The Cerebral Mum

Welcome to the November Edition of the Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse. This being the month of Thanskgiving the theme was Gratitude. So let’s begin with that…

Gratitude

April Optimist from The Thriver’s Toolbox writes about the way in which gratitude worries her in Gratitude and Survivors, grappling with “the issue of how to balance profound gratitude for all that is good in my life and still seeing ways I might want to make it better”.

Over at Survivors Can Thrive!, Marj aka Thriver discusses Gratitude & Beauty, exploring her mixed emotions about the holiday season before expressing the thing she is truly grateful for: “The beauty inherent in each survivor.” She includes, by way of thanks, her poem, Your Beauty.

Advocacy & Awareness

Barry Pittard from Call For Media and Government Investigation gives us 2 posts, both in relation to Sai Baba. In Abuse. Some Reach Out. Many Suffer in Silence he answers the question, “Why are they not standing up for themselves?” and in Hazards For Abuse Survivors Both Timid and Bold he looks at the reasons why “even those few ready to go public can often be in no position to litigate”, examining some of the relevant case histories.

Marcella Chester at abyss2hope: A rape survivor’s zigzag journey into the open has written in support of the I-VAWA, Support International Violence Against Women Act. She provides some information on the legislation and discusses in detail the double standard prevalent in our society. “To be truly effective at crime prevention, the “Don’t …” statements need to be aimed at those who inflict violence and those who are tempted to do so. Rather than limiting the options of women in the name of crime prevention, their options need to be widened.” The code for the graphic is available in the post.

Megan Bayliss from Imaginif child protection became serious business responds to a meme and tells us all about the purpose and function of her blog in What’s a blog got to do with child protection? Me me Megan Bayliss. She tells us who her true mentors are, “those millions of bloggers affected by child abuse”, and thanks them. She reminds us that “Child protection is a bit like butter is to bread - hard to spread sometimes. But, the longer it’s out, the easier it gets.”

Risingrainbow from My Clouds, My Storms and Multiple Personality Disorder gives us Human Nature with All It’s Twists and Turns, exploring the idea of the human conscience and how it can be manipulated and broken, especially in children. So broken, in fact, that it can lead to Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is the first of a four part series which goes on to tackle responsibility and culpability. “Human nature as it is means there is a bit of “bad” in all of us.”

Healing & Therapy

April Optimist at The Thriver’s Toolbox thinks about all the steps it took to get her current place in life in Post Thanksgiving, knowing that when she faces today’s challenges, she can remind herself how far she’s come. “We get to choose. And as scary as that can sometimes be, it’s good, too.”

Jumping In Puddles at Lifes Spacings writes Old Learning To New about “the price of living as a multiple… as well the price of living in the extreme pain of trauma that is in the process of healing,” but also about all they are learning now: Learning to play, learning to cry, learning to touch and learning to say, No.

Keepers over at KeepersKorner took a giant leap forward and in Moving from Reliving to Simply Remembering describes an incident which would normally have triggered an abreaction. An overheard conversation some time earlier made them stop and think and now, more than ever before, they are considering themselves true survivors.

Poetry

At Ria Ludy’s blog, Fantasy or Ria Ludy?, you’ll find Only If YOU Believe in Me? railing against old ideas of worthiness and validation.

At My Dissonance, Ani Star contributes Restless, the first line of which is, “This mistaken refuge…” (The poetry is in PDF format and require an Adobe reader.)

Survivor Stories

New blogger, Steve Wurzer, presents My First Post, the very first post at Steve’s Recovery blog. About it he says, “This is the beginning of my blog on my own personal story of childhood abuse and recovery. It helps me to post it, and I hope others can be helped by reading.”

In Steve’s second post, Why I am posting this blog - Reason #1, he talks about shame and childhood rage. “I feel that I’m not good enough, like there is something wrong with me that makes me unable to say or express what I really feel or want to say. What seems so easy for many others, is difficult for me, and sometimes completely impossible. This comes from the shame inside of me.”

Before I go, I would just like express my gratitude to those who share their stories, to those who speak up and to those who are willing to listen. I have felt fortunate to be able to read this months contributions and I am honoured to have been able to present them here.

