If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July 2012 and read “Sending out a Letter.” My daughter Emma Katherine Roey lied about a friend being raped and attempting suicide, claimed to have been molested by a priest, and then, just as her attorneys were about to file a law suit, Emma accused her mother (me) of physically abusing her and later of poisoning her with DDT. Emma claimed to have a toxicology report to confirm that her mother (me, again!) poisoned her, but would never turn over this report to my attorney. If you read through the blog, you will find many other examples of Emma’s lying. At one point, she even complained about the way her dad touched her and that he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. (I refused to listen to her when she talked about her dad like that.) As long as Emma continues with the lies, I will tell her story. Love and thanks to all of you who read and have written to me. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me at: losingemma@gmail.com Please continue to share the blog with others.

Emma going up and down a tree at the home of Carl Lehmann, Phill’s work partner.

I apologize to my readers for not keeping up with the blog.  I’m trying to get myself to organize my time a little better and work on writing more, but it’s hard to do between work and other obligations, and with the holidays coming, it gets even busier!  I’ve had some topics on my mind, but just haven’t sat down to write, so I’m posting something I was recently thinking about.

Attention, Agendas, and New Friends

With what’s going on in politics, and the women who have come forward at the last minute before the election to accuse Donald Trump of sexual abuse or harassment, I’ve had some conversations with people about sexual abuse, lying, reasons for lying, etc. The current events got me thinking about Emma’s lies and comparing her situation with what’s going on during this election season.

I haven’t really kept up with the allegations concerning Donald Trump. Apparently there are several women who accused him of sexual harassment or sexual assault. I tried to google the numbers, but those seem to change. It doesn’t really matter to me. Yes, I did hear the video of Mr. Trump speaking to Billy Bush, and yes it was crude and disgusting, and yes, I have been in situations where I’ve heard men speak the same way. (To be fair, in my situation of hearing men speak this way, the main one that comes to mind was when I was younger and worked as a waitress with some young guys. I thought of t their talk as bravado and masochism, and just thought of them as jerks with some growing up to do.) I’m not passing judgment on Mr. Trump either way right now. I’m not making a judgment as to whether these stories or true or not.

The timing of these accusations does make it appear that these women have an agenda. And yes, I do get that it takes one brave person to step forward and then others will follow. Also, apparently Mrs. Clinton was working on the Alicia Machado story for quite some time before bringing it up at the debate, so again, the fat shaming story was part of an agenda.

So, in reading about children and lying, I’ve wondered a lot about why children make up accusations about being molested or sexually abused, and I’ve wondered about Emma’s agenda in accusing the priest she accused of sexual assault. I know children don’t realize how much their story can harm another person, so of course they are not thinking of the ramifications of their actions, but from what I’ve read, the big reason is for attention, and that got me thinking about Emma’s need for attention. Why did Emma need to make up the abuse story?

I think a few things that come into play in the case of Emma’s accusing the priest of molestation are:

1. Emma was failing an on line Physics class, so she told the teacher she’d been molested, couldn’t focus on school, etc.
2. Emma was upset over the boy she liked losing interest in her.
3. Emma had no close friends, and her two best friends were Kayla Weaver, whom she saw maybe twice a year, and “Lacey” who started out as pen-pal from an English assignment and became a friend through letters, e-mail, and texting, but whom Emma had never met. Phill and I did not realise that Emma was telling us many lies about “Lacey” and her family.
4. Emma was bored. (I think we all know that bored teenagers, especially teens with a high IQ will find something to relieve their boredom whether it be something positive or something negative.)

As for Emma not having any friends, I didn’t think of this as a problem until I read Dr. Richard Born’s somewhat lacking (in my opinon) Psychological assessment of Emma. Emma wasn’t comfortable with kids her own age. Oh, she was a great leader or organizer. She made a great youth group secretary and could call or text the kids and remind them where to be and when, but she never really hung out with any of the kids other than in the youth group activities, and more typically at church, Emma liked being responsible for younger kids where she was in charge rather than a peer. Phill and I tried to encourage her to have kids over, were happy to host, cook, take them places or do whatever, but I realize now that was more us trying to encourage Emma, but Emma didn’t try to be a friend. And like a lot of kids, Emma could have a ton of friends on Facebook, and she could carry on some witty banter for a few lines, so she thought she was popular in that way.

One child, who Emma played with a few times when she was oh, I think middle school aged, described Emma as bossy, and lost interest in playing with Emma, and I think I understand it now. At the time, I thought it was just personality differences, but it was more that Emma would run things and wasn’t really being a friend.

It always made me sad that in 17 years of raising Emma, I never saw her have that “best friend” that so many of us remember fondly from childhood. Often, we’d invite a new friend to spend the night, and then they would reciprocate, and maybe see each other once or twice more, but that would be it. Emma didn’t seem to bond to anyone. Sadly, and as much as Emma would hate to admit this, I think I was her best friend up until she cried “child abuse.” I was often the person she sat with and cuddled and poured out her thoughts to, right up until she decided she didn’t need a mother anymore, but that is another story.

