Author Archives: Amy Herdy

by | June 25, 2012 · 10:21 pm

“The Invisible War”: Because It’s Time to Talk About the Sexual Predators in the Military

Please show your support for the opening of the gripping documentary “The Invisible War” in Denver this weekend.

Here is the eflier:
http://www.notinvisible.org/eflier_denver

And here’s the information for the theater, below. The film opens on Friday night, June 29, and I’m going to be there on Saturday evening, June 30, for a Q & A directly following the showing of the 7 p.m. feature (exact time still to be announced by the theater). I’ll be discussing the issue and my role in the film, and why this is a cause near and dear to my heart.

“The Invisible War”
Harkins Northfield 18
8300 East Northfield Blvd
Denver, CO 80238

Even if you can’t attend, you can show your support by forwarding this link to everyone you know. The film is opening in cities around the country–maybe there’s a theater showing it near you. If so, you should watch it, because I guarantee it will impact you forever.

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by | June 22, 2012 · 9:55 pm

Why Did Jerry Sandusky Do It?

There are many studies that link child sexual abuse to that person becoming a perpetrator in later life, and Diary of a Predator: A Memoir is a perfect case study of that–Brent Brents committed crimes that were a direct reflection of the abuse he received as a child.

 If you look at Jerry Sandusky’s childhood circumstances, you can see that he could very well have been a victim of child sexual abuse. When Jerry Sandusky was six–a vulnerable age–his family moved into an upstairs apartment of the Brownson House, a recreation center for troubled boys. By all accounts, thousands of troubled youth passed through that center, which included facilities for basketball, football and baseball-and which would have included locker rooms with showers (details from Jerry Sandusky’s case include him sexually abusing boys in a locker room shower).
 The following is from a study by the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2001:
The risk of being a perpetrator is enhanced by prior victim experiences, doubled for incest, more so for peodophilia, and even higher for those exposed to both peodophilia and incest. This suggests that, in this selected sample, the experience of being a victim of peodophilia may have a more powerful causative influence in giving rise to the subject becoming a perpetrator than does incest, and the joint experience of being exposed to both peodophilia and incest has the most powerful effect.
  This view is supported by the frequent clinical finding that the abuser’s target age-group is usually limited to the age when he was himself abused. The abusive act is a traumatic one — however cooperative the victim might appear to be — and the change from being the passive victim to the active perpetrator, making use of the mechanism of identification with the aggressor, is the way in which some victims repeatedly attempt to master the trauma. The use of psychological mechanisms, particularly splitting and denial, which enable the abuser to believe he is being benevolent when he is being abusive, are further characteristics which the victim acquires through his identification with the perpetrator.
-It sounds like that’s exactly what Jerry Sandusky did.  And it’s definitely what Brent Brents did–he became a perpetrator in order to try to gain control over his feelings of helplessness, rage and victimization.

It does not excuse the horrible actions of either man, neither Brent Brents nor Jerry Sandusky. But it does help explain them.

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by | June 19, 2012 · 9:02 pm

acid in my guts

I have forgiven Dad. It wasn’t easy. It took years. I hated him for years. And that hate was like acid in my guts every day. Eating away at my soul. Now that i have let it go i feel good.

Brent Brents 6-1-2012

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by | June 16, 2012 · 9:20 pm

“The Invisible War,” a Scathing Expose About Sexual Assault in the Military, Needs Your Help

Nobody likes to talk about rape.

That’s one of the reasons why it’s such an ongoing crisis in our country–it’s got that crippling stigma attached to it, and shame, and victim-blaming. Nowhere is that more pronounced than in our military.

I’m on the email list for director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering, the creators of the outstanding documentary, “The Invisible War,” a film about the crisis of sexual assaults within the U.S. military. I’m interviewed in the film because of my work covering the issue, primarily the series I coauthored at the Denver Post called “Betrayal in the Ranks.”

Right now, the Invisible War team need your help.

The good news is, the New York Times has taken notice of this incredibly important issue by profiling the film in “Heroes, Villains and The Invisible,” written by Stephen Holden.

