Sexual Assault
Stalking is a close cousin to sexual assault. Sure there is no physical interaction, but most of the mental damage is the same. Erin Anderson is a news reporter who recently won a $55M verdict against her stalker and Marriott corporation. While I’m happy she had a successful day in court, it sets a ridiculous president, and at the end of the day, she really doesn’t get that much.
55 Million Dollars
This is a crazy number for this type of settlement. Maybe it’s the high profile nature of the case, or maybe it’s because one of the plaintiffs has very deep pockets, but this is not a number anyone in the real world will ever see. Real world settlements for things even worse than this generally are missing two to three zeros from anything close to this. If you think a civil case will make you whole again, you are probably going to be disappointed. Even if you do get a large settlement, it will quickly evaporate through the realities of the situation.
Show me the money?
Unless you are suing a multinational corporation or a multimillionaire, you might not get anywhere close to the award amount. It doesn’t due you much good to sue a broke person who’s in prison. And if you are suing someone who could potentially pay you but would lose most of their assets in the process, they will probably file for bankruptcy. Then it’s game over.
Appeals
If the person/company is not likely to go belly up, they are probably going to appeal the award. In the case of the Erin Anderson award, it will likely be cut by 1/3 or more. So when you write off the $28 Million for the actual offender, take a third off the remaining $27 Million and if she is lucky it might end up at $20M.
Lawyers
Everyone has to be paid from your settlement. If you received victim support through the Victim of Crime’s Act (VOCA), that money needs to be repaid. Then your typical contingency lawyer is going to take between 30-40% of the award. So now you are down to about $10-12M. But wait there is more.
Taxes
Since this lawsuit only dealt with emotional distress and not physical harm, the award is taxable. This is how a $55M award becomes a $5.5M award.
Final Tally
When all is said and done, you have several absurdities. The perpetrator ended up paying nothing. The victim received comparatively little of the actual award. The lawyers ended up making the bulk of the money received. The entity who ends up paying was the owner of the location where things took place. Not exactly an example of enforcing accountability, or preventing this from happening to someone else. Clearly there was some mistakes made by Marriott, but they were manipulated by someone who misrepresented their reasons for being there. It’s difficult to protect against people doing things other than we expect them to do.
At the end of the day I hope Erin Anderson gets some peace of mind from the settlement, whatever the final tally. For Marriott, a few million dollars is probably not going to make a difference. Still it would be nice if the person responsible were the one made to pay, and not the party with the deepest pockets.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Parenting
Whether your child has been sexually abused or not, just about every parent thinks they are a horrible parent at some point. It’s one of those ideas that others generally don’t point out to you, but we beat ourselves up over and then look for proof that it is true.
“Weren’t you watching them?”
When your kids fall and need stitches, you might run this thought through your brain. When your child is molested, sooner or later someone is likely to say it out loud. It’s not meant to be judgmental it’s more a statement of self preservation that “this couldn’t happen to me”. The unenlightened have a view of world safety where you don’t take candy from strangers. Not one where you have to worry about a teacher, priests or family member.
The same people who watch a woman cut in half by a magician, can’t believe that someone they trust would deceive them in the most unimaginable way possible. Getting people to believe that you didn’t know your child was being sexually abused is probably one step below alien abduction. And much like trying to convince people the earth wasn’t flat or the center of the universe, it’s not worth getting burned at the stake over. It just takes time.
“I hate you and never want to speak to you again”
This one you might hear from your child. I think it may be standard programming for many teenagers but if you are dealing with parental guilt from thinking you could have prevented your child’s abuse, these words may sink in deeper than they would otherwise. Surely there must be something that you did wrong. More reinforcement that you are a horrible parent. Welcome to reactive behavior. Many children repress their emotions during abuse, and once the cat is out of the bag, those bottled up emotions come pouring out. Usually with all the control and order of a exploding catsup bottle. Lots of mess, and difficult to clean up. The key is to know that these outbursts are often magnified and out of context, and with a little luck, there is a return to normal in your future.
