Strong At The Heart

Here’s something well worth checking out. Dr. Kathleen Brooks’ Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence broadcast on her Ethical Life website is a weekly Internet show dedicated to “providing a safe forum to get informed, share and participate in preventing, recognizing and reacting safely to child sexual abuse.” A psychologist and survivor herself, Dr. Brooks interviews authors, researchers, survivors and others involved in child sexual abuse treatment and prevention.

This week’s show was a thoughtful and intimate conversation with Julie Brand, author of A Mother’s Touch, a book about mother/daughter incest.

stay tuned

On Wednesday, January 25—from 2-3 Pacific Time—I’ll be Kathleen’s guest. We’ll be talking about Strong at the Heart and about sexual abuse survivors in books for teens and children. I hope to spend time on why these books are needed, how Strong at the Heart came to be, and some of the back stories of the people in the book.

If you miss the live interview, you can listen from the show’s main page until the next Wednesday.

After that, our conversation will be downloadable from the archives.

BTW, the archives contain some real jewels, in depth dialogs with leaders in the field including Margot Silk Forrest on having a happy life after abuse and Dr. Vincent Felliti, author of the Adverse Childhood Experience study. His groundbreaking work links childhood trauma to physical health outcomes in adulthood and has provided the data needed to show that child abuse is a public health issue of staggering importance.

what’s next

The author on January 31st is Saydah Zekee, who will speak on child sexual abuse in the African American community. I am bookmarking this site as a great resource.

I just finished reading Sold, a free verse novel by Patricia McCormick, published by Hyperion for young adults.  It’s the first book of fiction–or nonfiction–that I’ve seen for teens that deals with child sex trafficking.

The author has done a fantastic job.  She really gets the accomodation that sexually exploited kids must go through and the role of hope in keeping a sense of self alive, even when that hope is misplaced.

A lot of fiction that treats sexual abuse is from an “outsider” perspective.  Even when it is written in the voice of a young survivor, the characters and action can seem to fulfill outsider needs to feel pity and to rescue.  And I have to say there is a powerful outsider thread in Sold.

Lakshmi is a young Tibetan girl sold into sexual slavery in India by her stepfather to pay his gambling debts.  She struggles against her fate and when she is forced to comply she finds reason for hope in the small kindnesses around her.  If you’ve seen the movie Born in the Brothel, you’ll have a good idea of Lakshmi’s world.

The research behind the story is scrupulous.  Ultimately, Lakshmi’s only hope is an American rescue project.  Her struggle is to take the step that will allow her would-be rescuers to help her.  And this is her struggle, her choice.

Tough but good.  Check it out.

Where do you get your image of who and what survivors of sexual abuse can be? Do the survivors portrayed in books and movies accurately reflect real people’s experiences–or are they projections of the creators’ own fears and beliefs?

This summer I sat down with recent young adult novels that have major characters who are survivors of incest, sexual abuse, and rape. It was eye opening to look at these books side-by-side and consider just what they tell young readers about surviving abuse.

“Hero, Victim or Monster? an author looks at depictions of sexual abuse survivors in YA fiction” was just published in School Library Journal.

Here are some exerpts, but you can read the whole article on line.

At age 10, Jonathan was sexually abused by the family priest. “When I started middle school and realized what sex is, that’s when I really started having a problem with this,” Jonathan, now a young adult, told me. “What happened with Father Jim made me feel like a lesser person.” Jonathan turned to alcohol, drugs, and aggressive behavior to cope with his shame and prove that he could be “cool, a real man.”…

I spent several days with Jonathan when he was 17, interviewing and photographing him for Strong at the Heart: How It Feels to Heal from Sexual Abuse (Farrar/Melanie Kroupa Books, 2005). My purpose was to show—through their own words—how real teens and adults overcome childhood sexual trauma. I wanted readers to have a clear picture of what sexual abuse is, who survivors really are, and how people make choices that lead to a healthy outcome.

The survivors I interviewed have done a substantial amount of healing and come from a wide range of cultural, economic, and racial backgrounds. Our conversations showed me how much we have to learn, if we will only listen. I saw how teens hunger for stories about others, like themselves, who have coped with traumatic experiences. They also gave me new criteria for evaluating fiction that depicts this all-too-common experience of childhood and adolescence.…

… You might expect that trauma this pervasive would be examined—and its impact explored—in literature for the very people who are living it. Yet few of the teens I talked with had seen their experience reflected in a book.…

titles

Books discussed in depth include two by Chris Lynch, Inexcusable and Sins of the Fathers, Laura Weiss’ forthcoming Such A Pretty Girl, R. A. Nelson’s Teach Me, and Beth Goobie’s The Place Where the Losers Go.

