Hurts to see, because I know

 The adventist principal, who realized right away I was a 13 yr-old girl with "daddy issues," is on social media now.  At one point, he belonged to 2 FB support groups for teens who had been sexually exploited.  Acting so understanding, saying the words that draw in broken teens, buddying up to the ones he was attracted to.  (This is otherwise known as grooming, something I will expand on in future posts, as I think people are picturing a howler monkey or mother cat picking fleas off their babies, whenever they read the word "grooming."  Grooming is the act of subtly saying or doing things that can be said to be an innocent slip, but are calculated to draw in sexually exploited victims.  It can happen in front of everyone, and other adults refuse to see it or admit what it is.  Very damn similar to "dog-whistling.")  It was hard for me to discover that predator principal was still doing what he had done to me and many others in the '80s.  He is still at it.  That hurts my heart.  I know how those girls are being lied to and conned by him in private.  I know how they already feel like they are to blame for being sexualized.   I know how he will convince them he cares, and later, when they are suicidal or slicing up their own skin because they were so bad and crazy they could not keep him, and did not deserve his love, he will show absolutely zero concern for them.  In 40 years, some of these girls may understand things the way I now understand things.  They may, at that point, spot other sexualized children being re-exploited, and it will hurt them.  But many of them will be in much worse circumstances than I am, filled with pain and self-hatred, unable to make sense out of anything, trying to find comfort or escape with substance abuse and other destructive behaviors. And no predator ever gives a shit that this will be their victims' futures. That principal does not at all care about how he solidified the damage my father started in me, set me up for a lifetime of pain and dysfunction, how I only just within the past 4 years learned what agency really was, how it meant more than a word represented by the last letter in CIA.  How my lack of it is exactly why I could once again be exploited by yet another goddam therapist, who spent 2 years gaining my trust, and I so badly needed to not have to admit I had once again been conned into trusting yet another human being paid to help me, so I ended up being used and blamed yet again, because it hurts too much to have to admit everyone keeps helping me just so they can fuck me.  The only way I can protect myself is to never go to any human for help again.  They all know they can fuck their clients like me, and nobody will care.  When Brooke Shields recently said she was only just recently developing agency, I felt the truth of that in my soul.    

Children with my history can escape living my fucked up existence, if they are one of the lucky few who actually meet a decent human who will show them how an adult should never be interacting sexually with an exploited child, but instead show that child what decency really looks like.  Decent humans like that are rare for young exploited children to meet.  Men like Mr. Maron sweep in, saying things like "I know you've been hurt.  I can give you what you need," followed by that subtle wink that let's the exploited young person know that now they get sexual, but this time it will be with someone who really cares.  The victim responds as is expected, as they have been trained, all the while thinking "this man will share these secret things with me, but this man is doing it all with love, so I will finally be doing all of this the way it was meant to be done."  They don't know anything else but being exploited.  So now, they think they can have an exploitive interaction with an older man who really loves them.  That is what they are thinking.  If none of that makes sense to you, go hug the adults who raised you.  They are the ones who never programmed that bullshit into your head in the first place.

Here's Why

 Since last Sept, I have been trying to quietly change a problem embedded in our society, in the hopes that I could make a difference.  Like every other systemic power differential, this problem cannot be solved quietly.  To think otherwise is to allow the abuse of power to continue.

When I first published "A Thousand Words," here on my blog, everything changed for me, as a blog creator.  I started receiving awful comments and emails, being told by a couple of people that I knew nothing about real pain or I would have stayed silent, and what needed to really happen to me to make me know my place and shut up, and other comments and shit of that nature.  It was disturbing, so I shut off my comments here, and kept my email hidden.

I am being told my new posts are just me trying to get attention or money or gain of some kind.  I have been avoiding any public attention about this, hoping to make a quiet difference, not wanting to go through everything I would be risking by saying anything publicly.  This problem, the re-exploitation of sexually exploited children that will follow such children everywhere throughout their life, keep them from fulfilling their true potential, or ever developing any self-agency, is an increasing issue that will keep growing if people like me stay silent.  

