Not a political diary, not an inspiring or even happy diary- this is a diary about an iota of evil.
A singularity of wrong, impenetrable and unfathomable- existential to the point that it is not a thing that can be grasped, and so can not be destroyed.
These bits of evil float around us and it is perhaps for the best that the human reaction is to fail to see them. However, sometimes we are presented with such evil- and that is perhaps the greatest crisis of the human spiritual condition:
What can you do with a wrong so vibrant that it demands redress- but which can not be destroyed; evil that tranforms and takes up new residence in its attacker.
I do some pro bono work as a child advocate, representing the interests of children who are victims or witnesses of crime. My local courts, child welfare agencies and DA’s Office (however much I might malign them) do a great job with such kids, so mostly what I get out of my volunteer work is an opportunity to read the newspaper and feel good about myself.
But not always. Today was different, I met evil. I was at a preliminary hearing to represent the interests of an 8-year-old rape victim. Over the course of a year, a six foot six, three hundred-pound man had repeatedly raped her. She had been assaulted to the point that her internal organs had been damaged to the point of being medical novelties.
The DA was no whiz, but the defense attorney was either more incompetent, or risking his livelihood as an attorney. The young woman, however, was breathtaking. One of the best witnesses I have seen. She was collected and well spoken, unafraid of confronting her attacker (who was leering and smirking throughout.)
The rapist was held over for trial on enough counts to keep him in jail until he dies. I never had to open my mouth.
Then we had a dependency status hearing for the young woman. She is currently placed with a wonderful foster family, her new mom stays home with three foster kids and her new dad is one of the best cops in the city. She is thriving emotionally and intellectually.
But she is not thriving physically. The damage to lungs and digestive tract is healed. Her liver and kidneys are stabilized, but she will never regain full function in those organs. But her uro-genital tract is a problem. Sudden, serious blood loss and mysterious discharges of fluid require constant emergency room care.
Her psychiatrist testified about the pressing need to be seen and treated by some of the extraordinary pediatric gynecologists that we are fortunate enough to have in our city. Being stabilized at emergency rooms wasn’t doing her any long-term good.
Why is a psychiatrist testifying about a gynecological issue? Because he is the young woman’s only doctor. The court has the power to commit her to outpatient psychological care, and had used this power to put her in the care of a psychiatrist who keeps up his basic skills as an internist.
The court had to do this because of the young woman’s mother, the girlfriend of the rapist and mother of his three children- the younger siblings of his victim. When the little girl was being raped, her attacker told her that telling her mother would do no good. He told her that her mother would do nothing to him, but would kill her.
The girl’s mother has contacted, through her attorney, nearly every competent provider of the medical services this girl needs and threatened them with legal action if they treat the girl without her consent. This is, and will be the mother’s right for at least the five to six more months it will take to fully terminate her parental rights.
The mother is doing this because she is taking revenge on the girl for “stealing her man.” (These are, infuriatingly, quotes of attribution, not disbelief.)
The mother is subject to no legal jeopardy. In fact, permanently removing the girl from her custody will happen swiftly, but not without a number of Judges and lawyers coming close to violating their cannons of ethics.
For now, in order to get the girl the treatment she needs, the child welfare agency must get a court order for each and every doctor’s visit. This is happening and the remarkable young lady is going to have the opportunity to grow into her remarkable human potential. I never had to open my mouth.
But that mother. The woman who is trying to kill her daughter because she believes that the little girl seduced a grown man, her man- into pulverizing the little girl’s organs. I should have killed her right there in the courtroom. The bailiff’s, the criers, the judge and the lawyers and the court reporter- all of them should have killed that woman when they had the chance.
Not one of us in that courtroom can take any moral satisfaction for not killing her. It was no obeisance to the law to stay our hands. It was indifference, or cowardice- more charitably- it was paralysis in the face of true and singular evil.
What can be done? I can only turn to my own belief that the universe has some inscrutable good purpose-
that and a feeling that evil took up residence in the place that the mother’s soul used to be before it was destroyed by desiring the things she saw on TV.