There’s also a list of some excellent older books by Jacqueline Woodson, Chris Crutcher, Cynthia Voight and Cathy Adkins.

To evaluate the books, I used four criteria that came from discussions with young survivors. I’d love to know what you think!

Twenty years ago I wrote Promise Not to Tell, a novel for children about a girl who tries to tell about being molested. For years I kept one particular letter from a young reader on the wall above my computer, a reminder to myself of the reader at the other end of the book writing process.

Now I am hearing through this website. Web inquiries are a very different kind of reader response, but like letters in the old days, they let me know the impact of Strong at the Heart on readers.

It might be the speed and anonymity of email, maybe just better distribution of Strong, but I am hearing from a wider range of readers. Our conversations are much more intimate than reader letters I received in the past.

My correspondents include male and female survivors of different ages and stages in dealing with sexual abuse, some asking for advice on getting out of ongoing abuse, others wanting to share insights learned from years of their own work.

Therapists write to tell the ways that they’ve used the book with clients. Other writers and survivor activists find me through the site. And there are many people who write to ask me to speak in their community. Recently I heard from the organizer of my high school reunion who found me through google and discovered that we are both writers.

For a book that was published on a mainstream young adult list, Strong at the Heart is having a very interesting trajectory.

A friend just sent me a copy of a long review that was published in the current issue of The Therapist, the bi-monthly journal of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.

Since the book came out I’ve been hearing from therapists who have given it to clients–both young and old. So I am especially pleased about this review. One therapist told me that the photographs have a huge impact because they counter the fear and shame that keep so many people from being able to talk about their own experiences of sexual abuse. Another told me that she suggested a young client read Tammy’s story, but the girl chose to read Sheena’s instead because she thought Sheena was cool. The result was still what the therapist had hoped for, her client was able to talk first about Sheena’s experiences, then about her own.

When I first conceived the book, I saw it as a way for survivors to speak directly to other survivors–and I imagined this encounter happening anonymously in school and public libraries. That Strong is becoming a tool in therapists’ toolbox is a great bonus. It means that the stories reach even more readers.

Here’s the last paragraph of the review in The Therapist, by Carly Perlman, M.A., MFT:

“Strong at the Heart is a wonderful and empowering collection of survival experiences of sexual abuse. It should be included in the resources for young adults and adolescents who have struggled in recovery from sexual abuse. Any reader will likely see a part of their own experience reflected in one of the stories. It demonstrates the reality for survivors of sexual abuse: It isn’t an easy path of healing, but it is attainable.”

in person

One of many sweet encounters on my trip back east was breakfast with a reader who has been corresponding with me since shortly after the book came out. He and his wife took me out to breakfast the morning after I arrived in Burlington. Yes, his wife. He’s a grown man and a grandfather! We ended up in a rich three-hour-long conversation that spanned our many experiences and expanded my understanding of how profoundly the stories of Akaya, Jonathan, Tino, and the others affect the lives of people I never imagined when the project began.

Arrrgh! Blog spam got me!

A week ago, this site started getting nonsense posts from addresses at blader.com. Then the spam became these flattering little missives. “Great site. Wish mine was a good.” More blader.com addresses so I knew they weren’t for real. Now they are coming from yahoo and other addresses and advertising everything from investment to porn.

This is why the comments at this site are moderated, so you don’t have to wade through this kind of junk. But for now I’m turning off the “comments” capability until the spammers get tired of sending me their rubbish. If you want to communicate with me–or add a comment to the blog–email me from the contact page. If you indicate that you want to post, I’ll put your remarks on the blog.

Once it looks like the coast is clear, I’ll turn the comment capability back on. It’s all a learning experience.

I just got back from the most amazing three days! A friend and I went to Potter Valley, near Ukiah, California, for a workshop put on by the Center for Digital Storytelling.

We learned how to put together a 3-5 minute Quicktime movie using stills, video, voiceover and music. It’s going to take me a few weeks to get it all together, but I hope to post my story here.

My friend (also named Carolyn) told the story of her search for her grandmother, who died of breast cancer in the early sixties. She compared what she knew of her grandmother’s experience with her own early detection and cure.

The story I chose to tell was about how I coped with abuse as a child, how internalized stereotypes of sexual victims stood in the way of my healing, and how connecting with other survivors brought me through that to a deeper understanding of myself.

