Ginger Gillenwater
Friday, March 28, 2008 at 7:08AM BIO
My name is Ginger Gillenwater and I am a survivor of various forms of abuse. I was sexually abused by a relative between the ages of 5 and 10, which this is approximate because I'm not 100% sure when it started, but what I do know is that I was no older than 5 when it did. I did tell a grandparent when I was 7, but my grandma's efforts to do something about it were for naught because I was blamed by other family members. My dad also had a tendency to be a little violent with me and when I was a teenager my mom had to be pulled off of me on several occasions. She would emerge with a handful of my hair. She remarried after my parents divorced in 1987 to a man that was mainly verbally abusive. He shoved me into a door facing when I was 18 and I actually stood up for myself. However, I resorted to self-harm to cope, which was certainly not the right way to deal with my dysfunctional family and the toll that my past sexual abuse was taking on my life.
It is kind of like I repressed it for a few years and then all of the memories started coming back to me around the age of 12 and 13. I couldn’t handle it. That is what led me to use “alternative means” to deal, but I had a friend that let me talk. Had it not been for her, I would have had even more difficulty making it through my teenage years. Then when I was 18, I met Corie who let me know that it is okay to cry it out instead of holding it all in. That is the moment I began to grow.
I ended up spending most of my time at her house. I practically lived there. I ate there, I slept there, and I even did my college homework there. It would make my mom very angry, but I was healing. I decided that I wanted to help people, so I started writing a book. I had to hide it from my mom because she was always in my stuff. I would let Corie read it, but I eventually locked the computer disk into a box and would occasionally write things on other disks with boring titles on the label so no one would look.
Through the years I continued writing, I continued to grow, and I started to heal. The next thing I knew, I was counseling people online, and in 2006 found myself taking all of the stuff I had written throughout the years and compiling it into a book. I was volunteering in organizations for abuse survivors and started a small organization of my own called the Survivor Alliance.
In October 2007, my book ‘Surviving Jane’ was released and I now sit on the board for Healing Through Creativity in which I help make decisions in the organization and conduct survivor workshops at various events held throughout the year.
Healing for me is an ongoing process. I feel wonderful that I am using my experiences and using my voice, but that does not mean I am invincible to the effects of the abuse. Sometimes it feels like I have taken ten steps forward then twenty steps back, but I know that it isn’t true. It is all a part of the healing process. I am proud of the person I have become because I could have gone a variety of ways in my life that could have been harmful, but I chose a path in which I could help others. I gain a sort of satisfaction from it. I am an advocate dedicated to stopping abuse and giving offenders harsher sentences.
I also run my own internet marketing business out of my home that incorporates writing and internet marketing techniques. I will continue to write books, successfully run my business, and support a number of causes. I am also working on a new book and I write mini books for Youth Media Works that are geared toward children between the ages of 10 and 18. The books focus on issues that affect children such as abuse, divorce, drug use, teen pregnancy, and more. I feel honored that I am able to use my writing to reach out to both adults and children in a variety of ways and say to them, “I was once a victim, but now I am a survivor.
Gingers Contact Info:Homepg: www.freewebs.com/gingergillenwater/index.htm
Email: gethang04@adelphia.net
Website: The Survivor Alliance
Business Sites: www.grgfreelance.com
www.articlesetcetera.com
Q & A
1. What is your favorite coping skill?
Hands down my favorite coping skill is writing. I will write out my frustrations until it feels “diluted.” What I mean by this is that the pain I feel is less intense than when I started writing.
2. What was the best piece of healing advice you ever received?
That it is okay to cry. I always felt that crying was a sign of weakness and that others would run away from me if they knew what I was feeling inside. When I was told, “it is okay to cry because you haven’t done enough of it,” I stopped holding things in.
3. What was the worst piece of healing advice you ever received?
The worst advice, which is something I tend to get once in a while is “the past is the past” or “you need to get over it, it was a long time ago.” This is where I get into heated debates because I try to explain that when a child is hurt, the foundation of that person’s life is damaged. When you’ve been abused, even if you don’t realize you’re doing it, some of your responses are different than someone who has not been abused.
4. What were the three hardest obstacles to overcome?
Realizing that it was not my fault. After my own family told me “not to do it again,” I thought it was all my fault that the entire thing was happening. The second obstacle was not holding things inside. The third was to stop hurting myself.
5. Have you ever hit "rock bottom"? What kept you going?
I have hit rock bottom several times, but I am surrounded by very loving people. I am fortunate to not be alone. Where my own family never came through, I have a wonderful husband, wonderful in-laws, and two best friends who are always supporting me in everything.
6. What does forgiveness mean to you?
Forgiveness is something that is not easily earned in my book. I am one that forgives people for a lot of things, but I never forget what happened. I will continue to care for them, be concerned for them, and talk to them. I will understand that sometimes people make mistakes, but sometimes it depends on what the “mistake” was.
7. When did you know that everything was going to be okay -- that you were going to make it?
When I met Corie and then met my husband about a year and a half later. With those two, I knew that I would make it as long as they were with me.
8. Is there anything that you would like to say to someone just beginning their journey?
It will be okay. Although things seem hopeless right now, take into consideration that we change just like the world around us changes. The feelings will be different and the possibilities are endless. Just know that what happened to you was not your fault, know that you are not alone, and know that there are great things in this world for you. Use your experiences to let others know that they are not alone and take satisfaction that you can use your abuse as a weapon against abuse in general.
