We were so moved and energized by Oprah’s speech. Now what? What do we do with all that motion and momentum now that the red carpets and cameras have been rolled up and put away?
I started a survivor blog fewer than four years ago because I couldn’t find ANY other person writing, thinking and talking about life after a childhood full of trauma. I wasn’t looking for stories about child abuse or trauma but about how adults manage life, love, and parenting after surviving. I didn’t meet, see or hear from anyone in ordinary and daily circles at work, school or in the neighborhood.
I was looking for conversations that didn’t come with a co-pay or a diagnosis. I wasn’t looking for a fast fix (o.k., maybe a little0 but even more I wanted the company and camaraderie of others living the same questions at the same time in real time and our real lives. That’s what I ached for. It wasn’t available anywhere that I could find.
If and when I dared to speak it was usually in whispers to lovers, friends or my journals as well as therapists. A few short years later there’s open, public, and televised conversation about surviving and sexual violence. That’s a boatload of change. I am living, seeing and feeling it and I am reminded daily that I’m not alone. We all know what #MeToo means now. It’s astounding.
As a culture, we’ve got more to sort through and figure out though.
It’s not all over or all better.
We’re not all good or all done.
Survivors know the vulnerability and the backlash that comes after disclosure, how the truth hangs out in the world waiting to be held, healed, acknowledged or responded to. And how often, it isn’t. That wait can be a long, lonely, and painfully revealing. We celebrate all the women on Facebook who shared Oprah’s speech, women who maybe never say things like rape culture, survivor or trauma-informed and also we notice how few men are sharing the same national broadcast. I don’t know any men in my world talking about the #MeToo movement this week.
Often, the world returns to normal too soon even when the old normal is exactly what so many of us are still recovering from.
How do we get back to day to day, changed, in a world ambivalent and inexperienced with hearing, holding and healing?
How do we rally together and move forward? Read more.
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