So, that is why I am creating this new series of blog posts.  I know the comments and questions and accusations I will be getting because I am doing this.  I don't want what's coming.  But who the hell else am I expecting to do it, if I won't do it myself?

Agency

 Adulthood and agency are routinely ascribed to certain children. If a 10 or 12 yr-old asks me to buy them the ingredients for a martini, I cannot say, "This child obviously knows everything about alcohol, so they are responsible, and I can get them drunk, because it is their choice." In fact, a decent adult would ask themselves why a child knows so much about alcohol in the first place, and would realize something in that child's life is not right, and that child was in need of help, not alcohol.  Yet a menstruating or sexualized child is often saddled by a twisted version of blame, a sick kind of blame-deflection, where an adult predator escapes any consequences for sexually exploiting such a child. This is wrong, and it has lifelong consequences for children who are sexualized and objectified, or who simply enter puberty as developing children naturally do, like getting teeth, and growing taller each year.  Sexual abuse, and menstruation, do not suddenly bring any wisdom or agency to a child. They are still a child.  Child sexualization actually destroys the ability to develop any agency. Brooke Shields' new documentary highlights this very truth.

A Real Predator

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2023

A Real Predator

For the last 8 months, I have known something illegal was done by a celebrity I once enjoyed. I have not said or done anything publicly about this, but I can no longer stay silent. A very damaged girl with BPD was recently in crisis, because of this celebrity's exploitation of her, and this girl has online profiles that include at least one picture of a very real gun in her possession (an AMT Backup), along with many posts containing suicidal ideation. I was quiet as another victim of this celebrity was in crisis last October. I can't stay silent a 2nd time, especially when there is a gun in this victim's possession. I could not live with myself if anything happens to this girl. Young girls are harming themselves and killing themselves more than ever, according to a recent NPR report. Mr. Maron regularly gets close to young girls, especially girls in recovery, they think he is kind and decent, he 13-steps and cons then, leaves them suicidal, then he blames them, and calls them crazy, in public, onstage, as part of his job. His latest victim is a broken little girl, whose pic would break your heart, if you don't have the heart of a predator.

There is another girl who this celebrity committed an actual crime against. And I am going to do the right thing by this victim. I am going to do the very thing I always wondered why no one did for me. I am going to speak up. I have no right to wish from others a behavior I let myself be too intimidated to do myself. No, this will not be easy. But that is irrelevant. There are very young, very broken lives at risk. These girls do not at all understand what was/is done to them. They may not, like me, make it to their 40's and 50's, and start to understand what was truly happening, unless I speak up now. And more victims will keep being exploited if no one does anything. Tag, guess I'm it.

The celebrity in question is Marc Maron. I spent the last few years offline, and last spring/summer, I started going back online, binging on youtubers like Girl In the Woods and her husband, as well as skater Brooklinn Khoury's amazing recovery journey. I discovered Barry Gibb's recent release of Greenfields, as well as the Gibb Collective, and very much enjoyed Spencer Gibb's album, Let's Start Over. I also binged on clips/shows of comedians I needed to catch up on, like Kathleen Madigan and Jo Koy, as well as Mr. Maron. I followed a number of these folks on their various social media sites. It was then I discovered Mr. Maron's IG Lives. He made, and saved, a lot. I got to see a few of his Lives in real time, starting with his watermelon caper, which was not saved.  

Last summer, starting on June 29, 2022, Mr. Maron made and posted 4 IG Lives in 2 days. Three of these Lives are here, in the links below. In these three links, Mr. Maron discusses the set he is on, and what he is doing. He mentions working with an Intimacy Coordinator, and at least once, the voice of the Intimacy Coordinator can be heard when she checks on Mr. Maron before a scene.

