So much history!

I published my last blog in June, just after I had been released from PA Hospital. Today, Monday 6 October 2014, is 4 months since I left BIRU, went home to Inala, and later moved to my current home at Woody Point. Just after getting home I remember that I had paid the entry for the International Women's Liberation Summit, before I went into hospital. I figured it was time for me to speak.

I contacted Kat, one of the organisers, and met her at SouthBank. She read my writing and agreed that it was okay for me to talk. This would be a first - ever - talk to any group about all my history.  I practiced what I had written many nights, floundering about whether or not I could remember it - the language - when the whole history was inside my brain.

My stroke has aggravated me quite a lot since I left PA Hospital and have had speech pathology both in PA and Redcliffe. I felt pretty silly, forgetting words - any words.  I could remember the history but I couldn't remember the words. My talk was written in every word I needed, but even reading it I would fall over a word, forget how to say it, read it differently. 

Coming so very close to the IWLS weekend, I read the speech to Redcliffe speech pathologists. My first time was pretty good, reminded me of how to action the words. My second time I pulled away in tears. My third time I read the speech to some CBRT people who reacted okay with me after that. I felt pretty strong, able to stand in front of the IWLS and not lose myself.

It's 40 years since I was raped, 20 years since I remembered everything and couldn't not remember it, 13 years since I've had rape crisis meetings, 3 years since a good Australian therapist, and only one year since I was CT'd with my brain aneurysm and subsequently fired (after 7 years as employee!). I have had so many rages, so many times, and no-one was really able to or wished to help me. Even the Aus therapist was only able to deal with me at government assistance.

Today I got to the third day of the IWLS event and I spoke. I am so very grateful to two helpers who held me while I was in tears, and I have had such a lot of wonderful comments from IWLS attendees. I cried early in my speech, telling a large group of people about my history - 40, 20, 13, 3, 1 years - and I loved the excellent people who listened to me. 

That's something I would never have done, but perhaps, this time, my stroke has sent me forward. Perhaps, this time, my stroke is also due to my gratuitous future.

Don't feel unliked, don't feel aggrieved, don't feel sad from your own history. Right now, please, just feel good about people who will offer to help you. 

       

Living life

What do you do when the proverbial rug keeps getting pulled out from under you, no matter how hard you try to stay standing?

In 2012 I applied to attend the first TEDxSouthBankWomen. I wasn’t at all sure I would be accepted, but I knew I had to try. So much kept happening in my life, the rug had been pulled so many times, that I needed some motivation, some forward vision. My application was accepted, and I was on a very brief high.

Before the event something happened which sent me into a huge downward spin. In India a young woman named Jyoti Singh was raped and sexually abused by five men. That event triggered some horrific memories of my own, PTSD I had never dealt with. I got to TEDxSBW and loved every minute of the day, every speaker, but at the after-function I couldn’t hold it in any more. While talking to the franchisee, Laura, I became a blubbering mess. Laura sat me down with her mum, Mary, and I bawled on the shoulder of this kind and caring woman for a long time.

The event and evening was a catalyst for me, something I had desperately needed to get myself back on track. Meeting Laura and her family, Emma and Margo, Juanita and others too numerous to remember let alone mention gave me the push I needed.  I sat down and wrote my website www.itsokaytobeangry.com and the accompanying blog http://itsokaytobeangry.blogspot.com.au/, catharsis for my bottom-of-the-pit emotions. I invite you to read these to understand just where I was at and why.

If I thought fate had finished with me then I was very much mistaken. In January 2013 my husband of 9 years told me our marriage was over and he was moving back to NZ. By mid-January I was in counselling for both my PTSD and my marriage break up, but my forward movement had started and wasn’t going to be stopped by something like that! I am living proof that mature age, no money and constant stress don’t have to stop your life.

I organized a flash mob for Eve Ensler’s V-Day event One Billion Rising, and on 14 February 2013 thirty of us danced 3 times in Queen Street Mall to raise awareness for the V-Day campaign against violence against women. 

Through my involvement with that I joined forces with a wonderful group putting on the Vagina Monologues for the same benefit. The organisation we were supporting was DV Connect, which supports women, children and animals caught up in domestic violence situations. We raised $5,000.

In June I participated in the Ipswich CASV Walk a Mile in her Shoes . I entered into fun runs for International Women’s Day, Mother’s Day Classic, Rotary Run for Autism, the Ipswich Hospital 2013 fundraiser and Zonta Says No, the latter which was also supporting DV Connect. I attended a memorial service at Logan CASV for Joan Ryther, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in Logan.

 

I participated in the United Nations “Say No – Unite: Orange the World in 16 Days” Activism Against Gender Violence, commencing on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 25 November,  and ending on International Human Rights Day, 10 December. This is an annual event and I will continue to participate and encourage others to do so.