As for attention, I always thought Emma had PLENTY. As a homeschooling mom, I was at her beck and call, and Phill doted on her when he wasn’t on the road or out flying rc airplanes. We had a lot of fun as a family, just doing little things together, but she was always the center of our world. Yes, I know she was spoiled, but at the time, I thought no more than any other kid we knew.

Emma was very involved in church activities, in other things besides the youth group, and I was always proud of how she could socialize with people of any age, and wasn’t like some kids who clammed up and didn’t speak unless they were among kids their own age. I thought Emma got a lot out of having conversations with adults as well as kids, and I felt like she was exposed to a lot of people she wouldn’t have been exposed to had she been in public school, so I never felt like she was the “unsocialized homeschooler” but, as I said, I didn’t realize Emma was so uncomfortable around kids her own age.

Emma had belonged to a homeschool arts program, where I worked as well, and this was a big social activity for the homeschool kids. They would show up, greet their buddies, hang out between classes and after class, have lunch together, etc., but Emma really didn’t do much of that. She didn’t make any good friends, and she didn’t hang out much with the other kids. She would hang out in my classroom. She just never quite fit in, but I think she didn’t try to fit in.

A lot of the kids loved Drama, as did Emma, but Emma didn’t want to take the drama classes because there were too many kids and not enough parts. She wanted to be a lead, and there was too much competition. She also complained about how the end of the year program was written so that many of the kids would have some sort of speaking part. She didn’t like that teacher tried to include everyone and not just have a few star parts, so Emma would take some other elective and then was rarely happy with her choice. I know kids complain about school, and that’s just what they do, but it really wasn’t until Emma got to Jackson County Comprehensive High School that Emma found her true love, Drama with Mrs. Bonnie Roberts. That is, until the 2^nd semester when Emma couldn’t have a big part in the play after having been the star the first semester. Suddenly, she didn’t care that much about Drama anymore and that was when Emma started a lot of throwing up and missed so much school we had to pull her out and finish the semester on line.

Emma lost interest and later quit the homeschool arts program. I continued to teach there, which was a bone of contention with her. I think Emma was always a little jealous that I had a great time with the kids in my classes.

I have to wonder, was Emma’s making up a tale of being sexually molested partly in response to the lack of attention she’d been receiving. She’d loved being the star of Metamorphosis, but 2^nd semester was a let down. She had no friends at school, and no longer was the queen of the drama class she’d loved so much. If I remember right, Emma couldn’t even take drama that semester and had to take PE and Health instead, so school was a real bummer. Is this part of what led to all the vomiting and then later the molestation accusation? Emma had gone from being a star to being just another kid. Was she not getting enough attention?

I think a big mistake we made in Emma’s case was not to question Emma about the abuse. If someone had dug in to get her to explain every detail, I think her story probably would have fallen apart right away, but we treated her like the delicate, fragile, wounded child, and Phill and I didn’t question her, leaving it up to the professionals. If you’ve read my earlier posts, you know that both Dr. Elizabeth Genie Burnett and Suzie Mcgarvey both claimed that Emma would not talk about the abuse. There was nothing to talk about, so she started complaining about her Mother instead.

Anyway, what got me on this topic today, was thinking about the accusers of Donald Trump and the timing of the accusations. With the accusations coming out right before an election, it seems that there is some sort of agenda to these accusations. This really got me wondering about Emma and her agenda at the time. Was it just for attention? I’m sure Emma didn’t realize how much attention she would receive once all the local authorities got involved, the church, the police, the attorneys, the therapists, etc. Is that what Emma loved so much? Being the victim (volunteer) and being the center of attention because she was that poor child who’d been a victim of the crime of sexual abuse? Just how much attention does a child need?

Or did Emma need an excuse for failing her physics class? Emma had always been a good student, so failing a class would be a huge embarrassment to her. Saying she couldn’t focus on school because of repressed memories of sexual abuse suddenly appearing was a much better excuse than failing because she was spending too much time in chat rooms and writing letters to her pen-pal.

Emma lost the attention of the boy she liked, but got so much more attention once she announced she was the victim of sexual assault.

Emma didn’t have any close friends, so in claiming abuse she got a lot of “new friends” in the form of DFACS, social workers, therapists, police detectives, etc.

Anyway, so my thoughts were on Attention and Agendas today. I hope one day to learn just exactly why Emma choose to make up the abuse story. Since Emma claimed her sexual abuse was brought up because of repressed memories that came up when “Lacey” was raped and attempted suicide, and since was know “Lacey” WAS NOT raped and did not attempt suicide, was Emma already planning the sexual abuse story when she made up the rape story, or did she think that far ahead?  And, at the time of the rape story, Emma was very moody and rude to her dad, claiming he called her a “bitch” and a “slut” everyday. Phill likes to believe that Emma said these things because she was dealing with her repressed memories and was taking it out on him. I have to wonder if Emma was planning on accusing her dad of sexual abuse, but then couldn’t do it, so she chose the priest instead. One day, I hope we’ll have the answers to these questions.