Sometimes They Shout!!

Coming from a family full of secrets it is funny to think and know that my family is also a front runner in exposing secrets.

See I come from a family that folks would guess that I was related to but then would never believe when you would say yes to being related. 

Times have changed and some mystic has faded, but it wasn't that long ago that secrets were not told out loud and definitely not in public!  And never outside of the family!!

If you were someone what had to live with secrets, you know what I am saying.  You couldn't tell you friends because that was betrayal.  You couldn't tell the school because your abuser would get in trouble and you didn't know what would happen to you because of it.

You had no one to talk with.  You had not where to go.  You had yourself and being alone, you felt like it must be your fault because otherwise, why would it be happening to you!

You see your classmates talking and whispering and laughing.  You know it must be about you because they aren't including you.

It was a lonely time back in those days if you had secrets that you couldn't scream from the roof tops. To scream and them go away.  To make the pain stop.  To have someone hold you, listen to you, and let you know it wasn't your fault.

And from a strange place came this wonderful voice.  One that would not only shout her pain and torment that she grew up with but would write about it for all to read and make a movie for all to see!

Many have seen the movie or read the book and now it may seem like nothing but try and remember back.  Do you remember when the abused had no voice?  Do you remember when we all had this thought that in every home lived the Cleavers or the Petries or even the Bradys?

Being an abuse victim, I remember.  I remember not being able to tell, because didn't know how it would be recieved.  Didn't know if I would be blamed.  Just didn't know.  And that is how the secret lived on through generations.

BUT then my Aunt Tina started to shout!  She let it be known that it didn't matter where you grew up, abuse was there.  It didn't matter who people believed someone was, what mattered is who they really were.  Abuse really did come in all shapes, sized and didn't know color or paygrade.

Now I am not take nothing away from what kind of preformer my grandmother was.  We all have out work life and our home life.  But abuse, in whatever form, is not and should not be allowed.

My father had many emotional scars from his childhood.  He didn't know how to have trusting relationships with many of the females in his life for the longest time.  He was a quick witted man who wouldn't say a lot out loud.  He had addiction problems for much of his life, but fought it after many years of just letting things happen.

If we had someone shouting for victims back 40 years ago, some of the generations of abuse would not have continued.  But my aunt started to shout roughly 35 years ago and kept on shouting and today, children know they can be heard.  Today, people know how and what to look for in abuse victims.  Victims know it is not them and if they still feel it was somehow their fault, they have friends, groups, professionals and now family to help them learn and see that it wasn't them.  It wasn't their fault.  That they are loved and cared for and will make it through.  They will be surviors!!

I love you Aunt Tina!  I love your voice!  You are a hero for those that couldn't shout!

Thank you for shouting!!!