abuse

A Huffington Post article says that in 8 states being a victim of domestic violence can be considered a pre-existing condition.

So as if it is not bad enough that women are often threatened or intimidated into not reporting domestic violence they now also have to be concerned that reporting abuse could cause them to be denied health insurance in the future.

Yeah private corporate owned health insurance policies rock. I just love that even if I got health insurance coverage it wouldn't necessary cover the cost of birth control pills, would not cover the cost of abortions and would consider any past reports of domestic violence a pre-existing condition. The free market works so well.

I saw a show today where someone said that perfection is only measured within a frame of imperfection, and it made me think. I have recently started on a journey of trying to do a little more for myself, more counselling, more painting, more things to throw me off this path of dwelling on every little thing that has happened to me in the last decade, and I gotta tell you, it’s hard. It’s easy for me to blend in with the crowd and be the party girl, that’s what they call me, “they” being my friends, the people I work with, people at school. I am the girl who turns up to a test rottenly hung over and gets an A, and they all say they wish they could do that, but I wish for nothing more than to be able to turn up to a test without having to get drunk the night before because I am terrified that I wont get a perfect score. Somewhere over the years I have equated getting anything less than the “perfect” score as my abuser having some kind of control over that.

I'm sorry if this post is a bit personal, but it has been swirling in my head for weeks now, and is part of why I have been MIA, so here it is:

My big brother and I have always been good friends, despite what stood between us, namely our parents, and the fact that most of my life he lived at my Dad's house with my older sister and I lived with Our Mum. He is only three years older than me, so being so close in age we were always pretty close and I spent much of my childhood following behind him begging him to let me play (which now I realise must have been highly annoying, but what are younger sisters for?).

This is what drives me crazy about abuse and abusive people:

They screw up EVERY memory you have of childhood, to the point where I feel like smashing photos of myself out of frames in my house, because everytime I look at that kid I see what he did to me written all over my damn face.

They take and take and take untill your whole sense of self is so screwed up that you think thats all you can do for people, is give and give untill you realise oneday that that is all a big load of crap and that you wasted the majority of your life doing that when you could have, i don't know, LIVED?

Here I am once again back in New Zealand, after managing to happily avoid christmas (which I just don't do) and take off to Asia for a few months. I wish I could say I am happy to be home, but that would just be one big fat lie.

I seem to just spiral into the same old patterns whenever I am back here, which I am trying hard not to let happen this time around, but god it is hard. Some of the places I travelled to in Asia saddened me to no end at how hard it is for Women there, and how frustrating it is for many of the young Women who i spoke to during my travel's to be told that they can either get married, or sell themselves to tourists night after night, as if their whole exsistance is to satisfy men.

The weekend was a whirlwind of drunk days and drunker nights, people I dont know sleeping on the floor of our apartment, someone I know even less sleeping next to me in my bed. At the time it was all a fantastic idea, who doesnt love a weekend where they can just let loose and party day and night? But come monday I was not proud of myself. I had not been sober for seventy two hours and the reality of that hit me, hard, harder than a headache and a shakey morning. I do this to myself more than I should. Its easier for me to be drunk then sober, a lot of the time, and that is something I am not proud of, but its the truth.

I've been meaning to post some of my poetry here. I don't exactly have any poems that deal directly with feminist issues, but I do have quite a few that deal with my struggle to work through the abuse I've suffered, and I suppose those are relevant to the AGA.

The first one (though not one of my faves) is a good metaphor of the way my past makes me feel at times. The second one is an imaginary conversation with an abuser that was sparked by a therapy session.

1. Haunted House
Walk on into this splendid mansion,
barefoot on plush carpets
in spacious rooms,
and rest on silken sheets.

Burglary. Kidnapping. Embezzlement. Arson. These and other crimes. What do they all have in common?

When people come forward to report them, those reports are believed until evidence suggests otherwise.

So why is it that rape or sexual assault and charges related to domestic abuse are so suspected regardless of the geographic area where they are reported? What is it that they have in common?

Women are by far the victims and reporters of these crimes. The distrust of women, the malevolence of the female, the demonization of femininity are motifs through out the world and through out history. Are these the traditions that cause women around the globe to be undervalued and untrusted? Is it the fear of the status quo (read: old men in their respective cultures) that these allegations will lead to their hierarchical unseating?

