IMPERFECT Lady

Parents are unloving.

When I have been contemplating and writing about everyday heroes, it came to me the twist between domestic violence campaign and how we view incest.  In the first we are raising awareness campaigns and urging them to leave the abusers.  And, in the second, children/adult children are made to feel heartless for leaving a family and even urged unwittingly to remain in the relationship.

Why is it that we see a woman who escapes her abuser as being in a better place away from the abuse.

And when a child leaves their family it isn't seen as kind or even beneficial to them.

If divorcing a family was a socially acceptable option for being abused as a child, we would have much less stigma.

Just as Freud found in the late 1800's, that when mistreatment of children caused hysteria in later years, he knew that the biggest obstacle he was up against wasn't the fact that his findings would not be accepted, but rather that the population wasn't willing to see the parents as responsible for a negative influence.

What I have been banging my head against is the false positive read most have on parents.  Period.

It doesn't matter the trauma they inflict, they remain in the light of love and honor; most refusing to lower them from their lofty stand.

Animals in nature, who turn against their offspring are seen as an anomaly.

Parents who strike out, are verbally abuse, as well as engage in sexual activities with their offspring are not granted this same title.

And, those who see clearly this unnatural behavior are then labeled as the anomaly...and I guess we are. A small percentage of the population can even see the wrongness of sexual abuse WHEN it occurs In THEIR family.  

Which makes denial among family abnormally normal...and those of us who can see the anomaly...not normal...among those whose normal is abnormal.

Divorce is normal for those who have been victimized within a relationship of marriage...where the abuser fails change; the relationship must.

Estrangement will someday be a normal extension of healing from childhood abuse... 

It is not the disbelief of our sexual abuse, but rather the disbelief that parents are unloving.

 

 

 

What most stand up for.

I have been asked to write a guest post of Response Ability...The RESPONSE ABILITY® Project empowers people to intervene in problem situations and be an Every|Day Hero.

And I have sent in three drafts so far.  

The tough part is that in order to be a hero in your own life and deal with your sexual abuse by a father, you have to destroy the kind father image you carried.  The imaginary life, the only one you have grown-up with will be shattered. And, secondary, most of us in society don't want to hear or see someone trashing family; we see that as being disrespectful. So, then the question becomes how do you exit your family who abused you without injuring them?

Is there a kind and gentle way to leave them or for them to leave you as you speak and break the silence?  Will the exit not be as hard as the initial abuse, minus the lure and grooming?  

How do you be an everyday hero in a family that depends upon your silence?

Somehow the old heroes of abuse were to suck it up and forgive and forget...that those who can withstand the abuse are seen as stronger than those of us who leave. A family who can support, defend and uphold the abusive parents are more loving and kind, than those whose lives are dedicated to ending the abuse of future generations.

Something is very backwards.

To be an everyday hero in your life, you will become the enemy of the family.

Society will often stand with the family and works equally as hard to hold it together, while the victim is left standing alone; untreated.

The treatment that will help alleviate the affects of abuse is for others to see the monster who wounded us; and not to see him or treat him as a father.

I am often accused of focusing on the evil and not trying to emphasize the good...like it would be helpful and restore our family IF I could do this.

Would it restore me?  

Is it helpful in my recovery to not see the abuse?

Can you change the pattern of abuse by not seeing it there?

There is a very weird phenomena that is present with sexual abuse within a family that is unlike any other human affliction.  When cancer is in your body, we are not asked to stand by the cancer or be with it or like it or focus on its good parts.  And, yet when sexual abuse from a father enters, it appears reasonable people lose their reason.

Sexual abuse from a stranger is easier to find solutions to.  You can simply stay away from that stranger, not invite him to the holidays and no one is freaked by it...in fact, they would be horrified if you did.  It would appear you were insane to want to have a relationship with this stranger who abused you.

And, yet, the fact that the sexual predator is your father, you are expected to do just that.

How can we keep the rules, if you wil,l for healing be the same IF the perpetrator is related to you or your 'friend'?  How can we explore and figure out the dynamics that victims encounter when the abuse comes from within?

I see the everyday hero as being the one who will stand up in the family and not sit in silence.  I see a hero who will give up her family in order to stop the abuse from flowing to the next generation.

The only way abuse ends is when we end the denial that it is happening.

When we stop enabling and supporting and forgiving those who harm us.

When we put up boundaries and raise our voices in saying I require more in my relationships.

