This page is an annotated archive of my Life Rafts posts.
I hope their survivor stories will inform and inspire you.
Sense of Humor: Get Yourself Some Madea Going On!
You may have seen Tyler Perry’s movies. You probably don’t know that his comedy comes from his efforts to lift himself up from where you are right now. Madea was his alter-ego who helped him survive, thrive, find joy, and become outrageously wealthy. To read more, click here.
Eve Ensler: Until the Violence Stops
Eve Ensler tells the story of how her father physically, sexually, and emotionally abused her and how these experiences shaped her world view in Insecure at Last: Losing It in Our Security Obsessed World. The central premise of her book is that striving for security does not, in fact, protect us. We must rescue ourselves. Peace will come from securing basic human rights and from making our end goals compassion and honoring all people. To read more, click here.
Maya Angelou: Phenomenal Woman
I’m a woman phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, that’s me. To read more, click here.
Joe Torre: “Coach Boys into Men”
Joe Torre is famous for his baseball career ~ especially his years as the coach of the New York Yankees. Most people aren’t aware that Joe Torre’s father, a New York City cop, was abusive. Although these childhood experiences left their scars, Torre believes they prepared him to deal effectively with Yankee owner George Steinbrenner.
Torre has been a strong advocate for domestic violence prevention. He established the Safe at Home foundation and became a member of the Founding Fathers movement which promotes the “Coach Boys into Men” media campaign and training programs. You can watch the “Coach Boys into Men” public service announcement (PSA) at the Family Violence Prevention Fund’s web site. To read more, click here.
Slowly, I discovered I could find mentors, role models, and friends in books. I am indebted to the generosity of authors who shared their stories and became my life rafts. The book that has been my most valuable life raft is Gloria Steinem’s Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem. She has helped me understand and appreciate how the intellectual constructs of researchers like Alice Miller manifest in the reality of our lives. As this web site grows and evolves, I will do a more in-depth explanation of what I have learned from both women. To read more, click here.
Most of the stories in this section are about celebrities and famous people who have survived tough times yet gone on to thrive and find joy. This story is about Carole May, the proverbial girl next door. We met at our apartment complex swimming pool. She’s a teacher by profession who spent her career with the Brooklyn diocese in New York City. Here in Washington State, she is the web goddess for David Lanz, a Grammy nominated pianist. To read more, click here. To see her award-winning photos, click here.Carolyn Jessop: Safety in the Spotlight
On April 21, 2003, Carolyn Jessop achieved a miracle. She escaped from an abusive polygamist marriage to FLDS leader Merril Jessop. To read more, click here.
Tina Turner is the Chairwoman of my “Kitchen Cabinet” of virtual advisors and mentors. She is a life raft without equal.
We share a birthday. She is nine years my senior. We both grew up in the St. Louis area. We also share a history of domestic abuse at the hands of very powerful Scorpio men able to negatively impact the trajectory of our careers. To read more, click here.
If you loved The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, you will love Alyse Myers’ memoir.
It’s a miracle that Alyse Myers survived her hellish nightmare of a childhood. It’s a greater miracle that she has a thriving career and her own loving family. How did she do it? To read more, click here.
“Lorena Bobbitt’s response to being continually raped, sodomized and beaten by her husband was uniquely bizarre. But her situation was commonplace. What happened to Mrs. Bobbitt happens, in varying degrees, to more than a million American women every year.” (New York Times) To read more about her story, click here and click here.
Healing Hands: Patrick J. Kelly, M.D.
Dr. Kelly treats police officers who need surgery for free to thank them for intervening in his parents’ domestic violence. He pioneered a minimally invasive technique to remove brain tumors. And, you know I’ve got to love a guy who invented a way to map brain tumors based on his boat’s navigational system. To read more, click here.
Connie Culp: Courageous Survivor
If any of you dear readers need incentive to leave the pit bull abuser in your life, I hope you’ll take the time click on the links to look at the photos and read Connie Culp’s story. To read more, click here.
