Secondary Survivor
By Bernadette A Moyer

Sexual abuse has many victims, the obvious victim of the abuse and all those who suffer from the fall out. There is a tremendous amount of fall out associated with sexual abuse.

I am not a victim of sexual abuse and yet it has impacted my life in a significant way. There was a time I stood up for a child who claimed they were sexually abused. I took a stand against the person who they claimed abused them. Little did I know at that time the cost of my decision. I did not ask for sexual abuse to impact my life nor did I ever welcome it. Decades later I have learned more about this subject that I care to admit.

The term, “secondary survivors” is a term that I found in my research and attributed to all those people that surround the victim. The people who were not directly abused but whose lives were impacted by all the fall out related to the abuse.

Because the abuser had married into our family and because he had married my mother I would eventually lose my mother and my four sisters who followed our mothers lead of estrangement. When I was told of the abuse, I confronted the abuser and my mother. There was only one face to face confrontation and little did I know at that moment in time that I would be deleted from the family. They basically killed the messenger.

The “killing” would take place in many forms from denial to abandonment to discrediting; by speaking out I became a huge target. It was easier for all involved to make me look bad rather than to take a good hard look at the person who was being accused of the abuse.

In order for my mother and my sisters to believe the truth, and to believe me, they would have had to change their life and they weren’t going to do that.

Years later I had a social worker state, “It must have been really hard for you to give up your family?” without thought my answer was “What choice did I have?” The child who made these claims was not taken seriously by any other person in my family but me. In the company of the extended family they took the victim into the abusers company. They were notified of the allegations and did nothing about it. Not only didn’t they protect the child who claimed abuse, but they brought their own infant babies around the person accused of sexual abuse.

From the moment this came into my life I tried to educate myself by reading up on it, talking with professionals and working in an environment where abused children were believed, helped, supported and healed.

Again, in 2011, I met with all kinds of professionals on this subject. My experience happened in the late 1980’s today our society is very clear on how these matters should be handled. I met with private detectives, social workers and with child advocates. I also became friendly with several professional mental health care providers who specialize in sexual abuse cases.

One child advocate made a statement that will stay with me forever. She said, “This is not how a loving family would have handled this. They would have said, “We love you, we love this child, we want to get to the bottom of this because we don’t want to lose you and this child to ever feel uncomfortable. Why are they saying this, what happened and what can we do to remain a family?”

These statements were never made. The advocate also stated, “What your family did is how guilty individuals react, I have seen it over and over again. What guilty individuals/child molesters do is try to turn as many people against the accuser, including the victim. It happens every single time.” She was 100 percent correct.

Hopefully the sharing of my experience will help to educate. It isn’t just the victim that will need help and support but all those around the victim. The ripple effect can and does destroy families.

I thought it was the right thing to do, to stand up for and to protect a child. Little did I know that in doing the right thing I would be making myself a huge target.

Now more than 25 years later I can see how my actions immediately following made me an easy target. One PhD. stated, “You made it easy for them by walking away.” He also gave me articles from JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association. In those articles I read about the divide between social workers/mental health care providers and the legal professionals.

The prosecutors want to prosecute these crimes and the mental health care professionals have concerns about the trauma associated with the process. What if that abused child has to relive their trauma, tell their personal painful experience and what if they aren’t believed? Many mental health care professionals believe this could be even more devastating than the abuse itself.

One of the things that many parents and adult caregivers instinctively do when the child communicates abuse is to respond with a big reaction. This often sets the tone for easy manipulation and a child that grows up and has learned not only how to get a big reaction but how to manipulate people. This can further a continued victimization mentality.

I have learned so much and there is no perfect way to handle this, just about every day you can hear or read in the news about new cases of sexual abuse. But in reality a large majority of cases are NEVER reported. The shame, the embarrassment and the reliving of the trauma cause many victims to hold onto the abuse and to hold it inside. It doesn’t go away though, it becomes part of the life of the abused acknowledged or denied.

