Mother’s Day and the Release of No Trespassing

May 11, 2008 · Filed Under Art & Creativity, Life ·

Today is Mother’s Day and no matter how hard I try to forget about this day, it still manages to come, mock me and leave for another year.

This day is by far a great day for most people–Mothers for one. It is also a great day for people to show their mothers how much they love and appreciate everything that they have done them. However, sometimes you get that special case where one day out of the year just doesn’t mean the same to someone as it does to others; and Mother’s Day is that day for me.

I have not seen my mother in almost a decade. No, she isn’t dead, but she may as well be. My mother was not like most out there. My mother was a child abuser. She was a child sex trafficker and a child molester. She was (and still is) a drug addict and an alcoholic. I stayed silent about so much that happened during my childhood for so many years and it was last year where I pretty much just deteriorated. My layers of walls that I had spent years of my life perfecting melted away and I started to talk about what I had gone through and that was the best time of my life. I had stayed silent for so long because I was afraid of what people would say, how they would see me and most of all, I was afraid of what the rest of my family would think about me. While I was still in my mother’s custody I had told her that I would tell on her some day and she said that no one would believe me and I believed her.

I still don’t know what the rest of my family thinks. I was never really given the opportunity to speak to them about all of this; whenever the subject of my mother has come up my grandmother would be the first one to say that she didn’t want to hear about anything because it made her upset to even think about what happened. My father, while I love him immensely, has never been one to show or voice his emotions and so the verdict is still out on that one. My aunt had talked to me very briefly about it, after reading an interview I had done with my local newspaper about being a survivor of child sexual abuse. Not being given the opportunity to actually speak to my family about my childhood, I decided to publish it in a newspaper and send it to the doorsteps of 70,000 people living in my area.

While I have undoubtedly progressed in this whole healing process (not to mention being raped when I was 18 at the one and only college party I had ever attended and starting the whole “healing process” over again,) I have quite a ways to go and with that, to further symbolize this day for me, my short film No Trespassing was released today. Both parts are below:

Tags: child abuse, child exploitation, child sexual abuse, Dany Nieves, films, holidays, incest, Mother's Day, No Trespassing, rape, sexual assault

Reclaim Your Voice While Helping Others

April 13, 2008 · Filed Under Activism ·

teddy I recently came across the Teddy Tour, which is run by Megan from Imaginif and Leigh from All for Women; both are truly excellent sites.

Teddy Tour is about giving survivors of childhood sexual abuse a voice through a really unique concept–plush teddy bears. It doesn’t matter if you are male or female or what age you are now; if you were sexually abused as a child, you are able to take part in the tour.

The process is simple–You fill out a teddy tag (don’t worry, it’s completely anonymous and your name will not appear on your tag) either by filling out the form to send one instantly or you can download and print out this tag and send it out in the mail. You can also make your own tag or decorate the mail-in tag to personalize it a bit more.

After your tag is received, it will be put on a plush teddy bear, a picture of it will be taken for the website and it will then be sold at Imaginif where all proceeds go straight to a survivor of child abuse.

This is an excellent project, I love it. I filled out a teddy tag for myself and hope that all survivors of childhood sexual abuse will do so as well, it’s an excellent cause and not only are you reclaiming your voice and rising above your abuse, you are also helping other survivors in the process. What could be better than that?

Tags: child exploitation, child sexual abuse, incest, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Teddy Tour

No Trespassing, My First Short Film

April 11, 2008 · Filed Under Art & Creativity ·

I usually keep my creative endeavors pretty secret until there is something super exciting to say about it and this is most definitely super exciting!

I wrote a vignette last year that I had never thought to do much with, especially since most of what I write ends up decaying on my hard drive, but upon meeting and speaking with filmmaker Dany Nieves, we spoke about my writing and he expressed much interest in my piece ‘No Trespassing.’ A month later, I am extremely proud to present the trailer for No Trespassing; the full film is due out on May 11. This film stars Anh Le (so no, that isn’t me in the film) and is produced by 307 Idea Factory.

This film is about child abuse, healing and having the courage to let go of your past and move on to a much brighter future.

* Click on image for full view.

There are some other creative endeavors in the works that will be surfacing here in the next few months, so watch for those and I will also be posting updates about No Trespassing as they happen.

Tags: child abuse, child sexual abuse, creative writing, Dany Nieves, films, news, prose

5th Annual Race to Stop the Silence

April 11, 2008 · Filed Under Activism ·

I thought I was too late with this, but luckily, I’m not!

stop the silence race This Sunday, April 13, is the 5th Annual Race to Stop the Silence, presented by the Ms. Foundation for Women and The Washington Post, in an effort to raise awareness and stop the silence surrounding child sexual abuse. It will take place at 8:30am in Anacostia Park in Washington DC.

If you are around the Washington DC area, I cannot urge you enough to go and be part of this amazing activist effort. Child sexual abuse is a silent epidemic and it is only growing more rapidly out of control. If you wish to take part in the 10k race and the 5K pledge walk you can register either today, tomorrow or Sunday before the race at a tent near the skating rink at Anacostia Park, which will open at 6:30am. Download the registration form here and bring it to the balcony of the Old Post Office Pavilion at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. Also, you can download the agenda of activities here. (PDF)

This is definitely a great cause; for those of you who are already signed up and ready to go, good luck; and for the rest of you, go download the registration form!

Tags: child exploitation, child sexual abuse, Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Blogging Against Sexual Violence Using Creative Expression

April 3, 2008 · Filed Under Art & Creativity ·

Today is A Day to End Sexual Violence. Courtesy of abyss2hope, today is the second annual Blog Against Sexual Violence Day.

I’ve been thinking for a few days about what I wanted to write about. I cover sexual violence quite a bit here, but I wanted this to be a bit different and have deeper meaning to me, so I finally decided to share a piece of my own creative writing that tells a little but about my childhood and my own past with sexual violence.

This is a short prose piece entitled Stonewalled and was written on May 8, 2005. It was featured in North Eastern Pennsylvania’s Women’s Resource Center’s “An Empty Place at the Table” art gallery.

Stonewalled

Go brush your teeth and I’ll be right up to tuck you in.

And with that statement, you were gone. The door slammed, the car’s ignition hissed, and the tires roared away from our townhouse apartment - home for needy welfare mothers who spend their earnings from their spread your leg careers on “I’m sick of feeling like this, I want to be someone else” hallucinogens and “My veins are pretty empty and could use a lift of spirits” syringes. Where were you this time? Because I’m still in bed peering from the turned-down comforter to see you and smell the musty scent on your breath, on my face, on your clothes. When do you think you’re coming back?

This is because you couldn’t mother a pair of mistakes; the first a little more damned than the second. If the men had the money you would introduce them to your shining star concubine - age’s six to twelve. Sifting into nothing but a corpse; unable to do anything but lay there, engulfed in a wonderland of dead fairies that all look identical. Laying there as if nothing happened; gyrating into outlandish figures - all bleeding from one sacred pore.

Tags: Blog Against Sexual Violence, child abuse, child sexual abuse, creative writing, incest, men, prose, rape, sexual assault, Sexual Assault Awareness Month