mysteriousworkings.com

 

I  joined The Witches' Voice in 2001.
It's a great place to find others in your area, events, classes and much more.


witchvox.com  

Let 'em talk.
You've made it through worse
You survived.
You're still around to talk about it
And that's something to celebrate

Someone sent me this:

Can't face me? Turn around
Can't stand me? Sit down
Think I'm Tripping? Tie my shoe
Like me? Great
Hate me? Even better
Think you know me?
You have no idea

Many (not all, but many) survivors do one other thing, sooner or later:
They go back to help others.
They take what knowledge they have and their experiences and start sharing with others. They reach out to victims with a helping hand.
They try to help society understand the problem.
They support every "young survivor" (any person who has just crossed that same turning point) with hope, understanding and the support they so desperately need.

-Kim Eyer-

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
The year is 2010.
I find it difficult to believe that awareness is STILL such a problem.
But it is....

Friends and family can hurt survivors. Some may not mean to but some....I can only say their ignorance has blinded them .

 If you do a search on  any combination of words dealing with "those that stand with abusers" you'll find tons of examples.
And they're current accounts, not something that happened 50 years ago.

Blaming the survivor is what I see most. (Online and in person) "you deserved it" "why are you still talking about it?" "let it go" (most are holding on to past experiences themselves and crying over them but...it's different when they do it )  I've even had people tell me I'm not healing because I'm talking about it......something to do with "picking the scabs" 

So, October is a time it's going to be OK to talk about domestic violence.
(Fortunately there are many places to go that aren't afraid to speak about it all year. I'm lucky I found one of those places...many don't)

It's about getting the word out that domestic violence is alive and well....it's about survivors telling their stories...it's about reading or listening about the victims that weren't so lucky to get out. It's a time to let abusers know we aren't going to smile and nod at them anymore ...we're stronger than they thought and we're not stopping in our fight to stop domestic violence.

It's a time for women to support other women. It's a time for those who have never been involved in an abusive relationship to understand what happens, learn and educate all they know so they won't  ever have to rescue someone they love from a violent home...or identify them in a morgue.

It's a time to stop the misconceptions, the lies, the myths about domestic violence.
It's a time to stop standing by when you see or hear of domestic violence and do nothing.
It's a time to stop supporting the abusers.
It's a time to let our voices be heard.

Silence hides violence.
Ignorance about domestic violence and it's far reaching effects are shameful.

We can make a difference.

.....and it's time.

It's been a year. This one is the hardest one to tell about...think about.

Another fight free day. No worries, though it was still early.

I can't remember what caused the fight.  What I know now it wouldn't have mattered anyway, Anything I did or didn't say he would have  reacted the same. (and I should have been able to say anything in our home and still be safe...anything)

I didn't see it coming.

All at once he had jumped up and began grabbing things off the night stand....threw  keys or something at me. Then the furniture started being knocked over and thrown across the room...... 

I ran out of the bedroom.

My son and some freinds were in the living room. I screamed "Call 911, call 911...call the police!!"
(Domestic violence effects everyone. It wasn't just me he was trying to control. He didn't care who was there...even other peoples children, including my own)

The walls were being hit with ....anything he could get his hands on. Tables, chairs....the TV was pushed to the floor .
2 chairs in the bedroom were very special to me and my sons.....they had been brought over from Ireland when my husbands family had moved to the US.  I kept them in there to keep them safe  over the years .... no one would have destroyed them on purpose but there were always lots of kids and noise in our home......

My son and his friends didn't know what to do....I grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

While on the phone  I realized he had gotten his gun.

"get someone over here now!! he's got a F&^% gun!!" is what I remember screaming into the phone.
The operator was telling me to calm down and give her the address. I gave it and kept  telling them to send someone over  (there was no way she could calm me down)

We were in the kitchen at this point . The phone was disconnected. I could hear the phone ringing but I was trying to get the gun away from him and couldn't answer.

I got the gun away somehow.

I'm trying to get the kids out to safety, find the ringing phone and keep a gun away from him.

He just went and got another gun.

This is when it really got terrifying.....

 My 15 year old son  was fighting to get the gun away from him now.

NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AWARENESS MONTH

In 1995, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) convened several national domestic violence organizations - the Family Violence Prevention Fund, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline and later the National Network to End Domestic Violence - to launch a new effort to support domestic violence programs' awareness and education efforts for Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), observed annually in October. The collaborative effort became the Domestic Violence Awareness Project (DVAP).

Today, the DVAP is a diverse and unique partnership of local, tribal, state and national domestic violence organizations and networks. The DVAP collaborates to collect, develop and distribute resources and ideas relevant to advocates' ongoing public and prevention awareness and education efforts not only in preparation for DVAM, but also throughout the year.

The work of the DVAP strives to creatively bring to life its statement of purpose:
The Domestic Violence Awareness Project (DVAP) supports the rights of all individuals, especially women and girls, to live in peace and dignity. Violence and all other forms of oppression against all communities and families must be eliminated. The purpose of the DVAP is to support and promote the national, tribal, territorial, state and local advocacy networks in their ongoing public education efforts through public awareness campaigns, strategies, materials, resources, capacity-building and technical assistance.

DVAM

The co-worker of a woman found dead in her boyfriend's car after a fatal California police chase said Thursday that she spoke with the victim during the pursuit.

The high-speed chase ended at a Richmond strip mall on Tuesday night, when officers shot and killed murder suspect Efren Valdemoro.

Officers found the body of Cindy Tran, 46, in the passenger seat of Valdemoro's car. Tran had apparently suffered severe head and neck injuries.

"I could hear these sirens, and I could hear Jennie screaming, 'No! Stop! Honey, I love you. Please. No!'" she said.

"Then I started asking her in Vietnamese, 'Where are you at? What city are you in? What street are you on?'

"She was pleading with him to stop. He was yelling at her. I couldn't understand what he was saying, and I kept yelling for someone here to call 911."

link


"Let me out....just stop the car and let me out...."
"Please, just stop the car and let me out!"
I was also begging him to stop the car the let me out....the 911 operator could hear him screaming....SHUT UP! had changed to GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!!!

"Stop the car and I'll get out!..".STOP THE CAR!"

He pulled over to the right side of the road and leaned over me and opened my car door...he was pushing me out. We weren't stopped, the car was still moving...I was trying to get my seat belt off while holding on to my phone and talking to the 911 operator.... all the while he was still screaming "GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT" and pushing me...I got my seat belt off, fell out of the car and he sped away.....passenger door still open....he crossed the grass median and was now heading west.....

Link

The last link is to part of my story....Quite similar to the news story...
though....he wasn't being chased for murder.....he was just having a" bad day".
.....and he didn't kill me.

The news article says the man had suspected his g/f of cheating with one of the men who rented rooms from her and that's why he killed them?

 "He apparently suspected that Tran was romantically involved with either Ricardo Sales or his son."


More


I was accused often of cheating...and the women I've been talking with all say they were always accused too. We weren't....


Domestic Violence is never ok....

National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−SAFE(7233) or TTY 1−800−787−3224.
http://www.ndvh.org/

A Woman With A Mission

Starting this week, fortune tellers in Warren, Mich., must be fingerprinted and pay an annual fee of $150 — plus $10 for a police background check — to practice their craft. The new rules are among America's strictest on palmists, fortune readers, and other psychics — and part of a growing push to regulate a business that has never been taken, or overseen, very seriously. But officials in Warren, a town of 138,000 near Detroit, say it's time to weed out tricksters. "We had no mechanism of enforcement to protect people against unsavory characters," Warren City Council member Keith Sadowski says. "We want to be sure there is some recourse in case we do get somebody who is not legitimate."

Regulating an industry that deems itself clairvoyant, has no standard education requirements and yet rakes in cash for revealing spiritual truths may itself be an act of faith. It also might make good economic sense: just over one in seven Americans consulted a psychic or fortune-teller in 2009, according to the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life. That could be 30 million or more of us.

Read more: link

"somebody who is not legitimate" ?
Well.....let's see.
Didn't stop the priests from doing what they wanted....
Those in law enforcement who are to uphold the law  ....don't always.
How many  tv evangelists are raking in the money ?
Politicians?
I could go on about this for a while

And it's Friday again....hope your week-end goes well

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving,
swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship.
But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent,
their songs never cease. 
(John Muir)