Take Me As I Am..........

I've been sorting and organizing all of my emails, notes, official papers, etc. that pertain to my adventure with the "justice" system.  First thing anyone must learn and embrace when dealing with the courts is this:  It is a LEGAl system not a JUSTICE system.  Until you can embrace that and prepare yourself to be disappointed more than you ever have before do not go to the police.  It is not the police officers' fault - it is our stupid, antiquainted, out moded, "accused has all the rights" system that we in Canada are stuck with. 

When you go to the police and have your statement taken there are many steps to be followed which I will share with you in future posts.  Here is the lesson that I learned the hard and painful way and I had to wait until I was knee deep in pain, humiliation, embarassement and frustration to be educated. The first step is that the police recommend whatever charges they can to Crown Counsel - who let's all understand this one fact - are there to defend the victim of the crime.  Step one at Crown is that the file goes to a "gatekeeping" committee who reiviews the file and makes the decision as to whether to press charges and forward the file to the appopriate prosecutor or to bounce the file back to the police.  Here is the criteria that the file must meet to be accepted:

1. Is this a winnable case?  Reason: It is the public's money that is being spent at Crown so they only take on cases that they are sure they can win.  LOVELY.
2. Will the victim be a credible witness in a court room?  And they can tell this from a bunch of paper?  They must be pyschic.

There are 3 more criteria that are just as meaningless to a victim.  My RCMP officer actually took my file to the Court House and met with the prosecutor who handles all of the sex crime files and from what I was told he felt the file was worthy of taking to court but even he can't over ride the committee at the front door. That hurt me right to the core.  I know for a fact that my abuser would have folded like a cheap tent the first time he even parked in the parking lot at the Court House.  I know that he would have either had to plead guilty or hire some lawyer to defend him and then the prosecutor would have had the chance to rip him to shreds on the stand.  I know that I was cheated out of the opportunity to be able to write and read a Victim's Impact Statement.  It felt like being abused all over again.  I grieved deeply for a year as I tried to accept the fact that I would never be able to have justice.  I still grieve for that loss and I probably will for the rest of HIS life.

So.........before I sit down and piece together 3 years of RCMP interviews,etc. let me leave you with this:


I might not be someone's first choice, However, I am a great choice.
I don't pretend to be someone I'm not, because I'm good at being me.
I might not be proud of some of the things I've done in the past, however, I'm proud of who I am today.
I may not be perfect, however, I don't need to be.
Take me as I am, or watch me as I walk away.

The Letter

Please - before you read any further I need you to know that there are some hard truths in the following post that may be uncomfortable for you to read. 

June 2, 2007 - One of those life altering moments......afte a year of therapy I had finally reached the place where I was ready to confront my abuser in the presence of my therapist.  What did I hope to gain?  I wanted to see him in a very vulnerable position - something he had done to me for 20 years. I wanted him to be face to face with me and have to look me and either admit that he had done this to me or watch him try to lie his way out of the reality.  I wanted him to hurt to the core although I now know that he is a sociopath and they tend to have no remorse or guilt for any action.  I wanted him to see that I was no longer under his influence of fear and that he now needed to be fearful of me and what further action I might take.  I wanted him to know that he was now a marked man.

My therapist arranged for this meeting.  I was to wait in the parking lot until Fred came out to get me. All the way up in the elevator I was trying to breathe and be strong but the minute the door opened I turned against the wall and tried to go back onto the elevator.  Fred put his arm around my shoulder and literally took me into his office - I had to walk past my uncle who was sitting in the waiting area.  I had some time alone with Fred to pull myself together and then he was invited in and sat on the other side of the office with Fred on a chair beside me.  I started to read my letter and the tears began to drop onto the paper blurring the ink.  I never made eye contact with him once.  I finished reading my letter and I am not sure what really happened next but I do remember him saying that he knew exactly how I felt because he had been abused by 2 of his sisters.  The lamest most pathetic statement : he knew how I felt?  A bit more babbling on his part and then he finally said the words that I wanted to hear " Well if it's an apology that you want, you've got it." He said it very flippantly in an almost mocking tone of voice. But - he admitted to his actions.  Surely this would be the statement that could be used against him......  I still had not raised my head to look at him and finally Fred sent him on his way and then worked with me for awhile so that I could go home.  I still have that letter - blurred ink where my tears fell - and I have placed it in my memory box.  The events of that afternoon led to a very pivotal point in my journey.  I soon became file #07-20901 with the Langley RCMP Serious Crimes.

The letter:

I want to thank you for coming here today.  When I heard that you had been very agreeable to this meeting I wondered if you had any idea why you have been asked here.  Today is the day that my existing life is over and I begin working on building a brand new life.  A life that is going to be filled with joy, love, peace, confidence, happiness and a sense of being safe.  For 30 years I have not experienced these feelings and I grieve for a life not lived.

In 1976 your actions towards me sent me down a path of life that has done nothing but cause me pain and sorrow.  I missed out on having the life that I dreamt about.  I have never had a normal relationship with a man, I never married and had the children that I so badly wanted to have and I have never had the partner in life that I deserve and desire. My heart hurts inside for the life that I lost and I wonder if I will have the time, opportunity and courage to ever have that life.   All because you chose to prey on and seduce me.  I know that I wasn’t your first choice.  I know that you made a move on my sister but she was strong enough to rebuff you and despises you to this day.  But it didn’t take you long to realize that I would be easier prey.  I was the chubby child who had tried unsuccessfully to be good enough for her father and who was repeatedly told how much she reminded her mother of her father, a man she hated.

I had never really known you when I was a child and first met you when I was about 17 years old in the summer of 1976.  Growing up in a very dysfunctional family I had had no father/daughter relationship and you were the first male to really pay attention to me.  My mother was extremely distracted at the time – she had just fled a dangerous situation with my dad, she was in a new relationship with a man that was as equally dysfunctional as my father and she was dealing with a lot of hostility from Allison.  My mother also really adored you and she looked up to you.  You were her saviour when she arrived in Coquitlam.  And when I flew in to have a visit with my mother before leaving for school I, a young, shy teenager, met you – and I was mesmerized.  You paid so much attention to me, you treated me like an adult, you flirted with me – in front of your girlfriend Barb - and my mother missed every inappropriate action.  I saw you again at Christmas time.  Do you remember the trip to Princeton to see the new store?  Do you remember asking me to sit beside you in the car? 

The summer of 1977 you did something so inappropriate, that today, 30 years later, I still cry whenever I think of that night.  You attempted to seduce me in front of your fireplace and later crawled into bed with me and ran your hand up my leg. I was so inexperienced and naïve.  I knew that something was wrong but I didn’t know how to stop you.  Saying “no” to my father had always resulted in either being yelled at or hit, so I had learned at an early age that “no” didn’t work for me.  You bragged to me so many times how many women you had slept with – that you couldn’t even remember the number.  I was clearly way out of my league here and you took complete advantage of me.  There was no one to talk to, no one to save me from your intentions.  I got on a plane and went back to school with a horrible secret that scared me and embarrassed me. 

Christmas 1977 - my mother invited you and Tony to spend Christmas with our family in Princeton. It was arranged that you would pick me up at the airport in Vancouver and take me with you to Princeton. I had so hoped that you had either forgotten about what had happened or had realized how inappropriate it was.  The house was full of family and I thought that I would be safe there.  I was sleeping on the couch and woke up to find you on your knees beside me with your hand under the quilt on my thigh.  You begged me not to say anything to my mother. I cannot to this day believe that you were that bold as to pull a stunt like that with 5 other people sleeping within yards of that couch. How I wish now that you had been caught or that I had told my mother.  But, that would have ruined Christmas for everyone, so I said nothing.  That summer my mother, once again completely distracted by yet another dysfunctional relationship called upon you for help and you were only too happy to head down to Princeton to save her again. You were my Mother’s favorite brother and I think you took advantage of that. That night you took me to the Princeton Hotel bar – even though I was underage – and you treated me like a “date” not a niece.    My mother was fighting with everyone in the house and it was “suggested” that I come down to Langley to work with you and Phil in the store.  It took you a few days but you finally managed to finish what you had started the summer before.