The article calls “The Invisible War” one of three festival films devoted to women’s rights,” and has said that “none of the films previewed matched the impact of “The Invisible War.”

The great news here is that the story is currently #16 on the NYT’s Most Popular List (Most Emailed and The Most Viewed, to be exact).

Let’s move that up. You can help show the media, and the public, and anyone else who is paying attention that these issues matter.

Go here and Share the article with a friend, Tweet and/or Post to Facebook: Heroes, Villains and the Invisible

Please HELP!  Go to this link ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/movies/human-rights-watch-film-festival-at-lincoln-center.html) and

  • EMAIL to a friend
  • Share on Facebook
  • Tweet – here’s a sample Tweet that you can also send without going to the article link:

    • Heroes, Villains and the Invisible http://nyti.ms/MKZz3b#NotInvisible@Invisible_War gets due notice TKU @nytimesin theatres 6.22

Thanks very much,

Amy

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by | June 5, 2012 · 9:56 pm

all people have aspects of goodness and evil within

I received this thoughtful letter the other day through this website, and it’s definitely worth sharing:

Dear Amy,
I heard you on Colorado Matters and felt great empathy to you; I hope to know you someday. My best friend, Shannon Moroney, married a man who, to all who knew him, was absolutely wonderful. Still, a month after their wedding, he violently kidnapped and raped two women, then turned himself in, pled guilty to Canada’s highest penalty –violent offender– and is serving a life sentence. Shannon (and her parents, many friends, and I) still maintain contact with Jason who shares many similarities with Brent.

Though his crimes were horrific, the person I know was kind, held my infant daughter, and treated me, and especially Shannon, with kindness. Last fall, Shannon published a book that I hope you get to read someday, THROUGH THE GLASS. Currently, it is only available in Canada through Doubleday, but it will be coming to the US in the fall.

I am so grateful to you for sharing the story of the criminal who is never, as we wish he/she were, purely evil. I believe, as I think you do, that all people have aspects of goodness and evil within. Jason was also sexually abused as a child. When Shannon has been confronted with the accusation “well, all victims of sexual assault don’t become sexual offenders,” her response is, “thank God.”

Why some people do turn to crime is a source of great sadness for those of us who have cared for and even loved victims of crime and the offenders themselves. Please feel my support and understand my gratefulness for telling Brent’s story.

I look forward to reading your book.

Best, Rachael

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by | June 3, 2012 · 7:20 pm

Gods Green earth is fair Game

I’m including an except below from serial rapist Brent Brents’ journal that’s in my book, Diary of a Predator: A Memoir, because of its chilling self description.

But first, something from James Gilligan: “The living dead.”

-That’s a term for violent men from the book, Violence: Reflections On A National Epidemic, by James Gilligan, M.D., and it resonates with me because it’s similar to how Brent Brents describes himself.

Gilligan, who directed the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School, is the former medical director of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane and was director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system.

To call violent prison inmates “the living dead” is not a metaphor he invented, Gilligan says in his book; rather, it’s a summary of how the men describe themselves, that they cannot feel anything, that their souls are dead.

He goes on to write, “They have dead souls because their souls were murdered. How did it happen?”

The answer, Gilligan says, was “a degree of violence and cruelty…in childhood…so extreme and unusual that it gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘child abuse.'”

Which is exactly how Brent Brents was created–horrific and habitual child abuse. And it doesn’t excuse his actions, but it certainly helps explain them, and understanding violence takes us one step closer toward preventing it.

As for the self description written by Brent Brents, I begin the start of nearly every chapter of  Diary of a Predator: A Memoir with an excerpt from one of his letters or from his journal (which is also featured in large portions throughout the rest of the book). This is at the start of chapter One, A Hunter at Work:

I could easily be Bundy i think he had the same fucked up
brain the release was never Achievable. What realy hurts me
deep is that there are a few things and people I can sincerely
care for and love and would never hurt but the rest of Gods
Green earth is fair Game. I am truly a fucked up dangerous
person and were the opportunities to present themselves I
would act. It hurts me to admit this. I am sorry for hurting
all those other people, Truly but how can i be any kind of
Good or decent if i cant stop my mind from Working Like it
does. I look back to when i was a kid and i realy think i went
crazy. Death is the only solution to this.
—From Brent’s journal

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by | May 22, 2012 · 7:56 pm

A Mother Who Lost Her Daughter to Rape Searches for Answers

How awful to know that your daughter was raped, and that her attacker was someone she was supposed to trust.

