Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Please excuse this outburst, unless it's aimed at you


I just read someone’s comment on a blog, and now I can’t sleep. “David” commented on The Needle blog (which is excellent) that he didn’t want to read blogs by abuse survivors unless they were “intelligent” and “articulate”.


I guess it’s his loss. I don’t know why I bother to get angry.

Well actually, I do. It’s the presumption that abuse survivors should act in a way that “the public” can understand, accept and feel comfortable with that irks me.

But, the world and the people in it being what it is and what they are, I have decided to help improve communication with people such as “David” by putting together a list of helpful advice for child sexual abuse survivors.

The list is brought to you by the sarcastic, bitter and twisted part of my brain. To the many wonderful people who are not “David” or a similar person, I appologise in advance and profusely.


HELPFUL QUESTIONS AND ADVICE FOR CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVORS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF COMMUNICATION WITH NON-SURVIVORS

1) Be intelligent and articulate if you allow yourself to share your experiences with the general public

2) Don’t be angry. It’s upsetting.

3) Don’t cry. It’s disconcerting.

4) Don’t blame any of the following on the fact that you were forced to spend your childhood getting raped; eating disorders, mental instability, drug or substance abuse, criminal records, health problems, self harm, suicide or general fuckups. Grow up and take responsibility for your life!

5) Time’s a great healer. Heal. Now.

6) Be positive! There are starving children in Africa who are worse off than you.

7) Why didn’t you tell someone at the time?

8) If you did tell someone at the time and they ignored you, why didn’t you tell someone else?


9) Why didn’t you repeat 7) and 8) ad infinitum until satisfaction was achieved, even if you were ashamed, confused and scared shitless?

 10) In fact, why didn’t you, at the time of being an abused child, behave a bit more like an adult? Hmmm?

11) Tell the police.

12) If you already told the police, and they wouldn’t listen to you, remember that they are very busy people.

13) Tell you MP.

14) If you already told your MP etc. etc. refer to point 12)

15) Remember that people who rape children have beards and are generally unattractive (refer to mainstream media newspapers for evidence). Don’t accuse anyone who is charming, powerful or has connections with charity. Apart from Savile, who was a one off.

16) Don’t question the efficacy of the  legal justice system or the good intentions of those who govern, even if many of them side with or are proven to be paedophiles. What do you want, a revolution?

17) Remember that everything’s different now, and this shit doesn’t happen anymore.


2 comments:

  1. If you have to go thru all of this to talk to people, dont even waste your time. You cant educate people who arent willing to listen unconditionally. You would have better luck teaching a child with ADD quantum physics. Anyone who cant even remotely have compassion for someone's sufferings has yet to hit their own life humbling moments. Anyone demanding better communication skills from people that have suffered severe physical, emotional, psychological, or mental trauma qualifies as nothing more than a village idiot. Im sorry you have to deal with this crap from society's willfully ignorant enablers.

    Much love to you. Stay strong and brave
    Thank you for exposing your stories.
    Infoaddict :-)

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  2. I think the comments were directed at me.
    I am not offended as some people get really caught up on things like grammer and punctuation and thats ok.
    He really has no way of knowing that i left school at 13(just after abuse) and was pretty much illiterate until I stopped self medicating with heroin and took an interest in reading.
    I wouldn't even be posting on blogs if the police had done there job properly, short story is after being abused because the police new i had been abused but i could not speak about it(to scared and just didn't have the language to describe what had happend), thing is because of this the police whilst charging and imprisoning him, the police went on to tell my carers(ss) and parent that i had not been abused and that i was having a homosexual relationship with him(i was 13 he was 40) and that the police were not intending to take any further action.
    You really couldn't make this stuff up.
    this is just a brief outline of my story, if you would like to hear more please e-mail me
    thanks
    Andy



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