Help From Law Enforcment 

   Last night I was watching an abc news special which profiled and interviewed Jaycee Dugard. At one point in the show they mentioned that the police department failed Jaycee over 60 times! This girl was held in captivity for years and came close to being rescued many times, but the police failed to act. I wish this was an unusual isolated incident, but it’s not. Police fail to protect and serve all the time. Some are overworked and understaffed, some have their hands tied by bureaucratic red tape and some it really appears that they don’t care.

Once the state of California declared that I had a child with my perpetrator, the visitations set in. By this time I was pregnant with my second child and remarried. I had greatly considered defying the court order and not allowing him to see my daughter. I would have gone to jail and he would have had her full time, because there are no laws in which he can be tired and jailed for his actions, but me protecting my child? There are laws against that. 

I packed my 3 year old daughter up and let this POS take her for their ” visit”. The visits consisted with him spending every minute of it down talking me, critizing me and trying to poison my daughter who was still just a baby against me. 

He was in accident, driving while high or drunk or both I don’t remember, my baby wasn’t hurt that time. His car was totaled. I called the police department and told them I suspected this person was drunk and driving around with my child. The police officer told me; ‘ you should be more selective with who you have children with” 

Reminder I did not ” choose” to have a child with this person! The State of California because they hadn’t victimized me enough said I had a child with this person! Because having just me suffer wasn’t enough, they wanted another generation if suffering. 

The nightmare continued; he would leave my little girl with his teenage severely autistic son who masterbated all over the house. I am not saying that I didn’t like his son or that he was at fault, but he shouldn’t have been left alone and he is not an acceptable babysitter for a 4 year old. So he got in trouble for that, then he found her another babysitter, the next one overdoesed on drugs. The one after that poured vodka on herself and light herself on fire. I called the police, I petitioned the courts, I called child protective services. THEY ALL DID NOTHING!

Icing in the cake; my 3,4,5 year old would come back from fun filled visits with perpetrator. Where she allowed to eat what ever she wanted, have a cookie jar with her name on it, no bed time. She could do whatever she liked. To being given back to me. A real parent with rules and boundaries, the more I fought to reduce his time and eventually eliminate it, the more she hated me. She would cry and scream at me that she hated me for keeping them apart. 

I remember once perpetrator pointed out how upset she was at leaving him, I explained that she has the same response at leaving the McDonalds play area, should I give in and just let her live there? 

I thought being married to him to begin with was the worst thing I will ever have to go through in my life, if o could just get through that I can live a life I want to and not suffer anymore. I was so very wrong. 

-G 

Recovery 

I appreciate  all the feedback I have gotten on these blog post. Please share, please discuss! This is a dialog that needs to continue. 

I am currently in recovery, recovery from years of trauma and abuse. I am not a victim but a daily survivor. What I have been through cannot be cured with a few sessions on a sofa in a shrinks office. It is a journey, one day at a time journey. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I feel healthy and fine, sometime I miss events because I am at home trying to manage my emotions. 

I have participated in therapy and even recently graduated with a B.S. In Human Services, I continue to be in awe of what a human being can endure and still recover, thrive and give back. 

During years of therapy I developed tools to aid in maintaining my sanity and trying to establish healthy relationships. Every time I felt like I have it all wrapped up I realize that there are still pieces missing. 

While studying within the mental health field I learned a lot about twelve step programs and AA groups. I tipped toed around this part of my coursework and avoided engaging in anything to do with substance abuse unless I had too. 

Why?  Because I am terrified of addicts! My life from an early age has been destroyed by addicts and alcoholics. I find it hard to understand addiction as a disease and go out of my way to avoid it. 

Recently this year I turned a corner, even thought I have managed to escape substance abuse problems and don’t have much direct contact with any addicts or alcoholics. I realized that I was still affected by the abuse and chaos I had to live through while these people where still in my life.

Two days after my 6th birthday I got the gift of a mentally unstable addict and alcoholic 18 year old stepfather. My mother blamed his behavior on drugs and alcohol, our life was a hot mess, never ending drama and chaos. Mum taught me that if the drinking and drugging stopped, everything would be fine. She spent the majority of my childhood bouncing between desperately trying to control him, pouring out alcohol she found, flushing his stash, staying on top of what he was doing and who he was with. Screaming at him and punishing him nonstop. Or she was too overwhelmed and depressed to get out of bed. Either way she wasn’t avalible to care and nurture her two young daughters and we had the pleasure of being pulled along. 

