Looking to be DONE...

My name is Suzi Fuller MacDonald, and my paternal grandfather was the governor of Massachusetts. He started the Fuller Foundation, which gives grants in the New England area, and The Fuller Gardens, which welcomes visitors every summer for a small fee. The gardens were a gift from my grandfather to his wife.
My eldest son is a police officer and lawyer, and used to be a prosecutor in the city next to mine.
Various relatives of mine will not emerge squeaky clean if a crime of sexual assault, as well as the ‘mind rape’ of denial that went along with it, is fully revealed. So before I go any further, does anyone not understand the extreme difficulty I've encountered while trying to get my drugged, filmed sexual assault reported? Or why the local police, the state police, the local FBI, the Attorney General's office, the governor’s office, a senator I contacted, and the lawyers whose help I’ve tried to enlist, have either flat out denied me assistance, failed to ever get back to me, or told me they weren’t able to help at this time because I ‘didn’t have enough proof'?
Sorry- do I sound a bit angry? That's because I am! Furious, actually. But let's start at the beginning...
In the fall of 2001, October to be precise, I chose to follow up on an interest in, and an attraction to, a man whom I had known for six months in the context of him working on my house. The ‘follow up’ was our decision to spend a night together in the supposed privacy of my home while my two youngest sons were at their father's house. Two consenting adults deciding to have a night together. Both single, by the way. Nobody’s business- right? We would all hope so except SOMEONE was very angry about it.... Flash forward to July 2002. It was either the sixth or the seventh that I had the surprise of high beams behind me wherever I Went. A game? A joke? Someone kidding around? I didn’t get it- what was this about? I asked other people if it was some new sort of road game, and if it was happening to them as well. Because now it was also people turning on their high beams AT me, as I came around the corner towards them- even on bright sunny days! I tried looking right into the cars to see what was up- is this supposed to be funny? Nobody looked pleasant, happy- like they were being lighthearted. In fact, most of the high beamers faces looked downright hostile! So off I went to my family, asking them what they thought it meant. “Oh, all new cars have daytime running headlights," they replied. “But not high beams, and not on bright sunny days, and not that they suddenly turn on when you come into view! This is not making sense!” My relatives continued to deny knowledge of any reason behind this change in my world.
Flash forward again...it’s the end of the summer. I’ve figured out it most certainly is personal; it is not happening to anybody else! Plus I have what can only be described as 'a bubble' of a memory, in that it is disconnected from anything else to clarify what it means.

I am on my back, there is a blindfold over my eyes. Sex is happening. Someone to the right of me lifts the blindfold. I scream, “It’s not supposed to be __________________." (a relative) I am not even sure if I screamed it out loud or inside my head- but every fiber of my being was horrified. When the blindfold was dropped I either passed out, disassociated, or in some other way disconnected because that is all I have of that memory.

