Solidarity with other Survivors

It's going to take me a while to find, let alone annotate or edit, all the content I have online that quotes or mentions Sherman Alexie. If you don't know... Several days ago the mainstream press published that five women have come forward about Alexie sexually harassing and threatening them. Now the number is closer to twenty. But, as is always the case, women in the community have known for far longer. And it has been exponentially unsafe for these Indigenous women to come forward. I've mostly been tweeting about it. And check the twitter stream. It's really just the tip of iceberg.

I stand with these women because while I'm not one of Alexie's victims, I am also a survivor of some similar threats, which in my case followed in the wake of horrific abuse. I cannot comment on the specific details of these women's cases against Alexie, or specifically what was done to silence them. But in my case, I know what it's like to live with constant death threats and surveillance, stalked and libeled by both the predator and the predator's enablers. Some of the enablers do it for status in the eyes of the predator, some of the more sleazy ones have done it for pay. This is the ultimate cruelty that piles on to the CPTSD - to survive torture, and then to be stalked like prey. As the more recent, mainstream, white wave of the #MeToo movement has built, there has been the predictable backlash from those who've never actually experienced assault or serious abuse, who have compounded this abuse of actual survivors by blaming us for not being more outspoken, or not speaking out earlier, even when we were living in fear of a dangerous predator. It's because of these accomplices that enable the abusers, that hound the victims and continue the torture, that so many of these predators are able to do so much damage for so long.

As I had meant to note in the previous post, the flu has hit hard here. Which is really serious for someone like me who is already immuno-compromised. I don't talk much about disability on here, as I'm from a generation that is more private about this stuff, and I don't want to be defined by my limitations. But sometimes I have to mention it for my life to make sense. Right now I don't have it in me to go through all the posts, but I will as soon as I'm feeling stronger. So I needed to make a note about this so, if any of his victims are reading this, you will know I have your backs - I believe you and stand with you - and that it is only my own struggles that are impeding my ability to thoroughly handle all of this right now.

Love, strength and protection to the survivors who are speaking truth to power. This one has been horrible to hear, but nowhere near as horrible as what those who have lived with this silence have had to endure. Thank you for speaking out.

ETA: Sunday 26 Feb 2018: Debbie Reese of American Indians in Children's Literature has now posted An Open Letter About Sherman Alexie. Deb was among the first to break and follow through on the story online, and has been tireless in not only supporting Native women in coming forward about this, but in promoting the many Indigenous women writers who are continually overlooked as men like Alexie have gotten all the contracts, sales and speaking engagements. She has included a timeline of this developing story, with links, and is continually updating the coverage, as well as continuing to promote alternative authors to those now removing Alexie's work from their curricula. It was Deb's tweets about her decision to remove or annotate the mentions of Alexie on her pages that inspired me to do the same last night. Thank you, Deb.

Identifying the Predator: Spiritual, Financial, and Sexual Abusers

As some of you know, I've been involved for decades now in trying to do something about predators in our communities. And as some of you also know, one of the reasons I do it is that I, and some of those I love, have been harmed by these con men (the vicious predators I've dealt with have all been men). The reason they were able to fool some of us long enough to hurt us is because they are skilled at it; it's what they do. Hopefully this information will help those who may have been victimized. Even better, maybe it will help someone spot a predator before they have a chance to harm them.

I think this is the first time I've reposted an entire article by someone else on this blog. It's worth it.

My gratitude to RedRightHand over at NAFPS for permission to repost this in full.

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Identifying the Predator: Spiritual, Financial, and Sexual Abusers

There are common traits, common behaviors in human predators of all kinds. Spiritual scammers often operate the same way and use the same methods as other types of criminal con artists, batterers, and rapists. These different kinds of abuse often blend into each other.

A liar doesn’t just tell falsehoods/lies to strangers or only in certain situations. A liar routinely lies to everyone. In the same way, a spiritual fraud is not just a spiritual liar. He or she will always lie about other things as well.

Understanding these patterns of deceit among abusers and rapists gives us direct insight into the patterns of spiritual frauds. The following points are offered specifically about the patterns of physical abusers but the parallels to spiritual exploiters should be clear. The aim of this post is to help people in spotting frauds before they can do harm, and to help those who have been harmed find help.

1. Abusers are charming and tend to be very skilled at social manipulation.

2. They are skilled liars. They will also declare they are very honest and honorable but their actual actions will show otherwise.

3. They are in control of their actions, not out-of-control. They do not harm everyone they meet. They are very careful to abuse people they feel confident they can get away with harming, such as wives/girlfriends, children, “apprentices,” or those they are “instructing” ceremonially. Substance abuse may increase their aggression but you should never accept being high/drunk as an excuse for their actions. They are far more in control of their actions than they let on and they also harm their victims when sober.

