To a certain extended family member who recently questioned, doubted, minimized, disregarded and couldn’t fathom how I had been a victim of such heinous crimes against my humanity, without your knowledge instead of saying I’m sorry, I didn’t know. How can I help?

Dear Blank,

In reference to my #metoo coming out, you spoke openly recently at a gathering, I wasn’t apart of about my life.

Here is my open letter reply,

I thought perhaps it would explain a lot of where my younger self got lost, why I stopped dancing and singing karaoke and spending time with my family and friends? Fear is crippling.

I was afraid of what you might think of me IF you ever knew the truth, when it came flooding back in after my own children were born and I was frozen in time for years…

*You said I exaggerated or concocted these stories in my mind because I am unstable. A drama queen perhaps?

I admit it it’s hard to remain stable in the aftermath of such a grave violation of trust, I have complex PTSD as a result.

I’m curious if you still think that only applies to first responders, well the weak ones anyways, who just can’t handle the things they signed up for?

*You said it is too far fetched that it happened so many times.

I’ll admit it, it was hard for me too far fetched for me as well until I found out that is actually the normal progression of such events-revictimization. But not for the reasons you think! It’s not because I put myself in these situations or that I had low self esteem. I’ve beat myself up day and night for decades asking the same!

I’m curious if you even googled the the evidence of being re victimized? Did you bother to even look long enough to learn that on a very primal level, predators even in the wild, can sense out the most vulnerable prey to prey upon because I was an easy target, perceived as weak as a child or a woman who’s simply smaller then human animals with predatory instincts?

*You said I am notorious for looking for love in all the wrong places.

I’ll admit it I have. Here is the thing about post traumatic stress disorder, often we are still stuck in trauma, frozen in time, that we are spent so much energy being hyper-vigilant to what we think is dangerous from the past, that we miss the cues or red flags of the danger that is right in front of us!

I’m curious if you ever wondered why I couldn’t see what you could see only, when you had the perspective of distance and objectivity? Could you see my desperate attempts to fawn, defend or make sense of those abusive, coercive, controlling behavior because of the cognitive errors in rational thinking that results from this type of psychological injury, to try and make sense out of the senseless? Did you know that more often than not if you asked a woman why she stayed in an abusive relationship that she didn’t even realize she was in one?

*You said why would she wait so long to tell us this? It makes you skeptical, all the time that has lapsed, why now?

I’ll admit it, if I could go back to my childhood, run home and tell I would. But would you have believed me then? Would you have believed way back then that any man of such power, privilege,highly regarded and esteemed in our tightly knit community could do such a thing? I was 10, they were 40 something.

I am curious who you would you have believed back then, before you knew that predators hide in plain sight for a reason? Did you know it wasn’t just me who was groomed but everyone including you ? That everyone was groomed to believe that such a good man would do such a thing! So that when they did it, you could just never believe it, because it was so contrary to their reputation of goodwill, faith and their profound love for children?

*You said that I have always been anxious. Why don’t I just take medication like everyone else we know?

I do. I’ve tried 17 different cocktails to date, I even asked for ECT treatments in the hopes that it might erase these long term memories from my mind, but they don’t. Long term memories are imprinted, tattooed in our mind’s eye. They cannot be erased, even with electric shock treatments. Trust me, I’ve asked! Trust me that you would too, if you spent one night in my night terrors or daily flashbacks.

I’m curious if you know that generalized anxiety and PTSD anxiety are very different for one reason?

Generalized anxiety is the anticipatory fear of what we do not know? Trauma Anxiety is the fear if what we DO know and both is an unique kind of hell, I deal with daily?

I can’t forget, my mind won’t allow me. My only escape was my truth and my voice to speak it out of my body and into another existence, that is the only way to heal it, is to expose the would to air, to somehow allow my body to finally speak?

It breaks my heart to know you seek to silence it because it’s shameful, embarrassing, makes our family look bad?

It did not look bad at all, until you shamed me!

Bad things happen in good families NOT because of bad families but because of bad people!

Im curious if you ever considered that perhaps that is exactly why it happened? Because of predatory instinct, they knew we would protect our image and thus an predator’s reputation with our disbelief and silence? We were obviously well versed at protecting our family secrets, not airing our dirty laundry, so invested in maintaining the status quo, that in the end, we protected the abusers instead of the victim?

*You said I am a wash up, a failure, the family screw up.

I was only 28 years old when I required 2 surgeries a degenerative illness and a vast array of other secondary illnesses, such as lupus, high blood pressure, arthritis, osteoporosis etc that I was far too young for.

I’m curious if you know based on scientific evidence that as Dr. Robert Block said “ The epidemic of trauma is the single greatest unaddressed threat to our overall health facing the nation.” Yet it remains for the most part illusive because of the taboo nature of the conversation because there are far too many, uncomfortable, uneducated people in high places who prefer the information that could determine and predict our future health outcomes and even our mortality, would rather be sick or die than ever expose the truth! In the future, perhaps facts might help you to discern the next time you or someone you love is diagnosed with an age related illness like heart disease etc without any rhyme or reason other than bad luck, to consider if it could be something more like the evidence states. ( See ACE study for further information.)

In closing, as you sat at the table amongst family and stated your opinion aloud about your disbelief about child sexual abuse, rape, intimate partner violence etc.

I’m unsure what all was said. I wasn’t there..

I only know for one reason!

The reason being that another person sitting there listening to you dissect my life, was abused too. 3x as a child too, by 3 separate perpetrators, at 3 different ages and locations that were supposed to be SAFE!

She had carried that burden all of her life.

I knew it. Others knew it.

But you didn’t.

Do you ever ask yourself WHY?

And still….

Nothing but love for you despite your ignorance.

One MF of a STRONG Trauma Queen who dares to wear her scars as exposed to the world as a crown on my head to say #metoo.

Ask #nowwhat? and demand #NOMORE so that our next generation of the lineage of our family tree can one day say #NOTME.

Christina xoxo