 As well as the OBR flash mob, I joined a flash mob doing Thriller for the 2013 Zombie Walk, raising funds for the Brain Foundation.  I had a personal reason to be involved in that – on 3 July 2013 I was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, yet another thing to add to my stress and turmoil. I started another blog about my aneurysm journey, http://aneurysmaphorisms.blogspot.com.au/ because I had so much trouble getting any information about aneurysms from local sources.

My activities have not been confined to sexual assault and brain injury awareness. It’s as if my breakdown at the end of 2012 has spurred me to a greater awareness and action for many other areas where I see injustice, and I have become a vocal and active social justice campaigner. I have marched for the Reef, marched for Climate Change, and Marched in March for everything I believe is wrong with the state of our nation at this point in time. I tweet, I blog (my third blog, one that I had before the other two but which has since been resurrected as my general soap box, is not a regular blog but often just when I feel frustrated - http://aneurysmaphorisms.blogspot.com.au/ ) and I drive people nuts on Facebook.  In addition, I volunteer at La Boite theatre and Eyeline Arts magazine (and at Brisbane Festival 2013) and I joined the Brisbane Feminist Collective.

In February this year, when I was unfortunately unable to make the Brisbane One Billion Rising event happen, I helped to raise awareness at a stand in Northern Rivers. 

The rug is still getting pulled – in September last year I lost my job, after 7 years with the same employer – but in the last few months I have made some wonderful and very supportive friends and I cope so much better now with unexpected stresses.

I am working my way through the process of publication of my debut novel, begun entering writing competitions and started a website for my writing – www.reibus.com.au .  Well, some part of life has to be purely selfish doesn’t it?

My next challenge is fast approaching. 272 days after the diagnosis of my brain aneurysm I had a call to say my surgery is scheduled for the day after Easter. That sent me into yet another tail spin, but after a long chat with Margo Gibbs, who is one of the most level headed women I know, I am feeling a lot more comfortable with the situation and I know I’ll be fine.  Perhaps my only regret is a selfish one. I have been in swimming training most of this year, 40-60 lengths of my local pool 2-3 times a week, with the intention of entering an ocean swim event in Vanuatu later this year – something to check off my bucket list. I suspect that will now be put off until next year. C’est la vie.

As I have aged, and despite how much I respect so many women in public life, I never would have imagined my mentor would end up being someone less than half my age who took a chance on me in 2012. I truly believe I would not have achieved any of this without the support and encouragement and friendship of Laura Stokes and so many other wonderful people I have met through TEDxSBW. Truly beautiful people. Thank you.

Are you a supporter?

Around the world on 14 February, women and men of all nationalities came together to celebrate V-Day, Eve Ensler’s vision of One Billion Rising to raise awareness of sexual violence against women and children.  I watched many heartwarming videos from all around the globe, but one moment in one video, for me, stood out above all else.

OBR participants at Bryon Bay

In Bryon Bay, several hundred men, women and children gathered on the beach to dance to “Break the Chain”, the signature theme written last year for V-Day. The organiser asked those present to raise their hand if they had been, or knew someone who had been, raped or sexually abused. The response was stunning. As the camera panned the crowd there were very few people who did not have a hand up. Even a chap watching from up the hill raised his hand.

While this response might have been predicted from an event for which sexual assault awareness was the aim, it was still confronting to see so many hands up. Whether this means that sexual assault is becoming less of a taboo subject, or whether events like V-Day are empowering survivors to come forward, the result is the same – awareness of a huge problem that spans the globe.

Until very recently, many rape survivors would not have had the courage to raise their hands in public like that. Many will have blocked the trauma from their accessible memory, and simply don’t want to remember.  But for those of us who do remember, who can’t block it any more, being heard, being believed, is an essential part of healing and moving forward.

It is common for survivors of rape and sexual assault to go into a stage of denial after the trauma. They may become agitated when the subject is raised, they may lose their self-esteem, their moods may swing alarmingly, and ultimately they stabilize themselves by denying the event ever happened. Some manage to completely blank out the trauma, and have no recall. Until another traumatic event, often not connected, stirs the memory.

The three stages of RTS are very well described in an article by Healing Our Past Experiences (HOPE), a British website developed by a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Rape Trauma Syndrome or rape-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may not be apparent for years after the event, and often not until the survivor reaches the third stage of RTS, the Resolution Stage. 

HOPE is a survivor site, but a more detailed article entitled “The psychological adjustment of the rape victim” can be found on the South Eastern Center Against Sexual Assault (SECASA) of Victoria website. 