My mother modeled for me how to keep abuse alive and well in her home for 49 years and its consequence was that my father had a victims for over 4 decades that he called family...and their friends.

How do you model a different behavior without acting different?  Is it possible for the words to be spoken, but no action taken and it be the change the family needs?

Here is what I know.  Words were spoken to my father, about my father, among others of my father, but no words were spoken to the children from my mother...about my father and his sexual desires with little girls.  

And, more importantly, no actions were taken that removed him from our home.

No heroes arose for the victims.

And, the victims themselves did not speak up... until the second generation...and it changed very little within the family.  

And the ones who did make changes, were criticized for it.  They are not heroes.

The outspoken victims are expected to speak up, but there is no expectation of the family being dismantled.

They want our voices of truth and integrity but to find forgiveness and kindness towards those who hurt you.

Again, if this was a stranger who raped you, you would not be asked to do this...or to spend holidays and invite them to weddings.

How can we elevate the victim into empowerment and allow the family structure to crumble and be okay with it.  I am.

For, It wasn't me who assembled the soddy foundation of family.  

My parents designed our family by what they put into it and what they paid attention to and how they responded within. The family was damaged by my father's hand and my mother who looked away...not by me saying so.

We all contribute ourselves to the family.  The family is only as good as what each individual brings to it. 

The problem of sexual abuse within a family is a hard one to solve or to intervene in, for you are stepping on hallowed ground. This is the juxtaposition all victims are dealing with when they even begin to consider speaking their truths...you know you will face the wrath of family...and lose their love.

Heroes in sexual abuse with family members are the ones who deserve the most support and are given none...or little.

I believe that what messes with our heads and hearts the most is that the family continues on, regardless of our abuse.  

Like nothing truly happened to us.  

I am not certain I can write for the Response Ability. For my ability to respond tampers with the ideals of family and the 5th commandment.  I am going against what most stand up for.

 

 

 

 

 

When unaware...

Here is another section that I found interesting….from "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" by Alice Miller. 

"In "The Aetiology of Hysteria" Freud is struggling with this resistance on the part of the public. He knows that he has hit upon a truth that concerns everyone, i.e., the consequences of childhood trauma for later life (which is not to be equated with causal determinism), and at the same time he knows that the overwhelming majority of people will oppose him precisely because he is telling the truth."

" The content of Freud's discoveries can be so widely denied because most people ignore their unconscious, all the more so if they are dominated by it in some fateful way. After all, we all have a per-feet right to consider our dreams insignificant and to dey the existence of our unconscious.  This gives rise to the paradoxical situation in which the newspaper readers described above can react to even the most bizarre human behavior without amazement and are willing to accept the most absurd reasans given for this behavior without any sign of emotion as long as they personally are left out of the picture. Yet they will react with anger, scorn if someone points out the unconscious motives for the incomprehensible behavior, for if they took these explanations seriously, the complicated defense mechanisms so essential to them would be threatened." Alice.

The truth being so widely denied comes from the unconsciousness that people ignore. And, it is the unconscious of the unconscious that is threatened.

I know this is confusing, but it is equally frustrating to be faced with. That it isn't my truth that is hard to face, but your unconsciousness you are not aware of and at the same time IT is from where you are making your choices in life.

It is not about what I am saying so much as what you are defending.  

Which boils down to you are defending that which is unconscious to you.

And, it has nothing to do with me and my truths, so much as it has to do with what you are unaware of, but are defending.

As long as I didn't come near your personal unconsciousness I can be heard...and understood, but if I am hitting too close to home, I will be shut out and disbelieved.

This is true in my experience.  The truth of what I have to say isn't what pushes people back, but their fear to see that which is unconsious to them...the unknown known that is reflected in their lives.  

What I have come to see is that even if you can't know...and are unconscious of, your life is reflective of this unconsciousness. For it is the unconscious that is living you life.

It can't be any plainer for you are living the unconsciousness...while unaware of the why.

When you find the why, you can start living consciously.

Again, in my experience it was plainly clear that I didn't know what I didn't know...otherwise, I would have been making clearer decisions.

I would not have been with my abusers, had I known.

And, once you know, you can't not know.

I am not popular in my speaking, not for what I am saying; but rather for where the others are in their level of consciousness. 

It isn't so much about the truth...but what lies unconscious with in you.

It is my passion and my desire to find all morsels of unconsciousness for I know the damage they can cause, when unaware.

 

 

The Baseline for how we live.