Thank you. All of you.

NB: Next month’s Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is coming up quickly. Megan at Imaginif is hosting. The carnival will be posted on December 14. If you would like to submit you can use the button below.

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The situation in Sudan is ongoing and unfolding and there are developments not yet covered in the media which I can’t/won’t talk about but, obviously, it is occupying my mind. My day has been filled with hurried IM conversations and emails, and alerts on every piece of news that is published on the web. There is a lot I would like to say but, in the end, a blog is media and I just can’t find it in myself to capitalise on it.

The thing is, if I wanted lots of traffic right now all I would have to do is repeat the conversations I’ve had, disclose the information I know and add a couple of meta keywords to this post. But I’m not going to. I realise that is kind of sucky for readers. Who wants to read, “I know something you don’t know and I’m not going to tell you”? Really, to be perfectly strict I shouldn’t mention it at all. But it’s on my mind. And it raises an interesting question so I’m going to move away from the specifics of this situation altogether and throw the question to the floor.

Have you ever given any thought to handling the media?

This may seem left of field. It may seem like something that people don’t need to consider. The media is other. The news is what happens to other people. But is it? Really, all it takes is a car accident, or being in a particular place at a particular time, or being related to someone who’s friend who went to school with someone else. The media has successfully invaded all our lives. It is pervasive. And it could easily come for you next. What will you say to it?

Everyman Joe is not blessed with media consultants. Perhaps Joe has the savvy to understand how his words might be used, the context they will be placed in or taken out of, the repercussions they will have. But I don’t think he does. I don’t think he knows how to manage his public relations, and I don’t think he realises that all media is public relations. Does he understand the way his words will be squeezed through filters and fed into huge databases and mixed with other people’s words until they fit into the meta narratives the media creates, even in this post-modern world? Does he realise that his words will never go away? I don’t think he does. Or, at least, not consciously enough.

Don’t we, at a minimum, need to consider whether or not this is essential knowledge? We all have a basic idea of media ethics. If by some accident of fate someone asks you to speak, will you hold yourself to those same standards? Will you have time, then and there, to figure out how those ethics relate to you? Do you know whether or not saying something even as simple as, “The best team won on the day,” or, “He was a quiet neighbour,” is really that simple? Can you weigh up all the privacy issues, the political issues, the implications, the ramifications? Do you know what narrative you will be slotted in to? Do you know which beast you are feeding?

Don’t get me wrong: I love the media. I think that we have the media to thank for a lot of the knowledge and freedom that we have. (Not as the creator of it, necessarily, but certainly as its vehicle.) But it isn’t an unmixed blessing and it isn’t tame. If it crosses your path, will you know what to do? Because you cannot call the dog-whisperer. You’re on your own. And it’s salivating.

Today, is having a clear understanding of the way the media works a social responsibility?

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So, today sucks. I shouldn’t be sitting at this chair, and I hate my blog. In fact, right now, I am finding it as excruciating as my back. Instead of feeling like this is a place to clear out all the negative junk in my head, I have succeeded in projecting my worm-eating mentality onto it. The move to cerebralmum.com, my Christmas present to myself, hasn’t helped.

In spite of the irrelevance of things like Technorati ranking and hit counts and click throughs the dive in those numbers have left me feeling a little alone. Like nobody wants to talk to me. I realise the utter ridiculousness of this but for some reason, I seem to care right now what everybody, and anybody, thinks of me. Even people I don’t know. Even people who are imaginary.

I don’t think this is a new phenomenon for me but it isn’t something I have always made myself a victim of. I used to be entirely oblivious to it. There is one thing that has slowly worn me down though, and that is gossip. I’ve been on the receiving end often and I don’t like it. In fact, you could probably say I’m afraid of it. In fact, I am probably so afraid of it that not only does what people have said about me cut me down but what people might say about me, or even think about me, leaves me frozen.

Right now, I worry that my posts are all over the place and this blog makes no sense, that this blog isn’t interesting, or insightful, or that it has no personality. I worry that by talking about such personal things, my opinions on particular issues are undermined.

