Hope cannot be caged.
I extend to you, my beloved survivors: HOPE.
I love reading Young Adult books. I read as often as I can, but always read myself to sleep each night. I don't like falling asleep to anything too heavy, and Young Adult books seem to fit my needs well.
Last month, I finished the "One and Only Ivan" series. The last book is entitled, "The One and Only Family."
Slight spoiler alert:
Ivan has his own children now. He doesn't want them to know about the atrocities of his childhood. A documentary filmmaker makes a film about Ivan's life.
Ivan comes to terms with this documentary and his children knowing the tragic circumstances in his past. This part of Ivan’s story leapt off the page at me:
"My Story
The story -- my story -- has taken flight, like all stories do. I know there's no turning back.
You can't exile stories.
You can't ban truth.
You can't cage hope.
I know that now.
My story has taken flight. There's no turning back. But, I can always tell when someone has read Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots. We share a somber and sacred connection. If they reach out, it’s with love. Always.
Others, I can tell when they haven't read my story. The best scenarios I get, "I've read a lot of memoirs, I don't need to read it" or things like "There is healing power in a survivor's voice and the sharing of their personal narrative with others.”
That's all fine and true. But, it's canned. I know they haven't read it. Which is okay, because essentially they get it. They get the devastating damage resulting from childhood sexual abuse.
And it's better than the pundits trying to making more than it is. People aware of my story, but haven't read it spew out stuff like the occult, ritualized abuse, implanted memories, and other stuff they grab onto because they are aware of certain elements of the story.
If you are one that is aware of the utter tragedy of childhood sexual abuse and agree with the likes of David Hechler1 that childhood sexual abuse is one of the greatest threats to our society than anything else, you don't need to read Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots.
For whatever it's worth, I have been told by those actively fighting in the ongoing battle against child abuse, that Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots renewed their efforts and deepened their commitment even more.
If you are trying to make the story worse than it is, with weird ties to Satan, ritualized abuse, the occult or other nonsense, please don't. It's not there. I'm sure that all happens somewhere, but it's not part of my story, or my co-author's story in Paperdolls & Cowboy Boots.
Again, the book is meant for survivors. My therapist, Karen Fisher, originally told me that my writings show the healing process from beginning to end.2 As my co-author, Carol Scott, writes in her epilogue for the recent re-release, "...we received many responses saying, 'This could be my story.'”
Nothing more. Nothing less. This is for survivors. I extend to you, my beloved survivors: HOPE. If I can do it, anyone can.
"Hope cannot be caged."
Trying to label this abuse as "Satanic" has been a method consistently used by Mormon legal cases. They try to discredit the reality of the child sexual abuse by attempting to label it this way.