Month: May 2019

domestic abuse

Falling Through the Cracks

carolyncordon

This is Molly.

Screenshot 2019-05-17 at 5.52.43 PM

Molly has no friends, and doesn’t want any, anyway. Molly doesn’t think anyone would ever want to be her friend, and she doesn’t care about that. At least, that’s what she tells herself, and she believes what she says.

If Molly had a friend, she thinks, she’s have to be nice to people, whether she wanted to or not, and smile. Molly watches people, the way they smile and hug, and she doesn’t want to do that.

But Molly has never had a hug from a friend who cared about her. Poor Molly … Molly can remember a loving hug, from someone, it was probably her nana, but her nana lives a long way away, and Molly isn’t even really sure where she lives, she’s forgotten. She knows her nana cares about her, but she also knows she has no hope of a happy life, because her nana told her that once, on the phone.

Molly isn’t even really sure what that ‘happy life’ would have been like, she just knows it’s different from her life, and it’s probably more like the lives of  the kids at school had.

Molly has tried to live a life, but has faced a instead, falling through all of the cracks there, every single possible crack. Molly isn’t anger at anything in particular, because there isn’t one thing to blame. She blames every single thing. Everything that cold go wrong has gone wrong. She has tripped over every possible stepping stone in life, missed every target.

Molly was never taught how to ‘get on’ in life. She has no real understanding of the concept of ‘life’ as such, but just that people can sometimes hurt here, and she never knows which ones will hurt her the most. So she keeps away from all people, as much as she possible can.

The task of socialisation of children is one that is taken on by parents & teachers. Well that’s the way it’s supposed to go, but sadly, for many children, there is no parent willing or able to take on that task, so the child suffers.

Without at least adequate socialisation, the child may fail to find out how to fit into society, and remain forever on the edges, never knowing what they’re doing wrong, or how to find out the proper ways to be, so society sees them as a problem, if they are even noticed by their society. They live on the edges, and hide themselves away if they can, always …

Molly is not stupid, but she is profoundly restricted in her abilities to find her way through the seeming maze that is the world she is trying to live in. Will Molly ever find clues and lessons that may lead her out of the maze that is her sad, sad life?

Molly was quiet in class, never said a word wrong, and barely ever said a word at all in class, or to the other students or teachers. She was the weird kid, that everyone ignored, and she seemed to like to be left alone anyway, so no-one worried, really.

Who can tell? We’ll just have to wait and see. If you ever come across anyone like Molly, maybe you may become the one person who cares enough, to help that person. Would you do that? Are you brave enough and do you care enough?

http://school-age-children.yoexpert.com/physical-and-emotional-growth/why-is-it-important-for-children-to-learn-socializ-1761.html

 

domestic abuse

When Molly Fought Back, the First Time

carolyncordon

A new idea for Molly’s story – she leaves home very soon after her father slapped her hard, and grabbed her, trying to drag her off to his bedroom, she fights like a wild cat, and races off through the back door, jumps over the neighbours fence, and then just goes, as far away as she can.

She had her wallet in her pocket, with her bank card, and she knew there were other things of her in her school locker, so knows that’s where she has to go, to get all of her things before her father can go to the school and get everything.

Molly is twelve. Her father had been nasty to her, telling her she’s dumb, and will never amount to anything, that he doesn’t know why he should have to spend his ‘hard earned money’ on her fancy stuff she wanted all of the time. He’s just begun looking at her when she goes into the bathroom before school, to make sure she washes her hair properly, and doesn’t waste all of the shampoo and conditioner.

She doesn’t like him being in there, and thanks to the sex ed classes they’ve begun at school, she is starting to realise something is wrong in the things he does with her, and has been doing since she can remember. She’s beginning to feel that he’s been doing bad things to her, touching her in places she now knows he has no right to touch her.

Molly has enough documents that she can keep on going, out on the streets. She contacts her maternal grandmother at an early stage of her new life out on the street, who helps her as much as she can. She’s frightened of Molly’s dad too though, so she isn’t able to do a lot, in case he finds out, and beats her.

domestic abuse

Sins of the Father

carolyncordon

The Bible is a tricky thing, with ideas

going first one way, and then another,

but Molly felt deep the sins of her father

visited upon her, a child, who dared, once

to smile in his presence, and then no more.

