Childhood I just saw one of my abusers

[Mach123]

I just walked past him in Home Depot. Maybe it wasn't? I've asked so many people if they remember me an they don't that I have to be really sure now or I won't say it.
It's the fawning that bothers me. I just folded right up inside. I had a knife, a box cutter, in my pocket but I couldn't have done anything violent if my life depended on it.

When I walked by I couldn't even look up.

I only have partial memories about him. I saw him one other time and I was actually thinking it was going to be like a sex thing? I was in a shed in a back yard and I was like "what if he walks in here?"
I feel so so. I kept going and did what i was doing. I felt a little weepy which makes me feel like sh#t. I hate the fawning it's all part of that. The submissive reaction.

 

[Powder]

We should be allowed to put the Mark of Cain on these creatures. They should not be allowed to walk around us and law abiding folks and blend in amongst us.

We are more than just one coping skills in our toolbox. I think of times of assertiveness I've also developed. All is me. I'm not just one response to a stimulus. That's all it was.

As I think about the way we do justice in society, it's always an injustice to someone. What is a just society? If we make it so easy for the perpetrators to just move on, it will be harder for good people to live.

I don't agree with imprisonment for life. But neither does it make it okay for rapists or abusers to continue unfettered.

We must fetter them with the truth and make it impossible for them to show their faces unfettered. They should be permanently seen for who and what they are. And if violence is done to them as a result, then they should not go out and expect to be treated as one of us. They must take the consequences of their actions.

It should not be the task of the survivor to ignore them now. The fawn response is not in us alone. All of our people are fawning to the violent predators among us by allowing them to be free of their actions. We allow them to continue. This is because as a culture of denial and fawning, we prefer to turn the other cheek and ignore the epidemic of child abuse we have rather than turn and face it.

Only those who have endured abuse and those who have bravely shared with us the life of pain that is the result will be able and willing to take the steps to tip the tide in favor of justice.

We want to feel good about us. But the truth is that many people among us should bear an indelible Mark as ugly as the evil deeds they have perpetrated against us all when they hurt an innocent child.

We would be faced with a lot of ugliness, but then the beautiful would be able to walk free.

 

[Freida]

I'm so sorry - I can't imagine how tough that would be. :hug: