The Boulder

 There are hundreds . . . thousands . . . of victims of the University of Michigan's Robert Anderson.  The heart of problem is not in the crime, as bad as it is. The heart is in the cover-up, and the long-term effects of experiencing such trauma. I've heard the stories from dozens of other survivors. I've spoken to them. There are numerous parallels and commonalities among them all, and me. But there are distinctions from one person to the next; from one period of life to the next. The effects of the trauma weave through one's life. A person's weaknesses are empowered and exposed.  Their strengths are reworked into blunt instruments that make forward motion nearly impossible.  In many ways, your development as a person, an adult, get frozen at the point where the traumatic incident occurred.  You get reckless. You seek a safe path. You go through repeating patterns in relationships, that fail every time.  You step into situations where the empowered weaknes...

I'm dealing with dynamics that I don't understand. The evil that I have faced requires that I do what I can, to end it. But ending it means that I must talk about it. And talking about it means I must talk about myself. And it requires me to put out, onto the public square, topics that are unsuitable for public consumption. By necessity, I may have to hold a mirror up to some people, that have spoken devastatingly hurtful things, that have acted most destructively against others, without knowing it. Indeed many good people are capable of saying the exact wrong thing, to a person that's hurting and needs simple affirmation more than anything else. But how do we grow in love without shining a light, clearly, on well-intended actions that result in the opposite of love? The crime committed against me and others was, in most cases, very long ago. It involves unspeakable acts that can be committed, while leaving virtually no trace in the realm of evidence. It's all hearsay. ...