Dear Trump Supporters: There is No Timeline for Bringing a Sexual Assault to Light

I suppose it was only a matter of time before the victim-shaming started vis a vis Donald Trump's latest debacle (why don't we call it "Pussygate").

I've spent the last week in a state of shock as I heard Trump boast gleefully about his inappropriate behavior with women. I've been distracted, I've been having panic attacks and nightmares, and it's only getting worse.

My feelings are at a fever pitch today as I've read about women coming forward to allege that Trump's "locker room talk" went way beyond words, that he actually did many of the things he boasted of to Billy Bush according to numerous women, including former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff. 

And these women are being crucified by Trump supporters, who are making comments about the convenience of the timing, that they are shooting for optimal financial opportunity and publicity, and even one of my Facebook friends writing, "I have a hard time believing women who jump on the bandwagon 15-30 years later." 

I do not talk about the night I was raped. I have written about it here on this blog, where I have a degree of anonymity and privacy, but I still cannot talk about it.

I do not know my rapist's last name. I do not know where he lives. I do not want to know. I have been fortunate, if you want to call it that, to fall into what could best be classified as "date rape by an acquaintance", which means I've never had to see the monster again.

If the man that raped me--Tom--suddenly started running for public office, if his face was all over the news, if he was spreading hatred, I'm still not sure I would have the courage to come forward publicly. Why would I? The statute of limitations on that crime has run out, and any physical evidence is old and probably useless. 

The vast majority of women (and men) who suffer sexual assault are not going to want to make it a public thing. Those that have the strength to do so immediately, you have my utmost respect, by the way. It eats me up sometimes to think that Tom has probably done what he did to me again because I didn't go to the police (or my mother or a rape crisis center) right away when physical evidence existed, and I could have stopped it by reporting it. I didn't have the strength, though, and I hate myself for that. 

Here's what happens in the aftermath of a sexual assault.   

You have to deal with the physical first. My rape was extremely violent, and there are physical ramifications that still exist today. If you're smart, you get tested for STDs ASAP (I was sort of smart...I did get tested, but I did not share my reasons for wanting this testing done with my doctor). 

After that, you try to find your life again. This can take a long time. Sometimes I think I'm still working on it, nearly twenty years later. You crave normalcy and try to avoid at all costs anything that will bring back the rape in your mind.

By the time you get to the point where you're "okay", you do not want to go back down that rabbit hole. Why would you?

And so you live your life. You slowly learn to live and love and trust again. You do the best you can. Some days are better than others, and blah blah blah.

I wrote that I would probably not have the courage to bring Tom's name forward even if he became a public figure, and I meant it. 

There would, however, be one exception: if Tom was caught on a hot mic joking about raping stupid college girls that didn't know enough not to put down their drinks, particularly if he was running for President of the United States, I would come forward. I would share my story, no matter what people might say about me. 

There is no timeline for bringing a sexual assault to light, and I'd wager a guess that about 85% go unreported. However, we all have a line. That would be mine, and if Tom crossed it, if he lied about who he was and what he did to me that long ago night and how he basically ruined my life, I would still feel a moral obligation to speak up, to not let the sleazeball get away with it anymore.

I suspect Natasha Stoynoff knows that line well. 

Although she no longer works for People, the magazine ran her story. In fact, People might well have been the only major publication that would run it as they were no doubt able to match up her story with a timeline of their own. Was Stoynoff a family friend of the Trumps until that day? Did her professional relationship with them change afterwards? Do the details in her story jibe with what the magazine knows?

Well, a magazine that reports on celebrities believed in Natasha Stoynoff enough to run the story, risk alienating Trump as well as other stars, and issue a statement explaining why they ran it. That would really be going out on a limb for a publication company that depends on maintaining good relations with the people they want to interview and report on.

So to all of you muttering about convenient timing and payouts, please just stop. 

Living with the aftermath of a sexual assault is something no amount of money can assuage, and there is no convenient timing, only the right timing for you in your own personal situation.

That Donald Trump brought about this reaction in so many women speaks to how horrible their experiences must have been, how frightened and damaged they were, and how truly deplorable a human being he is.

He brought about the timing--and the collapse of his house of cards--all on his own.

Why People are Getting Angry About Tom Brady's "Deflategate" for the Wrong Reasons

In the name of full disclosure, I live in New Hampshire and am a fan of the New England Patriots in general and of Tom Brady in particular. I think Brady is a tremendous player, has done some outstanding philanthropic work, and I am truly a part of Patriot Nation.

That being said, I can't help but be a bit disturbed by the direction society (and I'm sorry, New England, but this is mostly you) is going with their reaction to this.

From Russell Street Report, which gives a pretty good bulleted list of the findings of the Wells Report, and makes clear that "the standard of proof required to find that a violation of the competitive rules has occurred".

In other words, the Patriots knowingly cheated. I don't want it to be true as a Patriots fan, but I have a hard time looking away from a preponderance of evidence. Read the report if you haven't ... the Wells Report is dry, but the bullets from Russell Street are pretty easy to follow. It outlines the evidence.

Which does exist. (Sorry, but it does)

Football is a game. It's a game well loved in America, and I've certainly done my share of drinking beer and eating pizza while watching men in uniform dance around the line of scrimmage.

When something happens during a game to directly impact the integrity of the game, there needs to be a game-level consequence. Unnecessary roughness. Holding. Encroachment. False start. All are dealt with during the game.

Deflating footballs was a different level of offense ... and so it had to be dealt with at a higher level.

However, it was still an offense about a game.

Deflategate is, when you take the air out of everyone's arguments (heh), a rich and powerful football team trying to cheat and win a big game. They got caught. They got punished.

Along comes this meme. though, and others like it, and I get upset. Appalled. Shocked. Unable to understand why people are unable to see what they are saying ...

I think the person who made this meme (and those who are posting out, many of whom are my friends on Facebook) has this mindset:
"These terrible men did awful things and the major sports leagues don't say anything. Tom Brady has knowledge of deflated footballs and he gets suspended for four games. How unfair is that????"

While Brady looks pretty silly standing in that company over air pressure, the fact is that his is the only offense that was in direct violation of the game of football. He is the only one of the six men on the meme that cheated at his given sport, was caught breaking the sport's specific rules, and has to pay the consequences.

