Reflections of Freedom
By Jennifer Kiley
Illustrated by j. kiley
Written 5.09.13
Created May 10th 2013
Posted May 11th 2013
Reflections of Freedom
By Jennifer Kiley
5.10.13
Reflections,
Clouds of darkness block my vision.
Remembrance of wilder moments come to mind.
Being told no, pushed the rebelliousness of my true nature.
Running away nullified permission,
When done in the passionate way I felt,
Carried me beyond their threat.
I dismissed them from my mind,
As though they never existed..
The tears were flowing as I ran
To escape was necessary,
It was blaring loudly in my head
Run, let your bare feet carry you over the fences,
Across the open fields, past the horses,
Enjoying the sour fruits of the apple trees,
Along the stone fences where they grew,
But were not high enough to keep me out,
As I flew over them as though I were a gazelle.
My friend eventually would find his moment for escape.
We would then meet in the woods to plan that day’s adventure.
Our parents couldn’t keep us apart.
The magnetic pull to be together,
Was stronger than their punishment,
To keep us bound, even though mine was severe,
We rejected their threats.
We needed to be comrades together in our escape,
Pretending in our minds we were searching the woods,
Feeling we would discover that bag of hidden treasure,
Left behind by someone running from the mob.
Being rich enough, we could really run away for good,
Beyond the limits where our parents would ever find us.
We would disappear forever,
Into Wonderland or Neverland,
Whichever one could find us.
No one could touch us again,
Far beyond them we would be,
Together friends forever,
Who dared defy authorities blank and powerless voices.
Winning and free at long last,
Never to be hurt again,
By any one of them.
No more pain.
No more abuse.
Just the love and support of our friendship,
Forever and ever more.
a secret entrance way behind the waterfalls. first, one needs to find this location.
QUOTATIONS on ESCAPE/RUNNING AWAY
“I do know this. It’s the things we run from that hurt us the most.” –Brad Sturdevant” ― Norma Johnston
“If you want to disappear, Emily, you can do it most anywhere.” ― Barbara Delinsky, Escape
“Sometimes I wish I was in the movies…Not to be famous or nothing. I just wish I was made of light. Then nobody’d know me except for what they saw up on that screen. I’d just be light up on the silver screen…” ― Alan Heathcock, Volt
“Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape. ” ― William S. Burroughs
“Besides the alternate universe offered by a book, the quiet space of “the woods” was my favorite place to go…I was an escapist at heart . . . that I preferred imaginary worlds to the real one. It’s true that I’ve always been able to yank myself out of this world and plunge myself into another.” ― Amy Plum, Die for Me
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” ― Graham Greene, Ways Of Escape
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” ― Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.” ― Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“Talking won’t change it. But sometimes it was what she wanted most, to tell someone; often, though, she just wanted to escape those horrid feelings, to escape herself, so there was no pain, no fear, no ugliness.” ― Melissa Marr, Ink Exchange
“I choose to write because it’s perfect for me. It’s an escape, a place I can go to hide. It’s a friend, when I feel out casted from everyone else. It’s a journal, when the only story I can tell is my own. It’s a book, when I need to be somewhere else. It’s control, when I feel so out of control. It’s healing, when everything seems pretty messed up. And it’s fun, when life is just flat-out boring.” ― Alysha Speer
“I spent the rest of the day in someone else’s story. The rare moments that I put the book down, my own pain returned in burning stabs.” ― Amy Plum, Die for Me
Related Article: Artistic License The Anatomy of a Cover
The Anatomy of a Cover – artist Masloski Carmen – author: Artistic License by Emerian Rich
“Here’s Looking At You Kid.”
Film: Casablanca
Starring Humphrey Bogart & Ingrid Bergman
Playing Roles of Rick Blaine & Ilsa Lund
Created by jk the secret keeper
Posted 04.28.13
Casablanca: Rick Blaine & Ilsa Lund “Here’s Looking At You Kid.”
Rick: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I’ve done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you’re getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.
Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I… I…
Rick: Now, you’ve got to listen to me! You have any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we’d both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn’t that true, Louie?
Captain Renault: I’m afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You’re saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You’re part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.
Rick: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.
[Ilsa lowers her head and begins to cry]
Rick: Now, now…
[Rick gently places his hand under her chin and raises it so their eyes meet]
Rick: Here’s looking at you kid.
casablanca 1947
casablanca: rick blaine & ilsa lund in paris cafe 680×540
casablanca: rick hanging out with sam
casablanca: ilsa role played by ingrid berman
FILM REVIEW of CASABLANCA
“Here’s looking at you kid.”
There are so many memorable lines and scenes in the film “Casablanca.”
Casablanca (1942) Directed by Michael Curtiz: Starring Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine; Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund; Peter Lorre as Ugarte; Claude Raines as Louie (Head of Police/Rick’s Friend); Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo; Sydney Greenstreet as Ferrari, proprietor of the night club The Blue Parrot.
Just one of the fifty films a studio would make each year back in the day. Casablanca was just one of those films thrown into that collection. Who knew it would spring forth and become the success that it is. Today, it is considered one of the top romantic films of all time.
Won for Best Picture 1942 Oscar. One of the most universally admired films ever made. On most lists of the greatest films of all times. Even people who don’t like old films or black and white films love Casablanca. Roger Ebert said he doesn’t think he’s heard of any negative reviews of this film ever. All the characters are all good except the Nazis. Vichy are the French who collaborate with the Nazis.
Rick’s Cafe Americain in Casablanca in French Morocco, where everyone went for entertainment or to hang out for a drink or to go to the back room where there is gambling going on. Here, in Casablanca, some may obtain exit visas but others may wait and wait and wait. At the beginning of the film, you find out that some couriers were killed in the desert and robbed of exit visas. Officials wanting to see a man’s papers, causes the man to freak out, his papers are not in order, so he runs and is shot and killed because he didn’t halt when ordered to. Life is meaningless.
When Louie, the head of the police, is asked by Major Strasser, what is being done about the murder of the couriers, his answer is: “We’ve rounded up the usual suspects.” No one likes Nazis and the head of the Nazis in this movie doesn’t make them any more popular and maybe makes them even less popular. The Marseillaise is the present day French National Anthem. Remember that when you watch Casablanca.
Ugarte shows up and talks to Rick. Wants to have a drink with Rick but as a rule he doesn’t drink with any of the guests of his night club. Ugarte likes to brag to Rick. He just is looking for Rick’s approval but knows that Rick despises him but he is the only person that Ugarte trusts. Rick does finally seem impressed with him. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out why.
Ferrari wants Rick’s place. He is always trying to buy it. It’s the best place in town. Sasha hangs out there and is sort of Rick’s girl friend and is a bit of an alcoholic. It’s understandable she wants to drink the times are during the 2nd World War and it is making everyone edgy and the French are being ruled by the Germans.
Louie and Rick get involved in a conversation and Louie asks why Rick came to such a God Forsaken place like Casablanca. Rick’s a smart ass and says: “It’s for the water.” But, of course, it is a desert. Rick’s is permitted to stay open because he just doesn’t want to get involved. But he has in his hands something that a lot of people are looking for but no one has any idea what that is. Louie tells Rick there is a famous patriot of the war headed for Casablanca. A member of the Gestapo, Major Strasser, is expected at the club. He is a thoroughly disagreeable Nazis but then what Nazi isn’t. That I may say often.
A major happening occurs at Rick’s but he reassures everyone to settle down and get back into enjoying themselves. Rick actually sits down with the Nazis. The Nazis make mention about invading New York. Rick warns them about staying away from certain sections of New York. They may not be safe. They start in talking about Victor Lazslo being on his way. Rick assuring them that he doesn’t plan on getting involved.
Victor Laszlo and Ilsa Lund eventually show up as expected and walk through the cafe and take a seat in the night club. Expect that many will be approaching Victor fairly often because of his importance and how nervous they make the Nazis. Ilsa starts asking about the piano player and who owns the Night Club. Louie tells her it is a man named Rick. Major Strasser is introduced and acts like the ass that he is. Starts applying his power over Laszlo.
