A woman whose father kept her locked in a basement for 24 years was found with two children. Her father had molested her regularly since age eleven, and she is now 42. She's had six children by him, and one of them, a boy, died at birth--he burned him in the furnace. Three of the children he took to his wife and told her they were her grandchildren. The man's wife didn't know the daughter had been in the basement of the apartment building for so many years--when the girl was 18, the mother had been told her daughter had run off and joined a commune. As the babies were brought to the man's wife, he told his wife that the daughter couldn't take care of the children, so the children had been sent to their grandparents to be taken care of. Two more children were found in the basement with the woman.

At no time does the media advise whether the three children that were raised by the grandparents were male or female...but the reason the woman was found was because one of the children, a 17-year-old female, became very ill and had to be taken to the hospital by the grandfather. While she was in the hospital, the story apparently unfolded and the police searched the building...as well as more the man owned. I find it peculiar that no report is made of the children being male or female, and I'm wondering why not. The story is already a horribly infamous sensation...I'm wondering if the children kept in the children could be female.....? and the ones brought to the grandmother, could they be male....?

Basic needs of the human body include a need for "pro-creation," a basic instinct for sexual interaction. I'm wondering if in these kinds of cases that instinct becomes so strong that it overcomes the ordinary levels of decency that a human body normally acknowledges...or is there some other reason this man could do this to a woman? People may have fantasies about such activities...usually not necessarily with a family member...but they do not normally act on those fantasies. Somewhere I read that the difference between a person that is truly mentally unstable is that those such people have actually acted out their fantasies. Is that what happened here? And why did it go on for so long? The man was very ordinary in appearance, but in behavior there were strong difference--but not obvious differences.

How are we supposed to know these people when we see them? When even a man's wife of probably 50 years doesn't know her husband, how are the rest of us supposed to know? And, most importantly, how is the child or victim supposed to know?

I am frustrated with myself and my thoughts. They are not good thoughts, and if a male voiced the kinds of thoughts I think, then I believe that male would be castigated strongly for objectifying females. I want attention that should never be given to a female, and even as I try to reject these thoughts, they make their way back into my mind and distract me constantly...at least, constantly for the past few days.

I see movies on tv about young women cutting themselves and doing other dangerous things, particularly if they are experiencing stress--particularly if they are being sexually molested. Cutting has never been something I wanted or craved, and as a matter of fact, cutting and bleeding is something I would avoid at all costs. These actions do not fascinate me at all.

But there are other painful situations that drift into my fantasies, and even as I recognize that deviant thought, the thought mushrooms and seems to take on a life of itself. I remember as a young girl, when my molester was not present, I would think of how painful and horrible an experience was the incestuous acts--and I wanted to stop the acts and stop the thoughts. I knew I was not behaving like a good girl, and I wanted to stop...but even as I knew this and recognized it, I also tried to hurt myself--usually by heat. I would heat metal objects by laying them in front of a window where the sun seemed to come through the strongest...and when it got so hot I could hardly touch it, I would move it to my skin and use it to make myself feel that heat, that pain. This was at a time when I didn't realize what a vagina was, before I knew the female anatomy. I thought that the male was hurting me by forcing a very part of himself against me, and it hurt so badly...and for some unknown reason, I was trying to find a way to imitate his actions, and I couldn't. Eventually, that particular behavior stopped, but not the desire to find a way to receive the pain....

No, never anything that would leave permanent harm. That's part of the deal. No permanent marks. There can be no way that someone examining my physical body would ever know that the painful action happened. Yet, the pain is imagined to be real and strong. And hidden from the world. And there's the crux of my thoughts...finding pain that doesn't leave physicall reminders.

And humiliation. Actually, more submission in a way that declares victor to a male in a way that would humiliate most women. In the fantasies, it's a way to please a man.

And I hate those fantasies. They need to be put in a corner and never brought out. But they always find their way to my mind, to a place where they're front and center. And sometimes I feel like I'm going to go crazy if the images don't stop, don't create a strange excitement that makes me cringe to think about them. It seems to be so hypocritical, and that is something I never want to be--a hypocrite. I want to be real and honest, and I want to crave only good and wonderful emotions and feels, not these things that are not right, not good and not normal for a female in today's world.

In Texas, four hundred children were taken by the state to protect them from potential child abuse. In a religious community, with the religion actively practicing polygamy, a 14-year-old girl apparently reported that she was forced to marry a much-older man and was raped in the process. She called in this report, and the repercussions were far-reaching. Child Services, or whatever that department is called, removed 400 children from the community and also took evidence from families that were an important part of their religious practices.