In Alice Miller's book, "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" she writes about groups and our need to belong. 

"How can it be explained psychologically that the same person who exhibits so much acumen and critical judgment concerning his enemies at the same time retains a touching, childlike loyalty and submissiveness vis-a-vis the dictates of his own group? Anyone who knows what it means to belong to a group knows how critical this membership can sometimes seem. Even a brief contact with a group can give one of feeling of maternal warmth, of a good symbiosis with the mother, never experienced before, which makes on feel secure yet at the same time free and comfortable to express oneself satisfactorily. This is how it actually would have been had there been a good symbiosis with the mother. But since a group is only a substitute, the search for what is missing can never stop. In order for this to happen, a process of mourning would have to take place. Every form of addiction, instead of doing away with the old longing, simply perpetuates the tragedy by repeating it. A glass of whiskey or a cigarette that can be held in the hand, set aside when not needed, and immediately reached for when needed, establishes the comfortable feeling that an available mother can give. Since the real mother was not available, however (or the child would not have become addicted as an adult), the child was not permitted to experience either a good symbiosis or a liberating separation and remains dependent for the rest of his life on the image of an ideal mother he wishes for but never had. the addictive substance thus provides not only a feeling of comfort but also the torments of dependency."

"When a group takes over this ersatz role, although it gives the illusion of being an ideal mother, it mercilessly requires the same adaptation to its demands that the real mother once did. Since the origins of this situation reach back to the early beginnings of life, a person will have a hard time recognizing his predicament."
                                                                                                                Alice

What Alice Miller does in her writings, are to show the whys of our behaviors and that we don't just do things without a cause.  We are literally seeking that which we missed and are often blind to what is missing...while seeking it.

Like craving something, not knowing what it is, but finding its substitute and believing you found it.

Her depiction of what happens when a mother and child relationship is incorrect and what it means in the choices we make, is remarkable.  It is the baseline for how we live.

 

Art Distraction!

With a square border, I decided to play with squares in the middle, but it seems they became undone, like the boxes and frames of the beliefs we can get lost in...or learn to dance with!

I loved this border fabric and was eager to play...and I had two days to play, at least for a few hours!

And, I tried to do a bit of the Zentangle quilting...and learned immediately, I should have spent some time doodling! 

I get in a corner and kinda freak...and go blank as to what would be a different design that would contrast...when we really only have a few choices, lines or circles... I was going to do this in a colored thread, but chickened out and did white, in case it was a flop,so it wouldn't mess the whole quilt up.

Interesting colors and shapes to play with. A great day of Art Distraction!

I had denied Me.

In a comment on the Extoots blog post about Labels and the ensuing discussion about being judged by them, a comment struck me.  "If it isn't being said, then it doesn't exist."

This technique is literally the blueprint of denial;  and the co-operation it takes to keep it in motion.  

Denial isn't played alone, you need two people to not say what is happening.  Two people to not address and delve deeply into what is not being said, but what you both know is present...

Two, who know something isn't right, but neither wants to know know know it exists.

And unspoken agreement to not know.

In our family arrangement of denial, you can't have one spouting off what isn't talked about and continue in the usual relationships.  

The ones who don't want to say it exists and then have to consider the consequences that it would require; back up and talk less and less to you.  It isn't about you, but about what they don't want to know exists.

I lived in this land for 46 years, where it was almost near impossible to say what wasn't being said...to the point considering talking about it, never was an option.

And, I am not talking about abuse, but just things you know about another, but never bring up.  Or the way you feel about another, but not say.  Instead you agree to not talk about the differences, in order to get along.

The church also uses this same co-operative denial, in the application of forgiveness of sins. Where we are not to bring up the sin...so if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist.

Now, if this is how we were raised in general, then it makes it rougher to talk about the abuse; to break the silence...to no longer co-operate in denial.

My family doesn't know how to talk to me...for I don't play their game of silence.

However, they talk about the unspoken, but just not to the person they have the trouble with.  Or at least this is how it used to be when I was part of the family.  You don't tell the truth to the one you are with; but about the one who isn't there.  

How often do you hear, "I would never tell it to their face..."?

I know there are more agreed denial relationships than ones who leave nothing left unsaid.

I had a tough time, leaving denial.  I had to work hard to say what needed to be said and to feel the fear and say it anyway.  To speak of the unspeakable and live from there, and not placate myself and others by not being uncomfortable.  

