Resurrection After Rape Community Group
Discussion, question-and-answer, general social support, and journal processing for progress-oriented rape survivors. No crisis, no damaging or triggering conflicts--this is for individuals who want to contribute to collective, cooperative action toward the goal of making actual PROGRESS through rape trauma. Much of this work is based on the book "Resurrection After...
Okay, it's time for me to lean on this group and take a huge leap of trust. Many of you have been very open and vulnerable with me, and painfully honest about things in your life, and I've made sincere efforts to be uplifting and gentle with you in those moments. I need to open up and share something very painful as well, hope for the same understanding.
I'm at a very tough point in my life right now, and it's got me twisted in knots. I can't sleep, barely eat, have constant headaches, and feel terribly, terribly embarrassed. But I'm going to share why.
I've mentioned that like anyone, I too have critics and people who despise the methods and reasons for what I do. To some of you this has been surprising and you've given me gracious statements of support, and it's meant more than you know. My technique of working with rape survivors has a good track record with a tremendously high success rate, to the point that I've often been the "last resort" therapist that other therapists refer clients to when progress stalls. My methodology for treating rape PTSD has become the default training for therapists in our state, and I am often sought by peers to consult on cases. But by no means does that mean I enjoy total approval. My methods are not typical, and I tend to practice with books of research in one hand and my open heart on the sleeve of the other. I actually ENDORSE forming emotional connections with clients in a career field that has typically been stoic, detached, and very disconnected from its clients. As expected, this has brought on all sorts of speculation - and even condemnation - about the rationale and substance of my warmer and more personally-engaged collaboration with the clients I work with, both men and women.
My approach is controversial because I see rape work as more than a basic clinical counseling business. I engage in boisterous and irreverent speech to decompress after hard work. I give hugs to someone in tears who asks. I have at times opened my home for meetings with survivors in support groups. I would offer my homemade cookies to a patient's ailing mother. I sit at the graveside and cry with a patient of a deceased toddler. I hold the hand of a patient in ICU as she vomits from an overdose. I invite women to come into the sweat lodge for cleansing, and even offer to drive them there if they are shy. I sit all night with someone who had just been raped again, and we cry together until dawn. I am not embarrassed to use the taboo word: you are my FRIENDS, my equals. And this mindset of wanting to treat the whole person in a congruent relationship has done wonders for countless clients of mine, but also raised the ire of critics who call into question the ethics of such conduct--"friends? LOVE? Surely that means you are exploiting these people!"
Were I to engage in more typical therapy--"And how does that make you feel?"--in hourly increments until insurance ran out and then passed my clients along, I would doubtless have a long career. A dull one, and one without the same spectacular outcomes, but safe and inconspicuous. I do practice "outside the box," and make efforts to follow a sincere value that seeks the well-being of the client, and that's why I seek constant feedback to know that she or he feels at ease and well-served by what we work on together. My conduct with my clients is, and always has been, impeccably moral, but like all humans doing difficult work it is also marked with occasional mistakes, errors, judgment blind spots, and failures. We all do that, but somehow we manage to accept that as part of life and continue on. However, in my profession a critic can recite every mistake made in a year, and NONE of the achievement, and those blunders become the entire estimation of your worth as a person and professional.
To me, that is very sad because even those persons who would like to draw upon my mistakes and errors to degrade my work and character are persons that I respect and maintain a genuine care for. Not one molecule of my body would like to see harm come to them; I just don't have it in me to spite or condemn them. I got into this work to uplift the worth of ALL persons, and that has never excluded persons who might criticize and misjudge me; they are children of God, and so am I, and neither should be devalued.
But being a creative, and sometimes misguided, man in this risky field brings about a constant watchfulness, because frankly it IS unusual for a male to specialize in working with rape trauma. Consequently, my stupid mistakes aren't seen merely as the evidence of misguided-but-sincere humanness, but as pathology, coercion, and values run amok...after all, there HAS to be something exploitative about a man who wants to work with traumatized women, right? When he says he cares about them, what does he REALLY want? Is he just using them to make money on a book?
Well, I have spent over a decade creating a very respected reputation. My colleagues respect me, and nearly all of my former patients disagree with my critics and defend that my character and methods have been honorable and positive. I am ready to defend the work I do, the reasons why I do it, and the methods I use to do it, to ANYONE, and I am not ashamed of the things I do in my work with survivors of rape and sexual abuse. I know full well I am a man ripe with failings and defects, but I also know that none of them outweigh my genuine care for the people who trust me in this work.
But this week, something very tragic has happened...My mom called me, and told me that she has just received a terminal medical diagnosis, with no treatment options.
Some of you have met my mom at the Survivor's Retreat: she is gentle, very loving (perhaps that's where my character defect of the same stripe comes from), very patient, she respects people, and she adores my wife and our two little boys. But she has learned that her body systems are all failing, and the doctors do not have any further methods to treat her. They advised her to simply focus on the quality of the time she has left.
Suddenly, everything is in perspective for me: who CARES what some angry critic says? So WHAT if a family that I tried to support and respect thinks everything I did was vile? Suddenly I remember that life is about more than pleasing a Board, or having 100% approval from everyone. I love my mom, and I know I am going to lose her.
My mom is at peace with this, she said, because she sees how tremendously happy Tonya and I are together, and how good we are to our children. We don't have much--we barely make ends meet, we have no health care, no college fund, no savings--but my kids have happy lives. And this has led me to make a very tough decision.
I need to focus all of my emotions, my energy, and my time on taking care of my mom and my wife and kids. I don't have much in the way of material resources, but I need to use what I have left to support my mom and spend as much time with her as possible. I cannot bear up the emotional burden of doing clinical counseling at this time because I am not able to devote my full affection, skill, and energy to those who deserve it. So I am going to ask my licensing board to accept a voluntary surrender of my license, agree to cease practicing clinical social work for an interim, and redirect my life ENTIRELY to my family's needs and my mom's care. I will answer for the criticisms made of my work and life, but not with an intention of "winning" by proving my critics wrong. Frankly, on some matters they might even be right. But I don't care; I need to redirect my focus toward my mom.
That does not mean I am leaving anyone here! No, in fact I feel more affirmation of my personal values than ever, and I am far from "burned out." What it means is that I will seek another field of work that permits me to align my emotional energy more appropriately, and not have to constantly fend off arguments that the work I try to do is wrong. I love this work too much to see it pulled to bits with animosity, but I also love my family even more.
I will remain here, remain positive, and we WILL continue to have our retreats! This does not change my values, or what it means to be me, and the fact that I truly respect and care for you all. I am simply choosing to change my professional life in a way that allows me to still serve and love others, but won't ask me to distribute my energy so scarcely to my family during our time of hardship right now.
In the meantime, money is not an issue. 'Cause hey, we got none! We have enough to sustain our lives and health, and not a penny more for waste. Tonya and I will talk at great length about our living plans, and how to offer best care to my mom who lives in another state.
I hope I have not disappointed you, and perhaps you might give our family some prayers. I have never been as happy as during my many years as a therapist, and it is not easy to voluntarily offer to walk away from such a source of joy and amazement. But my heart, my conscience, and my values persist, and I have no intention of being any less available, loving, appreciative, and loyal to those who know me.
I'm at a very tough point in my life right now, and it's got me twisted in knots. I can't sleep, barely eat, have constant headaches, and feel terribly, terribly embarrassed. But I'm going to share why.
I've mentioned that like anyone, I too have critics and people who despise the methods and reasons for what I do. To some of you this has been surprising and you've given me gracious statements of support, and it's meant more than you know. My technique of working with rape survivors has a good track record with a tremendously high success rate, to the point that I've often been the "last resort" therapist that other therapists refer clients to when progress stalls. My methodology for treating rape PTSD has become the default training for therapists in our state, and I am often sought by peers to consult on cases. But by no means does that mean I enjoy total approval. My methods are not typical, and I tend to practice with books of research in one hand and my open heart on the sleeve of the other. I actually ENDORSE forming emotional connections with clients in a career field that has typically been stoic, detached, and very disconnected from its clients. As expected, this has brought on all sorts of speculation - and even condemnation - about the rationale and substance of my warmer and more personally-engaged collaboration with the clients I work with, both men and women.
My approach is controversial because I see rape work as more than a basic clinical counseling business. I engage in boisterous and irreverent speech to decompress after hard work. I give hugs to someone in tears who asks. I have at times opened my home for meetings with survivors in support groups. I would offer my homemade cookies to a patient's ailing mother. I sit at the graveside and cry with a patient of a deceased toddler. I hold the hand of a patient in ICU as she vomits from an overdose. I invite women to come into the sweat lodge for cleansing, and even offer to drive them there if they are shy. I sit all night with someone who had just been raped again, and we cry together until dawn. I am not embarrassed to use the taboo word: you are my FRIENDS, my equals. And this mindset of wanting to treat the whole person in a congruent relationship has done wonders for countless clients of mine, but also raised the ire of critics who call into question the ethics of such conduct--"friends? LOVE? Surely that means you are exploiting these people!"
Were I to engage in more typical therapy--"And how does that make you feel?"--in hourly increments until insurance ran out and then passed my clients along, I would doubtless have a long career. A dull one, and one without the same spectacular outcomes, but safe and inconspicuous. I do practice "outside the box," and make efforts to follow a sincere value that seeks the well-being of the client, and that's why I seek constant feedback to know that she or he feels at ease and well-served by what we work on together. My conduct with my clients is, and always has been, impeccably moral, but like all humans doing difficult work it is also marked with occasional mistakes, errors, judgment blind spots, and failures. We all do that, but somehow we manage to accept that as part of life and continue on. However, in my profession a critic can recite every mistake made in a year, and NONE of the achievement, and those blunders become the entire estimation of your worth as a person and professional.
To me, that is very sad because even those persons who would like to draw upon my mistakes and errors to degrade my work and character are persons that I respect and maintain a genuine care for. Not one molecule of my body would like to see harm come to them; I just don't have it in me to spite or condemn them. I got into this work to uplift the worth of ALL persons, and that has never excluded persons who might criticize and misjudge me; they are children of God, and so am I, and neither should be devalued.
But being a creative, and sometimes misguided, man in this risky field brings about a constant watchfulness, because frankly it IS unusual for a male to specialize in working with rape trauma. Consequently, my stupid mistakes aren't seen merely as the evidence of misguided-but-sincere humanness, but as pathology, coercion, and values run amok...after all, there HAS to be something exploitative about a man who wants to work with traumatized women, right? When he says he cares about them, what does he REALLY want? Is he just using them to make money on a book?
Well, I have spent over a decade creating a very respected reputation. My colleagues respect me, and nearly all of my former patients disagree with my critics and defend that my character and methods have been honorable and positive. I am ready to defend the work I do, the reasons why I do it, and the methods I use to do it, to ANYONE, and I am not ashamed of the things I do in my work with survivors of rape and sexual abuse. I know full well I am a man ripe with failings and defects, but I also know that none of them outweigh my genuine care for the people who trust me in this work.
But this week, something very tragic has happened...My mom called me, and told me that she has just received a terminal medical diagnosis, with no treatment options.
Some of you have met my mom at the Survivor's Retreat: she is gentle, very loving (perhaps that's where my character defect of the same stripe comes from), very patient, she respects people, and she adores my wife and our two little boys. But she has learned that her body systems are all failing, and the doctors do not have any further methods to treat her. They advised her to simply focus on the quality of the time she has left.
Suddenly, everything is in perspective for me: who CARES what some angry critic says? So WHAT if a family that I tried to support and respect thinks everything I did was vile? Suddenly I remember that life is about more than pleasing a Board, or having 100% approval from everyone. I love my mom, and I know I am going to lose her.
My mom is at peace with this, she said, because she sees how tremendously happy Tonya and I are together, and how good we are to our children. We don't have much--we barely make ends meet, we have no health care, no college fund, no savings--but my kids have happy lives. And this has led me to make a very tough decision.
I need to focus all of my emotions, my energy, and my time on taking care of my mom and my wife and kids. I don't have much in the way of material resources, but I need to use what I have left to support my mom and spend as much time with her as possible. I cannot bear up the emotional burden of doing clinical counseling at this time because I am not able to devote my full affection, skill, and energy to those who deserve it. So I am going to ask my licensing board to accept a voluntary surrender of my license, agree to cease practicing clinical social work for an interim, and redirect my life ENTIRELY to my family's needs and my mom's care. I will answer for the criticisms made of my work and life, but not with an intention of "winning" by proving my critics wrong. Frankly, on some matters they might even be right. But I don't care; I need to redirect my focus toward my mom.
That does not mean I am leaving anyone here! No, in fact I feel more affirmation of my personal values than ever, and I am far from "burned out." What it means is that I will seek another field of work that permits me to align my emotional energy more appropriately, and not have to constantly fend off arguments that the work I try to do is wrong. I love this work too much to see it pulled to bits with animosity, but I also love my family even more.
