STBW thanks people here

[SupposedToBeWorking]

I've been on some of the recent threads about "small" sexual assaults, about feminist converts, about taking sexual abuse seriously. I have never before experienced what it's like to be listened to and responded to by so many people about assault and about being female.

I have had parts of my mind turned inside out right way out.

I have been a powerhouse of education at the individual level in RL this week.

I am making sure that women and men hear that the expectation that female people who have been assaulted will suffer quietly instead of the people who assault them suffering publicly has done probably more damage to me than the attacks themselves;

that that is a social issue not a psychological one;

and that that is what I'm going to dismantle.

I am demonstrating the principle by discussing it (and crying and cursing and trembling) with the same candour and in the same contexts that I would for any other conversation with people in my RL - with a mindfulness of and compassion for the many people hearing me who will have their own wounds that still hurt.

I'm going to have therapy or something too, because I need a hand losing the specific effects of my specific experiences. But it's more powerful to me that I'm going to go to Reclaim the Night and that I set up a standing order to give money to Rape Crisis. Taking a visible stand alongside other women and men: that's me taking charge of my healing.

I don't feel any shame about only directly addressing for now this tiny small part of the suffering that humans mete out to each other. Other injustices are no reason why I should not work to redress imbalances that do happen to affect me.

I can do this because I have in my mind the posts of hundreds of women which I take as support. Some of them are written to me! I shine when I see those. I'm very quickly moving to a position where I will do this simply because of the posts of hundreds of women which I take as motivation. But I will never, ever forget the layering of acceptance, confirmation, responsiveness, concern and care that I myself received here.

Thank you all. I am exhausted in my body, but my spirit is just waking up

STBW - thank you.

[punches fist in air]

Woo hoo for you!

I'm delighted for you.

I like it!

Not this?

"I am exhausted in my body, but my spirit is just waking up"

let the love-in commence!!

STBW, I just wanted to say that I have related to many of your posts from the last week or so, and I'm glad you have found a place where you feel comfortable to talk about your experiences. I hope you can take as much from these amazing women as I have!

Your strength and determination to make a change are inspirational, and hopefully I'll see you at RTN!!

Fist-punching love-ins all good with me

UmYeah, I saw on the AIBU thread that you're coming. Hope to see you too!

E&M, I have sobbed so much this week I have pretty much dissolved my shoes. But I've got another pair for marching in!

Aw STBW everything you write is giving me a happy lump in my throat. It's lovely to hear someone experiencing a particular kind of freedom for the first time, if that sounds right?

Can't wait for the march. Two weeks to go! :)

Thanks STBW - I posted on that thread, but it made me so uncomfortable to dredge up things i thought id hidden away, i almost hid the thread but didn't and lurked.

finding out that sooooo many people had gone through similar experiences made me realise that i wasn't being dramatic ( a reason i wont share with family - too long to go into) and that these things really did happen to me.

To hear Dittany speak to other women and validate experiences that they didnt think was rape until they had written it here and have a thousand responses saying, no, youre right, it is, even if vacariously, meant more to me than i can ever express.

I applaud you for this thread and look forward to you changing the attitudes of many men and womens minds

more power....x

kingbeat, I'm so glad you lurked around the other thread, and thank you for coming here too.

I anticipate that my family would also tell me, 'You don't get to call that rape'. I too have Dittany with me in my head, as a symbol of insistent clarity and justice, shouting 'Yes she bloody well does!'. I feel an immense safety in the consistency of the responses that we all got on that thread. No-one blames us for feeling guilty, for example, but at the same time no-one's going to endorse our guilt. No-one asks to know all the circumstances before they'll decide whether we deserve to object to being assaulted.

I know what you mean about vicarious validation. I spent months longing to have MN on my side before I got brave enough to post about this, and even when I did I was weeping and shaking, and dreading being dismissed or ignored or told that I didn't belong and wasn't allowed the strong tenderness that I had seen so fully given to 'real' victims. I watched all the threads about rape that I could find. I did a lot of crying alone.

And lurking did me a lot of good. I learned that I had been raped, for a start. It was news to me! I've spent years knowing in sore detail the many and varied ways I felt responsible. But it's only in the past few months of lurking on MN that I've come to realise not only that I wasn't responsible, but also that I didn't 'take' responsibility so much as have it given to me, by all the myths and oppressions and injurious patterns of thought and action that are this society's currency.