This issue came up again in my child marriage, if he didn’t drink or do drugs things would be fine and it was my job to control him and keep him in check. I would find his stash, flush it and lecture him on it just like my mother had. I wasn’t concerned with caring for myself or making sure my needs were met. My whole life was about keeping him from harming himself. This behavior of mine had gone on in varous relationships until I married Nick in 2007. 

Nick doesn’t drink or do drugs, he is kind and not abusive. He is not perfect, but no one is. Most importantly he generally manages himself just fine and let’s me manage myself. 

After being married to nick for almost ten years and for the most part peacefully raising the kids I realized that I have focused so much on not doing certain things, that I have ignored some bad habits of my own and I need to address them. 

I have been a mother for almost 17 years now and spent most of that time just trying to keep my kids away from addicts, trying to create the best environment for them to thrive in and meeting their needs as much as I am able, in doing this I have neglected myself way to much. 

So I started Al-anon, many of the concepts I had already been applying to my life I just didn’t have them neatly labeled. I think this will be a good journey and in the last month I have already seen a benifit in my household. The biggest take away; I still struggle with self esteem, I still don’t feel like I am worth love and care. This is not behavior I want to model for my kids. 

In closing I will share two things that happened recently; my mother was in the hospital for a few days, upon returning home she was all in a flurry over what her ex-husband was doing, trying to control him. I suggested she not worry about what he is doing and what she can not control and instead focus on healing her sick body. I’m pretty sure I was blown off.

Secondly, I informed my mother that I would not discuss my blog post with her. End of story. However she did talk about it with my oldest daughter who informed me that my mother was concerned that I labeled my abusive first husband as a drunk. Really?? This shit still pops up! 

 I’ll leave you with this; 

” I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it and I can’t cure it. 

Peace, 

G 

12 Girls found inside home of 51 year old Pennsylvania man

Earlier in June a story broke about 12 young girls being found in a shady looking house in Feasterville, Pennsylvania. 

The unkept house belonged to Lee Kaplan a 51 year old male, of the 12 girls one is 18 years of age and said that she was the mother of two of the girls found in the home. She also named Kaplan as the father of her two girls. 

Details are still coming out in this bizarre case; what has been reported so far is that the now 18 year old was ” gifted” to the creepy 51 year old guy when she was only 14 years old. She was gifted by her parents in exchange for Kaplan bailing them out of some financial troubles. The girls parents said that they did some research online and thought what they did was perfectly legal. It is still not known if any of the other girls in the home suffered any abuse from Kaplan. 

The first question I had after reading about this was; did the parents really break the law? If this young lady was legally married to creepy old guy and they have to children, then no laws would have been broken. I tried to look up two things; 

1. Marriage laws in Pennsylvania 

2. Amish Marriage laws

What I found was that Pennsylviana Marriage laws are kind of sketchy. The legal age to get married without consent is 18, you can get married at 16 with out consent if the court feels that it is in your best interest. A child can be married if they have consent from their parents. Boom! No minimum age! http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/23/23.HTM
I had heard reports that the parents who “gifted ” their child were part of the Amish community. I am not an expert on Amish culture, nor am I that interested in them. I did look up Amish marriage customs and found nothing about ” gifting” ones child to perry old guy. I did not find any indication that this is something that happens in the Amish community. In fact the average age that Amish girls marry is 21. 

I will be following this story as it unfolds and more information is released. At this point it looks like society in general failed these girls. News reports have stated that neighbors waited years to report conerns. A detective was at the house investigating a fire two years earlier and noticed all the girls. Kaplan told the detective that the girls were staying with him while their home was being remodeled. The dective never followed up to see if the story was true. The most infuriating thing I heard was from local peopel in town who knew something was strange and excused it as ” religion”. So because this did was super ” religious” and spouted off bible verses he might be ok? 

Keep your eyes open readers, it is your business and who knows who’s life you might save.

-G 

The definition of Marriage 

On June 26th 2015 the United States Surpeme Court ruled that marriage equality would be the law of the land. My family and I happened to be vacationing in Washington DC on that day. The celebration and love in the city was a beautiful site. 

