Thought Picnic: In the omerta of abuse

No perfect narrative exists

There are taboo topics that society, community, or situation makes too difficult to talk about for many reasons from not having a frame of reference in which to conceptualise and understand to the need to avoid engagement so that the horror of that reality does not inflict on our comfort.

In the matters of child sexual abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, or bullying, some of which I have addressed in my almost 20 years of blogging, finding the form of words to discuss with the hope that it does not upset is one for which there is neither art, skill, nor perfection to convey silent suffering and the associated issues.

Why they suffer in silence

I would guess that is the reason that obvious and apparent victims do not share their experiences and mostly never report anything because of shame or embarrassment, worse still the default audience sits in judgement with the view that there is much more that could have been done to prevent things happening to oneself.

Yet, reporting any abuse is not as easy as making a customer complaint or reporting a theft, the violation of the person is visceral, it starts with the body, as the mind considers what has happened, and the spirit is grieved in the realisation of that truth. Maybe, the bruised body can be healed, and the conflicted mind can with time find peace, to reach into the spirit to enliven it is a whole different matter. A person must find their way just as they have to work with the dreams and imaginations that play in their heads.

Wrestling back some agency

That these taboos need to see the light of day through expression, sharing, and talking about it so that perpetrators realise that they do not hold any power over the people they violate or are emboldened to act with impunity is necessary. However, navigating the present to gain the support, sympathy and empathy needed to grow would never be an easy task.

The child abused who on mentioning it is shut down because the adults who should protect them cannot deal with it, the person who has suffered domestic abuse takes the blame for instigation rather than the abuser getting excoriated, sexual assault is seen as opportunistic and victimless that partners of victims are more hurt than the one molested, being on the receiving end of bullying considered an act and state of weakness when one is expected to fight back and put a stop to it.

Help, don’t worsen it

The long hard mile that others would never walk in the shoes of the wearer is deemed the easiest feat of endeavour. People in pain from living through it are doubly hurt by others taking on the same pain for what they never lived. It is a strange world, you begin to believe that the cruellest thing to allow to happen to yourself is to suffer pain, to be a victim, to be caught in circumstances you should have controlled but you failed to.

Whilst silence cannot be the answer, we have to find it somewhere in our human nature to consider, to appreciate, to understand, to commiserate, to empathise, to feel, and to know, that others will have experiences beyond our comprehension, if we cannot help them, we should not make it worse. Sadly, this all is part of the story of our humanity, much as we would love better stories. I do not have the answers, we should be careful of taking offence in the hurt of another.

Once again, “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” [Romans 14:22b] The journey of self-healing is lonely, scary, unsure, and not guaranteed. You take each day as vulnerable and human with the hope that there is better ahead.

To the liberation of the lamb

Another uncommon narrative

Her black eyes are concealed behind the makeup that provides the window dressing for the terror that is the shop she calls home, a place that was supposedly built on the union of love that went awry for all sorts of reasons. That story told daily is one to which we are almost inured, the regularity and commonality obfuscate other realities that never find a voice to express.

Like a man, all too vulnerable met in the circumstance where intentions differ between a welcoming host and a predatory guest. Who would have thought of the consequence of that encounter? What you open your door to in altruism is sometimes not what visits to aspire, but to conspire. It is churned in the mind as a silent review of shame and embarrassment, for which you find quiet consolation in the tears that refuse to come.

Indecent assault allowed

It is a battle of conflicts and knowledge ignored, even if needs are there, a sacred trust was betrayed in the exploitation of opportunity. Such is the incomprehensibility of the scenario to the onlooker until caught in the web of the spider, the many older vulnerable men who are victims of the machinations of youth are not what makes the discussion at most times, it is one of those taboo subjects found in the secrecy and confessional of a therapy you fear to sit in.

Young is attractive, but as long as temptation is kept from ingress, it has no power to overwhelm. In naivety, all resistance is worn down with unrelenting persistence, an advantage is acquired and there emerges a submission to a violation of the person in the helplessness of the situation. Like sheep to the slaughter, it is a willing suspension of inhibition for the moment to just pass unheralded.

Gaslighted into culpability

Liberties, the liberties seized in the freedom to act with imposition and intrusion whilst afterwards defanging possible accusations with feigning innocence by gaslighting and asking if they have done wrong or they were bad, knowing the response would never be negative as the personal hurt is absorbed in victimhood that dare not lay a charge. The sacrificial lamb was on the altar lain, though interminable was the watch to when it was to be slain.

The lamb momentarily unbound rises to flee as the worshipper intones with incandescent incantation, “I’m not done yet.” The lamb bounds with hinds like a mountain goat, a hardy escape from the blade of slaughter, it is well asunder. The end of that is the end indeed.

Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. [Romans 14:22b] Maybe happy is not the feeling one has, but the rest is where some consolation from the ordeal does come.

Thought Picnic: Sophistication above the fray

We feel what you said and did

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

The quote above is often attributed to Maya Angelou and I will take it as that. In many of my blogs, I have written about storytelling, the telling of our own stories and some stories that were once taboo of generations before us and never given voice to then have somewhat become acceptable narratives in our own recollections.

When it comes to the stories regarding our parents and the relationships, we had that became the broad template of our lives and lifestyles, we could be a little shy of going into much detail. Out of respect, out of the need to heal, out of the necessity not to air one’s dirty linen, or out of honouring them.

Sophistication out of humanity

Yet, some of these factors allow our parents to get away with the reprehensible because they are not made to face up to what they said that hurt, or what they did that harmed, but especially how they made us feel out of their actions or inactions that now defines the kind of relationships we have with them today.

None of this is to castigate our parents, far be it from us, we have through strife, adversity, pain, and privation learnt sophistication. The sophistication that allows us to act out our humanity and kindness regardless of the personalities whose words and deeds have left indelible marks in our lives. We can be formed by these experiences and yet not be defined by the negative things they were at the time meant to portend.

Forgiving after dealing

We can be quite forgiving, but that must not be used as the instrument to forget without addressing the matters boldly, directly and without dissimulation. My father will say, let bygones be bygones, that is convenient for him. However, that bygone is a significant source of the present, a forming instrument of life and experience, an influence of such magnitude as to be a principal actor in my own story, even if it is not in theirs.

What he dismissed then was what was significantly altering the course of my life in ways I could never have thought would happen, when it looked like tomorrow was too far to have a feel of any reality. Those tomorrows became years and decades, and each of those events of how I was made to feel are my story.

Protecting our interests

We are not softies for overlooking much of what a lesser person would seek to avenge or punish, I hope we raise ourselves to a higher plain and have the grace to recognise that providence has given us the capability to teach a better way.

Many things are temporal, including life, that we need to be careful that when we are no more around to sort things out, we will be remembered for the good we said and did, such that people will protect our interests, memories, kith and kin with just as much passion as if we were around to address them ourselves.

When the stories are told, they are about us, the ideas, the events and the people that contributed to the experience and everyone whether they like that narrative or not has inadvertently contributed to it, we are the people who will never forget how you made us feel.