PLAYING WITH FIRE

Published August 18, 2022 by Nan Mykel

Irreparable harm appears to lie in wait for us if the Republican shenanigans take hold in our country. The situation gets wilder and wilder with the passage of time and the approach of elections. I speak of what is being done to the ragtag of our public schools and the profession of medicine. I don’t refer to the Mir-a-lego combustion. Hopefully that is being attended to elsewhere.

My first concern is the eradication of sex education in the public schools. Why did we ever begin sex education? All those issues will become caustic again. What is this? Along with forbidden abortions we’re not going to warn children? How dark! Not only did unwanted pregnancies cry out for sex education, but also vulnerability to child sexual abuse. “A third of sexually abused children are abused before the age of nine.” (Finkelhor, 1986, p 229). “Stranger danger” wasn’t a joke.

Equally as nervy and destructive is attacking the physician’s time-worn oath to “do no harm.” If recently passed state prohibitions prevail, some states will find themselves with a crippling doctor shortage. (I’m trying not to say, “and it serves them right.”) “If you see a fleeing of providers from states that have severely restricted their ability to practice in line with their moral compass and medical ethics, it will be a huge loss to public and community health,” said Jamila Perritt, an abortion provider in Washington, D.C., and the president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health. “We don’t have to guess what’s going to happen. We already see the high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity in places like Louisiana and Mississippi. But we’ll see much more of that as these bans continue to sweep the country.”

I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN…

Published August 30, 2018 by Nan Mykel

In order to respond to a recent blog posting by a survivor, I got out a book I wrote and published in 2014, and re-read it. Because the world is so threatened by anything that smacks of sex offending or incest, it’s basically never been read. I published it through Create Space and did nothing to publicize it. Oh, I sent a note to the local paper which was discarded, but I write, I don’t push. After 4 years I have only 282 blog followers, but I love them all. My county library was disinterested in helping to sponsor a presentation on the book, and I didn’t push. A follower wrote something positive about the book but I didn’t know enough to pick up her review and run with it (thank you).

But the thing is, it’s good and valuable and I’ll soon be 83 and no one will have profited from it. Sooo–I’m going to try and schedule a discussion of it at the county library, knowing that the incest offenders, for whom it was primarily written as well as survivors who I also believe can profit from it but are ashamed, will probably not show up. I have one friend who I believe will attend–won’t you, Alexa?

The discussion will be based on the book Fallout: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders plus her journal including dreams, drawings, and reflections. I treated sex offenders at Hocking Correctional Facility for 12 years, and spent two or three years researching the literature. At first I began to write on just my experience as a survivor, and the damage incest causes, but then I realized that would be too easy to discount, so I began the research.

Since I used to be a clinical psychologist before I got too old, the session will hopefully involve give and take more than preaching.

I’m kinda scared to do it, but I figure if I announce I’m going to do it I’ll follow through.

(I think I can.)

SCHEDULED THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1 st, 6:30p.m. Big Meeting Room, Library,

Athens, Ohio, but they want a sponsoring organization so I’ll push through that situation.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Published November 11, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Alabama rep [Ed Henry] says that if the women are telling the truth about Roy Moore they should be prosecuted

“If they believe this man is predatory, they are guilty of allowing him to exist for 40 years. I think someone should prosecute and go after them. You can’t be a victim 40 years later, in my opinion,” Henry said.

Daily Kos By Walter Einenkel