Tag: Healing from painful things

Silent promises to my friend, Wendy

By Tammi Pitzen, Executive Director of The Children’s Advocacy Center of Jackson County

I have been wanting to write this post for a long time. I asked the person who is at the heart of this story – twice — if it was okay. I have sat down hundreds of times trying to get started and was never able to get past the first sentence or two. I have touched on it a time or two in other posts.

But it’s time to pay tribute to my friend and own up to my own shortcomings.

Some of you know that I started my career in child protection in the same very small town that I grew up in and where I graduated high school. Inherently, that means that I crossed paths with many people that I knew while investigating child abuse cases. Some impacted me. And, ironically, the one that impacted me the most was not one that I was investigating.

To tell the whole story, I need to go back to the beginning.

I don’t know when I first met Wendy, but I know that I have known her more than half my life now. My first really clear memories were in middle school. She lived with her brother and her dad. I never knew what happened to her mom or why she was not in the picture. She and I talked some, but not a lot. She and I went to the same church.   I am ashamed to say that I never asked her anything. I suspect if I did, she and I would have found that we had some things in common — like our dry sense of humor, fierce loyalty, a desire to help people, some insecurities about who we were and dreams of living in places far away from our small hometown. I also would have found out that we had things that were very different about our lives.

All during this time, there were rumors or concerns whirling around of Wendy being abused.

I remember the adults trying to be kind to her. Looking back at it now, I wonder how that felt. Being kind does not make the abuse stop. I think that people shied away from Wendy because of believing she was abused. As if somehow it was “catching”.

I remember hearing some of the adults talk about how there was something not right about Wendy’s relationship with her dad. I didn’t know a lot about abuse when I was in high school. I was so busy trying to survive, that I doubt I looked around to see anyone else’s struggles.

As an adult looking back, I feel guilty.

We graduated high school. I went to college. I am not sure where Wendy went. She got pregnant in high school during a time that it was not as accepted as it is today. She gave the baby up for adoption. Some thought that was for the best. Our worlds went down different paths for a while. I graduated from college and went back to this same small town to start my career. I started investigating child abuse reports for the Department of Social Services.

I had been there for a couple of years. I had not run into Wendy. If I am honest, I doubt I thought much about Wendy. Then one day, I was in the record room at work and came across a file that had her dad’s name on it. We were purging files. I had gone in to get more files to start working on.

I stared at that file for what seemed like eternity. Sitting on the shelf. Wondering what I should do.

My eyes starting to sting, and my heart started to race. I am pretty sure I sobbed. I couldn’t even bring myself to pull the record off the shelf. I stood there staring at it. It seemed too intensely personal.   It felt like time had stopped. I am sure it was only a matter of seconds.

My co-worker came in … grabbed the file and went back into the area where we were working. I pulled myself together and grabbed the next few files and went back to my seat.   My co-worker asked if I was okay. She said I looked like I was not feeling well. I pulled myself together and continued working.

I never read the file. I never checked to see if there was anything left after we purged some things that the state had decided needed to be destroyed. While I never read it, I never forgot and would find myself thinking about Wendy from time to time.

And then Facebook came on scene. I got a friend request from Wendy. We reconnected through the world of social media. I learned that Wendy’s life had not always been easy, but Wendy persevered.

Wendy was abused.

Wendy was physically, sexually, and mentally abused, as well as, chronically neglected as a child.

Reports were made, but she never felt safe to tell anyone. They would come to her house to interview her with her Dad in the next room. She shared with me that she had four different family members abuse her. It hurts my heart to think about it. But Wendy was and is resilient. Wendy made promises to herself and to her children.

Wendy went to college. She first got her associates and bachelor’s degree in Psychology and then got her masters in Health Care Management.

Wendy did indeed survive her childhood home and has been able to pick up those pieces of herself that were shattered by abuse and put them back together. She is one of the most resilient people I know.

I did not know enough to help Wendy when I was a teenager. When I found out that Wendy had been abused or got confirmation, I replayed a lot of my childhood in my mind.

I sat at my computer and cried that I had not been able to help Wendy thirty something years ago.

I tell this story not to garner sympathy for Wendy or for me. Not to illustrate my failure to protect or even be a good friend. I tell this story to show that abuse is out there, and it is close to us. It always has been.

I tell this story because I wonder if there had been a Children’s Advocacy Center to go to, she would have felt safe, and if some of her abuse would have been prevented, and if some of her struggles could have been lightened.

I felt powerless, frightened and too ignorant on child abuse to intervene way back then, but I have promises to keep…no more excuses.

