How to use this Page

Yesterday I went to see a one-woman show by Brenda Phillips called No More Pity Party Blues. Brenda has a gorgeous voice and is a wonderful entertainer. (She is also an artist, and her "tickets" were take home cards of her art. Bonus!) Her material flowed through stories from her life, covering the first time she was "in love" in second grade through being sexually abused by "play uncles" through real loves in her adult life, to today. She shows how she has come to take responsibility for her own self, her own part in her happiness. Along the way there was wonderful singing of the blues and gospel that had the audience moving, clapping, and vocalizing along. Next time she brings this show out to play, be sure to go. I'll let you know as soon as I hear about it. This was a short notice kind of thing, Brenda will be bringing it back.
I too have been working on my own personal history, as I recently wrote about. We all have things we have to overcome. Some are worse than others. For me I find that some of the things that might be considered the most horrendous to others are not the ones that were hanging me up. Or maybe not the first step. My most recent non-fiction piece that I wrote about was about being molested by a friend of my mom's. Not losing my virginity at the age of 12, or being married at 15, or being a battered wife, or when I was raped, or the things that I consider much worse that I won't even mention here. But that molestation was what changed me from the innocent babe that I was, to the person I was to become. I began taking the steps to take charge of my own life, began making my own bad decisions that led to many of those bad things that happened later in my life.
At this stage in my life the big decisions all have to do with forgiveness. Brenda talked about that yesterday. Forgiving oneself. I find it relatively easy to go back and forgive my 12 year old self for the decisions I made, but I still stick at the decisions I made at 21 and older. Intellectually I can say that I did the best I could at the time. When I knew better I did better. My heart twists and turns when I try to forgive those decisions that resulted in pain for my children. I'm still working on forgiveness.

I'm reposting here my column from today's Stamford Advocate, because I think it's one of the most important ones I've ever written:

When one of my kids became involved with a theater production run under the auspices of a local Catholic church, I offered to volunteer with backstage help. In order to do so, I had to attend a mandatory 3-hour workshop on child sexual abuse awareness called "Protecting God's Children."

I was pleased that the church was taking such stringent measures, but didn't think the course had much to teach me. As a victim of child sexual abuse myself and further, having just researched and completed a young adult novel about Internet predators, "Want to go Private," I'm quite knowledgeable about the warning signs, the grooming process, and the need for constant vigilance. In fact, due to my own experiences, I'm probably hyper-vigilant. There were times, particularly when my children were the ages at which I had been abused, that I had to seek therapy because my anxiety about being able to protect them from harm was so acute.

Yet I ended up learning things I wish I hadn't. I learned that there are still people who believe that a larger percentage of kids lie than the statistics quoted and who are more concerned about potentially destroying the life and reputation of an adult than protecting a child.

I wanted to stand up and scream, "What is the matter with you people?" I wanted to grab the microphone from the moderator and, instead of the actors and actresses that portrayed victims of sexual abuse in the church's video, have them hear about the impact of child sexual abuse from someone real, live, in their community, who has lived with the consequences: depression, bulimia and attempted suicide, but has finally through therapy, hard work, and determination, come through the other side.

But instead, I sat there mute. Because no matter how many years have passed (it's been decades), no matter how many years of therapy I've had (many), no matter how well I think I'm doing (pretty awesome, thanks) in certain situations I can be thrown right back into that feeling of paralyzing helplessness, of feeling like I'm a confused, scared child in the darkness, a child without a voice.

When I got home, I was devastated. I stayed up, distraught and sobbing, until 1 a.m. I was angry that people didn't understand how doubting a child's word makes them feel like they're being abused all over again. I was angry that despite all the hard work I've done for years to put this thing behind me, despite my thinking that I've dealt with it, all it took was watching a few videos and hearing a few people say insensitive things to bring me right back to the Me I Was Before. Such is the nature of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But mostly, I was angry with myself, because I'm not that small, helpless, voiceless child in the darkness anymore. I'm a strong, successful, woman who worked damned hard to learn to use her words.

That's why, despite this being a deeply personal and difficult issue, I chose to write this column.

Recently, my book "Life, After" was named a Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Teens along with an incredibly important book called "Hush." The author writes under the pseudonym Eishes Chayil, or "A Woman of Valor," which indeed she is.

