Hey everyone,

Great news! Today is the day that I finish my paper on Throwaway Teen Abuse Prevention. The next few weeks I will be turning this into a power point presentation and putting it out to the public on June 10, 2009 at Eastern Oregon University to faculty, students and the public. Through a grant I received from the Wildhorse Foundation and sponsored by my local shelter, Shelter From the Storm, I am able to give my presentation at three venues. The second presentation will be at Cook's Library in town and the third will be a EOU's Writing 131 class during summer session.  I am more than thrilled...and a bit nervous.

As some of you know, I come to this topic because of my own story.  I was a throwaway, a kid who grew up with violence and neglect at home. I was abandoned and left vulnerable as a teen, that in my case, made me "easy" to approach and seduce by John Holmes. 

I don't always understand why it doesn't sound strange to people that a 32 year old porn star was seeking out the company of a 15 year old kid. He buddied up to my dad and sold him pot. My dad looked the other way.  In truth, everyone looked the other way. Why?

As I conducted my research for this presentation, it truly sucked discovering how much of a statistic I was. Along with the overwhelming government statistics I found, I also uncovered terrible hidden narratives, short stories written anonymously in classrooms, that to me, more accurately represents the many unreported teens living today in painful and unfair circumstances.  Knowing this also made me very aware that I was/am not the only one, and ignites my passion to raise awareness and educate communities to prevent and care for these throwaway teens. 

Stay tuned please.  The more I discover the more I want to share the hope.

Peace always,

Dawn

 

MEDALLION PRESS LAUNCHES A NONFICTION LINE!

St. Charles, Illinois—August 1, 2008— Medallion Press, Inc., is pleased to announce the debut of a nonfiction line, with the first title available in stores August 2010. This new imprint will cover areas of motivation and strength, self-help, and autobiographies. This will be the seventh imprint for Medallion Press, adding it to the family of fiction imprints, including the new Medallion Masterpiece Collection, which will unveil its first title in November 2008.

The first release of our nonfiction line will be an autobiographical look at the life of Dawn Schiller, a woman who, as a teenager, became wrapped up in the bizarre life of legendary porn star John Holmes, and the drugs, beatings, and murders that soon consumed her world. In The Road through Wonderland, Dawn will give a recounting of her life, starting with her childhood, leading through her relationship with John Holmes, and through the struggle she encountered to overcome her past. In 2003, Lion's Gate released the film Wonderland, a look at the life of John Holmes and his connection with the Wonderland Murders. Actor Val Kilmer, who played John, and actress Kate Bosworth, who played Dawn, will both contribute a foreword to the book.

___________________________________________________________

IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE.......

Today is John Lennon's birthday..... 

Today marks six weeks since my daughter's surgery, she has been given the all clear by the doctors.  We call this her recovery day.

Today I can announce the news that "The Road Through Wonderland" has found a publisher. 

JUST IMAGINE....

Thank you all for keeping the faith,

Dawn

Dear readers and friends,

As much as I wanted to keep this part of my life private, because of the happy outcome I want to share this with you now.

On October 14th, a beautiful Sunday, my daughter, myself and our new special friend spent the day flying in an ultralight aircraft with the birds, soaring over the colorful leaves of Autumn. Our afternoon was slated to feast on salmon with friends and their children. Later, along with four other parents, found the perfect opportunity to sit a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and my daughter, Jade, a seven-year-old (who is an experienced rider) on a beautiful and gentle Appaloosa horse for pictures. The pictures were great. The girls, laughing and flashing peace signs, were proud and we laughed at the funny faces they made for the camera. We were done and ready to get the salmon cooking. A strong father and cameraman took his three-year-old off of the horse first…turned for a moment to set her down and ask her about her ride. As he prepared to help the other two girls next, he was startled to see from the corner of his eye that the horse suddenly took off to run to his buddy across the field.