Marriage equality has been a hot topic this decade. I find he term ” equality” to be an interesting description. I personally think if two consenting adults who love each other want to form a legal partnership through marriage then they should be able too. The current argument is that by legally allowing same sex couples to marry  it will jeopardize the institution of marriage. 

I take issue with this because while so much time and effort is being spent on preventing two consenting adults from enjoying the legal benefits of marriage. The nation as a whole has been mute on child marriage.  Virginia was the first state in the nation to try and fill in the cracks in the legal system that alowe for perpetrators to marry their victims to avoid criminal prosecution. Why des this not threaten the institute of marriage and our values as a nation but same sex marriage does? 

Currently there are bills to address child marriage in New Jersey, New York and Maryland. Hopefully it will keep going across the nation. In my current home state of Indiana we had a political circus in last years legistlative session in regards to same sex marriage. Once again Indiana was the butt on many jokes not just in the US but around the world. I wont go into detail here but more information can be found here; http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2015/03/31/indiana-religious-freedom-act-prompts-backlash-pundits-react

According Indiana law as of 2015 section IC 31-11-1-1 very clearly states that same sex marriage is prohibited. In further reading; IC 31-11-1-2&3 details marriage between related individuals and plural marriages. 

Information on age requirements begins in section 4, minimum age of marriage is 18, or 17 with consent as long as both parties are at least 17. However continuing down, a female age 15 can with the courts permission marry a male who is at a minimum of 15 years of age if she is pregnant or a mother already as long as she is marrying the child’s father. I do not see any protections in here that protect a young woman from marrying a much older man if she is pregnant. Details can be found here;  https://iga.in.gov/legislative/laws/2015/ic/titles/031/articles/011/ 

I wasn’t pregnant when I was coerced into married at the age of 15, however I was not able to attend school, I suffered abuse, shame and poverty as a result of this marriage. I did try to take GED classes after I returned home from Mississippi. I was met with rage and jealously from my ” spouse”. After a few months I of walking 2 miles each way to the facility that offered GED classes, just gave up. He was concerned that I would run off with someone my own age and he would lose his child bride he enjoyed having so much. 

We also had financial troubles, he didn’t really earn a living. He was a ” self employed tree trimmer”. We faced eviction every month, shut off notices, we barley had any food and as I was still growing I wasn’t able to purchase new clothing that fit me. Once an older lady down the street gave me some of her old lady clothes she didn’t really wear anymore. 

I went and got a job at a fast food restaurant to make ends meet and buy the things I needed and put finishing high school on hold. 

My daily life consisted of “spouse’,waking up and smoking a joint; then he would either go to work or walk around neighborhoods asking people if they would pay him to cut their trees. Evenings alternated between him smoking pot with friends, abusng me, or falling asleep in his recliner after drinking a 40 oz bottle of beer. He pretty much earned enough to not be homeless and afford beer, cigarets and weed. 

In the last year I have read stories like mine over and over again, young girls forced or coerced into marriges, they are abused, they have limited education and many are forbidden to work. How do you leave these abusevie situations when you don’t even have a high school education, no money, no job and are dealing with the trauma of the abuse and are just trying to survive. For me I bounced back in forth bewteen forging forward and doing whatever I could to keep moving in the direction of independance and plotting sucide. Somehow I made it to where I am today, but I still struggle, I’m still feeling this effects of this ” marriage” and trying to recover. 

Peace and love,

G 

Stop The Violence 

Tonight I sat at the kitchen table of a mother who only hours before learned her son had been murdered. I have never met this woman before, I will never have the chance to know her son. I could only sit with her as one mother to another and try and offer my respect and condolences. 

This is her second murdered son that she will burry in less than three years. I had heard her speak her truth, her pain only days before at a March to end violence in Fort Wayne. 
 I know the uncle of the slain boy, I met him a few months ago while working on a “get out the vote” effort in the 46806 zip code of Fort Wayne. I was instantly impressed with this individual, a genuine human being who has had run ins with the law, been incarcerated and not only has repaid his debt to society but is now working with The Fort Wayne Urban League to mentor and teach young people in his neighborhood.

In the last few months I have met many other members of this community who are heart broken by the deaths of their community members, outraged and working to find a solution to the violence and senseless loss of life. 

In this community there are many broken families, families trying to overcome incarceration, alchohol & substace abuse problems, undiagnosed and untreated mental illness, lack of education and employment opertunities. 

