‘My Justice’ by    

                   Patricia A. McKnight

 

Many people have told me how ‘My Justice’ has influenced their lives in a powerful way.  Sadly, I’ve also been told how my ‘victim’ story is way too graphic and is not suitable for public knowledge.

‘You really should tame it back Trish, it’s just too much in your face and our attendees just are not very receptive. Perhaps if you turned it back a notch or so.’

I’d like to take a few moments to help people out in making the decision to read ‘My Justice’ or hear ‘My Story’.

First off, let me say, this is an extremely violent true account of, not only the twelve long years of ‘terroristic’ child molestation, rape, exploitation, sex trafficking, family servitude, and physically disfiguring neglect, but also how having to endure through all of these pains affected my adult life, adult relationships, marriages, sense of self worth, and most importantly my parenting and independent skills in supporting a family. As you read the chapters, going from one traumatic ugly event to another, you are engaged in the accounts from the child, woman, wife, mother, and then the survivor whose only mission is to be a good person and find a sincere, safe, true love.

• This book is NOT intended for any reader under the age of fourteen
• This book is highly recommended for victims of similar types of childhood or adult personal violations and harm.
• ‘My Justice’ is extremely useful in educating yourself and persons within law enforcement, healthcare, psychology, and family service providers.
• ‘My Justice’ is a walk through a victim’s life in a home with a dominating forceful personality who engrained a sense of fear so intense, she lived day after day, year after year, in a constant threat of attack. You will see how this type of environment impacted her entire life, her decisions, behaviors, parenting, and how she was trained to be a sexualized, submissive personality with absolutely no other spark of identity within.

‘My Justice’ is a personal journey written first with only the intent to get it all out of my body. The memories were flooding my soul at that time, triggered by my mother’s heart attack and illness. Yes, it had always eaten away at me, how could so many people who interacted throughout so many years of my life, how could they have abandoned me to be so completely destroyed. I really had no idea who I was supposed to be. The second purpose was to explain to my children how it all had played out and affected their lives. I needed them to forgive my lack in skills, see how important they really were to me, and somehow use the knowledge I was beginning to finally understand myself; use what I’d written and studied in my own life changing path so that they could change how things were in their lives. Seeing how Bink reacted as he read through his true love’s life long pattern of pain was like a spark that perhaps I did matter, perhaps my secrets mattered, perhaps my horrific life could help someone else figure out how to change what had been done to them.

I found out just how many adult survivors of these types of childhoods were in our society. Everyone of us felt isolated in our pain, trapped by the expected behaviors & achievements of our society and unable to openly speak about these horrors. In the centuries before the internet, there may have been one or two who felt safe enough to reveal the truth, but most were living life ashamed of what happened and afraid of being ostracized for being that once silent, trapped, manipulated and controlled, terrorized victim. We were living our lives weighed down by all of the disgusting, vile, and brutal acts we had no choice but to endure and accept; no matter how often they happened or what we were forced to do. After some serious consideration, with a reluctance as to how it was going to be accepted, I took a chance and self published these nightmares because to me as I wrote out my dark inner self, there was a inner sense of finally taking back my freedom, my own sense of person, and I began to put together the person, with the values, that I wanted to be today. With me, through many who know me, what you see is really what you get. There are no longer any dark secrets looming behind the curtain. I am no longer trapped with his monstrous hand covering my mouth and holding me silent as I lay there trapped in his evil attacks. No longer was my only identity wrapped up in the sexualized, devalued, and stripped raw person my parents created. Publishing ‘My Justice’ was publishing ‘My Freedom’ and in finding my own identity I realized just how important ‘My Justice’ really was and it became my heart’s mission to change the centuries of human silence about this tragic topic.

 So let’s go forward then…..

Who will be helped and how will they be helped in reading this violent journey through my third nervous breakdown as a result of all that had been my life?

