legal system

Burn the systems to the ground.

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I don’t feel inclined to stay quiet and feel ashamed about this anymore. I’m struggling too much with the recent news and the state of the world for survivors. For others who have been through this, you are not alone. I talk about it to let others know that it isn’t their fault.

CW: sexual violence, systemic violence/oppression/disbelief
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Why am I triggered right now in the wake of the Kavanagh situation?

Why do I often wish I HAD stayed silent about my experiences of abuse and NEVER told a soul?

Because of the Children’s Aid Worker who asked me “Don’t you know how to protect yourself? Are you afraid for yourself or your children?” in a sneering, sarcastic voice

Because of the Judges who told me that my experiences of violence were irrelevant to family law, who implied I was lying because I hadn’t reported to the police, then accused me of making accusations to gain an advantage in court (after I reported)

Because of the OCL Social Worker who told me that I needed to get counseling for my anxiety and heavily implied that if I didn’t stop “coaching” my daughter to say bad things about her father that she’d have grave concerns about me creating conflict and that I’d lose custody.

Because of the OPS detective who closed my case TWICE without telling me and completely failed to investigate or take notes and then lied to cover himself.

Because of how traumatic it was to have my confidential psychiatric records photocopied and handed in an envelope to my abuser in a court room.

Because the trauma of testifying in court to get custody and protect my children was so intense that I barely remember the three days I spent doing it.

Because the trauma of listening to my psychiatrist speak about the abuse and its impacts in court was so much that I had to leave the courtroom crying due to the intensity of the flashbacks.

Because our family Doctor lied in court and then discharged me and my kids from her practice accusing me of being a bad parent with terrible boundaries as a result of the “parental conflict” that was being caused entirely by my ex. As a result my kids had no family Doctor for 18 months.

Because of the school principal who blatantly lied in court to support my ex saying she “didn’t recall” my daughter crying and screaming and refusing to leave with her father after a particularly stressful incident at home.

Because of the Children’s Aid Worker who told me that I should be “calmer and more neutral” about the transphobic behaviour of my ex.

Because of the Children’s Aid Workers who implied that if I didn’t stop reporting (and if other’s didn’t stop reporting) that they would get ME into trouble for making too many reports.

Because of the judge who clearly wrote in her final order that she didn’t believe I was abused.

I’m tired of the world implying that I’m “too crazy,” “too emotional,” “too sensitive,” “too angry,” “too anxious,” “too controlling,” “too whiny” “too radical” and just plain TOO MUCH when I talk about my experiences.

#whyIwishIhadnotreported  #whymetooisnotenough

 

On being a survivor.

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It’s very difficult to know how to exist in a world where it is made clear at all levels of society, that perpetrators’ experiences and rights will always be prioritized over those of survivors (particularly women, children and gender non-conforming folks).

What happens if your perpetrators aren’t politicians or religious leaders, or people with power and status? Does anyone even care? Do those cases ever proceed to court or hearings? Do they get media coverage? Or are they, for the most part invisible, silenced even in cases where the victim DOES come forward, does report and does seek assistance?

How does it feel for survivors to turn on news or social media and be constantly bombarded with how little society values their pain and suffering?

How can any survivors ever really heal and feel safe in a world where their experiences are invalidated, discounted, silenced and disbelieved…not just once, not twice but OVER AND OVER AND OVER for the rest of their lives?

How to make sense of the level of victim blaming and responsibility placed on survivors, while those survivors simultaneously watch excuses be made for their perpetrators? Not just once, but daily and at all levels of society, nationally and internationally. How to understand that your perpetrators’ pasts were just the folly of youth, and his future is too bright to spoil, while you are grappling with severe PTSD on a daily basis as a result of the violence? How to understand that for him it was a “misunderstanding of consent” while you knew what you were doing and were responsible for staying with him?

How to exist when EVERY post about sexual violence reminds you of how your own experiences will NEVER be validated by official society (court, media, child protection) and that your perpetrators will continue to exist without meaningful consequences until the end of their lives?