(Some details have been altered to preserve the privacy of individuals who deserve it.)
I do not believe that hell exists. After reading this, I hope it does.
I can’t believe what it must have taken for you to listen to this, to see this. I’m numb just from reading it.
is a sensitive soul who is drawn like a moth time and time again into bowels of our fair city’s squalor and depravity.
Shake it off, Cicero. Tomorrow’s another day 🙂
On another topic:
The Boogal is in surgery tomorrow morning and her face will all lopsided and shit for the weekend.
Let us hope her medicinal remedies are adequate ;]
and a strong one too, I’ll wager.
Good luck to you and the BooGal, I hope everything goes well!
Bless you for going to all this effort for this remarkable child.
It’s so wonderful she has a great foster family and you to fight for her.
Could any of the pediatric gynecologists take the case pro bono ?
When my daughter was smal, I worked at home so she didn’t go to daycare. I word processed anything that anyone brought me — it wasn’t a time to be picky since I was paying for everything, including our $300/month medical insurance (cheap by today’s standards).
For years, I transcribed and edited the highly detailed reports dictated by two psychologists who treated sex offenders and the children/spouses of the offenders. They warned me that I’d learn a lot I might not want to know about.
Sometimes, I’d be so upset that I’d swear that I’d never take more work from them — 8-month-old babies, etc. But I always needed the money. And they were both lovely people. The man mostly counseled the sex offenders, but he had no clue if there was any hope of rehabilitating them. However, he only took those who, after very careful consideration, could be treated out-patient.
Thank you again for what you are doing … but I’m sorry you’re feeling such pain tonight. I hope it helped you to write about it.
I can do it because I’m doing something about it- though I must emphasise in a very small way.
It really isn’t painful to experience compassion- and confronting evil while retaining hope is probably the best we can do.
The more we do, the more we are, I can’t help but think that your transcription experience is part of the foundations of your wisdom.
I can’t think of anything more reprehensible than a mother who chooses a man over her child. And yet it happens over and over again. I pray her parental rights are vacated and that little girl can be adopted into a real home.
What an evil pair.
I must respond, though I question my ability to be coherent.
Have I wanted retribution? Yes.
Have I been jealous? Yes.
Have I felt threatened and afraid and responded in anger? Yes.
The one person I cannot understand is in this sentence — “The girl’s mother has contacted, through her attorney…” What motivates this attorney? How can s/he participate in this nightmare?
A few years ago I had a chance to listen to Ellie Wiesel. He didn’t find those who participated in the activities of the Holocaust (one of them) to be evil. He didn’t consider those who act on their hate or ignorance to be evil. The evil, he said, was found in INDIFFERENCE.
There are those in this society who consider the first missed period as the first stage of motherhood. They consider abortion the same as what this mother is doing. And they call it “evil.”
“Mother” “Mommy” “Mom” “Mama” – the attachments are deep, the expectations high – the one who gives life or takes it away.
Is probably the bravest figure in the bunch, and yet another unpaid volunteer. I could not do her job.
If the mother is inadequately represented, then the proceedings to terminate her rights could be voidable on appeal. The attorney who represents the mother is equally part of the coalition of good people who are saving this young woman.
Thank you for the additional info.
I better understand the impetus for people to take the law into their own hands. But we know that leads to chaos.
.
Such a strong young lady has developed out of evil.
God bless her new family, and all who support her to have a life of her own and independence at the age of eight!
Makes all our encountered difficulties seem so minute.
~~~
the little ones are the hardest.
A while back our clinic had a nine year-old abortion patient, a Spanish-speaking child from a small town near the Red River. She told me that she had become pregnant after an encounter with a 13 year-old boy in her neighborhood. But her account didn’t ring true; she claimed to remember no details about the boy, and displayed a flat affect, repeating her story the same way every time, as if by rote. And I also thought it very odd that her mother seemed a little too stoic, and hadn’t so much as touched her daughter since they arrived.
