Sensationalized

I believe that there are three sides to every story; side A, side B, and the truth, which falls somewhere in the middle of both sides. I am faced with a dilemma. It’s one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenarios. One that I never thought I’d find myself in. The rest of this post may contain triggers for anyone who has ever been a victim of domestic abuse, violent crime, or who has ever been incarcerated.

First, some back story. My father is in prison for murdering my step-mother. She died in 1999 and he received a sentence of 27 years for her death. I will tell you that I believe with all my being that he is completely innocent of her murder. You can believe what you want to believe. For sixteen years my father has been incarcerated for a crime that he did not commit. He has been moving forward with his appeals and hoping to prove ineffective assistance of counsel in an effort to overturn his conviction. I won’t go into any further details about what transpired. It’s on a need to know basis, and if you don’t know me well enough for me to consider you a close friend, then you don’t need to know my side of the story.

Growing up, I watched crime dramas, I’m sure we have all seen one at some point. Law and Order, CSI, NCIS, Unsolved Mysteries, countless movies like Double Jeopardy, and documentaries about real life cases. I had an idealistic view of how our justice system works. I believed that innocent people could prove that they’re innocent. I believed that the courts rarely failed. I was wrong. For every guilty person that goes to prison, there are probably just as many innocent people that go to prison as well. I can only speculate as to why that is. Money, greed, corruption, lies… It feels like money buys justice the same way it buys mansions and yachts. After living through the ordeal of testifying at my father’s trial, I can tell you that our justice system is a farce. Every court may not be that way, but from my father’s trial, and some others that I’ve witnessed, our current system certainly isn’t just.

Out of the blue last week I received an e-mail from someone claiming to be from a television production company. She wanted to include my father’s case in a documentary series that her company is producing. (I won’t name names.) At first I thought it was a joke. I hit the internet and trusty Google to see if this was legit. It was. I read through their website and Facebook page. I watched teasers for their documentary series. I found this person on LinkedIn. I fired off a message to a few family members asking if they had been contacted. One of them had received an e-mail almost identical to mine. Naively, I asked how this person had found my name and work e-mail. Google. Facebook. Public court records. I commiserated with a friend about what my best course of action would be. I’d decided to feel this out and see what they were after. I didn’t want to jeopardize my father’s case. I didn’t want to slander my step mother. I have a little sister and she doesn’t deserve to have my discussing her mother like that. My questions were met with an e-mail telling me that this person would have to check with their legal department. I haven’t heard back from them yet.

Now my wheels are spinning. My thoughts pinballing from one possibility to the next. I had a conversation with the other relative that had been contacted. What should we do? We decided to sit tight and see if things go any further. What if they decide to proceed without us? Would we rather have our stories included in an effort to balance out a show that could make my father out to be a monster? We concluded that we wouldn’t have any legal recourse to issue a cease and desist. All of the court proceedings are public record. So now we wait. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. Some television company can profit from our families tragedy. They can spin this however they want to just so they can make a buck. They can have the truth in front of them in black and white, and they can color the story as they see fit in an effort to sell a product. A run of the mill story won’t sell. They have to sensationalize it. They won’t interview my father, only “people familiar with his case.” So what do we do? Participate, or not participate? Ask more questions, or try to pretend this never came up?

I don’t want my father’s case splashed all over like it’s a Kardashian drama. I don’t want my family’s heartbreak to be up for public consumption with random people weighing in with their opinions. My siblings don’t need that. My grandparents don’t need that. My father doesn’t need that. My son doesn’t need it either. We need to be left alone and allowed to continue on with our lives and hope that once my father is released from prison we can regain some sense of normalcy again.

I refuse to slander my stepmother for the simple fact that I suffer from a condition known as human decency. Her family has suffered because of this as well. My sister will never know her mother or get to form her own opinions of her. Her memories will forever be skewed by what other people tell her about her mother. I treat her family the way I wish people would treat mine. I don’t want stories out there about my dad. I don’t want people speculating about his character or morality. I don’t want strangers weighing in on what they think about him and my family.

I’m left with a feeling of betrayal. A feeling that I’m stripped of my privacy. If my life has any tiny detail in it that someone might be entertained by, then someone can come along and blow it up for the world to see. Pieces of my life can be condensed into clickbait and fodder for gossip. I’m not even famous and my life can be sensationalized.

Sins Of The Past

How do you move on? Is there a length of time it takes to get over the past? Old wounds heal eventually, but they leave scars. Sometimes you can’t keep yourself from picking at them; thinking about what happened, if there was something that could’ve been done to repair a relationship. Sometimes you’re lucky you make it out. Most often, if you’re damaged badly enough, you carry the weight of the past with you, wrapped around your neck like a scarf that can get so tight that it cuts off your air, a constant reminder of what can go wrong. You wonder sometimes if there’s something that you do that keeps getting you into the same pattern. I know I’ve got trust issues. Who wouldn’t when they’ve been through some of the stuff I have? The problem is, how do you get to know someone without projecting those problems onto them? How and when do you decide that they’re different from what you’re used to? Better yet, how do you convince someone that you aren’t like the people that they’ve been with before? What do you do to prove that you genuinely don’t want to hurt them? You can tell them, sometimes over and over, that you don’t get that angry, that you don’t scream or confront, that you don’t lie or cheat, that you really are a good person… but how are they to know that they can believe what you’re saying? Is there a way to convince someone, or even convince yourself, that the sins of the past won’t be repeated?