How to exist when parental rights are prioritized over child protection and the rights of children?

These issues are not just happening in the USA. It’s easy to criticize America and feel morally superior as Canadians. But we have these problems here too. Survivors are not believed here too. Perpetrators have high level, successful jobs here too. Gender based violence is a society wide, structural, social problem here too.

There should be more stigma and consequences associated with being a rapist, than stigma and consequences associated with reporting/surviving rape. Until we not only BELIEVE survivors, but CARE about and prioritize survivors, not much will change.

Justice.

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I took this photograph today.   I lived in this city most of my life and I’ve never been drawn to look at this sculpture before.

Justice.

This statue embodies exactly how my life feels at this moment.

Grey. Solemn.  Frozen in time.  An unknown, robed figure holds a sword over me, about to make decisions that will alter the course of my life and the lives of my family members.

I feel like one wrong move and the sword will pierce my heart and all will be lost.  I’m walking on a tight rope, on egg shells, on the edge of where the ocean meets the land, on a wire at a circus…fill in the metaphor or analogy of your choosing.  I’m barely breathing.

Justice for who?  How is this justice?  Years of my life spent trying to prove things that seem self evident.  Years of him being believed and me seen as crazy, or potentially crazy.  Years of my privacy being breached and shattered to the point I’m hardly sure what privacy means anymore, except to trust no one.  Is this justice?

Interpersonal violence doesn’t end the moment she walks out the door.

Domestic violence doesn’t end when she leaves.

Family violence doesn’t stop when the relationship is over.

She might be physically safe now, but she still looks over her shoulder.  She still watches herself.  She still fears that anything she says or does might get her or her children into trouble.  She lives in fear of SOMETHING happening, even though she doesn’t always know what that vague threat might be.  She rarely sees him, but he impacts almost every aspect of her life.  He calls her crazy.  He tells her kids she is crazy.  He tells anyone who will listen that she is crazy.

But if she is crazy, than every survivor is crazy.

I don’t think we are crazy.  I think the entire system is broken and set up for us to fail.  We don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system.

Wake up.  Justice doesn’t exist for women like me.

Welcome 2017…Burn 2016 to the Ground

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20161221_170835Without a doubt, 2016 has been one of the worst years of my life.  I survived a massive, never ending family law trial.  My psychiatric records were released to my abuser.  My privacy was breached again and again.  My children’s privacy was destroyed again and again.  By the end of the court process I felt like I had only shards of trust left in anything.  My belief in justice was shaken to pieces.  My trust in the system to protect my family was gone.  As I entered into this Christmas season, I felt like believing in justice for my children was akin to believing in Santa Claus.  A myth, a tale told to pacify young infants.  There is no justice here.  Certainly not in 2016, and certainly not for my family.

I’ve been waiting patiently for 2016 to end.  On the Winter Solstice I burned a fire with my children, symbolizing the end of the year and welcoming back the light of the new year.  An end to the darkness and inviting the brighter days leading to summer.  In the fire I burnt away my fears and dark thoughts from 2016, leaving behind those bad memories and making space for positive karma for 2017.

I am a superstitious person.  Despite my scientific, thoughtful, highly rational mind…my obsessive compulsive nature leads me to have some strange superstitious, ritualistic thoughts.   Some of them are not quite spiritual, but take on an element of obsession.  I believe in signs.  I want to believe that things happen for a reason, even if we can’t see what that reason is.  There is no reason to explain the things I have endured in 2016.  None at all, except for oppression, broken systems, delays, inadequacies and incompetent workers.  No reasons that can satisfy me, or any reasonable person.  But at the end of the year, there are still many things to be grateful for.

