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When Justice Fails The Children:
Quick Synopsis, clarifications and answers to FAQ
What readers have learned thus far:
1) In 1992, while working as an educational psychologist, a 13 yr. old student named Kristy (not her name at the time) came to my attention. She was extremely oversexualized, acted out in extreme and inappropriate ways and was identified as "emotionally disturbed." We connected quickly and easily and her behavior rapidly improved.
2) As she grew stronger, her parents behavior became increasingly bizarre and hostile toward me, so much so I began to fear for my safety (and I am not easily rattled). Finally, they pulled her out of school and said they were going to home school her and she effectively disappeared from the community.
3) Two years later, she resurfaces with an accusation that I sexually molested her in my office during the time we worked together and this was followed by an intense three month investigation which ended with the case being closed due to provable documentation that her claims were false.
4) Again for two years there is no sighting of her in the small community in which we lived; however in 1996 I, the police and the school district received a handwritten letter from her painfully asking for my forgiveness and stating that she was forced into making that accusation by her parents. At the time of this writing she stated they no longer lived in XXX, she was pregnant with her father's child and had been removed from the home.
5)Twelve years later, in the summer of 2008, Kristy finds me via my then-just-set-up website and tells me that she has been looking for me all these years. She tells me that she suffers tremendous challenges due to the years of extreme abuse and that she is identified with a Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Ten "others" in addition to herself live inside her, ranging in age from infant to forty two. Kristy herself is twenty nine, about to turn thirty.
6) The girl that I had worked with is known as K (name changed for legal liability purposes)and Kristy explains that due to intense abuse that only got worse after she was pulled out of school (she never did receive any schooling after that) K "disappeared" at the age of sixteen and that is when Kristy took over as the main "host" or personality.
7) Kristy had written a brief autobiography of her life up until the age of sixteen (actually K and Kristy wrote this together) and it is included in full in PART IV and painfully describes the details of her childhood.
8) When Kristy first contacted me last summer, she told me in a very early email that she had been working hard with a therapist and hoped to "integrate" (i.e. merge) the personalities as she wanted to prosecute her parents (whom she chose only to refer to as, "the Assholes," and not by name. At the time of this writing she had recently moved to another state and had not yet found a therapist who was experienced in DID (multiple personality disorder), but she was looking for one.
9) I explained to Kristy that because she was contemplating prosecution of the parents at some point, it was imperative that all, that every bit, of our communication be in writing. This was for her protection as well as mine so that in no way could her testimony be discredited by the parents stating that I had coerced her into making these accusations in retaliation for what occurred fifteen years earlier. For this reason, all of our conversations took place either through emails and/or through Instant Messages.
10) I have, now locked away in an attorney's office, several hundred pages of her written testimony and feelings about the pastor and his wife who adopted her at age four and proceeded to ritualistically, systematically and continuously rape, beat, isolate and intimidate her.
11) Part VI of the story ended with the emergence of the personality I am referring to as S, who has commanded me to stop corrupting K and Kristy, stating that they need to learn to obey and honor thy father and thy mother.
Answers to the most frequently asked questions to date:
Q:
I don't get the multiple personality thing. I mean, did she live alone? Was she able to ever work or take care of herself? I am confused, is K the same person as Kristy or are they two different personalities/people?
A:
Dissociative Identity Disorder is a complicated and elaborate defense system that is occasionally developed in very intelligent individuals who have been subjected to ongoing and extreme abuse. While it differs from person to person, it seems that a common thread is that there is an "inner system" that has been established. In some people they are not aware of the others (sometimes called Alters). In Kristy's case, there is a levels system which is about to be explained in the next part of the story.
Prior to moving to the state in which she was currently living, Kristy had worked two jobs--one at Walmart and one at a brain and spine rehabilitation facility. Over the years she had lived both alone and with a partner--a woman she was still very close friends with, but no longer involved with in a romantic way.
