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Margie McKinnon's Blog

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May.12.2013
 Today  is Mother’s Day, that time of year when we all celebrate and honor our mothers. We send flowers, take them to brunch, buy them a gift, send them a card and a number of other great ideas. Those of us who are incest survivors and had our father as our perpetrator, at least had a...
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May.04.2013
A few years ago, I had a friend whose wife and daughter had both been child sexual abuse victims. One day he asked me, “If child sexual abuse is so prevalent maybe there’s nothing wrong with it. Maybe it’s just a normal part of civilization.” I looked at him as if he was crazy. Over the years, I’...
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Apr.27.2013
 You wouldn’t think a small word like “fear” could create such turbulent feelings in the life of a child sexual abuse victim.  You had to have been there to know why. Picture  it: An innocent child born in to a world where they have every expectation of a joyful life. After all, they...
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Apr.20.2013
 This morning I woke in a great mood, took a 30-minute walk with Guinevere, my Golden Retriever, worked in my rose garden for two hours, then took a shower and washed my hair. It was turning into a great day. Then I turned on the news to watch while I blow dried and curled my hair. The...
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Apr.13.2013
 One of the subject matters that shows up under my searches the most is “signs of abuse”. This is a complicated subject. I’ll start by illustrating what it was like for me. My father raped me when I was thirteen. Prior to that I was happy, confident, sassy, fun loving, close to my father since...
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Apr.06.2013
 I have been working in the field of child sexual abuse and incest for several years now. Over the course of time, I’ve met many others who are also working in this field. I would like this blog to be a THANK YOU to all of you who have been so diligently helping to end this scourge. I...
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Mar.30.2013
 When I was in recovery, I discovered that our emotional maturity stops growing at the age when our abuse began. I first viewed this with disbelief. After giving it much thought I realized that, although I hated to admit it, my emotional maturity level had been stuck at the age of thirteen,...
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Mar.22.2013
Tucson, AZ lies in the southern part of the state, just one hour’s drive north of the Mexican border. I lived there when I was in sixth grade. It has the aura of a small, sleepy town; it has no cross-town freeways and no evident skyscrapers. My brother lives there so Tom and I are frequent visitors...
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Mar.09.2013
 Periodically I receive an email from someone who wants to tell me their story and that’s okay. That’s what I’m here for. But their particular story might be extremely violent or abusive and might be difficult to read. If a story I read in the online news media follows, that is also virulent...
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Mar.02.2013
My husband, Tom and I, are avid Sherlock Holmes fans and own the complete collection of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock. About once a year, we recycle our series, grateful that, despite the perfection of the episodes, we rarely remember them long enough to interfere with our enjoyment of watching them...
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Feb.24.2013
I am editing my memoirs, a manuscript I began twenty-years ago. My plan is to download it as a Kindle on amazon.com as soon as I get it copyrighted. Every time I begin working on it I find myself traveling back to the family life of an incest victim. Excerpts from my book illustrates what it...
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Feb.15.2013
John Bradshaw once said, “If your family has any secrets you can bet they are about sex.” In looking back through my years of recovery from incest I see how accurate he was. Just finding out that I was an incest victim, even though my father had told me twice, was a shock in itself. My best friend...
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Feb.09.2013
        Two of the most troublesome occurrences in the life of a child sexual abuse victim are amnesia and flashbacks. These episodes range from annoying to terrifying. If you have total recall of your abuse, the constant flashbacks not only interrupt your day and...
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Feb.02.2013
Last year I posted a blog on this subject on my website, wondering what the future held for all those poor children. The problems have not improved. According to a recent article in the Express Tribune, an Internet newspaper from Pakistan, reports published by the United Nations state that child...
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Jan.26.2013
Lectures from my parents, teachers and priests, as I was growing up, instilled certain values in me.  Being introspective by nature, I figured even more out for myself. I have always been a loner, taking long walks in the woods, watching the flow of a body of water, studying crops in the field...
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