Not Again! I totally dislike moving!

I was recently told by my landlord that its time to move.  He wants to sell the house and I certainly don't want to buy it for several reasons.   Let the brain wracking begin!
I have started the looking process as well as written out what the ideal location would be like.  3 bedrooms, private location with enough space for a garden, either near family/friends or near my job, rent under 1,000, allows 2 dogs..1 big one little.  I would like to avoid NY if possible because of their flu vaccine laws that are going to start requiring children to mandatory get the flu vaccine.  Funny isn't it, how this year was mandatory vaccines for health care workers and we had a longer flu season than usual?  Last 7 months.  It was just 2 days ago that they said we didn't have to wear the masks! 
I am not asking for much am I!
I am seriously thinking that I will move closer to my job in the Albany area.  My co workers are my friends, I can get more done without having to drive over an hour one way every day.  More job opportunities.  It also would put me near the Honest WT co-op and Stram Center, two places I want to join and model Open Ground Living after.
Honest Weight Co-op is so very awesome.  Check out their web page.  http://www.honestweight.coop/     I love their store.  It reminds me...what you can do when you have a dream or a vision and you go for it. 

I found the Stram Center after I got bit by some ticks and was feeling ill.  I signed up to go there but didn't because my car broke down and the money I was going to use for that place had to go for the car.  http://stramcenter.com/index.php. 
  
If it wasn't for my job and my desire not to keep job hopping, I might just move south.  I would like to live somewhere warm and green.  I hate the idea of being so far away from my family. 
Some of my beliefs that are holding me back or causing conflict.  These beliefs I don't believe are bad or good, they just might be keeping me from growing or trying new things.  1) It's bad for your career to keep switching jobs every year.  The problem is that I am not doing what I really want to do.  Will there ever come that perfect time?
2) It's vital my girls have consistency and family in their life even if I have to sacrifice to give them that.  This belief keeps me tied to the area that I am in.  Its where most of our family resides.  It's where their school and friends are.  It's also one of the most expensive areas as well and its job opportunities are limited.   

3) My husbands legal needs have to be taken into consideration.  As you know already (I think you do) My husband is still gone...  trying to earn enough money to face his legal battles is what I am told.  I keep thinking...If he wants to come home, CT is the best place to live because he is off the registry.  If needs to serve jail time, that would make it easier for me to visit him.  If I move to NY then and he moves there he will be on the registry for at least 30 years or more unless we fight to get him off.  If I move to a state like VT I am under the impression he wouldn't have to register legally because he is off the registry in CT.  

He is supposedly starting to pick up some good jobs where he is at.  He is not going to want to leave those areas to come back to this area where finding work is harder.  If I moved somewhere closer to him, what happens when the other shoe does drop and he lands back in jail.  Where will I be then? 

 I listed some of my beliefs that make it hard for me to make a decision. Conflicting believes are what hold many people back from achieving great things in their life.  They keep you from taking true control of your life.  In order to go forward, I need to let go of the fear.  The underlying fears being that I will hurt my career, my ability to take care of my family if I keep changing jobs.  I will hurt my children if I keep moving them around, they will never develop life long friends or lasting relationships with others.  They will be damaged academically because they keep switching schools.   I am  not enough to do this all on my own, I need the help and support of others.

I am tired of raising my children on my own, I would like to have help from my husband.  The only problem is I AM AFRAID!  I have a lot of what ifs when it comes to being with my husband.  Especially since he has a lot of stuff hanging over his head.   My belief is that eventually the law is going to catch up with him.  Do I want to be there when that happens?  If I am around, literally, what would be the consequence for me and my children.  Do I just move someplace that is best for me and my children and not worry about what is best for him?

I know deep inside that if I was convicted that being with my husband was the best thing for us, we would be together.  I am not convicted of that.  I want to be with him, yet I don't.  So sad isn't it?  Confusing too.  For those who love a RSO,  I think you might know what it's like to be sad, confused and still love someone at the same time. 
 If I let go of the fear and changed my belief to something that my family and I are going to grow and be successful, no matter what decision I make that would be empowering.  Jobs are not dependent on the length of time that I stay, but who I am as a person.  You can develop close relationships without having to be in close proximity to your family. 
It will be interesting to see what the next few weeks and days bring as I seek to release my fears.  What doors will open?  What doors will close?  What will I learn.
I hope today's sharing is one you can relate too and that it helps you to look at your beliefs, both the empowering and dis empowering.  I hope it helps you to want to let go of what is holding you back so you too can reach the stars!