Most survivors of sexual assault and rape which happened years ago will never see justice. Their lives may have been affected in ways that they could never verbalise, because they can’t talk of something that might have happened if their trauma didn’t. Who can ever predict what our alternative future might have been? So we find different ways to feel that we are getting a form of justice. We become vocal advocates for events like One Billion Rising, we put ourselves out there on stage in plays like the

Article about 2013 Brisbane performance of TVM

Vagina Monologues, we spread awareness, we call out sexism which degrades women and girls when we hear it, we become feminists. And all while we are dealing with our own RTS and on-going healing. 

RTS can affect a survivor for their entire life. Some may trigger at certain sights, sounds, smells. Some may become increasingly jealous of their personal space. Some may choose to live as much as possible of their lives in a world without men. No-one can say if they are right or wrong in their approach to managing their own RTS. There is no one uniform way of dealing with it, no magic “formula” to get over such a major trauma. But time and again, the one thing that shines through all the stories, for me at least, is that success comes from being with people who are aware and who care. Support networks, whether family, friends or simply acquaintances who will listen and empathise, are essential for recovery. Too many people don’t have a support network, and they’re the ones who fall through the cracks – both of government assistance and society in general.

There are many wonderful organisations in every major city and most regional towns providing support services, but sometimes it needs encouragement from someone in your own network to help you take that first step.

Are you prepared to be that “someone”?

Bernardi's inevitable social inequality

“What is needed is a reversal back to sanity and reason.”

These are words spoken by Cory Bernardi, extreme right-wing conservative senator with the Liberal National Party of Australia. How can words that could make so much sense have such a dire meaning when spoken by someone like Bernardi?

The problems with sanity and reason in our society today, Mr Bernardi, are with people like you.

Where is the sanity and reason in saying that you do not support abortion for a woman who has been brutally raped?

Where is the sanity and reason in perpetuating a culture that fosters and promotes rape?

What sanity and reason could there possibly be in the sentencing of a rapist to only one year in jail and then releasing him after only 9 months because he has suffered “hardness beyond imagine [sic]”? What reason is there for allowing the VICTIM to continue to suffer?

Where is the sanity and reason in saying that children “come into families as gifts, not commodities” when a child may be the result of rape and unwanted? Whose gift is that, Mr Bernadi?

According to Bernardi, "Competent social policy should be drafted by those who understand the primacy of natural law and who are able to see patterns in society." Who, exactly, will formulate this “competent social policy” that he refers to? Just what “natural law” is it that he is referring to, that turns a blind eye to rape of minors by alleged “men of god” and tries to cover it up, with help from so-called religious right wing political conservatives? Perhaps, before he advocates for the “primacy of natural law” he should better understand the term. There are a lot of excellent references.   

Natural law is not, as Bernardi seems to believe, founded on religion and marriage. There is no religion in natural law. It’s based on nature. There is no marriage in natural law. It existed since the start of the earth, millions of years before man. It appears Bernardi is confused between “natural law” and “positive law”, especially the Roman law of the Christian Roman Empire, insofar as he can equate it to his own ultra-conservative views of the world.

Rape is not natural. Rape is not reasonable. Rape is not sane. To suggest that any woman impregnated by a rapist who wants an abortion is then “pro-death” is a revolting accusation, and one that could only be made by someone who has never been held down and violated to the most private core of their being, an accusation that can only come from someone who has never cried and screamed and begged for their freedom and for the shame and shock and revulsion and violence to stop. Bernardi demonstrates, by his terminology and language and complete lack of insight, that he has absolutely no understanding, no empathy and no regard for a victim.

I might have some sympathy for your position, My Bernadi, if you showed the least bit of human feeling for the people you label so harshly. I might understand your position, Mr Bernardi, if I had ever seen you stand up and fight for the rights of girls and women to walk freely without fear of being molested; if you had ever spoken out in support of women who all too frequently endure beatings from husbands, fathers, brothers and men they’ve never even met; if you had ever supported harsher penalties for convicted rapists; if you had ever shown the least bit if disdain for Cardinal Pell and those within the church who perpetrated horrific crimes against children in their care.

Bernardi says "I believe that by stripping God and religious principles from our culture (and our politics) we have become a nation which does not know which port it is sailing to." Bernardi and his ilk have shown us just where we would be if we allowed their religious beliefs to pervade our culture and politics. We should be very, very grateful that we have a reasonably secular parliament. Bernardi’s religion allows no empathy. The support that exists now for all who have suffered this ultimate of traumas is, almost invariably, provided by other women. Bernardi’s goal to place women back into a controlled patriarchal environment would ultimately lead to the removal of funding for and access to that support. We have fought very hard to move away from such rigid religious and patriarchal structures in public life.  If we ever move back towards it, then not even Bernardi’s god will be able to help us.

Until Bernardi and his supporters prove that they will stand up for those of us who are victims and vulnerable without abrogating our rights in the process, then he and they will not dictate the terms by which we can reclaim some iota of control over our bodies.