Over the next 20 years you gave me diseases, you used me as your own private whore, you dragged me into your stupid little game of espionage to try to catch Marilyn in her affair and you even suggested once that you wanted to have another woman in bed with me at the same time.  Do you remember asking me if it would be ok if you found another guy so that you could hide in the closet and watch?  When I think of some of the things you said and did I am physically ill.  I cry every day for the life that was stolen from me, for the things that you did to me, for the shame that I feel, for the guilt I carry that I did not find the courage to stand up for myself against you. You will never ever know how you ruined my life.  You are a sexual predator and a sexual deviant - you are exactly like your own father.   The 3 adults in my life that I should have been able to rely on either abandoned me or used me when I needed them the most.  My father emotionally and physically abused me, my mother was so distracted by all of the dysfunctional men in her life and trying to raise Louise on her own that she wasn’t emotionally available and you – You saw the weakness in me and you preyed on that. You could have been my “hero”, a mentor, someone that I could rely upon and trust, especially after my parents died when I was only 25 and 28 years old.   

 You stole from me my innocence, so many first experiences that should have been shared with someone who loved me and that I would be able to remember with tenderness and fondness, not embarrassment and disgust.  You single-handedly destroyed my life for your own simple pleasure. To this day I feel like damaged goods, it takes me forever to trust someone,  I feel starved for love and affection and would love nothing more than to be hugged but I am frightened beyond belief to have anyone touch me in an intimate way.  I struggle to feel safe even in my own home and I have worked hard at overcoming my anxiety about leaving my home.  I have many days when I do not want to live but yet I also do not want to die.  I am so envious of the solid family lives that I see around me, knowing I will never have that and that hurts me to the core. No one will ever call me “Mom or Grandma”.  I worry that I will die all alone.

 It is my hope that you can find it in your heart to show me some remorse, to apologize for the destruction you caused. I don’t know if I will be able to forgive you but that is one of my next tasks I will work on.  For 30 years I have carried a lot of pain in my heart and I know that you don’t have 30 years left to live, but I hope that every day that you do have left you think about what you did to me and feel just some of the pain that I have lived with and continue to live with to this day.

 Again, thank you for coming here and allowing me to read this letter to you as part of my journey of healing.  I would ask that you never contact me again.

The Crash

Okey Dokey.........been a wild ride for that past few weeks.........anyone who has ever suffered from PTSD/Anxiety/Depression knows that every once in awhile, out of nowhere, when you least expect it...........kaboom..........you are hit with a "crash".  Sometimes these events are a day long, maybe a week........or sometimes they last for a long time and take you to the very depths of your soul.  Sometimes they are triggered by past events and sometimes they are triggered by numerous current events all piled one on top of the other.  Sometimes they are medication issues that need to be adjusted.  Whatever the cause of the "crash" the result is a dark, scary, heart broken place that you wonder if you even want to try to recover from.  When you open your eyes in the morning and your first thought is " oh crap....I can't do this another day" and you are in tears before you have even got out of bed, when you know that most people just don't "get it" and that this will be another day that you have to paste on some sort of phoney smile or better yet......just stay home, close the blinds to keep the world out and try very hard not to put your burden onto anyone else.........at a time when you most need these people it is very hard to make it all work. It's hard to find a reason to even want to make it all work.

