Dangers

Casey was out of town with his family for some time, but gave me an IM to see how I am doing. I told him I am sorry he has had to be my sounding board through all this. He was very kind--after all, he's seen me through so much pain these last few months. He said he'd like to see me get into the position of discernment with people, that in his opinion, the person in question actually didn't really care about me. I begged to differ, but he had his say. He said he has never seen me go through so much suffering, and that I was, in his eyes, working very hard to rise above it, not wallow in it.

I am working on discernment, if only for the sake of Thistle going out into the world so soon, with kindergarten starting in early September. There will be so many people in her life, and I feel that I can't smother her, but at the same time, my role in her life is to protect her, to teach her to be strong, to resist being victimized, because above all, people who hurt children are opportunistic, manipulative, and don't care if they hurt and victimize, as long as they get what they want...and sickeningly, when it's a sexual predator, they often claim they are "in love" with the child, that what they do "is mutual and not harmful"--I mean, how can a person live like this in the world? How can they live with themselves, with such a criminal mindset?

Casey said in his opinion, these sorts never are able to have a real relationship with a mature, intelligent adult even if they want to, that it always falls apart in the wake of the pathology eventually, and that sometimes a predator uses their "adult" relationship as "cover" to get close to their underage target, using the hapless "significant other" in the relationship. This actually happened to me, though the obsession was not a child, when someone was given a volunteer position and asked me to help them with it, just so they could weasel closer to an unwitting target. It's sick, and it's hard to believe in the sincerity of human relationships after being so deceived by that. Right now the person I trust the most is Casey--he's safe, he's very kind to me (though I really don't see him and his wife and kids often enough) and he's very much a "big brother" to me.

I was reading a new book about sexual predators (Predators by Anna Salter--yes, I know I'm stuck on the theme like a broken record, but this was important for me to read, as I am sending Thistle out into the world). It was written by a criminal defense lawyer and is literally the most eye-opening book I have ever read on the subject. Two of the most chilling parts:

!) An interview with a pedophile priest who said he would willingly have risked jail for just one chance to get at a child (which is basically why he is behind bars right now). This is unbelievable. Risking life imprisonment for the one chance to practice such sickness...how insane is that?

2) A story of a sociopath who charmed a whole community, was a civic leader, etc--and a serial rapist. When caught, the town rejoiced that he was put away, but a few months later, people were beginning to miss him, even contact him in jail! Their reasoning? They missed him and his charisma, the whole front he put up! He was still exerting his charm on a whole town of people!

You will come away from this book a LOT more cautious about security in general, including home security (the author lost her keys once and a criminal got ahold of them and used them to get into her house, even though she lost them miles away from where she lived).

These books actually don't depress me--they help me realized that there are truly fucked-up people in the world and that I have to understand them from a position of strength. There is no such thing as "too cautious".

Thanks again, Casey.