I had tons of uncomfortable unsaid things; for I had a built a life upon what wasn't said. And, in the end, we all know how that turned out. 

It was what wasn't said that was the truth.

My fear of my father...unsaid.

My questioning the religion...unsaid.

My absence of warm feelings towards my mother...unsaid.

If you look at who I was compared to what I said.  I lived as the unsaid me, which was false.  The real me, that I left unsaid, was too afraid of what wasn't spoken...

And, rightly so.

When I started to speak from the 'unsaid' side, I was speaking my truth and I started to exist along side of it.

How interesting is that.

In the land of unspoken, the real me ceased to exist as well.

What frightened me the most, was that I knew my first 46 years were built upon nothing...and I had no idea of who I really was.

I had denied Me.

Quilt owned by Northern Lights Clubhouse.

 

 

 

Discarding the lives of children

The only way abuse wins, is if we accept the disgrace.

The stigma of being sexually abused comes from the way others look at you....and can only be overcome when you look at yourself differently.  Changing their minds will not help with how you feel.  And is an impossible task.

It is, as the wise men say, an inside job. Love, peace and joy come from within.  It isn't about how others see you, but how you see you.

I don't see myself as a disgrace. 

I do see though, how the stigma of abuse is created and upheld, and it isn't by strangers or folks who don't know.  Just as abuse is most often with family members or people we know, so is our stigma.

One man's disgrace is another's man's hero.

Interestingly, I have felt both. 

Accolades for speaking out and sharing my journey...and disgrace.

You would think, that my family, would be the one handing out the accolades...that my biggest cheerleaders would be from those who knew me best. Instead, it is the opposite.

The environment within dysfuctional families leave little room for healing...okay, no room.

I knew there wasn't a spot I could stand upon where they would see my innocence...the lens upon me always had me being the problem.

The only way back in, is to give up my innocence and give it to my parents.

The cost in doing so would be my sanity.

I see this phenomena of holding the parents in the highest regards as the biggest obstacle in eliminating or reducing the stigma of abuse.

When will we begin to see the numbers of abusers, that they equal or surpass the number of the abused, for each of us or most have two parents in the mix.  The stigma will be carried by the children until we turn our gaze upward towards those who started this...and those who knew and did nothing. Reported nothing... 

In my family home, a father abused. A mother knew and was unable to respond in a healthy way. Uncles were abusive. Neighbors were abusive.  And, the children were taught, "not to go to that house" and yet the abuse flourished.

Never were the adults in these homes held accountable.

Never did they wear the cloak of disgrace for allowing or being abusive.

They continue to wear "Good Christian" or at least Christian....labels.

Parents are taken care of, included, believed, loved...understood, defended...no matter what. And, who is looking at the abused child?  Who is caring for their wounds?  Who is turning away from the parents...the adults who are acting disgraceful?

We all participate in helping the stigma, each time we defend or stand with excuses ready for the abusers.  Each time you turn your gaze away from the child you are part of the problem.  You are sentencing a child into disgrace.

We are the problem.

Stigma is created by those looking on.  Not by those who have been abused.

We don't manufacture disgrace...we are subjected to it.

It is as Alice Miller writes about...the biggest problem when we are taught that good children "Love and Honor thy parents..."  Without first seeing if they are deserving.

This blanket of love and honor they sleep under no matter what, is the wall that keep innocent children out.  

Where is the innocent blanket for the child?  When do they get that....? Oh, I know, when you become a parent, all your sins and abusive behavior will be hidden behind this veil. 

The church, society and we all....believe in the sanctity of parents...while discarding the lives of children.

 

 

 

You are not Innocent.

I sat with the word disgrace yesterday...and wondered if I had that definition correct in my mind...since stigma is a mark of disgrace.  What was this disgrace I brought to the family?

I needed to know how I had marked this family.

"Disgrace"

"loss of reputation or respect, esp. as the result of a dishonorable action...- bring shame or discredit on (someone or something).

What is so compelling to me is that I know the upside downness to it all and yet I have felt what it feels like to be treated as the disgraced person...to be treated like I literally have disgraced our family.

Yet how?

How is it that I get the treatment and stigma that was my father's and mother's?

How do they get to keep their reputations, respect and honor and I lose mine?

How am I the one who has shamed and discredited my family?  

While it has to be confounding to them, it is equally perplexing to me to see how the tables are turned and the victims carry this stigma in abuse.

Carry the black mark of disgrace.

