When the story broke this spring of Kenny Klein\u2019s arrest for child pornography, I felt a powerful need to speak to<\/a> that story, and to share what I could of the professional expertise I\u2019d gained as a therapist working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse. \u00a0I was grateful that Jason gave me a platform for sharing that work, and that so many people read it and understood it.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not writing from that perspective today. \u00a0Today, I\u2019m granting myself the luxury of responding just as myself, for myself, as the human being who carries the memories of doing the work that I did ten years ago.<\/p>\n What follows\u2026 is about me. \u00a0This is what I<\/em> feel today.<\/p>\n I feel sad. \u00a0Of course I do.<\/p>\n I\u2019m saddened, not so much because of the place Bradley has had in so many Pagan hearts as because it is simply one more story of human trauma and pain.\u00a0 This news story reflects decades of suffering on the parts of many people\u2013and even one would have been too many. \u00a0But to me, in all honesty, that sadness is old news; I\u2019ve spent my entire adult life hearing stories like this one.<\/p>\n The sadness is old, but it\u2019s not the only thing I\u2019m feeling. \u00a0Reading this story today, I\u2019m aware of something new: a quiet current of hope is flowing within me.<\/p>\n In his coverage Jason mentions how hard the story was to write, because of triggers of his own. \u00a0And maybe it\u2019s heartless, but I\u2019m relieved not to be the only person holding some hard emotions around the epidemic of sexual abuse and assault going on around us every day. \u00a0This, to me, is good news: one thing I am learning this year, as the Pagan world staggers under revelations of sexual abuse in our midst, is how many of us have histories as survivors or as friends and community to survivors. \u00a0For me, this is the new story, the groundbreaking story. \u00a0I\u2019m not alone with my knowledge and my grief<\/em>. \u00a0And for me, this is huge.<\/p>\n It\u2019s impossible for me to convey the loneliness and alienation I once felt as a Pagan therapist working with survivors of sexual abuse during the 80s and 90s.\u00a0 (I\u2019m sure the loneliness of survivors was even deeper, but today, remember, I\u2019m being selfish. \u00a0Today, I\u2019m speaking to my<\/em> memories.)<\/p>\n When I wrote my earlier piece at The Wild Hunt, it took me back in time. \u00a0I have not been a full-time psychotherapist for ten years now, and the last of my part-time clients has been gone for two. \u00a0But the intensity of emotion that writing that piece\u2013that dispassionate, rational piece\u2013evoked in me was a revelation. \u00a0Writing that essay, I shivered with something other than cold. \u00a0I had bad dreams. \u00a0I felt all those old feelings again\u2026and it was not the pain of empathy for survivors that I was struggling with, it was the pain of being alone with it in the midst of my own people.<\/p>\n There are a lot of reasons I am no longer in practice as a psychotherapist. But while it was not the cause, the fact that the Pagan community was coldly critical of my field wasn\u2019t very helpful, either.<\/p>\n My Pagan friends were right to be offended by the Satanic Ritual Abuse disinformation campaign. \u00a0But too many of them couldn\u2019t distinguish between distortions coming from the religious Right and the good work being done in the field. \u00a0I heard allegations that most memories of abuse were false or \u201cimplanted\u201d by therapists.<\/p>\n As the propaganda machine of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation spun into high gear,\u00a0I remember being asked by friends who loved me, \u201cWhat percentage of your clients do you think are making it up?\u201d\u00a0Meanwhile, during that same time period, clinic supervisors who were<\/em> caught up in the SRA spin viewing me with deep suspicion for my own Wiccan, Pagan practice.\u00a0 (I had already outed myself at work when clinicians at our mental health center briefly contemplated hospitalizing one client, against her therapist\u2019s wishes, because her journal included Pagan religious language.)<\/p>\n I remember spending hours upon hours on listserves, hands shaking as I typed, citing sources and documenting the research that supported both a high incidence of childhood abuse and the reliability of memories of trauma.\u00a0 These were research questions for most of my friends, but they were names and faces to me.<\/p>\n And I remember offering a workshop on sexual abuse and sexual assault in the Pagan community\u2026 and only two people came.<\/p>\n For years, I felt so alone with the stories I held. \u00a0For years, I felt besieged on all sides\u2013just for doing my work. \u00a0Just for listening to people talk about what they had gone through. And for years, it felt like it would never change.<\/p>\n And now? \u00a0Now, Elizabeth Loftus, the researcher whose work provided the underpinnings for the False Memory Syndrome Foundation has finally come under ethical scrutiny<\/a> for misrepresenting her research. \u00a0The psychotherapeutic community (if not the popular press) has been increasingly clear and articulate<\/a> in documenting the nature of traumatic memories. Now it is widely accepted that the sexual abuse of children has been an epidemic within the Catholic church\u2013and even evangelical Protestants<\/a> are beginning to understand that they, too, are vulnerable to perpetrators in the pulpit.<\/p>\n And closer to home? While SRA propaganda has been rightly debunked, I look up, in the year 2014, and I find Pagans openly discussing not just the fact that abuse occurs, but that perpetrators can be high profile and even admired members of their communities\u2013including our<\/em> \u00a0community.<\/p>\n Yeah, there\u2019s pain in these revelations.\u00a0 And I wouldn\u2019t pretend to speak for survivors of their own abuse.\u00a0 But for me\u2026\u00a0 There is a measure of relief.<\/p>\n If we can look clear-eyed at the truths before us, maybe<\/em> we can change some things.\u00a0 Maybe<\/em> we can make our rhetoric about honoring sexuality \u00a0into an actual practice, a practice of such integrity that someday, we\u2019ll have reduced the rates of abuse among us. \u00a0Less suffering\u2026 that would be good.<\/p>\n Not to mention that, on a purely selfish level, it\u2019s nice not to feel so damned alone with the knowledge that this happens, and that the pain of sexual assault and sexual abuse is very real.<\/p>\n Thank you for your coverage, Jason.\u00a0 Thanks for being willing to go there, yet again.<\/p>\n And thank you to everyone who is willing to listen, to hear, and to hold the simple fact of childhood sexual abuse in our communal heart.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I remember offering a workshop on sexual abuse and sexual assault in the Pagan community… and only two people came. For years, I felt so alone with the stories I held. For years, I felt besieged on all sides–just for doing my work. Just for listening to people talk about what they had gone through. And for years, it felt like it would never change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1904,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17,4,5],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cats-posts","tag-quaker-pagan","tag-sexual-abuse","tag-therapy"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"waterfall\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/441\/2014\/06\/800px-Waterfalls_NY-150x150.jpg\" "\\"800px-Waterfalls_NY\\"")
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