When I made my decisions as to how to handle the knowledge of the abuse, I never dreamt of all the fall out and of the years of anger and hatred. I have people in my family that delete other people in my family just for talking to me. My crime, I spoke out on the behalf of a child victim. Today I would caution anyone taking a stand. GET a STRONG SUPPORT TEAM of PROFESSIOALS WHO ARE WELL VERSED and EXPERIENCED in CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE. You absolutely can’t go it alone nor can you conceal what has happened.

By trying to protect my mother from embarrassment and a child from further humiliation all I really did was allow an accused sexual abuser off the hook. Even he deserved to have his day in court to determine the validity of the accusations. No one wins in trying to “protect” anyone from allegations of sexual abuse.

After my mother died and I was omitted from her obituary a friend of over 40 years sought me out. We were camp counselors together and my mother was the camp nurse. My friend knew my family and couldn’t understand why I was not included in my mother obituary. Sadly when we reconnected we learned we had even more in common than being teen camp counselors together. Her life was also significantly impacted by sexual abuse too. And the abuse was by a family member. The difference was that in her family it was believed and the family was loving and supportive toward the victim.

Sexual abusers don’t live in a vacuum, they have wives and children, and they have friends, neighbors, family members and co-workers. No one wants to believe that their family member, friend or work associate is a child molester. No one wants to believe it, not even the survivors or the secondary survivors!

Happiness is an Inside Job
By Bernadette A. Moyer

It has taken a long time for me to understand that happiness is an inside job. It was my husband who taught me this. Overall he is very content and can take or leave most things. Brian has an inner peace and strength about himself. He is always so supportive of me. For more than 15 years, when I was running huge social fundraisers he never missed a single event. He never hung onto me for his good time either. He would circulate and was okay with being in a crowd and with people or by himself.

Through the years people have told me, “you two look good together” but what they could never have known was our back story, our family history. We are very much alike and have a deep understanding on what it is like to move past the limitations of your first family. We also had the same track record in love. Brian and I both had a spouse who died and left us with children and another significant relationship end when they cheated on us and left us for someone else. We know what it is like to be hurt by love.

My husband Brian is one of 6 children, I am one of 5. Neither one of us is close to our siblings. He is the only one who moved away. He grew up in the inner city of Baltimore, in the “hood” the projects. They were really poor as kids. None of his siblings left there, not one of them owns a house or an automobile. He pushed past his initial life circumstances. Brian got an education and continues to educate himself as he is still moving up the corporate ladder.

He is the most responsible of all his siblings. When his mother passed his father had him take over. He isn’t the oldest but was appointed the guardian for his father’s care. Brian learned how to live without his siblings. In childhood family photos most often Brian is on one side of the picture alone in contrast to the other 5 who are grouped together. It appears to have started when he was just a toddler.

I am one of 5 girls and like my husband I have no relationship with my siblings. We weren’t exactly well off as kids either. They have not been in my life for almost 25 years now. And just like my husband they appear when they want to try and bring me down. They presume to know me but have not been in my life for decades. I don’t allow myself to get caught up in their cauldron of hatred.

My husband had and has an easier time accepting that his siblings are not a part of his life. I always wanted my situation to be different; I mourn for how I would have wanted it to be not for how it truly is and was with them. Like my husband’s family they don’t add anything positive to my life.

It took a long time for me to learn that my happiness was my responsibility. Mine alone. I have so many friends and even more acquaintances. Every job I ever held was in a highly social setting. Many people have lifted me up. And I have been called “inspirational” by more than a few people.

No matter how many people enhance our lives, we come into this world alone and we leave it alone. Today I am probably more content and happier than I have ever been. It isn’t based on other people or on things but truly comes from self-love and self-acceptance. I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses. I know who I am and I know my truth. I have an easier time discarding those relationships that are unhealthy and non- supportive.

Accepting that my happiness is my responsibility has allowed me to create an inner peace of love supported by my own strength. I don’t know why it took me so long to understand that everything I ever needed was already there inside of me. Better late than never … I suppose …

What I would say to anyone who is unhappy is you need to fix that. You alone have all the tools to be happy. It is there and it is inside of you. People may try and bring you down and may try to hurt you but that is their unhappiness and not yours.

