From Finding Angela Shelton
How many people who have experienced trauma do you know?
Unfortunately I know many at varying degrees of horrific. I know people who watched their parents struggle with alcoholism and gambling, never knowing what they would be coming home to or if their parent was coming home. I know women who have been prostituted by their boyfriends or husbands. I know women whose parents walked out, and whose grandparents prostituted them. I know a woman who was gang raped by her uncles when she was three. I know men who were raped as children. I know men who are convicted pedophiles. I know women who used to pimp other women. I know people who had to step over their mom's crack pipes in the yard to get in their home. I know women whose husbands used to beat them, and who will tell you his manipulation and emotional abuse hurt more, because although physical pain goes away, the words are in your memory forever. I know adults who were raped by their father as children and their families did nothing to protect them or stop the abuse. I know...this list could go on forever.
Suffice it to say: I know more people who have experienced trauma than I know who have not.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Finding Angela Shelton
"...in Memphis, we drive by the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. I pull up to the curb and park. We sit there in silence staring at the infamous motel room door on the second floor. I think about Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech and wish I had it committed to memory. I wonder if survivors will ever take to the streets and break the silence about sexual abuse and violence."
(Finding Angela Shelton, Angela Shelton, page 223)
I just finished reading a book written by a woman who accomplished something amazing. She was a writer in LA, and during the writers strike in 2001 she decided to create a documentary, looking for all the women with whom she shared a name (Angela Shelton) and interviewing them. The idea was to create a sort of survey of women in America and provide something uplifting, bringing women together. What struck her was that most of these women, over half, told her that they had experienced some kind of sexual or domestic abuse. The writer is a survivor of abuse herself, and the story unfolds to be as much about her own experience and self discovery as it is about women in America. What I found amazing about this book was the remarkable bravery Angela Shelton possessed that she would so publicly opened up about her own abuse.
National statistics say that 1in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused in their lifetime. Yet no one talks about it, not really. Sure, we'll see the news stories and hear about the offenders locked up. We'll see the community postings about convicted offenders moving into the neighborhood. These moments allow us to classify pedophiles as monsters, something almost inhuman. But when do we really talk about it? If the statistics are true (and I believe they are; if anything they are low, as abuse is under-reported) then this problem is much larger than the bogey-man mentality our media spins. It is happening to nice normal (whatever that is) people every day.
If the statistics are accurate, we all know someone who is or was abused. If the statistics are correct, many of us were or are abused. Experiencing abuse is an isolating experience; if no one will talk about it, then coping and healing feels isolating too. We cannot truly be "weird" "crazy" or "different" if 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men have experienced it.
Abuse is an epidemic in our country. We look outside ourselves at what is "backwards" or "wrong" about other nations, for their intolerance, their abuses of women, their lack of education, and the list continues. Meanwhile, our neighbors and families are having sex with and prostituting children. We continue the cycle of abuse, and permit it really, by saying nothing.
At the end of the book, there are a list if "thoughts to ponder." It is the kind of resource one finds at the end of any book meant to be used by book clubs and groups. The sentence prior to the list of thoughts states: "We can create dramatic social change by starting conversations." I love that sentence, and I am starting the conversation here. I am going to respond to every "thought to ponder" on this blog (maybe not all at once) because I want to help create the dramatic social change Angela Shelton is talking about. My writing may not be beautiful and my thoughts might be difficult to understand or to read. If so, feel free to not read them. Because I am not going to stop writing.
Resource:
http://www.survivormanual.com/
(Finding Angela Shelton, Angela Shelton, page 223)
I just finished reading a book written by a woman who accomplished something amazing. She was a writer in LA, and during the writers strike in 2001 she decided to create a documentary, looking for all the women with whom she shared a name (Angela Shelton) and interviewing them. The idea was to create a sort of survey of women in America and provide something uplifting, bringing women together. What struck her was that most of these women, over half, told her that they had experienced some kind of sexual or domestic abuse. The writer is a survivor of abuse herself, and the story unfolds to be as much about her own experience and self discovery as it is about women in America. What I found amazing about this book was the remarkable bravery Angela Shelton possessed that she would so publicly opened up about her own abuse.
National statistics say that 1in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused in their lifetime. Yet no one talks about it, not really. Sure, we'll see the news stories and hear about the offenders locked up. We'll see the community postings about convicted offenders moving into the neighborhood. These moments allow us to classify pedophiles as monsters, something almost inhuman. But when do we really talk about it? If the statistics are true (and I believe they are; if anything they are low, as abuse is under-reported) then this problem is much larger than the bogey-man mentality our media spins. It is happening to nice normal (whatever that is) people every day.
If the statistics are accurate, we all know someone who is or was abused. If the statistics are correct, many of us were or are abused. Experiencing abuse is an isolating experience; if no one will talk about it, then coping and healing feels isolating too. We cannot truly be "weird" "crazy" or "different" if 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men have experienced it.
Abuse is an epidemic in our country. We look outside ourselves at what is "backwards" or "wrong" about other nations, for their intolerance, their abuses of women, their lack of education, and the list continues. Meanwhile, our neighbors and families are having sex with and prostituting children. We continue the cycle of abuse, and permit it really, by saying nothing.
At the end of the book, there are a list if "thoughts to ponder." It is the kind of resource one finds at the end of any book meant to be used by book clubs and groups. The sentence prior to the list of thoughts states: "We can create dramatic social change by starting conversations." I love that sentence, and I am starting the conversation here. I am going to respond to every "thought to ponder" on this blog (maybe not all at once) because I want to help create the dramatic social change Angela Shelton is talking about. My writing may not be beautiful and my thoughts might be difficult to understand or to read. If so, feel free to not read them. Because I am not going to stop writing.
Resource:
http://www.survivormanual.com/
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