There was a 4th IG Live, on June 30th, which was removed a couple months later, right after I confronted Mr. Maron in an email regarding that saved Live. (I will post 2 emails at the end of this, the one where I confronted him, and the next one I wrote soon after it, to document when that IG Live in question had been removed from Mr. Maron's Instagram reels.) He started that Live after finishing a Delores Roach scene where he was nearly naked, on a table at some point. He was a bit agitated as he started this Live. He said something had happened, and he wasn't sure what to do. He said after the scene ended, he stayed on the set table until everyone left. He said a girl came in to clean the set, per covid protocol. He said as he was getting up he reached down to move, and his genitals were exposed. He said he had to keep staring at the girl as they were exposed, to see if she had seen. He said that now he didn't know if he should tell the Intimacy Coordinator, or not. He said that last part a couple of times throughout that Live. The last time he said it, he said that because he had said it "here on this Live," it was okay not to tell the Intimacy Coordinator.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CfaP9sGj44k/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cfb4H0TjTsV/

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CfcBaM9jN5A/

The only person Mr. Maron should have said anything to was the Intimacy Coordinator, and he should have gone to her immediately. He was risking the exposure of the identity of that girl working on set, by saying what he said on his IG Live. Not to mention he should have told the Intimacy Coordinator so she could make sure the girl was not upset by the matter. At least a few hundred Maron IG followers saw him say this in real time, and many more views happened later, until it was removed when I confronted him.

Here is the OMG email I sent to Mr. Maron regarding his behavior:

"From: Judy S. Lentz <XXXXXXXXXXXX>

Date: Sat, Sep 3, 2022, 8:33 PM

Subject: OMG

To: <wtfpod@gmail.com>

You flashed that girl on that set in Canada, didn't you, and then got to keep staring at her to see if she took the bait, then covered your ass by explaining it on instagram live, so you didn't have to talk to the person trying to protect folks on set from people like you. Damn, you are scary good."

Here is the follow up email I sent, when I realized that particular Instagram Reel was removed right after my OMG email was read:

"From: Judy S. Lentz <sighlentz65@gmail.com>

Date: Sun, Sep 4, 2022, 10:07 AM

Subject: OMG followup

To: <wtfpod@gmail.com>

Digitally documenting that between the time I sent the original OMG email last night until this morning, you have removed the saved Canadian set IGLive, which I referenced in that email, from you Instagram account."

Mr. Maron has publicly joked onstage for 30+ years about chasing young girls who have been sexually exploited by their "Daddies," and how he trauma bonds with these girls, and loves how great the sex is with these "crazy" "lunatic" girls who are diagnosed with BPD because of their childhood trauma. He regularly grooms these young broken girls, in many of his IG Lives, and in a few of his first tiktok posts. Underage girls respond to him, and then right there in the replies to other "maron accounts" showing up, often hooking up with these girls, which is talked about right there in those replies under Mr. Maron's posts, and nobody checks to see if it is really Maron in private accounts misusing these girls, or if it is predators who may do the same or worse. These girls are groomed by Mr. Maron, and obviously at risk from him and/or others, and nobody cares.

I thought #me,too, had helped. Instead, the SDA principal who exploited me, starting at 13, because he was looking for those same damn "Daddy Issues," now has more access to girls. Yes, he is online to this day, right along with Marc Maron. And just as when I was 13, nobody cares.

In Sept, Mr. Maron started removing some clips online that I mentioned, clips that show his predatory exploitive behavior that started over three decades ago. But one interview remains. Mr. Maron makes his feelings clear in this interview. Why he is currently marketed for children, I cannot fathom. He made it clear in a recent podcast at the Comedy Store, that the law is why he stops at 18. (Now see, here is an actual predator, who has a popular Thanksgiving book-reading for kids, some of whom he can imagine fucking as soon as they hit 18. And this predator is NOT a drag queen. He is a predator. I truly wish people could learn the difference.) Here is the interview Marc Maron did not get removed:

"Hadley Freeman

Saturday 16, June 2018

On his podcast, Maron has been excellent at calling comedians out for unacceptable behaviour. He has confronted people about joke-stealing and taken others to task for homophobia. So I wonder if he regrets any of his own past jokes. In 1999, he appeared on David Letterman and said he knew he was getting older when teenage girls stopped looking at him as a sexual being. “Don’t misunderstand: I’m not saying I want to have sex with teenage girls… I’m lying: of course I want to have sex with teenage girls. Come on, doesn’t everyone? That’s why there’s a law.” In 2014, he was interviewed on US TV and asked about his reputation for dating much younger women. “Yeah, resolving daddy issues since 1989. I’m here to help the young ladies,” he replied.