I believe that I am a stronger person than anyone should ever have to be.  My children are also stronger than children should have to be.  I suppose in a way, this is something to be grateful for.  Though I almost cry out in pain at times, watching the innocent 2 year old children of my friends’, as they laugh and play with very little cares in the world.  I want that for my children again.  I miss their baby smiles and laughter.  It breaks my heart that they are no longer innocent, though they are still so young.  But they are strong and they are kind and they believe in justice, with a fierceness that has replaced their childhood innocence.  For that I am proud and grateful.

Things I am Grateful for at the start of 2017:

  1. A safe home that I love
  2. Wonderful caring neighbors and a beautiful neighborhood
  3. Enough money to buy the things I need for my family
  4. A job that allows me to help others, be challenged, learn and give back to my community
  5. My coworkers who I consider friends and who have supported me and helped me grow
  6. My family for always supporting me
  7. My children for giving me a reason to keep living and for being wonderful tiny humans
  8. My friends across the world, online and in real life, text and in person
  9. The rainbow community for supporting us and loving us and showing us where we belong
  10. For my citizenship and for this amazing, safe country I had the privilege of being born in
  11. For coffee, for tea, for coffee shops, for hot chocolate and for hot drinks everywhere
  12. For all the people I’ve met through my work, the people I’ve helped and everything I’ve learned from them this year
  13. For my car, for getting me and my family everywhere I need to go
  14. For my health, though it’s not perfect, I have a lot of ability
  15. For fresh air, for sunshine, for the woods, for nature, for being outside
  16. For the internet, cell phones and the ability to stay in touch
  17. For this blog, the ability to write and being able to share my experience with so many

Thank you all readers, for following my blog, for sharing it, for reading and commenting.  I wish you all the best for a peaceful, happy and healthy new year in 2017.  Be well.  I hope to see you all here in the New Year!

Why Women Don’t Leave

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If I knew  what leaving meant, I probably would have stayed.

I was naive, and I’m glad.  I’m glad that I left and that I’ve been forced to fight, but nobody should have to fight this hard to be believed.

As I walked into the court house yesterday, over three years after leaving, my first step was to check with the information desk to find out what court room my matter was being heard in.   I checked the list and realized that we were scheduled in a small motions room, rather than a full sized court room.

Why does that matter?  Why does the size of the court room matter so much that I’m writing a blog post about it?

I rode the elevator, arrived at the correct floor and met my lawyer.  My anxiety grew and grew as I thought about the room.  I could feel panic starting, my body was tensing, all the preparations I’d done for the day were quickly flying out the window.

I opened the door of the courtroom just a crack and peered inside.

It was as I’d feared.  A small motions room, a large conference table filled the room, with the judge’s dias at one end and a small witness box to the side.  The whole room was not much bigger than an average sized dining room.   A conference table, with 3 chairs along each side, spoke of mediation, settlement, concord, agreement and discussion.

All I could think about was this:

This is the reason why women don’t leave.  Women don’t leave because they don’t want to spend two days, trapped in a tiny court room, sitting face to face with their abuser, unable to speak or move, except on the judge’s schedule.

What could be more triggering for a survivor of violence?  Not only do I have to sit in the room with him, I have to sit in an assigned chair (no choice), I have to sit quietly (I can’t speak),  I can’t stand, move or stretch to ground myself and I have to listen to various people speak about traumatic experiences in my life as if I was not there.   If I react emotionally in any way, he will see me and he will have power over me.  If I cry, he will have power over me.  If I get angry, he will have power over me.   It’s a situation of power and control and lack of options and I have no choice but to stay in it.

Luckily today I have support person with me, otherwise I feel like I wouldn’t even be able to sit in that room.  Every part of me screams NO!  I don’t want to go in there.  I want to rebel!  I want to fight! I want to yell at everyone that this system is unfair, unjust, unhealthy and re-traumatizing.