Kristy's stability and ability to manage this disorder varied greatly, and was highly dependent upon her having ongoing therapy with a skilled clinician. Because she had no such therapist in her current living location, she was in and out of the hospital due to severe self injury issues. There were some of the personalities which were very punitive and Kristy's body bore not only the scars of her parents abuse, but the scars of her own. The picture you see on the video is of a self-inflicted burn on her arm.
The next chapter will identify her various personalities and the system within which they functioned. One thing I will say here, that no doubt I will repeat with frequency, is that while Kristy most definitely suffered from a mental illness, in no way was she crazy.
As you will come to see, there is a stunning difference between someone being crazy and incapable of functional living, thought and patterns of thinking and acting and someone having to manage an emotional disorder that challenges the way they live, but does not necessarily mean living a relatively normal life is an impossibility.
Q:
How come all those teachers just disappeared? Why didn't anyone help her?
A:
Well, I can't answer this question definitively, but I can make some educated guesses. These were very, very intimidating people who seemed used to getting their way. The reason, Kristy wrote me, they hated me so much was because I was the first person they could not intimidate-- that would not capitulate to their demands, and who stood strong as an advocate for her. I can certainly see how each time a teacher started getting close to Kristy, how these parents might raise threatening issues and demand that she be removed from that class and placed in another one--one with a less compassionate or less personally involved teacher. In Kristy's words, they referred to me as a "nosy c..t that they were not about to let land them in jail."
Another important thing to keep in mind is that all of us over the years--all the teachers, the psychologists, the principals--all of us had been introduced to the children of this family as children that the pastor and his wife had rescued out of a ritualistically sexually abusing cult situation and told that this is why not just Kristy, but all the children, were so disturbed. We had no reason whatsoever to question this. These cults exist; as educators and psychologists, we knew this (much as we preferred to wish otherwise). That Kristy would be terribly damaged from having been raised her first four years in such a setting seemed a reasonable explanation.
Even though I so strongly suspected that she was being abused in the pastor's home, it never once occurred to me that they in fact, might be the ritual abusers and that the kids had not come out of that situation, but rather had been adopted into it. It wasn't until I started hearing the rest of the story (beginning last summer) that this hit me.
I do have many questions myself as to why she was not removed from the home prior to the age of 17 (as did she), however, only a competent and very thorough investigative reporter will be able to unravel that part of the story. I have all the names, dates and places of the various teachers, social workers, psychologists, mental health workers, etc that filtered through Kristy's life. It will take an investigative reporter who has a passion for the truth and for justice to do the digging and the interviewing and the questioning that needs to be done to really understand how it is that this child remained in the home and the parents remained untouched by the law.
Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Monday, July 13, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
When Justice Fails the Children: PART III, Kristy's story by Debra Sanders
Part III:When Justice Fails the Children
Kristy's Story by Debra Sanders
It had been a long time since I had told the story of Kristy and of her impact on me personally as well as professionally. Only when someone was involved in my life in a very intimate way did I find myself talking of those years—of my anguish when Kristy was hidden away, my fear for what was happening behind the closed doors of her house and of the incredible sense of powerlessness I felt at not being able to do anything to help her when every fiber in me screamed that I, and the system, were failing her. Only when someone had entered into the most sacred and trusting of relationships with me, did I talk about Kristy or reveal the extreme shock and anxiety that came with being investigated for the very crime I railed against on behalf of the children I saw every day.
And only once did I ever tell the story publicly. Though I hadn’t planned to reveal my experience with Kristy, I found myself telling my story of being investigated to an audience of over three hundred teachers who were attending an inservice I was giving on the teacher’s role and responsibilities with suspected child abuse cases. There had been a comment from a participant regarding the fact that as teachers and educators we really shouldn’t be hugging children anymore and I found myself telling the story of being investigated, of the fear and the anxiety it caused and of my concern throughout the entire ordeal that there was a girl being abused behind closed doors and I was helpless to do anything to help her. The audience was spell bound…riveted into silence by my descriptions of this incredibly bright, sparkling and yet damaged child. I distinctly remember ending with this:
“I tell you this story, the first time I have ever told it publicly, for a reason. Two reasons actually. First, I want you to know that this sort of thing could happen to you…it happened to me and yes, it could happen to you. But secondly, and more importantly, I tell it because I want you to know I still hug children in school and I always will. Children are affectionate by nature and they hug those that they love. If we are doing our jobs as we should be, then our students often associate their love of learning with us. And often the most vulnerable children love us simply because we are kind to them, because we do not abuse them. And they hug us, sometimes they even cling to us.
