This is a new section on how current events are affecting people who have been victimized. It is a opinion section based on years of being told I am not a victim, from therapists, family, friends. That I caused the abuse, that I was not viewing it properly, that I was too sick to be just abuse, that if I liked it then its not abuse. And the big one, boys can’t be abused. In the more recent past being ignored completely as somehow broken, when I can comprehend and know what is going on around me. It’s just people don’t like to deal with what happened to me, the physical torture, by a family member. Her twisting of reality, that she is well aware she did, and those who enable her to continue on unexposed and not confronted, is how I came to be who I am.
Thoughts on Victims has been long coming. It is connected with my inability to face the horror of those years, the memories, that have created in me a survival defense that has elevated itself to a height the enablers can not understand. No one could help me until I helped myself. I have to understand, love has limitations we put on it, the enablers love me, when I am behaving in the prescribed way. My wife understands it happened, but please don’t elaborate. The therapists, are the most confused, while acting the most sure of themselves. I have to recognize the limitations our society has when facing this type of abuse.
The abyss of denial that permeates our society when it comes to how victims are treated, has no bottom. I realized a long time ago that many people need to have control over others, it was a way of life. Our whole society is based on how superior someone is, how supreme. The way people feel that they want to be supreme, because no one can stand against supremacy, supremacy is the epitome of control. A message of supremacy is something we share constantly, in so many situations.
In the psychological world a psychologist would consider this to be cognitive dissonance. This is not applicable, because there is agreement. People agree to try to be the supreme, the most knowledgeable, and the most inspirational, the most profound. Always better then someone else. We even, in psychology break down people into groups, that have no actual cohesion. Loosely organized, but always having a leader. There are no good definitions for the message of supremacy we share. And the need to force that supremacy on others.
When our children are getting to an age where puberty is meeting adolescence, they become fixated on being something supreme, the prettiest, the most athletic, many times the most loved. We think of this as normal, because their emotions are so big, but it is not. They can not be any of those things, and even if they aspire to it, they want that now, because that is what everyone is telling them is what is definition of success, an inspiration, above average. They can be the most supreme. The best of the best. That’s what media sends to them, school tells them, their parent or parents foster in them. When they find they are not, they get afraid, that they will never have what is being presented to them, the most of something.
Some give up and dislike themselves, some give-up and hate everyone else, some (many) muddle along confused by how much other people have, and many (too many) think the world is coming for me. All because they weren’t the supreme. Some just join whatever they can, to fit in. A few learn, you are not the most, the supreme, no matter how many people say you are. To be that person, there must be people below you, to be supreme upon.
In the coming Thoughts on Victims I will explain how those particular feelings are relatable, and why I said them. I have known these feelings a long time, and now is the time to reveal them. Being deeply honest with myself, at how bad pedophilia is in our country, how much rape, mostly from known people, privileged people, who want that greed of experience, where they rein supreme.
That happens in the hallowed halls of Harvard, and the people next door, quietly, until silence can no longer be held. Then the victims cry out – making everyone uncomfortable by their presence. What people should feel uncomfortable with is injustice, inequality, inequity, rape, child rape, abuse, domestic violence, torture and death. While we don’t see it, we all plan for it, we are desperately afraid of them, whoever they are, all the time. Many of the abusers live in our families, and know security and privilege.
I know this because I am one of the people who was taken, with permission, I went willingly, because I trusted the torturer implicitly. I know fear beyond endurance, beyond comprehension, and I know the unreality of the abuser, making like everything is fine. Because, like everyone else, she felt supreme.
Towards our next installment, if anyone reads this, Thoughts on Victims, gentle reader, as Stephen King calls those who offer substance to his life, his readers. I know you, I respect you, I tell my truth to you.
