  Violence feeds on anger and frustration and gains feverish strength and whirlwind power as it justifies its own destructive deeds.  It out-shouts internal alarm systems that point to dangerous and deplorable wrongdoings.  It plows through moral and civil boundaries fiercely defending its actions all the while producing terrible damage. 

Soon Bill and the predator adoptee were making plans to ambush my mother and trick her into a meeting with the adoptee—violent deception hidden beneath an “innocent family gathering.”  But who would ever admit that?  Anyway, what would it matter?  Thanks to dementia, his sister’s brain was gone anyway.  And how much fight could a frail old lady muster?  As it turned out, Little Bill and the predator adoptee were right.  My mother’s capability for decision making and energy to put up a fight had vanished.  Besides, she thought she was just being taken out for a ride.

  

Founding a charity does nothing to erase the practice of violence or repair its aftermath of destruction.  Adoption offers no excuse.  Heart pain grants no defense.  Practicing violence—dismissing, creating, and escalating others' agony for your own benefit—is an undertaking that unleashes powerful, destructive energy that ultimately returns to its source.  Practicing violence is like throwing a contaminated boomerang.  Don’t waste your time ducking, it won’t work.  It’s coming smack back at you. 

Whether you volunteer at a battered women’s shelter while planning an ambush, or run a website advocating the invasion of another's life under the lie of justice, or in any way promote coercing someone to bend to the will of another, you are practicing violence.  You may be loud.  You may be able to convince others with your arguments about entitlement.  You may be able to gain public sympathy with your sad story punctuated by a flood of tears.  But nothing can hide the underlying truth: you are promoting violence.  You are smart enough to know that.  But it takes tremendous courage to admit it.  And it takes even more courage and a dedicated commitment to self-respect to stop doing it.                     

Back to old Little Bill.  Maybe you think I hate him.  I don't.  Actually I have compassion for him—for anyone consumed by the delusion of vast emptiness, a phantom pain that insists the resolution to its obsession can only be gained through the practice of violence, by persistent stalking and the relentless pursuit of the very thing they already possess—the love that is right in front of them.

Little Bill was loved more than he recognized.  And he destroyed more than he knows.