Throughout my series on Family Predators, I’ve talked about family predator culture and its impact on one’s personal life. In today’s final post of the series, I want to look beyond survival and escaping to changing the story.

In previous posts I said I stopped enabling family predator culture in my life by confronting my uncle in a family gathering. I stopped attending family events, and I didn’t take my kids to family get togethers. For me, that was a good beginning, but it isn’t enough. I don’t just want to change my story. I want to empower others to change their stories too.

For some of you, simply getting out of the culture yourself will be a big enough battle, and if that is you, I applaud you for the courage to change things!

For others, you are going to want to do more. You don’t just want to be the place where your story or your family changes, you want to be the place where others are able to change their story and their family. Here are some ways you can do that.

You can be the family member who stands up to the predator and calls out the culture. You can demand that other members be protected. You can be the protector and make sure no child is alone or an easy target. Sometimes you can’t change the culture because people don’t want to change, but you can be the safe place in an unsafe system.

Maybe you are the one who tells the police and that is how you expose the culture within your family. It takes incredibly courage to take this step, but sometimes this is the only way to stop the crimes against children in a family.

You can uplift other people who are struggling to find their strength and their voice.

You can advocate for children in a variety of ways.

You can a presence for others who need to tell their story.

A friend of mine told his story of abuse by an uncle to his men’s group at church, and he was amazed at how many men have come to him privately to talk about the men in their families who abused them. He has taken the horrible thing done to him and is making it a place of healing for others. You can do that. 

One friend of mine talks to young men in high school and college and tells them his story, how it affected his view of himself as a man, and the way God healed him through His Spirit, the Word, and therapy.

You can be the “new family” for someone who has the courage to walk away from the sick one.

Maybe you write a blog about your experience that gives people courage to be honest with themselves.
Maybe you write a one act play for high schoolers that exposes the reality of family predators that opens conversations and gives a student the voice to tell their story.

You may choose to become a therapist, victims advocate, or school counselor.

One of my best friends volunteered with the crimes against women and children unit of her police and created a community education program.

Maybe you listen to people’s stories of shame, being weak, and feeling powerless and reframe it so they see that they were strong, tried to stop things, and have power to make a difference now.

I think the most powerful thing you can do is heal and change your story so others can see that it can be done and then you wade right back into that cesspool you got out of and show others the way out.

The most powerful thing you can do is heal and change your story so others can see that it can be done.
Then you wade right back into that cesspool you got out of and show others the way out.

Go.
Take up your space.
Live big.
Be powerful.
Make a difference.
You are where everything changes.

Jerri Kelley is a writer, problem-solver, and life-influencer who has ditched living small for the adventure of living being and changing the world.