But that isn’t an option.  Instead, I sit in the room.  I clench my hands together as tightly as I can underneath the table.  My whole body is shaking, as it does as I’m trying desperately to process trauma that is overwhelming me.  I try to tremble in a way that is not noticeable, or could be interpreted as shivering from the cold.  I try to breathe.  I write notes and doodle continuously.    I try to tune out and disassociate enough to be able to stay sitting in the room, but not so much that it’s obvious, or that I can’t stay focused.   I listen to what is being said, but I try to detach myself emotionally from it.  I try to put myself into a frame of mind where I’m observing someone else’s life.  But it doesn’t really work.

As the day wears on, the oxygen in the room starts to disappear.  I feel like I can’t breathe.  I have a harder time sitting still.  My leg starts to shake,.  my body trembles again, almost imperceptibly.   I try to fidget just a little, but in a way that doesn’t come across as anxious.   I start to feel panicky, like I need to run out of the room.  All my muscles start to hurt from holding them tense, from shaking, from sitting still, from being unnatural and on edge for hours at a time.   The time that goes too slowly.  I feel like I’m in a place where I will never escape back to reality.    I’m stuck in court world, no windows, no escape, it’s own set of rules and rituals.  I’m a stranger in a strange land.

And right across the table from me.   Emotionally nonreactive, as if this whole ordeal is uneventful and ordinary, sits my abuser.  Calm and collected and emotionally blunted.   And I feel a sense of confusion.   Who is this stranger?

How did we get here?   It’s a blur of months and years.  It’s a blur of “just get through this next few months.”  It’s a blur of “just keep going for the kids.”  It’s a blur of coping and surviving.

This is why women don’t leave.

Because the process of leaving doesn’t end the day she walks out the door.

Survivors need compassion when they can’t leave because it’s too hard.

They need help to leave because it’s too hard to do alone.

And they need help, patience, compassion and validation long after they leave.  Because the process of leaving can be as traumatic as the relationship itself.   Because it’s too hard to do alone.

Smash the patriarchy!

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Sometimes the systems that exist in society just seem nonsensical to me.  I am bewildered on a regular basis at how poorly systems work to protect the rights of marginalized folks, children, women, trans folks,  People of Colour, Indigenous folks…I start to wonder who or what the systems do support and uphold.

I believe the answer is that they support privilege and privileged people.

When a man accused of sexual assault has his views and ideas on the situation treated as equally, if not MORE valid than those of the survivors, the system is broken.

I’m feeling angry right now and this post may be somewhat cryptic because I can’t write about everything I’m coping with until a later date.

I just wanted to say that not all opinions are equally valid.

Some opinions are based on facts, lived experience, research, expertise or some combination of these things.

Other opinions are just plain lies, untrue and not supported by anything.

Yes, you have the right to think anything you want, but you don’t necessarily have the right to state all those thoughts out loud in every circumstance.

Some opinions are actually oppression and bigotry, cleverly DISGUISED as valid opinions.

In some cases there is an absolute truth, something that exists outside of opinions and is just real.  In some cases, people only have their lived experience and they must be believed that their lived experience is valid.

But what happens when an abuser states that his lived experience, opinion and view is that he didn’t abuse anyone!?  That the survivor is seriously mentally ill and making up accusations to damage his credibility?

Who do we believe?  Where does the absolute truth lie?

I’m willing to concede that for outsiders it can be difficult to tell what is truth and what is fiction.  But when an abuser says that he didn’t abuse anyone, shouldn’t we take this with a grain of salt?

That’s not what I have observed.  In my lived experience, abusers are believed outright.  They are rarely challenged.  Their views on the situation during the time of the abuse are considered true and valid.

Survivors are doubted, questioned, berated, accused and treated like they have every motivation to lie about the abuse.  The system gaslights them and confused them, mirroring the way they have been treated by the abuser they are escaping from.

I don’t even see equity or equal treatment.   It would be easier for me to accept if the systems (police, hospital, court, child protection) viewed both the abuser and the survivor as potentially biased.    Trust no one.  Believe nothing.