If you want to have a beef with anybody, take it up with the national sports leagues. They allow violent athletes to act a certain way off the field or out of the ring but rarely hold them accountable for this terrible behavior as long as they hold it together while on the team's turf.

I want to make it very clear that I am not making apologies for the men in this meme.

Ben Roethlisberger is accused of sexually assaulting multiple women. Ray Lewis was charged with two counts of murder. Boxer Floyd Mayweather used the mother of his children as a punching bag. Ray Rice knocked his former fiancee (now wife) unconscious in an elevator. Adrian Peterson beat his son with a tree branch.

These are not nice people. No, these are horrible people, and I can say as a woman once married to a man who abused both myself and my children as well as a rape survivor that I would never be an apologist for this sort of behavior. It is never okay to do the things that Peterson, Rice, Mayweather, Lewis, Roethlisberger, or Peyton Manning (just because he kept it under the radar does not mean it didn't happen!) did.    

Their bad actions do not make "Deflategate" less legitimate, however.

The NFL isn't wrong to punish the New England Patriots for the air pressure debacle that has become known as Deflateglate. This was a football game issue, and it is being sanctioned as such. We may not like it, but it is fair.

What they, and many other national and international sports teams ARE wrong about, however, are that no set sanctions exist for deplorable behavior such as those monsters in the meme posted above.

This opens up a can of worms where people will start screaming about what exactly constitutes "unacceptable behavior" (a DUI? shoplifting? marrying a cousin? using the wrong bathroom in North Carolina?) and we'll have the whole political correct screaming fit because it's impossible to have respectful discourse anymore, but it seems to me that something has to be done.

This bad behavior has been allowed to continue because these athletes are so very talented and it's off the field, so the contractual language is fuzzy.

Yeah, friends and neighbors ... Deflateglate's a smokescreen for a bigger issue that nobody wants to talk about.

Let's please have that conversation...

Nightmares, my 20-Year-Old-Rape, and Bill Clinton

In January of 1998, I was raped at a Maine ski resort at a friend's condo where a small party was going on following  a bit of barhopping. The story isn't particularly original (it's here if you're interested in reading it), and it's certainly not why I'm writing about this long-ago event at this late date.

I should mention that I've written about the repercussions before as well, here and here, but that's also not what has me in a a bad place right now.

No, it's like it's coming back, and I am just a hot mess.

I had the rape nightmare last night...and the night before. Not a random mosaic of images obviously symbolizing the rape in some way that I'm hopefully smart enough to figure out, not an "anxiety attack", but what was essentially a reenactment.

I've been a disaster for days.

You'd think that after all these years, I would stop doing this to myself, that my brain would just say, "Geez, Katie, it's been almost twenty years, let it go already!"

Yeah, not so easy...

It usually happens a lot in January, because that's when the event itself happened, but it has not ever been quite like this.

It took me a bit to figure out why I'm going through this, why I am again ripped apart by the smart, sassy, feisty little girl who died in January of 1998 to be replaced by the woman typing this. 

Me, brother Mike, sister Meghan 


In the old neighborhood (I'm on the right, holding a play I'd written for the neighbor kids to perform, I think)


With another childhood friend.

A woman who put on a lot of weight, because I was pretty the night I was raped and I do not want to be pretty anymore.

A woman who struggles with virtually every relationship, from family to friendships and everywhere in between, because she trusts nobody.

A woman who cowers with fear at bullies, injustice, and those who habitually do the wrong thing.

A woman who almost lost her passion for her profession because of the pain she lived with, pain she lives with to this day.

A woman who apologizes all the time, to the point where it's annoying and she knows it is, but she can't help it.

It took me years to share that this had happened to me, years. I'd buried it down deep, and while it shaped the adult I ultimately became, I do not think I experienced direct emotional pain on a regular basis. And once I shared, of course, everyone said, "Get help."

So I tried to get help, from a variety of sources using a variety of techniques. I think about the rape and my rapist more since trying to "get help" then I ever did before, largely because I had a huge flashback brought about by the bloody trauma of my daughter Gabrielle's birth that led to what was eventually diagnosed as PTSD and Postpartum Depression.

The last treatment I tried involved the therapist forcing me to relive every detail. Remember and retell and relive every single freaking detail. Blood sticky on my legs. Having my face forced into a pillow, smelling laundry detergent and tasting cotton. The pain getting ever worse. Blood, everywhere. The laughter of my rapist, which echos in my nightmares. He thought it was funny.

After that, I figured I'd just deal on my own, and I've been doing okay.

Until this year.

I couldn't figure out what had changed, why the rape has been on my mind constantly, marring any happiness I should be enjoying.

And then it hit me ...

The so-called "liberal media" has gone crazy posting pieces implying that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assaults (which I read to be "rapes") in order to knock down Hillary Clinton's chances of breaking the glass elevator and becoming the first female president.

It was the terminology "sexual assault", not "sexual inappropriateness" that got me going, I think.

Women had affairs with Bill Clinton, and they were paid handsomely in cash or favors to keep quiet about it (I've had bosses imply that my future with a company would improve with sexual favors). Women were sexually harassed by Bill Clinton at the workplace (I have been sexually harassed at the workplace, more than once).

Those women, women who were certainly victims but took bribes to keep quiet about it, don't know anything about being sodomized and screaming and unable to keep your mouth open because it is literally cracking at the edges, about being gagged with their own bloody panties, about having pieces bitten out of their skin. They don't know what it is like to have these images flash every time a man kisses you, even if it is a man you know and trust. They don't know what it is to scream for help knowing that everyone upstairs is passed out and the music is too loud.

And yet they are putting themselves out there as victims for political gain.

I would not ever intentionally cheapen the sexual assault of another human being, but it seems that this is being done to me ... and I can't possibly be the only one.

So I guess I can blame Bill Clinton for my nightmares, a sleazeball who was a sexual predator but by most accounts lacks the violent, sadistic streak that killed the finest parts of me on a cold winter night.

Or, I could politely ask the right-wing, anti-Hillary people to just shut up about it. My wounds are salty enough, and every time I read about Bill's dalliances and sexual misappropriations, they burn more and more.

Most recent pics: still shooting for unpretty...

So I Woke Up in a Bad Mood Today ...

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Can You Learn to Love Yourself?

