Many (((hugs))). I have had close family deal with stage one uterine cancer. It is certainly less fun than a root canal or an extended family holiday in the home of the family teetotaler. But it is far from the worst prognosis one can receive. Warning: irreverent cancer story ahead More than a decade after being declared cancer free (uterine cancer stage one) my crazy (not of the clinical but of the cracker dog variety) grandmother shares her story of how the doctor used the radiation wand with strangers and at holiday meals. She is determined "the cancer" is going to kill her. She may die 30 years after her cancer treatment from being run over by a Mack truck, but it will really be "the cancer"'s fault!

I would try to dig down into the why behind her desire to wear it. If she likes the way it feels on her lips that can be managed differently than if she wants to be like everyone else.

OP- I keep coming back to this thread trying to find the right words. I'm still not sure I will be able to express this well, but I am going to try. Neither of my abusers were ever reported while the abuse was ongoing. When I talked to my mom about reporting the one abuser after the fact she told me not to "ruin his life over a misunderstanding". If either one of my abusers were to admit to even a fraction of their abuse in writing... It would be the most difficult, wonderful thing. Having people know is hard, but having people know and not believe you is worse. I have no doubt that this letter was written as an attempt at manipulation or marginalization of some sort, but it doesn't have to be. You have the opportunity to shine light into a dark place. And even if the victims of this abuser don't appreciate that light, the very act of refusing to let this stay hidden is one of a thousand small steps toward changing the way our society shames victims of sexual abuse.

That sounds like one for the thread of things that should not go together!

You absolutely should talk to your church leadership. You can give them a copy of the letter, share what you've shared here, tell them you've passed the letter on to law enforcement, and ask what protocols are in place to keep the children in the congregation safe and support the daughters in whatever comes next.

I'm sure there are a lot of bells LG wishes could be unrung. This thread, that letter..... That is the really crappy thing about abusers, even if you aren't the direct recipient of their abuse they twist you up in their drama. They take the burden of thier actions and spread it around like manure until everything that is even remotely associated with them stinks of the filth of their actions. By passing out that letter, he was just spreading manure, trying to foist the fallout of his actions onto others. If his daughters are hurt by the police asking questions, or uncomfortable that people know what happened, that is HIS FAULT.

That is really cool! Thanks for sharing it.

I hurt. I hurt for the victims of Josh. I hurt for the victims of ATI. I hurt for the victims of sexual abuse who will be wounded if TLC's special gives any credibility to the healing process perscribed by ATI.

I made amazon purchases yesterday. But none were from the prime day sales. I checked my wish lists in hopes that some of the items from my book or therapeutic lists would be on sale, no dice. So, Amazon managed to have a prime day sale that was neither on a day that was prime or offering items people want.

So glad that he is alright and that they were able to glue it!

We have two children with SNs and have not been able to leave the kids and go out more than a couple times a year in over a decade. We do "date" night at home weekly. We send the kids to bedrooms early, they get to have devices in their rooms, DH and I get take out and an extra hour of quiet. Win-Win. Most of the time we just sit together on the couch and watch something. Sometimes we read our books. We are both introverts who are happy to engage in parallel play like a couple of toddlers! We talk daily. And, surprisingly, one of our best communication tools has become texting. Even when we have a crazy day where DH is gone from 7in the morning to 9 at night, we stay connected. Sharing bits of our day, inside jokes, personal achievements or failures, definitely keeps communicating about big things easier. The absolute best thing we do, though, is laugh together. Sometimes it is laughter through tears, but it is like a positive spousal feeling charge everytime. It is my favorite thing about our relationship.

Exactly. That is why when two people wish to get married a baker is not allowed to say, I don't make cakes for people in your church, mosque, temple, coven, or atheist cabal. Freedom is only for everyone when it is extended without bias to one religious sect over another.

Woo-Hoo!!! That is fabulous news!

Super Circles And, according to Punk, Poo. (Yes, it is a card game where the goal is poo flinging.)