One of my closest friend grew up in UAE and now studies medicine in India. She grew up in a traditional household in a culture that is as far from mine as it gets. From the start of our friendship, we have continually shocked and challenged each other with our observations of how our cultures work, especially in regards to women.

The other day, she missed one of our regular MSN gab fests and the next time I caught her online, she apologized telling me that she'd had to be present for a surprise autopsy, "another dowry death". She said the body of the woman was covered in severe burns, allegedly she had been cooking in the kitchen at 1 in the morning when the stove spontaneously exploded. "We can always tell dowry deaths by the ridiculous excuses" she explained, "if a young woman dies within weeks after her marriage because of completely outrageous circumstances, we know it's a dowry death".

"Law and justice are not always the same." -Gloria Steinem

No doubt you have all heard about the young lady who was put in jail right after her rape and denied EC because the medical worker at the jail claimed the pill to be “against her religion”. When I spoke with a family member about this case, I received a very disturbing narrative.

I debated with myself whether it was appropriate to share this highly personal information. But then I realized… Her anonymity is not just protected by my refusal to mention her name, but by the sheer commonness of her experience. The brutal mistreatment she received is something endured by women the world-over every day, and no doubt there are others with similar (if not the same) stories, possibly by the same persecutors.

...that we live in a country where injustice is documented.

UCLA's Mostafa Tabatabainejad was Tasered at least 4 times by the police. For what? Did the student have a weapon, was threatening the police or an innocent person, or in a physical fight?

No, he didn't have his student ID. And while he did refuse to show that ID, thinking that he was being racially profiled, and did initially refuse to leave the library, it did not have to blow up into the huge event that followed. A college kid being annoying does not warrant multiple Taser shocks.

A library patron managed to document the event and submitted it to YouTube (It can still be seen here though it is extremely disturbing), thus making the incident national news.

We were not together for a long time, only a few months, but I loved him. And, I thought he loved me I guess. Nick and I were a good team in the beginning, we both loved many of the same things, he was supportive of me with my health problems and of my sometimes insane family. But it didn't last as long as I thought, and hoped it would. Nick changed the moment I told him I was a survivor; he thought it was something that meant I was ill, or damaged, or sick. I know these things are tough on the people we love, so I gave it as much time as he needed, but the Nick I knew never came back. He started to get really violent, and hit me, and keep me from going out with other people, my friends, because he said I was not well. But for whatever reason I still loved him even when he hurt me.

I've been having a rough week. Over the years, I have learned how to cope with the after-effects of sexual abuse, but some days are harder than others and occasionally the triggers just pile up. Last week, I had a particularly nasty nightmare and I've just not felt like myself since.

One coping-method that I developed very early in the game is dissociation. I've gotten so good at it that sometimes my mind does it spontaneously, when there is nothing to dissociate from, and I end up feeling -literally- completely beside myself for hours at a time.

On top of that, I am incredibly jumpy. The other day, my mother came up from behind me and touched my arm before I saw her and I lashed out at her. She was upset and I was annoyed with myself for being such a freak. I am never a big fan of being touched, but it doesn't usually turn me into such a basket case.

Those of you who know me know that I am a survivor of long term sexual abuse. But for those that do not, I was abused from childhood until just recently by a good friend of my family. For years I was numb about it all, and not willing to deal with it at all. I finally did get myself together enough to get into counselling not too long ago, and was able to work up the courage to go to the police and report this man.

Now that it is over, and I have been through that, it has not all left my mind like I had hoped it would. Stupidly, I was hoping that I would wake up the next day and feel that huge weight lift off of my heart and no longer have to deal with the images that have been in my mind since the first time he hurt me. I was wrong. In fact, since it all stopped I feel like the images have been much clearer and I have been having flash backs much more frequently. And, to be honest I am just not dealing with that well, particularly not at night time, when I have anxiety attacks and can’t sleep at all because I feel like he is watching me again.

I got a volunteer job at a kitty rescue place up the street! Not even a block. There are lots of kitties, five new ones today!

Kim, our boss, is really nice. She was telling us about our kitties, who were rescued from shelters shortly before they were put to sleep, or from the street. In order to promote kitty life, they have a spay/neuter policy, where a cat leaves spayed or neutered and aborts preggies.

Makes sense. She's really nice, and she wants lots of good PR. Her kitties are all so cute, and she told me stories that made me angry. About abuse and streets and crap. I'm volunteering there, so I get to play with Kitties! (Who I love).