Robin Fisher,
Boulder Creek, CA.
I identify with people in marginalized demographics who have experienced victimization at the hands of the social majority since I suffered abuse there as well; not the same kind, but abuse nonetheless. I watch their journey carefully to discover clues on how to move beyond victimhood. I understand the rage and despair that comes from not being seen, not being heard, not being deemed worthy. I struggle to move past this place because if you are always licking (and re-opening) your wounds, you don’t have the energy or focus to create anything new or to achieve anything for yourself. You are always stuck in your wounds. It’s not a good place to live.
I will never see justice for what was done to me and the only answer is to reclaim my own power, my own humanity, my own life, and stop allowing people to walk all over me by setting healthy boundaries. Society is not sympathetic to adult survivors of child abuse. You are just supposed to suck it up and drive on. People don’t really want to admit that this is a problem in modern culture. People want to see what they want to see, and mostly what they want to see is their own version of Disneyland.
I was angry about this for a very long time until I realized that this made me stuck in rage. Rage can be cathartic, but not if you get stuck there. It was only when I let go of rage that my life improved. I had to learn to forgive. I had to learn to see, hear, and become myself instead of demanding that others perceive me the way I wanted; instead of demanding that others acknowledge my value. I can’t control other people. I had to forgive them but also stop allowing them to define me.
I had to decide that my own self-concept was the primary one. I had to decide to focus on the doors that opened and ignore the huge amount of doors that closed in my face. I had to forgive people for their limitations, their inability to see me, their prejudices and ignorance. These made me so angry. I had to find the path where love and human-kindness allowed me to thrive. I found that if you seek this, it will lead you to where you need to go or be.
If your physiognomy or body morphology doesn’t conform to the “ideal” set by a dominant culture, you have to work around that and not let it stop you. When you decide that doesn’t matter, those around you pick up on that and you teach them that it doesn’t matter. By so doing, you expand space for heart. Where there is heart, there is connection and relationship.
I am a white woman raised in Appalachia, a place I can not live because I don’t identify with some of their values. I was kicked out of my tribe and family for refusing to conform to their prejudices and world view. I don’t hate them, but I can’t be around them. Tribes are not kind to those who dissent or who they perceive to be “other.” Loneliness is the price I pay for being true to myself. Better that, than to live a lie.
My deepest wish is for the human race to move past artificial divisions and recognize that love recognizes no boundaries, no divisions, no identities. It moves through us and between us and binds us all to each other and to our Mother Earth. And it can heal our divisions if we let it.
This post may not conform to what you are looking for since it addressed the emotional wounds of racism more than the lived experience or political aspects of it. However, the Spirit moved me to post this today as a small effort to stand against the hatred being spewed on the national landscape by all sides. I understand all of the arguments, complaints, fears, and rage. I refuse to dehumanize anyone or call anyone “enemy.” I don’t think that will get me where I need to go or us where we need to go. I wish to see healing and transformation, conversation and understanding, forgiveness and redemption, not destruction and blood. Everyday I strive to be a better person so I can be part of the solution and not part of the problem. My primal scream is LOVE EACH OTHER!