It is evident that Ilsa and Victor are close but at this time we know nothing of their relationship other then they are traveling together. Victor leaves her at table to meet a man at the bar and finds out about Ugarte.
Ilsa wants to speak to the piano player. His name is Sam and she asks him to play some of the old songs. There is a sadness between Sam regarding Rick. She wants him to play a the song “As Time Goes By.” Sam sings the song for her. Out comes Rick telling Sam he’s not suppose to play that song. Rick sees Ilsa sitting at her table. The last time Rick saw Ilsa was in Paris when the Germans marched in to take over the city. He was unnerved seeing her again. He was so not himself that he actually had a drink with all at the table breaking his precedent of not drinking with guests of the night club The Americain.
Later back in his rooms, Rick has a bottle, and tells Sam he is not planning on going to bed. He thinks Ilsa is going to show up. Sam isn’t going to leave his boss alone. He starts getting maudlin. “Of all the gin joints in all the world, she walks into mine.” He wants Sam to play “As Time Goes By.” Sam doesn’t want to open the wounds.
Flashback: Paris with Rick and Ilsa driving around in a convertible. then down by the Seine. In the hotel drinking champagne. “Who are you really and what were you before and what did you think?” Ricks asks. Ilsa’s response: “We said no questions.” All the best lines in these scenes. So many to write down and remember. She reveals an answer without the question. Watch the movie to find out what she told Rick.
Outside, newspapers are being passed around. The Germans are coming I believe are the headlines and what they are saying in French over the microphones. There is a lot of action going on out in the streets.
The most famous line is spoken by Rick toasting champagne with Sam and Ilsa: “Here’s looking at you kid.” Everything is falling apart. “Where were you ten years ago?” Rick said he was looking for a job. For some reason there is a price on Rick’s head but no one knows why. It’s time for everyone to leave Paris. Their suppose to meet at the train station from where they will be leaving. Ilsa loves him so much and the war, she hates that in just the opposite emotion. She thinks that they will be taken apart. “Kiss me as if it is the last time.”
It’s raining at the train station. With three minutes until last train leaves. No Ilsa but Sam and Rick are waiting. There is a note from the Hotel. Fade Out Paris Train Station as you watch the rain wash the ink off of the note in Rick’s hand.
Fade In: Rick’s Rooms enter Ilsa. She wants to talk to him, to tell him a story. It’s about a girl who meets a man, a very courageous man. She looked up to him. She thought it was love. Who did she leave him for? Laszlo or others in between?
Victor and Ilsa meet Strasser at Police station. Strasser guarantees Laszlo will never receive an exit visa. His only way to leave is to be a traitor to his people. Do you really think he is the type of man to be a traitor. Nazis have no sense of integrity so they do not understand an enigma like Victor Laszlo. An important person to their leaving has been reported to be dead.
Rick visits The Blue Parrot and talks with Ferrari, who wants the letters of transit. He tells Rick he thinks he knows where the letters are. Rick purposely left his club so the police would have a chance to ransack it. Louie’s men were impressively destructive at Rick’s Place in order to win points with Major Strasser. Louie blows with the wind. He is with the Vichy. The Vichy being the French who go along and reluctantly support the French. The French who are loyal to their own country feel betrayed by the Vichy.
A young woman comes to Rick to plead for some help. She will have to sleep with Louie if her husband doesn’t win enough money so they can afford a visa. If they use only the money they have there would be nothing left. Louise fully expects her to have sex with him if the money isn’t won. Louie sees that the young woman and Rick are being obvious about conspiring. They are all in the backroom where the gambling goes on. Louie is an odd duck. Louie accuses Rick of being a rank sentimentalist.
Victor has a visit with Rick. The Underground tell Victor all sorts of very impressive things about activities that Rick was involved in during the war.
In Rick’s Cafe, the Nazis are singing about the Fatherland. It is so despicable to the French in the club that they have a singing competition. Guess who wins. Strasser is not very satisfied. He tells Louie to find an excuse to close Rick’s. He tells Rick the reason is because he is shocked that gambling is going on in his club.
Strasser just keeps getting creepier. Threatens Ilsa.
Later Ilsa and Victor speak about the letters of transit and what Rick said about asking his wife why he won’t give up the letters.
Ilsa goes to Rick’s rooms and tries to get letters from him. She wants to tell him what really happened in Paris. The feelings between them, have they been buried or are they gone? The truth comes out. She had no hope that Victor was alive when she was in Paris with Rick.
Victor and Rick talk. They are not that far apart in what they believe.
Louie and Rick talk about letters. Louie doesn’t like Strasser.
Approaching the final few scenes of the film. Cafe Americain is still closed by order of the Prefect of Police. Ferrari has taken over the Cafe. Louie thinks he is at Cafe to arrest Laszlo but Rick surprises him and makes him call the airport to tell them that there is to be no trouble about two letters of transit. Everything is building up to the excitement of what is all going to culminate in some of the biggest surprises yet in the film.
Best closing scenes in any movie and best closing lines. Memorable til the final line.
For the rest of the film and to fill in all the spaces that I have left out, you will need to find a copy of this film on DVD or streaming from online or whatever source you are able to find to watch the whole thing and to see how it ends. It is a thoroughly amazing film to watch. It seems the perfect film in detail, dialogue, scenes, settings, storyline, acting and durability. It has all the perfect elements and the best acting. Filled with sentiment and sacrifice. I first saw this film when I was in my 20s. It was such a surprise that I did not see it when I was a kid. It is understandable for older children and a fascinating film for all adults.
The following videos do have SPOILERS so watch them if you have seen the film already or if you don’t mind seeing scenes before seeing the film. I am sure a great many of you have watched this film. But if you haven’t, it should be on everyone’s’ film list as a must see. The sheer acting alone and the love story and the screenplay is brilliant. The cast is to die for. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman play the leads. They are two of the finest actors of all times. Worthy of anyone’s time to find out how great they are in Casablanca. No one had any idea what a remarkable film this was going to turn out to be. The special benefit if this film is you get to hate the Nazis and you get to curse them out without impunity. It has the most classic lines of almost any film ever made. Enjoy the videos and seriously consider locating this film if you haven’t seen it and find it so you can watch it again. “Here’s Looking At You Kid.” jk the SK
The relationship between Rick and Ilsa was filled with Desire. I am going to write a poem about Desire in my new form of Haiku. I refer to it as X-treme Haiku. I use an altered form of Haiku with the onji (lines) in the 5 – 7 – 7. I do as few or as many verses as I feel will tell the story that I am writing. Sometimes the story will more often be a touch abstract and other times it may be a philosophical exploration, or a story that may have the appearance of something that may b close in resemblance to a fable. With X-treme Haiku I want to allow myself the freedom to write about what I want but to also include restriction which will encourage restraint on my part so that I will write more concisely with the use of fewer words that will contain an understanding and a discipline toward accuracy. I have been using this style of X-treme Haiku for a short while now and find it makes me more disciplined. It involves research and a greater understanding of the words I use. Being precise about definitions of the language I am using. There is a cleanness to the design. The other rules are for myself and they include the use of words. I do not or try not to repeat a word within the same verse or if possible within the same poem unless absolutely necessary. I like mystery in my poems so I do have the tendency to be a touch cryptic and/or abstract. I like analyzing what it is I am writing about. I am honest about whatever it is I have chosen to write about. I believe in going into the depths of what I mean in what I write. Truth is essential. Directness is essential. Abstraction is often essential. I believe in creating a puzzle that must be deciphered. I do not often hand out the simplicity of a matter. A specific reason for that is when I am writing I am also trying to interpret and examine in depth what subject is I am writing on and usually for the purpose of trying to understand what is within or what it is about that I am writing. Now to the poem.
