And for those who fight when I can’t.
When you will not hear my pain
You cannot share my joy
When you will not acknowledge my hate
You cannot feel my love
When you will not allow my weakness
You cannot be supported by my strength
When you will not accept my difference
You cannot appreciate my beauty
When you will not hear me
That doesn’t mean I have nothing to say
When you do not value me
That does not mean I am not valuable
When you will not see me
That does not mean I don’t exist
Copyright Me, sometime prior to 2001, with lines added today.
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
16 Days Of Activism Against Gender Violence
The 16 Days Of Activism Against Gender Violence run from November 25th to December 10th. I always mean to start writing something about this on November 25, but as always, this year I run late. I run late because this time of the year, this close to the `Holiday Season', I struggle with the reality of my life and what my family denied me and stole from me, because I was a child, a girl, with a disability.I have written a number of posts on this blog about my family and how they treated me as a child, a teenager, a young woman. I have given presentations to various groups in real life on what I went through. I have worked on commitees and contributed to resources about domestic violence and people with disabilities. I live independently and have as much control over my day to day life as anyone in my situation can. I escaped. I got out. But I still struggle with the loneliness, isolation, and betrayal as a result of a family and a community that saw me as less valuable and less worthy of love and support because of who and what I was. The effects of child abuse and domestic violence are long lasting, and affect who we become and what we contribute to the world. Some of us lose the fight to survive, and many of us live on the edge every day, fearing that one day it will become too much and we will also no longer be able to hold on. I struggle daily to keep going in a world that reinforces and perpetuates the violence and neglect that I suffered at the hands of my family.
It should never have been like this. But it is. And some days it is just too hard. Many of us will never have the life we deserve. It is long past time for the world to stand up and say, No, no more. All women should be safe and valued, no matter our race, ability, orientation, class or age.
Please click through to The Carnival Of 16 Days Of Activism Against Gender Violence for more posts on gender violence
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Violence And Women Of Colour
I just received the following comments about an important issue for America women of colour. As I said to Fallon, I'm a white Australian (not that most people who come to my blog would know - I've not mentioned my race or where I live till now), so I'm not really someone who is qualified to comment as she requested, but I do support the efforts of all women from all backgrounds to raise awareness of violence and invisibility, so I'm reposting her comments in this post, and urge others to go to Fallon's blog and support her in this.
any woman is unacceptable. Sadly, the more disenfranchised by society a women is (by race, ability, class, income, sexual identity, age, etc) the more likely they are to be abused and mistreated.
This must stop.
We all have a responsibility to do what we can.
I'm usually more eloquent about this topic, but I spent an hour and a half on the phone today with my best friend. She is being seriously verbally and emotionally abused by her partner, who has also been physically violent - not to her, yet, but has broken furniture and belongings. She has started to realise that she needs to get out, but she is in a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language too well. I know she'll get out, but it's so hard watching someone you love go through this. I'm exhausted. There is so much I should mention here, the violence and abuse Aboriginal women in Australia are subjected to, the continuing silence and denial of the reality of violence against women with disabilities, the way things are so much harder for women who are marginalised on more than on count..., etc, etc. And I will talk about these things and link to those who know more about certain issues than I do, just not tonight.
Until I get back to this, please have a look at the links on the sidebar, there are many others writing about these issues. Read and absorb what they have to say. And don't stay silent on violence and abuse.
any woman is unacceptable. Sadly, the more disenfranchised by society a women is (by race, ability, class, income, sexual identity, age, etc) the more likely they are to be abused and mistreated.
This must stop.
We all have a responsibility to do what we can.
I'm usually more eloquent about this topic, but I spent an hour and a half on the phone today with my best friend. She is being seriously verbally and emotionally abused by her partner, who has also been physically violent - not to her, yet, but has broken furniture and belongings. She has started to realise that she needs to get out, but she is in a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language too well. I know she'll get out, but it's so hard watching someone you love go through this. I'm exhausted. There is so much I should mention here, the violence and abuse Aboriginal women in Australia are subjected to, the continuing silence and denial of the reality of violence against women with disabilities, the way things are so much harder for women who are marginalised on more than on count..., etc, etc. And I will talk about these things and link to those who know more about certain issues than I do, just not tonight.
Until I get back to this, please have a look at the links on the sidebar, there are many others writing about these issues. Read and absorb what they have to say. And don't stay silent on violence and abuse.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Better late than never... International Women's Day 2007
I just read this excellent post by Andrea, and realised that I had forgotten to write anything about International Women's Day a week or so ago. Then I remembered that I had written something in the last two or three weeks that would fit the bill. Over the last few years that I have been `out' as a disability activist and as a feminist, I've come across many people, online and off, who have been unable to understand that disability issues, and the lives and concerns of women with disabilities are relevant to feminist thought and action. The fact that women with disabilities are actually women is something that a lot of people have trouble grasping. And so, after a lifetime of having my gender denied, of being sexless and not quite human to too many people, I finally exploded a few weeks ago, and this is the result.
Feminism is meaningless if it doesn’t include *all* women and the issues that affect them. Just because some people don’t want to admit the existence and relevance of intersectionality in many women’s lives, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
I can give many examples of the way sexism and ablism intersect in my own life and the lives of women with disabilities I know personally, the following are a very small sample.
The woman with Cerebral Palsy whose husband was violently abusing her and whose speech impediment meant that on the night he attempted to kill her that she wouldn’t have gotten prompt police assistance if the person on the other end hadn’t already spoken to her on other calls and realised that she wasn’t drunk, stoned or kids making prank calls. Her husband abused her physically, sexually, financially, and emotionally for years and when she tried to tell people about it, their response was, “but you’ve got a disability, he wouldn’t treat you like that”. And the custody case for their kids, where he tried to paint her as an unfit mother because of her disability. I have heard dozens of those stories, just change the disability of the woman involved and the partnership status.
A women with Muscular Dystrophy who was told by doctors that she couldn’t have children and when she and her husband tried to adopt was they couldn’t, because she’s in a wheelchair. Never mind that women in wheelchairs and with other disabilities all over the world have been successfully parenting children for years. They did eventually get pregnant, and she had to put up with personal questions and remarks from complete strangers about how she got pregnant and whether she *should* be pregnant. Again, not an uncommon story in the lives of women with disabilities
Me, at 13, whose ‘mother’ had some bee in her bonnet about the fact that I didn’t get my period on the dot of turning 13, and assumed that because I was born prematurely and had a developmental disability that this would affect the timing of my period, had me up on the local doctor’s exam table with this doctor’s hand between my legs giving me an internal examination. Neither of them told me what he was going to do, or why (no medical reason for this by the way - wildly inappropriate and unprofessional on his part - was told by female medics and women’s health nurses many years later that this was totally unwarranted). Invasive and unecessary gender related medical abuse. Not at all uncommon for women with disabilities, and my experience is one of the mild ones. There are women who’ve been sterilised, who’ve had forced abortions, had their children taken from them, all without their knowledge or informed consent and all because of society’s prejudice about women with disabilities.
And do I even need to mention women and mental health issues and the genderbased violence, neglect and dismissal of women as a result?? No, thankfully, for the sake of my overworked fingers, I don't have to, right now. The Goldfish has an excellent post up about women, sexism and mental illness that fits the bill nicely.
From the Women With Disabilities Australia website - the peak body for women with disabilities in Australia (and we have much better health and welfare policies here in Australia than the US does, based on what I hear and read from US women with disabilities):
“Women with disabilities are, from the government record, one of the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups in Australia. Analysis of data available from a variety of sources, gives us the following information about women with disabilities in Australia (Frohmader 2002).
* Women with disabilities are less likely than their male counterparts to receive a senior secondary and/or tertiary education. Only 16% of all women with disabilities are likely to have any secondary education compared to 28% of men with disabilities.
* Women with disabilities earn less than their male counterparts. 51% of women with a disability earn less than $200 per week compared to 36% of men with a disability.
* Only 16% of women with a disability earn over $400 per week, compared to 33% of men with a disability.
* Women with disabilities are less likely to be in paid work than other women, men with disabilities or the population as a whole. In fact, men with disabilities are twice as likely to be in paid employment as women with disabilities.
* The percentage of women with disabilities being assisted by Government funded open employment services continue to decline. Open employment and disability employment services assist twice as many men with disabilities as women with disabilities.
* Women with disabilities’ participation rates in the labour market are lower than men with disabilities’ participation rates across all disability levels and types.
* Women with disabilities are substantially over-represented in public housing, comprising over 40% of all persons in Australia aged 15-64 in this form of tenure. Women with disabilities are less likely to own their own houses than their male counterparts.
Low levels of education relegate women with disabilities to lower eschelons of society, limit their access to information and their ability to interpret it, limit their life choices and limit their ability to achieve financial and living independence.”
“Overseas studies have found that women with disabilities, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or class are assaulted, raped and abused at a rate of at least two times greater than non-disabled women (Sobsey, 1988, 1994; Cusitar,1994; Stimpson and Best,1991; DAWN 1988).
Sobsey (1988) suggests that 83% of women with disabilities will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. A qualitative study by Nosek, found approximately one third of women with physical disability had experienced sexual abuse at some stage in their life (Nosek, 1996). Similarly, in Doucette’s study of Canadian women with disabilities, 40% experienced abuse and 12% had been raped (Nosek, 1996).
There are relatively few studies into the incidence of physical violence and rates vary widely. A study for the Canadian Ministry of Community and Social Services in Toronto found 33% of women with disabilities were assaulted mostly by their husbands compared with 22% of non-disabled women (Nosek, 1996). Feuestein estimates that upward of 85% of women with disabilities are victims of domestic violence in comparison with 25% to 50 % of the general population (cited in Waxman, 1991).”
Full article and cites at http://www.wwda.org.au/odds.htm
And if any of this sounds angry, yeah, I’m angry, I’m fucking furious. I’m furious that I constantly have to fight to be seen as more than just a ‘disability’, a ‘pity or charity case’. I’m sick of my very existence being put at risk, at my sanity being jepordised by having to live in a world where I am told - literally as well as figuratively, that other people, other women tell me that they think my life is meaningless, is a life that they would rather be dead than have to live, (and I have been accosted by people, women and men, in person to be told this), is something that they don’t want to concern themselves with.
I am a woman. I am a feminist. And my concerns do not fragment the movement. The inability of ablebodied women to acknowledge that my issues are also feminism’s issues fragments the movement.
My concerns belong in feminism, as do the concerns of all other women with disabilities. It is to your benefit, not just ours, that this is the case. Just because you’re not disabled now doesn’t mean that won’t change in the future, and certain concrete results of sexism - chronic illnesses resulting from poverty and poor health care, domestic violence - cause many disabilities in women.
Feminism is meaningless if it doesn’t include *all* women and the issues that affect them. Just because some people don’t want to admit the existence and relevance of intersectionality in many women’s lives, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
I can give many examples of the way sexism and ablism intersect in my own life and the lives of women with disabilities I know personally, the following are a very small sample.
The woman with Cerebral Palsy whose husband was violently abusing her and whose speech impediment meant that on the night he attempted to kill her that she wouldn’t have gotten prompt police assistance if the person on the other end hadn’t already spoken to her on other calls and realised that she wasn’t drunk, stoned or kids making prank calls. Her husband abused her physically, sexually, financially, and emotionally for years and when she tried to tell people about it, their response was, “but you’ve got a disability, he wouldn’t treat you like that”. And the custody case for their kids, where he tried to paint her as an unfit mother because of her disability. I have heard dozens of those stories, just change the disability of the woman involved and the partnership status.
A women with Muscular Dystrophy who was told by doctors that she couldn’t have children and when she and her husband tried to adopt was they couldn’t, because she’s in a wheelchair. Never mind that women in wheelchairs and with other disabilities all over the world have been successfully parenting children for years. They did eventually get pregnant, and she had to put up with personal questions and remarks from complete strangers about how she got pregnant and whether she *should* be pregnant. Again, not an uncommon story in the lives of women with disabilities
Me, at 13, whose ‘mother’ had some bee in her bonnet about the fact that I didn’t get my period on the dot of turning 13, and assumed that because I was born prematurely and had a developmental disability that this would affect the timing of my period, had me up on the local doctor’s exam table with this doctor’s hand between my legs giving me an internal examination. Neither of them told me what he was going to do, or why (no medical reason for this by the way - wildly inappropriate and unprofessional on his part - was told by female medics and women’s health nurses many years later that this was totally unwarranted). Invasive and unecessary gender related medical abuse. Not at all uncommon for women with disabilities, and my experience is one of the mild ones. There are women who’ve been sterilised, who’ve had forced abortions, had their children taken from them, all without their knowledge or informed consent and all because of society’s prejudice about women with disabilities.
And do I even need to mention women and mental health issues and the genderbased violence, neglect and dismissal of women as a result?? No, thankfully, for the sake of my overworked fingers, I don't have to, right now. The Goldfish has an excellent post up about women, sexism and mental illness that fits the bill nicely.
From the Women With Disabilities Australia website - the peak body for women with disabilities in Australia (and we have much better health and welfare policies here in Australia than the US does, based on what I hear and read from US women with disabilities):
“Women with disabilities are, from the government record, one of the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups in Australia. Analysis of data available from a variety of sources, gives us the following information about women with disabilities in Australia (Frohmader 2002).
* Women with disabilities are less likely than their male counterparts to receive a senior secondary and/or tertiary education. Only 16% of all women with disabilities are likely to have any secondary education compared to 28% of men with disabilities.
* Women with disabilities earn less than their male counterparts. 51% of women with a disability earn less than $200 per week compared to 36% of men with a disability.
* Only 16% of women with a disability earn over $400 per week, compared to 33% of men with a disability.
* Women with disabilities are less likely to be in paid work than other women, men with disabilities or the population as a whole. In fact, men with disabilities are twice as likely to be in paid employment as women with disabilities.
* The percentage of women with disabilities being assisted by Government funded open employment services continue to decline. Open employment and disability employment services assist twice as many men with disabilities as women with disabilities.
* Women with disabilities’ participation rates in the labour market are lower than men with disabilities’ participation rates across all disability levels and types.
* Women with disabilities are substantially over-represented in public housing, comprising over 40% of all persons in Australia aged 15-64 in this form of tenure. Women with disabilities are less likely to own their own houses than their male counterparts.
Low levels of education relegate women with disabilities to lower eschelons of society, limit their access to information and their ability to interpret it, limit their life choices and limit their ability to achieve financial and living independence.”
“Overseas studies have found that women with disabilities, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or class are assaulted, raped and abused at a rate of at least two times greater than non-disabled women (Sobsey, 1988, 1994; Cusitar,1994; Stimpson and Best,1991; DAWN 1988).
Sobsey (1988) suggests that 83% of women with disabilities will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. A qualitative study by Nosek, found approximately one third of women with physical disability had experienced sexual abuse at some stage in their life (Nosek, 1996). Similarly, in Doucette’s study of Canadian women with disabilities, 40% experienced abuse and 12% had been raped (Nosek, 1996).
There are relatively few studies into the incidence of physical violence and rates vary widely. A study for the Canadian Ministry of Community and Social Services in Toronto found 33% of women with disabilities were assaulted mostly by their husbands compared with 22% of non-disabled women (Nosek, 1996). Feuestein estimates that upward of 85% of women with disabilities are victims of domestic violence in comparison with 25% to 50 % of the general population (cited in Waxman, 1991).”
Full article and cites at http://www.wwda.org.au/odds.htm
And if any of this sounds angry, yeah, I’m angry, I’m fucking furious. I’m furious that I constantly have to fight to be seen as more than just a ‘disability’, a ‘pity or charity case’. I’m sick of my very existence being put at risk, at my sanity being jepordised by having to live in a world where I am told - literally as well as figuratively, that other people, other women tell me that they think my life is meaningless, is a life that they would rather be dead than have to live, (and I have been accosted by people, women and men, in person to be told this), is something that they don’t want to concern themselves with.
I am a woman. I am a feminist. And my concerns do not fragment the movement. The inability of ablebodied women to acknowledge that my issues are also feminism’s issues fragments the movement.
My concerns belong in feminism, as do the concerns of all other women with disabilities. It is to your benefit, not just ours, that this is the case. Just because you’re not disabled now doesn’t mean that won’t change in the future, and certain concrete results of sexism - chronic illnesses resulting from poverty and poor health care, domestic violence - cause many disabilities in women.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
This just keeps happening. Again and again.
Couple carry out campaign of sadistic abuse
"A sadistic couple who 'tortured' their disabled toddler during a horrific campaign of sustained abuse just weeks after social services returned the youngster to them were caged for a total of 22 years. [...] When the child, who cannot be named, was taken in by foster carers they referred to her as a "sunny child" who was physically capable despite her disability.
Following the abuse she was left physically incapable of walking."
Just something else to echo in my brain when I have to listen to some dipshit tell me that "No one would ever hurt a child with a disability", or, "But their (your) parents must love them (you)". Denial like that enables horrors like this to happen. It's ironic, or just fucking infuriating, when you think about it. Able-bodied people are automatically assumed as being capable of good parenting, and the saccarhine crap that gets spouted about how `amazing' they are if they do have a child with a disability is endless, even if there is evidence to the contrary. But have a disability and have a child and you're automatically assumed to be incompetent in a parenting role, often with no evidence of incompetence. I've heard story upon story from other women with disabilities I know who've been questioned and attacked for having children, simply because people won't get past their prejudices about what people with disabilities should or shouldn't do.
It is some very small comfort to notice that nobody who is commenting on the story has so far trotted out the usual justification of abuse that many stories about the abuse and/or murder of people with disabilities get. The one where the supposed difficulty of having or taking care of a child with a disability justifies the murder or abuse. That was one I heard personally applied to my own story, too many times told, "But you don't understand, it's so difficult to have a child with a disability."
Meanwhile, the difficulty of actually being subjected to abuse is something that they will not acknowledge. Believe me, there is nothing in the world that is harder than living with the knowledge that your own parents abused you, that they didn't see you as human or worth protecting. The little girl in that story will go through hell dealing with the afteraffects of what was done to her. Living with cerebral palsy is a walk in the park, in comparison.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
"In A Fit Of Rage"
An excellent post at Random Reminiscing Ramblings: Dear ableist
I haven't written about Ashley yet, aside from the occasional comment on other posts. I don't know if I can. Ashley's parents remind me so much of my own parents, and that's not a good thing.
I haven't written about Ashley yet, aside from the occasional comment on other posts. I don't know if I can. Ashley's parents remind me so much of my own parents, and that's not a good thing.
Monday, January 8, 2007
So much for `care'
Someone remind me what century we are living in. And so much for living in a supposedly civilised, first world country. This kind of thing keeps happening again and again.
New abuse allegations
January 03, 2007 12:00am
NEW allegations have emerged of physical, verbal and emotional abuse in a government disability home.
Police are investigating a staff member at a Hobart respite home providing short-term care for people with extreme physical and intellectual disabilities.
Staff allege the man dragged disabled clients by their hair, hit them, told them to "f--- off" and called them names including "f---ing idiot".
They say he dragged a boy across concrete, skinning his knees badly.
Staff say terrified clients would cringe when he shouted obscenities or threatened them.
He is accused of humiliating clients and taunting them.
Last year nine government disability group homes were closed because of serious systemic problems.
In the homes, maggots infested a young brain-injured man's feeding tube and a quadriplegic man's broken leg was not noticed for several days.
Disabled men on a trip were photographed in tourist stocks with a "lunatic" sign.
At the time, then Health Minister David Llewellyn apologised to families and said the standard of care had not been good enough.
Staff at the Hobart respite home at the centre of the latest allegations made their complaints about four months ago and have become frustrated at what they say is the Government's lack of action.
The Health and Human Services Department hired a private investigator to examine the allegations and received his report last month.
Staff believe they have been victimised for blowing the whistle and it is understood they have complained about losing shifts and receiving no support from management.
They have all taken stress leave.
The supervisor has been switched to another government facility.
Disability Services manager Graeme Foale confirmed the allegations had been referred to the police.
"Staff and clients will be advised when the investigation has been completed," he said.