That's where I've been for the past 6 weeks.  Some days were very very dark and other days were manageable.  There was the day I went to the doctor's in my pajamas and cried and said " I cannot do this another day".  There was the day that I fell apart in a total heap of rubble on the running trail because I was scared out of my wits when a man stepped out in front of me ( quite innocent on his part) but triggered the most frightening piece of my memories and before I could get a grip on my world I slowly fell apart to the point that my friend Laurel had to come and get me from the trail and I fell to my knees and sobbed.  There was the day I rec'd a few texts from a very dear friend that were rec'd by me in a very painful way - I thought my heart was truly breaking into pieces - if I put my hand on my heart I felt it cracking and breaking.  I've been to the doctor, the lab, the pharmacy, my therapist and then repeated that cycle.  I've had some medication changes, the most annoying apt with the Pyschiatrist that I have to see once a year to sign off on my meds - the woman is a complete ass in my opinion. 

So........now that I feel that I coming back into the land of the living and working hard at making my days meaningful I am ready to carry on with my story - just not today!

There are imprints in your brain that no matter how hard you try to work past them they are there forever stained and marked.  They don't go away.  They are part of your soul.  You don't just "get over it" as some people would like to believe.  You "get around it" the best way that you know how.  You have to find your voice and your words and quietly and gracefully take care of yourself first. 

But........thankfully I can pull it out of my butt when I need to because in the midst of all of this darkness I had my full on, face to face 2 hour interview with a retired RCMP officer who is working on my enhanced security clearance!  I tell you, I was at my best that morning!  I might lose a few battles along the way but I am going to win the war!!!

Good to be back............:-))

Lyin' Eyes ( by the Eagles)

It's the summer of 1977!  I've finished my first year of University and took the train back to Vancouver with all of my "stuff" to spend the summer with my mom in her new store in Princeton.  It was the May long weekend and I took to the bus from Princeton to Vancouver to spend the weekend with my aunt and uncle in North Vancouver. My uncle offered to pick me up at the bus station and deliver me up to North Vancouver.  He took me out for dinner first - The Spaghetti Factory down in Gastown - and I am quite sure that anyone around us would have thought that we were out on a dinner date judging by how he acted. He was laughing and making balloon animals and just generally trying to "impress" me. There was that "weird" feeling inside again but I had no words to explain it.  On one hand it was very nice to be taken out to dinner and doted on but on the other hand it did not feel right in my gut.  Lesson learned - always trust your gut feelings - your gut is your second brain.

After dinner we proceeded to drive over to North Vancouver.  I know that he knew where he was supposed to be going - he'd lived in Vancouver for probably 20 years at that point.  How hard is it to find a street that is one block off of Mountain Highway for heaven's sake?  I know that now,  but at the time I had no clue where we were or where we were supposed to be going.  It was quite dark out by that time and he was making a big fuss over not being able to find the street - driving around and around the dark subdivisions of the North Shore area making turn after turn.  By that point I was really getting scared - I've never been the person who finds getting lost just part of the whole adventure!  I suggested that we stop and ask for directions at a gas station and it was clear to him that I was not at all comfortable.  Amazingly, within about 5 minutes - presto - there we were at Pierard Drive!  There is no doubt in my mind that he was driving in circles for the sole purpose of trying to find an opportunity or the guts to make a move on me. Sunday afternoon my aunt and uncle dropped me off at an open house you were having for you to take me to dinner at then over to catch my bus home. 

And all the time that we were driving around.........he had a cassette tape of the Eagles playing.......a black car with burgundy interior.........some things you just never forget.

Horse Drawn Sleigh Rides.........

Seventeen years old........in 1976 when I was 17 I was more like today`s 14 year old.  I was not a social butterfly in high school, I was not at all the important parties on the weekend, I never came to school on Monday with a low cut shirt and a neckful of hickies to show everyone - my big claim to fame was that I frequented the indoor smoking area - wow! I babysat for most of the local RCMP families, I taught piano and theory lessons during the week and practiced my own piano studies for my exams, I worked weekends at a local drugstore.  In hindsight - my mom had it pretty easy with me!  When I graduated from high school I knew 1 thing - I was going to the University of Sask. enrolled in the College of Education.  Not because I had always dreamed of being a teacher and going away to school......because my dad said I was going to university and there would be no discussion.  Why the College of Education - because I had no idea what choices I might have had, my Grandmother had taught school forever ( even in the little one room school house) and because somehow I won the local Teacher`s Scholarship for a first year Education student. My life was planned out except for one thing.........I didn`t plan it.  I was homesick, I didn`t want to be there, I was so socially and emotionally delayed - I was the proverbial fish out of water.

