I am so glad that you friends have actually stepped forward and shared a little of your background. It's nice to know others have backgrounds similiar to my own and at least five other women here. It's nice when others finally speak up a little, now isn't it?
May I ask what, where, when, how detailed, how many minutes, and with whom is the appropriate time to speak of sexual abuse and rape? If you will point me to the professional guidelines, it would be appreciated. As to your community help projects, please give details - it would help others to reach out also, don't you think? As for speaking about incest/rape on this thread, well, it was started by another person dealing with this subject.
If you will recall, PTS actually became known because of the VietNam returning soldiers. The USA citizens greeted some of them as infamous "baby burners," among other things. USA didn't want to be reminded of the war they didn't understand and lost. The veterans had many problems, physical and emotional. They brought those to bear on their families, their jobs, and themselves. Then they started speaking. They started demonstrating, marching, demanding recognition. Professionals who dealt with them started understanding what they said.
Were they all in scrufty old uniforms and wheelchairs? All long hair? All 3-piece suit bankers? All men? Or were they're all sorts. Some incredibly angry for the price they had to pay - others doing pretty good about the so-called "unpleasantries" experienced. Did they all join in? Did some just want to remain hidden and not want to talk about such things?
A guy I work with in a body shop is a VietNam veteran. Big auto dealership. He's an excellant painter - and everyone who works there is warned ahead of time to absolutely do not walk up behind him - because if you catch him offguard, he will hit you. Polite? Absolutely not. Understandable? Not to me, never been in war. But I gave him latitude for his life. I came into where he was painting once, stood quietly about 12 feet in back of him (only place to stand) and waited until he turned to see me. When he turned and saw me quietly there, he turned completely white and had to hold onto something to steady himself. When composed, he angrily told me never to do that again in a lot of words. I apologized. It had been over 30 years since he was traumatized - but it came back like yesterday. I unintentionally triggered him - and received his anger in return.
An attorney in town was a captain in VietNam, captured by the enemy and tortured. He wrote a small book about his experiences, got it published and he remains quiet.
We are all different and take different roads. It takes tolerance to accept each other, to accept those we don't understand, and to withhold making judgments of others at least until all facts are known.
I have never encouraged a survivor/victim to speak out about their experience in public if they've said they do not wish to do so. I am quite close to another survivor who wished to post about her experience and I suggested she wait until she had time to review it with her therapist. It is a personal decision. When I answered this thread, I wrote no words about myself. I really do try to confine my speaking out to threads which actually were started about incest/rape. That would be the appropriate arena - as this one was started by another person. I really don't remember ever starting a thread about this subject myself. In fact, on threads dealing with this, there is an alarming amount of non response - which is everyone's right. I have posted almost two thousand times within the last year. I strongly suspect that the amount of posts dealing with incest/rape would be around 5% or less than a hundred posts. It's just too hard to do. 5% does not make a radical in most people's eyes.
bombard people in cyberspace with all the gory details
I think you are using your life experience to be an excuse to do whatever the hell you want to others and then blame it on your past.
choose not to "beat others around the head"
And even if we did choose to share the details, few of us would continually bring it into every discussion. There is no need to. We've heard it once. We don't need to hear it every day.
Please give evidence instead of accusations, ladies. You have the ability to quote me as I have quoted you. Give evidence where I beat others around the head, bombard with gory details, continually bring it into every discussion every day?
waiting
Edited by - waiting on 11 March 2001 10:0:53
