Optical Allusionist

August 19, 2006

I have a friend that's quite a bit older than me. (Hahaha, I have a few of them) She has children and is worried to the extreme about keeping them safe. When she was younger (I don't know how young) she had an experience that was abusive (and that is the extent of my knowledge on her past life concerning the subject) I haven't talked with her a lot lately- I don't see her a lot, and when I do the conversation goes sort of like this:

"How are you?"
"I'm fine"
"Cool... Are you excited for school to start?"
"Yep. A little nervous, but it'll be good... How about you?"
"Yep, everything's good."
"Cool"
"Yep"

Shelly's my name, superficial's my game. There's so much I want to tell her though. I don't want to tell her nothing will happen to her kids 'cause things happen when we don't realize it. But I want her to not give up hope! I want her to know there are things before and after abuse that can be done to help. I feel so inadequate in the subject. I want to tell her God loves her and her children, and even though He can't choose for those who would hurt them, He is SO willing to help with their healing!! I want to tell her all the little protection clues I've heard over and over: explain appropriate touching, if you feel uncomfortable tell an adult, etc. I want to tell her that things that seem small may be SO significant- maybe not in keeping them initially safe, but in keeping them strong. Scripture reading and prayer are so key in strength!!! In the Ensign (for August or July 2006) the visiting teaching message was SO not thorough. In fact, it was ridiculously idealistic. It stated that scripture reading (family and personal) and prayer (f & p) would keep children safe. WRONG!! The 'perfect' family with the 'perfect' parents and the 'perfect' children can still have something happen to them!! In fact, adversity is a given in this life, so guess what- they WILL have "something happen"! I want to tell her that leaders - school, church, extracurricular, etc - can help IMMENSELY!! I want to tell her that therapy is a good idea if the situation ever occurs. I want to tell her that, if her bishop is good, then she can turn to him. (Some bishops are horrible. I have a friend who was sexually abused as a child who can not turn to her cold, angry bishop, or her distant young women's president.... So Sad!) I want to tell her that no matter what God is there!

I wrote a letter telling her all these things and more. I read it to my mom, asking if I should send it, but she says (is this bad or good?) that it sounded like I was a therapist... which I guess is quite the compliment seeing as how I'm going to be a clinical psychologist, but I wanted to be a friend, not a counselor. Oh well. But I did write her a letter thanking her for a conversation we had on forgiveness. Unfortunately I had to get to work in like half an hour and I still had to eat and shower, etc. So I ran up to her out of breath, gave her the letter, said "This is for you", looked at her for a sec, gave her a hug, and ran off. Sigh, I've been trying to reach her since Thursday (when I gave it to her) but have been unable to... I guess we'll see what happens, huh?