I, for one, will always return that hug and I will continue to place my hand on a child’s shoulder if it is appropriate to do so for reasons of control or gaining a child’s attention. And if a young child takes my hand on the playground, I will happily let that little hand rest inside of mine. I will never let the fear of a false accusation interfere with my providing treatment, education or kindness to a child and especially for those of you who work with elementary aged children; hugs are one of the ways that children communicate.
That said, I will tell you that I do some things differently now, and I take precautions and preventative steps that I would have never thought to take prior to this happening to me. For one, I will never again agree to work in an office that does not have a window in the door, nor will I cover the window if there is one. I will make sure that if I am seeing a child alone that the time spent together is well documented; and if I have a particularly high risk student like this again, I might consider videotaping all the sessions. I would advise that as teachers you think about what precautions you can take as well, but I urge you to please, not make one of them the removal of physical affection to the children under our care. We didn’t enter into our jobs in education only to educate the minds of our students, but to embrace all aspects of them and to help them learn to trust in and navigate their way through the world. Sometimes, more than any lesson, conversation or lecture, a hug is the most powerful tool we have to give.”
And indeed, for the next decade (plus) of my career, I continued to give and receive hugs from students without hesitation and without regret. I never told the story publicly again, and as I said, though Kristy remained actively alive in my thoughts, I rarely spoke of her, though I was frequently known to tell many funny and tender stories of my many other students over the years (without violating confidentiality of course).
It had been years since I had told the story of Kristy either privately or publicly, but for some reason last summer, I told the story to Merrilyne—the one who calls me OM or OMmie, for Other Mother. I don’t even remember right now what prompted me to tell it, but I did—it was the night before she left to head back to graduate school in Montana.
To my utter astonishment, two days later, the following email shows up in my mailbox:
"I realize you might not want to have any contact with me, but I just wanted to write and thank you for all the help you gave me. I miss you. Love, Kristy"
To say I was stunned is a significant understatement. I was absolutely blown away. I mean, how strange is that timing? I speak of her for the first time in probably ten years and within 48 hours I have an email from her. Not write her back? Unthinkable. Of course I wrote her back.
And thus began what grew into one of the most remarkable, purest, most incredible relationships I am ever likely to have on this earth.And indeed, when she wrote this time, Kristy was about to turn thirty and she wanted to tell me the rest of the story.
TBC. Read on to find out some of the things Kristy told me. Of the torture she endured in order not to make that accusation, the child she became pregnant with and was forced to "throw in a landfill," and the multiple personalities she developed to cope with such extreme abuse.
Kristy's Story by Debra Sanders
It had been a long time since I had told the story of Kristy and of her impact on me personally as well as professionally. Only when someone was involved in my life in a very intimate way did I find myself talking of those years—of my anguish when Kristy was hidden away, my fear for what was happening behind the closed doors of her house and of the incredible sense of powerlessness I felt at not being able to do anything to help her when every fiber in me screamed that I, and the system, were failing her. Only when someone had entered into the most sacred and trusting of relationships with me, did I talk about Kristy or reveal the extreme shock and anxiety that came with being investigated for the very crime I railed against on behalf of the children I saw every day.
