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We are a private website run by individuals who wish to maintain our anonymity. Our stories are real. We are not credentialed mental health care specialists, social workers, or professional therapists of any stripe. We cannot give medical or psychiatric advice and we cannot respond to a current suspected case of child abuse in progress – if that is happening, we urge you to contact local law enforcement as soon as you can do it safely. We take no donations and ask no fees for any service or work done on behalf of IRIS. We share our personal experience, observances, lessons learned, and most of all our pain and hope, with the desire that some who visit here may find it useful. As they say in the Twelve Step programs, "Take what you like and leave the rest." Be Well.

Scroll down for much more here on our home page!

Welcome to IRIS

We seek to restore the human rights of childhood sexual abuse survivors.

A Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and their Families

One: We have the right to be safe.
Two: We have the right to be heard.
Three: We have the right to be believed.
Four: We have the right to be angry.
Five: We have the right to grieve.
Six: We have the right to heal.
Seven: We have the right to set appropriate boundaries.
Eight: We have the right to choose if or how to confront the perpetrator.
Nine: We have the right to a joyful, fulfilling sex life with someone we trust.
Ten: We have the right to a loving, supportive family.

From the book
UnShattered: A Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and their Families by Another Mother (and her girls).

Why IRIS?

We chose IRIS because she is a goddess of love and hope. This is a wonderful coincidence - if you have read some of my messages you might have noticed that I usually sign them with the phrase, "with love and hope." Iris is the goddess of the rainbow, appearing after the storm to connect, once again, the heavens and the earth and affirm humanity's special bond with the divine.

As flowers, irises are amazingly well-suited for mascot duty to a bunch of tough survivors. Irises are incredibly varied flowers that come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and grow in some form in most places in the world, and so do we. They grow especially well in ground that has been disturbed, and where there has been disruption. They are incredibly tough and tenacious, and tend to set up colonies as they grow, which makes them even stronger.

They always have been my favorite flower. The wild ones grow near our home, and I tell my family that I have to die in the spring, because the wild irises must be gathered for my memorial.

So.

If we had to let go of a name as perfect as ISIS, isn't it wonderful that something equally as perfect was waiting to be discovered? It's a great metaphor for what we do here: we accept the uncomfortable truth, we feel our feelings, and, together, we find something so much better with which to go forward.

May it be so for us all.

With love and hope,
Another Mother

WE DID IT.
WE CHANGED
OUR NAME FROM I.S.I.S. TO
IRIS!
We are now
In
Recognition
of
Incest
Survivors!

After a lot of thoughtful conversation, our Board of Directors has chosen a slight change in direction for our name. Where once we were In Support of Incest Survivors (and it worked so well - what a lovely, strong protector goddess is ISIS!) it sadly has become apparent that those in the media who call the terrorist group ISIS are not going to stop doing the terrorists' PR work for them any time soon. They never are going to drop the erroneous, but catchy, name and we can't have ourselves associated with the name any more.

Sigh. Try telling a bunch of incest survivors that life isn't fair and that the bad guys get all the breaks. Oh, yeah - don't bother - we know, we know.

The bottom line is that we just don't want survivors who come here for empowerment, healing, and comfort to have to get past the bad image that now is associated with the acronym ISIS. We have enough bad movies in our heads.

The best comment came from Board Member Lynda, who said, "The word 'recognition' feels so powerful - it feels like, 'I see you.' And shouldn't that be our first step, always?"

While we're at it, we thought we'd give everything a face-lift around here - so bear with us as we tinker with the site and check back often!
If you have been to this site before and are familiar with the Bill of Rights for Incest Survivors and Their Families, you might notice that they now appear as statements in the possessive plural. We changed from "You" to "We" at the beginning of each Right because that feels more powerful to us. Powerful and safer, too! Each Right now contains the affirmation that we are legion, and we stand together.

~ We are a work in progress with busy lives, but we get here and make additions and changes as often as we can.
Please visit again for new information! ~

Another Mother writes about Shame

You Are My Teacher

The Minister's Daughter

Here's What's New:

Ask Another Mother - the head of IRIS answers your questions about incest recovery and the Bill of Rights: click here

Media Voices:
Another Mother's Open Response to Dylan Farrow's
NY Times Op Ed on Surviving Woody Allen's serial abuse

Woman of Darfur

Woman of Darfur
I see your TV picture in the camps
Your body
rocks back and forth,
            back and forth
as if you could rock the life back into your girls
Your precious girls who went
            looking for firewood
            looking for water
Found the Janjaweed

Woman of Kosovo
I know you tried to hide them
when those Serbs came to
            kick in your door
You shielded them with your body
but they took them anyway,
            they took your girls
            they hurt your babies
Your babies who look into the night now
With no expression
The war will go on forever for them

Woman of Congo
I hear your cries
They sound just like the ones
            torn from my own throat
when my babies finally came home
When I could finally see their wounds
You are my sister
You are my sister

I fight a different war
I fight a war in my own living room
           the enemy once was my lover
           the enemy moved out years ago
But he patrols the perimeter
We dare not go for water

For women war is ever the same
-Another Mother, 2010

We believe that the principle of
unconditional love with accountability
is the single most important building block in the foundation of our healing, and its practice is the most important form of safety and respect that we can offer others, and ourselves.

New Memoir Explores Healing Through Faith

Pamela Lynn France has just released her courageous memoir, Life Soup. It is a beautiful, well-written blend of story and practical information about the process of healing from childhood abuse.
Please read our interview with the author:
read more . . .