How is it that we as a society have allowed this to go on?

If I had not experienced this myself, If I had not lived the past 9 years as being the subject of stigma...I would not have believed this phenomena.

My sadness yesterday was of helplessness and hopelessness, that there was nothing I could do to remove my ill gotten disgrace.

I cannot get rid of it myself.  

I am colored black and there is nothing I can do to change it.

I cannot remove the smear that has been placed upon me...

As they sit and ponder why I am not eager to attend their parties, go to the sister's weekend, etc, it is that I come in as Disgrace.

Before I even arrive my ill gotten reputation proceeds me.

I come in soiled and with a dishonorable discharge...and feel their lack of respect for who I am.

Me.

Not my father.

Me.

For the past 9 years I have served my father's sentence...

A was convicted and tried in the family court.

I was given a life sentence without a chance of parole.

What I know beyond a reasonable doubt, is that there are millions of innocent children/adult children who are wrongly convicted and serving (life)sentences that are not theirs to serve.

That families place upon victims the stigma and disgrace that belongs to the perpetrators...that the parents get to retain their honorable status, their 'fine' reputations and live in grace within the family unit...while the victim is cast out and colored black.

By 'removing' the wounded abused one, somehow it is percieved as restoring the family's honor and reputation.

Getting rid of the 'black' marks...keeps it clean.

I know that I can't, in one blog post, articulate this phenomena and how our families and communities are hurt by this distortion...how the hurt are cast out and those who hurt are kept within, and what that insanity creates...

As a victim...as I member of a family who has experienced this...I can see how abuse thrives, how dysfunction flourishes...for you all keep the bad and cast away the good.

Good being the truth, wellness, reality, authenticity, respect, honor....etc.

Instead families of dysfunction keep the lies...as the ties that bind.

They will honor thy mother and thy father, no matter what...and cast out any one who tries to mark them them up.

I will live as disgrace so they can have loving parents.

I will live as disgrace in order for them to have a blessed family.

I will live as disgrace in their minds.

This is the only way my past 9 years makes sense...for I have lived the life of the disgraced...in order for the loving family to remain intact.  I have been sacrificed and forced to live out his life sentence...without them giving me a second glance.

This is the stigma of sexual abuse...how victims are locked up in prisons of disgrace.

Some body has to pay the price for abuse and if we don't make the perpetrators pay, if we don't hold them accountable, it falls upon the victims.

I have felt the weight of this life sentence handed to me by my family...I feel disgraced.

I stand wrongly convicted.

And, the most saddest thing, especially when the abuse happened within the family is then the second blow, to be disgraced when you break your silence.

You stand alone, with your dirty underwear...cast out...they voted and you are not innocent. 

 

 Nature has been one of my greatest healing places...

 

 

Walk of Grace.

I am not sure it matters, what level of mental illness we have, how devasting it is or how life encompassing or whether we can function in the 'normal' world or not...the bottom line is we are invisible to most.

Hidden.

Not spoken of.

Put aside from family's normal routines...cast out by ignorance and ignoring.

As I spoke to the Women's Group at The Clubhouse...I recounted how and when I felt deep to my cells, that my family saw me as mental.  Not just sorta nuts, but down right, out of my mind.  

My mental illness or breakdown has not been treated by my family with loving kindness...but rather they have stayed far far away.

I could be living in a facility that is miles from their home...without visitors. For as much interaction I have gotten.  Well, my mother has sent notes...mostly to get over it and rejoin the family.  Casting aside my illness as if it wasn't there.

I didn't fully appreciate my isolation and its cause.

It is broader than the sexual abuse and wider than leaving the religion and being shunned...it is the stigma of mental illness.

I have to look up the word stigma.

"a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person."

I am shocked to know this.  I couldn't have articulated what I thought stigma was, but I surely didn't know that I was stigma.  I was/am the disgrace of my family.

I am a disgrace for having been abused.  

For its effects on my life.  

I am the disgrace.

If I am getting this right, mental illness is often seen as a disgrace for it marks the family...a smear, a black spot...soiled.  

For some odd reason, I was blaming society for the stigma of the mentally challenged and NOT the families.  And yet society is MADE UP of Families.

The stigma perhaps starts in each individual family, but those members then make up the community...

It is no wonder, to me at least, that the treatment of us often is a reflection of the family....relegated to privacy, hidden...labeled confidential.

I know that there is a tipping point as to whether something is confidential or shameful.