I've been off the radar for a few days trying to figure out some things. It was a good experience, and I learned a lot about myself and how to go on to live the happiest life possible.

The answer to my problem is quite easy--simply put, I need to love myself, to value myself, to see the good in myself.

The problem is, I don't.

I did get it down to that one issue, however, which is actually quite good progress for me.  It turns out that virtually all of my problems cycle back to that one problem.

All I can hear is Whitney Houston singing "The Greatest Love of All", but...well, it's just not that simple.

I am raising three amazing children (well, Emily is pretty much on her own, but she does sometimes text me in the middle of the night to ask random philosophical questions), I am loved deeply by my husband, my mother, my siblings and their spouses, and my nephews. It only follows logically that I am a pretty good mother/wife/daughter/sister/auntie, yet I can't for the life of me see why.  Or maybe it's how.

And I'm not writing this for people to throw compliments at me.  I know I am a good mother.  I know I have some talent at writing and teaching, but I know that both of these have ceased to be easy for me. I know I'm a nice and caring person.

But I don't know it, if that makes any sense.

I guess it's no secret to most people that know me in person or who reads this blog regularly or is a friend on Facebook that I have been struggling with some debilitating Postpartum Depression that ended up waking up a sleeping nightmare of a crime I thought was buried forever (a sexual assault I wrote about here and focused on the repercussions of here), so I've also been diagnosed with PTSD.

I did make a lot of progress over the past few days, though, and I'd like to share some of it in the hope that it can help any of you out there, anyone that has Postpartum Depression, PTSD, or anything else.  

There is still a stigma attached to mental illness, so I am feeling some shame as I write this.  I'm actually going to say that Postpartum Depression is hormonal and affects a large percentage of women and that, you know, I certainly didn't ask to be raped and have it all come back through PTSD. It's not like, I'm really messed up on my own.  I also have some pretty interesting purely medical stuff going on as well.

And I hate myself for writing the above paragraph because, while true, it dishonors those that suffer from bipolar disorder or depression or OCD or borderline personality disorder or whatever.  People that suffer from those are no different than those that are living with cancer or diabetes.  

Yet the stigma remains.

Anyway, I'll get off my (fairly hypocritical) soapbox now and get back to the point.

I was given a list of positive affirmations and encouraged to identify which of those were true for me.  At first, I scoffed.  I mean, we're talking "I pursue my life's purpose" and "I feel fulfilled and joyful", and my personal favorite, "I balance my self-confidence with modesty perfectly".  

Eventually, I found a couple that did resonate with me, so I read a little further and found a few more, and then I decided to make an effort to take it seriously.

I made a list of the positive affirmations that I felt were true about myself.  There were twenty-four of them, but I felt that it wasn't as cut and dried as that; in other words, many of the twenty-four had a disclaimer.  I then decided to write them in my own handwriting along with some freewriting on the topic.

I care for people.  I do, but often to my detriment.  I am extremely sensitive with minimal self-esteem, so I take things very personally.  I know I need to develop a thicker skin.  Either that or stop caring, and I think that's impossible for me.  My parents bought me a beautiful red jacket when I was a little girl of six or seven.  I gave it away to another little girl who lived in a bad part of town and who didn't have a jacket at all.  If my mother's wrath at that event didn't put a dent in the "care dial" on  my heart, I don't think anything will.  It is so hard to care about others, though, when they clearly don't care about you.

Here's another:

I deserve to succeed.  I have done so many awful things that sometimes I really don't feel this, but the truth is that everyone with pure and positive intentions deserves to succeed, and I definitely fall into that category.  This is one I need to focus more on ...

The next step was going through my freewrites and generating questions for each.  I came up with a ton of questions (I needed to get a second notepad at about this point), and then I went through those questions and came up with what I called "Katie's Essential Questions", which means areas that recurred as common themes that ran through my positive self-affirmations.

Virtually every question came back to the fact that I have very low self-esteem, minimal self-confidence, and this pervasive feeling that I am unworthy of love.

I am still wrangling with this issue as I type this (and, boy, does it feel good to use a computer...I had to write in long hand because it was how I could make it be me, but this is so much easier).  I didn't come up with an answer, although I went through my "essential questions" with my mother this afternoon and she helped me see the connection between all of my questions.

It's funny, because I am your typical ADHD person ... even my brain is disorganized.  It was very hard for me to systematically take on this task, because it seemed both stupid and overwhelming and, most of all, a supreme waste of time.  I used a notebook and a half to realize something that I already know ... that I am not the world's biggest fan of myself.

What I lost sight of, at least for a moment, was that there are twenty-four statements I now own, in my own bastardized print/cursive hybrid, that are at least in some ways true.

The one that speaks the most to me is "I am a kind, caring, and decent person". I put it on my list and know it to be true, yet the question remains ...

Can you learn to love yourself?  And, if so, how?

Repercussions of Rape (Part II)

It is truly amazing to me the response I have gotten from people based on my post Repercussions of Rape (Part I).  So many people have spoken of how courageous I am and how much help it is for people who have experienced sexual assault to read it and know they're not alone.

I am truly humbled by that. Please know that I appreciate the kind notes, Facebook messages, texts, love, and support.

The truth of the matter is, I honestly thought I was over the rape.  I really did.  Like, I didn't think about it, didn't talk about it, only occasionally had nightmares about it.  I even got told by a counselor (originally he was a marriage counselor, but the third time my ex-husband showed up late to the appointment, we realized that marriage counseling was a waste of time but he would happily continue to see me as I felt I had some unresolved issues beyond being emotionally, mentally, and physically tortured by my ex) after spilling the whole rape story that I had great coping mechanisms and there was no real need for me to go back.  He was happy to have me come back if I needed it, insurance would cover it, but there was no real need.

I had no idea that it was consuming my life.

My rape was characterized by someone overpowering me, speaking down to me, telling me I was  nothing, and the guilt associated with my best friend thinking I was sleeping with some other guy in his house when he and I'd had awkward, random, drunken casual sex a few weeks before.

When I encountered a bully, and there are many adult bullies that prey on people they scent weakness in, I would get sweaty, nauseous, clumsy, and my heart would start racing.  I never knew why I had such a visceral response to assholes.

It certainly couldn't be about the rape, right?  A therapist had told me I had great coping mechanisms and a solid support system, that I was just fine.

