Prolifically Raw: The Second Crime

Monday, May 07, 2007

The Second Crime

My last post was about Monica Holloway, author of Driving with Dead People, and how the publication of her book has resulted in outright denial from members of her family. Monica wrote about her own and her sisters childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father and based on memory, a sense that her mother was aware of the abuse and even helped the father.

Now her father has denied the abuse and her mother and one of her sisters denies it as well. Another of Monica�s sisters stands behind Monica�s joint memory.

Part of the fallout has been threats of legal action against Monica as well as her publisher. An important interview on NPR�s Diane Rhem Show has been cancelled and Monica has had to face inner demons that all of us, who have gone through extensive sexual abuse, have to face. Those demons ask the terrible questions that eat us alive, and have since the brutality occurred: did it really happen? Am I making it all up?

As I have thought more about what is going on with Monica, a very interesting question has lifted: How do we address this issue of denial?

The first crime, the abuse, is a stunning shock to the mind, body and soul of a person. Parents are to protect and nurture children, not sexually, physically and verbally abuse them, thus the shock and retreat of the child and the child�s psyche. The second crime is denial, which is as much of a shock as the first. Denial is also silence. When abuse happens and it is even ignored by those in the family, the abuse has no choice but to remain trapped inside the victim. This denial is also why the perpetuators of the crimes have free reign to continue the abuse. I would also go a bit further to say that the psyche of the abuser is so damaged, due to abuse that occurred to them at childhood, that they may be in their own cycle of denial that actually believes no abuse ever occurred. Silence has become their demon as well and the cycle continues.

So it begs the question, as writers of memoir, what do we do about denial? We�ve already had to contend with the on going controversy surrounding the veracity of memoir as a genre in the non-fiction category, this debate has been present since memoir began rising as a popular genre back when Mary Karr (pictured here) and Frank McCourt published Liar's Club and Angela's Ashes. And since, there have been spin off questions such as: is memory reliable? Are writers using memoir as a format to hurt family and make false accusations? Is memoir a place where people air �dirty laundry?� What about the people who are written about, mainly those who are in the family and community, even if identity is concealed? What rights do these people have? What is the obligation on the part of the memoir writer?

The publishing industry has responded with many different approaches. Primarily the concern is publishing house and author protection from litigation. Thus, publishers often use �in house� attorneys to vet the memoir and, if the author cannot provide verifiable evidence (a witness, police report, rape kit, conviction), then publishers encourage the author to change names, identities, locations that protect the identity of the perpetrators and bystanders. Often the author will change their identity as well. Most recently, there are disclaimers written in the front of memoirs that make it clear that this action has been taken.

When I wrote Blackbird and Still Waters, I was put through this vetting process but no disclaimer was put into the book. Aside from this vetting, there was no other rule to go by. Therefore, I put myself through a high level of personal scrutiny while making room for memory flaws and holding myself to the question of intention where I asked: why am I writing what I am writing? Am I being honest? What is my motive for revealing what I am revealing. And, I have had to hold hands with myself in a kind of deep trust born from being the only advocate I have, as well as the only one I need to be accountable to. I have had a long decade of personal scrutiny where I examined my character, my patterns and the trail of psychological evidence that brought me the conclusions of being severly abused on multiple levels. Additionally, I have a large file box stuffed to overflowing with interviews, medical records and audio tapes.

I have made plans to put a disclaimer into the ten-year reprint of Blackbird and Still Waters. In the interim, seven years have gone by and for those seven years I have been systematically stalked by one of the abusers of my past, who claims no such abuse took place and more, that I have fabricated the entire story contained in the pages of both books (and all of my blog posts). This person has been running a campaign of harassment that includes a letter campaign to the media and my publisher, cornering women in coffee shops and talking about my work as a collection of lies, email harassment of fellow writers, a call for a stop on the publication of my books, the launch of a web site and threats of litigation. His campaign has kept the question in the forefront of my mind, which is, what do we do about this crime of denial?

I suggest we meet denial head on in the same way we bear witness to our abuse. Since we know, based on history, and thanks to my own experience and Monica�s experience, that denial is real and it is going to happen, let us say up front that there is a second crime.

That crime is denial.

Now, how do we deal with denial?

I say we include, perhaps as epilogue, our tools of due diligence. As we write our memoirs, let us also write letters to those who abused us. If they are in prison, let's put that information out there. Let us give abusers a chance to respond in writing. Let us send letters via registered mail, keep copies of these receipts and our letters, keep copies of their correspondence (or lack thereof) and then write this up in our epilogue. We can also respond to their response and discuss our feelings about the denial.

As a victim of abuse, the very thing I am suggesting here goes right to the center of my stomach. Inside that space I find a shaking, shivering and quivering fear of timeless time. But when I look closer, I see that this fear was planted in the ripe soil of my childhood. The seeds are the hissing sound of my cousins voice, coming through the dark shadows of my bedroom where the air was dense with marijuana smoke, �don�t tell what happened here.� It�s the camp counselor, his hands around my throat, cutting away my breath, saying: �you tell anyone, I�ll find you and I�ll kill you.� It�s the look of the stepmother who turned her back. It�s the voice of the cousin who said, �don�t tell anyone my boyfriend came into your room and spread your legs against your will.� It�s the aunt and uncle who shook their heads and said, �we don�t believe you, you are a liar.� These seeds grow deep roots in dark shadows and yes, they are as deep and difficult to unearth as the roots of the Morning Glory.

But, like the Morning Glory that rises to the light of the sun, opening with complete fearlessness, we can do the same. The truth is the light. Open to the truth, admit to the full crime: abuse AND denial, and tell it!