 

Screenshot 2019-05-17 at 5.52.43 PM

This is Molly, who dared once, and learned

a smile is seen as a challenge, to the guilty one,

and a challenge not put down, may rise again.

Molly’s sin of smiling was small, compared

to the sins of her father, but he won, and she lost.

 

He won, over his daughter’s sense of her own self.

She lost trust, and faith in the idea of her worth.

Molly lost her mother, her father, and her virginity.

She lost, if she ever even had, parental love,

and lost her smile, slapped from her face. Forever?

 

Will Molly, can Molly, ever find her smile again?

Will anything in her life, ever again seem something

to be smiled at, even carefully? Or, as with chasteness,

is a lost smile something, never to get back again,

and so Molly remain forever damaged, broken?

 

 

Molly, oh Molly please seek help, there are resources out there to help you, and others like you. Domestic abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse, child abuse, child sexual abuse, these are crimes, and the perpetrators should be charged and dealt with via the court system. No-one adult of child, should feel unsafe in their own home.

 

domestic abuse

Some More Info About Molly and Her Life

carolyncordon

This is Molly.

Screenshot 2019-05-17 at 5.52.43 PM

Molly doesn’t have a smile, not yet, and perhaps never will.

Molly may have smiled as a child, once, and got hit for doing it.

Hit by her Dad, a man with his own reasons for not smiling.

And why should he let his daughter smile, if he had nothing to smile about?

There are other people like Molly, and like her father too.

Those who smiled and learned to never smile again.

Those who saw a smile and hated seeing it, so stopped the smiler from smiling.

Don’t be like Molly was, stay away from the ones who try to stop you from smiling.

Molly doesn’t live anywhere near her dad now, but she still can’t see anything to smile about. Life is like that sometimes. It’s a sad thing. Sometimes, for some people, that’s their life. I hope that one day, it will no longer be Molly’s life, and I hope she might feel she can smile.

And don’t be like Molly’s dad. Even if you don’t feel like smiling, that doesn’t give you the right to stop other people from smiling.

The world always needs more smiles in it.

domestic abuse

When Molly Last Smiled

carolyncordon

Molly has smiled, even though she usually seems she’s never ever smiled, not ever, in her entire life. Molly has smiled, but usually it was a twisted, hateful smile. She smiled like a liar might smile, when they con a person, and get something out of them, fooling them. A triumphant but sad smile, that one.

Happy smiles? Molly has never had a happy smile, never a happy moment really. This is how Molly’s face usually looks Screenshot 2019-05-17 at 5.52.43 PM sad, cynical maybe, but a long, long way from being happy. Molly and happiness don’t meet up with each other.

If you feel like Molly, like there is nothing to be happy about, nothing to smile about, it can feel like your world is pointless, like there is a cloud that covers the whole world, or like there are no colours in the world, never have been, never will be, not in your world.

Being depressed, having depression, that can make happiness disappear. Everything might feel like it’s a huge effort, even getting out of bed is too much. There is nothing you want to do, not joy in your life, no possibility of having anything good happen. Even watching TV might feels like to much, you can’t follow what’s happening on the screen, your brain can’t concentrate.

Is Molly depressed? Maybe she is. Many people suffer from depression, sometimes without realising it. They just suffer in silence, not smiling, not doing much at all, and certainly nothing happy or fun. They can’t see any good things possible in their lives. That’s how Molly feels.

So yes Molly has smiled, but it was not a happy smile, it was a cynical smile, which is a sneer really, not a smile. Molly can’t remember smiling a happy smile, but she can remember, when she was little, her dad saying to her, “What at you grinning at?” and he hit her. It wiped out her ability to smile like other people do, she thinks.

Now Molly won’t smile, maybe can’t smile, not how other people smile. I hope one day, Molly might find a reason to smile, and see whether her smile is completely wiped out, or whether, one happy day, she might smile a happy smile again, and no-one will hit her. Maybe …