Oh, she’s that poor little victim girl.

Oh, she’s depressed and has no perspective.

Vulnerability and authority do not go hand in hand in people’s perceptions, regardless of how commonplace those vulnerabilities are, so I worry about the image of me that is presented here. I worry about how divergent it is from my own self-image. I worry about how much fuel I am giving to people who will use it to diminish me, to reduce me, to misinterpret me. And yes, I know I shouldn’t.

But I do.

The truth is, I have always been misinterpreted. (Yes, everyone has, but hey… This blog is about me.) My self-image and the things people perceive have always been widely divergent. The things that are most central to who I am are my writing and my critical thinking and my exploration of human behaviour. Those things are my identity. Those things are not very visible to the human eye. So what is it that people see? And what do they talk about behind my back?

One thing that has always been “seen”, and caused much gossip, is my sexuality. Or some fictitious version of it, anyway. I have never understood why, but even when I was young, I was considered to be the girl most likely to “lose it” first. The truth is, I didn’t lose it until 2 months before I turned 20 and and at that stage, I had only ever kissed 4 boys, mostly under pressure. The truth is, my sexuality is more like that of an ice queen. I don’t think about it, I’m usually not aware it and I have never played with it as a way of relating to the world and the people around me. I was always, and I still am to a certain extent, sexually naive. In spite of that, I am frequently perceived as a slut or a vamp or a sexual predator. And boy, is that some fodder for gossip.

I have often wondered why I am seen that way. I don’t have the answer. Part of it is probably because of the way I dressed. I wore costumes, I played dress ups. I took pleasure in the artistry of the self the same way that a painter colurs his blank canvas. Perhaps some people perceived that “art” as pornography. Perhaps my lack of inhibition, my complete lack of awareness for the social rules of dressing, sent mixed signals.

Or perhaps beneath my naivete there has always been a certain “vibe” I was unaware of because I was sexualised at an early age. Perhaps beneath my strengths there was always that Marilyn Monroe kind of vulnerability, that little girl lost which in our society is seen as a sexual cue. I have often wondered about that.

Whatever it is though, it has been the basis of much gossip about me and I do not like it. I do not like being attacked by other women. It offends me, as a feminist. And it offends my sexuality which is extremely private and shared sparingly. And I do not like being made a target of the “hunters” which, as well as giving other women more cause to bitch, has always seemed vaguely insulting. What makes a man come on to someone they have never spoken to? What attracts them? It certainly isn’t Me. To be attracted to Me, you have speak to me.

And then there are the people who have been part of my life who have cherished an abiding loathing while I continued on, blithely unsuspecting, until someone did me the courtesy (kindly or not) of informing me of it. And the dirty looks, and the doors literally slammed in my face and the great, big gossip merry-go-round of twisted facts or completely made-up facts used to influence others to respond to me negatively, to view me negatively.

Some friends have explained this away as jealousy, but I have never been comfortable with that. It seems like such a reactionary self-validation. Really, how many people need to perceive you in a certain way in order to make you question whether or not they are right and you are wrong? How many times were those perceptions thrust at me like knives before I lost my blitheness?

I want it back. I want to be however large I am, even if it is too large. I want to dress however I dress, and talk about the things I want to talk about, oblivious to the petty stereotypes of people who lack imagination. I want to revel again in the artistry of self, without feeling like an offense. I want to feel confident in my vulnerabilities. I want to be comforted again by the truth of them, instead of hiding from them and fearing them, and fearing the people who feed on them.

Perhaps the history of gossip which has surrounded me, and the betrayals of trust, and the dishonesty of those who have spoken behind my back and left me defenceless should be deleted from the equation altogether. Actually, that’s not even a perhaps. They need to be deleted. I need to escape from their clutches. But while I have said that I am arrogant time and time again, I have never been arrogant enough to comfortably say that I am better than someone else.

Why do I even think of it that way? That is not critical thinking. It is not arrogant to say that you know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. So that is one wrong thought process gone. But what else traps me there?