But that isn’t what I see.  I see the systems used against the survivor to benefit the opinions, rights and preferences of the abuser.  I see the system used to dismantle the credibility of the survivors who are brave enough to come forward.

Why do we accept to live in a world where abusers are innocent until proven guilty, but survivors are treated as guilty of lying from the start?

I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I want to change the system.  I want to smash all the institutions I see around me and rebuild them from the ground up, grassroots style, with the input of marginalized communities highlighted and validated.

Smash  the white supremacist,  capitalist, cis-heteropatriarchy!

I’d like to see a revolution. I’d like to wake up tomorrow and build a whole new world.

The worst part of it is, that the only thing worse than a woman coming forward to speak out about sexual violence, seems to be a woman survivor advocating and agitating for changes to the systems that have continually failed her.

Silence is the enemy of change.   I’m willing to bet that the majority of “average people” out there still believe we have a justice system, police and child protection systems that are impartial and unbiased.  People speaking out and telling their stories is the only way to shatter this misconception.

I refuse to stay silent.  The systems have failed me and my family, over and over again.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty.

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I’m feeling frustrated today about how survivors of sexual violence and abuse survivors in general have to constantly justify their existence to everyone on this planet, especially to people in authority.

We have a legal system which states that perpetrators are innocent until proven guilty.

But what about survivors?  Where are our rights to be considered innocent until proven guilty?

Why is it when a survivor comes forward and says “He raped me,” she is often met with doubt, blame, judgment, disbelief and then faced with barrier after barrier to being believed and getting support?

Doesn’t this strike you as wrong?

I’m here to suggest a radical position.  Our legal system can still consider perpetrators innocent until proven guilty, while at the same time survivors can be believed, validated, treated with respect and not accused of fabricating.

It’s very unlikely that a survivor would make up claims of abuse, especially considering the lack of support and validation in our society.

A few years ago my psychiatrist told me something I’ve been thinking about this week.  During the session I had been speaking a lot about my negative self esteem, my guilt, my shame, my body hatred, my struggles with anorexia and so on.  He asked me a question “If you were guilty of committing sexual abuse how long would you go to jail for?”   I answered him “Probably I wouldn’t go to jail, and if I did it would be for less than a year.”

He looked at me and said “You’ve been punishing yourself for more than 15 years for crimes you didn’t even commit.  Even if you were as guilty as you say you feel, you would have been out of jail long ago.  Stop punishing yourself.  Even criminals wouldn’t receive a 15 year sentence!”

It was a good point and I thought about it some.  I haven’t thought about it again until this week.

Honestly, my doctor was missing something in his analysis.  Maybe survivors, myself included, would have an easier time recovering and forgiving themselves, if they did not have to spend years justifying their experience and trying to convince others that the abuse really happened.

Maybe if women weren’t labelled as crazy or mentally ill.  Maybe if police treated women who report with respect and investigated their concerns quickly, thoroughly and with dignity for the survivor.  Maybe if the legal system wasn’t founded on white patriarchy.  Maybe if sexual assault conviction rates were higher.  Maybe if sentences for assault charges took into account the amount of harm that was done to the survivor.  Maybe if our society didn’t worry about “how it will impact his career” and instead considered “how it will impact the rest of her life.”

Because make no mistake.  Sexual assault impacts people’s lives.  It is not a crime that lasts for “just a few minutes”  it lives on in people for years, maybe forever.  The impact IS that voice inside the survivor which whispers “it’s your fault, you are dirty, you should be ashamed, nobody will believe you.”

Maybe we punish ourselves because there is no other option in a society that doesn’t validate what actually happened.  Maybe we doubt ourselves because society blames the victim.

I think that a large portion of the guilt and shame carried around by people like me was caused, not just by the perpetrator, but by a set of systems which are designed to blame us.

At this point in my life, I feel I have suffered an equal amount of trauma at the hands of systems that were supposedly designed to help me, as I ever did at the hands of my abusers.   This is a part of rape culture that we need to be talking about.