9. If there was one piece of advice you would give, or one thing you would want the significant other, best friend, etc. of a survivor to keep in mind throughout the survivors healing process, what would that be?
Simply listen. All the abuse survivor wants is for someone to listen. You don’t even have to offer any kind of feedback because the abuse survivor doesn’t expect the non-abused to understand…just be there. Lines such as, “that was in the past” or “I understand” are not welcome responses, so just make yourself available and offer a shoulder if needed.
LITERATURE & POETRY
HealingThroughCreativity.org
Board Member - Presenter - Core Planning Group
Surviving Jane by Ginger Gillenwater
Misery
Let me breathe you in
And take away your pain.
Let me heal your wounds
So you can breathe again
Misery has this way
Of taunting the heart
It likes to tease with its tongue
and then tear you apart.
I've been there before,
That dark place inside.
Where there is nowhere to run
and nowhere to hide
I've bled my share
from my own hand.
I've tried to bury my past
but it will always stand
But let me tell you
that it does no good to run
because before you know it,
it will all be done.
Misery or not,
I will always be there
because there is a little left
inside of me to share
Oh sweet Lord, speak to me with your sweet words of poetry
reminding me each day that you are holding me within your hands.
Touch my heart in such subtle ways that I feel my soul
has been washed over by a wordless feeling of spiritual ecstasy.
Oh sweet Lord, sing to my being once more with your perfect hymns
and may the music of your perfection wash the abyss of pain clean.
Fill that horrid chasm with such goodness that it spews its holiness
and drowns away all pain that eats away at the edges of the soul.
Oh sweet Lord, touch me just one more time with your truth
that places an unexplainable fire of purpose within my heart.
Teach me every single day that my pain is not my own battle,
but a battle that you are fighting with me and that we are winning.
Oh sweet Lord, shape me and mold me into who you want me to be
and teach me your ways in which I may fulfill your perfect plan.
I understand that atrocious things have happened to me throughout my life
and I ask that you guide me in sharing these atrocities to help others.
Who Am I?
I don't need to breathe the air of the dyingor drink the waters of the living.
Because…
Who am I to steal the last breath
or take the last drop from the deserving?
Feeling alien in a predetermined cycle,
as if I'm the obstacle to be overcome
and not the one achieving victory
over all that stands in my way.
Trying to uphold all that is good,
yet it seems I stand in the way
when trying to make things right.
I only help find all that is wrong.
I don't wish upon falling stars
or pick up pennies on heads
Because…
Who am I to steal another's wish
or take luck from the deserving?
Why is it?
Why is it our tears speak louder than words?
When our lips cannot speak, the eyes weep,
but those drops of sadness scream octaves
above any sound the heart can bellow out.
Why is it I can stand in a room of a thousand,
screaming the scream of a battered soul,
but only my tears are wiped from my face
rather than a hand placed upon my shoulder?
Why is it I placed my head upon my pillow
succumbing to the burden to forgive
so that I may sleep soundly at night
to only be restless as if I never forgave at all?
Why is it when I do things unselfishly
I am chastised for doing for others
rather than the selfish self-preservation,
but also chastised when doing for myself?
Why is it that lies are the easy way out,
but truth has to be so difficult
causing the lives of the just to be tumultuous
and the lives of the liars victorious?
Why is it that those who try to be fair
seem to fail in an industrious world,
but the cut-throats take short cuts
that prove to be deviously successful?
Why is it that those of us who do right
continue to do the right thing
even though we know that the right thing
is harder to do than doing the wrong thing?
Because doing the wrong thing may seem right
in a temporary, yet devious world,
but doing the wrong thing will not be right
in an eternal and indefinite afterlife.
LETTER
Dear Abuser,
I would say hello, but I’m not sure how to start this letter. The last time I spoke to you was when my grandmother died. Well, I know she is your grandmother too, but she tried to protect me from you. When my mom hugged you, knowing what you did to me those many years ago, my heart was torn into pieces. I couldn’t understand why she could be so nice to you when you defiled her daughter, taunted her when my father cheated on her, and terrorized us after the divorce. You may have people fooled, but I know what is inside of you. Have you hurt anyone else? I wonder because I have to deal with the mystery surrounding the fact that, had I told someone outside of the family, you would not be able to hurt anyone else. I pray that you haven’t and that you won’t.
Throughout the years I have done terrible things to myself because of you. I used to hurt myself because I felt like EVERYTHING was my fault. I was always getting the blame for things. I even got the blame for what you did to me. Adults blamed me. But you know what? I learned something. I learned that you were the one that was wrong. I learned that you knew what you were doing to me and thought you would never get caught. Even when you did you didn’t get into trouble and just abused me worse because you thought you were invincible. Well, let me tell you something. People know about you. People know that you are an abuser and they know that you are not the person you portray yourself to be.
But I have been able to use what you did to me to help others. You would not believe how many people there are in this world that are like you and they hurt children. Even if the child didn’t know what was happening to them at the time, they still ended up hurting in some way. Well, you do not run my life. You will not run my life. You will one day find yourself standing before the almighty on your judgment day. Think that you’ll get off scot free because of your community service? It isn’t in the deeds my friend.
So I will end by saying that I think your daughter is beautiful. You did well. I just hope that she has in no way had to endure what I did. I hope that you’ve been a loving father and a devoted husband and that I was the end of your reign of terror. But I must ask…who did it to you? Why did you do it to me? I guess those are things I’ll never know. But know that you did not destroy me. Know that you aren’t that powerful.
Sincerely,
Ginger
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