Today was, in my eyes and in those people I spoke to who took part, extremely successful. With the fanstastic help and encouragement of friends and family I came home feeling that a lot has been achieved today. We have raised awareness, not just locally but nationally. It can only benefit others and we all hope lead to positive outcomes.
The abuse of public money (income tax and council tax for those of us in D&G) for the benefit of a serial rapist has been highlighted on BBC 'Good Morning Scotland,' BBC 'Reporting Scotland,' BBC Scotland 'Newsdrive,' a number of other news and TV bulletins and a large number of national and local papers. More local papers are published on friday, so there may be more in those.
Many thanks to all of you who took part and for the miles you put in to make it to the court, for the posters you made and for being willing to stand up and be counted for something that is so obviously a signal that perpetrators have more human rights than victims. I know you all willingly did it because you feel as passionately as I do about the issues involved. I think you will find that more people will be thinking how brave you all were today to show your faces and to want the changes that are so overdue.
There have been very positive comments from everybody I've spoken to about the protest and the coverage received. Dr Elaine Murray MSP did a superb piece on 'Good Morning Scotland' and Iraina, director of SW Rape Crisis Centre also appeared and spoke on the issues involved with me. Thanks to Elaine and especially to Iraina who works tirelessly on these issues.
I came home, very tired after two days of this, to find the very first negative comment left on this blog and it simply emphasised all the more why our joint action is necessary and why awareness of the issues involved in serious sexual assault and rape have to be raised. Anon I feel sorry for you. You are the only person ever to leave a comment to make me think should I hit publish or reject?
This is what the ANON said:
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Pension for a serial rapist?":
let bygones be bygones, get on with your life. stop living in the past,and cashing in on it. take control, and stop the sympathy vote.
Anon, I think you simply show you live without empathy for your fellow man/woman. You obviously haven't worked out that these are the very sorts of crimes where the victims can't 'take control' (try chronic PTSD and you'll find out about nightmares, flashbacks, dissociative fugues and the likes.) Such naive thinking from anon - I pity you and anybody you know who may become a victim of such crimes. have a look at the Rape Crisis Scotland website, the White Ribbon Campaign website or Amnesty International. They are very educational.
I think that I speak for all victims of rape and serious sexual assualt - no victim seeks the 'sympathy vote.' We didn't have a choice in what happened to us. That is exactly why rape and sexual assault are criminal offences.
Anon, I suggest that you become more acquainted with the effects of rape and sexual abuse cases, their ramifications in all areas of a victims life. Also find out about the fantastic work that the rape crisis centres do - like our local one, where they counselled 199 victims in last year in this relatively sparsely populated region on a small budget. When/if you manage that Anon - perhaps you could make a more informed judgement on issues that involve such brutal violence. Then perhaps you might be able to make a more valuable contribution to society and to social policy discussions and campaigns. I really hope you or anybody close to you never finds out first-hand about rape and sexual abuse ...remember it can and does happen to either sex, any age.
So to the good people who turned out today - this comment from anon is simply another reason why each one of us was there to highlight the abuse of tax payers money, the inequalities of the Carruthers case (and those similar to it) and why you don't just 'forget about it and let bygones be bygones.' We all fight for equal rights in what is hoped to be a world of equality in all areas of life. That is all that victims of rape want ....other than the obvious of there to be no perpetrators so it wouldn't happen in the first place or ever. Oh, for that ideal world with no violent crime and no inequalities in a proper justice system!
Showing posts with label flashbacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flashbacks. Show all posts
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Monday, 27 October 2008
The time of year
I'd got loads of things lined up in my mind to follow up on the blog since my last entry and none of them have sprung into reality. It's just like me. No action. Feel ....well actually I feel very little. Sometimes I feel nothing bar an emptiness and a heavy head.
It's the time of year for me. Some say 'time of the month' ...well it's time of the year with me now. I’ve always loved the autumn, the colours, the changes in avian residents in the area. There's so much to look at, to marvel at and yet……
That's like a but. That 'yet' is actually a 'but' and it's a big but, a blooming enormous but that try as I do, it hits me like a sledgehammer at this time of year. Anniversaries - I hate them. I don't want to think about them but I do. They creep into my subconscious and take over my mind with the gremlins that come creeping out and terrorise my sleep, my dreams, my thoughts and my goodness Jane .....snap out of it! Aye, if only.
