Thank you for your excellent article.

I was abused by a classmate in elementary school. With the help of a therapist I recalled enough details so that it became clear to me that my abuser was being abused, by someone in his home.

After the session, the therapist I was seeing suggested I write an account of the abuse for possible sharing with my family. This was not as successful as I had hoped.

My parents did not want to talk about it; my sister did not want to talk about it.

In my frustration I wanted to yell out, “well, you are disturbed by what happened? So am I. Living with it has been really disturbing. So I think I’ll deal with it. Why don’t I come back in, say, 20 years and let you know how it went?”

I didn’t. Maybe I should have persisted, but in my family we had a strict unspoken rule: Do Not Rock the Boat!

My mother and father are both dead now. No, I didn’t do it; my father died of Alzheimer’s and emphysema, my mother of congestive heart failure two years after my father died. Looking back, my parents, while I loved them, went by “what other people do.” Watch what other people do, and do the same. You can think anything you want about it, just don’t tell anyone.

So now I’m following slightly different advice; I will mourn my parents, but I think I’ll be myself now.

I know it is the beautiful synchronicity of Angela Shelton’s spirit that brought me to your wisdom on this day when I am going to write my mother a letter from the depths of my soul for the first time. As a survivor of maternal-daughter incest, emotional and physical abuse, your words of wisdom and kindness are a guidepost for my wiritng hourney today and I know they will empower me to finally relieve myself of the burden of the sword of trauma that has pierced my soul for so long. I am so grateful to you and to our Angela Shelton.

You will definitely be in my thoughts and prayers with deep, deep gratitude as I put my heartfeet to the path of new life. Peace, light and joy to you!!

xx,
Janie