The main character in "Hush" is Gittel, who grows up in an unnamed Chassidic Jewish community (the author specifically intends it to be non-specific, because as she says, "all are guilty") and witnesses the sexual abuse of her best friend by a family member. For the sake of both families' reputations (critical to making a good marriage) she is told that nothing happened and she should be silent. Then her best friend, Devory, kills herself.

As she matures, Gittel struggles with the consequences of silence, both her own and the communal silence, where

I wrote a blog post yesterday over at the YA Contemps about Trusting your Gut, in conjunction with the release of April Henry's new release GIRL, STOLEN, which I seriously cannot WAIT to read once I finish editing first pass proofs of WANT TO GO PRIVATE? and revising my graphic novel proposal.

Writing that post got me thinking about WHY it took me so long (into my forties) to REALLY learn to trust my gut. An email discussion with a high school friend last night cemented my thoughts on the issue, and made me realize that even though this is a hard post to write, it's a necessary one.

Did you know that one in three girls and one in five boys will have been sexually abused by the time they reach 18 years of age? Did you know that approximately one third of those victims are under the age of six?

*raises hand*

I do, because I was one of them.

When I look at the list of abuse symptoms, I've experienced some of them - not all. Some, I experienced on and off my whole life. Others more as a teenager. Still others waited to rear their ugly heads until the birth of my own children, particularly my daughter, made me fearful and anxious almost to the point of neurosis that someday this might happen to them and I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO PROTECT THEM.

Yes, I had low self-esteem. Yes, I grew up thinking that I was defective. Yes, I ended up self-medicating with drugs and alcohol when I was in high school. Today I probably would have been put on prescription medication, and that would have been a good thing, because it really does the trick. But perhaps the worst thing my abuser did - and this continued in subsequent abusive relationships - was to damage, at a very young age, my all important gut instinct.

When you're a very young child, you trust adults to look after you and to be the good guys. Like many abusers, mine was known to our family and welcomed into it. To all appearances, he just doted on me. As my brother said many, many years later, "You were always his favorite." No one knew the price I paid in the middle of the night for the treats and the attention he paid me, and I was too young to really understand what it all meant. All I knew was that I didn't like that part of it. It made me uncomfortable and felt wrong.

Later, when I did come to understand, I was silent. It took me years to speak up about what had happened to me, and at first I always did it in the third person - "It happened to her."

The stage was already set though, for future abusive relationships. I was imprinted with the legacy of a man who was kind one minute and then hurt me the next. I think a big reason for this was because I didn't trust my own inner voice when it spoke to me.

Later, that distrust wasn't just because of my own insecurities. It was reinforced by the dysfunctional relationships I was in. When someone is constantly telling you that you're the crazy one, that your reality is the one at fault, you eventually start to believe them. After all, I was always the one on meds. I was always the one having to see a therapist. So I must be the one who was crazy, right?

But you know what? I finally realized, after a major crisis which required me to reexamine every assumption I'd every made about myself and my life in order to pick myself up off the ground and heal, that maybe, just maybe, I WASN'T the crazy one after all. I mean, yeah, I have my issues just like everyone else, but when it comes down to it, I'm actually pretty sane. (I can hear my kids and my boyfriend laughing when they read this, but humor me, my darlings ... ;-)

Once I had that epiphany, it took a HUGE amount of work, doing what my therapist called "reality testing" until I was finally able to trust my gut. What is reality testing? Well, a situation would occur and my gut would tell me, "This isn't ri

My interview on Fox 25 Morning News in Boston today was such a lovely, positive experience! Kim Carrigan, the interviewer, was so friendly, professional, and kind with me, and asked wonderful questions. And Michele Lazcano, the producer, who greeted Julie Schoerke (my book publicist) and me at the door, was also so welcoming, down-to-earth, and friendly; I felt put at ease and greatly welcomed by both women. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience!

Check out the interview below:

Read about Why I Write About Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Being Queer, & Other Tough Stuff on Raw Ink. You may need to join to read.

I may also post it here in full text, if you all want me to.

Scars. Cheryl Rainfield. 2010. WestSide Books. 250 pages.

"Someone is following me." I gulp air, trying to breathe.

Kendra has had a hard life. She's in therapy now. And she's trying her best to recover her memories, recover her life. But when the novel opens, she can't remember her abuser. She remembers the abuse--the sexual abuse. But something is keeping her from seeing the face of her abuser. The face of the man who had tormented her for over a decade.