Opposition health spokesman Brett Whiteley said the matter raised questions of process in the Health Department.
He said everyone had the right to be considered blameless in any matter, until an investigation proved otherwise.
"However, the appropriate process must be in place to deal with people expeditiously in cases such as this," he said.
"And importantly the process must not give rise to further concerns.
"It appears concerns have been raised with the process and timing in this matter.
"The minister, Ms Giddings, has the opportunity to calm the concerns of staff close to the matter and I urge her to do that."
Friday, December 15, 2006
A Touchy Subject
[Originally written on 10 December 2005]
A few things I've read on the internet today have reminded me of something I've been meaning to write about, but avoiding. Avoiding for years. I think it is time to write about it, but I don't know if I've got the time to go into it tonight
Touch. The lack of. Touch hunger, tactile deprivation, touch starvation.
As with anything, I write about this from my own personal experience, but I know it affects others (and of course, not just people with disabilities), too. It's another one of those subjects, the dance-around-it subjects, the if-we-ignore-it-it-will-go-away subjects.
I don't suffer from my disability - I never use that word in that context, that's something that others assume of me, but I do suffer from some things, I suffer from people's attitudes, I have suffered greatly as a result of my family's abuse of me, and their tacit approval of others who abused and assaulted me. I also suffer from touch starvation.
Living with a disability is to live a life full of contradictions, and this is one of the biggies. On one hand, you are touched a lot - especially as a child - docters and nurses poking and prodding and pulling at you, physiotherapists torturing... ahem, sorry, giving you physiotherapy, family and carers helping you walk, climb stairs, get up out of chairs, up off the ground, etc.
On the other hand - unless you are lucky enough to have family and friends who can think past the prejudices and assumption, and some people with disabilities are that lucky - you learn from an early age that you are essentially untouchable. People shy away from you, literally - I've had people physically recoil from me. We are seen as repulsive, objects of pity, asexual, less than human. Unclean. Some of us can go for months, years (years is probably an exaggeration - even in my case, but oh, it feels that long, sometimes) without affectionate touch from another human being.
OK. This appears to be all I can write at the moment. I have difficulty with this, not because I'm embarrassed about it, but because it is one of the most painful realities in my life.
Here is one of my favourite quotes relating to this whole topic, although I wasn't referring specifically to sexual touch writing the above, it is on the agenda, though. The article the quote comes from is excellent.
"Sexuality is often the source of our deepest oppression; it is also often the source of our deepest pain. It’s easier for us to talk about - and formulate strategies for changing - discrimination in employment, education, and housing than to talk about our exclusion from sexuality and reproduction." - Anne Finger http://www.newint.org/issue233/fruit.htm
I will write more on this, soon, eventually.
[And I did, surprisingly, on 5 February 2006]
My Skin - A Touchy Subject - Part 2
My skin has shrunk into itself
after almost 32 years of not being touched
except to remind me of how untouchable it is
and to remind me of its gaping flaws and wounds that people will fall into
if they come near me
The pain of this leaves me two seconds away from dying
every day
Years of physiotherapy - being pushedpulledstretched
into painful awareness that my body is worthless as it is
So it must be tortured into normal
It didn’t work
I never became normal (Thank God!)
but I tuned out my body
so I didn’t feel the pain
Only time my parents touched me was for exercises that hurt so much I wanted to cry and scream - but I was too scared to.
Huge adults leaning over me shoving my legs into shapes they weren’t designed for, folding up my legs and leaning on them with their full 6 foot basketball/rugby/sports playing weight
Yelling at me when I refused to do the exercises - lazy, lazy, lazy...
Cold eyes staring at me when I came home crying - pushed down steps, tripped up, punched
Sharp words slicing, blaming, condemning
All I wanted was a hug, to feel safe, wanted
Comforted (I can’t say, think or write this word without crying)
“You can’t be in pain, I can’t feel anything”, said my father, smile locked into place with mocking laughter
“Growing pains”, said the doctor - I didn’t know what muscle spasms were until I was well into my twenties
No one told me that they were a normal - but painful - part of spastic CP - not the doctors, physios.
Did they even know?
Psoriasis came when I was sixteen
My skin growing extra layers of hardness
Layers that my heart had not yet developed
Leaving me still hopeful that I would be touched
with gentleness, affection
and for no other reason than to give joy
and comfort
and pleasure
Occasional glimpses of what could be, what I could have
Relationships over before they really began
With men who I couldn’t have stayed with, even if they hadn’t left first
I am glad they left
But I learned why I had a body
And that if I could enjoy sex (and how I did!) then my body was fine, practically perfect
Unfortunately, this is one of the few things I like best when there is another person
I love sex
But I can’t be casual about it
And now only want it with someone I love
and who loves me (Woody Allen notwithstanding!)
My tears dry up before they fall
pulled back inside myself
by a heart that has become a desert
deserted
Words are the poorest substitute for a touch given with awareness
but they are all I have
And, no, a massage wouldn’t help, getting a pet wouldn’t help (I am poor, I can barely afford to feed myself)
The emptiness is too overwhelming
I want someone to look after me for once
And how do I talk about the fact that sometimes, if you have a disability, you don’t get looked after (there is this odd belief that all people with disabilities have someone to look after them - perpetuated by people who don’t know anyone with a disability) - no one ever believes me
It’s true, even if you don’t believe me
Sometimes you get nothing, not even the basics
Cruelty and neglect are equal opportunity - they do not discriminate
Nobody wants to hear any of this
I don’t want to hear any of this
But it is my life
Right now
Today
But please
Not tomorrow
This isn’t a poem, this is the only way I can write about this.
A few things I've read on the internet today have reminded me of something I've been meaning to write about, but avoiding. Avoiding for years. I think it is time to write about it, but I don't know if I've got the time to go into it tonight
Touch. The lack of. Touch hunger, tactile deprivation, touch starvation.
As with anything, I write about this from my own personal experience, but I know it affects others (and of course, not just people with disabilities), too. It's another one of those subjects, the dance-around-it subjects, the if-we-ignore-it-it-will-go-away subjects.
I don't suffer from my disability - I never use that word in that context, that's something that others assume of me, but I do suffer from some things, I suffer from people's attitudes, I have suffered greatly as a result of my family's abuse of me, and their tacit approval of others who abused and assaulted me. I also suffer from touch starvation.
Living with a disability is to live a life full of contradictions, and this is one of the biggies. On one hand, you are touched a lot - especially as a child - docters and nurses poking and prodding and pulling at you, physiotherapists torturing... ahem, sorry, giving you physiotherapy, family and carers helping you walk, climb stairs, get up out of chairs, up off the ground, etc.
