Silence is complicity.

Part of home educating my kids is that I have opportunities to address issues that show up. We discuss these issues at length. Some issues are more adultish in manner , but I have never talked to my children as if they are intellectually inferior. They are adults in the making. I am not raising children. I am raising adults. Sometimes the hard issues come up. Sometimes I am forced to talk about things I don’t want to talk about. I can’t talk about. I think its time though for me to finally just address this kind of issue.

I am originally from Sandy Hook, CT. A virtually unknown place until the tragic murdering of precious innocence. I lived about two minutes from the school. I rode my bike past that school many times to go to the Deli( where I bought candy) or the pizza place. Everyone says Newtown is a safe town. That tragedy never happened there. As if evil had passed over it because, well didn’t you see the news? The picture perfect town. Postcard image. Except I lived in a 550 square ft. house in the less fortunate side of Newtown. My parents were divorced and well sometimes my life was not a picture perfect postcard. The thing with safety is it’s deceiving. Silence from evil does not mean it is non-existent. I have hidden a secret the whole time I went through the school system. No-one knew.
I had been molested by a 16-year-old babysitter . He also threatened to kill me and to make sure I knew it( and because he was sick and crazy) threw me in our dryer and turned it on. Don’t worry though everyone said I wouldn’t remember. Oh and that teenager.. the social worker said he was a good boy. I don’t have all the pieces as to why the Newtown police department did not arrest him and throw him in jail but let me assure you, your brain NEVER forgets.

Two days ago I was scrolling Facebook , the internet etc.. and an old video from Sandy Hook showed up. I watched it just because my heart breaks for Sandy Hook. I hate evil. Almost to the end of the video a man says“I am for strict gun control…blah blah blah….” I look below at the description of the interview. He looked familiar.His name. Oh God. There he was. Speaking about gun control. My hands were shaking so bad, I felt sick. I immediately thought of his sister, whom he also molested. I heard from an old neighbor that she took her own life. I wonder why. Here he was free. Yet when someone has had trauma, or abuse forced upon them they are never really free. The mind is an amazing thing. It remembers the things you ignore and pretend never existed. Which I did.

So our conversation, the one my children and I have been having is about Silence. Can you hear it? I walk out to our field every morning with my daughter. We feed our horses and cow. It is a refreshing walk down the trail into the field the neighbors called “the hidden field” . Our dog Rocky comes with us. He bounces around chasing all the things we can’t see because they are hidden in silence. Every once in a while a deer will come flying out of nowhere and bound off it the woods. She was there, the whole time, but we never saw her. Silence in the face of evil is not standing up to the evil , it is complicity to the evil. Pretending it is not there does not make it go away. Trust me. I tried. To say to someone who has been abused don’t talk about it, we’ll just ignore it, is just allowing the evil to continue. Do you know that a monster shows up when you least expect it.In the darkness. Let me tell you he’s shown up in my life more than I care to say.
The statistics out are 1 in 4 for females to be sexually abused before the age of 14. Seriously people does anyone not just inhale and forget to breathe here??? This is happening in our churches as well. When Pastors are told not to report the evil, I think the world has gone mad. The church should be the refuge for the broken, the abused, instead you will find time and time again the women silenced and the perpetrator is allowed to continue his deeds. The fact that my two best friends have similar pasts and that about a month ago a man sat at my table who was sexually abused by a PASTOR, makes me want to VOMIT. Heres the thing, if you think I protect my kids. This won’t happen to them. Uncle, Grandparent, babysitter and Pastor. Anything here about a psycho pedophile? Does he look creepy with dark eyes and tattoos? No, he is someone you know. He is your friend, your relative, your trusted advisor . When females remain the object for man to buy and sell. When hollywood and the world makes the female a commodity she is only good for one thing, her body, she is marketable. It does not matter if they tell you to have self-esteem. The Victoria Secret models flaunt it for all the world to see’ Here I am come buy me”. Prepare your little girls too. Make men desire them. When our tv and Movies just show females as nothing but a body, no wonder a depraved mind can’t get his fill. He will not be reformed. They never are.

Please do not tell me just Trust God. I cannot even tell you how much that is a cop-out. Please tell me, What the heck does that MEAN?? When I wake up in the middle of the night and my monster was real, can you please tell me how that will clear my mind? Does that help me when I’m in an MRI machine and all I can think is,” I’m being cooked to death. I can hear it.” Does that help me when you tell me some horrific story about child abuse and I want to scream at you and say”Stop! Stop! I can’t listen. Don’t tell me.” I instantly have a wave of fear and panic come over me. Does it help me not feel his breath when I kiss my husband? Stop saying stupid things. Christ has been the One light in my life, but don’t use Christian clichés as an excuse to not help the struggling and abused. We think you are an idiot.

So here’s the thing everyone always says you have to talk about it. That’s funny. The more I have been talking about it , the more I have been getting SILENCE.Yes you’d think support, but people either don’t want to feel guilty or they just don’t care. So here it all is. Once it’s out there it’s out there. I hate it. It’s vulnerability and that’s something I never want to be. Ugh. I did this for the start of my journey to stand up and stop being quiet about the things that matter. There are other little girls and boys out there who have been silenced. If my two closest friends have the same background and I have met them at different points in my life , can you imagine the others. It really needs to stop. The condescendng talk towards women in general needs to stop. I will not teach my kids to be complicit. This is also for them. They get to be free from monsters. Stop being silent. Women are just as guilty as men, especially in the church. If you know someone going through any kind of abuse emotional, physical, sexual they need you.They need counseling from a professional. Encourage them to go. Don’t say” I don’t want to get involved.” Don’t agree not to talk about it. Stand up . Speak out. SILENCE IS COMPLICITY.