“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.” ― Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“It starts so young, and I’m angry about that. The garbage we’re taught. About love, about what’s “romantic.” Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and drastic unhappiness after The End? Why are sick and dangerous personality types so often shown a passionate and tragic and something to be longed for when those are the very ones you should run for your life from? Think about it. Heathcliff. Romeo. Don Juan. Jay Gatsby. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. From the rigid control freak in The Sound of Music to all the bad boys some woman goes running to the airport to catch in the last minute of every romantic comedy. She should let him leave. Your time is so valuable, and look at these guys–depressive and moody and violent and immature and self-centered. And what about the big daddy of them all, Prince Charming? What was his secret life? We dont know anything about him, other then he looks good and comes to the rescue.” ― Deb Caletti, The Secret Life of Prince Charming
“Only the gentle are ever really strong.” ― James Dean
“Certain things leave you in your life and certain things stay with you. And that’s why we’re all interested in movies- those ones that make you feel, you still think about. Because it gave you such an emotional response, it’s actually part of your emotional make-up, in a way.” ― Tim Burton, Burton on Burton
“Ezekiel 25:17. “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.” I been sayin’ that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin’ made me think twice. Now I’m thinkin’: it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. .45 here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that shit ain’t the truth. The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin, Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd. — he became the shepherd instead of the vengeance.” ― Quentin Tarantino
“A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn’t all corruption. The movie doesn’t have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor’s scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense. Sitting there alone or painfully alone because those with you do not react as you do, you know there must be others perhaps in this very theatre or in this city, surely in other theatres in other cities, now, in the past or future, who react as you do. And because movies are the most total and encompassing art form we have, these reactions can seem the most personal and, maybe the most important, imaginable. The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what you’ve seen. You do meet them, of course, and you know each other at once because you talk less about good movies than about what you love in bad movies.” ― Pauline Kael, For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies
“Books and movies, they are not mere entertainment. They sustain me and help me cope with my real life.” ― Arlaina Tibensky
DESIRE:
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ― Epicurus
“Things are sweeter when they’re lost. I know–because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
“She leaned forward and caught at his hand, pressing it between her own. The touch was like white fire through his veins. He could not feel her skin only the cloth of her gloves, and yet it did not matter. You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire. He had wondered once why love was always phrased in terms of burning. The conflagration in his own veins, now, gave the answer.” ― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess
“Desiring another person is perhaps the most risky endeavor of all. As soon as you want somebody—really want him—it is as though you have taken a surgical needle and sutured your happiness to the skin of that person, so that any separation will now cause a lacerating injury.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“I desire to be with you. I miss you. I feel lonely when I can’t see you. I am obsessed with you, fascinated by you, infatuated with you. I hunger for your taste, your smell, the feel of your soul touching mine.” ― Jack Llawayllynn, Indulgence
“Profound desire, true desire is the desire to be close to someone.” ― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
Dark Night of the Soul
By Jennifer Kiley
Inspired By Reading
Abstract Digital Art j. kiley
Written 04.18.14
dark night of the soul — abstract digital art
Dark Night of the Soul
By Jennifer Kiley
Inspired By Reading
Written 04.18.14
Those of you who have heard of the dark night of the soul know the kind of pain and confusion it can bring. It used to be used to describe a spiritual crisis. Now it describes a psychological darkness. Here is a description of a major symptom to describe what it is: to feel one no longer has a grasp or sense of the realness of the ground beneath one’s feet. It doesn’t feel solid, nor does it feel like it has a strong basis in reality.
Something in one’s present day happens and causes it to trigger thoughts from the unconscious that draws the dark night into “the light.” Carl Jung thought the psyche was causing this to happen. That the symbols or images or flashes that were coming from the unconscious were being brought to the surface in order to help an individual grow. A direct form of Enlightenment would occur which is when the unconscious becomes conscious. The dark night, though appearing to be a negative force is actually aiding in this occurrence.
“Creative suffering burns clean; neurotic suffering creates more soot.” The Jungian analyst Marion Woodman wrote this. Her meaning is that repeating pain in a non-productive way does not create one’s healing or move one forward. One needs to go deep within the source of the center to that power where the emotions are hiding and/ or existing. Doing this should bring to one a self-understanding and with a great deal of work, it should lead eventually to liberation of the self. But one needs to first do the difficult work of fighting with one’s demons and angels. They will bring with them the healing that one will be needing. It’s a difficult fight and it is a spiritual and psychological fight. When one is looking for one’s spiritual reality, it is a necessary fight to find one’s meaning.
Dark nights are meant to happen in order to tear apart the ways in which we deal with reality and our own growing. We must be forced to let go of our illusions and/or our delusions that have been controlling our thinking, our way of behaving and how we are able to express our feelings. This is essential in order to regain control of our self and the way that we behave in our life.
It enables us to find our real self and release our great need for control. The most difficult part is our needing to tear down how we learned to deal when we were children. We need to release all of the built up anxiety and our sense of overwhelming vulnerability that kept us from functioning then and keeps us from functioning now. We must always remain connected to our self while we construct our new way of being in our new lives, where we are going to be more real. And most importantly we must give up the need to always be in control. That is an important one. The bonus that comes with doing all of this is that we will be getting into an upgrade of an automatic elevator to a higher level of consciousness.
So you see, sometimes we have to enter into hell to find our way out of it. And gradually we will lose the negative aspects of our lives and find in their place courage, strength and self-love. And most importantly finding freedom and get on into growing. We will start feeling a more secure sense of well-being that will keep expanding. This may feel like just words and a dream but it can happen.
When one’s life begins in such a dark atmosphere and one is alone in that darkness, all that is felt is fear and dread, so what is left to remember is shaped into a memory overflowing with fear.
It’s time to let that fear and that past go and to reawaken the child who is buried deep inside, who wants her freedom to begin to live again, to cry again, to laugh again, to stop feeling overwhelmed by the positive feelings of life like love, caring, joy, belonging and more, to allow her to have healthy relationships that are not messed up with demons of the past filling her mind with senseless fears of abandonment, punishment and abuse. It really is time to let all of it go and just leave it back there in the past, in that time which should no longer exist now.
“If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse.” ― Anthon St. Maarten
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” ― Terry Pratchett
“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” ― Anne Frank
“I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness.” ― Franz Kafka
“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for you to stand upon or you will be taught to fly.” ― Patrick Overton
“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.” ― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View
“Darkness does not leave us easily as we would hope.” ― Margaret Stohl
There are many things I would like to get to know about you but I am afraid I would be intruding on your privacy. I will guess instead or make up by filling in the spaces from what you say in group or afterwards. I am quite the detective. When I was a kid, I read all the Nancy Drew books I could get my hands on. Then as I got older I graduated to Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. I read others but these two were my favorites and the most intelligent. I, also, got into the British detectives Inspectors Dagliesh and Morse on PBS. Liked reading P.D. James and Colin Dexter. I am a real mystery buff. Love a good mystery in a film, also. The point being I know how to put the pieces together rather quickly.
I should get on finishing up telling you about the cancer. The group, including Mr. Xxx were rather cavalier with my health when I received the diagnosis of Uterine cancer. It’s also called Endometrial cancer. When I got the courage up to tell the group I had been told I had cancer and they found out what kind, I felt like I got totally shot down and shut down. Everyone, including our fearless leader, thought it was the best possible news. Their logic being, if I was to get cancer, getting Uterine cancer was the best one to get. There was nothing to it. In and out for the operation and back on my feet in a couple of weeks. They were not very understanding or consoling at all. So, I think that had a lot to do with why I thoroughly shut down talking about it. I felt rejected. Like no one cared about me. I thought if I died it wouldn’t matter.