I do not want to get into specifics here, but just imagine that a person is in a position of power over you in your professional life.  Imagine even further that this person is a bully, a cruel person known for talking about his colleagues (bosses, lateral equals, and peons like me) behind their backs, of laughing at the misfortunes of others, of speaking down to people until they couldn't stand up any longer, telling people they were wrong when this person had no idea what h/she was talking about, and pouring on the guilt by emphasizing how your shortcomings (the ones that s/he had given you) explained why you did a crappy job.

If you had survived my situation, one would think that being bullied by some pathetic loser who epitomizes the Peter Principle would be nothing ... but it wasn't.

So I messed up.  A lot.  It took me forever to do anything at work because I was so anxious, and then it reached a point where it was coming home.

Being beaten down at work every day turned me from a fairly confident woman with many and varied passions (reading, writing, the beach, traveling, spending time with friends) to one who internalized everything.  The dog knocked something off the table?  My fault.  My daughter broke her leg and had to be in a cast because she was screwing around at Hannaford?  My fault.  The washing machine broke? Yup, my fault.

At first these were just feelings, and I tried to keep them from my husband and kids.  After Gabrielle was born, though, it came out in words.  This hypothetical a-hole boss honed the keen blade of self-loathing that went back to 1998, and with the stress of Gabrielle's bloody birth, which was sort of a nightmare, I came to a point where the rape, and its repercussions, nearly killed me.

After the rape, when I washed my hands, there was blood in the sink.  I saw blood in the sink when I washed my hands a month or so ago (and, I mean, I'm an English teacher ... I felt like freaking Lady MacBeth).  I am afraid to take showers, because the shower I took following the rape was when I started to come back to myself, and I was alone and so damn scared.  I will wake up screaming, or I'll jerk awake.  According to my husband, I say the things I said to my rapist when I am asleep, sometimes in a mumble but sometimes nearly yelling.

I am not healed now.  I am in counseling, and I suspect I will be for a long time.  My husband is extremely supportive (except when he's in a bad mood, which is almost never).  I've found some online support groups and even some groups that meet face to face, but the humiliation of someone knowing about the rape makes that medium hard for me.

I guess that makes me posting about it ironic, but the thing is that I am a teacher.  I have had more than one student tell me they were sexually assaulted.  I have heard stories that make my own experience seem very small.

I guess the bottom line is, sexual assault, molestation, rape, whatever word you want to use, they are more common than you might think.  If you are reading this and you feel alone, please know that you are not.

If you are reading this and you are one of my many wonderful friends whom I've blown off, I suspect I've put enough info here for you to figure out why.    

There is a picture that circulates around Facebook from time to time, and I guess that's what I want to end with.

Repercussions of Rape (Part I)

One night in early January of 1998, I got very drunk and had sex with my best friend.  I, of course, wanted to talk about it, even asked, "So that happened because we were so drunk, right?" because then of course we could laugh it off and move on and so on.  He said, "Being drunk had nothing to do with it."

Our friendship was a bit awkward after that, to say the least.

A couple of weeks later, we were out with a couple of his friends.  I was on my second drink at the bar (and that was when I could hold my liquor pretty well for a college girl), and suddenly I was cuckoo, like falling over my feet wasted.  It got worse instead of better, and I vaguely remember walking back to my best friend's condo.  He went upstairs with one of the other guys, and I went out to the balcony to smoke a cigarette with this guy, Tom.  I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, he gave me another beer.

**Note: I am putting in some details.  If this will bother you, please don't read it**
The next thing I remember, I was being sodomized on the pullout couch.  Words cannot express how painful it was.  When I went to cry out, I realized that my mouth felt like it had been propped open for hours.

"Stop!"I tried to yell, but it came out a whisper.  He did stop what he was doing, though.

"You shut up, bitch, or I'll kill you.  You and your little loverboy upstairs."

"He's not my--" I began, and he interrupted me by ... well, by filling up my mouth again.  I quickly realized why my mouth was so sore.

I was crying so hard, but I did it silently.

He said, "You're getting snot on my dick.  You'd better stop or I'll make you lick it off."

I guess he had an aversion to mucous, because he got on top of me and started raping me vaginally.  He had obviously spent some time doing this already.  The sheets of the pull-out couch were white, and I'd slept platonically on them with my best friend many, many times.  They were spotted with blood, I realized, and then I looked around and it occurred to me that "spotted" was a weak word.  This had clearly been going on a long time.

I begged him to stop over and over and he said, "You're really boring."

Finally, I said, "I want you to come.  I want to make you feel good."

He stopped what he was doing (briefly), got in my face, and said, "You don't have the stuff to make me come, little girl. You just don't have it."

Then I kind of blacked out again, which I'm glad about, and the next thing I know, someone is coming down the stairs.  It was, of course, my best friend, the one which I'd had drunken casual sex with just a couple weeks before.

I was so sore and doped up and naked and bloody and ashamed that I just said, "I'm going to go home, I think."

He didn't say anything.

I grabbed my clothes and ran for the bathroom.  I couldn't pee, even though I had to go terribly.  I sat there trying to make pee come out, but no luck.  When I stood to get dressed, I cried with pain and got very scared when I saw all the blood in the toilet bowl.

I flushed and went to the sink.  My hands were spotted with blood like a henna tattoo, and I used soap for what felt like forever, but even after that I don't know if the blood was gone or not.  I was still seeing it.

I walked out the door without saying goodbye and went home.  I locked the door and took a bath and looked at the bruises and felt the blood still seeping out of every orifice.  My jaw ached terribly and popped every time I went to open my mouth.  He had bitten off a piece of my nipple, and that hit me hard. I had fed my daughter with that nipple.

I laid in the bathtub until the water got cold, then I reran another tubful.  My vagina and anus were still bleeding, and I was afraid to look.  I fell asleep in the bathtub, and when I woke up I felt alive and myself, at least.

I got dressed in sweats and a t-shirt and made a grilled cheese sandwich.  I cleaned my apartment, even though it hurt terribly.  My best friend stopped by later, and I was going to tell him until I saw his face.  He had a bag with him, and he wouldn't look at me, just handed me the bag.

"The sheets," he said.  "There's blood all over them.  You ruined the sheets, but it's your blood, so maybe you won't mind how dirty they are" or something like that, and then he left.

"I had my period," I yelled after him.  "I just had my period, that's what the blood is."