Timeline Fluxx Prof. Noggin Albert's Insomnia 7 ate 9 Zues on the Loose Man Bites Dog

Yes. Exactly this. Cake is not a part of any religious ceremony. I would wager there is no directive in any church discipline that even makes mention of cakes. Because, and I bold for emphasis, CAKE IS NOT A PART OF THE CEREMONY. It is part of a social gathering that happens after the fact and has zero religious meaning. Do you know what is part of a religious ceremony? Communion wafers. I have yet to see a producer of communion wafers refusing to sell to a church where gay members and thier partners are included, affirmed, and married. Clergy will not be forced to marry people by the courts. Some clergy may face issues with the hierarchy of thier denomination if the denomination affirms same sex marriage, but that is an internal affair and can hardly be turned into an example of religious freedom being restricted.

"There was a big pile of hay, and a little pile of hay. And that is where the children play." (Big Red Barn) "A person's a person no matter how small." (Horton Hears a Who) "Bow to the horse. Bow to the cow. Twirl with the pig if you know how." (Barnyard Dance)

Because it always comes back to the cake. Based on the amount of energy and venom that goes into defending the right to refuse to bake a cake that will be served AFTER the COMPLETION of a wedding ceremony, you would think Jesus Christ himself said, "and whatever thou dost do, serve not sweet confections to the gays lest my father smite you with plagues of glitter, rainbows, and those asses from Westboro."

It's like an Internet version of the Giving Tree, only weirder.

Watchers Sieze the Night Fear Nothing Tick Tock Life Expectancy Phantoms Odd Thomas Winter Moon Icebound The Taking By the Light of the Moon Maybe Lightning, there is a child molester in that one, but I cannot remember how vivid or indepth his part of the story is. All of the stories have some variation of the good versus evil theme and suspense and darkness. In most of the books I listed above there is also a level of levity. Usually the main protagonist has a dark sense of humor that breaks up the intensity of the story. I would say if she is comfortable with the level of intensity in Crichton's work, she will be fine with most of Koontz.

My only caveat with Koontz is that some of his works are super dark, the Bad Place is absolutly not something I'd recommend for teens, and Lightning, Whispers, and Velocity all have some heavy topics that come into play including sexual abuse. He is absolutly one of my favorite contemporary authors, but I would not recommend all of his work for young adults. (Heck, as an adult I almost couldn't stomach The Bad Place. I'm just super stubborn and determined I was going to see it though to the end.)

Dean Koontz I'd start with Watchers or Seize the Night or Odd Thomas

A few years ago there were two on-air talents fired from DH's main gig for things posted to thier facebook pages. At least one filed suit and lost because thier contract had a clause about social media usage. I think it is a mistake to merge the issues of the SCOTUS decision and social media tracking by employers.

((((eaglei)))) There simply are no words that are adequate. I am so sorry for your loss.

This has been floating about my brain overnight and I want to try to clarify my position. I was not advocating the idea that the Bible promotes any of the things I listed. What I was saying is that people throughout history have, believing they were righteous, faithful and correctly interpreting scripture, done them. If we look at the writings of Biblical scholars during each of those periods we do not see a unanimous position on, well almost anything. Christians have been debating the finer points of the faith since Paul and Peter. We've debated circumcision, meat sourcing, head covering, jewelry, amassing wealth, slavery, and on and on. That is why those arguments are relevant. The Bible is important to all those who follow Christ. Some interpret literally, some believe in scriptural inerrancy, some use it as a companion to another set of church teachings, some view it as a rule book, and some do not. It is impossibly arrogant to declare your interpretation as the perfection following millinia of bad exegesis. Saying "clearly THEY were wrong about using the Bible for that, but I am correct in using it for this" without acknowledging the reality that not all interpret the same and that a hundred years from now our interpretations may be viewed as terribly wrong is the sort of self centered gospel that conservative Christianity often accuses progressive or liberal Christians of perpetuating. Saying to some person who has been beaten by a police officer that not all police officers do that, or that the police officer was not following the rules does not change that the person was in fact beaten and the person who did it was representing themselves as an agent of the government.