So, I started not taking it as seriously but still worried. Then My OB-Gyn told me it looked serious to her. My uterine wall was quite thick. It was a bad boxing day. That’s when she called to confirm the biopsy from the Uterine tissue she painfully scraped from the insides of my body. It was positive for cancer. Nice Christmas. She was great. She went out of her way to get the news to me as quickly as possible. Next step was to find the surgeon. It ended up being the Da Vinci
machine. State of the Art. Two weeks after surgery Scottie and I went to the surgeon behind the Da Vinci machine to get the results. He had us take seats on the other side of his rather large desk. He sat behind it looking like he was having a difficult time finding the words to say. His face wasn’t the kind anyone wants to see when they are waiting for news of this kind. We all looked at each other in the long silence. The doctor finally spoke.
He cleared his throat. “I am afraid I have some rather disturbing news for you, Madison. It seems the cancer has spread outside the containment area of your reproductive organs. It’s in your lymph system. The good news is that we feel and are quite certain that we took the lymph nodes that the cancer had entered. What this means is you have a diagnosis of Stage 3 Endometrial Cancer with an attachment to the lymphatic system. It means your case is a great deal more serious then we expected. Originally, we didn’t feel you would need anything more than the surgery. But now it appears after all you will have to go through a full treatment of Chemotherapy and a full course of Radiation Therapy Treatment that accompanies it. You will need to start almost immediately. Do you have any questions?”
I was dumbfounded and so was Scottie. It was going to really screw with her schedule. Not that she felt that was important at that moment. I thought it was and worried about it. I was trying to think about anything but what I had just heard. I was expecting to be cleared to go home and to continue on living my life in a normal way. With No more Cancer to worry about. Instead it had really only just started. I had just walked into a nightmare that was going to threaten my life from now on. I was never going to be safe from cancer again. From the moment my first doctor told me I would have to see a specialist, that was the beginning. I knew there was a reason I was avoiding it. My unconscious knew I was so god damn bloody sick. But I wasn’t going to listen to any of the signs. They weren’t going to tell me anything was wrong. Stubborn. Scottie kept telling me to call my doctor but I kept putting it off even though I was bleeding to death all the time.
Scottie and I left after we worked out a schedule for my treatment. It meant traveling over 3 hours every visit. That wasn’t going to work. I took the matters into my hands, especially after we would travel the distance for scheduled appointments and then wait there and find out after a few hours of waiting that we were not even on the schedule. I decided to find a place closer to home to receive treatments. They told me that would be impossible. They were wrong. I got on the phone the next day and before the afternoon was over I had a new oncologist. A new cancer center to go to and I could start right away with my treatments. All was transferred and it was a much quieter and comforting place.
End of the cancer saga for todays letter. Did not know I had that pent up inside of me. There is much more but I will keep spreading it out. It is more than I can deal with, so I can’t even imagine you, Annie, understanding what I was going through. No one can if they haven’t been through it. Truthfully, no empathizing will take you to the same place at all.
So, what I really wanted to talk about today was what has been happening inside me. More specifically, my feelings toward you. There’s just something that draws me into wanting to tell you everything. That must seem overwhelming I imagine. I started talk therapy when I was a teenager. It seems to have been converted into my confessional. My conversion into psychoanalysis. It’s a strong urge to understand my self. What’s the reason everything has happened the way it has. Why my life has been so fucked up. I need answers. I need to talk for all the years I was never allowed to. I was a silent child. I thought for quite some time that I was autistic. I was really convinced. I began studying autism in school. It seemed to fit all of my symptoms but I eventually figured out I was just a neglected and a severely abused child instead. Which was worse? I think both are.
Now I am living with another major setback attached to my psych problems. Have you ever heard of agoraphobia? Well, I am an agoraphobic who is not being treated and have never been treated for it or what it does for me except to have pills thrown at it. My fears are being allowed to grow. I don’t object because I don’’t want to experience the panic and anxiety that goes along with going out of the house or interacting with people. My partner, Scottie has her demons with dealing with it.
The pressure between us has been growing when Mr. Xxx started with his lack of support. Denying me my sense of reality. Making me feel like I am unable to interpret my feelings accurately about certain people I feel are treating me like shit. He defended Angie rather than supporting me. The problem comes in that we are both his clients but when he is in a session with me it is my time. That is when I should be getting his support, not her. He should be trying to understand what I am feeling and not Angie. He should be trying to help me understand why she is treating me with such vitriol. What I was feeling about what he was doing made no difference to him. He felt he had to protect Angie from me. I’ve been nothing but cordial to her and she just jumps all over me. Fuck Angie and Fuck Mr. Xxx.
I want to know why I am feeling so hostile. It’s always such a contest to battle out who is right rather then trying to figure out what is wrong. He just doesn’t feel like he cares or wants to understand the effects the group is having on me. I’m really hating to be in that room alone with Angie or him. It is becoming such a toxic place. Its only redeeming quality is that you are there and I feel you protect me. Otherwise I don’t feel safe at all.
You give me support. I wish you were the leader and that Mr. Xxx would resign from the group. He’s threatened to do it enough times. Why doesn’t he just do it and turn the leadership over to you full time. I’d like that more than anything else. Maybe Angie would leave with him.
You’d be so perfect. You could rebuild the group and maybe we would actually talk about something relevant and we would lose him monopolizing every session with his damn stories that haven’t any relevance. We could actually do therapy. Oh, do think about it. Maybe you could work on him and make him decide he is not right for the group any longer or the group is not right with him, that it needs a woman leading a women’s therapy group and not a man.
That is probably enough for this letter. This just exhausts me. I promise I will talk more about it. I just want you to know that I am really beginning to trust you. It’s because I want to and I am believing you will come through and live up to deserving that trust, I think you have already. I do trust you. I want and need to.
I’ll have more to tell you next time. Maybe we can talk some about the individual members of the group besides Mr. Xxx. You need to know more detailed information about them to better understand the dynamics between everyone. It is quite an interesting group broken off into its’ segments. It’s all too depressing to me.
Until next time I will leave you with one secret. Watch out for Robin. She is not your friend. Do not trust her. I don’t want to see you get hurt. That is all I will say for now.
Regards,
Madison(This note is to ensure that each letter is written in the strictest of confidence.)
To Annie,
At this moment I am not trying to be a coward, but I feel if I hold back now or never send this to you, then I am freeing myself up to write whatever I wish without need of censorship. Maybe someday, when I am feeling more familiar with just who you are and what you might mean to me, this parameter will be altered and a copy of this and future letters will be relayed to you. For now I want to maintain secrecy, to protect you, Annie, and to protect myself from over testing the barriers or boundaries of what the potentials could be between us and the development of our relationship.
I am adding this in order that you, Annie Haskell, will know that I am trying to protect you and also myself from any humiliation. It will free up my words as I speak them upon the page. And on some future date, if I feel trusting enough, I will release to you what I write in honesty, but for now I will keep my words confidential. On my honour, no others shall see these pages, I promise you that.
QUOTATIONS from: LETTERS of IMPORT: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
“A Dream
The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
And we are all players
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor
“For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”
~Michael Drayton~
(1563-1631)
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
Christopher Marlowe for “Hero and Leander”
“A therapeutic relationship is often more psycho-emotionally intimate than a marriage, or a romantic attachment. I know things about my patients that they would never dream of revealing to their spouses or families. Why is that? One word — trust. If you do not have a connection with a therapist, you cannot trust them. If you do not have trust, you will not expose yourself, and if you do not expose your innermost being, what good is the therapy?” — unknown but ask any great therapist
“Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence…whether much that is glorious–whether all that is profound–does not spring from disease of thought…” — Edgar Allan Poe
I rather left you hanging in my last letter regarding my cancer saga. Not trying to be flippant but a touch less severe or dramatic. The story does continue. But today, there are other matters I want to write about. So, I will keep it brief that aspect of my past that has to do with my recovery.
After leaving you hanging on my near death experience and no diagnosis could be found, eventually they discovered a virus that was causing the effects of some tropical illness. Nothing would stay down. My insides were shrinking. They had to hydrate me. I was losing masses of weight. Over the course of one night i lost twenty pounds. I just could not eat and when I did it wouldn’t stay down. I was on a diet of jello and ginger ale and my regular medications. They had to switch everything over to IV.