Injustice. Gossip is unjust. I rail against it and that leaves me arguing in circles with clouds of myself which slowly scatter from the gusts of a hollow, echoing wind. It is hard for me to let that go. To let injustice stand. I am the type who would stand silent in front of the firing squad. I really am. I am a martyr type. I would die on principle. When principles are so deeply offended, how do you let them go?

And another trap for me? The fear of hurting others. If my mere existence reduces people to maliciousness and cowardly attacks, aren’t they defensive behaviours? What are they defending themselves from? What is it about me that hurts them? I don’t want to be responsible for other people’s pain. Perhaps it is the martyr in me again, but how do I resolve my conscience with another person’s pain, regardless of how destructively they wield it?

Riddle me that.

Then perhaps I’ll find a way to no longer victimise myself with the gossipers’ mirages.

This post is a Hump Day Hmm, very appropriate for someone who hates their blog right now. This week’s subject was The Gossip Game and, strangely enough, I like my blog better now I’ve written it. If you want to take part, visit Julie Pippert and follow the instructions. There’s a new topic every Wednesday.

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I’m in a foul mood. Last week a muscle seized in my shoulder and I was walking around with my head immobile and angled like a zombie. This week, my lower back is excruciating and I can’t sit, or lie down without excruciating pain and I can’t walk upright. I feel like crying, because there is nothing else I can do.

I have had lower back pain on and off since having Caspar but this is the worst and it really worries me because of what my sister has gone through with her ruptured disc and years immobile and surgery which only returned some of her functioning. I don’t want that to happen.

On top of that, I was planning on going to see my doctor tomorrow and now I am in too much pain to go. It is a two hour trip for me and I just can’t do it. I can’t even see a doctor out here because they are either terrible or don’t bulk bill and I don’t have the money to pay for an appointment even if I get most of the fee refunded by Medicare.

It just plain sucks and I’m just plain miserable.

Right now, I even hate my blog. I hate everything. I’m sick of everything. I just want everything to go away. I already had limited resources to cope with the simplest tasks, like doing the dishes or having a shower. Now I have nothing. Just a pain in my back. I can’t even twist to wipe my ass when I go to the toilet.

Seriously? Is this exactly what I needed right now? To feel even less capable and less functional.

I hate everything. I just want to give up.

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This is what is on my mind right now.

It is an article from Reuters which I won’t write the title of, and won’t go into the details of, because more coverage will simply exacerbate the situation and the longer this stays away from the Western press, the more easily the situation will be resolved.  Let’s just say that it is very close to home.

I’m used to this.  Getting a text message or a speedy IM or a one line email and then waiting to see what unfolds.  Bombs going off, riots, hiding out with security details. My mother in the thick of things.  She doesn’t live is safe places.  She’s had to evacuate more than once.  For her, that’s fine.  It is perhaps more frustrating on the other side of the world, waiting to get a clearer picture of what is going on.

I’ve learned to be phlegmatic, as my mother is.  She is not a daredevil, or a risktaker.  She is a practical, sensible woman.  However, I still can’t help that initial reaction, wanting to know more and wanting to do something even though I can’t.

I have a little more information though nothing helpful, so I will be waiting to see how the situation unfolds. But I won’t write that now, and I think I’ll turn the comments off on this post.  If anyone wants to discuss it, please use the contact form, or my email if you have it.  There will be no fuel from me: The media will start supplying that anytime now and it’s not helpful.  I only wish the media was as sensible as my mother.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say tonight.  There is nothing else on my mind.

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Today, November 25, was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. In Australia, it is also White Ribbon Day.

The White Ribbon Campaign was started by a handful of Canadian men in 1991 on the second anniversary of the École Polytechnique Massacre in Montreal, during which 14 women were killed by a lone gunman, claiming to be “fighting feminism”. The ribbon was their pledge to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls.

It is now an international movement.

I can’t overstate how grateful I am to those men who take a stand on violence. I may offend some people by saying this, but I truly believe women’s safety in our communities is dependent on men. There is a limit to what women alone can do to effect change in public attitudes.