He didn't listen.  He knew damn well I was lying.  He just didn't know why.

And life went on.  I put on a huge amount of weight and cut my hair short because I didn't want anyone to think of me as pretty.  I became sexually promiscuous with some pretty shady characters.  I basically gave Emily to my parents for awhile because I was such a mess.  I flunked out of college.

The woman is this picture (circa 2009) thinks the rape is behind her.  She has no idea that, even though her life is "together" on the surface, that ugliness is still inside ... and might always be there.

My parents knew that something had happened, but they didn't know what, and I certainly couldn't tell them.   They made a deal where they would pay for me to take a summer course at UNH and, if I did well, they would pay for me to go part-time in the fall, and, if that was successful, return to being a full-time student in the spring.

I had some successes in college, and that built up a bit of the confidence.  I met and married my ex-husband.  I became a teacher.  Life went on.

Until I bumped into my best friend at Wal-Mart one day in 2009 and asked if we could get a drink, that I had some things I needed to talk to him about.  That whole saga is recorded here, if you're interested in reading it.

I figured that my best friend knowing the truth would be an absolution of some sort, because I knew I had hurt him badly, and it was.

I truly believed that the rape was in the past, that I had healed, that I was over it.

This is all I can write for right now.  I'm starting to get upset and anxious, but I'll write "Repercussions of Rape Part II" in the next few days.

I will say this, to anyone who has ever been raped or molested or anything like that ... please, please, please know that it's not your fault, and know that there are people who will listen.  Sometimes it just takes awhile to be able to say the words ...

Unspeakable Trauma I'm Trying to Work Through: To Post or Not to Post

I was raped in the winter of 1998.

I hadn't thought of the rape in a long time, since getting a fragile peace in April of 2009 from my good friend that was mixed up in the whole mess. Making sure he knew the whole story was important to me in 2009 (click here to see why).

In 2014, I have been talking more about the fact that I was raped.  I do not want to talk about the rape.  I do not want to talk about it with my therapist. I do not want to talk about it with my husband.  I do not want to talk about it with anybody.

But since I mentioned it, I have had three separate people contact me and tell me that they also had been raped, sexually abused, or otherwise tortured. I had no idea how prevalent it was, how many unspoken stories there are.

And I wonder if it is time for me to talk about it.

I have no idea how many people read this blog, and I'm under no illusion that it's a staggering number.  I don't want to write a piece about rape that nobody will read, but by the same token I don't want to write about this traumatic event and have people read it just because it's got a buzzword.

I will tell you one thing about my rape.  I had to have part of my body surgically repaired.  Remember that hemorrhoid surgery?  Yeah, not a bad cover story...my mother didn't even know. So it's a bit gory.

In therapy, they are trying to make me do a play-by-play.  I don't want to talk about it.  I want to forget about it.

But that's not possible.

Writing has always been a better medium for me.

My story is a lesson in stupidity (don't ever put your drink down, even for a second), but it's also a lesson in pain and the long lasting effects of such a trauma.

One thing I've learned in the past few months is that I am still impacted by that event.  It has, in many ways, shaped my adult life.

But is it worth sharing?

I'm not sure ...

Sharing Your Greatest Accomplishment and Bucket List: I'll Show You Mine and Hope You Show Me Yours

My post on Saturday was focused on my sister-in-law earning her Bachelor's Degree at the age of gettingprettyclosetoforty.  It got me thinking a lot about the concept of accomplishments ... and, strangely, of bucket lists (things you want to do before you die).

I asked that anyone reading the post share his or her greatest accomplishments and the top five bucket list items.

Only one person actually did this, and that was on Facebook.  I was kind of daunted for a moment until I went to do it myself and realized that it was a hard task I had set forward ... in fact, I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it myself.

Why?

Well, because there was the easy route on my greatest accomplishments ... and it would not have been a cop-out, because I truly believe that these three bright, beautiful ladies are my greatest accomplishment.

And the more I thought about it, the more discouraged I got since I didn't seem to have any tangible accomplishments other than my children.

I thought about focusing on how I survived being married to a man who changed into a violent and abusive alcoholic, but that doesn't seem like an accomplishment, per se.

Then I figured that surviving a rape (and the repercussions, which I sometimes think were worse than the rape itself) was kind of a big accomplishment.  However, I realized that I still have a lot of work left to do before I can say "I survived" because I am still reliving that event regularly, so that certainly makes it less of an accomplishment on my part and more sheer luck.

A common theme seemed to be developing, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my greatest accomplishment is surviving.  I don't really feel compelled to elaborate on that, and I definitely have to think more about it before I write, but I think that is probably my big accomplishment (other than my girls).

That really is kind of sad ...

I mean, I've written a book (not published yet, and I've accepted that it probably won't be), I've taught hundreds of students, I cook a mean meatloaf, I won some award for excellence my last semester at UNH, but none of those things feel like me ... which doesn't make much sense, does it?

So, yeah, I'm stating my ability to survive tragedies, travesties, and everyday life as my greatest (non-daughter) accomplishment.  And I'm not even sure how good I am at that ... Blaaaaaaaaah.

Onto the bucket list ...

Here are five things I'd like to do before I die:

1.  Write and have published a book about my experiences.  I'm still not sure if I should try to pass it off as fiction or if I should just state for the record that it's a memoir.

2.  Drive across the country, hitting every state along the way, by myself.  I think it would be an educational and esoteric experience, so I would want to be alone to soak it all up.

3. Meet Stephen King and explain to him (in a non-creepy way) the impact that his books, particularly the seven plus Dark Tower books, have had on my life.

4.  Complete a genealogy of all aspects of my family.  I think there might be some very interesting things there, and I'd be curious to see if patterns go back as far as I think they could.

5.    Swim with sharks.

So if you are more articulate than I am, please share your biggest accomplishment and your bucket list in the comments.  I'm very curious to see what everyone wants to do.

Looking forward to reading them!

A New Direction: The Philosophy of All of Us

When I first started this blog, I was in a very different place emotionally, physically, and about any other -ly you can think of.

Me in 2014

 Me in 2010

I'm going through some pretty hard-core health drama at the moment, and I have found myself unable to write.  My plan is to move this blog in a new direction, to either write about topics you (my readers) recommend or what I see on the news.  Or maybe the naked guy in a Santa jacket my husband and daughter saw at the ice cream shop yesterday.

