On the side

                                                                                         NOT GUILTY!!!                                 

I recently read a statement/question. It was: Why does he get to be free while I suffer from the trauma he gave me.

Part 1. The definitive in the statement is free. My answer is, “because you are in prison.” Namely, because you don’t discuss your perpetrator’s dirty little secret. And you don’t discuss it because of the stigma, the disgrace associated to it. Even some of the most unpleasant prisoners, past or present, admit to their confinement. They may not always say why they were there, but they will admit to their confinement.

However, a victim of rape or sexual abuse may not be so forthcoming. That makes it hard to traverse from victim to survivor. A victim is traumatized with guilt, shame and trauma; this is the baggage internment camp victims carried out of the concentration camps. You learn this when the survivors begin to talk about the atrocities.

Confinement

Generally, a person does something unlawful, goes to prison, gets out, and talks about the transgression and the incarceration. But our confinement is rather unique. We can’t admit the wrong we’ve done because we didn’t do anything wrong. One of the things I learned early on was you have to talk about what happened to you. I didn’t start off as eloquent in my attempts but for years now I’ve talked about the abuses visited upon me. First, a little at a time, then I could do so as little or a graphically as I wished. As I’ve stressed before, a great place to begin might be to talk to yourself. (And please do not apply the stigma of talking to yourself here.) Whether sitting in your car or sitting on your throne, say what happened to you. And do so with no shame, guilt or stress because you are Not Guilty! Write it down if you can’t speak it to yourself, but do not hold that secret.

 This began with why are they free while we suffer.

Because we sit in our cell and don’t say anything, nothing, notta. Why? Because we didn’t do anything.

Now let’s look at what other prisoners say. I robbed that store and I got 3-8 years. This is year 4 and I go before the parole board this year. Oohh, this is what I’m gonna say:

• I fell in love with the wrong woman. She was on drugs and I did rob that store. After 4 years I am not in love anymore.
• My husband is a gambler. He gambled away the rent and I didn’t want me and the kids to be homeless, so I robbed that store. He has since remarried.

In short, they talk. They write. They word somehow. But not us, we say nothing. And guess who’s the president, vice-president and officers of our parole board? We Are.

We don’t even know how to begin the letter. Why? Because we didn’t do anything wrong. Then our recitation or writing to our parole board has to begin with, “I’m here in this cell because when I was 3, 8, 17, 28, or 36 my uncle, brother, mother’s friend, auntie, stranger or acquaintance robbed me. It started when I was asleep, walking down the street, etc.

Say it loud to yourself, the stranger at the bus stop, or to a counselor. Then you can have hope of leaving that cell you are in for the crime you did not commit. Stop being the victim and become the survivor.

We hear of people serving time for crimes they did not commit all the time. Oh, we say that is just mucked up. We judge that as so unjust, the unfairest of the unfair.  Guess who our judge is? The jury? The guards? The parole board? The witness? You are a prisoner. You suffer the guilt and shame of your (undeserved) incarceration. Face that. We don’t even act like someone who’s been unjustly incarcerated. You didn’t do anything wrong and yet you are serving time, your life. You can talk or write your way out but you relegate yourself to sit in the dishonor of that drab cell.

Uh oh. That’s one key to freedom. I have another one. Jennifer, my little FatAss, was a little toddler, when the late Rev. Harvey D. Anderson was preaching a sermon. I’ll never forget what he said, He said, “You can forgive a person and never speak to them again.” Trust me, I know, it took a long time for me to grasp such a readily clutchable notion. On the tail end of never speak to that person again, I’ll add to wish that person no ill will. In short, you’re walking down a pier near a life preserver and you see that person drowning and you throw them the preserver.

To forgive is to set a person free and discover that prisoner was you. Lewis B. Smedes

Ha! Forgive Somebody. We can’t even forgive ourselves for something we didn’t even do. Then to set yourself free using the component of no ill will to your perpetrator when you can’t forgive yourself, an innocent person, is a key that may be discussed some other time.

Regardless of how illogical it may seem at times, it is through unconditional forgiveness that we surrender the past to the past and enter the present, freeing ourselves to stand in the infinite light that knows how to heal our deepest and most painful wounds.

Author: Dennis Merritt Jones