But when a male fan wrote to Maron recently to suggest that maybe he should take that Letterman clip down from his website, he was outraged.“What am I, a personal totalitarian state? I’m going to have to start erasing my history? I don’t think it’s an inappropriate joke. I mean, the idea that men want to have sex with teenage girls – really, are you shocked? It says a lot that somebody – that a man – would reach out and say, ‘It’s not a good look to have that joke up.’ What is happening?” he asks.

Marc Maron: ‘I’m familiar with coke, anger, bullying, selfishness’ | Comedy | The Guardian"

August 16, 1977

 I always think of Curtis Martin on August 16 each year.

Here is a pic, with Curtis in the chair, and me on the right in red pants.  On the far right are the handlebars of the bike I was sitting on during our first kiss. Here is the story I wrote about it:  Moses

Go ahead, throw it away...

 Somebody asked me if I love my second grandchild as much as I love my first grandchild.  They couldn't figure out why I have not written about him the way I blogged here about my "Little Dude" in the first years of my blog.  And suddenly I was filled with horror, because my second grandchild may one day believe I did not care as much for him as I do for his big brother, because I have not blogged about him.

When I was twelve, living in a trailer park in Utah, I was friends with a girl named Cindi Salzetti.  She had all these great magazines and records, and we would read and listen to them when I was allowed to visit her up the road.  She had a small tv in her room, and I watched Andy Gibb sing Shadow Dancing on some television show.  I heard a song called "I'm Yours" by Prince.  I took home some of the pull-out posters Cindi let me have from Tiger Beat magazines.  I found other ways to get posters, and slowly started taping them to my bedroom wall.  I knew these things were "of the devil," but I did not want to end up in heaven with my father anyway, so I did not care. I enjoyed my small collection of posters.  I even got ahold of some Bee Gees and Andy Gibb cassettes and had Debby Boone's cassette.  (I had a bit of a crush on Debby Boone, the first signs of my personal experience of human sexuality, something I did not understand at all then.)  A month or so passed, and my father had said nothing about my posters.  

One day he stormed into my room and started tearing down posters and throwing them into a trash can.  He grabbed my tapes, and I did something I had never done before.  I asked him why he could have Linda Ronstadt and Crystal Gayle tapes but I couldn't have my own cassettes.  He stormed to his room and came back to my room, tearing the thin glistening black tape out of a Ronstadt cassette while he screamed, and then proceeding to rip the voices on shimmering ribbon out of my cassettes.  I shut up and shut down, trying not to feel anything.  I stood there, mute, stupid.  Then he grabbed Ratty, the stuffed animal my paternal Grandparents bought for me with greenstamps when I turned one.  Ratty went with me to hospitals.  He was my silent, constant friend.  I loved him with all of my heart.  And in that instant, I realized what was required.  I turned toward my father, put all the disdain I could muster into my voice, and said, "Go ahead, throw it away.  It was YOUR parents who gave him to me anyway!"  I turned away.  My father stomped out with the trash can.  I slowly turned toward my bed.  Ratty was still there.

I knew, if I loved or cared about anything or anyone, my father would hurt me with it/them, because he knew that specifically would hurt me to my core.  Thus began my coming teenage years of being too tough to ever outwardly show love of anything or anyone.  It was the only way to protect myself from having my father hurt me with them.

I finally allowed myself to express my love for other humans when I had children.  When myspace came into existence, and we got a computer from my sister in 2001, I started letting my love express itself on social media.  It felt nice to be free to express the love I felt.  By the time my first grandchild was born, it was so nice to freely express my love for him.  And then I paid the price.  I had forgotten the lesson I learned in that tiny bedroom back in Utah.  I had to realize my father is not an aberration.

I met my second grandchild when he was 5 months old.  Every week or so I get to skype with my oldest grandchild, and I get to enjoy his little brother, who is two now, during those skypes.  

In the off chance anyone ever questions my love for my second grandchild, or my estranged child, I am right now stating this unequivocally:  I love my 3 children and my grandchildren with all of my heart.  I denied my love of Ratty once, and it saved him.  But he could take it.  I could say those words to my father, and it would not harm Ratty. 