There were these great blue parachute bags that opened up quickly and kept what came up well contained. No messes. I use to be bulimic and this was worse then that ever was. Losing weight did satisfy my anorexic mindset but as Scottie would say, “That is not the way to lose weight.” I think it became her mantra with me. Eating was not one of my favorite things. And now that I am feeling a touch better. I am so particular about what I want and can put in my stomach. Everything needs to be mild and mostly white.
As I began to feel better, all seemed like I was recovering. No more Chemo. Hurray! But still Monday through Friday Scottie took me to my radiation treatment. They were an experiment in visiting Hell. They were killing the bone marrow in my hip where blood was made so enters my anemia with an already compromised immune system this was affecting my ability to make red and white blood cells.
I will stop here. Without meaning to I wrote more than I wanted but I guess it is something I never talked to anyone about at any length. I kept it all hidden. Not even Scottie. She was overloaded with caring for me. She lived it. I’m sure she didn’t want to hear about it.
What I really wanted to write to you about today is my connection to you in the women’s group. Ever since I returned, I want more and more for you to be leading the group. You may not say much but what you do say is so much more poignant than anything Mr. Xxx ever goes on and on about, blowing his bubbles, signifying nothing. You are so sensitive. You actually listen. He’s always waiting to jump in somewhere with what he wants to say next. He just has his stories he has to be sure to tell. And they never really focus on what you pour your heart into saying. That’s why I have pretty much given up. He has sucked any emotions I have out of me. I haven’t felt anything but panic and anxiety since I first started seeing him.
The closer I feel toward what you are meaning to the group and me the further away from Mr. Xxx I am growing. He has been my private therapist since I left doing therapy with another therapist. I never wanted to leave her but insurance caused us to end our relationship of over 7 years. Her name was Irene. I was so strongly attached to her. We met once a week and between sessions I would always need to call her to talk and I would write her a letter every week.
The month of our last visit was the same month and year that Princess Diana was killed in the car crash in Paris. I had started with Mr. Xxx right away. I was a basket case and needed to continue therapy without any interruption. After one or two of our sessions he asked me to write a poem about something, anything. I had told him that I was a writer and had written a novel and started many others. I, also, mentioned I was a poet from the time I was a teenager or maybe even before that.
I remember my grandmother and I had invented a secret alphabet in order to communicate privately with each other. We didn’t want anyone else to be able to read what we were writing to each other. I was pretty young when we did that. It was the signs of the beginnings of a budding author or someone with a keen imagination. That’s what my grandmother told me. She always encouraged me. She was the one person in my childhood that was not a nightmare to me or an abuser or bully.
Back to Mr. Xxx, while I was seeing him I did write that one poem. It was about the effect Princess Diana’s death had on me, which was very traumatic. It turned out to be the only poem and the only thing I wrote during the almost ten years that I have been seeing him. He slowly started sucking the life out of me. Everyone thought that I should replace him. I knew I needed a new therapist but I was too afraid of the change.
The people in my life were and are constantly putting pressure on me to terminate my therapy with him. They all feel it is a toxic relationship. I feel nothing inside with him. I am an emotional zombie with the exception of my alter Brad, who is filled with rage and comes out and tells him off all the time. He is always pissing Brad off. I should tell you up front Brad is a young teenager, male, who protects us all. He is our guardian. We want to confess to you that we have dissociative identity disorder. There are many of us inside but Brad is the most out going. He isn’t afraid of anything or anyone. Some day as we get to know you we will tell you more about us.
Back to the asshole, Mr. Xxx. I suppose we shouldn’t call him that with you. I will just tell you he makes us feel on the defensive all the time. We can’t trust him and for sure we never feel we can open up to him. We keep our true feelings or thoughts locked in a secure place inside us. Directness with him is like a battle for attention. Mr. Xxx always wants the floor or has an excuse for what he has to say.
He tries to make or causes us to deny our sense of realty. We would finally think we could tell him something real. But then we would feel like Charlie Brown kicking the football and he would become Lucy. I just realized she is a cheap therapist. So is he or should be. So, at the last moment he would prove once again we couldn’t trust him. He always has a way of twisting my feelings into being wrong and defends the person I am having the negative feelings about even though they were being mean as Hell to me. That’s when he would push me into a dark corner and Brad would come out in a raging fury and want to tear him apart for being such a Dickhead.
It was always more his session than ours. He has to show off how smart he is and would always try to one up on us whenever I said anything about art or what was happening in the news or any ideas. He always felt insecure or something and felt he had to prove he knew more than I did. I am not an egotist but I am rather brilliant and artistic and inside of my mind there is so much activity going on all the time and such a thirst for knowledge and philosophical thinking and creative ideas about subjects I wanted to write about. What I lacked was understanding from him. But enough about him or I’ll scream.
Now I would like to get a touch more personal with you. I told you some of the outline of my relationship with Mr. Xxx. It helps explain why I am thinking seriously about finding a new therapist. I know you are in no place for it to be you, at least right now. But someday, I want to know if I ever do ask that question whether the answer will be yes?
I should be completely honest with you about some of the ways that I feel. One thing that is strong in me is that I get jealous. I also get attached and can be rather dependent. I am in control of my behavior but I do feel very intense about people I care about. For an example, you seem to have a certain relationship between yourself and Robin. You engage in some intense conversations after group is over and then you give her a ride home. Now I am not exactly sure why this bothers me but it does.
Before I became ill I always took Robin home. We would have these intense conversations. Now I am not sure if I am jealous, just a touch because she talks to you, or you talk to her and spend time with her. What I am saying I think or feel I want to be in Robin’s place. I want the intense conversations with you. But also I want my friend back. That’s a real Catch-22.
We also take the same road home and I can see you both sitting in your car talking. How crazy am I that it bothers me. I don’t really want you two to be close. I can absolutely not talk to Mr. Xxx about what I am feeling. The Goddess knows what he would say. Not going to trust that.
I hope you are able to understand the trust I am placing in you being so direct and honest. Closeness with you is something I would like to build between us.
Until the next time I see you I will close with a thank you for listening.
Regards,
Madison(This note is to ensure that all is written in the strictest of confidence.)
To Annie,
At this moment I am not trying to be a coward, but I feel if I hold back now or never send this to you, then I am freeing myself up to write whatever I wish without need of censorship. Maybe someday, when I am feeling more familiar with just who you are and what you might mean to me, this parameter will be altered and a copy of this and future letters will be relayed to you. For now I want to maintain secrecy, to protect you, Annie, and to protect myself from over testing the barriers or boundaries of what the potentials could be between us and the development of our relationship.
I am adding this in order that you, Annie Haskell, will know that I am trying to protect you and also myself from any humiliation. It will free up my words as I speak them upon the page. And on some future date, if I feel trusting enough, I will release to you what I write in honesty, but for now I will keep my words confidential. On my honour, no others shall see these pages, I promise you that.
QUOTATIONS from: LETTERS of IMPORT: Private Writings to a Psychoanalyst
“A Dream
The beginning always starts out with a dream.
It is all a dream
And we are all players
In our own nightmares”
— Madison Taylor
“For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain.”
~Michael Drayton~
(1563-1631)
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”
Christopher Marlowe for “Hero and Leander”
“A therapeutic relationship is often more psycho-emotionally intimate than a marriage, or a romantic attachment. I know things about my patients that they would never dream of revealing to their spouses or families. Why is that? One word — trust. If you do not have a connection with a therapist, you cannot trust them. If you do not have trust, you will not expose yourself, and if you do not expose your innermost being, what good is the therapy?” — unknown but ask any great therapist
“Men have called me mad, but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence…whether much that is glorious–whether all that is profound–does not spring from disease of thought…” — Edgar Allan Poe
Trigger warning: Child abuse.
TO TRAIN UP A CHILD
A BOOK WHERE THE PUNISHMENT IS CHILD ABUSE
I am passing this message along to make people aware of this book and the petition to have Amazon band it from their shelves. DO NOT SELL THIS BOOK AMAZON. It perpetuates CHILD ABUSE.