4. They blame others for their behavior. “The abuser shifts responsibility for his actions away from himself and onto others, a shift that allows him to justify his abuse because the other person supposedly "caused" his behavior.” The fact is, abusing another person is a choice. It is the fault of no one but the abuser.

5. While “friends” and acquaintances will be subjected to manipulation, lies and sometimes emotional abuse, usually only the abuser’s intimate partners and immediate family will see the monstrous side of them. Abusers are very invested in their public image, and will use acquaintances to lie for them and/or pass on their lies in their defense. They will spend a great deal of time lying to non-intimate “friends” to lay a false trail of misdirection and alibis. On the internet and in long-distance phone calls, it is particularly easy for abusers to construct a good front for their online friends who may never meet them in person.

6. Abusers specialize in finding out your vulnerabilities. In the beginning they will tell you how special you are. They will encourage you to confess your fears and vulnerabilities, and they will make a good show of being vulnerable themselves (even though it is just an act and built on lies). They do this to make you emotionally dependent on them, and so later they can use these things to harm and manipulate you.

7. They will seem too good to be true. And they are.

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There is a common misconception that predators and abusers are easy to spot, that they display obvious signs of their predatory nature. While there are warning signs to look out for (linked below), predators have carefully tailored their disguises through their years of abusing others and getting away with it.

If predators weren’t skilled at convincing potential victims and supporters that they’re a nice guy (and those who commit physical abuse are overwhelmingly male), they wouldn’t be successful at what they do. They’ve learned how to fool and manipulate people. It’s their profession. If they weren’t good at fooling people, they would have moved on to some other way of making a living by now. By the time an abuser is middle-aged or elderly, they are very experienced at it; they are not going to change.

Abusive behavior usually starts after the victim has made an emotional, spiritual, and/or financial commitment to the predator. Abuse usually starts right after some milestone: moving in together, getting married, pregnancy, or the birth of the first child. With spiritual predators, it’s often once the victim has made a ceremonial commitment and/or given the predator a large amount of money. Once that investment on the part of the victim is there, the predator knows the victim will be hesitant to throw away all that time and effort they’ve invested in the relationship. By that point the abuser has probably also isolated the victim from other sources of support and information, and has made sure the victim sees them as the unquestionable source of the truth.

The vast majority of rapists don’t hang out in alleys to commit “stranger” rape. “Over 70% of sexual assaults are committed by someone the survivor knows. Over 40% of sexual assaults occur in the victim's home and another 30% take place in the home of a friend, neighbor or relative.”

If you’ve been abused, there is help available. Once you know the patterns to look for, abusers are much easier to spot. Remember, if someone has harmed you, you can bet there are other victims out there. If everyone who has been abused speaks up, the world will change. Those who work the hotlines, who counsel victims of domestic violence and other forms of sexual and spiritual abuse, have heard it all before. They will recognize your story. They won't be shocked and you don't have to be ashamed. The patterns are all too common.

Web Resources

* No Nonsense Self-Defense is an excellent site with many informative articles. Among them:
** Profile of a Rapist
** Stalking/Domestic Violence

* Domestic Violence: In the Mind of the Abuser

* Warning Signs of an Abusive Personality

* Myths and Facts about Sexual Assault

“Myth: Women frequently "cry rape". Fact: The FBI reports that false accusations account for only 2% of all reported sexual assaults. This is no higher than false reports for any other crime.” Rape and domestic violence are the most under-reported of crimes.

* Patterns of Emotional Abuse

* Be Alert To Common Traits of Stalkers

Books

* Why Does He DO That? - Inside the minds of angry and controlling men by Lundy Bancroft (This book identifies specific types of abusers and their M.O.s, though many abusers are of mixed types)

* The Anatomy of Motive
by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker (Understanding criminal psychology, the reasons predators abuse, the types of victims they target, and why)

* Trauma and Recovery
by Judith Hermann (Help recovering from PTSD, whether from combat in war or surviving domestic violence)

Phone and Internet Resources

* National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233)

* RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): 1-800-656-HOPE (1-800-656-4673)

* Sacred Circle: National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women": 1-877-RED-ROAD (1-877-733-7623):
“Women Are Sacred! Violence Against Native Women Is Not Traditional!”

* Mending the Sacred Hoop, Technical Assistance Project

* Red Wind Consulting, Violence Against Native Women

* Domestic Violence and Native Americans

* Native Women's Society of the Great Plains: 1-605-455-2939 (not toll-free)

* South Dakota Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault: 1-800-572-9196

* White Buffalo Calf Woman Society


Permission to re-post granted by the author.