Kendra is convinced that this man is not finished with her yet. She feels that she is being followed, being stalked. That this man is leaving her messages, leaving her threats. Reminding her that if she tells, she'll die.

So yes, Kendra has had a hard life. And her home life is challenging to say the least. Her relationship with her parents is tense. She doesn't get along with either her mom or her dad. Kendra is angry that her mom has failed to support her in many ways. That her mom failed to listen to her as a child the few times Kendra tried to let her mom know she was being hurt. Her mom also has a hard time accepting that her daughter is a lesbian.

One way she copes is by cutting. Cutting herself numbs her emotionally. Whenever she feels overwhelmed, whenever the pain becomes too much, Kendra resorts to hurting herself. Another way she copes is with her art.

While Scars is a fast-paced novel dealing with hard issues, it's also a love story. Kendra has fallen in love Meghan, and Meghan has fallen in love with her. With Meghan she is able to be herself, to talk and have someone really listen, really understand.

Scars is an emotional, compelling novel. Kendra's story is haunting and the threats she faces are all too real. Scars is a book that is hard to put down.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

If you're reading this on a site (other than Becky's Book Reviews or Becky's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Scars by Cheryl Rainfield. Westfield Books, 2010. ISBN 9781934813324. $16.95 250 pp Grades 8 -adult. Read reviews about Scars here. 

In Scars Cheryl Rainfield  has created a vibrant character, Kendra,  who realistically deals with an unbelievable number of issues in just 250 pages. Fifteen year old Kendra experiences flashbacks as she tries to recall the identity of her abuser. Since she suppressed these painful memories, attempting to deal with them causes her emotional pain which she then attempts to release through cutting, or self-harm. Her mother is unsupportive of Kendra’s artistic efforts, individuality, and sexual orientation. To make her therapy more difficult, Kendra must deal with a stalker who seems to be trying to prevent her memory from returning.

The strands of these issues weave together an amazing story until suddenly they form a tapestry of betrayal with a shocking conclusion.

Scars was difficult for me to read and I have struggled over sharing with you about this title.  Unfortunately, like the author, I was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and can relate to the emotions of her character. Like Kendra, the abuse was not addressed until I was much older. During Kendra’s remarkable journey of uncovering her memories of who her abuser was, we are given flashbacks to the actual incidents. These were very hard for me to read because I tried to suppress my own memories growing up. Until there was a confrontation between family members who had known of the abuse  and myself at age 18, I did not know that anyone had ever been aware the abuse had occurred. 

They thought they had managed to shame the abuser into stopping and that I wasn’t left alone with him from that point until his death when I was just 7. When the confrontation occurred at 18 years of age, I shared some of the flashbacks and memories of what had happened in the intervening time, which then shocked the family members into revealing some of their own abuse. Suddenly I was dealing with their grief and remorse at not having adequately protected me at the same time as I was battling my own anger with everyone’s silence at their own abuse. How did I handle this at 18? I suppressed it again to mention it casually through the years as if I had dealt with it and moved on. I played the role of good girl who didn’t discuss it with any other family members who might be hurt by any tarnishing of the memory of this person.

It wasn’t until I was reading Scars that I faced the fact that I have not managed to forget or move on. I have made choices in my life based upon my fears and situational similarities to memories of the past. In the past I have either reacted with stiffness at men’s attempts to casually display affection or I have gone to the other extreme.

One of the best parts of this book is the resource section at the back for others who are dealing with any of the issues involved in Scars. This is the most comprehensive list I’ve seen. I have had a student come to me to request more information and access to these titles particularly titles on cutting. While I cannot be a counselor for all 1000 students, I can connect them to good counselors, websites, books, and more. I have resources for a counselor for myself if I choose to learn how to handle these memories.

After reading Scars, I was looking for an opportunity to share the ARC with a student to get his or

Alphin, Elaine Marie. 2000. Counterfeit Son. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 180 pages.

He chose the Lacey family at first because of the sailboats.

This was completely an impulsive read. There was no urgency in getting to it. It's not a new book. (Though I believe it is soon to be reprinted soon in paperback by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. January 2010, according to B&N.) But the moment I picked it up, the moment I read the first page, I just had to keep reading this one. It was so very readable, so very compelling. Which--just so you know--was so unexpected, because this is not a book in my comfort zone, this genre is not one I usually read. At all. And yet for some reason, it grabbed my attention from the start.