This book makes me so angry to see!
Here are some quotes from the book…
“At four months she was too unknowing to be punished for disobedience. But for her own good, we attempted to train her not to climb the stairs by coordinating the voice command of “No” with little spats on the bare legs. The switch was a twelve-inch long, one-eighth-inch diameter sprig from a willow tree.”
That is a description of when they switched their 4 month old daughter (p.9)
This is a recommendation to spank a 3 year old until he is “totally broken.” (p.59)
“She then administers about ten slow, patient licks on his bare legs. He cries in pain. If he continues to show defiance by jerking around and defending himself, or by expressing anger, then she will wait a moment and again lecture him and again spank him. When it is obvious he is totally broken, she will hand him the rag and very calmly say, ‘Johnny, clean up your mess.’ He should very contritely wipe up the water.”
I found out about this book because of Xanga. PLEASE pass this around so this book can get removed by amazon! There’s a current Petition asking amazon to remove this book
A COMMENT FROM AMAZON
“All of the horrible abuse stories that have arisen lately are filled with parents who DID NOT LOVE their children AND DID NOT FOLLOW ANYTHING IN THIS BOOK. “
That’s a lie.
According to recent news reports:
“Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey confirmed Thursday that other children in the home who have been interviewed told investigators “this philosophy was espoused by their parents.”
Please note the part that says “THE OTHER CHILDREN IN THE HOME”.
“Ramsey said he is also exploring a possible connection to a Web site that endorses “biblical discipline” using the same rubber or plastic tube alleged to have been used to whip the two young ridge girls by their adoptive parents.”
What rubber tubbing could DA Mike Ramsey be refering to?
I know this one:
“Later, a plumber’s supply line is a good spanking tool. You can get it at Wal-Mart or any hardware store. Ask for a plastic, ¼ inch, supply line. They come in different lengths and several colors; so you can have a designer rod to your own taste. They sell for less than $1.00.” Published on the No Greater Joy website run by Debi and Micheal Pearl.
“It’s simple controlled taps” See for yourself exactly how Mike does those “taps”.
(cHECK OUT THE ANDERSON COOPER VIDEO THAT IS AVAILABLE AFTER PLAYING THROUGH THIS FIRST ONE. MICHAEL PEARL IS DANGEROUD AND NO ONE SHOULD BE FOLLOWING HIS METHODS OF CHILD REARING.
“I have seen my 21 month old daughter love her life even more because I am helping her obey and not indulge herself. She is full of smiles, we play often together and she obeys all the time because that is how she has been trained. There is no such thing as the terrible two’s in our house because she has been trained from the beginning to not complain with her voice, not cry out in anger, and to comply always.”
A 21 month old child isn’t two years old yet. They are called the terrible two’s because the child is two years old when they hit them.
“If not for Michael Pearl’s book, my house would be filled with ongoing power struggles, frustrating days and most of all, an indulgent child who will have no self- control in her life when she is older” You don’t know what could have happened. You are just assuming.
“Our family has been very blessed by Michael Pearl and his example and tips for child-training and our marriage.”
When you mean tips are you referring to the passages on Page 46 or Page 47?
“Any spanking, to effectively reinforce instruction, must cause pain, but the most pain is on the surface of bare skin where the nerves are located. A surface sting will cause sufficient pain, with no injury or bruising. Select your instrument according to the child’s size. For the under one year old, a little, ten- to twelve-inch long, willowy branch (striped of any knots that might break the skin) about one-eighth inch diameter is sufficient. Sometimes alternatives have to be sought. A one-foot ruler, or its equivalent in a paddle, is a sufficient alternative. For the larger child, a belt or larger tree branch is effective.”
“Never reward delayed obedience by reversing the sentence. And, unless all else fails, don’t drag him to the place of cleansing. Part of his training is to come submissively. However, if you are just beginning to institute training on an already rebellious child, who runs from discipline and is too incoherent to listen, then use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay. If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign. Your word is final.”
A REVIEW FROM AMAZON:
This review is from: To Train Up A Child (Paperback)
Not only have I read this book but I was one of the “well-adjusted, pleasant children” subjected to the torture outlined in this book. Despite what parents who advocate the use of Pearl’s “training” WANT to believe about how well they’re children are turning out the result is much more devastating than the rosy pictures they paint in their mind. Sure you’re children MAY not complain as much, but they also won’t trust you as much. Sure you’re children will “respect” you if you consider fear to be equivalent to respect. Sure you’re children will seem like they are well-behaved because they WILL start to hide everything from you. If you want an open and loving relationship with your children, this book will NOT get you there. If you want a relationship were your children are afraid of you, distance themselves from you, and end up living a life of hurt and humiliation then go for it but no one will consider you a “fit” parent. This is NOT a Biblical representation of child-rearing. And due to the fact that multiple children have been killed by the practice of Pearl’s methods Amazon really should remove this book from their lineup. It isn’t about censorship of an “alternative” form of child-rearing, this is about not promoting or associating with a book that promotes…nay even demands, child abuse.
CLICK ON THIS LINK TO LOCATE THIS BOOK AND READ FOR YOURSELF AND DECIDE IF THIS BOOK SHOULD BE REMOVED BECAUSE IT PROMOTES CHILD ABUSE IN THE MOST BLATANT FORM POSSIBLE IN THE NAME OF BEATING YOUR CHILD TO GET THEM TO OBEY. WHO HAS THAT RIGHT? TO TRAIN UP A CHILD
QUOTATIONS on CHILD ABUSE:
“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom.
But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task of early adulthood――establishing independence and intimacy――burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and in memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships.
She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery
“She still remembered sitting for hours as a little girl and pretending to be a hassock. A foot stool. Because if she could just stay very small, and very quiet, her mother would forget she was there, and then she wouldn’t scream about people and places and things that had gone wrong.” ― Eloisa James, An Affair Before Christmas
“the seriousness of emotional deprivation:
It is not difficult to understand how children who have suffered from malnutrition or starvation need food and plenty of care in their bodies are to recover so they can go on to lead normal lives. If, however, the starvation is severe enough, the damage will be permanent and they will suffer physical impairments for the rest of their lives. Likewise, children who are deprived of emotional nurturing require care and love if their sense of security and self-confidence is to be restored. However, if love is minimal and abuse high, the damage will be permanent and the children will suffer emotional impairments for the rest of their lives.” ― Mark Z. Danielewski
“If you say there is no such thing as morality in absolute terms, then child abuse is not evil, it just may not happen to be your thing.” ― Rebecca Manley Pippert
“When Benedict dies, he will have the pleasure of standing before whatever furious God he believes in, to answer for how it was that he knew for undeniable fact that one — if not dozens — of his priests repeatedly molested, abused and/or raped young children for decades, and he did nothing to stop it. How much does God believe the pope’s argument that Vatican PR trumps pedophilia? Joe Ratzinger, 82, will soon find out.” ― Mark Morford
“The fact is, the man who’d begotten me didn’t want me. In his eyes I should never have been born. And perhaps that would’ve been best. As it was, my existence had proven to be nothing more than a nuisance for everyone. I angered my father, brought strife upon my mother, irritated my teachers, and annoyed the other children who were forced to interact with me in school. All by simply being.
When you aren’t loved, you aren’t real. Life is cold, like the stone against my palm.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher
“Not even Carol knows firsthand how it feels to be hurt in such a way by someone who’s supposed to protect you”
― Ellen Hopkins, Identical
“I Want to Shout
Leave me alone!
What’s wrong with you?
Don’t you remember who I am?
Who you are?
This is not a father’s love! I want to scream,
Can’t you see what
you are doing to me?
What you’ve done to me?
What you’ve made of me?
I want to cry out,
I am your little girl.
I am not your girlfriend.
I am not your whore.
I am not my fucking mother! But he is on top of me and my shout is silenced.