And only once did I ever tell the story publicly. Though I hadn’t planned to reveal my experience with Kristy, I found myself telling my story of being investigated to an audience of over three hundred teachers who were attending an inservice I was giving on the teacher’s role and responsibilities with suspected child abuse cases. There had been a comment from a participant regarding the fact that as teachers and educators we really shouldn’t be hugging children anymore and I found myself telling the story of being investigated, of the fear and the anxiety it caused and of my concern throughout the entire ordeal that there was a girl being abused behind closed doors and I was helpless to do anything to help her. The audience was spell bound…riveted into silence by my descriptions of this incredibly bright, sparkling and yet damaged child. I distinctly remember ending with this:
“I tell you this story, the first time I have ever told it publicly, for a reason. Two reasons actually. First, I want you to know that this sort of thing could happen to you…it happened to me and yes, it could happen to you. But secondly, and more importantly, I tell it because I want you to know I still hug children in school and I always will. Children are affectionate by nature and they hug those that they love. If we are doing our jobs as we should be, then our students often associate their love of learning with us. And often the most vulnerable children love us simply because we are kind to them, because we do not abuse them. And they hug us, sometimes they even cling to us.
I, for one, will always return that hug and I will continue to place my hand on a child’s shoulder if it is appropriate to do so for reasons of control or gaining a child’s attention. And if a young child takes my hand on the playground, I will happily let that little hand rest inside of mine. I will never let the fear of a false accusation interfere with my providing treatment, education or kindness to a child and especially for those of you who work with elementary aged children; hugs are one of the ways that children communicate.
That said, I will tell you that I do some things differently now, and I take precautions and preventative steps that I would have never thought to take prior to this happening to me. For one, I will never again agree to work in an office that does not have a window in the door, nor will I cover the window if there is one. I will make sure that if I am seeing a child alone that the time spent together is well documented; and if I have a particularly high risk student like this again, I might consider videotaping all the sessions. I would advise that as teachers you think about what precautions you can take as well, but I urge you to please, not make one of them the removal of physical affection to the children under our care. We didn’t enter into our jobs in education only to educate the minds of our students, but to embrace all aspects of them and to help them learn to trust in and navigate their way through the world. Sometimes, more than any lesson, conversation or lecture, a hug is the most powerful tool we have to give.”
And indeed, for the next decade (plus) of my career, I continued to give and receive hugs from students without hesitation and without regret. I never told the story publicly again, and as I said, though Kristy remained actively alive in my thoughts, I rarely spoke of her, though I was frequently known to tell many funny and tender stories of my many other students over the years (without violating confidentiality of course).
It had been years since I had told the story of Kristy either privately or publicly, but for some reason last summer, I told the story to Merrilyne—the one who calls me OM or OMmie, for Other Mother. I don’t even remember right now what prompted me to tell it, but I did—it was the night before she left to head back to graduate school in Montana.
To my utter astonishment, two days later, the following email shows up in my mailbox:
"I realize you might not want to have any contact with me, but I just wanted to write and thank you for all the help you gave me. I miss you. Love, Kristy"
To say I was stunned is a significant understatement. I was absolutely blown away. I mean, how strange is that timing? I speak of her for the first time in probably ten years and within 48 hours I have an email from her. Not write her back? Unthinkable. Of course I wrote her back.
And thus began what grew into one of the most remarkable, purest, most incredible relationships I am ever likely to have on this earth.And indeed, when she wrote this time, Kristy was about to turn thirty and she wanted to tell me the rest of the story.
TBC. Read on to find out some of the things Kristy told me. Of the torture she endured in order not to make that accusation, the child she became pregnant with and was forced to "throw in a landfill," and the multiple personalities she developed to cope with such extreme abuse.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Parent and teacher conflicts by Debra Sanders
I was just involved in a discussion with a young mother angry with her son’s teacher. The gist of it was that the mother felt that the teacher talked down to her and was disrespectful; leaving the mom feeling embarrassed and intimidated. The issue was around her kindergartener’s struggles with adjusting to school. This mom was very angry and was going to go to the principal and speak her mind.