I decided the only way to ‘answer’ all the harassment on the roads was to make up some bumper stickers. I started with three designs, and later added three more. My intention was to respond to the hostile strangers by asserting my rights, and also by proclaiming who I was, hoping people would ‘get’ what I was about. I had concluded that either they judged me for my relationship choice, (he was twenty five,) or for my lifestyle, (being divorced, in my forties, and still wanting to do my version of fun on weekends: dancing!)
My first three designs were;
"Small towns don't have to equal small minds"
"Smiling : a NATURAL high! (indulge often)"
and "Free to be UNIQUELY me!"
The Second set said;
"ANGELS ABOUND: MERCIFUL + MIGHTY"
"Dance can heal your heart! ( a drawing of one)"
and "LOVE RULES!"
I had a woman set up a web site for me, and got a business name copy written: “Suzi Says-”. I put some of my bumper stickers on the back of my van, and my web site address as well. I was looking for a response: answers to just what everyone was so angry about! I came out of a movie theater one night with one of my sons and some of his friends to find my rear window smashed, but never received even one email nor any response at all to my web site. Not one order for bumper stickers. Puzzling, since so many drivers seemed dedicated to expressing their feelings about me, to me, on the road. Wouldn't they welcome a chance to say more? Then a series of 'hints': odd happenings, snippets of conversation with strangers
Also songs and articles that directly told of sexual assault drugs capable of blocking survivors’ minds from recalling all of what went on. I came to believe something of this nature happened to me! But how would so many know, and I didn’t? By now it was apparent my family was not being honest about anything that was going on. But the wall of deceit truly broke when after many thwarted attempts to look for myself on the internet, (my computer would stall, or freeze or even shut off,) I got some help.
There in the security section- under the control panel- was a notation to “Default email to ___________________."(a  relative, not the one in the 'bubble' memory.) And when I called yet another relative and asked about it, the response was, “Who helped you? You don’t know enough about computers to find that out: WHO HELPED YOU?!”
Uh -oh. I became certain my whole family was united behind the lie that they had no idea anything had happened to me. They were blocking my right to know what had been done to my own body. Not only that, but whoever helped me would be screwed, and become a target, as well!!
I decided to try to access my web site from any place other then my own computer.Surprise, surprise: it had disappeared! Gone, and for awhile ‘someone’ had posted “Site Under Construction” in its piace to put off anyone attempting to reach me. Numerous calls to determine ‘why’, ‘how’, and ‘by whom’ this was done were fruitless-  though I did win a claim in court against AOL for back charges because they didn’t provide me with a secure site. Fast forward a month or two later...I°m now being told I’m crazy; just the latest one in the family who’s bi-polar, (by the very same relative featured as on top of me in my bubble of a memory!) Another relative, this one from my family of origin, chimed in- telling me I was imagining it all: the high beaming, the angry people, and that anything weird or wrong had happened to me.
There I was, lying awake at night wondering if it was better to have suddenly gone off the deep end mentally, or if it’s better to have had something so awful happen that your whole family decides to lie against you; against your right to know, to heal, and to ‘get’ the responsible parties. I decided I must have lost my mind, at least in some regard, (although during all this I was continuing on as a single parent, caring for my two sons still at home, maintaining the house and yard, and working as a cashier.) I tested out the ‘suddenly mentally ill’ explanation, thinking, “Now that I know I'm making all this up there won’t be any more too bright lights, or angry faces, and no sudden spitting in my direction.” I watched...it was all still there! Even though I was supposedly imagining it! The angry man who looked right into my face and did a big “Harrumphl” as he marched out of the gas station store was certainly not a figment of my imagination, and neither were the continuing harassers on the road. Efforts to get my family to be honest were less then fruitful: I was threatened with a three day “check you out” stay in a mental hospital if I didn’t go to “see a shrink”! Never mind that by this time I was seeing a counselor. I had made the mistake of telling one of two double agenda (be my new friend & also gather information) people that the therapist was helping me put together how if ‘Something’ happened to me after my decision to be with the man I was with back in the fall of 2001, or if a tape of us being intimate in my home got put on the internet, or BOTH, how it could have taken until July of 2002 for it to be tracked back to me. So shortly after saying it was getting clearer how this all may have happened, the counselor helping me had to be replaced by a psychiatrist! 
The harassers' license plates were from all over, and the first song that landed squarely in my gut as referencing what had happened to me was from a group out of England, lending more credence to my assumption this was all of a scope and scale beyond any small town rumors or tapes being passed around. I had heard a song called “Posativity” by Suede on their CD "A New Morning" that referred to "...her smile is her credit card", remember my bumper sticker design? It came over the public address system as I was running on a treadmill at the gym I belonged to. It so struck a chord in me that I almost lost my footing! I immediately researched whose song it was and bought the cd, (a special order.) By that point I was keenly aware I should pay attention to whatever landed squarely in my gut; intuition becomes stronger when you’re kept in the dark intellectually. A different song's lyrics on "A New Morning" were, "...well you beautiful loser, well you beautiful lay, well you beautiful loser, I said you’re coming down the hard way. Your brain is drip­connected to the satellite, your heart is not part of your brain. . ." Another song talked about, “...I don’t need you to be sorry. I just want you to know this is one hit to the body, one hit to the soul. It’s one hit to the body that won’t show.” That matched with a vague, foggy recollection of being blindfolded and questioned. So if one band was singing about my circumstances, (or someone’s that certainly felt like it fit my experience,) were others? I picked up a copy of Tracey Chapman's "Let It Rain", even though I had never heard of her. The lyrics of “Hard Wired” spoke of, “...The dreams and hopes that once were yours will now be collected and dispersed so the first to come with cash to spend will be the first one served. We’ve got a box to put in your brain, hardwired for downloading all the secrets and the mysteries you’ve been selfishly withholding. Make you think you like to be watched, displayed on the auction block, invaded in your own home, stripped naked on television, humiliated in front of millions.”
So off to see a shrink I went. She said she didn't care why I'd come to her, that she just wanted to hear about my whole life, from as far back as I could remember. I did a re-cap of it all over the course of three or four months, She enjoyed hearing the poems I was writing to get some of the trauma of what was happening out of my head and onto paper. She asked me to promise that I would publish them. I said I'd try. The conclusion of our sessions? “When there’s sexual abuse often those closest to you, who should support you, lie and go into denial.” Thank you God that I picked my own doctor, and did not trust a ‘referral’ from my family! Most likely I would have been medicated right out of reality! No mental illness; nothing wrong with me or my perceptions of the world around me. Rather, it was my family that was ‘sick’ with denial and fear. They refused to help me deal with what had happened, opting instead to force feed me a bogus version of reality! And WHO needed to “see a shrink"?!?
Fast forward once more...I had various tiny pieces of confirmation from just a handful of relatives who either inadvertemiy slipped up, ( “Who told you what's on the Internet?!?" screamed at me when I shared about my bubble of a memory- later denying ever saying it,) or purposely tried to help, (“Let’s say something happened... ”), or were upset and couldn't contain themselves, (“Maybe WE couldn't handle it!”) That was said in response to my expressing anger and disgust that they left me AND my two youngest sons on the road with a hate group- to handle it alone, without any answers or support.
I self published a book of poems and related dreams, with a bit explanatory prose as well, titled "Radically Free, Partially Captive". It was an attempt to not only alert the ‘judgers’ that this was not a fun lark of my choosing- in reference to the second part of my story, but to also claim my right to choose a partner whom others might perceive as not an “appropriate” choice- as far as the relationship I believed started the trouble. Three hundred copies were printed. I sold two or three, and handed out the rest to anyone who would take one. Meanwhile, more dreams had come- bringing more pieces of memory from the drugged assault. I had also gotten enough support from total strangers to be sure that it happened ("Sorry..." and "Thank you...") Not all were angry judgers!
Every attempt to get legal help went nowhere, and the same was true for most attempts to get hypnotized to reclaim the lost memories. I’d find someone, book an appointment...but then either right before the appointed day, or when I arrived, there would be an about face in their willingness to help. VERY frustrating and infuriating, not to mention CREEPY!! Why? Had they been contacted and warned away? Had they been threatened? At least one lawyer I feel certain was; she promised to help ‘short of her family being threatened’. A few weeks after she cashed my check that was for our initial meeting, and to cover future work as well, I got a letter saying she had changed her mind. She enclosed a check for the remainder of the funds not used. I knew my relatives were all united with their lies, but how did they get branches of law enforcement, as well as the various politicians I contacted, to go along with the cover up? How could all my rights as a woman, as a tax payer, as a citizen, be over run with a bogus claim, (by the very people I kept trying to believe loved me,) that I was crazy and so chose all this, (therefore no need to investigate, no one to prosecute)?
Or was it simply said that since I was crazy I was manufacturing parts and pieces of what had happened, both what I had told under drugged "confessìon’ of my life before all this, and also parts of what occurred during the crime event, (especially the ‘bubble’ memory)?
My relatives MUST HAVE KNOWN they were endangering me mentally and emotionally- how had I come to be a NON-PERSON in my own family? What if it had happened to any one of them; would THEIR rights not matter?!?

