Disclaimer: This was hard for me to write. It may be hard to read. Please take care of you if you choose to read on – reading on is most definitely a choice. If something squeezes your heart too tight – listen to that. Take a break and come back later. These words will not leave.
We will not have honesty regarding abuse until we are willing to look at power.
Consistently the elite and powerful accuse people of lesser power as wielding unreasonably power/aligned with evil. In a staggering sequela, the general public accepts this narrative.
True Story…
My father, a persuasive and pervasive predator, told the rest of us children that my sister who he raped when she was 4-13, that she consistently asked him to have sex with her.
He was in his thirties.
After my father went to prison for sexual molestation of my sister, my stepmother consistently accused me of wanting to have sex with my father. I was 10. His deviance was assigned as my “dark desire.”
The powerful assigned power to the powerless.
Not many would accept this as valid or veracious. He did. He tried to rape me when I was fourteen, after several years of sexual abuse. Before that, he routinely ruled the world with his fists. He told the court that he knew my stepmother was abusive. He knew I would leave if he tried to rape me. Therefore he was actually “helping me.”
In a statement to the court, he said, “She was always a powerful person. I knew she would leave. She is just like her mother.” He beat my mother to a pulp. Repeatedly raped her. Stole her babies. And her sanity.
The powerful assigned power to the powerless.
This sequelae of blame/shame with public/private scourging continued through the decades, wherein the powerful assigned actions and motives to the powerless (me) that were wildly outside of reality.
Be suspicious when someone of greater power assigns blame to someone of lesser power.
It should make you nauseous that a father or mother would blame a child for his own sexual deviance. That is power at work. That is critical thinking gone astray. It happens every day.
Parent/Child
Cleric/Congregant
Teacher/Student
Man/Woman
White/Color
Employer/Employee
Powerful/Powerless
In ANY situation involving abuse ask yourself this:
“Who holds the balance of power?”
Then appropriately assign sanctions to the offender while getting help for the offended.
Power, a precious gift given, was used for slaughter.
Do NOT do likewise.