My childhood began with a mother with mental health issues, a father placing me in foster care for my protection, being isolated from the foster family by being made to eat and live in my bedroom and not be a part of the rest of the family.
Being abused for years by one of the male siblings, being constantly told you smell, being forced to read books from cover to cover and being questioned about certain pages and if you couldn't remember being told to read it again even though you was a dyslexic child, Being made to feel like thick and a problem child at school because you are miss understood. Being made to eat soft eggs and the eggs being represented to you at each meal even though you couldn't eat it.
Being made to eat alone in your bedroom while everyone else eats together. Never being aloud to join the rest of the family unless it was to go to a family function when they would present me as a trophy of good to their peers.
Anything that you was good at being taken away from you because you would be stopped from going to compete or represent your school by a made up punishment that meant you couldn't attend such functions. I was given gift in sports and athletics but was stopped from progressing through this vindictive behaviour. Being ask to sing lead in the choir but was stopped from attending the event on the day. The humiliation and shame I experienced from this was intolerable.
Being told you smelled weird from the age of 2 by the people who was supposed to care for you and hit with a plastic sword till your skin welts and then put in a salt bath.
Having songs sang to you like "Nigger mind be all white in the morning" because you're mixed-raced. Living in a racist foster family as a mixed race child, being told all black / ethnic minorities where bad, but your dad's ok.
I could go on but won't, what this has made me is hyper vigilant, hyper sensitive and empathic to others in need or suffering.
However just because you have read a few books or studied and have a degree / doctorate in the subject, don't presume you know more. Unless you have lived the life of the person expressing themselves, don't assume you know what they are talking about or that you can fix it. I have probably read the books you have read or similar, I have been through counselling, I have studied and worked with people from all different backgrounds, traumas and experiences but do not presume I know more than them because I studied it. I know it because I experienced it, everything else is just a way of getting through my experiences in a way that is agreeable to me and that can help me survive / thrive. My experiences gives me the knowledge I need to understand the pain and the experience but not the right to tell others how they should experience their pain.
What do I mean by this??
I am tired of listening to privileged people, especially women, patronising women like me when it comes to discussing abuses as the same as theirs. Show empathy and understanding but not express superiority because you read a few books. Because along with those abuses came poverty, racism and lack. Working class children are not brought up with the same form of entitlement as middle class children so therefore you may have had a mother with mental health issues and we can share that experience but also remember the privileges you may have had that someone from my background or less privileged background may not have had and they may not intellectualise it in the same way.
Sometimes the educated need to remember this when putting in their two pence worth of opinions. This is not a competition but a way I can tell my story to engage others who may not be able to express their pain, and to let others know they are not alone in their experience or opinion. Not for me to prove how intelligent I am or how much I know...
No comments:
Post a Comment