The six-year-old lost her balance first. My daughter, Jade, held onto the mane and squeezed with her legs to stay on. The six-year-old was too weak to stay on and as she toppled she pulled my Jade down too, landing on her. The wind was knocked out of her and she sat in the field, her eyes large trying to catch her breath. My Jade lay motionless next to her. I couldn't run fast enough to my girl…others were already trying to talk to her. I placed my body over her and spoke into her ear. "Jade…this is Mom. I need you to remember everything I told you about good things. Remember the light." She groaned an "uh huh" and her eyes rolled in the back of her head, unfocused and dazed. She groaned some more, her eyes growing wild as she tried to look at me, and then she began to writhe in pain. I wrapped my arms around her head, to keep her still, when my hand landed into the pool of blood that had been oozing out of the back of her skull.

"We have a head injury!!!" I screamed and in an instant I was lifted with Jade still in my arms into the back of a car and raced to our small town emergency room. The description of the ER team stabilizing her, with IV's, neck braces and log rolls when the vomiting started is mixed with my Jade screaming in pain and passing out. When I walked with the doctor to the CAT Scan room I knew from the doctor's clutching fists on the desk as she read the scan that the news was grim. She turned to me and said "come with me…she has a skull fracture…we have to get her to a neurosurgeon right away." I slide down the hospital room wall and wanted to throw up.

"Doernbecher's Children's Hospital in Portland is sending PANDA. Their pediatric trauma aircraft to transport her to Portland." Three hours later the plane arrived at the airport where the ambulance transported us and took us on another hour plus to the waiting trauma team. "She has a decompressed skull fracture with a ping-pong ball size portion pushing into her brain. We need to do surgery right away." At five am on Monday, October 15th, I walked my daughter into surgery and waited. Three plus hours later she returns. Dr. Guiliame, a wonderful man, spoke to me about what they found. "We decompressed her skull. A piece of bone did puncture an artery in her brain. It did not bleed out until we went in for surgery, which is a very good thing. The portion of the brain that is affected is small and does not control any function that another part of the brain cannot direct in its place. In other words, barring any unforeseen complications and smooth recovery from surgery, she should be 100 percent neurologically."

On October 22nd we came home from the hospital. So many prayers, loved ones good wishes, baskets of bananas and clean underwear for me. Dear friends who made me go and eat healthy, took care of my Chihuahua at home, paid my bills, brought me coffee, sent flowers, wrote cards, drew pictures and penned poems. Our special friend came to stay at the hospital and take us home with sweet doggies in the car for company. So many of you let me know you were there for me and told me that it was okay to lay my head on your shoulders and reach out for help, because you reminded me that I have helped so many of you and you appreciated me. Thank you. You touched my soul.

Tonight Jade went trick or treating wearing a long black wig partly because it matches her vampire costume and partly because it covers the healing 140 stitches that hold down two titanium plates that help her skull heal. I have had my prayers answered this month, above everything, I have been given the greatest gift…my daughter...and an awakening of all the loving people in my life. I love you all…enormously.

My heart to yours,

Dawn

I have decided to post a snippet of my book to see what my friends think.  So, here it goes.  Remember this is an almost 550 page book so there will be gaps, but feel free to comment.  Thanks and lots of love, Dawn

From Chapter One ...Fireflies

Dad probably never thought he was leaving us in one of the worst neighborhoods in Florida, but Mom is bitter.  "Et seems like et's happening overnight," she keeps saying in her sharp German accent.  "Effreyone just starts moving out in vone year.  Et's going from a nice neighborhood to dis," she repeats on a daily basis with disbelief.  She is losing her children to the cruel streets of this impoverished inland Miami city and feels helpless.  If I knew this, I might be more compassionate, but I doubt it.  At fifteen, I'm trying to survive and blame her for everything. 

 

Mom works three waitress jobs just to keep up the payments on our house because Dad's promise of sending money isn't happening.  When she comes home at night she is tired, angry, and sometimes, on scary nights, vicious and ready to snap.  Dad took off after Vietnam in 1969 for a job with ATT in Iran.  Laying cable in the desert will bring us "quick riches," he pledged.  But his luck has changed, and all he sends in seven years is one sad lonely letter.  The ragged edges of roughly textured and stained paper taped crudely together tells us he is in a Thai jail, his passport has been stolen and asks us if we can send him some money.  Mom scrapes together what little she can from her hidden tip-jar and sends Dad a Money-Gram hoping that this will be enough to help him come home.  But there is no response from that far side of the world and the one spark of hope she has kindled is silenced for another endless stretch of time. 