I will remain here, remain positive, and we WILL continue to have our retreats! This does not change my values, or what it means to be me, and the fact that I truly respect and care for you all. I am simply choosing to change my professional life in a way that allows me to still serve and love others, but won't ask me to distribute my energy so scarcely to my family during our time of hardship right now.
In the meantime, money is not an issue. 'Cause hey, we got none! We have enough to sustain our lives and health, and not a penny more for waste. Tonya and I will talk at great length about our living plans, and how to offer best care to my mom who lives in another state.
I hope I have not disappointed you, and perhaps you might give our family some prayers. I have never been as happy as during my many years as a therapist, and it is not easy to voluntarily offer to walk away from such a source of joy and amazement. But my heart, my conscience, and my values persist, and I have no intention of being any less available, loving, appreciative, and loyal to those who know me.
In a little over a week, it will be the 5th anniversary of my older brother's death, after a long and difficult illness. So this is kind of an emotional time for me, made the more so because of the way that therapy and working through RAR, etc. has made me more aware of my buried feelings. My brother was my best friend. He left a huge hole in my heart and in my life.
I know what it is like to walk through the valley of the shadow of death with someone you love. Even though I've not met you, Matt, you've given me hope and you've touched my life in powerful ways. That has made me so grateful, and it has made me care for you. I wish I could express this better. But I know that the road ahead will be very difficult for you and your family. At the same time, there will be precious times. Even the most difficult moments, the ones that will break your heart forever, will have an amazing sweetness and sacredness about them. My prayers are with you.
For the record, not all dual relationships are automatically foul; there is such thing as a positive dual relationship too, and even ethics courses propose that some dual relationships REDUCE the likelihood of exploitation of clients by giving additional transparency and oversight to the interaction (in fact, the risk of exploitative harm correlates directly with the amount of isolation in the therapeutic relationship).
I feel morally clear on my actions, and have seen positive results in the men and women I've served in these ways. But on a purely technical level, it causes me to have to constantly fend off criticism and innuendo. It's been exhausting and I just don't agree that my actions, while at times mistaken, were ever foul or selfish. Perhaps I "went too far in the right direction." So if the things I do in an effort to help and support a survivor are met with criticism and blame instead, then it's just too wearying for me to hold that line on the one hand while caring for urgent family issues on the other.
I am sorry for the sorrowful season you are in right now, but I know you're going to be okay. Your beautiful family is going to be okay, because you guys know what matters and you're willing to do right.. no matter what.
Love, faith and hope,
kaye
It seems there are so many ways I wish to respond to your post so I will try and be as brief as possible. Much of my current work is with families that are trying to survive the sudden and often violent death of a loved one, often in complicated circumstances. So many of there issues surround what has not been said, what they could find no clarity from, and how they had wished for a little more time to tell their loved one what they meant to them. I am so pleased for you that have come to your decision to focus on those who are most important to you and spend the time you have left with your mother as best you can, and of course I am deeply sorry to hear your sad news.
The work you do is emotionally expensive and there has to be put into place some kind of realistic boundaries as to what you can expect of yourself, again I think this honesty you have shown deserves full recognition and respect although as I read and then re read your post I felt that my feelings were similer to or elses and the counsellor part of me felt a little alarmed that you are going to hand in your licence so quickly and in true counsllor context would not be being honest with you if I didn't say it. Is there any reason as to why you can't take a break without handing your licence in? and I wonder how you would respond to a patient that you cared about seem to draw drastic conclusions in highly emotive times of change? I know I would be challenging haste and identifying their is time, I do appreciate that there are clearly other matters that have also infuenced this decision.
In your post you highlight being accused of writing a book for financial gain (I to have been accused of this and have only in part talked about it) but I offer a different argument. It is not exploitative but even us mental health workers do need to support our own families. I am aware this may sound controversial but do we challenge doctors who and surgeons who carry out their daily work and expect them to carry the burden a long time out of work hours? and then expect tem to do this out of the goodness of there hearts despite the hours of devotion they have spent learning their field? No of course we don't. Yet people are quick to point the finger at therapists. So to an extent I say so what to those who are to closed and defensive to fully consider the full extent of energy and comitment to dedicate yourself to a vocation such as this and then as a result go with out.