On the other hand - unless you are lucky enough to have family and friends who can think past the prejudices and assumption, and some people with disabilities are that lucky - you learn from an early age that you are essentially untouchable. People shy away from you, literally - I've had people physically recoil from me. We are seen as repulsive, objects of pity, asexual, less than human. Unclean. Some of us can go for months, years (years is probably an exaggeration - even in my case, but oh, it feels that long, sometimes) without affectionate touch from another human being.
OK. This appears to be all I can write at the moment. I have difficulty with this, not because I'm embarrassed about it, but because it is one of the most painful realities in my life.
Here is one of my favourite quotes relating to this whole topic, although I wasn't referring specifically to sexual touch writing the above, it is on the agenda, though. The article the quote comes from is excellent.
"Sexuality is often the source of our deepest oppression; it is also often the source of our deepest pain. It’s easier for us to talk about - and formulate strategies for changing - discrimination in employment, education, and housing than to talk about our exclusion from sexuality and reproduction." - Anne Finger http://www.newint.org/issue233/fruit.htm
I will write more on this, soon, eventually.
[And I did, surprisingly, on 5 February 2006]
My Skin - A Touchy Subject - Part 2
My skin has shrunk into itself
after almost 32 years of not being touched
except to remind me of how untouchable it is
and to remind me of its gaping flaws and wounds that people will fall into
if they come near me
The pain of this leaves me two seconds away from dying
every day
Years of physiotherapy - being pushedpulledstretched
into painful awareness that my body is worthless as it is
So it must be tortured into normal
It didn’t work
I never became normal (Thank God!)
but I tuned out my body
so I didn’t feel the pain
Only time my parents touched me was for exercises that hurt so much I wanted to cry and scream - but I was too scared to.
Huge adults leaning over me shoving my legs into shapes they weren’t designed for, folding up my legs and leaning on them with their full 6 foot basketball/rugby/sports playing weight
Yelling at me when I refused to do the exercises - lazy, lazy, lazy...
Cold eyes staring at me when I came home crying - pushed down steps, tripped up, punched
Sharp words slicing, blaming, condemning
All I wanted was a hug, to feel safe, wanted
Comforted (I can’t say, think or write this word without crying)
“You can’t be in pain, I can’t feel anything”, said my father, smile locked into place with mocking laughter
“Growing pains”, said the doctor - I didn’t know what muscle spasms were until I was well into my twenties
No one told me that they were a normal - but painful - part of spastic CP - not the doctors, physios.
Did they even know?
Psoriasis came when I was sixteen
My skin growing extra layers of hardness
Layers that my heart had not yet developed
Leaving me still hopeful that I would be touched
with gentleness, affection
and for no other reason than to give joy
and comfort
and pleasure
Occasional glimpses of what could be, what I could have
Relationships over before they really began
With men who I couldn’t have stayed with, even if they hadn’t left first
I am glad they left
But I learned why I had a body
And that if I could enjoy sex (and how I did!) then my body was fine, practically perfect
Unfortunately, this is one of the few things I like best when there is another person
I love sex
But I can’t be casual about it
And now only want it with someone I love
and who loves me (Woody Allen notwithstanding!)
My tears dry up before they fall
pulled back inside myself
by a heart that has become a desert
deserted
Words are the poorest substitute for a touch given with awareness
but they are all I have
And, no, a massage wouldn’t help, getting a pet wouldn’t help (I am poor, I can barely afford to feed myself)
The emptiness is too overwhelming
I want someone to look after me for once
And how do I talk about the fact that sometimes, if you have a disability, you don’t get looked after (there is this odd belief that all people with disabilities have someone to look after them - perpetuated by people who don’t know anyone with a disability) - no one ever believes me
It’s true, even if you don’t believe me
Sometimes you get nothing, not even the basics
Cruelty and neglect are equal opportunity - they do not discriminate
Nobody wants to hear any of this
I don’t want to hear any of this
But it is my life
Right now
Today
But please
Not tomorrow
This isn’t a poem, this is the only way I can write about this.
Monday, December 11, 2006
UN International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women - White Ribbon Day
[Originally put together on 25 November 2005]
"White Ribbon Day was created in 1991 on the second anniversary of one man's massacre of 14 women in Montreal, by a handful of Canadian men who began the White Ribbon campaign to urge men to speak out against violence against women.
Did you know... Worldwide, 1 in 3 women experience some form of violence.
In Australia - 57% of women have been subjected to violence during their lives.
- Domestic violence contributes to more ill-health and premature death than any other single cause for women aged 15-44.
Internationally - Women are the highest proportion of the adult civilian population killed in war, and targeted for abuse.
- Women and children make up the majority of refugees and internally displaced people forced to flee their homes due to armed conflict.
- Rape is used as a weapon of war and a method of intimidation by military and other conflict groups.
http://www.amnesty.org.au/16days
Wearing a white ribbon is a personal pledge to not commit, condone nor remain silent about violence against women and children."
[The above was taken from publicity for an event for this year's Day - there aren't any cites for the stats on the publicity and I'm still trying to load up the Amnesty International Australia page to check]
The following is a speech I made at a public event held on last year's Day.
VIOLENCE AND WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES
Talk for International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – 25 November 2004
`Whether we speak or not,
The machine will crush us to bits--
and we will also be afraid
Your silence
will not
protect you'
- Audre Lourde
A 13 year old girl is repeatedly threatened by her classmates. "After school we are going to get you behind the bike sheds and you're dead, we're going to kill you." As she walks through the halls at school, boys run past her and hit her on the shoulders and back, hard. These same boys push her down high flights of steps. And it's not just the boys, the girls too have their own form of assault. They use words, silence, subtle innuendo. The teachers do nothing. She lives in a constant state of fear, not knowing when the next blow will fall, where the next insult will come from. At home there is no reprieve. She is still not safe. She tells her mother what happens at school. Her mother tells her "They pick on you because you are obnoxious." She has nightmares, several times a week she wakes up screaming, she is trapped, and no one is there to help her or protect her. There is no escape.
This is a true story. But not one hundred percent true, I've left out one thing. The girl in the story has cerebral palsy. She can walk, but with difficulty, and she often trips and falls. She cannot run away from her attackers. She is at their mercy, and they don't have much of that.
When I wrote this talk, the hardest part was not deciding what to talk about, but deciding what to leave out. I have so many stories like this one, the details are all different. But they are all true and I lived though them, barely.
I grew up in a family that verbally and emotionally abused me because they couldn't cope with my disability. I was constantly criticized and insulted. My parents bullied and intimidated me, yelling at me when I fell over or was unable to keep up with them. They refused to help me when I needed it, and didn't even give me the basic love and care that all human beings need and should have. As far as they were concerned I was defective, broken, something to be ashamed of. And I believed them. I had no choice. There was no one around to tell me any differently.
