Healthy bitterness

[Bermuda]

Some people have told me that you have two choices. You can either turn your problems into solutions, or you can choose to be bitter. I am bitter. I am angry, and I'm turning my anger into solutions through passion.

Here is a list of all the ways in which the world systematically failed me:
•Firstly, I was born. Given the circumstances I was born into, that shouldn't have happened.
•Social workers failed me, when they failed to ask questions.
•Teachers failed me when they knew I was in trouble.
•Neighbours and family members failed me when no one intervened.
•For being born female, and all the many ways that made EVERY step more dangerous.
•The police failed me when they taught me that there was nothing actually wrong by turning away.
•The government for not checking up on children who are educated alternatively.
•The government failed me when any resources available to homeless people were more risky than beneficial.
•They failed me again when I had no access to food or medical care.
•The government failed me when they refused me identification, because I didn't have a residence.
•They refused me residency.
•People failed me when they repeatedly took advantage of the desperate situation I was in.
•The police failed me again, when I failed to report sexual assault because I knew I was a stripper, which is clearly untrustworthy and also because I was undocumented.
 I knew people who went missing. No one cared.
•The military, for offering me educational documentation and a passport in exchange for service. Suddenly, everything WAS possible.
•For every country in Europe that refused to let me study stating that my previous studies made me unqualified for further education.
•The bank manager who refused to create a bank account in my name, because I have a husband with an account.
•Lastly, the OHCHR for just completely missing the bar, or circling the bar rather.

I would like to give a big *thank* you to the world for making my life so difficult that it almost ceased to be. A big *thank* you for setting me back 18 years behind my peers. A big *thank* you for continuing to measure me up against those around me with discriminatory standards.

 

I would like to add to this over time, and hey if anyone else wants to vent their grievances with the universe, go for it. In my non-professional opinion, you don't choose to deny your problems exist, you're taught that, and you can retrain yourself to have a healthy amount of bitterness, because life sucks sometimes, and saying that doesn't make you weak or whiny.

It isn't my fault, because I can't control the world. I didn't have choices.

[Moondance]

Well said Bermuda - I definitely am bitter and with the help of your post I'm going to own it.

 

[Armee]

    

I am cheering on your very appropriate anger at these massive institutional and societal failures.

[Kizzie]

I can't quite remember where I read it Bermuda but there was a similar charge of sheer, utter failure against the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.  It isn't enough to say children have human rights, they have to actively push for better circumstances for children everywhere. I remember I was in total agreement. I would add governments everywhere need to do more, much, much more, along with justice, health, education, and public services. Everyone everywhere in other words.

We need to express and harness our anger individually and collectively.

[Armee]

I want to vent on behalf of a stranger. Thank you for starting this Bermuda. I heard this woman's story on a podcast. She was in foster care. People did not take her seriously. She was S. abused by her foster father. The foster care agency didnt listen to her. Teachers criticised her poor performance in school instead of investigating it. Finally she ran to the police with her soiled clothes as evidence. They took her out of the home (yay) but they were not able to convict the father.

He continued to have custody of her two siblings. Authorities would not listen to her and take her siblings out of the home. Her whole story was heartbreaking but the silencing and complete disregard of her in this way where she was trying to protect her siblings. I can't even fathom this colossal failure of humanity.

[Bermuda]

Moondance, good on you for letting yourself have feelings. Feelings are a good thing!

Kizzie, I agree. When things are outrageous there should be outrage. My daughter's class has the Convention on the Rights of the Child posted on the wall as part of her curriculum. Being informed is one of her rights. She is 1. What is so disheartening is that it's not her responsibility to meet her own rights, and no amount of her standing up for herself can change that. That's not how it works. The system is flawed, and perhaps even more so coming from a member state which contributes so much. On their website you're bombarded with images of children who look a certain way, of people who look a certain way. What happened to me with the military for example, is so completely common and systematic and not even a secret. Every military personnel knows someone. Maybe you knew someone. Will that country ever be sanctioned? Doubtful. Will there ever be justice for us? Probably not. Our problems were never big enough to be seen as abuse, not by any agency at any level. Here we are as adults trying to re-parent ourselves to teach ourselves that we matter, which is contrary to everything the world taught us before.

Armee, when I hear that it's so heartbreaking. What I hear is that it's not just trauma survivors who are taught to silence their reactions, it's everyone. It makes people not take action. No one wants to be the one to step up, and that's clearly a problem. It's a hard thing to do.

[Kizzie]

I think of our fight to receive acknowledgement, treatment and services to be like the Vietnam Vets who were basically shunned when they came back because the war was so contentious and was not 'won'. It was an uncomfortable truth most in society did not want to deal with so they turned their backs on the vets. One vet I read about said something to the effect of "I came to feel like it was not something I should ever talk about". Well now that all sure sounds familiar.

I also see it like abuses by the church. They had a lot of power and were able to shut down victims from talking for a very, very long time.  But now in the face of so much anger and collective pressure, it's out in the open.  Survivors started to speak and show their anger, tell their stories and apply pressure.

Anger like you're feeling and letting out is what I think will drive relational trauma behind closed doors out into the open.   

It's what I believe (hope?) us coming out from behind closed doors more and more will do. I don't think it will ever be 100%, nothing ever is, but if we start to speak out and act more both individually and collectively it will be better for us and those who follow us or so I hope.