I asked the girl’s mother how she felt about what had happened, and she said, “When she had her first period a few months ago, I told her she wasn’t a child anymore, and she would have to be careful. Now she’s finding out about being a woman.” Needless to say, she was most unhappy when I told her I was calling the police.
The little girl had been raped by her stepfather while her mother was in the hospital having his baby. After he was locked up, the local DA called me with an update: the little girl’s mother was taking her along when she went to visit her husband in jail, and the state was preparing a case to terminate her parental rights and place the girl in foster care.
Cicero, I hope the state’s effort succeeded, but this woman wasn’t born an to be an unnatural monster. She was just the same kind of hopelessly twisted and damaged woman that her own daughter might be when she grows up. Unless, of course, “our” little girl gets the nurturing and the chance to heal that her mother never did–the same kind of salvation that you have helped to give to “your” little girl.
Every bit of good we can do and every small amount of pain we can soften is a gift of grace, even when we know that it isn’t enough–even when nothing a human being can do could ever be enough. This is one of those times, and they always come again. Know that you have done all that you could, and be well.
I’m really not sure.
I am so numb right now…
They aren’t mothers. They are monsters.
I am so grateful that there are people like Cicero to help that young child.
I can’t begin to imagine her pain, the physical pain. All involved, the rapist, the THING that was supposed to be her mother… should be locked up in a hole … Christ!
Bless you for telling this story Cicero. I believe in the power of the truth. You are doing something positive by sharing this story. Is there a local newspaper or tv show that you can interest in helping you expose this horror? I think the best way to battle this kind of evil is to expose it – write about it, videotape it, ask questions about it. I don’t know what your legal restrictions are as a guardian ad litem – maybe in telling your own story you can include this mother’s behavior and get the people around her involved in helping this little girl. All the best to you in this noble endeavor.
Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck wrote a study of human evil that might be of help to you – “People of the Lie.”
How I wish I could be shocked by this story.I can’t because I’ve seen too much of this kind of evil.
I do wish I could just sit with you, silently holding you hand, to share empathy and strength. I will also hold that little one in my heart, with all the others who are already there.
Take good care of yourself.
My mom also did pro-bono work as a child advocate and also sometimes did pro bono work for the moms of these children. While working for her, I encountered many of these abused children. I, too, expressed outrage and horror at how easily (it seemed) that women would blame the child and stand by their man. But, as my mom pointed out to me, these women themselves are victims of these despicable boyfriends and husbands. They are terrified of being alone and terrified of invoking the wrath of their mates. They are not evil, they are suffering from severe psychological problems. I am not trying to stand up for them, what they do is despicable, but, it is important to think about why a mother would blame her own child. Often, it is because they are victims themselves and have lost all ability to reason or love. Now, the men who do this, they are truely evil and deserve a slow and painful death.
I’m not shocked by this story, either. As a child psychologist, I’ve seen too many similar situations.
What is needed are better laws about protecting children’s rights. There was a movement in the U.S. to generally strengthen children’s rights during the Carter administration, but since Reagan, the pendulum has swung the other direction. Remember the campaign work against Hillary Clinton, claiming that she favored children being able to divorce their parents? That grew out of a case to protect a child from damaging parents.
What we have seen since then is a move to keep children under the supervision of parents or relatives at any cost, giving parents multiple chances to keep or reclaim custody over several months or years time.
The issue of medical neglect is a significant one. State laws vary a great deal in their support for quickly taking over a child’s medical care should the parent refuse or simply neglect service. The case you cite here is a particular horror in this respect, but there are many others less dramatic in nature. We worked with a child a few years ago, who was literally losing his sight because his mother would not take him to get glasses. His sight was so bad without correction that the receptors in his retinas were becoming atrophied due to lack of stimulation. His mother did not lack for ways to pay for such care (though she was very poor), but she simply would not do it. This was not considered a reason for intervention, as the child was not otherwise neglected – even though, of course, he could not read or do much of any schoolwork, and was increasingly disruptive in his frustration. We solved the problem by taking him for eye exams and buying his glasses ourselves, although we were at risk for taking him anywhere without his mother, even though she had given her permission. It took several sets of glasses to gradually give this kid workable, ordinary vision.