While I applaud this mom’s involvement and her desire to be treated respectfully (as well she should be), over my twenty plus years of working in schools, I saw this scenario repeated too many times. The usual result is the principal will call the teacher in, let them know there has been a complaint and nothing much really changes. In the worst case scenario the teacher gets angry for a complaint being filed and takes even less interest in the child because they don’t want to have to deal with the parent. Generally nothing specific has happened that resolves the intitial issue-- which is that a student is having some sort of difficulty!
I often thought that schools could offer a couple of free workshops for parents at the beginning of the year and then throughout the year. Just a one hour, laid-back kind of thing with refreshments and which targets specific topics. Nothing major, just practical stratgegies for how to advocate successfully for your child; or, how to partner with your child's teacher; even tips on how to help your kids with their homework.
I think most parents would confront a teacher directly if they knew how to do it in a way that wasn’t combative and angry. And I think most parents would help their kids with homework, if they knew exactly what it is they should be doing and how to do it. It’s not so easy knowing how to help your child with their homework, even if the subject is simple addition. We forget that a lot of young parents have not been inside an elementary school since they were a student there!
It seems to me that a one hour chat (always with food and beverage!) would be a small investment for a potentially huge gain. Even if only one or two parents show up, word of mouth, as we all know, is powerful. As is free food! :-)
I just gave this mom three straight forward tips for handling this situation without going to the principal and which are likely to result in developing a partnership with the teacher instead of a stressed relationship. They were simple, but to a young mother with no experience with how to be assertive or how to state what she wants or needs in a way that engages someone rather than alienates them, my three suggestions were like lighting up a dark room for her. She was just blown away and instead of being mad, now she is excited to go back and approach the teacher (she is not going to go to the principal at this time).
Wouldn’t it be nice if this sort of thing were routinely offered in the schools? Think how much more time would be focused on our kids and how everyone's time and energy (parent and teachers both) would be so much more effectively spent.
What do the rest of you out there think? For all I know maybe this IS offered! Let me know your thoughts and experiences.
Debra
While I applaud this mom’s involvement and her desire to be treated respectfully (as well she should be), over my twenty plus years of working in schools, I saw this scenario repeated too many times. The usual result is the principal will call the teacher in, let them know there has been a complaint and nothing much really changes. In the worst case scenario the teacher gets angry for a complaint being filed and takes even less interest in the child because they don’t want to have to deal with the parent. Generally nothing specific has happened that resolves the intitial issue-- which is that a student is having some sort of difficulty!
I often thought that schools could offer a couple of free workshops for parents at the beginning of the year and then throughout the year. Just a one hour, laid-back kind of thing with refreshments and which targets specific topics. Nothing major, just practical stratgegies for how to advocate successfully for your child; or, how to partner with your child's teacher; even tips on how to help your kids with their homework.
I think most parents would confront a teacher directly if they knew how to do it in a way that wasn’t combative and angry. And I think most parents would help their kids with homework, if they knew exactly what it is they should be doing and how to do it. It’s not so easy knowing how to help your child with their homework, even if the subject is simple addition. We forget that a lot of young parents have not been inside an elementary school since they were a student there!
It seems to me that a one hour chat (always with food and beverage!) would be a small investment for a potentially huge gain. Even if only one or two parents show up, word of mouth, as we all know, is powerful. As is free food! :-)
I just gave this mom three straight forward tips for handling this situation without going to the principal and which are likely to result in developing a partnership with the teacher instead of a stressed relationship. They were simple, but to a young mother with no experience with how to be assertive or how to state what she wants or needs in a way that engages someone rather than alienates them, my three suggestions were like lighting up a dark room for her. She was just blown away and instead of being mad, now she is excited to go back and approach the teacher (she is not going to go to the principal at this time).
Wouldn’t it be nice if this sort of thing were routinely offered in the schools? Think how much more time would be focused on our kids and how everyone's time and energy (parent and teachers both) would be so much more effectively spent.
What do the rest of you out there think? For all I know maybe this IS offered! Let me know your thoughts and experiences.
Debra
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