It's like when somebody, usually very well meaning, tells a person with depression to 'snap out of it.' How they would if they could. Same with PTSD and the really bad memories. I recognise they exist. I try to knock them back ....sometimes I’ve tried quite spectacularly. I once did a charity abseil from the Forth Rail Bridge to have something good to remember about this time of year instead .....but it wasn't on the day, not on the day he came in his police car and .......yeah, did all that. The only great thing the abseil did was to raise a lot of money for a very good cause and to give me a few minutes of fun as I came down the rope. Getting up there was a different story with my asthma wheezing away and that was much bigger challenge and the irony was that I was abseiling for the Chest,Heart and Stroke Association!
So the things that I used to really like and used to look forward to at this time of year, like the larches turning into their glowing yellows and a soft westerly wind that left an untouched carpet of golden larch needles on the paths and roads in the mornings, now it doesn't have the same integrity that it used to have for me. OK, it's still the natural world. I adore the natural world, I live for the natural world, I write about the natural world, I used to paint the natural world but .... There I go again. The larch trees that were across the valley from my old house were the last thing I saw before I lost the fight against him.
In recent weeks I’m having such trouble just to get up, to get myself to bed at a decent hour, to not have firework displays of flashbacks, to not have nightmares …..to feel/to be 'normal.' My short-term memory and my speech have also hiccupped with the tiredness and stress. It’s just not working for me again this year. “Maybe one year,” I promise myself. Maybe one year it won’t feel as bad. “Aye, when that bastard’s dead,” said one person last week and one who knew him too.
So now I need to really try and take a grip, be strong, be extra firm with myself. I managed the other day when the rain lashed down like it had forgotten how to stop yet again and the rivers rose at speed, pushed at their banks and found places to break out across the green ground and onto the roads. When neighbours looked like their houses would be imminently deluged with cold brown water and when it became mad to even think of using the road where I live as it was under so much water ….somehow that was different because it wasn’t about me, or about that dreadful day he came. It was different because I felt I needed to get on and do something for somebody else. It’s back to me doing things for others. Not that it was much. Only offering shelter and warmth if they wanted or if they flooded, moral support, saying I cared, that I thought of them, that I wanted to help. I find that bit weird. I’d think of helping anybody (bar one ex-convict) and yet I can’t help myself when I hit the roller coaster downers that take me to the black pits. There was an irony that the floods came on the same day as the day he …., the day I got a letter through the door for the latest appeal for the RNLI to support the volunteers who go out in all weathers. Good people who volunteer to save others.
So now it’s time to try and hold on to reality. The reality of what I’m trying to achieve. The reality of living, the reality of still caring about others in the world because all the decent people matter. People have right to matter because they’re good people who don’t hurt others and so yes, of course they matter. People have a right to be respected and to be cared about as much as any reasonable person does. People have a right to be safe and not to become a victim of any crime. Heaven forbid if they do, they have a right to a justice that means justice from beginning to end of the process and afterwards when the perpetrator is released.
So now I’ll really try harder again. The anniversary of his heinous deeds of that day is over for this year. The larch trees near my new home are beautifully swathed in yellows, ochres and gold, the geese have flown over heading south for better feeding grounds and even though my memories don’t fade, the flashbacks don’t stop, the nightmares don’t leave me much night time peace I know that I must keep chasing my dreams of change; changes that will make a difference.
One man ….and I wonder how many more of his victims find this very same problem at their 'time of year?' I imagine there are many. Would you trust a policeman? Me? It's unlikely I'll ever really truly trust anybody again. BUT I know that’s so unfair on the majority who are good, who do a hard job in difficult and challenging circumstances. One rotten apple was all it took …… just one apple that was rotten to the core ……and good men who either didn’t know or good men who did nothing.
Yes, it has to be time for action and time for change.