I suppose some people never recover from the damage. Some people put up a wall that is impossible to breach. They decide it isn’t worth the risk to open up to anyone else and give them the power to hurt them. Because that’s what trusting someone does; putting your trust in someone means that you are handing them a weapon to use against you and you never know if or when they’re going to use that weapon. I’m optimistic that there are actually people out there who don’t treat other people like they’re disposable. So I keep opening myself up because I haven’t decided yet to give up on the possibility that there’s someone out in the world who won’t take advantage of me or use my trust against me. Is it hard to trust someone? Yes. Is it worth the risk? I hope so. Almost every time I give someone the means to destroy me, they do it, whether they realize they’ve done it or not. I can count on one hand the number of people in my life who have my trust and don’t abuse it. I am grateful beyond words that these people who have the weapons needed to destroy me instead choose to love me. It is because of these few people that I continue to move forward with my life with a little sliver of hope that I can find more people like them. It’s another risk vs. reward situation. Everybody has to decide on their own if the risk is worth taking on the off chance that instead of getting burned again, they get to experience the warmth of the flames without being consumed by them.

I’ll wait forever if it’s worth the waiting…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaw569b1Ajc

She’s been cheated one too many times…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-biYJUy5k

Domestic Violence and Gender Stereotypes: We need to talk

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. According to the US Dept. of Justice, domestic violence is described as “… a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. …physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.” This definition is an “area of focus” as part of the “Office on Violence Against Women.” Why is it there? Not once in that definition is gender mentioned. That means that this abusive behavior can be perpetrated by anyone. Now, I would like to point out that I am a woman. I have been on the receiving end of sexual, emotional, economic, and psychological domestic violence. I survived. I got out. Now I look at this conversation from another side and see that we need to alter the way we talk about domestic violence.

More than 830,000 men are victims of domestic violence every year. It is very difficult to find current statistics on domestic violence where a woman is the aggressor. It is even more difficult to find statistics on domestic violence that separate the orientation of the people who are the victims. Yes, I’m talking about women being the aggressor towards men and other women. I’m also talking about men being the aggressor towards other men. Think about every graphic, article, news report, or statistic that you’ve seen recently about domestic violence. Do you recall seeing one where a man was the victim? What about seeing something where one man was abusing another man? Or seeing one where a woman was abusing another woman?

Right now, our society is in the midst of sweeping reforms in the way we view intimate relationships. In the majority of the United States, same sex couples are now allowed to marry. Antiquated laws about cohabitation and racial mixing are being struck from the public record. If we’re going to talk about gender equality, then doesn’t that equality extend to our conversations about victims’ rights? We need to start thinking of everyone as people and put an end to our us vs. them mentality. We need to stop assuming that women are the weaker sex and realize that regardless of gender or orientation, all people have the potential to be abusers, and all people can be victims of abuse.

I vividly recall thinking that something was wrong with my father’s relationship with my stepmother. (I can’t go into detail about all of this because of pending legal actions, so forgive the generalizations.) Looking back on those years he was married to her, I have to ask myself, why did he stay? Was he scared that his masculine identity would be undermined by reporting his wife to the authorities? Was he afraid that no one would believe him? Was he scared that his career in the military would be jeopardized? How did he think his family (parents, siblings, children, etc.) would react? I wish he would have said something. I wish he would have understood that no matter what the outcome of his coming forward was, it surely would have been better to out her as an abuser than to put himself and his children through the tragedy of the way their relationship ended. If he could have seen into the future, would he have made different choices?

In no way do I want to downplay the seriousness of domestic violence against women where men are the aggressor. Instead, I want people to open up the conversation. We need to speak openly about this in order to remove the stigma attached to reporting domestic violence. We need to have these conversations as a society. By talking about this openly, we can set an example for our children. I don’t want my son to think that no one will believe him if he says that someone he’s in a relationship with abuses him. Likewise, I don’t want him to think that only women can be victims of abuse. I also don’t think that we need to be teaching our daughters that they can’t be abusers. This sets them up to think that their abusive behavior is somehow different or less reprehensible then abuse that’s perpetrated by a man. We need to make sure that we stop making light of girls’ abusive behavior so that they don’t grow up to be abusive women. We also need to make sure that when we’re talking to our children about their intimate relationships that we don’t pull punches when we talk about the harsher aspects of being in a relationship with someone. They need to know that no matter their gender or orientation, they have the right to speak out and speak up. No one deserves to be abused.

If you or someone you love is a victim of domestic violence, please reach out. You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233

http://www.thehotline.org/resources/statistics/

http://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_against_men

http://www.safehorizon.org/page/domestic-violence-statistics–facts-52.html

Woman As Aggressor: The Unspoken Truth Of Domestic Violence