Needless to say I was one happy person to board a plane out of Saskatoon in December of 1976 to go to Coquitlam and be with my family for a month.  I had rec`d letters from my mom every week sharing with me her plan to buy a store in Princeton  - a gift and grocery store - the big city of Coquitlam was not for her and my uncle, being a real estate agent, had found the perfect place for her in Princeton.  We made a trip up there during my stay that Christmas and oddly enough the one very vivid memory of that trip that I have - my uncle got into the back seat and specifically asked me to sit beside him.  Weird but very complimentary in a back handed way. We all had Christmas dinner together and as a family spent more time together thru out that month.  After I flew back to Saskatoon and settled in for the second half of my first year a strange letter came in the mail one day.  My uncle wrote to me that he was envious of all of the boys at University who would be the ones to sit beside me during the long cold winter evenings and go on horse drawn sleigh rides with me.  Hello, I was in Saskatoon going to school - not filming an episode of Little House on the Prairie.  And....how weird is it that your uncle is envious of boys being around his niece.........at the time I had no clue just how weird this was........I was being groomed and I had this person who was only 12 years older than me writing to me at university.  Oh God how I wish I could turn the clock back 35 years. 

Stalking his prey, tiptoeing around in the forest, carefully covering his tracks and camoflauging his true existance,  tossing out bits of tempting treats to lure his prey out into the open and away from the safety of the herd.....always adjusting his view in the sights of his rifle....the hunter waits patiently in silence for that one perfect shot..............

A hunter is born.......

Here I sit, Esme is asleep across my feet - her way of not letting me out of her sight unnanounced - and needing to do 2 things.  1. Hit the "open" button on the 2010 Tax Return software and 2. Catch my flight on the next space shuttle.  Since I'm not at all packed for my trip to the moon that would leave option #1.....for a few more minutes anyway!

I need to back up in my story a bit to give you more of an idea of how my uncle worked his way into our world. I had forgotten to mention that 2 years prior to my mother leaving Swift Current her mother had died quite suddenly.  Her trip to Vernon to bury her mother was the first time that she had reconnected with some of her siblings - one of them being her brother, my eventual torturer.  She was quite taken with him I think.  He was very urban and quite successful at his career.  Perhaps the most defining moment for her during that occasion was the night right after my Grandmother's burial.  Each of her 9 children had taken a red rose from the casket spray and somehow during the night my uncle realized that he had lost his rose.  In the middle of a February night he walked quite a distance to the cemetary, found her grave and took another rose from the spray of flowers laying on top of her grave.  My mother, being ever maternal, thought that this was the most heroic and stoic event and she spoke almost reverantly about him after she returned home.  He called our home a few times - family squabbles regarding the will, etc. had begun in earnest and he was the one sibling that my mother seemed to believe in and even told him on the phone that he was her favourite brother. There was a large age difference between the 2 of them and I really think that my mother conveyed a message of "motherly" love to my uncle.  I think that he knew that but I also think that he knew that he had his "foor in the door" to my world. At that point all he would have had known about me was the what the family photos that my mother took with her to Vernon would have shown. A hunter stalks his prey, slowly, quietly, never wanting to step on a branch or a twig that could shatter the silence and catch the calm, gentle doe feeding on the grass.  No, the hunter has patience, the hunter waits to have that doe in the crosshairs of his scope, waits for that moment when she is singled out from her herd and unsuspecting of any tragedy about to befall her - he waits until he has the perfect clean shot - and then...........

And so it begins........

