If you're in the US, and planning on eating out tomorrow, how about eating at Chilis? They are donating 100% of their profits on Sept. 25th to Saint Jude's Children's Research Hospital, one of the leading childhood cancer centers in the world.
Thanks to Kevin for the pointer.
The 4th edition is up over at Carpe Noctem today. As usually, looks like there's plenty of good, thought-provoking reading material.
I saw this post over at Neil's blog, he's going to be interviewed about life as a male victim of sexual abuse next Weds. on the Darkness to Light radio show. I'll be working when the show airs live, but I will be sure to give it a listen from the site shortly afterwards. Obviously, I do have some interest in the topic, and it's not often you see the topic of sexual abuse specifically of males being addressed, so I'm glad for that, if nothing else!
I was taking a quick look at the deadline for the latest Carnival Against Child Abuse when I noticed that this month's host has changed the topic a little bit. She wanted to focus on self-injury and sense of self. It quickly occurred to me that much of what we've been discussing about relationships, and our expectations of other people's reactions really is about learning how to develop a healthy sense of self.
It's long been my belief that having good relationships, whether they be romantic, platonic, or even working relationships, requires a certain amount of "self" to get that way. You really aren't capable of having a balanced relationship if you don't have a sense of yourself within that relationship.
That's why, for example, when I talked about what we expected from others when we shared our stories of abuse, I focused on what we could reasonably expect from other people. As many have pointed out, typically we develop a sense of self as children, but in an abuse survivor's case, that development has been stunted. Also typically, people who have low self-esteem, a low sense of self worth, and other symptoms of a lack of "self" try to compensate for that by depending on others to give it to them. That's not a healthy basis for a relationship of any kind.
Like any childhood development problem, abuse victims lag behind other children in this area. There's no questioning that, but also like other areas in which children can lag behind, with enough work, you can catch up. It's taken me many years to develop a sense of self, and I don't believe, even after all that work, that I've fully developed that yet. I do know that in the relationships I have now, I've managed to maintain my own identity, my own space, my own "self". Having that allows me the freedom to give to others, and to be vulnerable to others, because I'm no longer living in fear of their responses. My own sense of self is not dependant on their response, it's coming from within myself. Their response may be quite painful to me, I'm not talking about dissociating yourself emotionally from people around you, quite the contrary, I'm talking about having the freedom to be emotionally involved with the people in your life MORE freely, because you're not going to lose your "self" in any case.
Hopefully everything is working with the new Movable Type upgrade now. Let me know if something's broken!
Apparently, Megan's Law wasn't bad enough. Now my home state of Ohio is pushing ahead a law that would allow prosecutors, or even the alleged victims, petition a judge to have someone listed in the public sexual offenders registry even if they aren't found guilty! According to the Toldeo Blade:
A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.The rules spell out how the untried process would work. It would largely treat a person placed on the civil registry the same way a convicted sex offender is treated under Ohio's so-called Megan's Law.
The person's name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live.
Apparently, we now live in a society that is perfectly willing to throw away a tried and true concept like "innocent until proven guilty" because it gives the appearance of "protecting the children", without actually protecting anyone.
Even as a survivor of childhood abuse, this law idea sickens me.