Tag Archives: Corporate America

The Rape of a Generation

12 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by in My Life, The World Around Us

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Sometime after the age of 21, when things in my life became messier and messier, I began to see talk therapists on a regular basis.  This theme of seeing a therapist has been a reoccurring one since that point.  I couldn’t imagine pinpointing the number if I tried.  Most therapy starts out in the exact same fashion – it starts out by a re-telling of your history.  The story of your life is told to a stranger in order that this stranger may have a better perspective on what they are dealing with.  Every time I told my story the assumption, or follow up question, was inevitably the same.

“Where you sexually abused as a child?”

I would respond, “No”

This would then bring about follow up questions which digged deeper into the same question.  I always felt as though these therapists thought I was lying or possibly unaware of my abuse.  This has happened with every therapist I have ever spoke with.  The reason why, this response was the logical one to them, has become obvious to me as I have grown and learned more about the characteristics of an adult who was sexually abused as a child.  Of the 27 listed characteristics on the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress (aaets.org) there is only one that doesn’t conform to my life.

I grew up in a loving, Christian home.  I have a father and mother figure who displayed a marriage full of love, respect and faithfulness.  I have loving siblings.  I grew up with supportive teachers and coaches.  I was involved with sports, church and friends.  I had a few [not fantastic, but tolerable] boyfriends. So … who was it that ripped my innocence from me?  Who tore my understanding of intimacy apart from my God given instinct of what it should be?  I think, in part, we can find the answer in the very definition of childhood sexual abuse:

Childhood sexual abuse can be defined as any exposure to sexual acts imposed on children who inherently lack the emotional, maturational, and cognitive development to understand or to consent to such acts. These acts do not always involve sexual intercourse or physical force.

I believe the “person” responsible for sexually abusing me is simply stated … our  society. I, along with most children, have been exposed to sexual acts that we were not emotionally, mature or cognitively developed enough to understand. If your eyes are open, you should know that examples are not necessary.  The billboards … the magazines … the models … the movies … the tv shows.

I have been reworking this post for days and days and have concluded that I have far too much to say on this one topic than I can fit in one post.  So for now, I would ask that you remove yourself from the norms of our society long enough that you can imagine the tragedy of the visions we (society), often unknowingly, inflict on our children.  Visions that we are so over-exposed to we no longer see harm in.

If your child is playing in the living room, and SVU: Special Victims Unit happens to be the background noise, please know this is a form of rape.  If your 13 year old daughter borrows a Cosmo magazine from a friend at school and reads a graphic description of a sexual position. And this position goes against everything she has ever intuitively thought of as intimate and loving – she is being sexually assaulted. If she is playing an age appropriate game on the computer or phone and an ad pops up along the top, with a 15 year old girl – bent over at the waist, displaying her backside, eyes gazing at the camera – this is contributing to the  victimization of a whole generation.

As I said before, I don’t blame my parents.  In fact, I think the truth of them doing all they could and still being helpless to long term societal effects is crucially important to my story.  Society, media, advertisers, public relation specialists, politicians and corporations have placed greed above all else … and one of the many detrimental effects of this greed is this very frightening and very real …

Rape of a generation.

(After I first published this post, I wrote a few follow up clarifications, I would encourage you to read those as well.  Thanks!)

I Am No Longer A Machine

16 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in My Life, The World Around Us, Widowed World

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I realized something today as I was standing in front of my oven, carefully placing eight dinosaur chicken nuggets in a row on a pan.   Both my children were at the kitchen table, happily playing with crayons and blocks.  It was almost noon on a Monday.  It was at this moment it dawned on me that I am no longer a machine.

See as I was standing there, joy in my heart, gazing over their work – encouraging them, helping them, laughing with them – I felt a pang in my stomach.  A knot of anxiety jabbed me deep in my gut.  I knew what it was telling me, why it had graced me with it’s disgusting presence.  I wasn’t producing anything for it.  I wasn’t doing anything that could be formulated into a spreadsheet to display my progress or lack thereof.