We are all responsible for the life choices we make and the way we live our life. If it isn’t right for you, then it just isn’t right. Change it. No one can make you happy, no one, but you.
Happiness is an inside job!

Free Yourself
By Bernadette A. Moyer

In order to fly we cannot be weighted down by things or by people from our past. We must be free.
Before an eagle of God can really start to fly into the heights that God has in store for us in this life, the eagle must break off any chains that are keeping him down and on the ground. For some of us these are issues from our past.

Jesus came to set the captives free and ones that are stuck may be stuck in wrong thinking that may come from past experiences. We must learn how to fully let go of our past before we can go full steam ahead with our divine destiny.

People get stuck and they get stuck in divorce, death and estrangements in relationships that have ended. I was guilty of this with a significant lost relationship and then it occurred to me, “How much more of your life, are you willing to lose to someone who cares nothing about you?” When is enough, enough?

We feel badly in the loss and we want to retreat and to give up burying ourselves, we pull the covers up and over our heads. But what does this really do for us? Does it make it better? Does it take the pain and the loss away?

We need to forge ahead in spite of our pain, forge ahead to newer and brighter futures. “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you, nor abandon you. DEUTERONOMY 31:8

Free yourself from that which is holding you back, like the eagle that God intended for you to be. Free yourself and soar like only you can do!

What Really Matters This Thanksgiving
By Bernadette A. Moyer

At the time of this writing I have been parenting for just over 34 years, there have been many years when I believed my parenting skills to be in line with my life’s greatest accomplishments and other times when I knew first hand that I totally missed the mark.

In parenting I learned that love truly is blind, that letting go is by far the greatest challenge and seldom does it matter what we really want for our children. In the end, it comes down to their life, lived out in their way.

I have loved and lost in parenting to where my skin hurt and the hole left in my heart was at least the size of a cannonball. My children taught me the true meaning of love, where you give and you give and expect nothing in return. It is the only relationship, when it is you who brings that child into this world and you who chose to give them life. You give life to your child who may live in a way that you may never understand but you know that the gift was in the giving.

With the three children I have mothered, I learned that each child is unique and different and comes with their own likes, dislikes, talents and abilities. I learned that where environment may matter, that does not translate into same environment and same outcome for each child.

It was in parenting that I learned humility and put myself in places and spaces that I would never have gone without the hand holding of my child who led me there. I learned that children have immediate needs and the adults in my life could wait. My children taught me patience and they taught me to trust in the letting go. My kids taught me that most children will be dishonest at times and not to take it personally or believe that because your view is one of a close parent and child relationship, it will mean honesty at all times, on all issues.

If the definition of forgiveness is defined as letting go of how you thought it should be, then again it was my children who taught me how to forgive. I learned to forgive myself, before I could begin to forgive them, or any others.

As amazing as giving birth is so is the circle of life, after 34 years of parenting I have learned so much from my children and all the many enrichments they have afforded me. Our children are all legal adults now and the greatest lesson learned is that each child was God’s gift to us.

Then came the day when we had to trust the process and the life cycle. The time arrived when they were no longer in our care nor were they our responsibility. It was then again when we knew to return them back to God who trusted us with them so long ago and who we trust will continue to protect them and to watch over them.

Happy Thanksgiving 2015!
(Updated November 2014 originally published in The Catholic Review and The North County News)

The Next Chapter

By Bernadette A. Moyer

There is always another chapter, until we take our last breathe. There is the chapter after the winter and the spring and the summer and the fall. There is the chapter that follows the break up or the divorce, the marriage, the kids, the parents and the job. There is always another chapter as long as we are alive.

My friend lost her father yesterday, he has been ill and she has been tending to him. Loving her dad and supporting him like only a devoted daughter can do. She has spent many weekends travelling to him and staying with him. He has been a huge part of her life. Now he is gone. Those hours, days and weekends will be voids until she figures out the next chapter. What will she fill her time with?

Another friend lost her husband several years ago, they were inseparable and then he died. After her grief, she had to figure out what the next chapter would look like. Today she travels with friends and is supportive toward her children. There was a period of time when she couldn’t imagine what the next chapter of her life would look like and then it arrived. Her life became full again.

