Hi Lynne - I'm on the last two chapters of your book, and it has been riveting. Your writing style is top-notch, and I admire your bravery to tell such a hard story so well. Your journey was a tough one, but one you arrived at the other end as a triumphant survivor. I know in my heart many, many people will be touched by this book.

I'm late to the discussion, but I will have some questions for you soon. One that you may have answered and I missed it as I scanned the posts is, "How did you decide what to put in and what to leave out?"

Dianne, I hope you don't mind this question. Do you know if your dad had been abused?

I often hear history repeats itself when it ocmes to abuse. I'm so grateful you've broken the chain in your family!

Dotsie, my dad rarely talks about his childhood. He just shudders when you mention it. I think my grandfather was a wealthy tyrant and beat his kids. My dad has repeated that behavior. I'm sure Lynn could say the same thing for her dad. Abuse is a learned behavior.

Lynn, you've gotten remarried. Did you think you ever would? What was it that your husband did that gained your confidence to trust him?

I am posting the following in keeping in the context of Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month. Please let me know if there is anything you want to discuss. LLL
Rape Myths

1. Victims are to blame in some way for the assault.
2. Rape is an expression of sexual desire.
3. It won’t happen to me.
4. Men can’t stop themselves when they are sexually aroused.
5. Rape is usually committed by strangers.
6. It’s no big deal if a woman is forced to have sex with someone she knows (for example, a friend, date, boyfriend, or spouse) and it isn’t really rape.
7. Men are never victims of sexual assault.
8. Sexual violence does not occur between lesbians or between gay men.
9. If the victim was drunk or drugged, he or she was asking for it.

Rape Facts
1. The rapist is always responsible for having committed rape. Regardless of the victim’s appearance, behavior, judgment, or previous actions, the victim is not responsible for the rape. Rapists are responsible for the rape
2. Rape is an expression of hostility and aggression with sex as the vehicle. Rape is a violent abuse of power in which one person acts without regard for the pain and trauma inflicted on another.
3. One study found that one in four college women have been victims of rape or sexual assault. About 10% of sexual assault victims are men.
4. Men are capable of, and responsible for, controlling both their minds and bodies, just as women are.
5. College women are in far greater danger of being raped by a friend or a fellow student than by a stranger. Almost 90% of college women who were raped knew their assailants.
6. Sexual intercourse forced by an acquaintance is rape. In some ways it is more traumatic than stranger rape because the victim’s trust in others and in her own judgment can be seriously damaged.
7. Both men and women may be perpetrators or victims of sexual assault. Unfortunately, male victims rarely seek help, cue to embarrassment and the fear that they will not be taken seriously.
8. Sexual violence does occur in same-sex relationships. Far of homophobic responses may prevent victims from seeking help.
9. Inability to give consent is not “asking for it.”

Warshaw, R. (1994). I never called it rape. New York, NY: HarperPerennial.

Hi Dian, thank you for saying the writing is top-notch. You read a lot of books! Your compliment (everyone’s) is meaningful to me. I tried to craft a unique style, yet some phrases came to me as if they just evolved out of thin air, without any effort. I should be so lucky as to have that kind of creative streak with my next book. Yes, it is a hard story to tell, but one that I felt charged to share, as if it was a mission to me sent by a higher power. I didn’t discuss in this forum yet what I chose to put in and leave out, other than saying the first draft had 167,000 words, and the final has @97.000. In the early stages, I hired an editor who told me that not every anecdote had to be in the book. He told me to pick vignettes that were representative of the message I wanted to convey. I left a lot out! And the book, as graphic as it may be, portrays less than what I actually went through, and fewer family members than actually existed. As far as how graphic to be, that was a suggestion from a counselor, who was tired of society trying to soft-peddle abuse in polite terms. She encouraged me to spell it out, and so I did in the events that took place when I was over 13. I did discuss on the site the fact that the character of my cousin, Annie, swore in every sentence. I did not put many curse words into her mouth, although I would have been more accurate to her to put an effing this or that here and there. And, as for what I left out, it leaves room for a sequel!

Hello Smile, this morning the Today show discussed what children are learning considering what with the media portrays, and it is scary. As for our age group and abuse, you probably knew someone who was abused, yet she (he) never discussed it. No one would ever guess I endured an abusive childhood. Our generation did not discuss it! We had “duck and cover” drills in our classrooms in the sixties to protect us from bombing raids, but nothing about “stranger danger.” Not that it takes a stranger to commit a perverted act. The larger percentage of sexual assaults occur when the victim know the perpetrator. It is a little more likely that someone of your daughter’s generation will reveal than our generation. As for protection, that is one of the reasons I never had children: if I couldn’t protect myself from my own family, and I was grown! Then how could I protect a small child? The females of my family were not safe! My grandmother is 98. She knows my father abused me, and that my brother did too. She said, “How could your brother do that to you when I was watching you two all the time?” I felt I had to reassure her that she was not to blame for not protecting me, because I know she tried. My mother, on the other hand, could never have been accused of overt neglect, yet she was emotionally unavailable. My brother certainly does not have the persona to convey anything “weird.” He was an altar boy! A good student! Conscientious! Who would have thought? No one but his victims knew. We came from a high-profile, middle to upper class Catholic family. Abuse covers all ethnic and economic groups, all races, all classes. I recently read “Miss America By Day” by Marilyn Van Derber. She was crowned @1959, and was a victim of incest every single night. I wanted to be her at the time. The crown was “to die for.” Who would have thought that her extremely prominent father committed incest every night until she wanted to die. Her mother knew, turned, and walked the other way! Smile, your daughters can thank you because you are a physically and psychologically aware mother. And thank you for being able to discuss what their friends reveal.