I love my kids and grandkids, with an unconditional and deep love I will never feel for anyone else.  Always.

me n ratty

False Hope

 I did not ever plan on blogging again at the end of 2019.  I spent the last 2 years and 3 months in a fog of sadness.  I am still wandering in that fog.  But I cannot remove myself from all this, because of the damage that would create in the lives of my children and grandchildren.  Frustratingly, the pain is too much to silently carry.  I have nowhere else to place it.  So I find myself back here, doing what has been my only real relief throughout my life.  I am writing.  

Over the past year, I had to find out what it is that some of my paternal family have said about my childhood experiences.  Once again, I thought some healing was finally being gifted to me, when once again I reconnected with family members I had not seen in years.  The experience brought brief feelings of acceptance and validation.  One would think I would know better by now.  One would definitely think I would never fall for such hopes ever again.  I realize now I will most likely always be susceptible to these kinds of hopes.  As I child, I wanted so much to be able to speak the truth.  I wanted to be seen as I was, not as others defined me.  I guess these needs are so deeply embedded, I will never be able to shake them.  I am not cynical or tough enough to shut myself down when these opportunities arise with paternal family members.  No matter how tough or invulnerable I try to make myself, I cannot be that tough.

Whenever others choose to mis-define me, there are a couple of things that seem to happen.  These mis-definers must know, consciously or unconsciously, that what they are defining is not really true, because they never come to me with their definitions, to confirm or debunk them.  These definitions are almost always based on things I have never said or done.  Communicating with me openly could probably clear things up.  But no one comes to me about these definitions, which makes me feel that they know what they are saying is not reality, and they do not want to have to see, or admit, the truth.  Talking to me might shed light on their mis-definitions, so they have to avoid telling me what they are saying.  In the case of small-town gossipy definitions, I think a lot of people just like to hear outrageous things about people who are not a part of the good-old-boy system, are not a real part of the community, so no one bothers to go straight to the person and find out the truth.  When it comes to family members, I feel like it is simply a need to escape the pain of accepting the truth.  I am guessing it is easier to think of me as delusional, than to see the truth.

I was finally told what a number of my paternal family members think about my childhood.  At first I was told it was too bad I had been so mistreated by psychiatrists.  I was shocked to hear a paternal family member say this.  There had been family knowledge about my experience with the Adventist principal, but none of them ever said to me that what he did was wrong.  I had sort of accepted that they, like many in my church, saw his abuse of me as my fault.  No one but my father ever said as much, it was just something I internalized.  I thought it was nice to finally hear from family that I had experienced some mistreatment by those in the mental health field.  But I was told no, it was something else.  There is a belief in my family that mental health workers have planted false memories in my head.

I do not at all know what has ever happened in my experiences with the mental health field that would give anyone such an idea.  Mental health workers tended to land in two camps for me.  Most wouldn't believe my mom was a nurse and my father was an engineer.  These are some of the first answers required from clients seeking help.  "What do your parents do for a living?"  My answers were easily provable, but I was simply disbelieved from the get go, so I'd give up right away with that camp.  The other camp would listen, so I would maybe open up a very little bit about my past.  Almost without exception, this camp realized I am a messed up human that no one believes, so they know they can con and misuse me, and they will get away with it.  They misuse me.  These have been my experiences.

Nowhere in any of these mental healthcare interactions did anyone ever tell me that anything must have happened to me.  They did make me feel like I was supposed to tell them a false narrative about what my parents did for a living.  And that was a reaction by them that was guaranteed to shut me down.  I know what my parents did for a living.  No one can make me falsify the truth.  The mental health field has failed in helping me, but not once by planting false memories.  I have no idea where anything I have ever said, or written, or experienced, could be twisted into such an idea.  I am still somewhat in a state of shock that this is the way I am being defined by some family members. I know what happened with my father and Pam.  No one can make me falsify the truth.  Not even a lifelong desire to belong will ever make me betray the child I once was by denying the truth.