I have suffered from severe clinical depression since the age of seven and first thought of suicide at the age of 12. The pain of living with what had been done to me and the loneliness and isolation was so unbearable that 8 years ago I ended up in hospital twice in 6 months after overdosing on pills. After the first suicide attempt I went to my parents place for the weekend. My depression meant that I hadn't been eating properly for months and had lost a dangerous amount of weight and was weak and shaky, I was also suffering from severe insomnia. The first night at my parents I was unable to get to sleep until 4 am. I was woken up at 8 am, and was given a list of household chores to do, including vacuuming the whole house. Apparently, according to them, I was depressed because I didn't have enough to do. My family have always refused to see or admit that there is anything wrong with the way that they treated me. The abuse continued until I was 27 years old, when I finally cut off all contact with them. I have suffered from nightmares several times a week for twenty years. The week after I spoke to my mother for the last time, the nightmares stopped.
Violence against women with disabilities is a taboo subject, most people don't want to know that we are mistreated and abused. I can't count the amount of times people have said to me, "But your family wouldn't treat you like that, no one would abuse a child with a disability, your parents must love you." It has been very hard to argue with those responses. I didn't, and still don't, want to acknowledge that I was treated the way that I was. I want to believe that I have a family that loves me, that sees me as a valuable person and someone worth protecting. But I don't. I've only just realized in the last few weeks - that if you love someone, you don't deliberately mistreat them, and you don't stand by and let others treat them badly.
We live in a world where people with disabilities are seen as objects. Objects of pity, objects of fear. You don't have to treat an object with respect, you can do whatever you like to it and no one will stop you. One of the most difficult things to cope with as a person with a disability is the fact that many non-disabled people only see the disability when they look at you. As a result you unwittingly become public property. It is very common when you have a disability to be accosted in the street by complete strangers who demand to know "what is wrong with you", and expect you to drop whatever you are doing to give them an answer. I've been asked - with no warning at all - such questions as "So, what have you done to yourself then?", "How long have you been confined to that" - indicating my scooter, and "What's wrong with you, you don't look sick". I've had a number of people come up to me over the years and tell me "Oh, I think you are so brave, if I was like you I would kill myself". There are many stereotypes about women with disabilities. Stereotypes that paint us as weak, dependent, asexual, incompetent, unattractive, and drains on the economy. We are none of these things. Neither are we tragic heroines overcoming our disabilities, or particularly brave or inspirational. We are simply human beings, living our lives, as flawed and imperfect and as real as anyone else. Unfortunately many people still mistake the stereotypes for actual facts and this leaves us vulnerable to violence, neglect and abuse.
People often say to me that they don't know how to behave around people with disabilities, they don't know what to or how to act. This is often used as an excuse or reason for our mistreatment. There is no excuse. Any form of violence directed towards women with disabilities is unacceptable. We should not have to live in fear.
There is very little research on violence and women with disabilities. The research that has been done exposes a terrifying reality. Women with disabilities are more than four times as likely to be assaulted as other women. We are significantly more likely to experience emotional and sexual abuse than able-bodied women, with the abuse lasting for longer periods of time. As many as 83% of women with developmental disabilities have been sexually abused. At least 85% of women with disabilities have experienced domestic violence.
For the last 18 months I have been organizing monthly forums for women with disabilities. We have speakers on a wide variety of topics that are relevant to our lives. The forums are a place where we can get together and share information and experiences, meet others who have gone through the same things. Too many of us have been victims of abuse, subjected to violence at the hands of our families, our partners, our caregivers and strangers. In September our group received funding to run a self defence course specifically for women with disabilities. Every one of the women attending the course had been subjected to some form of violence or abuse, at least once in their lives, either at home or out in the community. The self defence techniques we learned have meant that we all feel more able to defend ourselves if we are attacked. It is essential that women with disabilities have the chance to learn how to protect themselves and I hope to get funding to run this course at least once a year.
Speaking up about such a controversial subject as this one is not easy, but it is the only way to stop the violence and start making changes in the way women with disabilities are treated. It is agonizing to be up here and tell you the things I have today, but I can't, and I won't, keep silent about them. I don't want anyone else to go through the hell I went through, the hell I know too many other women with disabilities have been through. It never goes away. Even when you have control over your life and are no longer in danger, the scars remain, the memories never entirely leave you. Apparently adversity and suffering develop character, or so people keep telling me. Trust me, nobody needs this much character.
There are three things that I'd like to say to anyone who recognized themselves in what I've been talking about, any woman with a disability who has experienced any kind of violence or abuse:
It is never your fault, you do NOT deserve to be treated like this.
Don't keep silent about what is happening, tell someone you trust. If they don't believe you, keep trying until you find someone who does.
You are not alone, there are people out there who do care, who will help you. They may be hard to find, but keep going until you do.
And one last thing to everyone here today, the most important thing. Please remember, we are not only our disabilities. We are more than statistics. We are your daughters, your sisters, your mothers, your wives, your friends and coworkers. We are women.
©November 2004
"White Ribbon Day was created in 1991 on the second anniversary of one man's massacre of 14 women in Montreal, by a handful of Canadian men who began the White Ribbon campaign to urge men to speak out against violence against women.
Did you know... Worldwide, 1 in 3 women experience some form of violence.
In Australia - 57% of women have been subjected to violence during their lives.
- Domestic violence contributes to more ill-health and premature death than any other single cause for women aged 15-44.
Internationally - Women are the highest proportion of the adult civilian population killed in war, and targeted for abuse.
- Women and children make up the majority of refugees and internally displaced people forced to flee their homes due to armed conflict.
- Rape is used as a weapon of war and a method of intimidation by military and other conflict groups.
http://www.amnesty.org.au/16days
Wearing a white ribbon is a personal pledge to not commit, condone nor remain silent about violence against women and children."
[The above was taken from publicity for an event for this year's Day - there aren't any cites for the stats on the publicity and I'm still trying to load up the Amnesty International Australia page to check]
The following is a speech I made at a public event held on last year's Day.
VIOLENCE AND WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES
Talk for International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – 25 November 2004
`Whether we speak or not,
The machine will crush us to bits--
and we will also be afraid
Your silence
will not
protect you'
- Audre Lourde
A 13 year old girl is repeatedly threatened by her classmates. "After school we are going to get you behind the bike sheds and you're dead, we're going to kill you." As she walks through the halls at school, boys run past her and hit her on the shoulders and back, hard. These same boys push her down high flights of steps. And it's not just the boys, the girls too have their own form of assault. They use words, silence, subtle innuendo. The teachers do nothing. She lives in a constant state of fear, not knowing when the next blow will fall, where the next insult will come from. At home there is no reprieve. She is still not safe. She tells her mother what happens at school. Her mother tells her "They pick on you because you are obnoxious." She has nightmares, several times a week she wakes up screaming, she is trapped, and no one is there to help her or protect her. There is no escape.
This is a true story. But not one hundred percent true, I've left out one thing. The girl in the story has cerebral palsy. She can walk, but with difficulty, and she often trips and falls. She cannot run away from her attackers. She is at their mercy, and they don't have much of that.