Now imagine being told that after all she had endured, your daughter killed herself, and you’ll know what Suzie is going through.

Suzie contacted me after reading a blog I posted to this website about The Invisible War,  a gripping documentary about the crisis of sexual assaults within the U.S. military. I’m interviewed in the film because of my work covering the issue, primarily the series I coauthored at the Denver Post about sexual assault and domestic violence in the U.S. military called “Betrayal in the Ranks.”

But back to Suzie–here’s part of what she said:

“My daughter was sexually assaulted 3 times in her 3 and a half years in the Army. Twice on American soil, once during her year being deployed in Afghanistan. It culminated in her taking her own life after being told she was bi-polar or borderline personality disorder… She said they wanted to get rid of her and not the rapist. Please help me find truth for all of these men and women whom have had to endure what our own HOMELAND SECURITY could have prevented!!!! God Bless!! I AM NOT FINISHED WITH THIS!”

Her tragic story drives home this point: Whether a rapist is stalking women on the streets of Denver or within his own military unit, we’re enabling him as long as we allow our systems to put victims through hell for reporting their assaults.

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by | May 15, 2012 · 9:07 pm

troubled children turning into psychopathic adults

A reader sent the following comment to this website today in response to the post “Can You Nip a Budding Psychopath in the Bud?”–regarding the story recently published in The New York Times Magazine about children being diagnosed as psychopaths:

I saw this article about psychopathic children and did not have an opportunity to read it until your link to it. It is quite the article and am glad I was able to read it.

As I read through the comments I noted that, as I myself thought, many did not agree that there would be no support for a mother of a psychopathic child. I thought that was a very interesting conclusion by the author.

Thanks again Amy for pointing out information in regard to troubled children turning into psychopathic adults and what is being learned to try to help them and maybe prevent more children from turning into psychopaths.

Mary

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by | May 14, 2012 · 10:48 pm

Is It Possible to Nip a Budding Psychopath in the Bud?

“Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?”

-That’s the title of a disturbing and yet fascinating piece that ran in the New York Times magazine on May 11, which I’m including the link to, below.

The 9-year-old in question is the oldest son of a Florida couple, and the details of his behavior–enraged one moment, chillingly calm the next while threatening a younger brother–make for a pretty good case that he’s a fledgling psychopath.

That in itself raises many questions: Is the term “psychopath” an unfair and dangerous label to put on a child? Or is it more dangerous to downplay callous, unemotional behavior that research shows is likely genetic in origin?

The age of the boy in the story strikes me as a sad coincidence–Brent Brents has often told me by that his own estimation, his “brain was broken” by age 9. What if someone had recognized his potential for violence when he was a child? Would intervention have changed him and therefore prevented the pain of all his victims?

Researchers are hoping that by identifying psychopathic tendencies early enough in a child, he or she can be helped–which can hopefully prevent that child from becoming an adult who is incapable of empathy yet also capable of inflicting great harm on others.

Or as one person in the piece said:

“You have to hope that’s true. Otherwise, what are we stuck with? These monsters.”

Here’s the story:

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by | May 10, 2012 · 8:46 pm

the violence of everyday life

A reader suggested I read the book Violence: Reflections On A National Epidemic, by James Gilligan, M.D., and I am so glad she did.

Gilligan directed the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School, is the former medical director of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane and was director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system.

His book is brilliant and thoughtful. I haven’t gotten very far yet, but there are parts of it already worth quoting, such as this:

“…even the most apparently ‘insane’ violence has a rational meaning to the person who commits it, and to prevent this violence, we need to learn to understand what that meaning is…The psychological understanding of violence requires recognizing how much method there is in violent madness, and how much psychopathology there is in the violence of everyday life.”

It articulates better than I ever could why it’s important for us to learn from someone like Brent Brents.

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