A great interview on how the #metoo movement has triggered trauma in millions of women and how to heal

Although I appreciate comments on my post , I would like to suggest before commenting on this #metoo movement post that you please listen to or watch this interview BEFORE making comments on this post. 

I know how loaded the #metoo topic is and that is why I specifically covered many aspects of the #metoo movement as well as how our collective consciousness and culture sets us up to dishonor many aspects of being female, male or simply being human.   

Tina's comment brings up something for me that often comes up in these conversations: What about Emmitt Till, and the Scotsboro boys, and many other situations where destructive and racist ideas of Black men as predators are at the base? When lynchings happened, often the claim was "he raped a white woman." What about situations like Bill Cosby, when he actually did?? How do we responsibly have both conversations?

There are things you say that I agree with Tina, and things I don't. The justice system, as well as our society, has not believed women, and that's exacerbated the abuse. So, I think that everyone needs to be heard -- in a trauma-informed way -- and justice take its course, also in a trauma-informed way. We all know that all parts of the justice system need to become trauma-informed, and we have seen remarkable positive changes in courts and police departments that have.

Secondly, I'm sorry that you experienced such abuse and neglect as a child, which led to the abuse you suffered as an adult. As we in the ACE community know, hurt people hurt people and themselves. What I hope the MeToo movement begins to embrace is that ACEs are at the root of the entire interaction between abusers and the abused, and we as a society must address both with that understanding.

I understand your concern about the African-American teen. I'm afraid that if the justice system he and the girls are involved in is a traditional justice system based on blame, shame and punishment that none of the parties involved, including the community, will see a solution-oriented justice that is informed by ACEs science.

I didn’t listen to this interview, sorry, but I have serious concerns about this #MeToo.  I Do Not Believe it is appropriate to  just believe women.   Maybe as a friend, sure.   There is such a thing as Due Process and Rule of Law for a reason. And if there is one thing we know, it’s that in the United States, you’ll only escape injustice if you have money. 

When I was young and I first went to college, I was a very messed up person. My mind had been very damaged by what I had been through so badly that I felt that I had multiple personalities.   I finally decided in Medical School that I had borderline personality (which just means that your parents abused you very very badly as a kid starting at a young age, at least that’s what it meant for me).   Of course I wanted someone to love me and I only knew how to be “loved” by letting others have sex with me.  I got drunk sometimes and got myself in bad situations with abusive people.  Now I’m not putting this out here because I want attention. I certainly don’t want to call myself a “borderline” for everyone to see in public.  I don’t need the abuse or stigma.  However, I’m going to tell you what I believe is a cautionary tail.   I loved and hated many men when I was young - it’s what a person so attachment traumatized like me does and abandonment was something I could not tolerate. It caused the terrible drinking, cutting, suicidality all to numb myself. I would feel rage such that at times I felt like I wanted to hurt someone, usually myself.   Now I have never liked hurting other people because I’m an internalizer.   I hurt myself so I would never tell a lie about assault but I could have and I did cut like a knife with words but  I never blamed anyone else for being sexually abused - I wanted to avoid thinking about such things, but I know some people are externalizers. Some people would and some people do wrongly accuse others. 

I live in a mostly white county but recently we’ve had some African Americans move in.  Our average ACE scores here are very high, along with high rates of poverty, infant mortality, teen suicide and opioid overdose deaths.  There is a young black teenage boy who is currently being accused of inappropriately touching some same-age white girls. The #MeToo movement seems to have brought the green light to go for him as far as I can tell.  It’s being reported in our local paper. To me it all just looks very bad and looks like a kid is gonna get caught up in this mess and have his life destroyed. We all know prosecutors have one goal which is  to extract as much as possible out of their prey.   The only goal is to win.  

Injustice occurs when you don’t have connections, a good lawyer or money. This boy has none of the above.   There are dangers to this #MeToo and I fear an innocent young teenage kid is going to be one of its casualties serving many years of his life in prison, but even if he doesn't become a victim and escapes which I pray he does, we all know someone will be a victim of this twitter hashtag sooner or later. I just need to say, in my mind, this isn’t #TraumaInformed. 

Shelly, thanks so much for your comment about my interview on #metoo triggering trauma in women!  Thank you for the work you are doing as well in Kansas with ACE's science!  Mary

I'm an Administrator at a Public Health Department in Kansas and we are working on increasing our knowledge with ACE's and the Trauma Informed Systems of Care.  So happy to have come across this video!  Thanks for your work and inspiring those trying to do this work in other capacities!!!

I had such an great time interviewing Transformational Coach and Trauma Specialist, Melissa Binkely last night.  We covered everything from how we can heal as women, as men and as a culture.  Hope you enjoy it!  Mary