I made it my life’s work to intervene—to do something to stop adults from abusing children. I never intended to stay in this work for this long. I had other plans. However, sitting in a small records room in Louisiana, I was persuaded to continue until I could continue no more.

I made some silent promises to Wendy that day.

I promised to always make a report if I suspect abuse. I will never turn away again. I promised to not be afraid to ask if something doesn’t seem quite right. I promised never to allow a “whatever happens in the family is not my business” mentality to prevail. I promised to always intervene on behalf of a child.

I have been working and advocating on behalf of abused children for 29 years. There have been many moments that have inspired me to continue, but they all started with a few silent promises to my friend Wendy.

I bet that the majority of you have a Wendy in your life. Even if you don’t know who they are. Statistically, there is no way you don’t have a Wendy in your life.

I want to ask you to do what you can to keep a child safe. I want to ask you to make a report to authorities when one needs to be made.

You will never regret making a report to keep a child safe, but you may regret not making one.

Tammi Pitzen
Creative “madness” leads the way out of suffering

“You are only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it” Robin Williams

By Michelle Wilson

Madness. That is one powerful word.

It brings to my mind images of people with bright twinkles in their eyes and infectious smiles that make you want to know what is happening in their thoughts.

Madness can also bring to mind images of people who have suffered a great deal of trauma and emotional upheaval.

It can bring to mind unsettling thoughts of those who can’t seem to move out of sadness, depression, anxiety, or constant fear and the feeling that the world is an unsafe and unpredictable place.

Poets and scientists have both made links between these two things – creative genius and emotional suffering.

Robin Williams was certainly a creative genius whose light and spark of energy lit up the world through his work and his life. His recent death brought me great sadness, as I know it did for many other people around the world. I continue to be grateful for what he offered all of us while he was here – for much too short of a time. I wish we had been able to watch his genius continue to grow and deepen for many more years.

“You are only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it”

I saw this quote by Robin Williams soon after his death and it struck me. I think about the work we do at the Children’s Advocacy Center with children and teens whose lives have been altered by abuse and neglect, and I think about how the abuse affects them.

I have seen how the work of our team helps them move out of the feelings of sadness, depression, and anxiety, and I hope that it helps everyone who comes here feel that the world is just a bit safer, a bit more predictable, and certainly a bit more kind.

Creative madness – the kind that creates new inventions and dares to take risks and makes leaps between things that seem unrelated but that, when brought together, invite new ideas and actions – that is something this world continues to need.

We need to experience the genius that can come from suffering, as well as the genius that comes from just plain, old creative impulses.

I firmly believe that the way out of suffering and chaos can be found in the type of creative “madness” often spurred by the original acts that caused the suffering.

When we let ourselves feel deep pain and confusion – and when we support others in doing the same – creativity can open places that have been blocked and a healthy type of “madness” can give us the energy and impetus to move forward, make changes, and create new paths in our lives.

Great creative geniuses can help to create new paths that leave a wide road behind them for others to follow.

They can teach us, in ways large and small, about the inevitable new opportunities that come after defeat in the endless cycles of our lives.

Thank you, Robin Williams, for sharing your creative spirit with us.

I will remember this invitation when I feel troubled by sadness or grief. I will try to let the wild and forceful energy that comes from difficult experiences create in me a creative type of madness, the type that breaks down barriers and opens the way for something new, something better than I might have imagined before.

May we all remember this, and may we always help those amongst us who need our support in times of tragedy, abuse, and suffering.

Help us remember the creative genius that is there, within us all, just ready to be tapped.
Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 2)

What would you do if you found yourself on a sailboat in the middle of a stretch of ocean, and your task was to search for treasure?

Along the way, you had to:

• find a few new friends
• locate some markers of your trip so you could share them with others who might want to follow you
• weather a storm or two
• discover something magical; and
• leave a mark on the spot of your treasure so others could find it too.

Oh yeah – and then you need to create a piece of art that shows your journey.

The mural created by some of the girls in our mentoring programs, led by artist Manda Severin, represents something very similar to this make-believe journey. They didn’t go on an actual boat, but the mural makes me think about the journeys we take at each phase of our lives and all the symbolism that can be found in a painting of an ocean.

Think about it: an ocean is a deep and mysterious place under the surface, but when you look at it from above, it is just a beautiful expanse of blue water and sparkly splashes and rolling waves. Looking at it from that viewpoint, it seems like an ocean is just water – miles and miles of water.