The interactions between countries, the political discourse within this country, the atrocities that are daily happening, all confirm for me that my own family experiences are simply a small example of regular human behavior on a global scale.  Nothing should shock me.  Children are bombed.  Children are daily misused.  This is the truth.  Why do these things happen?  Because they can.

I have no idea if I will blog again.

I have discovered some music that gives me comfort, in the midst of everything.  It expresses the pain I feel.  This song is probably the song I love more than any other song I have ever heard in my life:



 

PS - neurodivergent

Last year, as I dealt once again with the frustration I experience at not being believed or listened to, a mental health worker I spoke with a handful of times in 2021 said something that bothered me at first. After thinking on his words, and adding it up with my own ways of remembering events in my life, it dawns on me that he could have been on to something.  He said I am probably on the spectrum.

I am currently reading a book called "Divergent Mind," by Jenara Neremberg.  My constant feelings of not being "normal" or human, the way I desperately long for total honesty, my instant inner turmoil when I realize someone is trying to change the truth about my behavior or motivations or history without looking at my daily life and my recollections of things that do not change over time, my inability to read others properly, my total failure at ever figuring out the "game" of life, all of it fits into this idea of me perhaps being on the spectrum.  I don't know.  And for me it is irrelevant.  I have been othered and excluded by the very people I trusted most to never do that to me.  I am not seen as enough of a human to ever expect real inclusion in family.  I accept this.  I know my truth.  This blog, my memories, have always been what they are, and until my brain stops working or death takes me, my memories will always be what they are.  My "perspective" does not change over time, when it comes to what happened in my childhood.  No mental health person implanted false memories.  No mental health person ever even believed me when I said what my parents did for a living.  I grew up knowing what had happened to me, and nobody will make me change what I know is true.  Two plus two is four.  This very paragraph, and my blog, and my whole life, do seem to make it very possible that I am not neurotypical.

Shameless

I love the show Shameless.  So much about this show resonates with me.  It reminds me of the places I have lived, the people I have known, the way I know life actually works.

I never would have seen life the way I see it, if my father would have loved me, and Pam had never come into my life.  Ignorance is truly bliss.  If my father had loved me, and if he had loved my mom enough to not get involved with Pam, I would not be who I am.  I have no idea how I might have turned out.  This is a part of life that is so bizarre and real, but also heartbreaking.  If people can truly love their spouses and their offspring, those offspring can have a much better chance at a good start in life. 

I just rewatched season 7, episode 12, of Shameless.  Monica, the mother of the Gallagher kids, has passed.  This is probably my favorite Shameless episode.  During brief moments throughout this episode, there are moments where Monica's humanity is spoken about.  Her failures are glaring and obvious.  Her failures created hell for her offspring.  But she is still a human, who felt love, and did the best she could under her circumstances.

I hope my own offspring always know I did the best I could for them, with what I knew at the time.  It wasn't perfect.  But my focus was always on them.

I am horrified by most of what I see going on in my country, and in this world.  I have very little hope for humanity, because we seem to be bent on hurting each other.  But I am very proud of my kids, and my grandson.  They have overcome my history, and that makes me think most humans still have the potential to become better than we are right now.

Me

I was born the way I was.  I had not formed correctly in the womb, so I was born defected, with no left hip joint, but after I was born, there were some things I just did, things that have been part of me since birth, and I am still influenced by those things.

These are two pictures taken when I was around five.  I was in the middle of being destroyed by my father and Pam at this very time, but the basic part of me, the part of me that still somehow survives, was there, and is evident in these photos my mom took.   These are photos of me and my baby sister, as I watched a caterpillar crawl across the cement in our trailer-park carport.  At one point, I grab my sister's wrist, to keep her from touching and perhaps harming the caterpillar, because I wanted the caterpillar to safely make its crossing to the other side of the carport.  This is my heart, my soul, every bit of me, caught in a moment when adult humans were horrendously harming me.

I have only ever wanted to figure out how to do the right thing, so I can not be seen as bad, so I can join the campfire, so I can deserve to be hugged and loved.

I am learning to somehow get beyond all of that, now.  I am way too ruined to be a part of family, or neighborhood, or society.  But I will always be a part of the universe, and I will always help any critter I can, just as I did in these photos from my childhood.  Because that's me.