He is inside of me and my scream stays there too.
He is finished.
And I don’t cry out,
but I do cry a bucket of silent tears. He slithers
away and at last,
I quietly sob”
― Ellen Hopkins, Identical
“…sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us.” ― Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero
Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs, the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what. So be thankful for what you have. Don’t wait until its too late to tell someone how much you love them and how much you care about them, because when they’re gone, no matter how loud you shout and cry, they wont hear you anymore. — unknowm
“Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other until that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I would go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I
Family isn’t just about whose blood runs through your veins. It’s about who never left your side, stood up for you and believed in you.
– Andrian Body
“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign . . . to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof. — Richard Bach
“More often than not, what animals require our protection from is not hurricanes or fires, but abuse at the hands of other people”.”
― Julie Klam, Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself
“When the one you deeply love hurts you, it forever changes the way you deal with anyone that attempts to get close to you.” — unknown
“When you find something that feels right, feels good and feels desperately important, once you believe in something, you push it forward everyday, in some way. You give all you’ve got, to drag it and drive it forward! You do this because you can’t stomach the idea of living your life without seeing your vision materialize. Surely this is what it is to have a dream and to have a dream come true…
Once you find something that makes you feel this way, you’ve found your calling, I believe. To live all of your days without honoring this ‘purpose’ is to live unnoticed, unchallenged, un-celebrated, immemorable, but most importantly, it is to leave this life no better than you found it. It must be, ultimately, to die as though you never lived at all…” ― Evette Carter
“You’re the thought in my dreams. You’re the vision in my eyes. You’re the sound in my ears. You’re the words in my mouth. You’re everything I need. You’re everything I want. You’re everything that makes me, me.” — unknown
“In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm.”
― Tahir Shah, In Search of King Solomon’s Mines (knock on wood — i’m extremely superstitious–jk)
“Family is not always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs, the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what.” — unknown
“Segregation has it all wrong. We should be protected from the people who will leave us in the end, from all the people who will disappear or forget us.” ― Lauren Oliver, Delirium
Room Alone At Night
Poem Written by Jennifer Kiley
Written 03.01.13
Edited 03.02.13
Digital Abstract & collage by j. kiley
Created 03.01.13
Posted 03.02.13
“I’m doing this so that people who feel their lives are over, or they don’t know how to have an intimate relationship, that they can find a way back again into living.”
“The idea is to rescue myself from the role of a victim. That I have a choice left. Though I can’t change what has happened, I can choose how to react. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being afraid of intimacy and afraid to cry and rage for what was stolen from me. I will not be silent. I will tell my story out loud and share it with others who also need to heal.”
“People out there must be told about the self-loathing that follows rape and child abuse and sexual abuse and how it’s the greatest breakage in divine law that has been done. The trust that is broken. Being used and threatened with harm and death of yourself and those you love.”
“You decide whether you look at your reality or live pretending these feelings don’t exist. They do exist. You feel ashamed that you think you let your abusers do this to you, like you had any choice in being sexual, emotionally, physically and psychologically abused. There was no choice. The abusers stole your power away from you.”
“You have to crawl into the wounds to discover what your fears are. You have to gently rip open the wounds that have been infected for years. They need to bleed in order to allow the cleansing to begin. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin. Then the healing can start to happen.”
“I think you have to know who you are, get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it. Their are voices of an angel and a demon sitting on your shoulders and they each tell you what you should do. Listen carefully and then tell the demon to go fuck the hell off and stop filling your mind with lies. You can trust certain people who care. Let them in when it feels right to you. If they prove themselves then keep listening to the voice of the angel telling you that the demon is lying to you. The person or persons you trust are not pretending or abandoning you. They care and they love you and are there for you. Just keep remembering that when the doubt sets in. For it will try to betray your mind into thinking upside down. You have to fight the lies and remember the truth.”
“I see the dream and I see the nightmare, and I believe you can’t have the dream without the nightmare. The nightmare is real. The abuse did happen. It will be inside of you but you don’t have to let it control you. You will need to do a great deal of work to heal from the nightmare but the dream is there for you to believe in and build on. You do have people who care and there are people who will help you to heal. Just let them in and they will be there for you. Let them be.”
“I think that the nightmares are telling me things about myself that I need to know. And I try to understand what they mean, so I can get to know something more about my soul. Listen to what your heart and body and soul are saying. Let go of the evil that was done to you. Those who were evil and abused you are gone now. They may haunt you but you have the power within to fight them. Don’t let them in. Push them away. Feel your own power and the power of those around you who are good and who support you in your healing. Feel their love and strength and your own love and strength that you give to yourself. It is okay to feel the love from within yourself and from those who are giving you love. It is okay to accept their love and to feel your own. And it is okay to love those people who love you and care about you and want to see you heal.”
“Anger is healthy, but out of balance if it doesn’t have compassion. Feeling your emotions are okay but to rage at those who love you needs to be brought under control. Emotions are just that emotions. Feelings are a way to express what emotions are coming up from inside of you. Working with a psychotherapist will help you to understand how you can learn to express what your emotions are and how to feel your feelings. It is okay to feel love again. It will help you to heal. Those special people who tell you and remind you all the time that they love you and care for you. Believe them. They are speaking the truth. You can see the evidence all the time in what and how they show they care and love you. And it is okay to love them back and to care for them. They are not going to be anything like the abusers. They are not going try to hurt you. They are not going to try to abandon you. They are not going to make you do anything against your will. You are safe with them. Keep this in your mind and remind yourself all the time that they love you and you can love them. There is nothing wrong with loving someone you care about. It is good to feel love and to tell someone you care and that you love them also.”
“I am finding that vulnerability gives me great strength, because you’re not hiding anymore. It is difficult to be vulnerable but it is okay. It helps you to build close relationships with those people who have shown you that you can trust them. Don’t be afraid to open up your thoughts and feeling to them no matter how scary it may feel. It is safe to trust them with whatever you are going through inside. They will be honest in return. You need to claim your life back that was stolen from you. Intimacy is a very important part in feeling and sharing love and to building a relationship with friends you feel close to and want to feel close to or closer to.”
Just some thoughts and feelings… by jk the secret keeper
Homophobia & Bullying Needs To Stop
Post Created by jk the secret keeper
Opening Written by Jennifer Kiley
Created 02.27.13
Posted 02.28.13
I have the film Bully and intend to watch once my psychotherapist returns from vacation. Those are her orders. No Hunger Games or Girls With the Dragon Tattoo either. Subject matter too triggering. Here is a video of the trailer to Bully and a film review plus a synopsis from the producers. I will be writing a film review once I have watched this very important film. Originally, b/c of language & subject matter those that really need to see this film were going to be kept from viewing it. If I understand correctly that is no longer the case. Some of the children that are shown in the film ended up becoming so overwhelmed by their being bullied that they committed suicide. Suicide is a strong reaction but it is not usually b/c you want to die but you just want the pain to end. I have those words echoing in my head as a mantra. I have had my own experience with all of these issues as so many of us have. Here is the the trailer to Bully. Following the material representing the film Bully is a video made by a young man who is not gay but takes on the topic of homophobia, bullying & respecting one another. You will be shocked by some of the material he posts from Facebook pages in the comment sections. It is quite horrible that people would hold such violent hatred toward other humans who are “different” then they think they are. But in fact, we are all different & unique. Why bullies cannot see that they would not want to receive the same treatment as they administer to those that they bully. I have been reading the book “Orange Petals in a Storm.” One of the many imaginative & magical elements in the story that absorb you includes the quite intriguing way the young girl and main character finds the resolutions to the many situations she encounters such as that of bullying and abuse. Not to give too much away, those who bully & abuse are often victims themselves. That is not a reason to go on to become a bully yourself. When I hear about those who sexually abuse children speak up & tell that they were sexually abused themselves. NOT AN EXCUSE. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR BULLYING, ABUSE, VIOLENCE, DOMESTIC ABUSE, SEXUAL ABUSE or any form of sexual abuse toward a child or an adult. NO EXCUSE. NO EXCUSE IS ACCEPTABLE. By Jennifer Kiley
Directed by Sundance and Emmy-award winning filmmaker, Lee Hirsch, Bully is a beautifully cinematic, character-driven documentary. At its heart are those with huge stakes in this issue whose stories each represent a different facet of America’s bullying crisis. Bully follows five kids and families over the course of a school year. Stories include two families who have lost children to suicide and a mother awaiting the fate of her 14-year-old daughter who has been incarcerated after bringing a gun on her school bus. With an intimate glimpse into homes, classrooms, cafeterias and principals’ offices, the film offers insight into the often cruel world of the lives of bullied children. — (C) Weinstein
Film review of BULLY:
Bullied like me
COLIN COVERT
Minnesota Star Tribune
April 13, 2012
Documentary focuses on the torment faced by a handful of young students, including two who took their own lives.