RTF...what is that?

Recently I have spent a couple of shifts at a residential treatment facility for children with severe behavioral problems.  Children whose parents are unable to manage them at home because of violence toward themselves or others. 
Some of the generalizations one would make about the children who come here, Most, but not all of the children who come here, come from abusive families, have been sexually abused, have family history of mental health, come from broken homes, were exposed to drugs in utero, and have learning difficulties, and developmental delays along with the mental health problems.  Some are borderline mentally challenged.  A good portion of the children seemed to be diagnosed as bipolar.
 In order to qualify to stay here, you have been kicked out of schools,  and you have been hospitalized for mental health issues and this is a last resort.
A term that is used frequently is" this child has been sexualized".  This means the child is exhibiting sexual behaviors inappropriately.  The children who come to this facility are between the ages of 12 and 20.  They will on average stay for about a year.  It used to be parents would get them enrolled in programs like this indefinitely, all the while collecting the children's disability checks.  The state would end up paying twice for the children.  I guess at least NY state wizened up to that practice and put a stop to it.
Its a non profit place and  what the staff makes is usually not competitive.  So many of the staff who work here, do it because they love the job, they love the children.  It really is not what I would consider a very easy place to work emotionally.  Physically, its not too bad, but has its risk, such as having restrain a  angry teen/young adult or just being in the way of one of these children when they end up getting violent. 
Gone are the days of chemical or posy restraints.  The only restraints used here are physical restraints applied by staff members.  Meaning 3 staff members have to hold who ever is out of control in a supine position.  Thank goodness this isn't a daily occurrence.  Sad that it has to happen at all.
I wonder how many of the children who come to this program will live successfully as an adult?  How many of the children here will end up being labeled as a rso?  It seems likely doesn't it if they are already acting out in a sexual manner?  Perhaps programs like this are able to help reduce the risk by teaching them new ways to act and manage their feelings.  How many of them will end up in prison?  We know that a majority of inmates have generally come from an abusive home, have been sexualized at an early age, were exposed to lead or drugs, have learning problems or not been properly educated. 
I hope programs like this are successful in breaking the cycle children becoming sex offenders or ending up in jail. 
What is the success rate places like this? How can we improve the success rate?  How can we break the cycle of mental health problems that lead to the rso label?
 

Po-Poes a knocking

Yesterday I got a phone call from the town police department.  "We want to wrap things up."  Can you tell us where your husband is?"  "No I don't know where he is.  I haven't seen him in a long time."  That's all the truth.  I don't know where he is.  I could guess, but why...should I help them do their job.  I think back to the last time we went through this and I will be damned if I help them one bit.
Tonight they stopped by to pay a small visit.  I did good, in as far as I didn't invite them in.  I did talk to them for a few minutes.  I know I "don't have" to talk to them.  I just feel that I will make things worse for myself and my children if I don't at least give the appearance of being helpful. 
We live in a very small town.  One of the officers is a resource officer at the school where my children go.  He also happens to live a mile down the road from my sister.  This isn't some big city where you can blend in with everyone else.  They can easily report me to cps. Even I haven't done anything wrong, they can make something up, its not that hard.   They could easily give me problems for having out of state tags still.  There are so many ways they could make life miserable for me and my children.  I figure the best thing to do is be pleasantly unhelpful.

Its been over a year since my husband ran away essentially.  He is running scared.  Scared of the consequences, scared of being locked up again, scared of being killed in prison  He figures life on the run, even if he doesn't see his family is better than being locked up.  He figures it's better being able to do what he wants.

As the one left behind, I don't know if I agree or not.  I can tell you, I am tired, I am conflicted inside.  I want my husband back, yet I don't want him back.  I love him and I resent him.  I want to move on, but I don't want to move on, he is my best friend and no other man comes even close to getting to my heart the way he has.   I want to move to be with him, but I am too scared to move.  I miss him, but sometimes think life is easier without him.  I hated dealing with drinking and jealousy/insecurity I would feel when he would flirt with other women.   Other days I feel like life truly sucks with him gone.  The house is frequently a mess, the kids are by themselves a lot.  Everyone and everything is neglected with him gone. Life seems to be falling a part no matter how hard I try to keep things together.