It's the time of year for me. Some say 'time of the month' ...well it's time of the year with me now. I’ve always loved the autumn, the colours, the changes in avian residents in the area. There's so much to look at, to marvel at and yet……
That's like a but. That 'yet' is actually a 'but' and it's a big but, a blooming enormous but that try as I do, it hits me like a sledgehammer at this time of year. Anniversaries - I hate them. I don't want to think about them but I do. They creep into my subconscious and take over my mind with the gremlins that come creeping out and terrorise my sleep, my dreams, my thoughts and my goodness Jane .....snap out of it! Aye, if only.
It's like when somebody, usually very well meaning, tells a person with depression to 'snap out of it.' How they would if they could. Same with PTSD and the really bad memories. I recognise they exist. I try to knock them back ....sometimes I’ve tried quite spectacularly. I once did a charity abseil from the Forth Rail Bridge to have something good to remember about this time of year instead .....but it wasn't on the day, not on the day he came in his police car and .......yeah, did all that. The only great thing the abseil did was to raise a lot of money for a very good cause and to give me a few minutes of fun as I came down the rope. Getting up there was a different story with my asthma wheezing away and that was much bigger challenge and the irony was that I was abseiling for the Chest,Heart and Stroke Association!
So the things that I used to really like and used to look forward to at this time of year, like the larches turning into their glowing yellows and a soft westerly wind that left an untouched carpet of golden larch needles on the paths and roads in the mornings, now it doesn't have the same integrity that it used to have for me. OK, it's still the natural world. I adore the natural world, I live for the natural world, I write about the natural world, I used to paint the natural world but .... There I go again. The larch trees that were across the valley from my old house were the last thing I saw before I lost the fight against him.
In recent weeks I’m having such trouble just to get up, to get myself to bed at a decent hour, to not have firework displays of flashbacks, to not have nightmares …..to feel/to be 'normal.' My short-term memory and my speech have also hiccupped with the tiredness and stress. It’s just not working for me again this year. “Maybe one year,” I promise myself. Maybe one year it won’t feel as bad. “Aye, when that bastard’s dead,” said one person last week and one who knew him too.
So now I need to really try and take a grip, be strong, be extra firm with myself. I managed the other day when the rain lashed down like it had forgotten how to stop yet again and the rivers rose at speed, pushed at their banks and found places to break out across the green ground and onto the roads. When neighbours looked like their houses would be imminently deluged with cold brown water and when it became mad to even think of using the road where I live as it was under so much water ….somehow that was different because it wasn’t about me, or about that dreadful day he came. It was different because I felt I needed to get on and do something for somebody else. It’s back to me doing things for others. Not that it was much. Only offering shelter and warmth if they wanted or if they flooded, moral support, saying I cared, that I thought of them, that I wanted to help. I find that bit weird. I’d think of helping anybody (bar one ex-convict) and yet I can’t help myself when I hit the roller coaster downers that take me to the black pits. There was an irony that the floods came on the same day as the day he …., the day I got a letter through the door for the latest appeal for the RNLI to support the volunteers who go out in all weathers. Good people who volunteer to save others.
So now it’s time to try and hold on to reality. The reality of what I’m trying to achieve. The reality of living, the reality of still caring about others in the world because all the decent people matter. People have right to matter because they’re good people who don’t hurt others and so yes, of course they matter. People have a right to be respected and to be cared about as much as any reasonable person does. People have a right to be safe and not to become a victim of any crime. Heaven forbid if they do, they have a right to a justice that means justice from beginning to end of the process and afterwards when the perpetrator is released.
So now I’ll really try harder again. The anniversary of his heinous deeds of that day is over for this year. The larch trees near my new home are beautifully swathed in yellows, ochres and gold, the geese have flown over heading south for better feeding grounds and even though my memories don’t fade, the flashbacks don’t stop, the nightmares don’t leave me much night time peace I know that I must keep chasing my dreams of change; changes that will make a difference.
One man ….and I wonder how many more of his victims find this very same problem at their 'time of year?' I imagine there are many. Would you trust a policeman? Me? It's unlikely I'll ever really truly trust anybody again. BUT I know that’s so unfair on the majority who are good, who do a hard job in difficult and challenging circumstances. One rotten apple was all it took …… just one apple that was rotten to the core ……and good men who either didn’t know or good men who did nothing.
Yes, it has to be time for action and time for change.
