Sympathizers

I'm not big on reading celebrity tabloids. When I do read them, as well as other events that make the news, I often think about the millions of untold stories that never make public news. An example: when I read about shootings, I often think about the young boy or girl shot down on an inner city street that day. I feel sure it must happen on a daily basis, but the victims or event are not newsworthy; so we don't read or hear about the event. (I realize not every shooting can make the mass media news, but that makes the little-known shooting no less significant to the surviving family and friends.)

On February 1, Dylan Farrow published an open letter stating her adoptive father, Woody Allen, had sexually molested her when she was a child. Prior to reading that letter, I had heard somewhere along the way tidbits about the abuse allegations which first came out toward the mid-90s. Other than that, I was ignorant.

The open letter got my attention. It is well written. It is sincere. It is direct. The letter makes one nauseous that such heinous acts occur and that they go unpunished.

A few of my thoughts after I read the letter and feeling sick to my stomach...
God, what a horrible thing to live through.
To come forward like this, she must be exploding inside, no longer able to tolerate the silence and to witness the abuser receiving accolades.
I wonder if others will come forward? I wonder if they will be believed?
I think of [various names withheld]. [Names withheld] ended up cutters and will struggle all their lives.
Wasn't Mia Farrow one of the ladies Maharishi made sexual advances toward?
Dylan is bringing this up 20 years later. Could this be a case of false memories? But it doesn't sound like she went to a therapist that implanted false memories.

That last question drifted in my mental space. Some might think it cruel to even consider that question, especially in response to such an open letter which puts the author (who has suffered great trauma) into such a vulnerable and triggering position.

Why would I question such? There are layers to that answer.

A few tidbits of the layers:

• I have a very close friend who was falsely accused of sexual harassment.
• I have read many an account of false accusations that have ruined lives.
• I learned about 'false memories' first via Jeanette Bartha, who has lived her own hell and came out the other side. Since learning about Jeanette's story, I've read others and have conversed with some of those people as well as with Jeanette. (Jeanette has written a book which I look forward to reading once it is published.)
• I stood up for a friend who was falsely accused (but not of sexual abuse or harassment). The result was that I got scapegoated by the friend's accusers, and I lost some friends as a result. (Granted, I stood up for that friend clumsily but as best I could at the time.)
• I have been the recipient of publicly damning and false accusations; once it is done, it is done. I could only state my case in response. What people believe is up to them. Regardless, it's a hard lesson to learn and live and one that I think the falsely-accused most likely never forgets. It's a hard pill to swallow (at least it has been for me) that people whom one thinks one knows are actually a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

A day after reading Dylan's open letter, an article from The Daily Beast which was published five days before Dylan's open letter came across my cyberscreen. This article fills in some details about the Allen-Farrow family environment at the time (toward the mid-1990s) of the initial Woody Allen sexual abuse allegations. I then looked up and read a bit about Mia Farrow and I was left wondering if she is a possible manipulator behind the scenes. I think that the author of The Daily Beast article probably wanted to leave that impression regarding Mia. If so, it worked (which then caused me to question The Daily Beast article). [Of course, there are now many articles on the subject hitting the cyberscreen.]

I have witnessed people, who have questioned (with good reason) certain allegations in regard to something as horrendous as sexual abuse, get labeled as "rape or pedophile sympathizers" or as "pedophiles" themselves when it is the farthest thing from the truth. Such labels can be extreme conclusions made possibly from projection; or trying to make sense of one's own trauma; or because of cultural memes, to name a few possible reasons.

It's never easy for victims to speak up. It takes lots of soul churning and sleepless nights and gut wrenching "what ifs."

Neither is it easy to speak up for the falsely accused. More soul churning and sleepless nights and gut wrenching "what ifs."

I think questioners are more likely sympathizers with truth...and with victims...and with the falsely accused.