But we know that under the surface you can find all sorts of life. You might find turtles or fish or living coral. If you are lucky, maybe you’ll meet a mermaid or merman. If you travel close to shore you might see a lighthouse and cliffs and rocky shoreline. If you dive very deep, you might find larger sea creatures, both gentle and fierce, moving through the deep, dark depths.

It’s kind of like stretches of our lives. If we just look at what things appear to be on the surface, it can seem like lots of sameness – like the stretches of blue water of the ocean. If we look below, though, we find all sorts of things going on. On my particular journeys at various times of my life, I have met lots of interesting friends and companions (like the turtles and mermaids and jelly fish in the mural), weathered a few horrible storms, and been very grateful for the markers along the way that helped me avoid wrecks and disasters (like the lighthouse and the compass).

In the mural, the X marks the spot of the treasure, but the box is unopened. I like this image, because even though we might all venture through journeys similar to the one in this painting, we each need and hopefully find different “treasures”.

The journey of healing from anything painful has all of these elements: uncertain pathways, companions and friends, stormy periods, and resting spots when we need them. What I love about this mural is that it leaves a path of this journey so that others can follow and hopefully have an easier time of it. The fact that this was created by girls healing from abuse makes that part of the painting even more touching to me. I like the idea that they have created something that is both playful and significant, meaningful to their own journeys and to the journeys we all take, whether we have experienced abuse or not. We all journey through challenges and times of joy in our lives and this mural speaks to all of us in that way.

Have you decided yet what your journey might look like? Who your companions might be? What treasure you might find at the end?

One last thing. At the top of the mural the purple sky is lit up with glowing stars in the shape of expanding circles and they seem to cast a blessing over the whole thing. I’d like to think those stars represent all those who watch over us and help us, over the girls who painted the mural, over all kids and teens healing from abuse. When I look up at the stars tonight, that thought will bring peace to my thoughts.

Thank you, artists of this mural, for sharing a little bit of your journeys with us and for leaving something beautiful behind at our center. May the stars watch over your journeys, tonight and every night, and may you always have companions to help you along your way.

This mural was painted by artist Manda Severin, with participation by five girls who are in treatment at the Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC). The girls helped choose the theme and picked the design, as well as being full participants in the painting process.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Manda Severin

The artist: Manda Severin is a true renaissance woman. She has a Master’s degree in Psychology and she has been an instructor at SOU for many years. She is also a very talented artist and musician. She is available to paint murals for individuals or businesses and she can be reached at juniperbryn@gmail.com
Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 1)

In January and February, an artist named Manda Severin helped some of the girls who come to our center paint a beautiful mural. This, like all creative processes, began with a few simple things: paint, a canvas, brushes, ideas and thoughts, and a few questions.

What type of adventure would you like to take? What kind of journey are you on? What journey are we all on?

What flowed from these general ideas was a painting with literal images of flowing water, of ocean waves and birds. I got a glimpse of the mural before it was finished. The top half of the mural is bright with colors from the sea shore – blues and greens and a brilliant red-orange-yellow sailboat floating in the middle. The puffy clouds and bright stars in the sky mirror the white foam bubbling at the shore.

I am captivated by the images and want to get on that sailboat and see where it would take me.

But my eye is drawn to the image on the bottom half of the mural. This section is an earthy brown, a grounding color that compliments the bright movement of the ocean above it. A bright red dotted path starts at an island and travels down, in a curving pattern, around outlines of a turtle and mermaids, ending someplace in the middle of the space.

I wonder what is there?

The mural is not quite finished, so I will have to wait to see what treasure is found there, but it has me thinking. Will the path end here? Will the treasure be something expected, or something surprising? Will we get to see the treasure, or will we be left guessing about what type of treasure can be found in this magical place? Will each viewer of the mural get to decide on their own “treasure”, or will we all enjoy the same treasure?

I love this piece because it is so similar to life, with all of its twists and turns and surprises, the moments when we get to frolic with the sea turtles and the days when we feel lost on a path that doesn’t seem to have an end. The mural is both playful and a bit mysterious, and it invites me to look at my life with a bit more playfulness and lightheartedness.

The journey we are all on can be pretty hard sometimes, and the journey of healing from painful things can feel unbearable at times. But if we keep going – “just keep swimming” as Dori says in a famous sea-based movie – we can know that there is always treasure to be found and unknown adventures just around the corner. Just like life, this mural in its unfinished state invites me to keep going … to follow the dots and explore just a bit more.

I look forward to seeing it in its finished state. Stay tuned.

Tag: Healing from painful things

Silent promises to my friend, Wendy

Creative “madness” leads the way out of suffering

Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 2)

Going on a Treasure Hunt (Part 1)