There was a time in my life when no one would know what was going on inside me - I would never make a move to draw attention my way - Still, at times, I wonder why I even do it now with this blog and all the things I am involved in. Maybe it's because I grew up pretending.....pretending everything was fine..great....and we were the all American family - however deep inside I always wondered if other people had the same kind of thoughts as I did - did their family have the same secrets ours worked so hard at pretending were not there? Things like that - are we all more a like than we are different?
My week started off with sitting in on a sentencing of a man being convicted of possession of child pornography- pictures where he actively sought out a victim to attain. A two hour hearing that brought tears to my eyes more than once, while also making me physically sick to my stomach as I listened to the pre-sentencing investigation (PSI) that was conducted and to be used by the judge for sentencing.
In it were details of defendants crime...and his past. A psychological profile backed up by facts of the steps his life has taken. A childhood filled with neglect but one also that was telling on how his brain was wired, mis-firing.
Details on how he sexually molested younger children...family...disgusting graphic details of domination and control - then more details of sexual assault crimes he committed as a teenager while he was held in a department of corrections school. Disgusting details - stomach churning details. Details that if you know what it is like to be a child victim, then you also know the scars left on those he assaulted - scars that every so often will bleed much like his own from his own suffering as a child.
But those scars are not an excuse to victimize others. There's no doubt in my mind that people who do such heinous crimes to children are programmed differently - wires are not connected in the mechanics of the psyche - something is off. I felt bad for the child he once was when he was victimized, but anger and disgust filled me when I thought of him as the abuser. He received 10 years of initial confinement and 10 years of extended supervision. He cried tears like a baby - tears I am sure his victims also have cried and will cry for many decades to come.
That was Monday - the rest of the week was filled with many hours writing, covering stories, and then handling calls for Lend a Hand.
I have to admit that struggling as a single mom w/o child support and on a low income these past few years has in fact equipped me with an understanding on the resources as well as empathy for the courage it does take to ask for help. While there may be a few who call who don't think twice about asking for someone else to take care of their life's problems...the others you can hear it in their voice - the pride being swallowed up and shoved deep in them as they relay their situation. I get that shame they feel and try to fight. It sucks.
The calls this week have been emotionally trying, but one in particular will stick with me for life. It involved a young teen aged girl who is blind due to a condition that will kill her in the next few years. A teen aged girl who will most likely never know that flutter of falling in love for the first time, the joy of holding her first born child...nor growing into a woman of her own right...free to be whomever she chooses.
Learning of the pains in her past, the steps her life was forced to take, to finding out she had been homeless this summer with her mother...living in the outdoors...to living in small room together...no kitchen of their own...no private bathroom to take refuge in and enjoy a long hot bath - well, let's just say when I saw where they have been calling home for the last few months I had to fight the urge to run away because it has to date been one of the saddest scenes....most tragic story...I have ever known...heard...seen....
I will never understand why some children are born into a life where everyday is a new lesson of survival that no living creature should be forced to handle - having said that, there's one thing I can relay about that girl - innocence beamed from her even though so many have attempted to steal it - here she was, a child with a tragic past...dying from a neurological condition - and then there was the man earlier this week....also one from a tragic past, and one that has caused trauma in the lives of so many others ...he will continue to live with his brain mis-firing...while her innocent one, her brain, was going to send her to an early grave.
Then there is me - all three of us have a common bond in our childhood but our roads in life are so very different - his mind has created a demon in society's eyes ...her mind, perhaps, is shielding her from having to suffer longer than anyone should - and my mind sits here pondering it all...wondering about all the whys while wishing for one thing...a vacation...a break as it's a lot to absorb. Yes, I know, I think...feel..too much at times - it's the way I am wired.
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