As one caseworker said to me, “The child is not bleeding at the moment, nor does he have broken bones. He’s clean and well fed and reasonably housed. He comes to school. His mother isn’t on drugs and doesn’t leave him home alone. Thus he fails all of the things that send us into action in this state.” I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know if she is literally accurate, but pragmatically, she is speaking the truth.
I deeply appreciate the lawyers and other volunteers who take on challenges such as your child’s situation. That’s what is out there to protect kids when the “safety net” is full of holes, as it is now.
I continue to be depressed by the terrible neglect of policy makers who ignore the circumstances of children who are left at the mercy of crazy, disturbed, irresponsible adults. And I continue to be amazed a the resilience of children who face and grow up to be productive adults in spite of such difficulties. We are very lucky that the resilience of children is stronger than most of the bad things that happen to them.
Thanks very much for your diary.
I spent some years as a volunteer professional facilitator for Patents Anonymous, a group for parents at risk of abusing their children. Most of the parents were young poor mothers and most were court ordered to attend. Kids came along, child care was provided. Time and time again, there would be fresh evidence of abuse, time after time ther were verbal reports of abuse by these moms, either by them or by their boyfriend/husbands, etc. Time after time, as a mandated reporter, I called Child Protective services. Time after time I was asked “Is there evidence of bleeding or broken bones or malnutrition?” Time after time I was told “Sorry, we are so backlogged theres nothing we can do unless there is.” Almost without exception, these young women were untreated victims of serious sexual/physical abuse and generational poverty themselves, many also addicted to alchohol and drugs. Almost without exception, they were male dependent on unstable, abusive and addicted males. Heart-rending work I had to leave after four years.
This is one of those moments where I have no words to express my feelings. I am grateful to you for helping these kids, it’s a wonderful thing to do and they badly need someone to care. The mother I cannot understand, I know that women who are battered and/ or poor or damaged themselves as children will often side with the abusive husband/boyfriend and sacrifice their children to him. But that still doesn’t allow me to understand-it’s as if a block comes up in my mind-maybe it’s fear or disgust-it’s simply too horrible to understand at the moment. I want to just say, she’s evil, her soul is too warped, too twisted. But my own mother abused me-not to anywhere near this horrific extent and there was nothing sexual involved, and it wasn’t by proxy…still,badly enough that relatives took me out of the home repeatedly, afraid for me. we healed and moved on and more importantly, we grew to love each other. So I have a hard time writing someone off…sorry for the rambling nature of the comment. Too early for this night worker.
Not a family, a village. Families can be completely fucked up. Here, we have a “normal” heterosexual family unit. Yes, he’s a boyfriend, and not the biological father, but what would Bush’s marriage initiative or Rick Santorum’s moralizing change here? Require that these two sociopaths be married? Yes, marriage, the magic balm that makes everything better. See, call me crazy, but I think guaranteed medical services would do this girl more good, than the “proper” marital status of her abusers. This story is not unique. It’s estimated that one in three girls are molested by the time they hit puberty, many by their biological fathers or other family members, in sanctified unions and proper looking families. Without the social safety net that Bushco wants to dismantle, how much worse could this have turned out, I wonder?
Peck, who wrote “The Road Less Traveled” has a book called “The People Of The Lie” that addresses how to confront evil. His question that is confronted in the book is are these monsters/evil treatable and how do they go about it. Very interesting book.
Cicero, thank the Universe for folks such as yourself that take on this type of work.
You left the most empowering choice off of your poll, the one which you obviously have chosen, the one that it sounds like that girl has chosen:
What does one do?
One does the best one can, with all of the strength and determination they have available, and what could be more GOOD, more wonderfully human, than that?
Thanks so much for what you do for those children, it’s very important work.
Oh dear-I wish this story was new to me also–but it isn’t and it isn’t new.
I have a good friend whose sister is also his aunt.
!!!!!