About Abuse...

Why would they do that to a child they did not even know?

And, of course, the strange-faced casualty of puberty blamed herself like so many victims of psychological abuse and exploitation of any kind. Strange-face was to blame for the bad things they did to her.

In her heart, she feels like an injustice has been done to her. She was an abused and exploited child. But instead of seeking revenge against her abusers, or just telling them where to go and how to get there, she talked to herself: "They wouldn't care."

An old man whispers in the shadows of her sub-conscious: "Don’t beat yourself up. That's too satisfying to them." And it prolongs the control they had and continue to have over your emotional health. It wasn't your fault. That’s why a lot of people never come forward after they've been abused: they blame themselves. And they don't want to relive it; they want to leave it behind them. Keep it in the past. By talking about it, they're exposing themselves and others to their pain all over again. Closing small minds and opening big mouths and bearing the cross of rumours and shit-talk once more.

Strange-face can put her energy to better use by trying with the best of her ability to protect other children from being exploited. She can look out for them, love them, help them understand themselves and the world through her late-developed understanding of herself and the world. She makes sure what happened to her doesn't happen to them. No one should endure the hatred and humiliation that she endured for the sake of someone else's gratification.

In her mind, she continues to let them abuse her. In her mind, she can still hear them say that she was a selfish liar because she had feelings. She was selfish because she was sick of being treated badly. She was selfish because she had a soul. And she was a liar because she had a soul - a soul that dreamed of things that they deemed impossible, a soul that dreamed and fantasized and loved things that they believed could never be loved, a soul that was creative and a soul that hoped. Her soul hoped for her family to stop being so crazy, and for people to like her, and for every terrible thing that had ever happened in her whole life to go away. Right then and there. Be normal like everyone else. Be comfortable with just being herself. Simple things that we all deserve, and they called them lies. They called the practice of hope a lie. They called the hoping soul a lying mind.

There's not a day that goes by when she doesn't think of what they did to her. The reality of abuse can stop; but the memory of it can make it reality for the rest of your life. It may leave your house, your family, your life; but abuse will not leave your mind. The abused can forgive; but the abused can't forget. Others judge her for being what they call self-pitying or selfish or egocentric (which means concerned with yourself, not arrogant). "But they might never have been through what you've been through," said one victim of abuse. She was shut in too much, preoccupied with her own personal hurts, when it would be really helpful to be around people who've never hurt her, to get her mind off of things, to free her soul from the past. Those who have difficulty sleeping are often up all night thinking about the past. It's not always because because they're clinically depressed or bi-polar. I was very sound in mind and I don't take that for granted. But when you're abused and exploited it never quite leaves you; it lingers. And Strange face still suffers the consequences of it today. Not only from within herself but from other people, as well.

God bless her abuser; his father was a lawyer. He was raised having everything he ever wanted and needed. And he was criticizing her for "self-pity" in the wake of being raised in poverty and neglect. But she hated pity. Pity logic should she pity herself. She was not that generous. And she had to bite her lip before she called him a hypocrite. She didn't believe in such things.

You can buy sexually exploitative Shirley Temple films at Wal-Mart for a buck simply because it's "public domain." But how can child pornography be public domain? So basically they're saying that it's okay to exploit your children if we don't own the exploitation and we give it to the world instead. But if you try to distribute that shit independently you're looking for trouble.

How many other little Shirley Temples are out there? But influential TV executives didn't visit their dance classes when they were three and a half years old. John Doe did. Tell me, which is worse?

Elaine 06