When I wrote this talk, the hardest part was not deciding what to talk about, but deciding what to leave out. I have so many stories like this one, the details are all different. But they are all true and I lived though them, barely.
I grew up in a family that verbally and emotionally abused me because they couldn't cope with my disability. I was constantly criticized and insulted. My parents bullied and intimidated me, yelling at me when I fell over or was unable to keep up with them. They refused to help me when I needed it, and didn't even give me the basic love and care that all human beings need and should have. As far as they were concerned I was defective, broken, something to be ashamed of. And I believed them. I had no choice. There was no one around to tell me any differently.
I have suffered from severe clinical depression since the age of seven and first thought of suicide at the age of 12. The pain of living with what had been done to me and the loneliness and isolation was so unbearable that 8 years ago I ended up in hospital twice in 6 months after overdosing on pills. After the first suicide attempt I went to my parents place for the weekend. My depression meant that I hadn't been eating properly for months and had lost a dangerous amount of weight and was weak and shaky, I was also suffering from severe insomnia. The first night at my parents I was unable to get to sleep until 4 am. I was woken up at 8 am, and was given a list of household chores to do, including vacuuming the whole house. Apparently, according to them, I was depressed because I didn't have enough to do. My family have always refused to see or admit that there is anything wrong with the way that they treated me. The abuse continued until I was 27 years old, when I finally cut off all contact with them. I have suffered from nightmares several times a week for twenty years. The week after I spoke to my mother for the last time, the nightmares stopped.
Violence against women with disabilities is a taboo subject, most people don't want to know that we are mistreated and abused. I can't count the amount of times people have said to me, "But your family wouldn't treat you like that, no one would abuse a child with a disability, your parents must love you." It has been very hard to argue with those responses. I didn't, and still don't, want to acknowledge that I was treated the way that I was. I want to believe that I have a family that loves me, that sees me as a valuable person and someone worth protecting. But I don't. I've only just realized in the last few weeks - that if you love someone, you don't deliberately mistreat them, and you don't stand by and let others treat them badly.
We live in a world where people with disabilities are seen as objects. Objects of pity, objects of fear. You don't have to treat an object with respect, you can do whatever you like to it and no one will stop you. One of the most difficult things to cope with as a person with a disability is the fact that many non-disabled people only see the disability when they look at you. As a result you unwittingly become public property. It is very common when you have a disability to be accosted in the street by complete strangers who demand to know "what is wrong with you", and expect you to drop whatever you are doing to give them an answer. I've been asked - with no warning at all - such questions as "So, what have you done to yourself then?", "How long have you been confined to that" - indicating my scooter, and "What's wrong with you, you don't look sick". I've had a number of people come up to me over the years and tell me "Oh, I think you are so brave, if I was like you I would kill myself". There are many stereotypes about women with disabilities. Stereotypes that paint us as weak, dependent, asexual, incompetent, unattractive, and drains on the economy. We are none of these things. Neither are we tragic heroines overcoming our disabilities, or particularly brave or inspirational. We are simply human beings, living our lives, as flawed and imperfect and as real as anyone else. Unfortunately many people still mistake the stereotypes for actual facts and this leaves us vulnerable to violence, neglect and abuse.
People often say to me that they don't know how to behave around people with disabilities, they don't know what to or how to act. This is often used as an excuse or reason for our mistreatment. There is no excuse. Any form of violence directed towards women with disabilities is unacceptable. We should not have to live in fear.
There is very little research on violence and women with disabilities. The research that has been done exposes a terrifying reality. Women with disabilities are more than four times as likely to be assaulted as other women. We are significantly more likely to experience emotional and sexual abuse than able-bodied women, with the abuse lasting for longer periods of time. As many as 83% of women with developmental disabilities have been sexually abused. At least 85% of women with disabilities have experienced domestic violence.
For the last 18 months I have been organizing monthly forums for women with disabilities. We have speakers on a wide variety of topics that are relevant to our lives. The forums are a place where we can get together and share information and experiences, meet others who have gone through the same things. Too many of us have been victims of abuse, subjected to violence at the hands of our families, our partners, our caregivers and strangers. In September our group received funding to run a self defence course specifically for women with disabilities. Every one of the women attending the course had been subjected to some form of violence or abuse, at least once in their lives, either at home or out in the community. The self defence techniques we learned have meant that we all feel more able to defend ourselves if we are attacked. It is essential that women with disabilities have the chance to learn how to protect themselves and I hope to get funding to run this course at least once a year.
Speaking up about such a controversial subject as this one is not easy, but it is the only way to stop the violence and start making changes in the way women with disabilities are treated. It is agonizing to be up here and tell you the things I have today, but I can't, and I won't, keep silent about them. I don't want anyone else to go through the hell I went through, the hell I know too many other women with disabilities have been through. It never goes away. Even when you have control over your life and are no longer in danger, the scars remain, the memories never entirely leave you. Apparently adversity and suffering develop character, or so people keep telling me. Trust me, nobody needs this much character.
There are three things that I'd like to say to anyone who recognized themselves in what I've been talking about, any woman with a disability who has experienced any kind of violence or abuse:
It is never your fault, you do NOT deserve to be treated like this.
Don't keep silent about what is happening, tell someone you trust. If they don't believe you, keep trying until you find someone who does.
You are not alone, there are people out there who do care, who will help you. They may be hard to find, but keep going until you do.
And one last thing to everyone here today, the most important thing. Please remember, we are not only our disabilities. We are more than statistics. We are your daughters, your sisters, your mothers, your wives, your friends and coworkers. We are women.
©November 2004
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Silences
[Originally written on 24 July 2005]
I’m struggling at the moment with a few difficulties, all of which can be placed under the umbrella of not feeling able to speak out about really painful and unbearable realities that I’m faced with, and have been for most of my life. These issues are really important and I know there are so many other people faced with them who need to know that it’s not just them. I have wanted for a long time to do something to make sure that others don’t suffer in silence the pain that I went through.
It’s hard, though. I worry about not being believed, about being subjected to even more abuse from others who don’t want me to speak of what I know. It silences me - take this post for example, so fucking wishy-washy, dancing around the truth, or even definite statements.
[...]
I’ve started this post so late, so that I know I won’t have time to really write anything of substance before I have to get some sleep. Great self sabotage!!! So I will list the things I want to write about, and get back to them later.
My family couldn’t handle my disability, or any way of being that was different to their own. (Sexist, homophobic, and racist too. Real charmers.)
As a result, they neglected and abused me emotionally and physically.