So many of my peers are running from pillar to post with ailing parents and children still in the home, then there is the big career that goes along with it all and life is full. But then time gets away from us and the parents and the kids go and maybe it is retirement time. Another chapter is about to begin.

Choosing a Joyful Dance
“Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be … someday. Show me you can risk being at peace, truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment and again in the next and the next and the next …” The Dance by Oriah

Our lives are filled with chapters and with a beginning, middle and an ending. It is up to us to use the time and the pages of our life story to matter, to matter to us and to God. We may not get what we want but we should know that we will receive what we need. God has a plan that is bigger than anything we could have ever imagined for ourselves.

“Some people think that God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking. The way to trouble God is not to come at all.” Dwight L. Moody

At times it takes an incredible amount of grace to move from chapter to chapter never fully knowing what lies ahead for us. Our faith allows us to take that next step into the unknown.

“Although we have only one life cycle to live, although it is only a small part of history which we will cover, to do this gracefully and carefully is our greatest vocation.” Henri J.M. Nouwen

Like the novel that we can’t put down and the pages we anticipate reading, our life should hold that same desire that same anticipation of what is to come. What is next, how does the next chapter read? My husband and I are about to start another big chapter in life, a chapter that meeting new people and taking on new challenges. It is time to grow again. More beauty in life the opportunities are endless.

We are both excited and nervous and celebratory we have arrived at another major milestone in our life. The next chapter is yet to be written but we welcome its arrival. There is always another chapter, another chapter until we take our very last breathe here on earth.

This chapter could easily be called; Feeling Fabulous in Our Fifties … we are refreshed and ready for another start and who knew our fifties and this time in our lives would arrive so soon?

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

Dear Parents of Estranged Adult Children,

This open letter is in response to the many e-mails that I receive asking for my help and my insight into estrangement. Most often the person writing to me has read my P.E.A.C.E. Parents of Estranged Adult Children Everywhere article located on my website Bernadette A. Moyer at http://www.bernadetteamoyer.com

Just this week I received two heartfelt e-mails from parents in pain that are dealing with the aftermath from their adult children and their estrangement. Most often the estrangement includes taking the grandbabies and grandchildren with them.

Where I am not an expert I have experienced estrangement on both sides. My mother didn’t speak to me for 23 years. My crime I conveyed a message I received from a child who stated that my mother’s husband was sexually abusing them. I believed the child, my mother and all family members did not.

As a teenager my child would walk out of my life. Our estrangement is now 15 years in the making. She would write her college essay about me calling me many wonderful things, a month later when I said “no” I went from “awesome” and “amazing” to an “abuser.” I have numerous letters in her own handwriting stating how wonderful a mother I once was to her.

You can’t make this stuff up …

What I say to all that contact me, first and foremost I am so sorry. There is no greater pain than to have a child that you raised and loved and adored turn on you and/or walk out of your life for good. I immediately encourage them to try everything humanly possible to work it out. I sincerely believe that it is not in the best interest of the adult child nor the parent to be estranged. I don’t believe that it is normal or natural for either side.

Only after every attempt has been made to have a mutually respectful relationship, you must stop and save yourself and respect their decision. Many times the number one complaint shared with me is that parents are accused of “stalking” these adult children. I immediately have to laugh for two reasons 1) my child still accuses me of this even though I have not seen or heard from her and I have respected her decision. I make no efforts to contact. 2) a normal loving parent loves their child and wonders about them and how they are doing.

I did everything humanly possible to reach out to my child. There was and is nothing on the face of this earth that will “fix” what issues she has with me. I have come to believe that she believes her own “story” which is a far cry from what happened and how I lived it and remember it.

As a teenager children do not have fully formed brains. It is a fact and yet at 18 they are legally allowed to make adult decisions. Where most teenagers go through a period of hating their parents, it is the immature ones that stay stuck in that hatred. Obviously for whatever reasons it serves them well. They must be getting something out of it or they wouldn’t do it. It might be for people to feel sorry for them or to help them and often is about manipulating people to do things for them.