Sandra Mills Boss is from an upper-middle class family here in Seattle. Her father is a retired Boeing engineer. She and her twin sister Julia are uber-competitive. Sandra went to Stanford for undergraduate work and Harvard for her MBA. She became a high-level executive in the prestigious consulting firm McKinsey & Company and currently runs their London office. She makes more in a week than most folks make in a year. Her annual salary has been reported between $1.2 and $2 million.Barbara Bentley: Dance with the Devil
Barbara Bentley’s charming, fascinating, and charismatic late husband presented himself as a retired Navy rear admiral and the descendent of two infamous admirals named Perry. They were VIP guests of the Navy during Fleet Week in San Francisco. He had war medals including the Congressional Medal of Honor. They were invited to President George H.W. Bush’s inauguration and the inaugural balls. The only part of his story that was true was that he was the black sheep son of Admiral Perry.
The truth was that he was a con man wanted by the FBI for impersonating a US Navy officer. To learn more, click here. To read about Barbara’s Paul H. Chapman award, click here.
Alice Miller: Breaking Down the Wall of Silence
Painting by Alice MillerAlice Miller was born in 1923. She received her PhD from the University of Basle and worked as a psychotherapist in Zurich, Switzerland for 20 years. Since 1980, she has been the intellectual warrior leader for abused children around the world.
Her initial motivation was to understand Adolph Hitler. She believes there is a direct link between child abuse/domestic violence and world peace. To this end, enlightened/helping witnesses are the key.
To read more, click here.
NOW: Will Domestic Violence Finally Become a Priority?
Terry O’Neill, a domestic violence survivor, was elected NOW’s new president. According to NOW’s press release, Ms. O’Neill was instrumental in establishing Maryland’s first Family Justice Center for survivors of domestic violence. To read more, click here.
Arcadian Broad: “I’m Still Standing”
Tonight’s America’s Got Talent ended with an amazing 13 year old kid named Arcadian Broad. He had been bullied by the kids at school. He was never “good enough” to be picked for sports.
Fortunately, he has a supportive mother and sister who taught him “nothing would get in his way.” He turned to dance. To read more and see the video, click here.
Guest column by Rita Anita Linger, a domestic violence survivor and the Executive Director of the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence. To read her sage wisdom about orders of protection, click here.
It took seven years and two trips to the appellate court for Vernetta Cockerham to receive justice. Vernetta’s landmark case holds police accountable for failing to enforce orders of protection. Her story was featured in the August, 2009 issue of O Magazine. To read about Vernetta’s journey, click here and here. To read about her story in O Magazine, click here and here.
BettyJean Kling is on a mission for her daughter Louisa. She’s working to get Louisa’s law passed. She is passionate about domestic violence prevention. She believes that without Women’s Rights there is no true democracy and believes we need to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. She is the founder of Free US Now. She has the fighting spirit of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who as you know started the women’s movement by editing the Declaration of Independence to read “all men and women” are created equal.
To read more, click here.
Fern Michaels: “Persevere and you will prevail.”
Mary Ruth Kuczkir created the perennially best-selling Fern Michaels brand, and the rest is history. Ms. Kuczkir’s books have been so successful that she was able to put all five of her children through college, and she’s set up the Fern Michaels Foundation to fund scholarships and help single mothers. She lives in a 300 year-old plantation house in South Carolina.
To read more, click here.
Arrest and court records hold abundant evidence that Richard Jay Shenkman intends to kill his ex-wife Nancy P. Tyler. I am livid that Richard has been allowed to so deftly manipulate the legal system as an instrument of abuse. The clear pattern is that his brother billionaire Mark Shenkman pays his bail, Richard’s released, and the court proceedings drag on and on. He was out on $10 million bail when he allegedly kidnapped Nancy on July 7, 2009, held her hostage, and burned their house to the ground. She had several orders of protection.
At age 66, Frank McCourt published his first book: Angela’s Ashes. It was a New York Times best-seller for two years, won a Pulitzer Prize, and became a movie. His success inspired other people who had experienced abuse to write their own memoirs. There wouldn’t be a Life Rafts section on this web site but for Frank McCourt. To read more, click here.
When we think of Bill Clinton’s presidency, passage of the Violence Against Women Act isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, he is a tremendous champion for family violence prevention and for people who have experienced abuse. He’s walked in our shoes. To read more, click here.
