The Courage to Heal

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Irony Poster Boy

I believe they all think this.






PONTIAC, Michigan (AP) -- A 33-year-old man who authorities say wore a "World's Greatest Dad" T-shirt intending to have sex with someone he believed was a 14-year-old girl has been sentenced to three to 20 years in prison.


Daniel Everett's stepdaughter had given him the T-shirt, his wife's lawyer said.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Michael Warren issued the sentence Thursday for Daniel A. Everett.

Everett pleaded guilty Aug. 7 to child sexual abuse and using the Internet to attempt child sexual abuse.

Everett has been sued for divorce by his wife, Michelle. Her lawyer, Robert F. White, has said Daniel Everett's stepdaughter gave him the "World's Greatest Dad" shirt.

Defense attorney Deborah McKelvy did not immediately respond to a message seeking

Dear Jane,

I got your message and yes, it is okay to be angry. You live in hell, of course you can be angry. There are many in your situation being held in prison by their family - literally. I spoke to another one of them online. But it was her dad poising as her - soooo creepy. He revealed himself pretty early on that it was really him. He's so dumb that he didn't even realize that I figured out I was talking to him and not his daughter. Creep. When you think about it, it makes sense that he was on there pretending to by his young girl and talking to her friends. Gross. Yet another way to control the one you are abusing and get your rocks off talking to their friends! Perps have all kinds of ways to stop an escape. They watch your every move.

You have to be smarter than them.

When your own family abuses you many times (like yourself) you made an agreement that in order to survive you were going to split. The problem is that you can forget that you made that agreement and have a really hard time putting all the pieces of yourself back together. You are not crazy. You abusers are crazy and they try to make you think you are crazy.

As far as getting out goes, you have to save money. It is very good that you got a job. I suggest you have them pay you through paypal and start a new account that no one knows about - don't use the account you already have that they know about! Hide and save your money even if you have to open a safety deposit box somewhere.

Express your anger away from them. Practice sports. Learn to fight. If you express yourself around them they will only put down the fortress walls quicker and heavier. You've got to think ninja-style and be smarter than them in order to escape. You and I both know that if you stay he will get your pregnant and then rape your children. That is the cold hard fact.



Jane History:
http://survivormanual.blogspot.com/2007/11/dear-jane.html
http://survivormanual.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-it-okay-to-express-myself-and-get.html
If you were following my old blog on angelashelton.com/weblog - this is the girl who we tried to save. http://www.angelashelton.com/weblog/2007/03/16/the-past-two-weeks/
I call her Jane now instead of Katie. So when you see Dear Jane, I am talking to her as well as a few just like her. There are many in this situation - just take the roof off of family courts nationwide and you will find a boatload of horror!

I’m afraid a little girl I know is being molested. I have no idea what to do. I have no proof, but I can see something in her eyes. Do I try to ......

I recommend that you go to the d2l.org - Darkness to Light- web site and download the 7 Steps to protecting our children, guiding responsible adults to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. This guide will tell you how to talk to adults about suspicion of abuse and where to go for help for reporting.

I encourage you to follow through on your "gut" feeling or intuition about this little girl. It is adults responsibility to protect all kids. Perhaps you are the only one that has this insight about this little girl, perhaps the only one that could possibly stand up for her.

If you would like more encouragement or confidence around reporting then you can take the Stewards of Children training online at the d2l.org web site. The Darkness to Light Stewards of Children is a prevention training program that educates adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse, and motivates them to courageous action. You can also see there if there are trainings being offered in your town.

I have facilitated this training for almost 3 years now. It is a really powerful tool to educate adults about the issue of CSA and prevention. I highly recommend it!

Thank you for noticing this little girl!

Dear Jane...

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This is to a girl I love. You know who you are. There are quite a few of you out there and this is for all of you but especially Jane.

Awareness Ribbon for DID and other dissociative disorders

This just came in from a friend and activist:

To be shared with people out there who have DID or other dissociative disorders. The voting is taking place and can be viewed and voted on at this website:
http://www.copingincrazyville.com/iconvoting.php

It's an awareness ribbon that will be ordered the first of the year and then on sale. Vote!

Male Sexual Abuse

This is a great video from (Wo)Men Speak Out www.menspeakoutnow.com

Greetings from E. Sue Blume . . .

. . . . who is firmly lodged in the 20th century, and blogging is therefore a new skill. It only took about 12 tries to get this right. OK, gimme a break, I'm old.
But I'm learning!
What a great opportunity it is for me to participate in Angela's blog. I have been a fan ever since seeing "Searching . . .", her inspirational, moving film, and am delighted to lend my support for any of her other efforts in the important crusade to fight child sexual abuse.
My own involvement in this issue began a million years ago--in 1984. Back then, the world never acknowledged sexual abuse or “Organized Perpetrator Abuses” (including Ritual Abuse or other “mind control” activities) that victimized children. Incest was not even mentioned in graduate school programs for therapists! That year, I began developing my “Incest Survivors Aftereffects Checklist (c),” which has since evolved into a 37-cluster list of the emotional and behavior consequences of incest.
The definition of incest I use is not the original one, but one taught to me--as everything I know was taught to me--by survivors. That is, incest is the sexual exploitation of a child committed by an older child or adult who is connected not by blood, but by a dependency bond.
One of the unplanned applications of my list was that it frequently helped survivors of repressed, or dissociated incest to trigger the release of an awareness that they had been abused. This particular aspect has been much criticized, and misrepresented, by the Backlash. As I have always emphasized, no one item on this list should be taken to indicate any possibility of an incest history. Only when one has the overwhelming majority of items should incest be considered, and even then, please remember that other childhood traumas can cause most of the same issues described on the list.
I no longer do much clinical work in this area. My focus has moved into being political. That is because now we must combat the effect of the “false memory syndrome” Backlash, which is a political effort spearheaded by perps and their supporters to suppress the truth about incest, DID and RA, and destroy those who advocate that truth. What began as an effort to support the healing of survivors has evolved into a resistance to the war declared by predators’ advocacy groups against survivors and those who help them. Although incest is now a recognized fact, many psychology books present these issue through the distortions of a Backlash bias. That same bias permeates the media, the courts, and society at large.
One way that Backlash efforts have been successful is that they have distracted us from focusing on understanding incest and helping survivors. So it’s time to get back to basics. My Checklist has helped countless survivors to identify the cause behind the often bewildering and confusing struggles they faced in later life. I offer it to you here in the hopes it can help you, or someone you know, as well.
You’re not crazy. You’ve been traumatized by what may well be the worst abuse a child can suffer. And that changes a person.
If you are a survivor, remember, no one can tell you what your own truth is--not a perp, not a political movement, not even a therapist. YOU are the expert on your own experience, which is a power you will recover as you heal. And you CAN heal. Be gentle with yourself.
If you are a therapist, or someone who cares about a survivor, learn everything you can, and spread the word about the truths you have learned. This struggle is more important than you know.

Here, now, is the “Incest Survivors Aftereffects Checklist (c. 1984-2004, E. Sue Blume.) (Well, not "here," exactly. It actually appeared . . before this post. Because that's how things are now. Sigh.)

My love to you all,

E. Sue Blume, LCSW, Diplomate in Clinical Social Work Therapy for Women and their Relationships, Long Island, NY