Archive for the ‘Links’ Category
A Facebook friend posted up this great link to an Eyeweekly.com article about how my entire generation seems to be finding themselves in a bit of an existential crisis. We ask ourselves daily, “I exist, now what do I do? What is there to do?”
A blurb from the article:
That’s just it, isn’t it? We’re allowed to be anyone we want, and most of us haven’t got the slightest clue what to do with that freedom of self.
Scary.
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Nothing is better than receiving unexpected words of kindness in your inbox.
My friend Tenicia (T. to her friends and family) runs TNT Studios in Albany, NY, and sent this email to an aspiring personal trainer:
In late 2007 I was blessed to make one of the most powerful connections for my business when I met Carlene (Peter, this is your marketing/biz. person to contact when you’re ready to get started - www.visionsbycarlene.com). She catapulted my stagnant marketing attempts into professional, impressive materials and reinvigorated my faith in the business.
She CC’d me on the email to keep me in the loop, and made me feel awesome about myself in the process.
Between her and a great morning photo shoot with Greg from GPR Masonry to update his website, it’s been a good day.
Hats off to great friends.
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Ian, my husband-to-be, wrote this article about how people have stopped saying “thank you.”
It’s good reading if you, like myself, are finding yourself increasingly frustrated by the way common courtesy seems to have disappeared from our culture.
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One of the hardest things to come to terms with when it comes to being abused is that, in the case of the abuser being someone in your family or close to you in your life, there can be positive contributions to your life from the very person who made it hell.
I was abused by my former stepfather from the time I was about four until I was thirteen. His contributions to who I am today are few, but still there: his presence in my life is the reason my little sister is on this planet, and his constant warnings kept me away from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. He gave me the drive to do something with my life by beating it into my head that I knew how intelligent I was, and gave me structure in between the abuse.
Contrary to popular belief, abuse is not always a 24/7 thing, and that’s exactly why it’s so terrifying. Sometimes, the person abusing you IS a great father, mother, boyfriend or girlfriend much of the time. One day, everything can be normal; the family can be eating dinner together, going to the supermarket, you can be a kid for a day, or two, or ten.
Then, there’s the change, the sudden feeling of your sixth sense – which develops to an exceptional level when you live under the same roof – SCREAMING at you to be careful, because storm clouds are brewing on the horizon. You walk around a corner, and the other side of that person is waiting.
Abuse is scary to confess. I was being hurt by my stepfather, and if it had been my own father or mother I would have had even more of a difficult time seeking help. Confessing can feel like you’re turning your back on your family, forgetting the times that were good, the love they gave you as a parent. It can feel like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
One in four of us are hurt by someone at some point in our life, 25% of us, 6 out of 24 kids in any given classroom have been hurt. I think it seems easier to live through abuse than decide to talk; personally, the huge fear of “being found out” kept me silenced for years. If kids in school will pick on someone for wearing the wrong shirt, it’s terrifying to imagine how they’ll react to if they find out you’ve been molested or beaten.
And yet, had I known the numbers, I would have realized that in my high school of 3,000 kids, 750 of them had been or were being abused in some way. That’s way more than the track team or chess club, and sometimes I wish we had managed to find each other and realized we were far from alone, maybe start a support group.
What else I wish I’d known when I was in the darkest depths of despair was how wonderful the people around me would actually be when my “terrible secret” finally came out. My mother and family stood by my side, the few people I told at school were incredibly supportive, and when I finally decided to be open and honest about my experiences I was shocked at the outpouring of love I received from everyone, from young kids to adults.
I call myself an unrelenting optimist not because I walk around like a ray of sunshine. I call myself an unrelenting optimist because living through my darkest times have taught me that in the end, everything will be alright.
There is a lot of love out there. Being abused doesn’t make anyone less wonderful, it gives us a different plot in our life stories. I want to send a letter back in time to my 13-year-old self, thinking the world was over because my terrible secret had been discovered and printed in the newspaper for the world to read.
I would tell her that before the age of 30 she would have learned to stand up for herself, earned a college degree, started a successful business, found wonderful friends, gotten engaged to a magnificent and supportive man, and most importantly learned to turn the fear into a tool to help others. I would tell her to keep an eye out for a little site called Facebook, because she was going to be shocked at the people who would turn out to be friends and fans.
Most of all, I would tell her to find her voice and use it. It’s frightening to acknowledge that you’ve been abused by a person who has also loved you, that a person who raised you and has given you positive qualities could hurt you down to your soul. And that’s why there’s such a silence around the topic, and that’s what I hope will begin to change. Soon.