 

In the evenings, before I can fall asleep, I ritually listen to Mom's muffled weeping seep out from behind her bedroom door.  I listen because it is my way of making sure all is in order and she hasn't left us too.   But it's on those random nights, when Mom's pain is so great, I hear her cry out to God, "Why?"  It is on those nights that my heart breaks with hers and our voices and tears blend into one long pitiful wail, rising up into the splintered, hollow walls of our sad, abandoned house.  She can't believe that her dream for a better life in America has become to work so brutally hard and watch her children be consumed by the streets.  I am terrified by her fear that we are damned. 

 

When I first hear that Dad is coming back I think the world will begin to turn in our direction again.  The way I see it, life can now be something to look forward to, not cower from.  Somehow, in my desperate need to find hope, I create an image of my father, the man who abandoned us to this hopeless place as my hero.  

 

So I was able to watch parts of the Oprah show today.  They had a panel of people talking about the reaction from a show aired last week on "The Secret".  I was cooking dinner and could only catch bits and pieces, but got a big Ah Ha when I heard her describe that "The Secret" starts with gratitude. 

"I know that!" I tell myself.  "That is absolutely the truth."  Learning how to be grateful has saved my life in the past.  When I was at my bottom with drugs and alcohol and the only choice I had was to die or get sober.  I chose sobriety,(sometimes I think sobriety, (God), chose me), and to do that I HAD to learn gratitude.  It is the foundation of my soul.  The door to my spirituality. 

But the Ah Ha is this.  Lately, I have felt down.  I know part of it is because I am editing/polishing terrible parts of my memoir, but that's not all.  I'm down too because I have been taking care of an old friend since September who is sick with Alzhiemers and I have just finalized a divorce that broke my heart.  Valentine's Day was tough.  I didn't expect a Valentines in the mail, but damn, I didn't even get any junk mail that day.  The mailbox was empty.   I took this pretty hard on Wednesday.

But enough!   I'm done counting the pain.  I've got to start counting the blessings again.  I'm making my gratitude lists first, second, third and the last thing in my days again.  I got overwhelmed with some tough life stuff for awhile and forgot to say thank you.  Thank you for being alive, my daughter who is sweetly sleeping by my side right now, my stinky breath Chihuahua, Tinkerbelle who is staring at me and probably wants to go pottie.  For my surrogate mother, (the mother of my heart), who loves me no matter how sad and down I get.  For having a warm bed to sleep in, for being healthy, for knowing God. 

Be well friends.  When I counsel others who are getting sober, the first thing I tell them is to write at least three things each day that they are grateful for.  I don't want to not walk my own talk.  Not because people might think ill of me, but because I NEED to apply the same good adivce to my own life. 

Much love and many blessings,

Dawn

P. S.  I'm also grateful for having a sense of humor because, Yes!  Those were raisins. 

Emotional turmoil sucks.  Trying to figure out how to stand up for yourself and not hurt anyone's feelings is tough for me.  Especially when the both of you are extremely sensitve.  I am in conflict over a relationship with a friend that I think of as family who is also a business partner.   The lines are down...and it's hard not to take it personally and feel abandoned on a multitude of levels. 

Yes, I am a single mom, as some of you have guessed, and I am my daughters only support.  I have to be more creative, willing, flexible and resolved, like every other single mother, to make sure my little one's world doesn't fall apart around her.  I am her rock.  I am her home, her toys, her dog and her voice...the things that make her secure and safe.   I make sure she feels loved ...every moment of every day.  Dad left, but I promise I never will.  This is what she clings to, that mom will be strong and take care of the things she is too young to control.  She relies on me and I will never break my promise to care for, nurture her, teach her, support her, respect her and love her as big as God.   She is the reason I will stay calm in the face of adversity and never give up. 

Sometimes it all looks bad though.   It is all too hard...and I cry when she sleeps.

To a better tomorrow.

Dawn