When you are disabled, people don’t need to physically hit or attack you to abuse you - all they need to do is refuse to give you the necessary help and support. Ie. I have cerebral palsy, my balance is shit, walking up and down stairs and steps is fucking scary especially as I’m terrified of heights. My family refused to help me down stairs and steps (even ones without hand rails) when we were in public. Once they took pictures of me crawling backwards down a flight of steps, at age 13, in a skirt, on a very windy day, at a crowded tourist attractions. I was forced to resort to crawling because they refused to help me, they stood at the bottom, took pictures and laughed.
This is just one example from 20 years of consistant abuse, ignorance and denial of my needs - not just my needs as someone with a disability, but my needs as a human being. I cut off contact with them a few years back, and my life has improved by leaps and bounds. I had nightmares 3 or 4 times a week from age 7 to 27. The week after I told my mother that their treatment of me was unacceptable and I no longer wanted contact with them, my nightmares STOPPED, and I only have them once every couple of months.
I had to learn how to socialise with people as an adult. I had no idea that having conversations with people involved ‘back-and-forth’. I only knew how to bombard people with words as my family had done to me.
I have to live with the knowledge that, for all intents and purposes, I have no family. It is not safe, physically or emotionally for me to be around any of them.
This hurts.
To quote from one of my favourite tv shows “Sometimes my life sucks beyond the telling of it”
The CP is not the worst thing that has happened to me, not even close. Disability is a neutral thing, it is the prejudices of the rest of the world that make life hard.
I am SO FUCKING ANGRY at what has been done to me, at what has been done to others like me. There is of course more to my life and my story than what I have written here, and this is not me at my most coherent.
For many years my goal has been to write about these things, bring them out in the open - force the world to see what is being done to too many people with disabilities (note - these things do not happen to all pwd’s - I know many who have loving, supportive families. This is how I know that these other things that happened to me and many others are wrong.)
Sometimes it is hard to fight.
I just want to have a family that loves me. (Treacherous voices in my head tell me I am being whiny and self-absorbed. I know I am not, and I know there is a problem with that attitude of thinking that anyone who speaks of their pain and suffering from *their* perspective instead of hiding it neatly and tidily away is damned as whiny, self centred and many other ‘bad’ things.)
The pain does not get any easier.
The loss cuts deeper by the day, I cannot get used to this.
I’m struggling at the moment with a few difficulties, all of which can be placed under the umbrella of not feeling able to speak out about really painful and unbearable realities that I’m faced with, and have been for most of my life. These issues are really important and I know there are so many other people faced with them who need to know that it’s not just them. I have wanted for a long time to do something to make sure that others don’t suffer in silence the pain that I went through.
It’s hard, though. I worry about not being believed, about being subjected to even more abuse from others who don’t want me to speak of what I know. It silences me - take this post for example, so fucking wishy-washy, dancing around the truth, or even definite statements.
[...]
I’ve started this post so late, so that I know I won’t have time to really write anything of substance before I have to get some sleep. Great self sabotage!!! So I will list the things I want to write about, and get back to them later.
My family couldn’t handle my disability, or any way of being that was different to their own. (Sexist, homophobic, and racist too. Real charmers.)
As a result, they neglected and abused me emotionally and physically.
When you are disabled, people don’t need to physically hit or attack you to abuse you - all they need to do is refuse to give you the necessary help and support. Ie. I have cerebral palsy, my balance is shit, walking up and down stairs and steps is fucking scary especially as I’m terrified of heights. My family refused to help me down stairs and steps (even ones without hand rails) when we were in public. Once they took pictures of me crawling backwards down a flight of steps, at age 13, in a skirt, on a very windy day, at a crowded tourist attractions. I was forced to resort to crawling because they refused to help me, they stood at the bottom, took pictures and laughed.
This is just one example from 20 years of consistant abuse, ignorance and denial of my needs - not just my needs as someone with a disability, but my needs as a human being. I cut off contact with them a few years back, and my life has improved by leaps and bounds. I had nightmares 3 or 4 times a week from age 7 to 27. The week after I told my mother that their treatment of me was unacceptable and I no longer wanted contact with them, my nightmares STOPPED, and I only have them once every couple of months.
I had to learn how to socialise with people as an adult. I had no idea that having conversations with people involved ‘back-and-forth’. I only knew how to bombard people with words as my family had done to me.
I have to live with the knowledge that, for all intents and purposes, I have no family. It is not safe, physically or emotionally for me to be around any of them.
This hurts.
To quote from one of my favourite tv shows “Sometimes my life sucks beyond the telling of it”
The CP is not the worst thing that has happened to me, not even close. Disability is a neutral thing, it is the prejudices of the rest of the world that make life hard.
I am SO FUCKING ANGRY at what has been done to me, at what has been done to others like me. There is of course more to my life and my story than what I have written here, and this is not me at my most coherent.
For many years my goal has been to write about these things, bring them out in the open - force the world to see what is being done to too many people with disabilities (note - these things do not happen to all pwd’s - I know many who have loving, supportive families. This is how I know that these other things that happened to me and many others are wrong.)
Sometimes it is hard to fight.
I just want to have a family that loves me. (Treacherous voices in my head tell me I am being whiny and self-absorbed. I know I am not, and I know there is a problem with that attitude of thinking that anyone who speaks of their pain and suffering from *their* perspective instead of hiding it neatly and tidily away is damned as whiny, self centred and many other ‘bad’ things.)
The pain does not get any easier.
The loss cuts deeper by the day, I cannot get used to this.
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Hello,
My name is Fallon and I’m organizing with other women of color around the Dunbar Gang Rapes and West Virginia Torture/Rape case. Well, I was wondering if you have time to participate in a phone conference on Friday, September 28, 2007 at 9pm/central about organizing to end silences surrounding Megan Williams’ torture and rape in Logan and the gang rape of several Black women in West Palm Beach Florida as well as stories that go unheard because it involves a woman of color such as the Newark imprisonment of the four lesbians for protecting themselves from a male aggressor.
Well, I’ve been circulating a 2 minute movie entitled, “How do you keep a Social Movement Alive.”
http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=E44BFBCE67BF11DC9030000423CF037A
This movie documents the silence surrounding Megan Williams’ torture and rape in Logan and the gang rape of several Black women in West Palm Beach Florida. The purpose of this movie is to document the silences within our relationships, within our homes, within our families, within our communities, within our jobs, within our schools, within our churches, temples, and synagogues, within our governments, and within our world.
We have a blog, but given the organizing we are trying to do, I need to reorganize the blog and use wordpress instead of blogger. This is the current blog,
http://documentthesilence.blogspot.com/
If you can’t do the phone conference would you interested in being apart of the Women of Color Bloggers Breaking the Silences Contingency on the Web which would mean inundating the web with information about Wearing Red Campaign on October 31, 2007 as well as circulating clips and other media trying to inundate the web with stories of violence committed against women of color.
I look forward to connecting with you,
Fallon
You can email me at beboldered@gmail.com.
here's the movie link,
http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=E44BFBCE67BF11DC9030000423CF037A