As a few of you might know, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. My abuser was my father and my life of abuse started at a very early age - in early infancy. I had a very short reprieve from this when my mother left my father when I was 10 months old and moved to New York with me. However, when I was 6 my father was awarded custody of me and I moved with him and his wife, my stepmother, back to Texas.
For 11 years I was again the object of his abuse and endured it until, two months shy of my 17th birthday, my father tried to commit suicide. In a complete turn of events, I was the one who found him and without hesitation, performed life saving on him and called for help, essentially saving his life. However, when the police arrived and found his suicide note, the years of abuse were revealed and came to light.
Currently, my father is serving time in a prison in Texas for what he did to me. For many years I did not have any contact with my father but about 7 years ago I opened lines of communication through letters as a way of healing. This is the only contact that I allow with him, especially since I have two daughters of my own whom I would never put in harms way.
Recently, my father wrote a letter not exactly intended for me personally but for a general audience explaining a bit of his thinking. While I normally would not share something like this, I do find it to have some value for parents of children in regards to what the mind of a predator who might be around the corner is like. This letter is incompletely and luckily is not graphic (although he does hint that it might have gone that way if it had been completed). Even incomplete, this letter was 25 pages long so to keep this posting from being even more overwhelming then it will be, I shall break this up into two postings, as I received the letter in two mailings.
I would like to point out some of the justifications he makes for his behavior, that God made him this way, as it sounds much like the current argument for other populations in the news currently. While I am not saying that that population are child molesters, I worry that this argument will again one day be used to change laws to make this type of behavior legal since pedophiles claim they were "born this way" and have no control.
My father is a very intelligent man. When I was growing up he held a job driving a truck, he went to church on Sunday and he was well liked by the neighbors. He was as normal as anyone else on the exterior.
The truth, however, it a completely different story.
The Letter
The following is not for the faint of heart. It's hopefully going to be a trip into the brain of me, your host for this possibly short or maybe extensive excursion to places you may have never dreamed of, or maybe you did, and it scared the hell out of you.
No one wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, "Starting today, I am going to become an Alcoholic, or maybe a drug addict , or a pedophile." WHOA!! What in the hell did I just write? A pedophile? I'll wait while you grab a dictionary and look it up. Yup, that's the word. An adult who gets sexual gratification from children. Yeah, I know. You can see yourself in a gutter puking drunk, or a person who would steal that last ten dollars from your mother's purse in order to get that "high". However, having sex with kids is way too far out there.
Well, sadly enough, there are plenty of drunks, drug addicts and yes, those nasty pedophiles. Here is a real kick in the ass. We can all normally pick out the person who has a drinking problem, and the one who has the monkey on his back is pretty easy to spot. So, how do you point out the guy who likes to mess around with the youngsters? No, he is not standing by the school yard fence in a raincoat on a sunny day. He is next door to your house. He is sitting close to you at work or even in church. He is a doctor, a lawyer, a US Senator and the school bus driver. He is your father, grand father, uncle, brother and best friend.
Well, don't that just beat all.
How in the world did these guys get in this mess? Were they molested themselves as children? Some surely were and some were not. Being the receiver of Uncle Buds lust when you were six does not guarantee that you yourself will grow to adulthood and when the moon is full, crave the affections of Little Johnnie or Suzy. So, how does this poor soul become such a loathed creature? As mentioned at the onset, no one would choose to be a pedophile. We don't pick our eye or hair color. What ever they are, it's there. Wearing tinted contacts or coloring your hair is just a cover up. What lies under all the mask we wear is who and what we are.
There were times in my life when I would drink alcohol and think to myself that it's so much fun to be drunk, that I will get drunk everyday. When waking the next morning, a drink of booze was the last thing I wanted. I don't have the gene of being an alcoholic. I swore off drinking many years ago and have never missed it. A person who is an alcoholic may not drink, but he wants to. The same with those who have a drug addiction. They are just one high from being right back to being strung out.
Now here is a little something for you to chew on. When the alcoholic or drug addict goes into treatment, they are looked on as fine folks, trying to do the right thing. Let the pedophile go and try to find help and he will probably wind up in jail.
Well, as I stated, this is going to be my story. If your okay with reading it, that's fine. If not, I don't really care. If anything, I am mostly writing this for me. I am 65 years old and I am beginning this from a cell in a Texas prison. Why I am here is obvious. How I get to this point in my life is the question. Of course, I am just one of the many who have questions, but few answers. I have surely knocked on the proverbial door of knowledge but the door has not opened. People say "It is what it is so just deal with it. Stop thinking like a fool."
If you were expecting a main stream novel, then your up for a big let down. There are my thoughts, and sometimes my fantasies. Chronological order may help keep things in some follow able sequence but won't always be observed.