Victims & Survivors:

Although you may find this book triggering or upsetting, take a breath, lay it down and come back to it when you’re in a better place or a peaceful mindset. I want to tell you; ‘Your identity, the magic candle that Creator has instilled within every soul; the magic is still very much inside of you, and you hold the only chance at life it really has to shine. It’s tragic these evil actions have ever been committed against you, but if you want to be truly free from the pain, you simply need to be strong enough to let go of the only way of life you’ve ever known. You need to get angry at being someone’s victim all the time, decide for yourself that YOU will never tolerate another act of harm against you again. In reading ‘My Justice’, many have contacted me about how it inspired them to get away from an abuser, begin looking into their past, catching the repeated dysfunctional ways they parent their children. Readers have looked at the choice patterns they’ve made in life and what they believed was safe, tolerable, accepted within a relationship. If you are now or ever were someone’s victim, there is a life altering impact from the trauma which causes a chain reaction in your choices, behaviors, parenting, perceptions of the world as a whole. There is scientific proof of the frontal lobe brain dysfunctions caused by trauma on a child’s developing brain. the impacts alter your sense of safe, not safe, Fight or Flight; even how you develop your independence as a teen or preteen. Remember that regardless of your past or what your parents may have or have not taught you about life, you are the ONLY person who can control your decisions, your actions and your reactions You cannot and should not be trying to control choices and life patterns for someone else. You are the only one that can put forth the effort and determination you will need to change your life, but this book is something that just might help you re-evaluate your behaviors and relationships and at the end you will find a list of Five Positive Insights to help you through those challenging times.

Close Family & Friends of victims/survivors:

If you are a close friend or you love someone who is dealing with these types of harms from their past, perhaps as a child or even in adult or school relationships, there is an emotional distortion in many of the responses and actions you see in that person. You may disagree with all or some of their behaviors and what they do, you may say to yourself, ‘I’m so tired of seeing her fall down in the cracks all the time’. Please understand, especially in cases of a life raised in a violent home or a sexually distorted environment; they cannot help and may not even realize the level of trauma they’ve been through. It may be necessary to provide an intervention in some way, depending on how bad their life is today. They may not realize how it affects their instant responses to things in their life today. Maybe they are loved and have a happy family, however like many other human beings who have endured such atrocities against them, there are changes in their inner self that may not be like your choices, your reactions, your inhibitions. These persons have had everything that was good about them beaten down, degraded, and at its worst completely discarded for any sadness or pain, even intense fear they may have endured. Today we just want to help them know it is safe. Comfort and support them. If they find the courage to share with you, do not be shocked and disgusted. Do not tell them they shouldn’t talk about such things. Instead we need to see how we can help them. If you see them perhaps being too harsh with their children, making rash decisions, or even abusing drugs or alcohol; please offer them a contact of help. Address the issues with them, as hard or challenging as it may be. Let them know you are not judging them, but just want to help provide some light in their life and make things a bit happier for them. Love and comfort them, let them know they can trust you with their pain.

For educators, healthcare, law enforcement, behavioral specialist, and psychology professionals:

The professionals who come in contact with child victims or person’s in a dangerous situation, you are the front line for them. Remember that we teach our children these are ‘SAFE’ persons and that if they are in danger, not being treated nicely, or someone is harming them in some way; you are the strong one who will help them. In reading ‘My Justice’ you will see how the years of heinous neglect/refusal to provide any form of needs or care for the child, resulted in the belief that there was nothing about her worth helping or saving. The educational system where she attended from 3rd to 10th grade, day after day, as the filth and infected sores covered her skin, the black rotten fangs hanging from her mouth, the constant pattern of homework not done, no after school activities, no social interactions with others, nothing but a pattern of sexualized behaviors because in what she was taught; sex and servitude was the only value she had as a human being. Your professional contact in responding to a victim is crucial. How you make them feel that they absolutely deserve someone to hear them, see them, be gentle with them, and help them get to a safe place matters in how their future beliefs and life patterns will be built. When you respond with care, concern, a sense of tenderness; you have the power to change their lives and the dysfunctional self hatred engrained by years of trauma and pain. In law enforcement, when you disregard the child, woman, mother, father, who has been hit, violated, or dominated by a sense of terror; you have also left them believing they are not worth saving. You can learn to evaluate the care of each individual within the home, then determine if there is cause to take the ‘bad’ person away and give them time to find a safe place. Behavioral specialist & Guidance Counselors at school; rather than continuously reprimanding or suggesting medication control of the child who displays disruptive behaviors, always lagging in homework, no interests in activities, poor social skills, perhaps only one or two persons you see them interact with if anyone at all. There is a more simple direct question and a process of building trust, a respectful bond, with the troubled child/person. You can be much more pro-active in assisting/encouraging a change in behavior when you ask; is there something going on, maybe I can help, is there someone at home that has you scared or is preventing you from doing your homework?’ The direct concern of the person’s well being just might save their life. After you read ‘My Justice’ you’ll be more aware of the details, rather than just the trained bullet point behaviors, of someone who just might need your help. As a community responder, someone who interacts with this person on a regular basis, you will see just how your tuned senses learned from the victim’s words of these horrors and be able to more frequently spot a person in need of your professional assistance providing them with a safe place. 

‘My Justice’ has been used in online psychology courses taught by Dr. Brenda Markert-Green. It is also a regularly recommended read from one of Illinois strongest voices in the Illinois Retired Teachers, Coordinator for the Teacher’s Mentoring Program for upcoming educators. This very personal story has been suggested reading by my own therapist for other patients. It’s also been recommended by advocates across the country, in United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. As a society we have a direct responsibility to be able to maintain safe communities for our children, this includes the homes where our children aren’t allowed to go and the parents we don’t trust around our children. It is what we do as aware protective parents; as a society who wants to help create some type of change in how these past taught and trained behaviors against people within our homes; those we love the most and those who have no choice but to endure, grow up so they can get away themselves; this is where ‘My Justice’ will change your life and you will become more instinctive and responsive to the victims & survivors around us everyday.

As professionals, neighbors, community leaders, church elders, and responders; it is our adult duty to evaluate what lies underneath this misbehaving, lagging, promiscuous child. Be prepared to find out just how bad it can be sometimes inside the homes of those in our community. There are usually signs of a dysfunctional or harmful environment, learn them and use the guide to determine how best to help someone you know.

As you have read here, ‘My Justice’, has already achieved so much more than I ever thought it would and has influenced the lives of tremendous people with the power, knowledge, and ability to make a difference in the lives of those who suffer. We can all do this by simply caring about whether or not someone is safe. Don’t just listen to the fighting and screaming down the hall from the same family night after night. Don’t turn up the tv or close the window, instead open your heart and allow yourself to pick up the phone and report what you see and hear to the front line professionals who are there to help, especially when it is a child who cannot fight back, cannot refuse, and can be easily manipulated into believing all of the pain is really their fault, they just aren’t any good and it doesn’t matter that they are being hurt. Should we ever allow another being to feel this way about themselves when there is a beautiful light inside each of us, which just might one day change the world?

I hope you purchase ‘My Justice’. I hope you recommend others to read this story, share your copy of the book with a friend, list it as recommended reading for college students studying to become a front line defense person for families, victims, and survivors who just might be waiting for someone to help them see that their life, their smile, their safety really does matter.

Thank you for your time here. I appreciate any feedback you want to share. If you’d like to arrange a speaking venue or perhaps need some assistance yourself, or maybe you want to know more about the full list of things you can do to help; please email direct to trish.mcknight@live.com

Be well & keep on dreaming, your butterfly, your freedom, your sense of safety; your inner magic really does matter!!

Patricia McKnight

‘My Justice’ – A true account, chapter after chapter, of the many horrific years endured through evil, sex trafficking, servitude, brutal beatings, and what is no less than torture. Please use personal care when reading, do not stress to rush through but rather take your time and do not allow your past to take away your amazing future.

 

copyright @ Butterfly Dreams Abuse Recovery

Sept 2012