Parents just don’t understand. That’s the message of Lee Hirsch’s powerful documentary “Bully.” The parents of kids who behave thuggishly to their classmates shrug off child-on-child abuse as “kids just being kids.” The families of children on the receiving end of nonstop mistreatment don’t comprehend their suffering. The parents of 17-year-old Tyler Long, allegedly the victim of longtime harassment by his classmates, didn’t realize how he felt until he hanged himself in his bedroom closet.
David and Tina Long have been battling school bullying in Georgia since their son’s 2009 suicide. Their story is one of five told in the film, which Hirsch filmed over the course of a year with no lights, no sound person and only a small video camera. While his film is limited in scope (all his subjects live in fairly rural settings), it reflects a sadly prevalent state of affairs.
From the Longs, the film moves to Alex Libby and his family in Sioux City, Iowa. “I feel kind of nervous about going to school,” says Alex, whose classmates ostracize him. “I like learning, but I have trouble making friends.” He enters seventh grade fearful it will be another chapter in a continuing story of humiliation. “They punch me, strangle me, take things from me, sit on me. Sometimes they push me so hard it makes me want to be the bully,” he says. Alex’s mom brings the problem to the school principal, who — apparently more concerned with saving face than addressing the problem — shrugs off her concerns.
But Hirsch’s film captures the perspective of Alex and other victims: physical abuse, insults and threats, school bus rides that resemble mob scenes from “Lord of the Flies.” It’s painful viewing, but necessary. Catharsis often involves going to dark places.
Related Article: Director’s Bully Pulpit
Director Lee Hirsch’s documentary “Bully” lifts the veil on a seemingly perpetual childhood scourge. Recording the experience of several adolescents with a compact video camera, he provides an authentic glimpse at conditions that some victimized students face daily…
Published on Feb 24, 2013
A Statement made by the young man who created this video on Homophobia, Bullying & Respect
I’m not gay myself but even so. It’s a shame that things have gotten this bad. I’m sorry the editing isn’t very good, I wanted to get it uploaded asap. Sorry also for the speed of the screen shots, you may have to pause them. It’s a shame that ‘gay’ has now become some kind of derogatory term. It’s bad that in this day and age, people cannot be grown up about sexual orientation. Everyone is equal. It’s those that actually accept that are the winners.
“The sad truth about bigotry is that most bigots either don’t realize that they are bigots, or they convince themselves that their bigotry is perfectly justified.”
― Wayne Gerard Trotman
“One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
― Michael J. Fox
“Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue, because it tells us there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying.” ― Anna Quindlen
“Some people won’t be happy until they’ve pushed you to the ground. What you have to do is have the courage to stand your ground and not give them the time of day. Hold on to your power and never give it away.” ― Donna Schoenrock
“I hate the word homophobia. It’s not a phobia. You are not scared. You are an asshole.”
― Morgan Freeman
“No, you don’t know what it’s like
When nothing feels all right
You don’t know what it’s like
To be like me
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you’re down
To feel like you’ve been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one’s there to save you
No, you don’t know what it’s like
Welcome to my life”
― Simple Plan
“Social conservatives seem to see a bigger threat to marriage from committed gay couples who want in on it than from straight ones who opt out of it.”
― Margaret Talbot
“1. Bullying is not okay. Period.
2. Freedom of religion does not give you the right to physically or verbally assault people.
3. If your sincerely-held religious beliefs require you to bully children, then your beliefs are fucked up.”
― Jim C. Hines
“What would my first sergeant do if he came across me and another girl getting it on? He’d want pictures. He’d want to join in. He’d want me and this other girl to double-team him right then and there. On the other hand, since most heterosexual men are homophobic and sexist, most straight guys figure gay men will treat them the way they themselves treat women- that is, like sex objects. And this freaks them the fuck out.” ― Kayla Williams, Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army
“It gets better. It seems hard, you know, I think being different is always gonna be a tough climb. There’s always gonna be people that are scared of it. But at the end of the day you give those bullies, those people, that are so ignorant, if you give them the power to affect you, you’re letting them win. And they don’t deserve that. What you’re doing by being yourself is you’re keeping it real, and you’re being really brave.” ― Adam Lambert
“The whole world goes on and on about love. Poets spend their lives writing about it. Everyone thinks it’s the most wonderful thing. But, when you mention two guys in love, they forget all that and freak out.” ― Mark A. Roeder, Outfield Menace
“Could a scar be like the rings of a tree, reopened with each emotional season?”
― Magenta Periwinkle, Cutting Class
“I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England’s.” — E.M. Forster (speaking of Maurice & England at the time.)
“When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine’s Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship—though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn’t known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved…” ― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
“The concept that really gets the goat of the gay-hater, the idea that really spins their melon and sickens their stomachs is that most terrible and terrifying of all human notions, love. That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand. Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the world’s full octave. Love as Agape, Eros and Philos; love as infatuation, obsession and lust; love as torture, euphoria, ecstasy and oblivion (this is beginning to read like a Calvin Klein perfume catalogue); love as need, passion and desire.” ― Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot
“Everyone I say stop bullying it is sad and tears someones heart apart and next thing they do is Suicide because they think that is the right next step! If you are a Person who gets bullied find someone who will stop this! Don’t just kill yourself for the other person to be happy because you are gone! They are just jealous of you and want to start problems and make you a troublemaker! Ignore those mean cruel evil people in you life and spend time with the nice caring sweet loving angels of yours! Because bullying is a dumb and stupid waste of time! Try to shake it off the mean hurtful stuff and keep on doing the right stuff that is going to help you become a better person and when i say a better person i mean more than a better person! ― Skye Daphne, The Witch who was a princess
“You could move.’ —”Dear Abby” responds to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.”
― Abigail Van Buren
“….watch me rise like smoke from fire.
Watch me fly above your hate.
Watch me dance upon your meanness
like a ballerina with posture; grace.
Watch me laugh over your hatred;
watch me soar above your sea of grief.
And know that I am out there somewhere…
C R U S H I N G.”
― Coco J. Ginger
“We’re sick of hearing people say, “That band is so gay,” or “Those guys are fags.” Gay is not a synonym for shitty. If you wanna say something’s shitty, say it’s shitty. Stop being such homophobic assholes.”
― Pete Wentz
“You know, when someone hurts my feelings, somehow it does not comfort me to know that it was deliberate… On the other hand, knowing that someone else thinks they are assholes helps a great deal.”
“I think that’s some kind of rule for the universe.”
― John Barnes, Tales of the Madman Underground
“He had put his hand up in class, a declaration of existence, a claim that he knew something. And that was forbidden to him. They could give a number of reasons for why they had to torment him; he was too fat, too ugly, too disgusting. But the real problem was simply that he existed, and every reminder of his existence was a crime.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In
Because bullying is a dumb and stupid waste of time! Try to shake it off the mean hurtful stuff and keep on doing the right stuff that is going to help you become a better person and when i say a better person i mean more than a better person! ― Skye Daphne, The Witch who was a princess 
