I'm bloody angry!

I'm angry that my life has been turned upside down on the whim of some very selfish people.

I'm angry that justices I would like to seek are denied me.

I am angry that people I trusted would not, will not stand up for me.

And it's okay that I am angry, because from my anger I know that I can move forward.

I waited nearly 40 years to get angry about being raped when I was a teenager.  My silence, like the silence of so many other women who simply lift their chins and carry on with life, allowed the perpetrators to carry on their own lives, and I don't know and probably will never know if my silence cost another woman her integrity, her self respect and almost her sanity.  Because that's what it cost me.

So when I feel anger now I do not bottle it, I do not stay silent, I do not keep it to myself.  When someone violates my trust, my emotions, my heart, I will tell the world, because it is NOT okay.  

I will not live in a vacuum.  I will not allow people to walk over me.  I will not allow people to use my heart and my body for their own selfish ends.  If I am in pain, I will cry out.  If I am angry, I will retaliate in kind.  

Don't express surprise.  Express remorse.

Don't try to make me feel like the guilty party, because I refuse to.

I invite caring, happy, loving people into my world and my heart - if you are not caring, loving and happy, or if you have lied to me that you are, do not expect me to feel sorry for you.  There is no longer any space in my life for people who do not love me as much as I am learning to love myself.  

I wish I had understood that many years ago, when people judged me for mistakes I made.  We are all entitled to make mistakes - it's how we learn.  If I hadn't made those mistakes when I was young, chances are I would be making them now instead of understanding them.

So for all the judgmental people over the years who would rather shun me or verbally stab me in the back than accept me for me - this is for you.

Songs Unsung, Tales Untold

Luisa © 2013

Many years ago, in my youth, I thought I had some friends

but time would show that friendship dies but distrust and spite know no ends.

Turned out a workmate – let’s call him B – got married to one of those girls.

Years later we met at a Christmas event - from there the saga unfurls.

Perhaps she was insecure but she didn’t want me there.

She wasn’t happy to acknowledge me – she made that very clear.

Again, more time passed, another scene, a dinner with new friends – not to be…

Yes, I know those names, say hello from me!

I’ve heard nothing since, maybe I should give up trying to

make friends with people who really don’t care what I went through.

Is it right that I am judged by these suburban housewives

who have probably never put a foot wrong in their lives?

The distaste is palpable, I can feel it in the air -

I have no way to counter it – do they really think it’s fair

to hold against me the mistakes I made when I was young?

I don’t know their secrets – perhaps they have songs unsung.

Did I give up my rights so long ago?  Was I the harbinger of my own doom?

What did I do wrong, really, apart from being the wrong gender in my mother’s womb?

How come a man who sleeps around is called a stud but

a woman who does the same is labeled a slut?

I made mistakes when I was young – who doesn’t when all’s said and done?

Yet I am judged and found wanting – so many years ago but now my friends are none.

I’ve paid the price don’t you think?  Will you always be so cold?

I don’t know your secrets – perhaps you have tales untold.

 

Music and melancholy

Tonight's been  a music night, but not the joyful, happy music I thought I was going to listen to and dance to.  Melancholy took over, and my tracks have included Pink Floyd, Enigma and Tori Amos - the first two because they were favourites for my ex and I to listen to, and Tori because she has become my strength when I am down.

When something close and precious to you is lost the grieving process is pretty much the same regardless of what "it" was.  40 years ago I didn't grieve because I didn't acknowledge that loss.  Now, when I think of that day, I grieve over and over again for the loss of my youth and the impact throughout my entire adult life.

I have made very few good choices, and now I am in the second half of my century with nothing but my wonderful daughter to keep me here.  I often feel that I have no value, to myself or to anyone else, and I believe that my choices for so many years have been made by what happened to me 40 years ago.  I wanted security in my life, so I took the easy options - even though I didn't realise it at the time.  The results of two failed marriages were not planned or intentional abuse, but I still feel violated.  When you give yourself so entirely to someone it hurts like hell when they throw that away like it never mattered. 

There has to be a way ahead for me, I refuse to give in.  I have been fighting in one way or another for 40 years already, whether I knew it or not, so I have come too far to let it stop me now.  I will rebuild, I will recover, I will once again be a survivor.

Sadder, wearier, but still a survivor.

Walls

© Luisa 2013

Sitting here on my own feeling sorry for myself
Why is it my fate in life to be left upon the shelf?

I know my history plays a part – I trust way too much
I need caring, love, a hand to hold, someone’s gentle touch.

But every time I let down my walls the hurt’s not far away
And I’m on my own again, never seem to have a say.

Maybe I am destined to be on my own, an island hard to reach
With my walls intact, no bridge to cross, no footsteps on my beach.

Lessons learned the hard way, many years behind me
If there’s happiness somewhere ahead it’s something I can’t see.

I’m tired of tears, tired of pain, tired of being sad
Tired feeling used and unworthy, tired of being had.

Who decides my fate, did I ever have a choice?
Does anyone ever listen unless I raise my voice?

Sitting here on my own feeling sorry for myself
Why is it my fate in life to be left upon the shelf?

I know my history plays a part – the nightmares are still there
All I need is love, a hand to hold, someone to really care.

Not your typical femme...

Media is resounding lately with more and more stories of atrocities against women - gang rape and murder in South Africa, a woman burned alive allegedly as a sorceress in Papua New Guines, a cleric in Saudi Arabia who murdered his five year old daughter because he suspected she was not a virgin..... WHAT??????