Dredging things up is uncomfortable, there's no doubt, and I'm touched beyond words that you've posted here now. I think you're a brave woman, and if I'd been able to, I would have protected you from being raped. I am able to do more now, and I will.

E&M, you're so right about a new kind of freedom. I put it like this to a friend this evening: he had mentioned that distinguishing between 'us' and 'them' is one of the first categorisations that children make. Well, first I questioned whether children do make that distinction or are taught it, because I'm suspicious about the idea that it's inevitable. But second, I said that because in our society women are 'them', but 'us' is not only maleness but also humanness, women also learn to think of women as 'them', without knowing that that's what's happening.

I've found an 'us', which is a shift in self-perception as much as it's a group of people. And it's an 'us' where I don't feel set up against a 'them', even where there are individuals whose conduct I fiercely oppose. I am a sweet-hearted idealist who really thinks that in the end people whose advantages rest on inhumanity will be relieved that someone stopped them from benefitting at the expense of other human people.

But that's in the end. Until then I'm prepared to get things just, whether other people like it or not

That's such a touching post STBW. And thoughtprovoking.
I posted on that thread too - under a namechange- I suppose I don't want the things that happened to be connected with me, even the me I construct for mn. I already told you on another thread I am so happy for you. If you know what I mean. I think i'm joining in the 'us' with you

on another this thread, tis late!

I'm with you too. I didn't post on or read that thread (yet) because I feel all confessed-out after posting on some recentish threads on the same subject, which mostly got deleted actually. But I am very heartened to hear that you are getting there on recovering x

I lurked on that thread, although I didn't contribute because I have fairly trivial incidences to add (luckily for me). However, I am glad you started this thread because I have been wanting to say how marvellous I think you all are, and the strength and support and compassion in evidence was so heartening and empowering. I love this part of MN.

[Fist punch with little heart emoticon]

Can we also have one that says 'We believe you'?

wukter, people for whom it isn't quite safe to connect are still in my 'us'. There's a political 'us', and I have completely no idea actually which real people I'm allying myself with , and there's the 'us' in my heart. I've got room for everyone there.

BOF, you were the first person on MN who responded to me about rape. Without the encouragement that I got from that, I wouldn't have got brave enough to check whether anyone else would take as kind a line as you did. (All you said was that it must have been hard to post and that you felt for me. That was a big kindness compared to what I expected. And you made me a sad face, and to me that was like being held at last by someone who cared.)

You know something else I love about this part of MN? That even when I can't say things too coherently, the sheer numbers mean that someone is likely to get what I mean.

thecatspjs: [heart] back to you.

"women also learn to think of women as 'them', without knowing that that's what's happening."

That's so true. Had never thought of it like that before.

Which is why there's widespread cynicism about women as a group. How can we trust their opinions, feelings, motivations, when they are, well, them.

Whereas there is enormous credulity and faith in the motivations of men as a group. Never more so than in the area of sexual assault. Huge faith is put in men's goodwill and reluctance to do wrong deliberately. Hence all the excuses.

Lovely posts. I also got a huge amount of strength from that thread, it was very powerful.

So I've bought my train ticket for the Reclaim the Night march, and I've been talking to all sorts of people in RL about rape and assault (nationally and my own), and tomorrow I have an appointment with a therapist. She's shown quite some sense and awareness by email, I hope she feels safe to me in person too.

I know this topic isn't the usual place for an individual support thread, but if anyone has any supportive words for me I wouldn't half appreciate them. I've been a bit wobbly since I've really stopped hiding from it quite so much. Nothing major is going to get said tomorrow but I'm shaking with fear/fury and feeling not very sure of myself. I'm scared of being told yet again that I don't qualify for sympathy.

Thank you all for the love you've sent so far, and for speaking out on threads and in the world. I'm off out for the evening now, but will be able to check thread before my appointment.

Can I just clarify, it's not because I'm going to RTN that I made an appointment to see a therapist

Good luck tomorrow, I will be thinking of you. I think you are really brave. Let us know how it goes.

hi, STBW, I missed this thread the first time around but glad to see it bumped now x

you sound lovely, and you sound real

and you sound just like me, in my head