Institutional Crime

 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 weaknesses manifest themselves, creating the same old interpersonal problems, again. But the real problem is masked by the false weaknesses. Other people . . . even experts . . . mistakenly see your behavior and conclude that these weaknesses are the operative ones. It does not occur to them that you're a victim of sexual and institutional abuse. They respond to you in a way that's the opposite of what's needed. 

They don't know any better. But over time . . . these slights, these mischaracterizations of what you're all about, get stuck in the mind of the victim; resentment and anger may erupt at any time, against the errant friend or confidante that has tried, but does not understand you. I guess these emotions are classic clinical depression. You're angry, stressed, and all it took was a little wise-crack or poorly-worded phrase. You can't help yourself. You wish you could relax and feel positive warmth. 

And the cycle repeats itself, growing more and more intense with every round. 

It can go on for decades.

These are the accounts of victims, like me, of an institutional crime.  

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