I feel it is a sad reflection of the society that we live in that runs away from fear and shuts down at the very point in time that needs to be met with courage and togetherness. Yet in the last chapter of yalom's gift of therapy he speaks of his concerns about the true future of psychotherapy and the need to enjoy the good out of the work you do. Roger's to faced no end of critiscim for working with the whole person and the need to be fully in contact with the client. My undrstanding of his six core conditions and the nineteen propositions is offering the client a safe and loving contained environment, if fact in becoming a person he refers to the six conditions as unconditional love.
You need to what is best for you and I know you will find your way. I wish you luck and hope you find the peace you are searching. Whether you are doing your work or not it will continue through the people you have touched both personally and professionaly.
Take really good care of yourself and your family
Best wishes
Deb
As far as I'm concerned, being a healer isn't so much of an occupation, it's more of a personal trait or mindset that you take with you into any job that you do - even chicken sexing if it really comes to that!
(Sorry if that's a bad joke right now, I hope you see what I'm trying to say.)
This is what Tonya and I have been discussing recently, so consider this almost like a journal entry.
I sought a career in social work because I believed this profession was distinct from other counseling fields in that it asks us to be very innovative, progressive, and tireless advocates for our clients. In this day of "managed standardized care", counseling has become a bland conglomeration of least-risk methods, such as sitting in my office and talking ("and how does that make you feel?") until your insurance stops paying. Social workers are NOT imitations of other clinical fields. As a social worker, we are taught to see our clients holistically, which means we address far more than a diagnostic problem code. We are taught something called "systems theory", which means we are meant to impact the client's multiple life systems: mental health, cultural, spiritual, familiar, legal, physical, emotional, and even financial. As taught, we are supposed to engage with a client in a way that permeates those systems, but in real practice this is frowned upon as a "dual relationship" because we have left the boundary of hourly office talk-therapy. But we were originally taught to develop three tiers of work: micro, meso, and macro interventions.
Micro interventions are the one-on-one work that counselors do. Sadly, 99% of all therapy settles there and goes no further.
Meso interventions are those that broaden our work to include the client's outside-office life: family, employment, legal, financial, spiritual, and cultural needs. At this point, we are intended to "leave the office" and join with our client in addressing their needs in many parts of their lives. A "meso intervention" would bring a client to a sweatlodge, or create a support group in a city where none previously existed, or go with a client to a DHS office, or help the family of an anorexic client plan meals together in their home, or organize a "cleanup party" for the house of an infirm elder. Anyone ever see a therapist do any of this stuff? Ever??
Macro interventions are the efforts we understand to engage in positive social change: activism, policy work, research and publication, etc. Macro work can involve individual clients, too: a social worker is not bound to doing "conventional therapy" only, and might reasonably begin the client's goal of working together to help guide a client into new approaches to social change. An addicted client, for example, might work with a social worker to develop his/her education toward the goal of becoming a drug counselor someday. An abuse victim might work with their social worker to develop "Take Back the Night" events and begin to speak publicly about their own story. Social work is *supposed* to see these as appropriate goals and methods of including the client in social advocacy.
Social work professors pounded it into my head that we are meant to join with the client, as opposed to remaining stoically detached, in what we call "client collaboration". We work with the client where the client begins, and we are supposed to develop a new and innovative treatment for EACH AND EVERY CLIENT. We develop this work by consulting established research, and also by seeking continual client feedback about their needs and goals (this is called "client self-determination"). Systems theory proposes that client feedback is THE primary tool for assessing our own work...not mind-reading, not psychic ability, not fortune-telling, but the CLIENT'S feedback. Does he/she tell us our method is working? Do they say they want to continue? Do they report an intention to continue in a particular direction of our work? This puts the client in control of the process, but also makes the client personally responsible for giving feedback that is honest because it is the best data we social workers have to work with. We simply cannot know that our levels of intervention are truly positive if our "systems feedback" from clients is faulty, dishonest, or worst of all, not even sought. ALL available research now finds that the quality of the worker-client relationship is THE primary determinant of treatment success (by implication, then, success in treatment indicates a positive worker-client bond; clients simply don't improve if their relationship with their worker is faulty).
So these are the value I bring into this work. Dr. Yalom, the premier master of psychotherapy, urges therapists to allow our patients to emotionally matter to us--and to tell them so!