If there are topics you'd like me to tackle, please either comment below or read through some of the posts I'm linking and ask for clarification or to look at something from a different angle.  You can contact me at kloud1026 at yahoo(dot)com.  I have got to get rid of this stupid writer's block (I intend to leave a mark on the world in some way), so please, I encourage suggestions for writing topics.

Going back to the beginning of this blog (gulp), here are some things I think might be interesting reads for newcomers ...

*  My sister and I had the most epic Facebook conversation ever.  It gets into horse urine and lettuce and really odd places. I just peed a little when I reread it ;-p

* In 1998, I was raped at a small party at a friend's house.  I can say those words aloud now, but back when I wrote this, I could only write them.

*  Stephen King on writing before he wrote On Writing; in fact, he compares it to masturbation.  Okay, he's a little weird, but best author ever, really!

*  I'm quite amused by my random ramblings about pink tissues.  Who knew?

*  This is where I honor the man my ex-husband used to be.  I forgot some of the finer things about him, and I'm sorry to report that they haven't returned.

* I got caught up on why children's television is so milquetoast these days.  It's a bit soap-boxy, but I enjoyed rereading it.

*  If you know me well at all, you know I am fascinated by Charles Manson.  That is explained a bit here.

* If you are from New Hampshire, you are probably familiar with the name Michael Addison.  I am still bothered by the potential racism in a criminal case here in the Granite State.

*  Way back in 2009, I got rather indignant at the whole "Lipstick on a Pig" debacle during the Obama vs. McCain election.

*  I used Socrates to talk about the Easter Bunny in this post.  That sort of makes it a must-read.

I guess that's a pretty wide variety of posts for you to read, if you're interested. Again, starting tomorrow, I am blogging daily.  I am hoping desperately to find something to write about since I've been blocked for so long.  Please share your ideas in comments or via e-mail and let me know if you read any of those Golden Oldies listed above.

I'm sort of laughing and crying both right now ... and wishing I had a pink tissue.

Be well,
<3 katie="" p="">

"Legitimate Rape" and the Crazy Sheriff Candidate: Oh, What a World

Like most people with an IQ and a heart, I am still reeling from insensitive, untrue, and utterly disgusting comments made by Missouri Senate wannabe Todd Akin.  To wit, Akin basically analogized being raped to stubbing your toe.

And, according to Akin, those extremely rare occasions (sense the sarcasm here) where "legitimate rape" occurs almost never result in unwanted pregnancies because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Yeah, this ignorant, insensitive buffoon could arguably be elected to the legislative branch of the United States Government ... scary.

Let me tell you about rape.

It's probably the worst crime that can possible be committed.  Let me list the ways ...

1.  It hurts.  Unspeakably.  And, if you're unlucky, you deal with the physical repercussions for many years.
2.  It is arguably the most under-reported crime because, let's face it, how humiliating would it be to go to a police officer and say, "I was raped?"  It shouldn't be, but it is ... 
3.  Even if you do have the guts to go to the police, it's very difficult to "prove" rape.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but how are authorities to put a judgment call on consensual sex vs. rape when there are so many variables?  So even those who do come forward are often told by authorities, "Yeah, too bad, so sad, there's not a lot we can do."
4.  Years later, you still break out in a cold sweat and get nauseous and remember when it happened to you when you hear the word "rape" or read about it in a book or see a news story or whatever.
5.  You feel dirty, ashamed, and as though you did something wrong ... even when you know intellectually that the only mistake you made was getting a drink with a friend of a friend of a friend that you didn't know.
6.  It destroys your trust in everyone and everything, and it permeates its ugliness into all facets of your life.  If I have to deal with a male in a position of authority (a bank manager, a boss, a police officer) and it gets remotely acrimonious, I am back to being intimidated by a man ... and I do not act my best.

Yes, as you've probably figured out, I have some personal experiences with this subject.  I have alluded before, both on this site and on Zelda Lily, to the fact that I was raped when I was twenty-one, but this crap with Todd Akin has made it important to me that I don't just say, "This guy's an idiot" but explain why his words are so painful.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, by the way, have publicly stated that their ticket would not oppose abortion in cases of rape or incest (good for them, I say ... they did not hesitate to come down on what I believe to be the right side--pun not intended--and I commend them for that), and virtually every Republican in the country is calling for Akin to step down.

But this is a little bit more complicated than just some nutjob from Missouri making inflammatory remarks about rape victims and using them as pawns in the abortion debate.

See, New Hampshire has its own nutjob at the moment, and he's running for Sheriff of Hillsborough County.

[Sheriff Candidate Frank] Szabo may have inflamed the issue further when asked if he would use deadly force to prevent an abortion.

"I would respond specifically by saying that if someone is under threat, a full-grown human being, if they're under threat, what should the sheriff do? Everything in their power to prevent them from being harmed," he said.

When pressed about what he would do if he learned that a doctor was about to perform an elective abortion, Szabo replied he would do what it took to prevent that from happening.
"Absolutely," he said. "Well, I would hope that it wouldn't come to that, as with any situation where someone is in danger, but again, specifically talking about elective abortions and late-term abortions, that is an act that needs to be stopped."

So an abortion that happens as the result of a rape should lead to prosecution ... of the doctor?  Clearly Frank Szabo, Todd Akin, and their ilk have never been raped.  

I understand that abortion is a high-emotion issue; trust me, I understand that, and I would never judge anybody for their opinions on this.  I know and love people that are vehemently pro-choice, vehemently anti-abortion, and everywhere in between.  

Abortion is not the point of this post.  No, the point is the sick depths to which people will sink in politics ... and I guess the realization that it doesn't matter as much to you if it doesn't hit close to home.  When it does strike you where you live, so to speak, though, it is one thing to internalize it and be angry and bitter and so on.

It is something else entirely to say, "Not only are these men ignorant and dangerous in terms of the policies they would obviously be lobbying for, but they have no concept of the surprisingly large number of people they are hurting with this."

I didn't have the courage to speak out almost fifteen years ago.  It took me over ten years to tell anyone about what happened to me.  

But I cannot keep my mouth (or my laptop) closed on this one ... rape survivors have a voice, and I have kept mine silent for too long.  Out of honor and respect for those who are not able to do so, I say this now: speak out against Frank Szabo and Todd Akin, and certainly do not vote for them.  

