Why do sexual assault survivors feel shame? A cartoon sums it up.

Why do sexual assault survivors feel shame? A cartoon sums it up.

This cartoon sums how do we survivors felt guilt and shame after abuse. 

INC, The Group Behind the Monster

August 29,2015
2:30AM

Dear everyone,

It's been a while since my last post. I am sorry for being too busy with everything. I supposed being the bread winner and parent/sister in one is no big joke. I have three jobs at a time and have many responsibilities at home and in the group I belong with.

I decided to make a short post regarding the "monster" that destroyed me. Actually, I have been trying all these years to erase all the bitter memories brought by him. I do not want to remember any single information about him. But the truth is all the memories, all the things about him are kept inside my mind, ready to destroy me anytime. But I refused to be put down. I have survived more than two decades; I am a survivor.

At this point in time my focus of my posting tonight is not about my diary, but I want you to somehow know a little bit of that person. I believe on what I always hear from older people that a man's character is measured  through his background - his childhood history, his peers, his environment, the way he is bring up and such.

In this case, I believe that behind the monster that devoured my childhood is a group that destroys many people since time immemorial, (This thing is based on the facts written in SCRA, cases files in different courts, news and personal encounters by my friends and former colleagues.), it  had something to do why he became a beast despite not having a difficult childhood. I met his mother a few times and even his siblings, they were good people. I still wonder up to this moment why such good people like them have had relatives like him. A few years past after the abuse, I realized a big factor why he was turned into an evil man: the group he belonged with.

During the time that he was still with us, he was still mom's lover, he always would bring me to his work since it's already vacation. I was always with him everywhere he went, wherever his boss asked him to go. It was like I was his chaperon or young assistant and he was the driver. (Of course, I hope you have read it between the lines. Yes, since I was always with him even at work - there were instances that many abuses happened even while he was on the job.)

One time, his boss and family asked him to drive them at a nearby church in Quezon City to practice their belief. I stayed in the car because I was too shy to be with the boss' family. (Anyway, I already attended the gathering then.) The monster also stayed in the car. I was curious that time because ever since he started living with mom, I never saw him celebrated any religious traditions (we were Catholics back then) nor saw him entering a church locale. Though I  was scared to ask him, I still did. I could remember clearly our conversation,

- "Bakit hindi ka po nagsisimba? Bakit hindi ka po pumasok ng simbahan? (Why are you not attending church services? Why didn't you enter the church?)

- "Iglesia ni Cristo ako." (I am an Iglesia ni Cristo member.)

*For your information Iglesia ni Cristo is a group that started here in the Philippines. Their belief is Christ is merely a man and Manalo, their leader, is an angel.*

So, that was the answer to my lingering question. I just nodded after our little talk. I do not want to remember what happened next. Yes, something evil had happened.

Years after that short conversation, I have met friends and colleagues who were victimized, abused by INC members also, particularly those who were higher ranking officials. There was also a time when I heard over the radio that they had sent a pack of NBI agents with high-powered guns in a compound in Pampanga for just a simple case of libel. (Not mentioning still the records in Supreme Court, filed cases in different places, unreported bad acts, and the recent - the controversy between Manalo family and Council with Eduardo and Babyln.)

It was then I realized and had came to a conclusion - that there are members (not all) honed by this group did not become good citizens. I am a living witness to that. That monster, my mom's lover, is one of them.

I am a victim of someone who believes that they are the only ones who will be saved, outside their church they will all go to hell.  That monster believed he will not be condemned, he was not afraid to do evil. Like his ministers and leaders' belief, he believed they will be saved for as long as he stayed in their group and be loyal or should I say fanatic to it. How pitiful.

Why am I bringing this up now?

The current scandal revolving around INC now is no longer new. Like I said a while back, there are many issues and bad records about them. The reason why they have bad members is because of their leadership, of their doctrines. The question is, is their claim true that they are the only ones who will be saved? They are even using the Bible but what is this they're doing is it Biblical? So many evidences, so many confessions from the victims. These things are being revealed one by one and cannot be covered anymore. So miserable.

To my fellowmen, do not be victimized. Do not let your families and children be victims also. Let us all be wise.

REMEMBER: Do not enter a group that will make you a monster afterwards.

Until my next post, my next entry to my diary.

God bless the Philippines and the whole world.