Long story short, I was surprised by this one. And I definitely recommend it! It is the 2001 winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery.

What is it about? It's about a son who hates his father. With good reason. Cameron, our narrator, is a young boy--fourteen, I think--who has been through so much. His father, a man he calls Pop, is a serial killer and child abuser. But there is light, there is hope. Now that his father is dead--killed in a police raid--Cameron sees his chance. He wants a new life, a real life. By claiming to be someone he's not, by pretending to be one of the victims, Neil Lacey. But will this plan work? Or will his past catch up with him?

You can read an excerpt here.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

If you're reading this on a site (other than Becky's Book Reviews or Becky's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Andrews, V.C. 1979. Flowers in the Attic. 389 pages.

It is so appropriate to color hope yellow, like the sun we seldom saw.

I don't know what to say about this one. I really don't. I'll start with why I picked it up...it's all Leila's fault. It's her review, believe it or not, that made me pick this one up. Warning: if you read her review, there will be no surprises left. Is that a good thing? a bad thing? That's something you'll have to decide. You should also know that it is the best *bad review* of a book ever. So be prepared to laugh.

Did I like it? I'm embarrassed to say I read it all in one sitting. I can't say that I enjoyed it though. There were too many things about it that annoyed me. The use of italics. The descriptions. The dialogue. The characterization. The creepiness of it all.

What is it about? For those that don't know, it is about four children--Chris, Cathy, Cory, and Carrie--who spend three to four years (at least) locked up in a bedroom together (but at least they have access to the attic, right?) while their mother tries to ingratiate herself back into her daddy's good graces. Why is her father so disgruntled? Because his daughter became involved with--ran off and married in fact--his half-brother (which would be her half-uncle). So while they may all live in the same mansion, the children are being "hidden" from their grandfather. They're not hidden from their grandmother, however, a woman that makes the wicked witch of the west look like nanny material.

Why did I choose this cover? After all, there were plenty I could have chosen to highlight...well, it is so ridiculously bad...so very odd and creepy. But it is not the cover from the copy I read. I read the newish sun-dazzled one that shows Chris and Cathy ogling each other.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

If you're reading this on a site (other than Becky's Book Reviews or Becky's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Hopkins, Ellen. 2008. Identical.

If you're familiar with Ellen Hopkins' other novels (verse novels)--Crank, Burned, Impulse, and Glass--then you know what to expect from her newest novel, Identical. For those that aren't familiar, you may find yourself in a state of shock at the issues Hopkins' touches on in her novel: alcohol, drugs, cutting, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts (and attempts), and sex. And of course some may squirm at the language.

No doubt about it, her novels won't suit everyone's tastes. Yet her novels do have fans. And there's a reason--her novels are powerful, very very potent. Raw. Emotional. Very gritty. Very in-your-face. There's always a depth and complexity to the characters that make them compelling. (Even if you don't happen to *like* the characters. You can't deny that they're humanly drawn.)

Identical is a shocking book in many ways. It deals with secrets, lies, brokenness, betrayal. It has more than angst, it has burning and haunting pain on almost every single page. It focuses on a dysfunctional, abusive family with much to hide--the Gardellas. A father who's a district court judge. A mother who's running for Congress. Our narrators are two teen girls Kaeleigh and Raeanne. These two angry-and-bitter narrators share a common enemy: their father and mother.

I hesitate to say much more because really in this instance, the less you know going in...the better the book will read.


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Author: Shannon Riggs
Illustrator: Jaime Zollars
Published: 2007 Albert Whitman & Co. (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0807557641 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Classroom shenanigans, expressive illustrations and the delicate weaving of carefully chosen details make this important story a haunting yet hopeful nudge toward breaking the silence of sexual abuse.

Shannon Rigg has supplied the following resources to help start making noise about sexual abuse:

• Darkness to Light
• Center for Disease Control Sexual Violence Fact Sheet
• Child Help USA

This year has seen the completion of Sir Anthony Kenny’s acclaimed four-volume series A New History of Western Philosophy. To celebrate the occasion we recently held a wonderful party at The Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, and some photos from the night are below. Sir Anthony gave a speech, and has kindly let us reproduce an extract from it below. Here he talks about the challenges, questions, and goals he encountered as he wrote the series. (more…)

Share This