The government said they needed to protect these children from abuse, and they confiscated everything from computers to hand-written letters, official records and even family bibles. Anything that had the potential to show that young females were being forced to marry and have sexual relations with the involved men was taken from the families. It is apparently the intention of the government to place all the children in permanent foster care to protect them from such abuse.

While such a situation as a young lady being forced to marry someone and to have sex is abhorrent and not to be tolerated, the situation here is far from appropriate. It may have made a little more sense if they could produce the young woman that made the complaint, but they cannot find her. That "witness" is not to be found. So, in reality, 400 children were taken from their families because an unidentified and anonymous young lady made an allegation that has yet to be proved. If all 400 children had been in one family where it had been proven that such action had taken place, and even one of the children claimed such action had taken place, then there MAY be a basis for such action by the government.

In this case, though, these are neighborhood children that were removed from homes that had no real, biological connection to that anonymous young woman. If someone came and took my child from me because a child a block away, a child that the authorities cannot identify or produce, that child said she was raped and forced to marry a man at fourteen years of age, well--I would not be a happy lady. My basic defense would be: why is my child being taken from me because that family has problems?

True, we all practice the same religion. And that religion promotes polygamy. Polygamy does not necessarily advocate child brides, though, and so I assume that this particular community also advocated marriage at a very young age. Still, I assume that every family had free will, and I assume the government needs to show that a particular child was in particular danger from a very particular action. Yes, the government might prove that a family is particularly devoted to a religion that advocates such marriages and horrible sexual acts, but I would hope our legal minds understand that being a member of such a religion does not equate to being a child abuser. I would think that there are other options that would prevent such horrors, options that do not involve separating innocent children from families that have done nothing wrong.

I would think that the government needs to prove specific harm, real or potential, for every one of those four hundren children. Individually and separately. And in those cases where the proof is lacking, it doesn't mean something can't be done. In fact, rather than making this all go through the courts, I would think a much better way to handle this would be to discuss the situation with each individual family, to advise each family of the law, and to stress that children are really children...and not ready for marriage at age 14! They really aren't ready for sex at 14, even if they have a body that seems to be an adult's. And this needs to be totally and directly imprinted on every family's life, and the reality of legal issues needs to be impressed upon every single person in the community. But those legal issues need to relate to every individual, not to the community at large.

I truly hope that the young woman who initially made the report is found and helped. And if she knows specific incidents that are happening to specific children, then those allegations need to be investigated. It is possible that each child is in harm, but it doesn't appear the standard of harm to the individual was considered in this situation. It sounds like an overzealous government needs to slow down and really be objective in their findings and their actions.

Here in Minnesota, I know of a young lady that was a willing participant in a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old male. When the parents complained to the police of this "statutory rape", the family was told that the young lady was old enough to be a willing participant, and it was not something they wanted to deal with. If the mother wanted to press the issue, she would have to hire her own attorney and, they advised, most attorneys would not touch the case because of the personal relationship between the two young people. For some reason, it makes me mad to know that a parent is concerned about her child being in a sexual relationship, an illegal sexual relationship, and she willingly acknowledges the problem--but when she goes for help, the people who are paid to uphold the law tell her they cannot do anything. Yet, in this situation where children in unrelated families are taken because a teenaged girl claims she was raped and forced to marry someone, in this situation they take the children where there has been no real demonstration of abuse.

The police pick and choose their battles. They know who can defend themselves and who can't. The government has construed statutes so that the police can take almost any action with impunity, and the police know which actions will be lauded and which ones will be criticized. And they also know which people are valuable assets in their back pockets, and which people are simply inhabitants of the region. And they know what they need to do to convince a public that their actions are completely justified....and they know when the action will do nothing to benefit their reputation.

Those children in Texas are victims, indeed. They are victims of a police department and prosecution of a horrible act that may or may not have taken place...and I hope those victims eventually let the police know exactly what the real situation is. I think the police and government officials may be surprised.

If I could live my life again, would I do it again--and what would I do differently? It's a question I get asked once every so often, and I always answer that I would live my life again because if I didn't, then I would not be the person I am today. I would not have the perspectives I do today, and I wouldn't have experienced so many different events. Yet, today, I would say no, that I would not live this life again.

I don't ever want to live the pain I did as a child. And I understand that out there somewhere there is a child that has an average life, no pain and no shame--and no secrets. At least, nothing as invasive and negatively significant as has happened to me.