Sincerely,
Eliza

Heartbreaking News: An Afghan nightmare: Forced to marry your rapist (CNN)

My thoughts

April 12, 2015
2:00 AM, PST

Below my post is the news in CNN from Afghan, a victim was forced to marry her rapist. I have seen this news and was very saddened by the fact that this kind of injustice really do exist. So sad for the girl.. she is left with no choice.

I hope society will be a better place to live in.

I'll be closing my eyes in this wee hours with a weeping heart for the people who experience the same ordeal.

Eliza, :'(


==============================================================
An Afghan nightmare: Forced to marry your rapist

By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN

It is an unimaginably hideous outcome.

To be raped by your cousin's husband; be jailed for adultery as your attacker was married; to suffer the ignominy of global uproar about your jailing and assault, but be pardoned by presidential decree; and then to endure the shame and rejection from a conservative society that somehow held you to blame.

The solution in this society? Marry your attacker.

READ: Women's rights in Afghanistan: Are we witnessing a revolution?

That's what happened to Gulnaz, who was barely 16 when she was raped. She's now carrying the third child of her attacker, Asadullah, who was convicted and jailed -- though this was then reduced.

Gulnaz's plight -- like so much in beleaguered Afghanistan -- disappeared from the world's gaze once she was pardoned and released courtesy of a presidential pardon. Instead of a new start, what followed for Gulnaz was a quiet, Afghan solution to the "problem" -- a telling sign of where women's rights stand in Afghanistan despite the billions that have poured into this country from the U.S. government and its NATO allies during more than a decade of war.

'Rescued' from shame

We found Gulnaz in her family home. Smile, the name of the daughter born of the rape, is now a shining little girl, bouncing around the house that her mother shares with Asadullah's first wife -- who is also Gulnaz's cousin.

Asadullah agreed to let us speak with him and Gulnaz because, it seemed, he wanted to show us that things were now settled, that under Afghanistan's version of social morality he had done the right thing. He had rescued Gulnaz from shame.

"If I hadn't married her, (but) according to our traditions, she couldn't have lived back in society," he tells us. "Her brothers didn't want to accept her back. Now, she doesn't have any of those problems."

2011: Thousands sign petition for Gulaz release

Gulnaz remains subdued throughout our meeting and does not once look her husband in the eye. "I didn't want to ruin the life of my daughter or leave myself helpless so I agreed to marry him," she says. "We are traditional people. When we get a bad name, we prefer death to living with that name in society."

As Smile attempts to pour tea, the other seven children in this household run around the courtyard. The first wife remains unseen in the house. A portrait of Gulnaz's liberator in 2011, the then-president Hamid Karzai, hangs on the wall. But the sense of order here is undermined by the fact that this is a house built around a crime.

Pressure to marry

How Gulnaz ended up here requires some explanation. There was pressure upon her to marry her attacker after her release. But at the same time, other activists were trying to assist her with an asylum bid abroad.

"Unfortunately, Gulnaz was heavily pressured to marry her attacker by various people within the government which, in and of itself, was immensely disappointing," her former attorney, an American citizen named Kimberley Motley, tells us.

"Gulnaz was constantly told that neither she nor her daughter would be protected if she did not succumb to their pressure to marry... Gulnaz essentially became a prisoner of her environment.

"As an uneducated, young, single mother with no family support, it would have been an uphill battle for Gulnaz and her daughter."

Local pressure won out. She was introduced to her attacker in the shelter where CNN first interviewed her upon release from prison. They talked and it was agreed she would marry him.

Most disturbingly, the woman who -- despite knowing the stigma it would create around her -- defiantly insisted she had been raped when we spoke nearly four years ago, now says she was told by her relatives to make up the allegations.

"Now she is beside me and knows that it was not as big as they had shown it," says Asadullah.

"No I am not thinking about it anymore," Gulnaz adds. "I don't have a problem with him now and I don't want to think about the past problems. My life is OK... I am happy with my life... It is going on."

She is then permitted to talk with us alone. Asadullah moves away but stands close to the door of the room. Though she now maintains she was not raped, she explains her decision. She contradicts her husband, saying her brothers would have taken her back, had she not married him.

"My brothers opposed the marriage and told me to take my daughter and go to Pakistan to live with them instead," she says. "But now we're married, they disowned me and won't see me again."

Her decision was for her daughter.

"No, I couldn't fulfill my wishes in life. I married this man; I cut relations with my family only to buy my daughter's future."

