HGTV Analogy

I watch a great deal of HGTV.  The Property Brothers and Income Property are two of the favorites.

When these brothers find and restore a house to make it a Home they have to investigate the foundation, check the plumbing, the electrical works, Take Down Walls…….The list is sometimes a complete Gut Job.

When someone is finding out who they really are during the healing process after the realization and the acceptance of incest and child sexual abuse they have to do much the same thing.   A person has to find out about their foundation, their physical and mental health…how they are wired, they have to Take Down Walls…..

Many years ago I was renting a basement one bedroom apartment.  It was in an old building with great woodwork tall ceilings and a nice galley kitchen.   The bathroom floor was rotting away and the tiles were coming up.  I asked the building engineer to take a look at it and please do something about it.
He took a look and said, "I'll take up the loose tiles and put a rug down.  I protested and explained the rotting floor is still going to be there and needed to be addressed.  He brought in some people who took the floor away down to the dirt and some very large square beams the building was built on.  He replaced all the wood and it had a safe foundation and was dry once again.

The point is; you can't just gloss over a problem.  You have to address it head on.  I am doing the right thing by moving on from people who just want to gloss over and pretend nothing happened.

It's almost as if the building could be "The Family" and we are all interconnected and if you rip away parts of that house the entire family will feel the pain.  I have already gone through most of the most difficult pain while experiencing the molestation and when I was experiencing that my "Family" was experiencing a great deal of frustration.  Now I am feeling the frustration and the Family refuses to go through the pain and growth part by refusing any and all attempts I make to be a part of the group.   And refusing to believe anything happened at all.  Passive Aggressive is not an adult way to respond to incest and child sexual abuse.

It will hurt but the healthiest way to address the ever growing Cancer known as Incest and Child Sexual Abuse is to work on the foundation and repair all the things broken that are not seen.

An Al Anon for Families Dealing with Incest/ The Debate On Family Loyalty

I have long thought that there should be an Al Anon type organization for families dealing with incest.  It would run in conjunction with the mandatory filing of legal papers of any sexual abuse or incest memories and followed with the certified  letter to the alleged pedophile or sexual predator to agree to a polygraph test for the sake of an end to child sexual abuse and the sake of your own families health and wellness.

 I have written of many of my family tragedies  here and the reactions and actions that were taken as a result of the family tragedies.  When there was cancer scare there was immediate action to combat the cancer.  When there was a stroke or heart attach there was immediate action with an Aspirin and very quick transportation to a hospital.  Where there was a case of Alzheimer's there was the appropriate action to sustain a quality of life and a group of family and friend who gathered to sustain each other.  When there was any trauma or any medical treatment that needed attention there was prompt and immediate attention.

When there was a memory of child sexual abuse and incest there was complete and total abandonment.  There was a defining silence.

*I looked up "Family Loyalty" and this is what I found.  From the following site.  http://family.jrank.org/pages/554/Family-Loyalty-Conclusion.html

Family loyalty is defined primarily in two different ways: (1) as adherence to norms of filial obligation; and (2) as the level of intergenerational solidarity or closeness between the generations in a family. Both of these definitions have been studied within ethnocultural family contexts. Specifically, much of the research on filial obligation has focused on Asian and Asian immigrant families, while other investigations into the development and maintenance of familistic attitudes and behaviors—the foundation for solidarity—have been done with Hispanic immigrants.
One shortcoming of the literature on family loyalty is that it fails to incorporate broader definitions or measures; that is, the research continues to define and measure loyalty according to adult children's levels of filial obligation or as attitudinal or behavioral congruence or similarity between parents and children. Clearly, other intragenerational measures, such as the quality of children's relationship with siblings and the quality of husband-wife relationships, can be used to measure familism.

Read more: Family Loyalty - Conclusion - Theory, Development, Journal, and Filial - JRank Articles http://family.jrank.org/pages/554/Family-Loyalty-Conclusion.html#ixzz2Fff1w4Y2

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 As far as I am concerned, I should be shown examples of "family loyalty" in order to proceed according to what I have been shown.  Treat me the same way you would like to be treated. 

Do I stay silent with my "family name" if/when they consistently refuse at all costs to address their involvement in incest and child sexual abuse?   

The bottom line is, "What have I got to lose" [when most of my relatives refuse to have anything to do with me for the past 25 years]?  

I have been in contact with two family members for many steps of this journey of survival.  There is an Uncle who is 10 years older than me and an cousin who is about the same age as me.  Recently when I told each person of a step I took in my survival, my cousin wrote back that she was very proud of all that I was doing as result of my many molestations.  My Uncle wrote back very quickly as well and expressed that he hoped that my actions "would be healing".  I certainly appreciated both people for their support but thought that the responses were certainly generational.  My Uncle seemed to me to a great deal more caucious with his support as he may know the older generation in a different way than I do.

In response to my Uncle, I believe that my actions will indeed be healing.   With actions that I take I may not find that my relation/family ever accept me as an incest survivor but I hope that even if I have a few sprouts of ideas of how to actually address this epidemic of child sexual abuse that those sprouts take root many others will build upon the plan that will end incest and child sexual abuse. 

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