Monday, 15 September 2008
Day after publication
My back is utterly revolting again today. I suppose the house move alone was bound to take it's toll even though I've done very little physically. It ends up as another reminder of that dreadful day in October 96 that haunts me in all sorts of ways. A bad back always triggers more flashbacks too which one of the horrible sides to chronic PTSD. Flashbacks are such a pain and I'd do anything other than relive that life-changing day over and over again in glorious technicolour. As I know after years of so many doctors, consultants, specialists and experts, there are no solutions to my PTSD and so it's get on with it and keep taking the tablets. Mental health services have been a let down with being unable to help me that I now don't bother to say much as there is nothing positive that they seem to be able to do for me.
As you gather, I feel utterly drained and really quite down today and I've not been able to achieve much. Certainly not the list I'd made up last night. I try to do lists so I don't drift and lose my place with the things that need to be done. It's ordinary day-to-day living, but that doesn't always come easily for me after the assaults. Pain is never a good companion and the Tramadol pills and anti-inflammatory pills just aren't really touching the pain at the moment. My back is going into spasm frequently today and that is certainly not much fun.
All of this isn't what I'd expected today, but last week was a really busy one for me with the usual crop of medics to see and then the news articles to do ....not to mention the not so small matter of the release day of that devious and disgusting serial sex offender Carruthers on Friday.
I have to realise that I don't have masses of energy like I used to have, but this does irritate me and I get incredibly frustrated by not being able to keep going. Aye, I know, I shouldn't complain as there are sadly always others far worse off. I just 'don't do' the frustration issue very well.
Emails of support from the newspaper articles have been much appreciated and perhaps I might get some momentum behind the issue of serious sexual offences being treated as such by the government and the legislators of the future and even perhaps a change with those who deal with the perpetrators of these crimes who so often fail the victims. Am I dreaming on this one?
Victims of these very serious crimes are so often forgotten and yet they are the ones who really go through it, as do their families. Take the case of Ms X in the Carruthers trial. I was horrified when I found out what he'd done to her and how he'd duped her husband so he could rape her yet again. I honestly don't know how they might ever come to terms with that.
I seriously hope I'm not dreaming on achieving positive change as it really does matter to me that people who have been hurt, those driven to contemplate or those who have committed suicide because of heinous crimes have not suffered in vain. It also matters to me that the risk is minimised for the future and women are kept as safe as possible from the rapists and sex offenders - especially those who commit their crimes by abusing their power.
As you gather, I feel utterly drained and really quite down today and I've not been able to achieve much. Certainly not the list I'd made up last night. I try to do lists so I don't drift and lose my place with the things that need to be done. It's ordinary day-to-day living, but that doesn't always come easily for me after the assaults. Pain is never a good companion and the Tramadol pills and anti-inflammatory pills just aren't really touching the pain at the moment. My back is going into spasm frequently today and that is certainly not much fun.
All of this isn't what I'd expected today, but last week was a really busy one for me with the usual crop of medics to see and then the news articles to do ....not to mention the not so small matter of the release day of that devious and disgusting serial sex offender Carruthers on Friday.
I have to realise that I don't have masses of energy like I used to have, but this does irritate me and I get incredibly frustrated by not being able to keep going. Aye, I know, I shouldn't complain as there are sadly always others far worse off. I just 'don't do' the frustration issue very well.
Emails of support from the newspaper articles have been much appreciated and perhaps I might get some momentum behind the issue of serious sexual offences being treated as such by the government and the legislators of the future and even perhaps a change with those who deal with the perpetrators of these crimes who so often fail the victims. Am I dreaming on this one?
Victims of these very serious crimes are so often forgotten and yet they are the ones who really go through it, as do their families. Take the case of Ms X in the Carruthers trial. I was horrified when I found out what he'd done to her and how he'd duped her husband so he could rape her yet again. I honestly don't know how they might ever come to terms with that.
I seriously hope I'm not dreaming on achieving positive change as it really does matter to me that people who have been hurt, those driven to contemplate or those who have committed suicide because of heinous crimes have not suffered in vain. It also matters to me that the risk is minimised for the future and women are kept as safe as possible from the rapists and sex offenders - especially those who commit their crimes by abusing their power.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
