April 19, 2011

Victim? Survivor? What's in a word?

Thank you to all who responded..... I would like to add this: I am a SURVIVOR of sexual abuse. Those who have experienced the same and are alive, are also 'survivors,' in my view. 



This statement I have made is not about being a "professional victim" as some may like to claim - such is the nature of Freedom of Speech. It's about refusing to remain labelled as one.



Having said that, being a survivor doesn't automatically mean one has to be chirpy and upbeat all the time. Gee, sometimes I am such pissed off at things as a woman, a person, a mother, an employee.... not everything I do or feel should be constrained by the label people seem to want to impose on me - a victim. 



This stand (or whatever people want to call it) is about the experience I have endured with ACC AND is not an isolated case. It wouldn't have created such a polarisation within NZ society if it were. 



It's about bullying - someone telling you to shut up, know your place, don't argue - or else!



There are a lot of incredibly courageous women and men who have written to me over the last week detailing their own "inefficient" experiences with the legal system, ACC, justice in general. They're the real soldiers in all this. 



And it's time.... time to STOP making child sexual abuse the safest crime to commit, the hardest to convict, the least likely to be punished, and the hardest to gain support or counselling for....



It's time.

6 comments:

  1. YOU ARE AN INSPIRING WOMAN JAX. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COURAGE and for always remembering that courage means that the road ahead- as a SURVIVOR makes a statement of always saying NO to being a victim or victims anymore.

    Your courage is our courage.
    To the bullies around us I give you this messge:-

    'EGOTISIM IS THE ANAESETHETIC THAT DULLS THE PAIN OF STUPIDITY" (Frank Lesley - a wise old Notre Dame Football Coach of the 1940's).

    And TO YOU VERY STUPID PEOPLE, I have no sympathy for you - NOT NOW, NOT EVER.

    KIA KAHA JAX AND GO WELL, TAKE CARE

    'RACHEL'

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  2. Actually I am not liking that picture I put up there at all.... looks egotistical ad wanky, bank logoish even.... ,might change it.

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  3. That's better.... butterfly... from the old (Caterpillar) to the new (butterfly).. yeah, sits better with me, that.

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  4. Ahh, butterflies :)

    I don't see the abuse stopping unless and until we give proper support to the victims. I'm in my very own ACC hell at the moment.

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  5. I was in my late 50's before I told anyone I had been sexually abused and raped by two men when I was a kid. It was impossible to tell my parents when I felt dirty, guilty and ashamed of what had happened and didn't want to get into trouble.
    When I see what horrors women go through now with the authorities in their search for justice. I am glad I never said anything.
    I found it easier to let it all slip under the carpet and become a memory. I know that karma caught up with one of the offenders and only hope the other one got what he deserved too.

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