I think child abuse is horrible. It is Child Abuse Awareness month, and it makes me think about the situation--and I would never wish my experiences on any child. Yet, I think that the government has simply gone too far in their efforts to eliminate child abuse. Two weeks ago, I had to take care of two young boys because the county social services visited her house on a tip, and found it totally trashed and not what they would find appropriate for any child. They told the mother that she should be ashamed of herself, that no child liked to go to school dirty and smelly, and that if she cared at all, she wouldn't leave medicine on the kitchen table where her eight year old could reach it...and she'd clean the house. She tried to explain a few things, but they just stonewalled her and told her that the kids could not enter her house until it were cleaned and the medicine put away.

That mother gives her kids a bath every morning, and she only puts clean (yes, somewhat holey, though) clothes on her children before they go to school. She makes sure their hair is cut, and they have what they need to do their schoolwork. But she is not a good housekeeper, and she never professed to be--but her house was exceptionally bad, she said, because her husband had just left her, she was away from home more than there as she tried to get her life organized, and she was very depressed with two children who had ADD...and for the past three days, she had just not been able to gather the energy to clean.

So, the kids came to my home, and she cleaned--the social worker that came back to re-inspect hadn't seen the photos the first one took, and she said she could not believe that the house she was seeing hadn't passed an inspection 24 hours earlier. I guess the possibility of losing your kids motivates a woman to clean...and the medicine (with childproof tops and her children being old enough to not take them--knowing the difference between medicine and candy) being put on the top shelf of her closet.

As much as I think a child deserves a clean home and a loving environment, I cannot believe these children were about to be put in foster care because the house was messy. And they later found out there was nothing in the report saying the kids were dirty and smelly...the worker just assumed that from the condition of the home. To my way of thinking, the medicine could have been put on the shelf while the worker was there, thus eliminating the safety hazard. And then the cleaning could happen as the children were in the home and not being separated from their mother for a day.

What really irritates me is that this mother had gone to social services and asked for help---but until someone else made a complaint, they ignored her request. While they did help her with some educational needs that the school had referred for the family, social services refused to help her. And then they had the nerve to come and tell her that she was not a good mom, when she was doing all she could to get her life together--and then got punished by the people that refuse to help. Now, after someone else complained and they viewed the situation, they're helping her with food stamps and some energy assistance...and even a bit of advice regarding her personal finances (no, she's not getting cash because she has another source of income that covers her family's basic needs and not much more) and how to prevent some of the money being taken from her (someone was taking her money from her and no one had helped her until the complaint....).

Yet, in my situation, no one ever helped. My pain and agony were so deep seated that they linger in my mind every day, forty years later. That house being so dirty for three days will not be so ingrained that it is in her children's mind every day for the rest of their lives--yet the mother was made to feel lazy and less than worthless because her house was messy.

I am not a good housekeeper. I will never make money at cleaning or cooking. And I am so very happy that social services never came knocking at my door. And I am worried that every day another family experiences this governmental interference for a situation that can be easily remedied--but other situation that aren't seen, aren't reported and can never be remedied continue, sometimes generation after generation, or as in my situation, the repercussions continue forever.

Let's be aware of true child abuse, and learn to know the difference between bad--even terrible--housekeeping skills and being an abusive parent. And let's learn to lend a hand before it gets to the point where more than just a hand is necessary.

I've been asked why I used "Incestuous Thoughts" as my blog's moniker. Some think it's misleading in that those with prurient interests are intended targets, while others just don't like the word "incest". They don't get the idea: "incest" normally describes an intimate relationship between two relatives that would ordinarily be one of several activities that are taboo, that people don't talk about. And, it is that intimate relationship that inspired this "incestuous thoughts" title.

While incest is a very important but relatively rarely mentioned in the words, that aspect of my life has impacted every other part of my life. The way I socialize, the way I eat, the way I think---it's all interconnected in a way that few understand or discuss. And influencing all of them is my formative years' actvities. With the incest being a significant, negative influence, all parts of my world are influenced by those actions that happened so many years ago.

While the physical action is one horrible part of my life, the other parts of my life have evolved and developed despite the pain and hurt that was inflicted so intensely so many years ago. But I've always felt different than other people, felt separate from them--and much of it can be traced back to the incest. Some needs a greater viewpoint, a bigger perspective with other inflences, but the emotions and thoughts that grew from the painful encounters has played a role in my current outlook on every part of my life.

I want the incest to go away, and I want my life to happen as if it had never happened. I want someone to say "I'm sorry," and, like magic, my painful experiences would disappear from my memories and my life. That will never happen, so--instead--I just want to recognize the pain and its influence, and then I want to keep trying to be normal, to be average, and to remember that everyone has their cross to bear. And this one isn't as heavy as some that others carry. For that, I am grateful--and I pray that those other people find peace in their lives. A peace apart from any of the incestuous thoughts that never stop and impact every part of our lives. A peace that brings us personal peace.