So... many poems, many letters, many visils to people in various positions of power and authority later, here I am still- waiting for justice.
I hope that the price I’ve paid of losing friends, family members, and romantic partnershíp hopes, (who wants their calls, emails, etc. screened or monitored­as they surely will be until this all is revealed) will suffîce as a down payment on the guarantee this will NEVER happen to another victim of the next crime of this sort. It must always be fully investigated right from the start!!
The strategy of family members merely erasing terrible events with lies and denials and assertions of mental illness must not be tolerated. Can I understand it was unbelievably awful and frightening? Of course! Do I think they Were  worried for me, as well as themselves and the reputation of our whole group? I would think so...but that does not justify screwing up a life and wiping out rights to be informed- and heal from the trauma of it all.
We have along way to go in this country as regards protecting the rights of women and children. And I am not giving up on justice for myself, for the remainder of my time on earth to be enjoyed and purpose filled. I look forward to  this series of crimes being exposed, getting informed on the pieces surrounding them that I'm missing, and my rights and freedoms reinstated.
"Truth, Justice, and Liberty for all" is supposed to be the American way. How many before me succumbed to self doubt and depression, and NEVER RECOVERED?
Great changes are needed for fair treatment and mutual respect to be the rule, in families and in courtrooms.

November 16, 2010

Here we are, Gratitude Day just around the corner ahead, the elections just around the corner behind...and it's time to make mention of all that is right in my world, and all that is still so very wrong. Of course recognizing the good warms the heart, encourages the mind and emboldens the spirit. Taking stock of what is still majorly screwed up renews motivation to have it corrected, reminds myself (and any readers) there is still much work to be done to reach the goal of 'liberty and justice for all', and prompts me to get to the gym so I'm fit enough to do my part. That being said, if it's going to fit today NOW is the time!