Once you have accepted that there is no other way, you must save yourself! There is life after the grief, after the heartache and after the disappointment. It isn’t easy and it doesn’t happen overnight. It took more than a decade for me to declare “enough!”

I am so much better off without the drama and being the target of hatred. Finally after more than I can share here the bonds once held are no longer in existence. It is now me the parent that is finished. I have written my obituary and I have made my final requests upon my death very well known and well documented.

When it is over it is over! If you can repair or restore your relationship with your adult child, you should put all efforts into doing so and if it can’t be repaired or restored you have to let go of it.

Letting go with love and giving her back to God who gave her to me in the first place, is my final act of love. Once again I gave her what she wanted and she won. But in the final analysis I finally learned to save myself and to create a very full rewarding life without her. There is life after children. There have been numerous recent studies and articles that show having kids is not all that it is anticipated to be and often does NOT create a more meaningful, rewarding or peaceful life.

You can find me on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer and look for Support Group for Parents of Estranged Adult Children on Facebook too.

The number one take away is that you are not alone! Many others are experiencing the same loss and heartache of estrangement. Find a support group, or a support person, it helps.

God’s Peace and Prayers,

Bernadette

Let it Go, Let it Go, Let it Go …

By Bernadette A. Moyer

Bishop TD Jakes words of advice “Let it go” and Disney’s Frozen was about “let it go.”  How often do we hang on to things that people did and said to us? And we would be so much better served if we just “let it go?”

“When people walk away from you let them walk. Your destiny is never tied to anyone that left. People leave you because they are not joined to you. And if they are not joined to you, you can’t make them stay. Let them go. And it doesn’t mean that they are a bad person it just means that their part in the story is over. And you’ve got to know when people’s part in your story is over so you don’t keep trying to raise the dead. You’ve got to know when it is dead.” Bishop TD Jakes

Not everything or everyone is meant to be in our lives forever. How often do we hang on to that which no longer serves us? Let it go!

How much mental illness or our suffering points back to an inability to let go? Forgiveness is the ability to let it go, it is what we do for ourselves when we forgive.

“If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.” Ajahn Chah

Anger keeps us connected in negative ways, letting it go allows us to move forward with love and with grace. Brain scientists suggest that nearly 20% of us suffer “complicated grief” when we long for someone that we lost and we romanticize the memories of the relationship. Often when people die we make them God-like, all of a sudden they become perfect. We don’t speak ill of the dead.  Even if they were far from “angelic” they become angels to us. It is healthy for us to forget and forgive the bad stuff, it allows us to let go.

The secret is to know when it is time to let go. Hanging on to hurts or to anger or to any loss is often at the expense of wellness and growth. When we are stuck we are unable to move forward.

Remember the movie Up, iIt is a Disney film that came out in 2009 and told the story of a widower who couldn’t let go. He couldn’t let go of the past and the house that he previously shared with his wife. Basically he couldn’t “fly” and lift off without letting go. Once the main character could let go of the objects that weighed him down, he literally was able to fly and move on and ahead.

There was no much angst in my family and so much hurt and loss. For years I kept it alive by carrying it in my head and in my heart. After my mother died I was initially indignant as to how her lack of any desire for any reconciliation and how it affected me. But the truth is she was dead and gone from me for decades before her actual passing. It was an open wound until the finality of her death.

Recently I visited her grave which is littered with messages from her other children. Their grief and loss is so new to them. I am finally free and at peace. When we can finally “let it go” we have a full and open heart that has a greater ability to love and is peaceful.   I know because that is where I live now. It is a choice. I find it easier to let many more things go. So little is really worth hanging on to and what this has done for me is it allows me to be present in the moment and to live in the moment and literally one day at a time. My anxiety is far less and my joy is far greater.

The real gift is not in the holding on but rather in our ability to let it go …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a Few Things I Learned Along the Way

By Bernadette A. Moyer

Life is about experiences and learning along the way. It is about the ability to be open and receptive to new experiences and to be humble enough and willing enough to learn. We live and we learn.