There are a few organizations on on the outskirts of the community with services, there is TANF, SNAP,WIC,Medicaid, mentor programs, at least 15 churches in the area, The Urban League and many others. However most of the people I have talked to either don’t know many of the services avalible or have been unable to get help. 

In this area there is not; a substance abuse clinic, a recreational center for youth to untilize to get them off the streets, employment opportunities, no coffee shops, video game stores,not even a fast food joint, no karate studio or dance classes, no Kroger or pizza joints or healthcare clinics. There are barber shops and liquor stores, churches and a few places such as the Whitney M Young early childhood alliance. The few services avalible are over worked and under funded, this is not an ucomon senerio, but in this neighborhood it is coming with a step loss of life.

 This is not a situation unique to Fort Wayne, many cities deal with crime, drugs, gangs and unemployment. However the murders that are happening in this city are disproportionately high compared to other areas. This numbers of young people who are being assaulted and murdered continue to rise at alarming rates. 

Many members of the community are coming together to raise awareness, organize marches and meetings. Pleading with elected officials for help and the the bodies continue to pile up. 

The police say that they are trying to fix the problem but people from the community are not cooperating. The people in the community say the cops not only are not doing their job, but are shooting unarmed kids. This is not just an issue of lack of information to arrest and prosecute, this is a result of multigenerational trauma and decades of untreated mental illness and substance abuse. 

As a citizen I want answers, what are my elected officials doing to address this crisis? Where is the outrage at so many citizens being murdered? 

If this was happening in my neighborhood, we would have counseling provided, large donations made to fund funrneral expenses, the police would be working non stop to bring an end to it. Elected officials would be meeting to come up with solutions to save our youth. Why are the people in the 46806 zip code not as important as those living in other parts of town?

There have been 16 homicides in Fort Wayne this year, this is a crisis!

 http://wane.com/2016/06/22/by-the-numbers-2016-homicides/

http://wane.com/2016/06/27/police-responding-to-shooting/
-G 

Start Somewhere 

For years I carried my shame in secret, I desperately tried to keep my past hidden from everyone. I felt that all that I had been through was unique only to me. I was the only person who had been forced into a marriage with a mentally ill addict at the age of 15. I was the only one who had been repeatedly mosleted and then treated like I had deserved what had happened to me by the people who failed to protect me over and over again. 

I am the only person in the world who cringes whenever someone ask about my father, my family, where I am from. The people who think I am weirdo but can’t quite put there finger on exactly why they think this about me because they really don’t actually know anything about me. 

Where the heck was child protective services when I was growing up? 

Exactly how many times have I been victimized by our ” legal system”? 

The people who think I am stuck up snob because I don’t “join in and share”. Who is this ghost with no past and hidden secrets? 

Why did I not go to high school at all? Why did I bother getting my GED at the age of 28 and two college degrees at 36?

Why don’t I judge people like everyone else, why don’t I try as hard as everyone else to fit in and conform to social norms? 

Why do I have four kids with three different last names? Who/Where are the baby daddies? And Why on earth did my kind, quiet husband of 10 years take all this on? 

               WARNING THIS POST IS GRAPHIC, NOT APPROPERATE FOR CHILDREN AND HAS TRIGGERS 

I will start with my first marriage; 

March 4th 1995 I turned 15, I had recently moved back to my mothers house with the promise of things would be better, she had changed, her husband had stopped drinking, ” I would be so proud!” I would be allowed to go to high school and have a normal teenager life. Not only did my mother not enroll me in school but she sent me to work with her husband. Her husband was a man who was 28 years her junior and a mentally ill addict. He drive for a auto transport company. I spent most of my time driving with him in his truck and then would help him find the cars from the auto auctions and load them onto the truck. I often worked from 6am until 11pm everyday and did not receive any compensation for it. 

I was knew to the area, didn’t go to school and didn’t have any friends. I was starved for attention and incredibly lonely. I was prime bait to be preyed upon. Down the street lived a 42 year old man, also a mentally ill addict. He would wait and watch for me to come by and talk to me. After a few weeks he became my only friend.I looked forward to the attention I would get from him and kept coming back for more. Before I knew it I was sneaking out of the house to go hang out with him. He knew I was sneaking around and lying. Soon he offered me drugs and alcohol, I refused the drugs but took the alcohol. It was a slippery slope after that into sexual actions. I went along with things that felt wrong and dirty because I didn’t want to lose my friend. 