Review of Miss America By Day: Lessons Learned from Ultimate Betrayals and Unconditional Love by Marilyn Van Derbur, Oak Hill Ridge Press, Denver, CO: 2003. ISBN: 0-9728-298-4-9, Autobiography/Abuse

I chose this book because April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month as well as National Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Month, and those topics are my work. The topics are thoroughly covered in Van Derbur’s voluminous non-fiction story.

Marilyn Van Derbur, a native of Colorado, is one of four daughters of a prominent Denver businessman (he is deceased). Her father was on numerous boards and committees, was honored with buildings named for him, and was president of “all the college fraternities in America.” Both parents were active volunteers, donating time and money to culture and civic organizations. Marilyn’s mother would often state that she had the “perfect marriage” and Marilyn was told that she was “blessed by being born into a perfect family.” Marilyn’s life appeared to be perfect, as depicted by the smiles in the pictures she shares throughout the book. Marilyn was crowned Miss America while she was attending the University of Colorado in 1958. When she graduated (with honors) Marilyn was a guest host on Candid Camera and a panelist on To Tell the Truth, as well as in commercials. She also waved to the public while in the Cotton Bowl and Thanksgiving Parades. She chose motivational speaking as her career, and was named the “Outstanding Woman Speaker in America” and was inducted to the “Colorado Woman’s Hall of Fame.” Indeed, anyone reading her story might experience a twinge of envy for all the fame and fortune that seemed to come to her so easily and effortlessly.

Except…Marilyn suffered from physical symptoms including insomnia, tics, ulcers, and panic attacks. When her body and mind rebelled against the constant travel, she experienced full body paralysis, yet doctors found no organic cause. What else might Marilyn be rebelling against? She had to search her mind and spirit to find the answers.

One of Marilyn’s earliest memories is of her mother reading the Bible before bed. Another of Marilyn’s earliest memories is of her father entering his daughter’s bed after dark. What came next was repressed for decades until Marilyn realized that her father had committed incest from the time she was five until eighteen, an estimated six hundred times. All the while, her mother knew. Marilyn shares her split between the “night child” victim in contrast to the “day child” over-achiever. The physical symptoms she had endured were a manifestation of the connection between child sexual abuse and adult ailments.

Marilyn writes, “I had never prayed. I didn’t want a more powerful father and I knew, deep inside, that the Father my mother was praying to when I was a child wasn’t protecting me.” However, when her story went public via the Denver media and People magazine, she asked of a Higher Power: “I want to help…If you show me the way …I will do whatever you ask me to do.” Thus began the next chapter of Marilyn’s life. She writes that it is “my mission to educate judges, doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, therapists, and especially parents” about child sexual abuse. Not only does she educate with this book and her speeches, she also helps victims become survivors by sharing her healing journey. Throughout the book, Marilyn also shares with the reader her relationships with her husband and daughter, and the reader relishes in the emotional relief their unconditional love offers Marilyn. Ultimately, Marilyn manages to find peace.

I would recommend this book as an astonishing story and educational tool regarding child abuse and sexual assault.

Review written by Lynn C. Tolson, author of Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor’s Story.

Hi Unique, trust was a huge issue for me and my husband, D.W.T. I met him when I was 29 and he was 30. That was in 1984. We both had been married and divorced. On the day D.W. and I met, I told him I’d been married, and I would NEVER get married again. I think it was “love at first site” also known to me as a “soul connection” and that scared me, so I protested loudly! “I will NEVER get married again!” I’d been alone for several years, and was an emotional wreck, and this scared him! For example, I had mood swings. I collected eccentric and even dangerous friends instead of going for the stable and steady type. Yet, I maintained my own apartment and car by selling real estate by day and waitressing at night. So, as he said, I was a “dichotomy,” a character of conflict and controversy. He would call me “maniacal” and for fun, he’d call me “psycho.” Yet, he was always there for me. He never let me down. I could not commit to a lunch date with a girlfriend, yet I would commit to spending a day off with him. There was obviously something larger than us bringing us together. He gained my confidence by always bringing me back to center. I was so accustomed to having others use me for ulterior motives, that I accused him of doing so. I accused him of carrying on with his ex-wife while dating me. He said that that he wasn’t carrying on with E, she just didn’t have any friends. I told him to tell her to cultivate some. He said that if it bothered me so much that they still talked, he would stop talking to her AND he stopped talking to her because it was important to me. That was a huge trust building act; no one respected my wishes like this before. He constantly reassured me. He was sweet and spontaneous vs. cool and calculated. The trust took years. We went to marriage counseling several times. He would say to the counselor, “My wife doesn’t trust me” and I would say, “But I trust him as much as I can trust anyone.” We had to agree that all I could give was enough. More times than I can count, during mood swings and PMS, I stormed off, slammed the door, and threatened suicide and/or divorce. D.W. would bring me back, each and every time, and that built the trust slow yet steady. Thanks for asking!