Their insensitivity is telling of their leadership skills ... or lack thereof.

I had a pretty rough day yesterday ... with all of this on my mind (and the things it brought back), I guess it's no wonder ... maybe I should stop watching the news ;-).  Writing this has made me feel much better, though, even as I know I'm nearing the end of it and have to debate whether or not to hit the "Publish" button or just keep it to myself.  If you're reading this, I guess you'll know ...

Rereading Books--Do You or Don't You?

I am an avid rereader of books, and I find myself having to explain why on a fairly regular basis in a variety of settings and situations.

I don't know why the concept of rereading is so foreign to some people.  I can't imagine just reading a book once, and saying, "That was cool" or, "That really got me thinking" or, "I am so appalled at this piece of garbage I can't understand how it's on the freaking best-seller list when I can't get my book published", or whatever.

The only argument I can think of against rereading a book, in fact, is the reality that there are so many books out there and only a limited amount of time.

But I am a dork.  I don't just read books, I live them.  I allow them to change my life, my philosophies, my beliefs, and my outlook on things.  Many of my books are in execrable condition, in fact, because I fall asleep on them, write in them, and occasionally throw them against the wall (yes, Stephen King, it's true ... I should have heeded your advice toward the end of the final Dark Tower book and just stopped when you warned me to).

I also learned how to read at a freakishly young age.  I read Cujo as a first grader, and as you can imagine, the book is rather different as a teen or an adult.  I can remember picking up a copy of The Thorn Birds at my family's beach house when summer when I was eight or nine (I'd read pretty much every other book there by then) and loving the writing, the history, the characters, but knowing somehow that I was missing the point.  There are some points you just can't get when you haven't reached puberty.

I've also found that books are very different to me based on where I am at in my own life.

I have read this book over 200 times.  I also teach it.

I was a child when I first read To Kill a Mockingbird, and so I identified with Scout.  I was a tomboy.  My father was a lawyer, and not just a lawyer but one that was occasionally involved in cases that touched him on a moral basis.  I was a tomboy with an older brother.  And so on.

As I grew older, though, I read Harper Lee's masterpiece through many, many lenses.  When I became a teacher and realized the cruelty that some kids are raised with, my heart ached for Boo Radley and the Ewell children.  Coming to the whole "the universe works" conclusion about life, dealing with rape on a personal level, recognizing that there are truly evil people in the world, understanding that change comes through a lot of hard work and bitterness over the course of time ... TKAM was always there for me.

And then there's the enrichment that TKAM gave me in terms of other works of literature.  I loved Joe R. Lansdale's The Bottoms (and strongly recommend it if you haven't read it), but I would not have appreciated it the same way if not for Lee's work.  My Truman Capote phase was far cooler because I just thought of him as Dill.

It's not just Harper Lee and, of course, Stephen King (whose Dark Tower series completely altered my belief system).

Simply put, there are almost no books I've only read once ... and I've read an awful lot of books.

So how about you?  Do you reread?  Are you a selective rereader (in other words, are there some books you'll tackle more than once, but it's not the norm)?  Or are you of the ilk that reads a book once and calls it good?

I don't judge any approaches, by the way ... I'm just curious about where the wider world stands on the issue (I know my family, friends, and students think I'm kind of bizarre regarding books).

Commentary Conversations

Let's face it, the sad truth is that I blog because ... well, because I like hearing what people have to say in response to what I write.  It's fascinating, it helps me learn and grow as a writer, plus I've developed some good friendships with people via the blogosphere.

In addition to this, my personal blog, I also write for a site called Zelda Lily.  Blog readership in general waxes and wanes like the moon, and ZL is in kind of a comment slump at the moment (the conversations over there used to be utterly remarkable and really guided the directions that we writers chose to go in).

Instead of writing a post here today, I am going to give short descriptors of some pieces with links over to stuff I've written at ZL.  It is all work that I am very proud of, writing that I believe is capable of generating some amazing conversations.  It is my hope that you'll feel compelled to comment over at ZL, because it's only with a lot of comments that those amazing conversations can happen (and I don't get paid for this ... I write because I enjoy it).

*  This past spring, a drug task force went to a home in New Hampshire to serve papers.  The homeowner killed a police chief and injured several other officers.  He also killed a young woman in the house with him, a young woman whose mother spoke out in defense of her daughter's character ... until her daughter's own involvement in a life of crime came out.

*  A mother forced her 7-year-old daughter to lose weight for a Vogue photo shoot.  If the poor kid makes it to adulthood without an eating disorder, no one will be more shocked than me :-(

*  Henry and I watched the Super Bowl at a cigar bar.  It was, obviously, quite an adventure ... and I felt shockingly out of place.  Quite an experience!

*  Winterguard is a sport (well, I think it's a sport) that incorporates dancing with flag and sabre tosses.  Addie started doing winterguard when she was a junior, and it got me thinking about what defines the word "sport" ... and if winterguard does, in fact, qualify.

*  A high school cheerleader was sexually assaulted by several classmates ... yet SHE was punished for refusing to cheer for them at a sporting event.  As you may know, rape is a very serious and personal issue to me, and I couldn't get over how disgusting it was that a victim of rape had the guts to come forward and was summarily dismissed.  Horrible!    

*  A middle school girl was suspended from school for five days for posting on Facebook that she wished Osama bin Laden had killed her math teacher.  This opens up a really interesting discussion, actually, because it gets into some very dicey territory--it wasn't done at school during school hours, so SHOULD she have been consequenced at school?

Anyway, my internet is being incredibly slow, so I guess that's all I'm going to put.  I do hope you read and enjoy these pieces and, if you're so compelled, get some discussion going.

I will be joining in :-)

I'm Sweet and Versatile ... and Full of Random Facts ;-)

I love receiving blog awards.  I really do.

I'm not always great about passing them along, mostly because it's so hard to choose from so many deserving blogs, but this one has the added bonus of allowing me to explore random facts about myself (which is something I enjoy doing, for some reason or another), plus Richard at Writing and Living by Richard P. Hughes is such a cool person that I just can't not go for it.  (Yes, I know that last sentence is an English teacher's nightmare ... heeheehee).