The problem is that our work today is tyrannized by risk-management. In other words, we can't be fully therapeutic because we are all afraid. Our profession calls on us to truly bond with, and form a collaborative dyad with, our clients--this, incidentally is VERY different than the approach of an LPC or psychologist--but we're all too afraid to actually do that. My colleagues have openly told me, "Matt, I just can't practice social work the way it was taught to me. I can be legal and ethical, but then the clients only get whatever crumbs of therapeutic work are left." We HAVE to stay in the box of very conventional treatment methods, insurance approval, and office appointment schedules. Our strict managed care habit now makes people very nervous when a social worker leaves the "box" and actually attempts more progressive work, even with a client who identifies such work as her treatment goal! Our business model of treatment balks and says "You're going off script! Get back in the office and type progress notes and clock out!" I see our fears causing us to dumb down our work.
My values are incongruent with a dumbed-down conservative approach to client care. If the expectation is that we simply treat a diagnosis with reimbursement approval for an hour a week, then social work is losing its original zeal like a wet firework.
I chose this profession because I truly care for people and want to see lives improve. It makes me happy to see other people discover the wonder of recovery, the thrill of overcoming a years-old fear, the joy of seeing a "survivor" tattoo cover an arm formerly scarred by self-injury. This is not a codependent rationale for doing this work, because I constantly respond to gratitude by giving the honor and glory right back to YOU, pleading with all of you not to exalt my role in any way at all. In fact, I continually re-acknowledge my own fallibility and potential for human character defects (Dr. Linehan, the creator of DBT treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder, once said that all therapy begins with the premise that "all therapists are jerks.")
I love my work because I love the PEOPLE in it...well, mostly. I don't think that's a character defect, or even a moral one, but I DO think it's a professional defect--at least in the form our profession takes today. In our world today, a therapist who goes beyond office-and-insurance protocol to attempt radical meso- and macro-interventions is seen as suspect, not innovative, and the sad problem of men's sexual misconduct with female clients has tainted even our own profession's trust of social workers who are unconventional and invigorated by our work with our clients--even when our conduct is impeccably clean by all accounts.
So here I am, with a heart full of affection and appreciation for the men and women I work with, and with no qualms about telling you that you matter to me, I believe in you, and I delight in seeing your amazing achievements. And hundreds of men and women have said that this attitude of mine is what helped them finally commit to their work in therapy with me, because they had only found bland detachment from workers they had seen previously. This tells me that I was not made this way by accident, that it's not a flaw or fault in God's design that I feel an emotional bond with the people I serve. It's good, it's healthy, it's something many people have said helped them. I don't have the smallest inclination to seek selfish profit or promotion at the expense of genuine work with someone in need; I feel fulfilled by participating in the vibrant process of seeing a victim become a survivor and then depart to take on her new world with faith and courage. What more could one seek? If our fundamental human drive is to seek meaning and purpose in the universe, then I've found it. I've been a very happy man, not a man who feels incomplete and craves fulfillment through the dependence and gratitude of vulnerable victims.
So my values, which I defend as morally and personally positive, must have a place somewhere in this world. If social work views these values as rogue, then what profession DO they belong in? If God gave me the ability and desire to love persons who may not even love themselves at times, and to see wonderful people instead of seeing "the girl who's slept with a hundred guys", and to support a survivor who now wants to proudly tell her story, then how do I practice? It's not sufficient to just be a clinician for one hour to treat you as one diagnosis and wave goodbye when insurance tells me our work is done. Nothing about that represents good social work values, but it's nearly all we have left.
I also think that the western world has gone risk assessment crazy and in many ways I feel this is ruining societies and driving people into isolation
I am glad that you are going to take the time to focus on your family.
However, the tears flow ...
Thank you my friend! Thank you for being such a blessing.
best wishes to all
Deb
It is with great reluctance that I reach out to you but after reading your post, I felt compelled to write. I am a man who has never been raped or sexually abused. Maybe that's why God lead me to your site. I am a writer. I cannot tell you why I was inspired to write a screenplay about rape. I do not even remember choosing the topic. I just found myself on a path not entirely of my choosing.
I researched as I always do. I read Robin Warshaw's book, did independent research and read numerous case histories. I did not interview rape victims or survivors. I decided that I did not want to do that until a producer committed (or "attached" as is is known in the industry) and I knew the screenplay would be made into a film at some level.
I wrote what I thought was a pretty good screenplay. And then God lead me to your site. After spending a week or two reading the posts I suddenly realized that I never got it. Never got it at all. What does not come through the statistics or the factual accounts is the intense pain. And it was that pain which leaped out from every post by everyone who joined this site. I set about re-writing the entire screenplay, this time to tell the story truly and accurately. To reveal the pain.