It is truly chilling to see how things have gone for Gulnaz after the level of international attention her story received -- pregnant with the third child of the man who was once her rapist, accepting a life as his second wife, trapped in his home.

(link: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/07/asia/afghanistan-gulnaz-rape-marriage/)

Where is Lisa Floyd now? (The child who called 911 when her mom was beaten by stepdad)

I am sure many people are familiar with Lisa (the child who called 911 when her mom was beaten by her stepdad in 1991. Her call is frequently use nowadays for discussion about domestic violence and what does it bring to children. If you are not yet familiar to her, visit this link -

(link: http://www.upworthy.com/listen-to-this-6-year-old-call-911-when-her-stepdad-beats-her-momVide for the call: https://youtu.be/G_ht2vAYPoc)

According to to the blog a certain Ms. Kit Gruelle, a social worker, was able to track her down. Lisa is now a grown-up woman. But since because of the trauma she experienced during her childhood, she found herself also in an abusive relationship. Good thing, Kit was there to help her out. Lisa was saved from that relationship.

Nowadays, Lisa's firsthand account of what happened during her childhood days, and what it caused her is posted online, She is also attending conferences to help people like her.

(link here: http://cdv.org/story/lisas-story/)

Why am I sharing this to you?

Somehow a part of myself is a Lisa also. You will know it in my future entry for my diary why am I telling this.

I realized that through the painful experience we had in the past, we can change someone's life in the future for the best.

Eliza,

First memories - living without a father

(2nd post for my diary)

My first memories were mom was always with us. I barely saw my father for things I did not know. At times when he was at home, I knew back then that he was always drunk. So every time I saw him, I was so scared to him. There was an instance when he was forcing me to have a photograph with him and I did not want to, so I cried so hard because I was so frightened.

Then after sometime, something happened. It was a  bright afternoon, it was the last time I remembered my father went home. But he was not there to sleep or to stay for a while, he was there to pack his things. I was so shocked by that thing, that until now the day he left us is still in my mind, very clear memory, it's as if it just happened yesterday. 

He left us when I was still very young (around three years old) and my sister was still a newly born baby, mama had to work hard to earn a living. I had these memories back when I was three, mom had to go to work. Since we did not have any relatives who lived nearby, she was forced to leave us in our house. I was in charge to take care of my baby sister at the age of three (and probably our neighbors looked for us while she was still at work.) 

There was a time when I had to be separated for a while from my mom because I had to attend school. She had to work in a far place, but she couldn't do it if I would be studying already, plus she had to take care of my younger sister. So my auntie helped her, I lived for sometime in my auntie's house together with my uncle and my cousin. There, countless times I envied my cousin because she had a complete family. Her parents were loving; Auntie and Uncle were kind.  Auntie was my second mother and Uncle was like a father to me. I felt at home during the time I was with them, I was loved.

Since I knew that mother was working hard in a far place in Manila, at a young age I tried to study well. I knew I had to do something to make her happy. Thank God that I was able to made it and had high grades and honors. After I graduated in nursery, I immediately entered primary school. I was the youngest in our class but I was able to do well. I was sure Mama was proud of me.

And things continued to happened for us - a family of a single mother with two young daughters. Until I reached 2nd grade in primary school. I did not know that another chapter in our lives was about to happen - a chapter I wish did not happen anymore.

Until my next entry. Hopefully, I would be posting frequently from now on.

God bless us all.

Eliza,

Magkapatid na biktima ng rape sa Nagcarlan, Laguna, nailigtas mula sa amain

(Siblings victime of rape in Nagcarlan Laguna, saved from their stepfather)

Another case of rape in my country. It pains my heart every time I see news like this, knowing the pain it would cost to these girls' life. The eldest was raped for five years (she's 19 years old now) the youngest was raped for two years (16 years old now). I could imagine the horror and the shame that they received.

The only good thing here is the victims got courage and decided to put an end in this wickedness and reported the crime their stepfather had been doing to them for years.  I wish these girls would be able to move on with their lives and use this bitter thing to make them successful someday.

(Unlike me who became coward when I was a child and decided not to speak up and did not report anything to the authorities. I always wish that I was the first and last one that was abused by that evil man. ) But it's not yet too late to take opportunity and help other people, in my own little way I maybe a help.  Abuse to any human being will never be a good thing...especially in the eyes of the Lord.

Until my next post. I will be updating my story.

Eliza