It is said that we learn from our mistakes. I believe that to be true, but first we need to recognize and agree to an event being a mistake. Meaning that if an action performed, registers in your psyche as normal, then no correction is warranted. Because something appears to be grave matter to your way of seeing the world does not mean that everyone views the events in the same way. If in societal judgement, the acts of an individual are flawed, that does not mean the doer of the deed sees it in the same light. Society, long ago, had said that smoking marijuana was completely unacceptable. However, as we all know, a vast amount of people did not agree and many went to prison. Today, it is legal in many states. What was once evil is today a common place. At no time did the users of weed see anything wrong.
Easy there reader. There are a lot of pages in this composition book and I have plenty of time to bring things into clearer focus. remember that this is a free style writing and I need not follow any standard format. It's not going to say what "you" want it to say. It will only be a reflection of me. It's not of any importance that you agree or disagree. Only read with as open of a mind that your unique personality allows.
A seal can be trained to honk a horn when the correct hand signal is given. A dog can be taught to roll over in the same way. In this same manner, we humans are taught from birth to view things in the same manner as our parents, teachers, clergy and often peers. As an example, what ever religion your family is (was), chances are great that you are. Pentecost parents raise Pentecost children, Baptist raise Baptist, and a Muslim household will surely rear Muslim children. You were not born to any particular anything. All that you are is the result of a lifetime of teaching and molding. Very seldom does the offspring step away from the family fold.
I think we all can agree on the above point. Now, let us add to the mix the ancestral DNA that gets dragged along from generation to generation. Each of us have the genetic makeup of ancestors long gone by centuries. Many of the distinguishing features or characteristics we exhibit are the results of DNA. Along with our eye and hair color, facial features and mannerisms, we have also inherited a lot of negative conditions. A family with a history of illness, such as heart disease, hypertension, Alzheimer's and mental problems are much more inclined towards these afflictions. If your great grandfather was an alcoholic, that same gene is present in you. Does not mean your going to surely have a drinking problem but the threat is always present.
So what does this all mean so far? Well, I think it's safe to say that many of the "choices" we make in life are not rendered as freely as some would want you to believe. In order to make this point more clear, it will be necessary for me to climb up on my soap box and do a little pontification. Don't worry. I promise to get to all the juicy stuff in due time. You can't put a dot on a canvas and call it a painting. trying to elaborate on just the main idea, when there are sixty five years of living to be considered can be tricky.
My mother's side of the family were mostly all church going, God fearing Christians. My dad showed little interest in any organized religion. However, my young life was spent being dragged (and I do mean dragged) to Sunday school and summer Bible school. I never felt comfortable in the church setting and when I was about twelve my Dad told me that if I did not want to go to church, I did not have to. That was the end of that, for a great many years.
This is not about my spiritual awakening, so I will not spend a lot of time on it. I reserve the right to return should I deem it necessary. However, for now I will try and capsulate my ideas on God. I think that by explaining myself now, you the reader will be better able to consider any dogma that I attempt the theorize.
At this point, let me state unequivocally that I am "NOT" a Christian or a student of the Bible. I do have a background in such, so I am far from ignorant on the religion. However, I consider myself to be solely a "Spiritualist". I have a firm belief in a higher power. Just not the one talked of in the Bible. The path to this inner understanding of the Cosmic Deity we call God has been a long trek and continues on today. I am not going to bore you with any details, other than to state that my God loves me unconditionally.
It's important to the story to make it clear that God creates souls; People make people. In this aging body of mine is a soul of God. This body will die and rot but the spirit of who I really am lives on forever. The body needs the spirit to give it life. The spirit only needs this body in order to experience life as a human. The soul or spirit is just fine without the body. When this body dies, I will return to the Creator. The actions of the body have no bearing on the Godliness of my soul. If you prefer to believe in a God that would cast his Creation into some fiery Hell, go right on ahead. The body is responsibly for its transgressions on Earth. The spirit that lives within each of us is just along for the ride. For the experience of being human.
Okay, so now you have an idea of where I stand on the God thing. I have my own relationship with the Creator and do not need a building or a congregation in order to be with and talk to God. Just as Jesus was the Son of God, I , you and all of us are as well.
So what's the purpose of a spirit entering a body? Ever heard of the old expression "Don't judge until you have walked a mile in my shoes?" Sure you have. We as humans are very quick to judge and cast blame. A soul has a purpose. To become more like the Creator. Because the afterlife does not offer the challenges of being human, souls experience the vast array of possible characters and situations by hiking a ride with the body. I don't know what it's like to be an alcoholic or a drug addict, so who am I to make judgement. You probably don't have a clue as to how it feels to be a pedophile yet people are so quick to cast those stones.
After over a decade behind bars, I have learned to not be so fast to characterize another, if at all. I can sit and have lunch with a man who killed, dismembered and ate his mother and not feel disgust. I have not a clue what it's like to be him and what drove him to do that. Then again, he probably does not know either. Something in the genes. Not all of us came from the bloodline of
Mother Teresa. Look at it this way. People make people. God makes (creates) souls. If you kill a human, all you have really done is released the soul to return to God. Man's law will punish you but the Creator only deals with the perfection of his creation - the soul - and the soul is incorruptible.
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