The post I’m not supposed to write – how we are silencing victims
We blame the very people who have suffered the most for upsetting the nice little world we’ve made up in our heads, and we dare to talk about that being about safety.
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Social Media is Not What It Promised to Be – a History
You are my online community, and while your numbers might not be as large as the number of followers I had on other platforms, I’m not worried about how this platform will change and become dangerous to any of you. This platform, MY platform, is safe for survivors, for those of you with mental health struggles, and for those of you dealing with illness, oppression, hatred, and discrimination. There are no shareholders to be beholden to, no one tracking you, no ads. There’s nothing here but one guy reminding you all that you are not alone.
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Society Doesn’t Learn – Survivors Aren’t Believed
It’s disheartening to think that I’ve spent over 20 years in the online survivor community advocating that we believe survivors and act on accusations of abuse only to wind up here. This feels like we’ve gone back to the days of sexual violence being unheard of because no one would dare talk about being a victim. It’s enough to make you want to quit. I felt that way last week. As I watched my wife’s hope for women across the country leave her body while also being overwhelmingly angry at people who voted for a criminal and a rapist, I wanted to walk away and shut myself off from the world.
Instead, I stepped away for a few days and reminded myself that there will be innumerable victims of sexual abuse who can’t talk about it and need to know that they are not alone. There are growing numbers of survivors who will be losing their families and friends and need to know that they are not alone. We will all be looking for community.
If anything, the importance of staying online and continuing to talk about child abuse, sexual violence, mental health, and supporting vulnerable people is higher now than it has been in the entire time I’ve been doing this. Now is not the time to walk away; it’s the time to fight for survivors.
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Clean Up the Spot in Front of You
I enjoyed this clip of Henry Rollins talking about being overwhelmed by the pain and injustice he has seen in his travels.
He recognizes that he is “one guy.” He can’t possibly fix all of it, and trying to would be pointless. So he sees the opportunities where he can make a difference and hopes that more of us will try to “clean the spots” we can, as well.
And those little differences start to add up…
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Music for your mental health – Where the Road Goes
The words reminded me so much of a time in my life when I could have died and thought none of this was worth it. It also reminded me of why I didn’t – my curiosity. My desire to see what happens and “where the road goes” may have been the only thing that kept me alive back then. I didn’t have much hope to hold on to, but I knew enough to know that I didn’t have all the answers and couldn’t tell the future. Why not see what happens tomorrow and the next day?
Eventually, I found some lovely things mentioned in the song—people, places, and thingsI love.
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The US, where being homeless could be a crime.
You could argue that the outcome will be a large number of people with mental health issues crammed into a massively overburdened prison system with almost no hope of ever getting out. (Where would they go? Back to being homeless and thus getting arrested again.)
We’ve tried that with serious mental illness, and it doesn’t work. It fixes nothing unless you think lots of people with mental health issues dying in prison is the answer. I prefer that most of us are not that callous and uncaring. But most of us aren’t writing these laws and upholding them. That’s for the elite few with power, and I’m not as convinced they would care about anyone with a mental health struggle because they surely don’t do much to provide resources and assistance to struggling people.
