Ripple effect.

ETA- WordPress has decided to shut down A Search for Survivors entirely. This decision saddens me, but waywardradish made a post thanking everyone for their support. It's unlikely that new e-mails sent in to the WordPress TOS department will be paid any attention. She has set up a mirror site here: http://attachmentquackery.wordpress.com/.

I follow the lj and blog of waywardradish, who is doing an irreplaceable and much needed service in the name of holding therapy survivors, of which there seem to be very few when compared to the amount of holding therapy victims. Right now she needs our help. I'm going to steal from copperbadge's post.

As many (I hope) of you know, one of my friends, waywardradish, runs a support blog for survivors of "holding therapy", a dangerous, abusive, and sometimes lethal practice performed exclusively on children. Predominantly aimed at adopted and foster children, who often have no strong advocate and like all children have little physical defence, this abuse can involve wrapping them in blankets until they vomit, holding them down until they lose consciousness (or die), and forcing them into humiliating and terrifying situations over which they have no control.

Her main site, A Search For Survivors, has been suspended by wordpress because she has become visible and is being targeted by practitioners of holding therapy, who are threatened by her voice and (one hopes) losing money because of the truth she's telling.

A mirror of her likely last post on wordpress is here, and links to a survivor's account:

"The therapist diagnosed me with ODD and RAD and my sister with RAD, she showed my mom how to do 'holding therapy.' She ignored the fact that our adopted father had physically and sexually abused me and that restraining me sent me into panic attacks...Everyone in the room was helping to hurt me, and like a rapist, they told me when I just stopped fighting and took it like a good girl, everything would be okay."

I strongly urge you if you have a spare moment to send a letter of protest regarding the suspension of this journal to WordPress at tosreports@wordpress.com and to pass this message along.

Put this in the subject line: [WordPress #352210]: 493@childtorture.wordpress.com

She asks that you phrase any protests, inquiries and arguments with the utmost courtesy. This is the letter I have sent, which you are welcome to use:

I strongly protest the suspension of the Wordpress journal childtorture.wordpress.com. It is a vital and invaluable resource for holding therapy survivors, and has assisted individuals like myself in becoming educated about this practice. Holding therapy is abusive and lethal and aimed at children, who have no voice. The documentation it presents includes firsthand experiences, eyewitness accounts, and news, medical, and legal documents available to the public.

In suspending this journal you are doing both the community and your own public image a severe disservice.

Please remove the suspension on this journal and give abuse survivors back their voice.

Email Copypasta takes a minute and a half, but it means a lot to Radish and to abuse survivors to know that they're not alone. Please lend a hand. Thanks, guys.

Please, please, please help if you have the minute and a half it takes to copy and paste copperbadge's message. I copied and added a few words of my own and now it's been sent off into the ether to do its magic, but these can't work if there are only a few. What waywardradish does is beautiful, and it needs to be done. Her detractors have shut down everyone else and now they're trying to shut her down too. We can't let this happen. If we have the luxury of being thankful that this didn't happen to us, then we can also do what we can to help.

Thank you very much for reading this.