Who’s “Doing the Maths”?

I wonder how one gets a job dictating the outcome of court cases that profoundly  effect the lives of damaged people?

I am told that there are years and years of training, a very difficult degree, and many more years of experience. I am told that you then need to have the right “background”, the right  “contacts” that you then have to be governed by codes of ethics and good practice.

I wonder therefore why it is that the judges in courts that are dealing with the myriad of cases regarding the clergy abuse of children can be so utterly blinkered, can get it often so wrong?

I have already talked about their incorrect assessments and understanding of  the physiology of addiction, which  is so often a factor within this group of victims, I now want to think about how they have the sort of ignorance that would suggest that because a victim has “survived” then they can’t be that damaged!

It seems that to fight for your life, and battle to find the life skills  in order to function is a clear indication that you were not that badly harmed!

 I wonder what on earth they base these assumptions on?

Presumably they would suggest that each one of us has to be completely destroyed in every aspect of our life in order to be considered sufficiently damaged?

One of my friends, who had the most appalling clergy abuse experience, managed, against all the odds, to get a law degree, and become a lawyer.

Bad move according to the courts! “How can she be that badly traumatised if she could do that”!

Would they suggest that if ones’s legs were chopped off, and in sheer desperation you learned, painfully, to walk on your hands that there is no problem?

Surely they cannot be suggesting that somehow there is a “silver lining” that we should be “grateful for small mercies,”? “Count our blessings”?

I, myself didn’t get a professional qualification until I was in my forties, the prior years were spent either suffering from, or recovering from, the effects of my abuses, further compounded by my addictions which were a result of them. My childhood, teens,  twenties, and early thirties were pretty much taken away. But that didn’t mean I  wasn’t able to leaning to drive, support my family, know how to cook, play scrabble and change lightbulbs!

Do they imagine that every one of us has damage to our intellect? Despite the fact that  the parts of the brain which are damaged are not  the ones which enable us to acquire academic information?

Traumatic damage does not equate to poor intellect!

They should recognise  also, that one of the very common tricks the brain will use to protect us from the severity of sexual abuse  is to give us memory blackouts sometimes for many years, during which time we may well acquire a few skills!

Have they really no  understanding of our  need to perform in some area well, to have at least ONE arena where we can be in control? sometimes desperately  and obsessively.

Do they imagine that lawyers, scientists,  doctors and professors and brilliant academics in all walks of life don’t have mental health problems, or depression, addictions  or Obsessive Compulsive disorders?

They don’t seem to have any comprehension  at all about the nature of trauma, especially when that trauma is the result of childhood sexual abuse.

So why are they the ones to make judgements? Why are they the ones to decide how much pain has been caused? Is it based on individual’s opinions?or simply archaic psychiatric reports which are always subjective?

Of course there is nothing wrong with having an opinion, I have them, we all have them, they are formed by  our individual experiences, our education, our  personal viewpoint. They are part of our survival arsenal.

But when you are dealing with this life threatening, life shortening, all damaging effects of childhood sexual abuse, you need to ditch your ego, get underneath those opinions and into the facts!

It has been proven that childhood sexual trauma damages brains (not intellect) It has been proven that a person’s immune system is impaired, their metabolic system damaged and their life expectancy reduced! these are the  current facts.

How many degrees does it take to be able to see what “The RIGHT THING” is? How much experience is needed to recognise loss of potential in real terms?

I suggest that they need to be taught properly about the cases they are charged with , start to look at this appalling crime with a full understanding of it’s severity, and be much more biased on the side of those who simply had no choice.

Either that or Give me the bloody job!