Writing it changed me in ways I cannot explain. I am not ashamed to admit that in writing several scenes, I cried. I cried every time I edited the scene not because it was sad, but because it was true. I finished the screenplay and registered it. I was tempted to submit it to your members. You alone can tell me if I have finally gotten it. But I feared it might be a negative trigger. I am in the process of submitting it to the agent of an aspiring young actress who I hope will seize upon the lead role. If she does I intend to introduce her to your site and perhaps ask if she can come to one of your retreats. If she is to tellyur story, she has to get it too.
Having finished the screenplay and moved on to other projects I no longer visited daily but I have dropped in now and then to see how everyone is doing. My prayers are for you daily. But I was not going to contact anyone until I saw your post. I felt I wanted to make a contribution on several levels.
First, all that's good comes from God. All that's good returns to God someday. Your Mother's work here is done. It's her time. Take the diagnosis for what it is, a gift. My father dropped dead one night at the age of 49. I was 19. For me there has never been closure. This is your opportunity to end it the right way.
Professionally (I am also an attorney) I have been the subject of several ethics complaints. In one case the same complaint was filed 9 times. I know how draining they are. You do what you gotta do for your family. You can come back and practice later.
Finally, in law school I was a day student. One day I met an older gentleman who was going nights. He was a surgeon who was getting too old for surgery and was studying law to become a professional witness. Then he told me his story. As a young man he came up with this idea of taking veins from the leg and using them to replace clogged veins leading to and from the heart. This procedure was so radical that only the dead and dying volunteered for the procedure. He lost his first 12 patients. He became known in the profession as the Butcher of Philidelphia. His privileges were suspended at every hospital but one. That last hospital was meeting to suspend his privileges when the first patient survived. Today heart bypass surgery is standard procedure. His willingness to risk his professional life has saved millions of lives. In your practice continue to do what he did, follow your head and your heart. It will lead you to truth.
Now that readers know that I have been evesdropping, I hope they will not think too badly of me. In my defense I will only say this. In the screenplay I wanted to tell your story. Maybe if I can explain what you go through on a daily basis, more people will understand and be able to help you recover. Let me close by saying simply God loves you. And so do I.
If you read Robin Warshaw's book, I NEVER CALLED IT RAPE, you may recall the story of Kathi Vanderharr. Kathi as a 15 year old was sexually abused by three hockey players. After researching Kathi's story I made the screenplay revolve around her. It is not the story of anyone on this site. What came from this site and nowhere else was the pain. I have been through adversity. I went bankrupt and lost everything. I survived cancer and a stroke. I have never been where so many of you are. And simply reading statistics and rape accounts does not convey the intense pain you deal with every day. I tried to take that sense of pain and lost innocence and build it into the experiences of the two lead female characters. It is through them that I have tried to convey what it really means to be a rape survivor.
I want the film if made to be a PG-13 to reach the widest possible audience. The rape scene as written is brutal but not graphic. It will be my recommendation that the director be a woman. A woman will have the better sense of the line between being brutal but not graphic.
I received several responses which generously offered to provide whatever additional information I needed to tell your story. I thank you and someday I may ask you to come forward but not with me. I may ask those who are willing to spend time with the actresses who will play the rape victims and describe the ugliness in greater detail so that they will be better able to protray it on the screen. Neither I nor any man will be present for those discussions. I could not possibly ask any of you to share with me the actual event or what it was like. I would never do anything to hurt any of you.
As I said originally, I was going to make the screenplay available to all of you to get your input but I am afraid of setting you back. But if Matt wants to send me an e-mail address I would be happy to send it to him. I would appreciate his feedback.
I would like to ask however, how does your screenplay ....resolve the rape? I mean, as you can see here, this quest for recovery lasts, for many of us, a lifetime. How will you draw your screenplay to a conclusion that diesn't leave an audience feeling that it is also 'over' for the victim? I believe one of my greatest upsets with my own recovery is that I haven't gotten there. I was gang raped in 1970. That was a long time ago, and many here were not even born. I was 12, so that hindered me alot too. But, after all these years, it can be a brutal a memory. Will your film address that, or make it seem like once the film ends, so does the terror?
Sorry...I guess this is kind of hijacking a post. Didn't mean to do that, but this kind of intrigues...and concerns me.