“I should have done things different”
You could easily say I couldn’t have done anything differently. Both are true and false, much like Schrodinger’s cat. It’s easy to second guess yourself, beat yourself up, rinse and repeat. This one of those things that everyone has to figure out for themselves. Hindsight reveals so much that we convince ourselves that we should have had the same insight at the time of the incident. It’s not true. It’s harder to see when you can play out multiple scenarios in your head.
A long time ago, I had a helicopter crash in the woods in back of my house. When I got to the wreckage, I found two people on fire. It’s not an image or smell that you ever forget. The feeling of not being able to pull someone out of a burning aircraft doesn’t go away either. Even the medical examiner telling you they were dead before they hit the ground still doesn’t push away doubts. The next day I learned the passenger was the brother of a girl I went to school with. I didn’t speak to her for almost a year after that.
There are a couple things I learned. Some things you can’t control. You can do everything right, and still not change events that are destined to happen. It’s not a failing on your part, it’s just that you didn’t play the role that you though you should have in this scenario. A year later I happened to bump into the sister of the guy I found and she only wanted to know was if I was with her brother when he died. Perhaps delivering that message was the sole purpose of me being there. As parents we can’t always prevent the things that happen to our children, but we can be there for what happens after, in which ever format that might be.
Keeping Score
We think we know who the good parents are. And sometimes we think it’s not us. The reality is that we are playing the role we are supposed to play. Some days we will succeed, and other days we will fail. It’s just part of the journey we are on. Learn from our mistakes and try not to make them to many times. We can’t be perfect, but that doesn’t make us a horrible parent.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
Most people have heard the term winter blues. It’s also known as seasonal affective disorder, or it’s appropriate acronym SAD. If you are new to the concept, it is especially prevalent in northern regions where there isn’t as much sunlight in the winter months. Many people actually get sad lights to help them with this condition. As winter blues implies, certain people tend to feel sad or depressed during the winter months. Light therapy is a common treatment for seasonal affective disorder. Victims of sexual abuse and parents of sexual abuse victims are not uniquely affected by the winter blues, but there are additional factors as well – namely the holidays.
Bah Humbug
I’m not a good holiday person. I used to be, but this is one of the things that changed for me with our family’s abuse. If you are just starting to deal with your child’s abuse take a minute to look at the changes in your life. Amongst other things, you will probably notice:
- You don’t have as much energy
- You pay extra attention to faces when you are in public places like malls
- Ben and Jerry become your new best friends (substitute choice of food as applicable)
- You are shorter on patience
Over the first few months you may notice the above items less because you will eventually get used to this new normal. So now you are watching a little more reality TV and you need to buy a new size of jeans, it’s all a part of getting older – right? This doesn’t apply to every parent who’s child gets abused. When the other parent is the abuser, and divorce is added to the mix, weight loss is actually more the norm. Either way, your world is changed and you eventually will adapt to it as normal. This is where the challenge with holidays starts for me.
Moving towards change
Your new normal is probably pretty low on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You are focused basically on survival level activities. Your definition of a good day is just getting through it without crying. Thanksgiving is the warm up act for the big event, but this is about the time that I notice my stress level starts to go up. I’m guessing Hanukkah is somewhat less stressful because it is lower key and it is spread out over several days. Christmas is the Superbowl of holidays. Start adding the decorating, the shopping (multiply those faces at the mall by 50. I still look at almost every face), the house cleaning, the travelling, the cooking, the cards, etc. and I can’t wait for it be over. Sound familiar?
The holidays
Does life starts to get harder toward the end of November and starts looking better after the new year? Maybe it’s time to take a look at what is going on in your life. If it’s your garden variety winter blues, maybe a light machine is your ticket. If the holidays are just too much of a stretch from your daily normal, you need to take a different approach.
