I have been thinking often this past week about Rehtaeh Parsons and Audrie Pott, how to respond to those devastating tragedies.
Rehtaeh and Audrie's rapes and deaths pull the curtain to show the sexual exploitation, public shaming, and social ostracization Amanda Todd experienced was by no means an isolated incident. If these three girls have died, there are many other young women and men who have experienced the same horrendous treatment and who are courageously struggling to survive -- people who deserve to be acclaimed for their strength and bravery, but are terrified to tell their stories.
How do we support these anonymous Heroines and Heroes? How do we make it safe for them to speak up? How do we protect others from exploitation, violence, abuse and hatred? How do we respond to the young men and women who have perpetrated those crimes, and prevent others from doing the same?
The day I learned about Rehtaeh and Audrie's deaths was the day of the Boston Marathon bombings, the horror of so many people maimed and dead, and knowing that, too, is not an isolated incident; that similar and worse bombings happen in other countries -- the nightmare of dismemberment, grief, and trauma the Boston Marathon survivors now share.
And finally the news last night of a five-year old being raped in India. I broke down sobbing on my kitchen table. How could someone speak that news without crying? I remembered working in a group home in my early twenties, one of the teenagers confiding in me she had been at an older relative's house party and walked in on a child being raped. What should she do, she asked?
In the past, I have not done well at being with my own or other people's suffering. "Human beings cannot bear much reality," T. S. Elliot said. When our capacity for being with our own discomfort and pain is low, when we have little empathy for ourselves, have been trained to "keep calm and carry on", find a quick fix, or distract ourselves with work or entertainment or addiction (as most of us have been trained in this culture), what do we have to offer others who are in emotional pain? Especially when it's a pain that persists, or that can't be mended?
How do we learn to be with pain and suffering more skillfully so that it neither engulfs us in fear and depression nor cauterizes our hearts and makes us cruel? So that we can better recognize and respond to the suffering of others? How do we help our children do the same?
This morning, I received this quote from Claude AnShin Thomas in my email inbox:
We are constantly encouraged to reject what is unpleasant, disappointing or difficult. 'What's all this suffering? Let's be happy! Have fun!' But our suffering is not our enemy. It is only through a relationship with my pain, my sadness, that I can truly know and touch the opposite -- my pleasure, my joy, and my happiness.
My dear Lynn, Your writings pull at my heart. I too have been deeply touched by these tragedies and struggle with whether or not to even turn the news on, or read more. I don't have regular tv to catch the news, so indeed there is an effort for me to track down the stories. I feel as if I have a bit more choice when I am here at home. Although, CBC is my home page and I am often pulled down a rabbit hole ..or two there! I must confess I was trauma-bound with the Boston Bombings. But as Mr Roger's advises to do....I looked for the helpers, 'there are always helpers' he said.
ReplyDeleteI struggle so much with wanting to be informed but not wanting to map my brain with so much negativity and hurt. The research so strongly confirms, "what fires together wires together' and I just don't want those neurons firing and creating my new normal.
I will continue to look for the helpers and hope that in my own way I am always one too.
Much love for your deep deep empathy,
Kim