Change is a constant, nothing lasts forever and nothing stays the same forever. This summer will obviously be “summer” but different from any past summers and unique from any that are yet to come.  

Recently I read a quote that I believe and just love, and it went like this, “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” Lao Tzu

This is probably the greatest lesson I have learned over the past few years. Live in the present. Be there and be available, be open and receptive.

Where putting ourselves into places and spaces that are new, and being open to new people and new experiences is a great catalyst for change, always remember that what you are and your core principles are what allows you to remain strong in this ever changing world that we so often find ourselves. Don’t give in or give up on what matters most to you. Stay true to yourself. Fight the good fight.

Nothing takes the place of passion. Without passion we are just going through the motions. With passion we excel and can move forward with ease and speed. We go above and beyond our own imagination. Living in the moment, turning off other people’s drama and noise allows me to stay true to my core, my center.

In a world full of phonies and back stabbers, I am a really good person. If someone speaks negatively about others, don’t be surprised if/when they do it to you. Many will profess to be a friend, but a real friend is harder to find and will never tear at you.  “As I age I have learned that when it comes to friends, I’d rather have 4-quartes than 100-pennies.” Steve Maraboli

Never give up on your dreams. If you have a passion for something, do it. We are meant to soar with our own unique gifts and talents. 

Treat others the way that you want to be treated, do it for yourself because there is no guarantee that they will be as good to you as you are to them.

“Never wrestle with a pig, you will both get dirty and the pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw Don’t let other people pull you into their hate and drama, their fight is theirs and not yours. Side-step them and move on. It isn’t about you, nothing other people do is about you, it is about themselves.

Love yourself unconditionally. It is not selfish to take care of yourself. When we care for ourselves, we are better at everything else that we do and touch. Love as many things, people and places as you can. You only have one life and at the end of your life all that will matter is how much love you gave and how much love you received.

You can’t please everyone so make yourself happy, and the ones that are meant to be with you and around you will be there.

Always do your best, give everything and anything that you do 100% so that when it ends, and it will, you know that you gave it everything you had and can move forward with no regrets.

A confident person is a successful person and confidence comes from knowing who and what you are all about. Take the time to know yourself … you are a child of God and therefore good enough for everything and everyone.

 

 

 

Along the Way

By Bernadette A. Moyer

How many people will we meet along the way? How many experiences will be having along the way?

We hear the old phrase, “one door closes and another door opens.” Many times we must close out one endeavor so that we are afforded the opportunity of engaging in another. Simply put we must give up something to be in a position to accept something new.

I watched a woman fight back tears today and I heard her say, “I am doing my best to accept this.” Her Pastor was reassigned to another parish and will be leaving. I immediately could feel for her. Just four years earlier it was me who was fighting back the tears. That same Priest was leaving his assignment with me to move on to the parish that this woman attends. She has grown fond of him.

Today I watched him in action; he was different from how I remembered him. He was more mature, more embracing and much more open.   He wouldn’t have changed if not for moving about and going in a new direction. He closed one door and opened another; soon he will close his current door as he takes on a whole new challenge.

The same can be said for me, these past four years I have opened doors and I have closed doors. I have experienced much “along the way.”

One of my favorite quotes is, “You will always miss 100 percent of the shots that you do not take.” Wayne Gretzky

Every life has a beginning and middle and an ending and in the final analysis our life will be about all that we encountered along the way. Letting go used to be so hard for me, like the classic Italian Momma I wanted to hang on and hang on tightly with much love and passion. And yet today there is very little that I am interested in hanging on to.

We hang on at the expense of NOT letting go and therefore we are closed off when what we truly need to do is be open and receptive to what is next. Life is a living and a moving thing; it is about the journey and not the destination.

People choose the path in their lives and often fall into either a victor or a victim. We claim our role by the choices we make along the way. Each choice has its own consequences and each choice opens up something often at the closing of something else.

And my new favorite quote about change is “May the bridges I burn light the way!” Dylan McKay

“20 years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the one’s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain

Here is to heading out and getting about and all that we experience “along the way.”