Describing ourselves happens at various times in our lives. First day at school, first Curriculum Vitae, First application for college and then on every training course that is attended. The description becomes less detailed for training courses and ice breakers, yet all of these times really focuses the mind on how one sees one self. The description over the last thirty years has changed very little !
When I was at school I described myself as pretty, funny and clever. Modesty was unrequired, as my family raised me to know that I was special to them and that they were special to me. Blonde hair, blue eyes, bunches, plaits, pretty ribbons and cute outfits and an aspiring collection of Barbies… all really helped me to see myself as those very simple things.
As time passed I still saw myself as all of these things and more, yet people I met did not view me in the same way. Leaving an all girls school was an enormous shock. Young men just saw me as secondary, in my views, my life and my choices. I was a convenience of gender to them and eventually a punchbag and finally just three holes for their relief. This was the most horrific dehumanisation of a person. Having in formative years been protected and recovering from child sexual abuse, adulthood was a whole new survival facet.
I suppose in reality with the arrival of the new Barbie movie ( I am not attending a kids film!) that reviews are raving about. I am wholly aware that the origin was a poseable sex doll from Germany. So the sexual aspect that we should arrive to in adulthood, I was exposed to at far too young an age, when sexual interest was non exsistent, because children are not sexually aware, or prepared physically or emoptionally for sexual activity. The reson why stringent laws exist in terms of childhood is for that very reason.
So having written my first book, watch this space, working on the second, blogging and podcasting. The content very much encompasses the issues of non consensual sexual violence. No child can consent, so the sexual abuse is always sexual violence !. So as a young person my simple description of myself still stands. I am funny, clever and pretty. But all of that pales into insignificance when I see that sexual abuse and sexual and physical and emotional violence by men took all of that away. My financial independance, my careers, my looks ( when I was so heavily medicated for PTS for 10 years ) I am surprising now to have survived and therefore I would describe myself as a survivor…