 He says he wants his family back but he "won't come back to that house.  The neighbors would call the cops in a heartbeat."  Come back and deal with stuff and then you can live at home again.  "No, the neighbors are always going to make things bad for me.  The longer you stay away, the worse its going to be. "No, its better for my children if I am not locked up again.  I can send them money and talk to them"
I think about my options and I don't like the answers.  I need to move because my landlord really wants to sell the house.  I don't want to because the girls are settled, have made friends.  Finding another place around here for the same price as what I pay, would be a miracle.  Plain and simple.  Those who have pets know how hard it is to rent when you have dogs.  Especially a German shepherd whose nickname is Dakota the Destroyer. 
Optimally I would like to find a place on the outskirts of the same town, that way I could keep the girls in the same school and maybe he would come back home.  We would still be close to his other children and my sister.    Maybe...but I don't know.  Chances are there would be another excuse why he couldn't. Cue the song by Jamie O'Neil There is no Arizona.  Then again, someday I want to move far away from here because I feel like I am getting very little help from either of our families, so what is the point of paying this high rent and driving so far to work! 
  I think that if I stay in CT, it would be better for him because he would be off the registry.  If we move somewhere else there is a good chance he would be put back on the registry.  Definitely, can't move to NY because he would go back on the registry for sure in that state.  Yet I work in NY and I don't want to quit my job because I already have a pattern of only staying at one job for a year or so.  I have a pattern of always moving to accommodate him.
On more than one occasion I have the impulse to throw away my phone, pack up the girls and head out to Houston, Texas.  Michael Berry does an excellent job of selling the idea of how wonderful Texas is. 
Then he will tell me how good he is doing where he is at.  He is working here, there.  He is out in the country.  He knows a guy who has a farm that maybe he can rent a house from.  It sounds so friggen wonderful.  I would love to live on a farm again, in area that is warm and sunny, far far away from here.  I think about moving, finding a new job, and I think "what if"  What if I move out there and he gets caught by the police. Eventually they are gonna catch up with him.  Then I am somewhere all by myself and he will be sent back to CT.  That would suck.  What if he is drinking or doing drugs again and I move out there.  That wouldn't be good either.  That's the understatement of the year.
From listening to Tony Robbin's tapes on personal power. I know that he and I could have or would have done something by now, except that we are both dealing with a lot of internal and external conflicts.  These conflicts have us locked in place, like the ropes you use when you two cowboys to catch a calf.
  He wants to be with his family but we represent loss of freedom.  I want to be with him, but there is too much insecurity in that decision.  If it was just me, I probably would have gone by now, but because I have children to look out for...I value being a caretaker.  I  I used to take care of him but now I have children to take care of.  They need me more than he needs me.
 I understand that right now freedom is the most important value to him.  This is stronger than how much he values his family.  It's not saying that family isn't important to him, but you can tell by his actions over the years that other things are more important, despite what he says.  Actions speak louder than words.

So thanks to the police for opening up some festering wounds so that I can spill things out on this blog.


 

Walking away from Drama

There comes a time in your life when you walk away from all the drama

 and the people who create it.

Surround yourself with people who make you laugh.

Forget the bad and focus on the good.  

Love those who treat you good and pray for those who don't

Life is too short to be anything but happy.  

Falling down is a part of life 

but getting up again is living.

By Jose Harris.

For those who love a sex offender or who are on the registry, you are probably well aware about life and drama.  Learning to deal with the drama that comes from the label of sex offender is key to living a life that is abundant despite the ongoing flak you may receive from others.  

It seems like to me, every time I go online or pick up the news paper than is some article about sex offenders, sexual abuse, or porn.  One might begin to think that sex offenders are lurking behind every tree or fence just waiting to jump out, grab you and  molest you.  This type of thinking seems to lead to people being paranoid and angry at those" predators" that the media keeps telling them about.  

This is especially true when you are reading article comments online.   Reading the comments posted online by some people in society are enough to leave a dirty feeling in your mouth and crush an already fragile spirit that some of us may have.  I find its best to avoid reading disheartening comments or getting into a spitting match with people who can only be brave and say what they think when they have the cloak of anonymity  that the Internet provides.  There are times when my emotional strength and spitfire are at a good enough level that I will say something with the intent of hopefully getting someone to think even for a minute about the long term consequences of the way society treats sex offenders.  I don't know if its ever planted a seed in someones heart?  I hope it has.  Still, walking away from people who purposely antagonize is good if you want less drama in your life.  

Sometimes we have to walk away from family.  I know from my own experience that  family can be the ones who are upfront with their opinion that you are nothing and will never amount to much and you can't change.  Not my my family by the way, but I have seen others whose family talks about them in the most negative way.