V-Day, February 14th, gets closer, and the tide is turning.  At last count events are happening in 200 countries and territories around the globe.... free thinking ordinary people are saying ENOUGH.  Rape is NOT okay.  Violence against women and girls is NOT okay.  There is no excuse - it doesn't matter what she has done, what her past sexual history is like, what she wears, what she says.  RAPE IS NOT OKAY!

I don't bow and scrape to any man, I don't shut my mouth and keep quiet, I don't condone your abuse of me or my sisters.  I don't fit the mould of a "typical woman" - so where am I on the continuum?  Do you think it's okay to abuse me / violate me / beat me / rape me?  I don't think so. 



Not your typical femme
© Luisa 2013

Sorry I don’t live up to your stereotype

Of what a woman should be

I’ve got stretch marks and baker’s arms

Crooked teeth, a big nose

Sorry old chum… that’s just me.

I’m not into high heels – I like all my bones

Tight jeans just ride up my crutch

You can stick your Brazilian

But I do pluck my brows

‘Cos looking like Oscar just sucks.

I fire up quite quick, I can get rather loud

There’s nothing quite like a debate

But I don’t take too kindly

To being told what to do

And don’t ever call me your “mate”.

I like my house tidy, I don’t like a mess

But if I make one at least it is mine

I’m nobody’s maid

I have my own job

And I say what I do with my time.

I go to the gym, I dance, I sing loud

I’m annoying, I’m pithy, never twee

And if that gets your back up

Don’t make it my fault

Like it or lump it… that’s me.

So if you’re looking for your typical femme

You’d better go find her elsewhere

‘Cos this woman’s not

From a “typical” mould

And guess what my friend – I DON’T CARE!

I am Woman, hear me roar!

This week my husband of 9 years told me our relationship was over.  The anger I have been feeling is not good anger, and I have had a very hard time remembering the difference between constructive anger and destructive anger.  

When you are faced with trauma - whether it is assault, death of a loved one, injury, relationship breakdown, whatever - your natural instincts take over.  Your body and your mind go into survival mode, and you become reactive rather than considering.  You may become numb, believing that if you shut out the pain you won't feel it, or you may become aggressive, over-reacting to every situation in order to convince yourself that you have done all you could to save yourself.  Flight or fight.

Relationship breakdown may not normally be as traumatic as rape or physical assault, but when you already have PTSD issues it's all a level playing field. This week my mind and my body have chosen to fight.  At times I have sufficient control to reason with myself, and understand that my fight is destructive.  But other times the reactive emotion takes over and I find myself shouting, swearing, arguing and blaming, none of which is doing me any good whatsoever.  I know that when I come down from my fight "high", but when the words are running I seem unable to stop them.

I have flashbacks to my past trauma and I feel violated yet again. I remind myself that I would never, ever let anyone hurt me again, in any way - and yet it has happened, emotionally this time rather than physically, but I still had no control over it.  So I fight.

I must make a conscious effort during the next stage to avoid situations which I know may lead to fight, but I must also make a second conscious effort not to retreat to flight.  I have to find the good middle ground.  I am angry, I should be angry, it's okay that I am angry.  But it must not be destructive anger.  It won't resolve the situation, there is no easy resolution and whatever answers my husband and I eventually agree on will take time, so for my own survival I have to aim for the middle ground.

It doesn't mean I have to forgive - I won't, I don't need to, I don't have to.  But it does mean that I am taking care of myself, and ultimately that will make me stronger, and I know I will be the winner on the other side of any resolution.

This week I am looking to my future.  I will use my anger constructively, for my own benefit.   

I am Woman, hear me roar.  

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Recently social media has reverberated with comment about a graphic from the Enliven Project, accusing the Project of presenting "false", "misleading" or simply "wrong" information.  Far from it.  The Project is merely attempting to show visually information that is available readily and publicly about a problem that is real and documented.  As one commentator noted, "It's not that the infographic is 'wrong'. Rather it's how the data was interpreted...blame it on statistics for allowing for variance in data interpretation."  Absolutely.

What this matter highlights is that the standard for gathering information for this kind of study is less than perfect.  

In 2007 in the US a report entitled "Drug-facilitated, Incapacitated, and Forcible Rape: A National Study" documented that "...about 20 million out of 112 million women (18.0%) in the U.S. have ever been raped during their lifetime. This includes an estimated 18 million women who have been forcibly raped, nearly 3 million women who have experienced drug-facilitated rape, and 3 million women who have experienced incapacitated rape. During the past year alone, over 1 million women in the U.S. have been raped..."

One million?  In a so-called advanced society such as US? I find that absolutely atrocious!

It is estimated that a rapist may have six victims, on average.  In the US that's 167,000 rapists for one million women.  If 167,000 people with guns each shot 6 people in a one year long killing spree would there be a hue and cry?  Damned right there would be.  So why do we let these perpetrators get away with this crime?  What makes rape "different"?

The answer, in part, is to be found in comments such as those made by a California judge, who said "if someone doesn't want sexual intercourse, the body 'will not permit that to happen.' "   Really?

Or words spoken by an Indian religious "leader" after the death of a young woman raped and horrendously violated: "She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop. ... This could have saved her dignity and life."  Her dignity?

Or the extremely offensive comments from an Australian Muslim leader, comparing women to uncovered meat and suggesting women were the weapons of Satan "used to control men".  Meat?

When people in these kind of influential positions within their respective communities have such twisted and archaic beliefs, those beliefs will filter down and find a willing ear somewhere.

We have such a long way to go to counter these beliefs, so we should completely support organisations such as V-Day and Destroy the Joint and Collective Shout which are striving to turn them around.  

Are you rising on 14 February?