There is something so powerful about telling your story, putting words, images and music to it. Like Kelly in Strong at the Heart, I experienced that transition where you get a new perspective on your experience through the work of film making. (Her film, of course, was much longer and more professional. She received an Emmy for it.)

Other stories told in the workshop included a young woman’s search for her purpose in life, a love letter to a new bride, a poem that evoked the pain of homophobia in the African American community, and a lively story of four adult siblings who traveled around the country on Amtrak and got to know each other in a deeper and sweeter way.

Amy Hill is using digital storytelling for a very moving project with sexual abuse survivors called Silence Speaks. You can see other people’s digital stories at her site.

wikipedia revisited

Tony Sandal’s entry on literature dealing with pedophilia and sexual abuse is currently in a very good version, so I’m posting the link again. Just know that Wikipedia entries change and change, so there’s no guarantees. If you are looking for novels and nonfiction on these subjects it is currently a rich place to go.

Today is the launch of the first “blog carnival” I’ve participated in. You might want to check it out. Marj of Survivors Can Thrive pulled it together.

A blog carnival is a linking of blog pages on a related theme. In this case, child sexual abuse. You can find it at the carnival site index where you’ll find it under “Carnival Against Child Sexual Abuse. Or go directly to Marj’s site.

For the Carnival, she’s pulled together descriptions of about twenty five blogs and then provided links to particularly interesting posts. Catagories include Survivor’s Stories, Poetry, In The News, Healing and Therapy, Aftermath, and Advocacy and Awareness.

This blog is listed under Aftermath and the link goes to the discussion of the Black Oak Books event and what came afterwards, the discussion between a mother and a therapist that took place on this blog.

I’m still checking out the various sites. There’s some very good material here, including Dr. Deborah Serani’s excellent page of facts and tips for parents.

Marj will be doing a second edition in July, so if you have a blog yourself or know of one you want to nominate, be sure to contact her. Below the carnival entry (link above) you’ll find directions.

funny girl

A blog I want to nominate is the very funny–and very adult–Ethel’s Law by a survivor whose humor is biting, true, and occasionally over the top. This weekend Ethel’s entry is “Which Day Exactly ISN’T Father’s Day.” BTW, this is no fifth grader writing, no matter what she claims.

Marisca Hargitay, the actress who plays Detective Olivia Benson on NBC’s Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, has a sexual abuse/assault survivors support foundation The Joyful Heart. The youth friendly website is rich with information. If you look under “teens” there are several self-help, other-help, and stay-safe pages. And they have a program for survivors to go to Hawaii and swim with dolphins!

Strong at the Heart is listed and linked on their home page with a very nice write up. Thank you!

The Joyful Heart site is graphically beautiful, with the sound of water in the background, but it takes a while to load.

wikipedia revisted

Whoa! I just got an education in Wikipedialand. My son Ben and I were Skyping (he lives nine time zones away) when he went to Tony’s Wikipedia article and found that in the last few days it’s been hijacked.

Here’s what I learned about Wikipedia. Anyone can post an article. And anyone who wants can edit that article in any way. I guess this works as an exchange of ideas if a group of historians are contributing information on their speciality. Or if micro biologists are comparing research. But when something political comes up it can become a battlefield of opposing ideas.

What is happening to the article and book list is that some pedophile apologists jumped on it and edited it to a totally different end. That started a posting frenzy. Tony’s been posting back. The article changes several times a day. But I can’t really recommend it anymore. I’ve taken down the link on the my blog post below, and added a cautionary note there, too.

If Tony sends me a link to his original article, which was excellent, I’ll post it here for you.

So if you are curious, go to the Wickipedia site, but bear in mind what’s going on. You can look at the history of the article to see how it is all unfolding. Do understand that it is no longer “survivor safe.” Some of the “consensual” adult/child sex stuff is creepy from the viewpoint of someone who knows what the long term damage can look like.

Several pages just got updated on this site. Reviews has new online honors, interviews, and reviews posted. There are three new recommended books up, including a forthcoming novel by Chris Lynch. And the link partners page has some great sites added. Oh, and I expanded the bio page because people were lifting the first part to paste into articles, fliers and programs, but it had nothing about Strong at the Heart or this website in it!

survivor magazine

Here’s a new approach to survivor activism and communication. A survivor named Melissa is publishing an e-magazine, using her skills and experience in magazine design. The articles in Survivors Hall of Success are short, inspiring, and mostly about activism and aspects of healing including self image.

One of the cover articles on last week’s issue (number 22) was about Strong at the Heart.

You can subscribe by e-mailing Melissa at ReadyToGrow2005@yahoo.com.