THE DISCUSSION CONTINUES-ABUSE AND ITS IMPACT

This topic is very deep and so I believe that we should continue to discuss it, there is so much more to say. Abuse on every level is never ok. There is none worse than the other, in how they affect the victim except for children who suffer the horror of any abuse especially sexual abuse, and one has to wonder what kind of evil perpetuates these kinds of behavior, how low can a person get!

As a child growing up in Jamaica, I remember a rasta man came calling for my father in the front of our yard, no one was home so I went out to him. I was about eight years old at the time and I had a white sheer slip drawn up over my non existent breast. In my childs mind I had no thought that as I went out to this man, the sun would hit the sheerness of the slip and through transparency of the material he could/would see my body. As I went out to tell the man that my father was not home, I remember him staring at my slip and wondered why he stared so long and hard. I had no idea, that I was exposed, albeit a childs body, but the memory of that man’s gaze had never left me. It would have been fitting, as I suspect he was as old as sixty years old, to even scold me and send me in to dress properly, as in Jamaica we believed in a village growing a child, but in his case he did not.

When it happened, I did not attribute his gaze to anything other thinking “wha mek him ah stare pon mi suh”, it was as I grew and heard about child sexual abuse and, I began to realize that the man stared at me in a way that grown men would stare at a woman of their desire.

I must thank God that I have never suffered any form of sexual abuse from anyone. Growing up in Jamaica, I had a very strong mother, one who declared to the world that she would kill for her children and also told everyone that she had a “Mad house certificate, so if she limb off smaddy c**k she would not go to prison but to Bellevue! These utterances she would make once in a while if she felt someone looked at a young child in our neighborhood wrong,or just as a warning in general, I suppose she knew what she was doing. Nobody tried us, no one.

When we came to America, our Landlord for the building we lived  in was a Jamaican man. He was very nice to us and my mother cooked and fed him almost everyday when he would come by, he was very rich in real estate and other things. He loved her cooking and would make sure to come for his share daily. Whenever he would see me alone, he would make suggestions to me, I was around 14 years old when he began his improper suggestions, he made sure that he said nothing too lewd, but I was a bright child and so I understood that he was “looking” me, as we say in Jamaica.

I made sure to tell my mother, and she in turn asked him about it, not in front of me, he in turn asked me why did I tell my mother. I responded to him that I was a little girl and he could be my father and had no business trying to get with me. I remember looking him straight to his face, unsmilingly and unflinchingly. Then there was Ken, cousin to my mother and boyfriend to my mothers friend. We called him uncle Ken. Uncle Ken would step in front of me if he happened to pass my way going or coming and offer to pinch me on both of my upcoming breast, to which I would reply, pinch me and the whole world would know about it Uncle Ken. He would stare at me and step away. The last time he threatened me to do this act, I was on downstairs while he was coming up, he stopped and said the same thing, I was still at age 14, I responded to him by telling him that he was a dirty old man and I would be telli Miss Yvonne and my mother about what he had been trying to do to me that very evening. He never tried me again.

I often think about those times and wondered to myself what if I was not aware of predators like those before hand, our mother had warned us from an early age about men like these. What if I had been another person, who fell for all that this man (the landlord) offered, or foolishly giggled or allowed Uncle Ken to fell me up and be seduced by them both?, Because this is what child molesters  do, they “seduce”. Often times they are not the “Big Bad Wolf or She Wolf” (SOME DANGEROUS WOMEN ARE OUT THERE ALSO), but the kind and gentle neighbor, or the smiling pastor  be it man or woman or the adoring uncle/aunt or even the playful cousin or the perverted brother.

Taking advantage of the weak, or of someone not in a position to defend themselves or who is dependent upon you for sustenance/maintenance/lodging/schooling or whatever the case maybe, makes you the offender lower than low. Unfortunately for some the trauma becomes something they live with for life, look at the quote below;

“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom.

But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task of early adulthood――establishing independence and intimacy――burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and in memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships.

She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery

While I do not want to spend time on the topic child abuse today, I must say that it is a very important problem and it seems to get worse, as it is often in the news and as a parent and a human being whenever I hear of it it touches me very deeply, we must keep an open eye, speak to our children/nieces or nephews, we must observe closely and protect the innocent.

There was one lady who told me of her abuse by her step grandfather, which began at age 8, when her mother and grandmother migrated to America, leaving her and her brothers with this monster of a Step Grandfather. The first night, he had the boys sleep on the ground (in the same room) while she, he held spoon fashion in front of him and clamped her mouth  with his hand as he raped her, holding in her screams. He threatened to kill the boys if she told, she did not.

It is very distressing for me to recount this to you all. She said this happened every night for two years. In between that time, she was raped on her way to school by one of the country boys who took her into the bush and violated her child body, this was in rural Jamaica, she had no one to tell. She considered suicide, but was too afraid. She then heard that a female cousin was coming to visit, she was happy and relieved, because she had made up her mind to tell her cousin, hoping that the cousin would take her and her brothers away, from her torturous environment .

When the cousin came, that evening the cousin took her to bathe her, and while they were in the shower together, the cousin also molested her, the cousin as I said before was female, and what is known in the lesbian sex as tribbing (Jamaicans say rub crotches), is what was done to her by the cousin, much to her horror and dismay. One day her mother called, and the dirty old man had stepped out of the room for once in all this time, he always monitored all phone calls, this was when she blurted out all to her mother. The mother stayed from in America and called the police and the man was arrested and eventually charged, the family came home and the grand mother was forced to divorce him, but not before she cursed the then little girl, blaming her for having to divorce her husband.

The stories I have are mountainous. In my role as a Spiritualist/Traditionalist, I am also counselor/therapist to many, so you can imagine the stories I have heard. The many who I have hugged and held as they recount their misery and suffering at the hands of others who have abused and wronged them. What I have found in the years that I have been dealing with people and their many problems, helping them work through them, often times just being an ear, especially in cases like the story, is that long after they have been removed from the problem, or out of the situation, for most, the scars are still there and the memories still haunts them at times, especially for those who suffer in silence, refusing to speak about what they went through.

I have even heard stories of children abusing their parents, beating them, is wha kind ah people dem deh!

This blog has helped me get over many things, by writing about my personal experiences, by sharing and actively commenting on things that I have gone through. I have always been an outspoken person, I do not know how to keep my pain to myself, and while some may criticize me for this, I have realized that being this way has helped heal me and has allowed me to forgive.

We began these conversations from the Ray Rice story and the media attention it has gotten, but Abuse, be it physical, emotional, child abuse,  abuse of the elderly, animal abuse, abuse of any kind is wrong on so many levels and it is a human concern. There is even abuse in the workplace, in school all over, O Ma Se oooo (What a Pity)!

Let us continue today with this subject as it is good to discuss these things and hear each others opinions/stories/fears and cares, and perhaps learn something.

Ty shared this with us last night;

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/23/tanya-young-williams-domestic-abuse_n_5862894.html

Here are some more I found on the internet

https://www.oneinthree.com.au/malevictims

https://www.womenagainstabuse.org/index.php/hear-our-stories

Hey Mel Gibson we did not fort about you sir!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/mel-gibson-abuse/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/mel-gibson-abuse/

Ẹni táa fún lóbì tí ò ṣọpẹ́, táa bá fun lọ́mọ kò ní ṣàna. /
A person who’s not grateful when given kolanut won’t pay his dues if given a bride…..Yoruba Proverb!

[Whoever is ungrateful for minor favours won’t be grateful for major ones.]

All religions are valid as long as it teaches peace and love…..Obara Meji!

There are no disappointments in life, only lessons learned…..Obara Meji