My brain is trying to process...

A heavy blog night (don't worry, if you know me - I am actually totally ok, curled up with kittens and a lovely cup of tea, but writing about tough stuff)

A post on xojane, http://www.xojane.com/issues/rape-and-suicide (TRIGGER WARNING!!! talks about rape and suicide, PTSD, etc), got me thinking about that whole to-be-or-not-to-be thing. The blogger on xojane has survived several sexual assaults; for her, one more time would be the last straw. And this made me wonder - if it happened to me, again, what would I do? I want to think that it wouldn't happen, that lightning doesn't strike twice. Of course, life doesn't quite work that way; there is no life-long immunity to rape after it happens the first time. One of the commenters echoed what I think I feel about this as well - rather than it being the last straw, it would be another challenge to get through, but one that is perhaps easier than the first time, knowing that survival is possible even though it's hard as fuck.

So many folks in the comments (yes, I read the comments on everything...) say that they've always had suicide as a back-up plan. A friend of mine has often said the same thing for her life, and the possibility of having that last resort taken away from her was terrifying. I'm different (luckily, I guess) and I'm not sure what contributes to that. Not surviving has just never been an option that I'm willing to consider. It's letting him win.

Another thing I've been grappling with these past few weeks is the idea of forgiveness. It'll be 10 years this April, and I still cannot bring myself to look at his picture in my high-school yearbook for fear that I'll then know what he looks like (my eyesight was bad enough 10 years ago that I could not see him clearly enough to recognize him; in my mind, he doesn't have a face) and be able to know if I saw him on the street who he was - and I fear that then I'd kill him, or else explode with rage. So many people say to forgive, even though forgetting is impossible. I have trouble with that. I really do believe that some things cannot be forgiven.

Dying is letting him win; forgiving is letting him win; even as much as I'd like to push things aside, forgetting is letting him win. I can move past the flashbacks and surf on the waves of rage without being pulled under, but dammit if I'm going to venture inland.

[I still have never gotten a comment on this blog. If you read this, say hi?]

Sexism/The Internet

I've been thinking about this post from Hook and Eye - it rings for me. But I feel like it's not the whole picture - if there is a photograph of sexism, the picture frame is the internet. Or perhaps the camera is the internet. I'm not entirely sure where this metaphor is going, but there's something insidious about how the internet perpetuates sexism that makes all of this more problematic. Sexism, catalyzed by the internet? The internet is still a problem here.

Anyhow, here's the link:

http://www.hookandeye.ca/2012/10/amanda-todd-problem-is-sexism-not.html

Thoughts? (if I get my first comment - ever - on this blog post, I'll find some way to make you a cookie!)

With the media abuzz about Amanda Todd's recent suicide after years of bullying, in person and online, I've been reflecting a fair bit about how things have changed since I was her age - and how the changes have made bullying that much more insidious.

I was bullied persistently through grades 4 through 8, at two different schools and overnight camp. But unlike what today's youth deal with, the bullying could never follow me home.

The worst bullying I experienced happened from 1997 to 2002 - the internet was in its beginnings, and cellphones were an oddity rather than a social expectation. My peers were reluctant to bully me in our regular evening MSN conversations, because they knew that I'd then have a written record of what they said - and besides, many of us at the time shared computers with our parents, and bullying online would be more likely to be caught. In one case, when I told a school guidance counsellor about how the other girls were teasing me, one of the bullies printed off our MSN chat from the evening before in which she'd been perfectly decent to me while talking about a school project, and used it as supposed proof that she and her friends accepted me into their in-crowd.

There was no Facebook, or equivalent social networking site. When I finished middle school, I deleted the girls who tormented me from my MSN contacts list, and had no reason to ever communicate with them again. These days, a teen in the same situation would have these peers on Facebook, and often keeps peers who bully her, as having a large list of "friends" is a marker of social status. I could sever contact, and more or less create a new life for myself. That's not an option anymore.

Of course, that's not to say that bullying never extended to the internet - but for the most part, kids were more civil online than they would ever be in person. There was one situation that stands out to me. When I was in grade 9, and was having a rough time, a former friend whom I'd fallen out with suggested - perhaps jokingly, but I'll never know - that I just go ahead and kill myself. That was the closest I'd ever come to suicide, and if other friends hadn't been there (also online) to support me, I can't say with confidence that I'd be alive today.

If the internet back then had been what it is today, I don't know if I'd have survived those years. When I left school, I was free. I could go home and read, and be in my own world where nobody could hurt me. Now, that world would be interrupted by a mean text message or inappropriate photo posting. It surprises me not that Amanda Todd ended her life, but that so many youth are so alone, a sea of bullies surrounding them even in their own homes, and have somehow managed to cling on to hope and survive.

If anybody who is reading this is in a rough situation with bullies - it can get better, with time. It's hard to keep hoping when you hurt so much, but one day, you'll realize that your perseverance is worth it.