At a previous corporate position I held, we had “Our Numbers”.  Or at least, that is what we called them in our department.  I’m certain this report had an official name, something like quarterly summery progress report, I suppose.  To the people in my department though, it was the still small voice in the part of our brains – not stemming from the Spirit – but stemming from Corporate America.  It was the voice that reminded us time is money.  It reminded us that we were nothing more than the production we put out.  It reminded us that in order to get a raise, which on a good year would equal half of the cost of living increase, was determined by the outcome of “Our Numbers”.

There is joy in hard work, company loyalty, and work ethic – all of which I like to think I possess.  There is also a time for simply living in the moment.  We were not built to be machines.  We were built to create, procreate, and honor the earth we were given.

I spent almost 45 minutes with Isaac this morning doing two things; trying to get him to say “shoe” and playfully helping him pull his shoe on his foot.  I spent 45 minutes with my child in which the worth of my time could not be determined.  I spent 45 minutes in which I did not produce and no client could be billed for my time.  Isaac will likely not be putting shoes on by himself anytime soon. And when he does say “shoe”, it could have been the exact same day he would have learned this word if I had not spent those 45 minutes working with him on it.

My worth is no longer determined by my production.  It is not determined by numbers, graphs, or progress reports.  My worth, in my home, with my children, is the level at which I am able to love them … a worth that cannot be broken down and analyzed.  The deep longing I have always had to stay at home with my children, is to be given the opportunity to simply love on them more hours of the day.  I am here to love them.  Nothing I do, or don’t do, short of loving them is going to change that.

I am no longer a machine … and this will take some getting used to.

Saying Goodbye To The Cube Farm

26 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Faith Reflections, My Life, The World Around Us, Widowed World

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So I was laid off from my corporate job today- no apologies are necessary.

These last twelve months have been a roller coaster of changes and adjustments.  The people I work(ed) with, in my immediate department, poured out compassion and grace to me every chance they got.  And still, I knew deep within me, very soon after Matt’s death, that sitting in that cubicle was not where I was suppose to be anymore.  With the mourning, the moving, and the months of ongoing adjustments I made the decision to hold to that job.  I knew that the financial stability was smart.  I knew my ability to discern whether or not another ‘life changing event’ should be placed on our home simply wasn’t there.  Even with all that though, it was a day by day effort.  Waking up and getting to a job that had lost all meaning … working for corporate America … and at what cost?  The nagging feeling that I was leaving my children behind in order to do so.

It was about a month ago, maybe two, that my heart started truly aching.  The desire to step out in faith, to follow God’s calling on my life, and do the thing that most people would view as ‘irresponsible’ or financially risky had reached a point that I felt I was about to crawl right out of my skin.  Depression, of a different source this time, was sinking deep down within me.  I felt I was letting down my children by needing to hold a 9-5.  I felt I was letting down my co-workers, both by the change in my work habits, and my loss of passion.  I felt trapped.

Before Christmas the company I work(ed) for had executive level issues, and it was rumored there may be layoffs.  With much angst over how it could possibly sound to a manager, I requested that if layoffs were to take place that I would be the one to go.  It had been weeks since then and there had been no sign or word that it was ever going to happen.  More recently, in the last two weeks, I began to give up hope on that being the tool in which God would use to release me from my old career path.  I became frustrated with God … what was worse was I tried to take control – to handle it without surrender.  I doubted His ability, or possibly more accurately speaking, His willingness to answer my prayers.

Last night was the ugliest night I’ve experienced in a while.  I paced for hours, I wrote feverishly (in private journals never to be seen by the pages of a blog), I prayed, I begged, and I cried.  I asked God to show me, tell me, make it known what was the correct path.  I confessed to Him.  I was honest about my pride, my need to control, my doubt.  I went to sleep.  I woke up.  I went to work.  But when I left?  I went home with confidence and freedom, the kind only Christ can give.

He is so good.  We say that, don’t we … God is good.  It’s almost as if no word ever could even come close to encapsulating Him, so we just nod in knowing and say, ‘He is good.”  But it’s truth to the core … He has been good to me, so good to me.  Even in my doubt, anger, and unfaithfulness He loves me.

I got home and the song How He Loves came on.  Those first words almost knocked me to the ground …

He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

Where I had felt alone and angry just hours before I could almost now see his love surrounding me in all my weakness.  Jealous to have my faithfulness back – holy and good He bent me like a branch in the wind of his mercy, goodness, and love.
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