My mom suspected what was going on and called the police, the police came and talked to me. They asked me what was going on and I refused to talk to them. I was conditioned by this time not to talk to the police and that all social workers were from the devil and if they knew what was going on in my life I would be taken from home and put into group homes where I would be even more horribly abused. So I kept quiet for the most part, I did tell the cop that I would really like to go to school and if he could do anything about that.  No government agency ever followed up with me afterwards. 

After the officer left my house, he arrested ” my friend”. My mom then proceed to lay a huge guilt trip on me saying that this was all my fault. I had trapped this guy and lured him to me. He was going to go to prison and never see his children again because of my actions. 

After the dust from the arrest & interrogation settled my mother and ” friend” came up with a plan; 

“Friend” would give my mother a certain amount of money and an ongoing portion of his business income ( he did tree trimming) in exchange my mother would would allow him to marry me thus avoiding criminal prosecution. 

The schematics; 

1. I lived in Califormia at this time, Califronia law would not allow us to be married until I was 16 rather I had my mothers consent or not 

2. My mom looked into Nevada, again I had to be 16 for a drive by Vegas wedding.

3. Mom discovered I could get married in Utah at the age of 15 with her consent and a judges approval, so in April of 1995my mother rented a car to drive myself, “friend” stepdad and 10 year old sister to Utah. We drive from California to Utah where I stood in a legal complex building in a dress from goodwill before a judge in a state to before,surrounded by strangers. The judge denied my mothers request to marry me to this 42 year old guy. The judge stated that she would not approve the married since I was not pregnant and she did not want me to be a ” child having children”. We returned to California unmarried but my mother was undeterred. 

4. The next venture was to Mississippi, my mother signed over power of attorney to ” friend” and gave him a copy of her drivers license. “Friend ” borrowed his mothers RV and took me across state lines to Mississippi.In preparation for the trip my mother instructed ” friend” to purchase a ring, lingerie and intimate lubercation So he presented me with a $10 gold ring from Wal-Mart, lingerie and lube from Big Lots. My mother had me try on her wedding dress that she had made for her wedding to her first husband at the age of 19. She was pregnant with my older brother and that is why she married the first time. Her first husband abandon her and my brother when he was around three.I remember my mother yelling at me to take the dress off that I didn’t deserve to wear anything nice or deserve any celebration for this mess I had gotten myself into. So I wore a black and white polka dot cotton dress a church lady had given me a year before.

“Friend” and I arrived at his mothers house in the San Deigo, we would stay the night there and leave in her RV in the morning for Mississippi. We walked into his mothers house, her response to meeting me for the first time was ” wow she is stunning, I could see why you would go to jail for that!” 

After he had visited with his mother and become drunk he led me into her guest room which would be our accomidations for the night. I don’t remember what I wore, but I do remember the feel of an old dusty velvet like blanket I laid on. I remember the smell of beer on his breath and the anguish and confusion I felt. He had a bottle of after sun aloe gel. He told me he would use it to make it hurt less. This was my first experience of intercourse. The cold gel on my most private areas, the feeling that I was a prize, an object and worth nothing to anyone but him and his current physical desires. He quickly did his thing and told me I probably bled some and should go to the bathroom and clean up. I will never forget the dark spot on that old dusty velvet blanket and the deep aching emotional and physical pain I felt. I stood alone in the shower trying to shove all the pain down into the dark hole where I always pushed the pain. There was no time for wallowing in self pity and loneliness I had to go marry this man so his life would not be ruined. When I crawled back into bed ” friend” was passed out in drunken contentment”. I lie there trying to remind myself to be happy, I was a blushing bride and I was so lucky to have found such a wonderful man willing to marry and take care such a dirty broken piece of crap. 

The next morning we set out for our ” honeymoon” We drove through Arizona, New Mexico to Texas. We stopped in Texas at the home ofcousin of ” friend”.  She had a lovely home full of family photos of her and her husband and children,vacation pictures, dance recitals. Two dogs and fridge full of food! I remember looking around realizing I would never have this kind of life, a nice home and fridge full of food, a loving husband and happy children to make memories with.We stayed there one night, she was kind to me and her and her husband took us out to dinner. We went from Texas to New Orleans. In Louisiana one of the tires went out and we had to stop and get it fixed. By this time my resolve we greatly wearing, I did want to go through with this anymore. I wanted to run! 

