Rights of Ownership – I’d Like the Keys Back!

My mom told me it was inappropriate that I had broadcasted to so many people that I was going to the film screening of Orgasm Inc. She said I should be concerned with what my Nanna would think of me.

My dad sent me a text message describing how much I had disappointed him despite all the things he had done for me. He said I had hurt him because I was going to spend the weekend in Jasper with my new boyfriend.

My boyfriend held onto my hand tightly and asked if I wanted to be like women who would never orgasm in their lives? He told me I didn’t orgasm like the other women he had been with. He told me I should have laughed to ease the tension instead of running to the bathroom when I had an allergic reaction to the lube we were using.

How do I talk to my parents about the things my boyfriend says to me when all they can think and talk about is how much they feel ashamed of me ?
~Anna Joy

The Government Makes Family Violence Excusable

Criminalizing Abortion or any Contraception excuses abusing women. Perpetrators (father, brother, mother, aunt, grandmother) can say they were just trying to protect their future “child”.

Criminalizing Pre-Natal Drug Use excuses perpetrators abusing women.  A father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, cousin, grandmother can say they were only acting in the interest of the “child”. They can dismiss a woman’s feelings claiming she was too high, too drunk or too caffeinated.

Categorizing Homosexuality or Transgendered as a Disease grants fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts or cousins an excuse for abusing someone in their family. If an abuser believes they can provide a “cure” they’ll be seen as only trying to save their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts or cousins.

Criminalizing Marriage Fraud and prescribing minimum sentences, such as 2 years, of marriage before granting full immigration status to a woman, excuses abusing women and makes it difficult for a woman to report abuse. An abuser can threaten a woman that if she doesn’t “act like a wife” she’ll be deported.  What a wife does or acts like will be controlled by the abuser.

~Anna Joy

My Soul

Every day, she screamed reminders inside my head.

“You’re so demanding.”

“You always need something.”

But the fact was, all I needed was her love.

A day or two later, she would present me with money, as if somehow the dollar bills would soak up the terrible things that came out of her mouth.

A week or two later, she would yell again, using the money as an excuse to call me ungrateful when I lost patience and fought back.

And then she would call me a bitch, and a slut, and I would tell her to go fuck herself, throw things at her and push her.

And then my dad would start yelling at us, and I would cower in the corner and cry as my mother explained to him that it was my fault – that I started it all, that I was a little troublemaker who wanted to make them fight. 

like a flash

i have these snippets of memories. they appear and disappear in an instant. like the flash of an old slr camera. *poof* i can not really make sense of them, as in, i can not string them together with eloquent words to tell a story or depict a picture. my mind, my body, is not ready to do so. to see it all in a full light. so they remain little flashes of images etched in my mind. like the time i did not understand my math so i was hit repeatedly in the head and tossed up the stairs with the words 'idiot' ringing in my ears at the age of 9. or when my father asked me where those marks came from on my back as i bathed one night. the time i stepped between her and my little sister who was being pushed into the dresser only to be screamed at and shoved myself. or the time that same sister called the police because of the fighting in our home. i remember the phone calls to my older sister to come and get me because she 'could not fucking stand the sight of me anymore!'. *poof-poof-poof* i see these flashes and i am grateful in a way that they do not haunt me. that the violence in our relationship is so far removed now that it is hard to believe it was there at all. but i do still have these snippets. like a flash, i see them. and as quickly as they come ... they disappear.
~Whytelash

Things my Mom’s NOT allowed to do

 I was soo proud of my mom because she had decided to go back to school. Her reasoning was she wanted to help support the family financially now that my dad wasn’t making as much money as he used too. Part of me believed her, but part of me wanted to believe her motives were so that she could be seen as an equal contributor to the family. That if she contributed monetarily my dad would grant her equal rights to make decisions about the families’ financial status.

Had I known.

If I had known how sacred I would feel at times, would I have said 'I Do'?

If I had known how much debt I would endure when he 'couldn't work', would I have shared my credit?

If I knew the guilt & shame that would come from saying no to my 'wifely sexual obligations', would I have invited him into my bed in the first place?

Had I a clue he would become an addict blaming me for his choices, would I have given him my trust?

If I'd had any idea how many walls would be punched in, doors riped off hinges, things thrown, slammed, broken...would I have agreed to share in that life?

Had I been able to see the damages living in that environment would have on our children, the anger & desperation they'd acquire, would I have had these babies?

If I had known that he would want his life to end, that most days were more a challenge than a joy, would I  have allowed myself to love him so deeply?

If I knew for sure that he would change, would I have stayed?

~ Whytelash

Family Violence

When I was first asked if I’d like to do anything for Family Violence month, which is November, I felt uneasy. Even though I identify my father’s behaviour as abusive and I am able to recognize how it is affecting me I had never considered it to be family violence. Firstly my family didn’t look like the ones I had seen on tv or movies that were called violent. Secondly I was supposed to forgive my father because he had a troubled childhood. And Thirdly because of how frequently my father would have tantrums I let them blend into one long continuum to try and forget them easier. 

No my dad never hit me, or my mom, or my sister. And that was my understanding of what violence was growing up. If he didn’t hit us, not including spanking, we weren’t being abused. My dad would even boast proudly, acknowledging his temper, that he had never hit his family. But the hole in a wall left from a door flung open REALLY hard, the sound of tires spinning outside as a truck sped off, or the threat that my sister and I were never too old to be spanked were leaving scares on me. And these incidents never happened just once, but all the time.