Oh my.....still recovering from a rather major "crash". Life handed me the perfect storm of about 5 things all at one time and my boat was swamped and no life jacket to grab onto.  Without sounding like a big drama queen - this was a physical and emotional slap upside the head.  Physically - it never even occured to me that my thryoid issue could be having a flare up - normally I can feel it in my throat within days of the levels risisng but I guess I missed the signs of this one 'cause it was a beauty.  I had gone to the doctor looking like a homeless person - 2nd day of the same pajamas, head by bed, and eyes that looked like the rings of Saturn. I held myself together long enough for him to shut the door and then all bets were off.  I have the best doctor and he never just pats me on the head and suggests it might be "stress".  He's been on this long journey with me and he knows that when I crash - I crash.  He asked me the question that all doctors have to ask their patients who look like I did - "Do you feel you are in danger of hurting yourself?".  No, I'm not finished with a few people yet so I'm staying around to see how that all plays out. ( to say “yes” gets you a one way ticket to the pysch ward in Langley which is about the worst place in the world to ever end up. Never say “yes”)    Then he looked at his computer screen and reminded me that my 6 month check of my TSH levels was about 13 months overdue so how about I pop over to the lab on the way home and have that done.  Off I went to the lab - still looking like a hobo, in fact a little too off the wall because the tech that was taking my blood actually looked at my Medic Alert bracelet and asked if I was diabetic - and then I dragged my butt back home still full of despair and anxiety and the insidious fear that PTSD leaves you with.  Well, bit of shock the next day when the dr's office calls and asks me to get my butt back down there ASAP.  This time I actually was dressed!  I sat down in the same chair, feeling the same "I can't fight this anymore" feeling,  when in came the dr with a smile on his face and the words "good news - your TSH levels are 3 times higher than they should be!"  I swear my jaw hit the floor - I was totally shocked.  Not only was I dealing with wacked out TSH levels but that issue also played havoc with my regular meds and basically nothing was acting like it was supposed to. New prescription for my thyroid pills which sadly, take a few weeks to build up enough in my system to actually start working and orders for a new blood draw in 2 months.  This could take awhile to find the amount of meds I have to take to compensate for what my body isn't making to bring the level back down to "normal". Somehow tho' having a logical answer for my illogical feelings was very soothing.

And while my body was running its own personal little horror show 2 events occured within days of each other that kinda blew my heart apart.  I can cope with the physical and the emotional just not all at one time.  Mix the two and I'm done like dinner.

Time to pick up the thread of the story where I last left off  - my family moving to BC. It was arranged that I would fly out to see them just before I left for University in the fall. My mother was settled into a rental home in Coquitlam that some friends of hers had helped her find.  Life seemed to be sorting itself out for the 4 of them - at least on the exterior.  My mother had also made contact with her brother and sister that lived in Vancouver and North Vancouver.  I had met my uncle once when I was quite young and did not really remember him.  He was quite a bit younger than my mother and they had never really connected as siblings.  She was however quite enjoying seeing her family again and invited my uncle and his then girlfriend over to dinner while I was visiting.  I answered the door to find a very handsome, Westside/Kitsilano guy with a very attractive girlfriend named Barbara.  As the evening wore on the conversation took a bit of a turn and I found myself being complimented and spoken to by my uncle somewhat as if we were 2 strangers and he was trying to "pick me up".  He complimented me far more than I think would be considered "normal" and paid more attention to me than to his girlfriend.  When they left at the end of the evening his hug goodbye was more than the perfunctory family hug.  Odd.  This all took place in my mother's living room in front of everyone there. 

Over the years I have learned the term "grooming".  Grooming is the process where abusers slowly worm their way into their victim's world, it's such a subtle process that no one even notices, especially the victim.  Most pedofiles and family abusers don't make a move on their target right away - they need to earn the "trust" of the victim and slowly and insidiously suck them into their eerie world of wickedness.  That evening, in front of my family and his girlfriend, my uncle had begun the "grooming" process.