Plus, the timing is right on this once since tomorrow is my first day back at work and I never sleep the night before school starts up again, so this is as good a time as any to occupy my time (and better than reading this horrible chick lit book I'm in the midst of, which is horribly lame and predictable but I still want to know what happens, or watching NCIS reruns).

Also, there's the added privilege of this being a "two for one" blog award event ...

According to Richard, I'm deserving of these two titles:

And he also, in his wonderful post awarding these two very complimentary honors, referred to me as a survivor ... which is something I really needed to hear.

So, the deal is that I share seven random facts about myself then pass this dual award on to five deserving bloggers.

Seven Random Facts About Me
1.  I get skeeved out by really weird things.
Like everyone, I have some odd fears (snakes, thunderstorms, airplanes, feet), but every once in awhile I'll get completely freaked out for odd random reasons.

A few weeks ago, my dog Sonja's invisible fence collar stopped working, so I had to walk her on a leash.  I happened to be in the middle of reading 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King, which is about vampires.  I've read the book probably twenty times and it's never once scared me, but while I was out there in the dark by myself, I got totally freaked.

Then tonight, when I got home, I was walking up the brick path to my house and a toad hopped out in front of me.  Now, I'm not scared of toads at all, but the suddenness (and the fact that I almost stepped on the poor thing), completely threw me for a loop.

2. I am an excellent teacher and 100% comfortable talking to classes of 25-30 kids, but I stutter and sound like a rambling idiot when I try to speak in front of adults.
I hear this is a fairly common problem, actually, but it still bothers me.

Most interesting, though?  How my students react after an adult has come into my classroom.

"Why were you stuttering?  Are you afraid of him?  No offense, but you sounded like a moron.  You turned magenta when you said the word 'balls', and we weren't even going to laugh until you started to."

It does lead to some good discussions on how teachers are human, too, that we have weaknesses and fears and stressors and so on.

3. I have become something of a Tweetaholic.
I started using Twitter in earnest as a writing tool, actually.

If you read my blog with any regularity (and if you're at this point in my "list" of seven random facts), you'll note that I have a tendency to go on.  And on.  And on.

I have never been a concise writer, despite the many accolades I've received, and I realized this summer while rereading my finished novel that this little issue of mine might be part of why I'm still unpublished.

So Twitter, which holds me back with a character count limit, has forced me to just spit it out.  Simply.  It's been invaluable, all joking aside.

And that simple, tell-it-like-it-is mentality has allowed me to share and explore my pathetic short story repertoire and recognize this as an area in need of work.

4. I can't cook.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on here, but I cannot cook.  I've completely ruined macaroni and cheese out of the box, set oatmeal on fire in the microwave, and destroyed a pan boiling water ... and those are the ones I'll admit to publicly.

I have many other skills (I can do a split, tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue, write about any topic, and so on), but it's very interesting to me that a skill that pretty much any fifth or sixth grader can do is beyond me.

5. Motherhood is my greatest adventure.
My kids crack me up.  In fact, sometimes I wonder how I ever laughed before my daughters were born.

I am incredibly proud of both Addie and Belle, and I would not change either one of them for anything.  They are beautiful, brilliant girls with their own thoughts and ideas; they are polite and respectful (well, at least in public); and, just to emphasize the point, they are freaking hilarious.

If you are my friend on Facebook, you know ...

I also have to note that becoming an aunt to my two nephews is also an unspeakable, enjoyable treat.

6. Sometimes I find it hard to solve a problem, then a very obvious answer will appear as if from a bolt of lightning.
*  I couldn't figure out how to charge my old iPod Nano (which, although it's been replaced by an iPod Touch, still contains 3,000 of my favorite songs that I can't access on an account which I paid for ... it's kind of a long story).  I'd been using a speaker dock as a charger, but I accidentally dropped it, and it's for some reason stopped charging.

It finally occurred to me that I could just plug it into my computer.  Success!

*  The mouse on my work computer sucks balls (actually, it still has a ball, which is the majority of the problem).  I sat there for an hour fighting with the stupid thing, then it occurred to me to put in a new mouse ball.

*  I can't think of any more examples off the top of my head, but I guess the gist is that I have a tendency to miss the obvious, then feel pretty cool because I figured it out ... before realizing that it wasn't exactly a difficult problem to solve.


7. I am so lonely sometimes.
Following the irreparable marriage dissolving into divorce, I enjoyed being single for a long time.  I really did.  I hadn't had random hook-ups like that since college, and it was pretty good for my ego.

After a really traumatic incident last spring which I will probably never write about on this blog since I can count on the fingers of one hand the people I have told and that it's something that hit me harder and more viscerally than rape, divorce, or anything else, I realized that the problem was bigger than I'd thought.

I am a kind person that loves to help other people.

I'm told that I'm smart and funny and have a great personality and so on.  I don't like myself enough to come up with a list of my own adjectives, but those are the ones I hear a lot.

I have the capacity to be pretty.  When I'm in gym-going mode and lay off the Barq's Root Beer and Milky Ways (and Big Macs, who the heck am I trying to kid?), I can look pretty good for my age.

(well, at least not totally disgusting ... lol)

I have a good, solid job and many enjoyable hobbies.

I am hygienic.

And yet men either want one thing from me, or they want to be friends.  I can't seem to find a situation where those two expectations are not mutually exclusive, and it's very frustrating, very daunting.    

It makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with me, why the occasional Friday night hook-ups (or Monday night hook-ups, as the most recent case may have been) are the only way to salve my damaged ego.

And yet I would give a great deal to be able to have "a real boyfriend", which sounds pretty ludicrous when you're 34 years old.

But it's true.  I get so depressed watching couples everywhere, hearing love songs, observing body language in a restaurant.

I know that patience is a virtue, but I'm not good with patience.  If anyone knows any nice single men in the New Hampshire/Massachusetts/Maine area, give them my e-mail ;-)

Okay, pity party over ... time to share the love I feel for five sweet, versatile bloggers that I enjoy ... and bear in mind that "sweet" and "versatile" can be taken a number of ways ;-)

1.  Half Past Kissin' Time

2.  Anything But Theist

3.  Just Another Blog

4.  Peaceful Reader

5.  The Frisky Virgin (who, I should note, also gave me an award ... and I'm working on that post :-))

I hope you check out these five amazing places in the blogosphere.  You will not regret it :-)