While we may blame drama on other people, places or things, perhaps the biggest culprit for drama in our lives, may be that thing resting on top of our neck.  The thing known as your head.  I think so much of what we experience, whether its drama, pleasure, pain, happiness, fear, anger is all because of how you look at things.

How often do you play negative tapes inside your head.  You know the voices inside your head that tell you whether you are any good or not.  Say you get a 90% on a test.  For some of us, we will hear a voice that says "Can you believe you missed those questions, you are so stupid, those were really easy questions.  You are never gonna succeed because you can't do anything right. 

 Still for another person who gets a 90%, maybe they are saying to themselves, Whoo Hoo, 90%, that is so awesome!  Great job.  Those questions I missed, no big deal, bet they would've stumped Einstein.  Man, I totally rocked that test!  I am gonna do better on the next one.  Same scenario, two different trains of thoughts.  Which person do you think is going to be your happier person?   Who do you thinks their life is full of drama?  Who do you think is more stressed out? 

Something I don't get is the attitude that a person can't change.  That once you are such and such, you are always such and such.  The cliches such as a leopard can't change his spots;  Once a cheater, always a cheater; Sex offenders can't change;  You can't teach an old dog new tricks give credence to such thinking.

I don't know, I just refuse to subscribe to this theory.  If we can't change as people, then what would be the point of getting up and trying again.  It would be pointless, a waste of time.

I think once you start believing that certain people cannot change, you begin to lose your own personal power.  I think that this is why I refuse to believe others can't change.  I am not perfect and there are plenty of things about myself that I want to improve.  I want to give myself every reason to pursue the vision in my heart.  I wouldn't be able to do this, if I thought that change is not possible.  

 Its true even for those of us who love a sex offender.  We can allow this situation to age us or we can search for solutions and ways to live a better life.  We can either believe that we are capable of change and show the world that just because you are a sex offender or love a sex offender, it doesn't mean you are less than any one else.  I can't not stress enough, our past does not equal our future.  

On the other hand, we can listen to the media and those around us and allow their negative beliefs become the voices in our heads, telling us that we are worthless and that we would be better off dead or in jail.That we or someone we love is just going to re offend.  I firmly believe that if we allow those thoughts to take root, we will end up going down a path that is littered with tears and failures. 

My friends, be strong, be brave.  Know that you are not alone in this world.  Know that you can have the life you dream of.  

My reaction to the blog post "We have it all Wrong. Shunning offenders is not working: A reaction to the Woody Allen Story

I read an article online that was triggered by the recent Woody Allen scandal.  Its message is powerful and is sorely needed. We live in a day an age where we think the best way to deal with sexual abuse is shaming and punitive punishment meted with some counseling sessions.  Like the author of the article, I think we are approaching the issue in a manner that further hurts society because of the damage it does in the long run.
I hope the author doesn't mind me sharing her story on this blog.  She said what I feel, only so much better than what I have been able to.

http://www.the-broad-side.com/we-have-it-all-wrong-shunning-offenders-is-not-working-a-reaction-to-the-woody-allen-story

We Have It All Wrong. Shunning Offenders is Not Working: A Reaction to the Woody Allen Story

by Kim Cottrell on February 5, 2014

I’ve been working on an article about caring for the bad dad, the man who molested my sister and tore my family apart, and what it has been to sift through the wake of my father’s life in photos, scrapbooks, and letters. After he suffered a stroke early in 2013, he couldn’t care for himself and I did something I thought I’d never do — I brought him home to live with me.

I’ve been slow with my writing, but this morning a friend posted an article to Facebook by Lisa Bloom, titled “Six Reasons Why Dylan Farrow is Highly Credible,” about Farrow’s account of her abuse by Woody Allen. Bloom wrote:

“Child molestation is inherently irrational, compulsive behavior. Little girls are commonly molested when family lurks in the next room. Little boys are victimized in homes, hotels, out-of-doors, anywhere and everywhere. The digital sexual assault Dylan alleged can happen in seconds and leave no trace.”

I stared but couldn’t click on the post. Heavy, burning waves hissed up from my gut where they hadn’t been just moments before. I thought I might throw up and then I recognized the feeling as terror. For a fleeting moment I contemplated shoving the feelings aside and ignoring them. This time felt different and I rushed to my computer, adjusted the screen so I couldn’t be distracted by the words, and pounded out my thoughts about telling secrets, supporting humans, and defending actions.