I had never met my biological father or any of his family. I did however know his name and that they were all from Louisiana. Every stop we made, I scoured the phone books looking for him or any of his kin, hoping that I could escape to them. After failing to locate any I begin to think that maybe I could just walk off, go it a bathroom and climb out a window. I could go to a church and pretend I had amnesia and didn’t know who I was and start over. 

Eventually we made it to New Orleans, we toured the city, “friend” reminisced about his time living there and being a “hippy”. Every night from Texas to Misssippi I cried and begged him to just take me back home, he refused and said we had come this far and I was his. He pointed out that I no longer had a home. My mother had signed over power of attorney to him, she didn’t want me. I was his property to do what he wanted with.

 Soon we made it to Mississippi, found a campground to park the RV. We applied for our marriage license, got tested for STDs and one Friday in May 2015 we went into a beautified old court house in Jackson Mississippi and “friend” asked a judge to marry us. The judge laughed and said “I’ll Marry her, but I don’t want to marry you”.  He preformed the ceremony, I stood there feeling like I was just given a sentence of punishment. 

I remember going back and forth between never wanting anything to do with my mother ever again, to realizing that would be next to impossible since I would be living just a few doors down from her.  We were married Mothers day weekend. I called my mother from a pay phone to wish her a happy Mother’s Day and let her know it was done, I was “married”. She was cold and said she wished me the best with ” my choice”.

We drove back to our new life as newly weds to California, stopping for the evenings which consisted of drunken, dirty sex and my crying myself to sleep. My husband would tell me I needed to grow a thick skin, sometimes life doesn’t turn out how we want to. 

For years I thought I was the only one this had ever happened too, I knew families immigrated from other countries and brought old customs such as child marriage and arranged marriages. 

One day I read a piece on the New York Times by Fraidy Reiss founder of the non profit advocacy group Unchained at Last. She wrote about her personal experience of being forced and then trapped in an abusve marriage. She founded unchained at last to help other women leave arranged/forced marriages. I contacted her and tried to link up for support. This is the first time with the exception of the Warren Jeffs cult that I had ever heard of anyone who had experienced anything similar to what I had gone through. 

A few months later I read another article about the state of Virgina enacting tighter restrictions on child marriage. The artical talked about the problem of immigrants arranging/forcing their children into marriages, but also talked about the problem of children being married to their sexual predators in order to avoid criminal prosecution. WOW! This is happening today, 20 years later, all across the county! I am not the only one! 

Everyday in the United States children are forced, threatened and coerced into marriges often with much older spouses. These circumstances should be resulting in criminal charges not marriage licenses. 

I will go into detail in my next post on here we currently stand on these legal issues in my next post. 

Thank you fort taking the time to read this post, please comment, share, discuss! 

-G 

Inaugural Post

Greetings,
Thank you for taking the time to read my first of many post.
I thought I would start by touching on the reasons I set up a blog spot and what I hope to accomplish by doing so.
Those who know me well and have had the oppertunity to hear some of my life story and are always left stunned by the sheer amount of curve balls, injustices and obsticals I have personally overcome to be in a posistion to write these words.
I have sat on many a therapist sofa and retold my tales in a such a calm matter of fact way that it seems like I am telling someone else’s story. After retelling my story I always find myself staring into the face of a stunned and speechless mental health professional.
I have one friend who I have let some of my dark tales slip out to and he often responded with a; ” you have to warn people before you drop a ball like that on them!”
The most common comment I have gotten however is ” you have got to write a book about your experiences!”
Rather than write a book, I decided the best venue would be a blog. Perhaps it will be collected and polished into a book.
I hope from this blog I will share my story in a way that I am comfortable with, I realize that this is my truth and only my truth. Other people involved in these stories might have a completely different perspective of what happened and I respect that as well as value my own truth.
My second hope is that people who have suffered through similar circumstances will find a hope in my words, they will realized they are not alone and that despite having survived such harsh circumstances they can find comfort, healing and possibly empowerment.
Third I will try my best to ilistrate the governmental and legal policies that have been instrumental in victimizing myself and many others. Many of these ” laws” and polices are still broken and still victimizing others.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post.
-G