Violence against women will only cease when men join with women to put an end to it._{The positive roles men can play.}

It’s not that long since I wrote the poem It’s all in the pitch, bitch. I don’t know that I communicated very well what I was trying to say then but I think it is true that…

Women talk
But men hear
Men’s voices
Like dogs

At the time, I was asking men to speak up, instead of letting things passed, instead of laughing it off when they know something isn’t funny. Today, I’m saying thank you to all those men who do speak up. There are a lot of you, but not yet enough.

It is difficult for a woman to speak in a society that tells her she can’t take a joke. It is difficult for a woman to speak in a society which promulgates the idea that women frequently lie about violence. Only 8% of women subjected to physical violence speak up. And only 4% of women subjected to sexual violence speak up. These are frightening figures and they make it easy for us as a society to believe that the research telling us between 40-57% of Australian women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime cannot possibly be true. _Statistics

Sadly, it is true and we need men to speak for us to the men who do not hear us when we speak for ourselves.

I’m proud of my ability to support myself, to grow and learn and achieve. I’m proud of my ability to raise my son alone. But I am not so blinded by pride that I cannot admit how much our men are needed in this fight and I am grateful to every man I know who does not stand idly by.

I can’t help but think right now of the actions Paul de Waard and Brendan Keiler when they rushed to the assistance of a woman in distress in Melbourne’s CBD earlier this year. I cannot help but think what an awful loss to our community Brendan Keiler’s death was, and what an awful consequence for his intervention Paul de Waard is still dealing with. I do not use the word heroic often, but I cannot help but use it to describe these men.

I also use it to describe those actions which seem less dramatic, like telling a sexist co-worker to shut up, or telling your mate he’s an asshole when he feels up a woman in a bar. Every small action and, sadly, every inaction, makes a difference in the fight against violence against women.

To the men who speak up, and to the men who wore white ribbons today, you have my gratitude and respect. Without you, we can only pick up the pieces. With you, we can prevent women from ever being shattered by violence.

Thank you.

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While you guys in the US are finishing turkey leftovers and are slowly returning to your blogs, Australians have gone to their polling booths and finally - finally! - said goodbye to Prime Minister John Howard.

To be honest, after so many news polls over the last year pointing to solid victory for Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, I was still sick to my stomach thinking there remained a small possibility no change would occur.

I thought the news of the victory would unleash my tongue and I would snarl and snipe at Howard, dancing gleefully on his political grave. Hilaire Belloc pretty much summed up where I stood.

Here, richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician’s corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintances sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

[Quoted by Jeff Sparrow, the editor of Overland (the one journal I have been published in), as part of the final words from the commentariat at Crikey.]

Instead, I’m just relieved.

I can’t say I’m unhappy that the victory was so emphatic, even historic, and I can’t say I’m unhappy with the extra salt poured on the wound by the almost certain loss of the Howard’s own seat, Bennelong, which will make him only the 2nd sitting PM in Australia’s history to lose his seat in an election. I can’t say that I’m not drinking my champagne with a little bit of schadenfreude. But…

It’s over.

Perhaps it seems a little odd for a philosophical anarchist to have such an investment in the outcome of an election but as imperfect as the political system is, it is what we have. For years I did not vote on principle, in spite of Australia’s legal requirement for me to do so, but so much of the last 11 and a half years has been intolerable. Indeed, shameful.

So I welcome the change and hopefully we will see some of the social injustices perpetrated by the Howard government set to rights. I won’t say I expect the new government to live up to my standards - government is fundamentally incapable of that - but I am hopeful that the Ruddslide will give us some politics that are a little less regressive, a little more inclusive, a lot less destructive, and that exhibit at least a modicum of integrity, something which has been noticeably absent for too long.

That’s not a hard ask, considering.

And in Julia Gillard, we now have our very first female Deputy Prime Minister elect, the highest political office a woman has ever held in this country. With the exception of one doofus politician who called her “deliberately barren” and considered her unfit for her position because she was childless, her sex was a non-issue throughout the campaign. What more could a feminist want?

So…

Friends, tomorrow, the work begins…You can have a strong cup of tea if you want, even an Iced Vo-Vo on the way through. But the celebration stops there.

[Kevin Rudd’s Acceptance Speech]

Er, actually… I’m still celebrating.

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