Oh boy.  Where to start, unfortunately...  It really has been an accumulation of events over the years.  Starting from the young and innocent and naive years.  Very young years.  My personality had actually split, dissociative disorder, sometime when I was a very young girl.  My mind has not let me know exactly why this happened.  There was an uncle that may have been a factor, but I'm not too sure of that.  It may have been just the benign fact that my sister was born 13 months after me, and I was not able to fully bond with my mother during those formative years when I needed to.  Whatever the reason, the little girl in me, Amanda, was kept holed up in a room by her Grandfather, in order to protect her.  Those two separate identities were very much a part of me until recently.  Until I was able to recognize them and assimilate them into my true self, because they are a part of me still.  It's an amazing psychological phenomenon that I have yet to fully explore.  That said, I don't think I'll ever know the cause of that, as much as I know it is real for me.

Let's see, I can remember being a Blue Bird (similar to Girl Scouts) and taking a trip to NYC for the Christmas holiday.  I went away from the group to throw something in the trash, and a man came up near me, and I remember my mother coming over to me with a terrified look in her eyes...

I remember being a freshman in high school, hanging out with my best friend's boyfriend, one day when my best friend was at an exam...  We laid down for a nap and he was spooning me, in his room.  He tried to kiss me before I left.  I remember feeling so weird about that, but he said that it was OK.  I was 15.

I remember a friend of said best friend's boyfriend coming to get me one day off of school.  Taking me back to his place.  They were seniors or had graduated already.  He wanted me to touch his dick.  To suck it.  I had not done either of that before, and I was not going to do that then, though I did a lil bit.  I had him drive me home, and I hated him for that.

I remember the summer before my senior year of college, when I spent half the summer in Colorado, and then the remaining half taking a class.  I lived in a spare bedroom of a couple who also had another room rented out to another student.  They (he and she) ran an organic garden business from their home, but I always felt weird there, for the six weeks I was there.  They had said no smokers, but I was, but not in the house, of course.  When I left, the he was there and he hugged me.  I felt him hard him against me.  He tried to kiss me in the mouth.  I was appalled.  He asked me wasn't I into free love?  Nope.  I lit up a cig as I drove away...

In my youth, I used sex as a validation for myself, because I was unable to validate myself on my own.  It didn't help in the long run...

I had this boyfriend, Jimmy, when I was 17 - 18.  I really loved Troy, but he couldn't go beyond a certain point with me, cuz it'd be too much emotionally for him.  So I found sex elsewhere.  Jimmy dated raped me.  I don't know if he ever knew that.  But I know that I said No, more than once.  I can still picture his bedroom, where it happened.  And I think I became pregnant from that.  I'll never know for sure, but that is what I feel I know.  I had a good group of friends and a cousin who helped me do what I had to do.  I found out on a Wednesday, and I had the abortion that Saturday, the day before Mother's Day.  As I've said, that irony is not lost on me.  I was ready to go into college, to begin my life... There was no way I could have a child at that time.  And it's sad to me sometimes, as I'm 36 now.  I had a chance, but it wasn't right.  Will it ever be the right time for me to be a mom?  I honestly don't know.  All I do know is that I needed that option back then.

Anyway, I'm sorry this is so long.  When I moved in with Seth, my ex-husband and current best friend, he recognized some of the effects of my trauma.  He's a feminist-type of guy, he is very special to me.  He saw the effects of the rape that I couldn't see, and he helped me get in touch with that part of me.  We sought counseling, where I discovered all the effects of my past, and how they were affecting my present, and my future.  He helped me get through all of it and to recognize what it all had done to me.  I owe him my life.  He knows that.  I am so grateful that he, my ex-husband, has been able to help me overcome some of my demons.  The demons will always be there, but they are not such an affect as they have been.  I credit Seth for helping me with that.  For that, I will always be grateful, and I'm glad that he knows that.

This has been difficult.  Not quite as difficult as I thought it might be.  It kinda just all flowed out...  But I am very thankful for being able to share this.  And I thank you all for sharing your stories.  They need to be told...

Here goes...

Dear Senator,

Samuel Alito's record is clear, and so is the threat posed by his nomination: presidential power unchecked by our Constitutional guarantee to the checks and balances of the executive, judiciary, and legislative branches of our government; Congress stripped of much of its ability to make any positive change; Americans stripped of their right to privacy and subject to abuses of corporate and government power; Americans being insidiously stripped of their civil rights; Judge Alito confirming basically that the President has unlimited powers, and can break the law if he chooses, as he has.  The Patriot Act provisions being used against American civilians as a ruse of fighting the 'War of Terror', a war which can never be won; Alito's efforts to side with unitary executive power and corporate interests over those of us 'regular' American whom our government took an oath to protect;  the women, children, poor, aged, sick, minorities, who are being undermined and set back every single day under this current administration, and Judge Alito wants to give this administration MORE power to do just that.  Forgive me for thinking that I do not live in America anymore.  This is an outrage.  NCLB, Clear Skies... these are but two of the opposite-named legislation that has come from this callous administration.  They give not a whit about its citizens.  The billions of dollars and the thousands of lives lost and the tens of thousand, if not more, permanently maimed in a war based on a lie?  And how many Iraqi civilians have been murdered?   Do you expect me not to be outraged?  Do you expect me to be silent?

I understand that the filibuster is not a tool to be used trivially.  Alito is not a trivial threat; he is a grave and dangerous threat.  Stand up for your Senate, stand up for the Constitution, and stand up for we, the people.  I ask you to filibuster Samuel Alito's nomination to the United States Supreme Court.  I implore you, to filibuster Judge Alito.  I implore you to send a message that we will no longer be taken for fools.  I implore you to do what is right by your conscience, not by your political advisors.  Believe you me, if you can filibuster Alito, you will have gained huge ground with the grassroots and the netroots.  We are the people here.  We will fund you.  You work for us.  Look at the poll numbers please.  Bush and his administration are losing to the majority of the population.  And do not listen to your political advisors for once.  Don't listen to the media.  They may call you obstructionists, but they are corporate and right-wing run.  You know that!  People are seeing beyond that now, look at the polls!  If this fails, your grassroots funding will cease to exist, I can guarantee that.  You need us more than you know.  We are ready for real leadership and real opposition, or we are ready to clean house.

I mean no disrespect, and I thank you for all you have stood up for in the past, but this decision will affect us for decades.  I do not want have to fight again for the rights we've gotten in the past forty years, but with Judge Alito on the bench, I am terrified that that is what we will have to do.

A concerned American who fears where are country is headed, who fears where we have fallen to already.  And I fear for the world my children will be living in.  

Thank you for reading my comments.  Please, filibuster Alito.  NOW!