In simple terms, your new normal has filled up with crap. In our old normal we had space in our life for cranking up the volume on life for things like holidays. If your cup is already full, life just sort of pours all over the place and makes a mess. Try to look at the things that have entered your life since your child was sexually abused. Also look at the things that may have left your life like vacations, reading, exercise, etc. Figure out what you can change. You may have to stretch yourself. See if you can make room for Christmas every day. For 364 days a year you will have room for what life throws your way. And for those special days like Christmas, you will be ready.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
Groucho Marx is famous for saying that he would never want to be the member of a club that would want him as a member. As far as parenting goes, I believe being the parent of a sexually abused child is the second worst club to be a member of. It’s painful, it lingers, and no one really understands it. In most cases though, there is a silver lining, and that is that your child is still alive.
In Newtown Connecticut this morning 20 parents sent their kids off to school not knowing they were going to be joining the ranks of the the worst club for parents. When a single child dies, we focus on the family. We go through the rituals we always go through when someone dies. When something occurs on this scale it’s a shock to the system. You can’t take it all in, and you can’t focus on grief the way you usually do. One death is misfortune but something on this scale is just hard to explain. You can actually count the number of times it has happened in the United States on one hand in the last 100 years. We don’t do well with things that don’t make sense and are hard to explain. Take many of the elements of sexual abuse and magnify it by 10.
What hurts more?
It’s not fair or realist to compare sexual abuse with the death of a child. But it’s something we do all the time. People will compare the incidents in their life – abuse, addiction, divorce, loss, bankruptcy, cancer, etc. Who is more of a victim? the truth is there is more than enough pain in the world to go around. What we should be asking is what are we thankful for? It’s real easy to dwell on the bad because it reaches out and knocks up side of the head. Good things are a lot more subtle and we don’t pay attention to them as much.
I don’t know where sexual abuse would really rank if you gathered a group representing everything bad that can happen to you. If you focus too much on it, you probably will see it as the worst thing in the world. In the event that’s the case, that’s probably all you will ever see. If you can step back and find something to be thankful for, than it probably doesn’t belong in the number one position. Having a sexually abused child is difficult, but there are worse things. If you are able to hug your child and tell them that you love them, than you have something to be thankful for.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Assault
As titles go, this seems rather absurd. Can you imagine being raped, reporting it, and then being told you have a personality disorder and then losing your job. Stories of sexual assault get stranger the more you hear. Who would do this to a person. The frightening answer is the U.S. Military. Countless woman are diagnosed with a personality disorder when they report sexual assaults within the military chain. This unusual diagnosis basically says it was a pre-existing condition which preceded service admission and both disqualifies them from further military service, and in most cases makes them ineligible for services resulting from the abuse.
The following was obtained by Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic under a Freedom of Information Act request.
- In the Army, 16% of all soldiers are women, but females constitute 24% of all personality disorder discharges.
- Air Force: women make up 21% of the ranks and 35% of personality disorder discharges.
- Navy: 17% of sailors are women and 26% of personality disorder discharges
- Marines: 7% of the Corps and 14% of personality disorder discharges
Gender Bias
This hasn’t been tracked specifically to sexual assault reports, but it does paint a biased picture. CNN has been following the lives of many of these women. The story is always pretty much the same. They report the abuse and as part of their evaluation they are treated as liars and separated for having a personality disorder. Aside from the humiliation, many of these women are finding themselves liable for repaying signing bonuses plus interest.
The story is similar with sexual harassment. Many years ago a friend of mine filed a sexual harassment complaint against her boss. The shit storm that came down on her both forced her out of the military and seriously damaged her health. I’ve witnessed more than a couple instances where the institution protected itself. I say it that way, because it is rare that any one person could exercise this level of control. It exists in the military, churches, school systems, and companies.
The system wants normal restored, and disruptive influences are not tolerated. Sexual abuse is not a disruptive, reporting sexual abuse is. The challenge is to get to the point where disruptive, becomes part of the normal. This has been true of concepts like the earth being round, equal rights, and civil rights. People who try to bring the concept to light are persecuted and often even killed. What speeds the process of enlightenment is awareness. So spread the word.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse victim situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