I’ve spent years, waiting for the just-right moment to speak publicly. As a survivor of incest, I’ve wanted a new way of processing the aftermath and a new conversation rather than the old worn-out I’m so sorry for you, you poor dear. I’ve rationalized that I was protecting my sister. I’ve told myself it wasn’t my story to tell which was a lie. I became an expert at dissociating when I was 11 or 12 because there was no other way to survive sharing a room and a bed with my sister. At some point, my father called me into the hallway. We faced one another and I said no. I trembled, and repeated, no. My mother’s voice called from the bedroom asking what was going on. I didn’t answer, instead I rushed back to my completely unsafe bed and shook until I fell asleep.

Lisa Bloom is right. Child molestation isn’t rational. My father wasn’t rational in those years. What is also not rational is that anyone needs to justify a disclosure of child abuse. Sadly, in our haste to find retribution, and in our shaming, blaming, judging, and punishing, the victim and offender are both vilified and neither adequately reintegrated or healed.

We have it all wrong. Shunning the offenders is not working. Locking them up is not working. Settling in court for massive sums of money is not working. Ruining the life of the offenders in the name of justice is not working. Leaving victims to pick up the pieces of their life alone is not working. The sexual abuse of our boys and girls is still going on, generation after generation.

What I’m suggesting is that we have the what-should-we-do all wrong.

I wonder if we could agree, the first goal is to stop the molestation and abuse of children. I used to think it was as simple as finding evidence, separating kids from their parents or abuser, and locking them up. Case closed. But when I was a speech pathologist in a large trauma hospital where I worked with babies and young children who’d been hit or shaken by adults, enough to cause brain damage, I saw a different side of the story. In many situations, removing the child from the parents caused further trauma. That’s when I realized it’s not so simple.

Second, and I don’t expect agreement but I believe this is crucial, we need to stop pursuing vengeance. We must lay down the judgment and shame game.

For there to be any systemic, generational healing, we need to bring secrets out in the open. We need to stop banishing people, offenders or victims. We need to slow down enough to let the healing process take place. We need to support the healing process and let it be a normal part of life. There is clearly no evidence blaming, shaming, and shunning have anything to do with finding our way out of this crisis and the crisis our children are facing today.

Who am I to have the audacity to say we need change? I am a survivor, a sister, a daughter, an aunt, and the caregiver of my father. Yes, I am caring for the same father who molested my sister and tried to molest me. But, let’s be clear, the fact I’m caring for my father does not excuse his behavior. Nor is it my place to absolve him of responsibility for those he has hurt. What is true is that, together, he and I worked on our relationship and I no longer need his penance. Knowing he wakes up every single morning with the shame of destroying his family has taken away any taste I had for restitution.

Recently, I was sorting my father’s belongings and came upon a picture of him at two years of age, about the time he began bed-wetting. The family lived in eastern Oregon with no indoor plumbing. With no way to clean him up and no clean sheets to remake the bed, his young mother, in desperation, began to punish him. She brought a bucket to the side of the bed and screamed at him to piss into it.

I remembered that when my father was nearing 75, he insisted he tell me about his recent nightmare. He’d been dreaming of a time when he was seven or so, and he’d awakened to find the bed soiled with feces. He remembered the terror he felt when he awoke and he needed to make sure someone else heard the story.

When my brother and I cleaned out our father’s house to move him nearer to us so we could take care of him, we came across a small trunk pushed back on a shelf in dark recesses of the shed. We opened it and found a bear rug we had played on as kids.

I carried the bear rug to my father, thinking he would be glad. He became white-faced and speechless. Where did that come from? You had it in your shed, Dad. I thought that was long gone!!! No, it’s there, you saved it for some reason. Get rid of it, I don’t want to see it again!Tears streamed down his face as he told me about deer hunting with his father when he was nine. They came upon a black bear and her cub in a tree and his father shot the mother. She fell out of the tree and ran away. Then he turned to my father and insisted he shoot the cub. He yelled and belittled and ridiculed until my father pulled the trigger.

Listening to his story, finding the photographs, reading old letters, has confirmed everything I’ve found as I’ve progressed through my own healing. What if, instead of three or four decades to process an abuse, it only took one or two? What if, instead of the 70 years my father has needed, we could grow healthy processes to educate, support, and repair a person’s self-worth?  How do we know we can’t? Have we tried?