To me...I feel that we are made to feel shameful or that our illness is something to hide, that our break in our mind is not to be shown about town.  It is a disgrace.

What other parts of illnesses are made to feel this way?

How in the hell did mental illness become a disgrace?  Even a stigma on society?

And, further more how can we change the treatment into something that it is...a courageous act of admitting that we are not thinking clearly, that we are not one with reality...and the journey to right oneself. It needs to be seen as a heroes journey.

Yet these heroes who are admitting they are wrong about reality are delegated to the sidelines of society; hidden in plain view by our lack of honoring them.

How was I so blind to see as I traveled alone to my events. To not have seen the absence of my family. To stand alone with my Art Therapy Quilts...the journey in fabric...a gauge on my mental well being, that no one of my family was there. None.

How did I miss this?

I didn't know I was stigma.

I am a disgrace to my family. I am the cast out.

What is the saying..."How you treat the weakest amoung us..."

What even makes me angry is that they are blaming me for walking way.  Blaming me for having a mental break down, blaming me for losing my mind about the sexual abuse by my father.  I am the disgrace....NOT him.

The family rallies to stay together, to pull in tight, leaving the mental disgrace to deal on her own. 

There certainly is a stigma about mental illness and that stigma is me.

My Lady and I are trying to shatter the stigma of abuse, to show the courage it takes to break down and start again.

We need to lose the stigma...it isn't a mark of disgrace but a walk of grace.

 

Possible for All!

My Lady and I had a wonderful day yesterday...beginning with exchanging some of my quilts at Copper Country Mental Health. Yes, my quilts are still there...My Story Line and others, that are just for fun!

Each time I enter Copper Country Mental Health, I feel the kindness from those who work there...and their appreciation for my lady and I.  How my whole self is accepted there, not just my lighter parts, but the darkness as well. 

It is nice for my Art to be out and about and not rolled up in the basement!

I then went to deliver some of my calendars and met with a woman who wants us to work on getting the word out about domestic violence and in exposing where help is.  I know that most are not aware of the helping resources and often we want to hide these place due to the confidentiality of their clients, and in doing so, we often hide the very places for those in need, who don't know they are there.  Our goal is to open up this healing avenue and lessen the stigma of seeking help. I will glady use My Lady as Art for this project, to have her be the signpost for being courageous and getting help...getting out and restoring your sense of self.

I was invited to the Women's Group at the Clubhouse. Another well kept secret...at least for me.  They have been operating in plain view for nearly 20 years in Hancock.  A truly wonderful concept.  

Their flyer states...

A right place to come.

A right to meaningful relationships.

A right to meaningful work.

A right place to return to.

"A Clubhouse is first and foremost a community of people. Much more than simply a program, or a social service, a Clubhouse is a community of people who are working together toward a common goal, recovery from mental illness."

"A Clubhouse is a community intentionally organized to support individuals living with the effects of mental illness. Through participation in a Clubhouse people are given the opportunities to rejoin the worlds of friendships, family, meaningful work, employment, education, and to access the service and supports they may individually need. A Clubhouse is a restorative environment for people who have had their lives drastically disrupted, and need the support of others who believe that recovery from mental illness is possible for all."

In spending only one afternoon there, I was amazed to feel the efforts or presence and value of each person there.  Where you don't right away know who is overseeing the place and who is working towards their goal of recovery. I felt the equality of worthiness and helpfulness in each, and how a task was accomplish that day...that hour etc...a reason to be there.  Driven by choices and the desire to be there and by how much your services are needed.  I could felt its community and whole.

 

I donated this Meditation quilt... They have a meditation practice which I feel is so helpful.  

I was sincerely impressed by the application of Clubhouse and its members!  What an awe inspiring program.

At the end of the day, I was left with the feelings and the juxtaposition in how we can be more open and transparent of each of the services and yet confidential or attentive to the rights of the individuals.  

I understand the need for confidentiality, but if it comes at the cost of being so secretive it is shameful in its tone, I am not sure it is helpful. We all seek help for our physical bodies and seeking help for our mental wellness has such a negative stigma.  When it is the strongest among us who recognize their weakness....how can we showcase these individuals and stories as the heros they are...without breaking the confidentiality?

I know, that I am proud of my recovery...and have no shame about my abuse...it would be my desire to make this possible for all.

(Thanks to the staff and members of The Clubhouse and Copper Country Mental Health for your dedication for recovery and assistance in our mental health needs!)