Instead of hating (which I think of as genocide of the spirit) or locking people up, we could gather policy makers and mental health workers, legislators, and others who could insist insurance companies reimburse for family therapy as well as individual therapy. Mental health workers would create enough momentum that group work would become the new normal. Right now, the crowd inertia is to sit back in the arm chair and throw insults at the TV. Perhaps it is possible to steer that inertia toward action for the betterment of our communities.

I’ve held my tongue all these years, the same way most people who’ve survived a family marred by incest remains silent. Maybe, I was hanging on and hoping it would all smooth over, as if a bad dream. Or, that someday we could reconnect as a family. Most importantly, for the longest time, I thought it was someone else’s story. It isn’t. It happened to me. And, just as important, I’m now in my 50s. I’m tired of dragging this silence around with me like it happened yesterday. I’m so burdened, it burned it’s way out of me in no uncertain terms when I read the Facebook post.

Lisa Bloom is right, child molestation isn’t rational. People who feel worthy, valued, and whole don’t molest children.

We know where to begin to heal our families and our country. We know what to do. And yet, we’re not doing it. We’re giving in to fear and looking for a quick fix.

When we reject and shun the offender, often a person who’s been integral to a family or church or community, we are behaving like my grandmother who held the bucket and screamed for her son to piss in the pot or like my grandfather who belittled his son until he shot the bear. We are using a remedy that will never solve our problem and will only make it worse.

Kim Cottrell is a Feldenkrais® practitioner, educator, and former speech pathologist, living in Portland, Oregon. Kim blogs at ahealthystepmother.com and contributes regularly to Walk About Magazine. She has run from just as many traumas as she has faced but one day she was inspired to lay down her anger and rage and forgive her father.

Image via Wikimedia Commons/Colin Swan/CC License

For years I have thought, what if a person could say to someone else.  You know sometimes I have these thoughts and feelings that I know aren't right but I keep getting them.  What if they could say that and not be worried about being shunned or hated?  What if a child could say to their teacher, I don't like what is happening in my home without fear of losing everything?  What if a person could say, I know what I did was wrong and I am sorry I did it, I need help without losing everything that makes them want to grow and be a better person.  How does putting a person behind bars for 25 years, while leaving their family struggling to just get by make the world a better place?  Does removing that person really help the abused to heal? Does removing that person, now give the abused more love?  Does it give them more security?  Does it help the abused to trust more? Does it put food on the table? Does it provide heat in the winter?  

My husband is still gone, still running because he is afraid of prison.  He is afraid of the consequences and how severe they will be.  Can I blame him?  Not really, because I wonder how I would react if I felt like going to prison might be a death sentence.  

None the less, his absence is like a grey cloud in my sky.  Every time my children don't have something as simple as ride to school for a field trip I am reminded of how much our family is hurting by his absence.  Are we surviving?  Sure we are.  I don't know how many times during the week, I think if only he was here.  I need his help to do this, I could use some help to do that.  I am tired of working, working, working and feeling alone.  I am tired of feeling like my children are not getting enough love, parental guidance, and stability they need to grow up to be responsible, successful, compassionate and passionate adults.  

  

Prisoners of love: RSO leaders, fighting for change.

Prisoners of love: RSO leaders, fighting for change.: It's been a long while since I posted.  I guess for one, fighting with my children over the computer kind of cooled my desire to write....

RSO leaders, fighting for change.

It's been a long while since I posted.  I guess for one, fighting with my children over the computer kind of cooled my desire to write.  Life has also settled down into a routine and every day seems so mundane, without any new crisis's to write about.

On Facebook, I have found others who know how hard the path that comes from loving a registered sex offender.  Some of the biggest leaders that I know of, in the crusade to change the perspective of sex offenders and the laws that are punitive to s.o and their families are; Shana Rowan, who is spearing heading a fb group to change residency laws, Vicki Burton /Women against Registry who fighting for changes to registry law, Norm Pattis,  lawyer in CT who fights for change in our justice system, Karen Hammons, Founder of Offender Wives, which is a great support for the families of sex offenders, and Crsol, a  group actively fighting for reform in California.  I know there are many others out there who are fighting for change as well.
Change is needed in this day and age.  Sometimes, it feels like we are headed back to the dark ages with the way the United States Government is seeking to control us on every level.  Its scary when you look at what is happening in our world and so few people are actively trying to make a difference.
My challenge to those of you who may be affected by the registry or loving someone on the registry, is to reach out and join us in the fight for our rights.  If we don't start fighting, before we know it, we will all be prisoners.  Maybe we won't be wearing handcuffs, but we will be a people without a voice or a say in how we live our lives.