An open letter to parents and care givers
I remember being a teenager and experiencing a much older man making comments about my figure and staring at my body. This was at an event with mainly adults and people that would, hopefully, have my best interests at heart.
On the way home, I strongly stated my discomfort and, not feeling I really got any sort of response, how I felt in that car still haunts me.
I think about it every now and again, as it became representative of many things. Deeper, larger issues and feelings of unworthiness.
I hope that children wouldn’t be viewed in this way now, but I (an undiagnosed ADHDer with burning RSD*) could be seen as quite ‘self sufficient’.
..
..
I was a child.
Wearing the masks everybody seemed to require and hiding behind confidence, I was so full of self loathing and shame.
There was a deep hatred for the parts of me that struggled with ‘everyday’ life.
I blamed myself.
*rejection sensitive dysphoria
I felt I didn’t ’fit in’ and thought that something was ‘wrong’ with me.
Even then, I knew that I didn’t want to conform and be like other people. That conformity, for me (whatever that, even, meant) would feel stifling.
But, I did wonder why I felt so incapable and like I was trying to hide the secret of my ‘failure’.
The part of me that felt desperate, and so full of longing, would have been prepared to stifle and suffocate my soul, to still not reach acceptance (either from myself, or others – in my mind anyway).
Then, I would have been devastated that I’d not been successful in my attempt to show my spark (and do a little dance for acceptance), within the truth of me that would finally be adored.
Oh, the fantasy!
I’d know that trying to please others (which didn’t work anyway), would feel like superglue being peeled from my fingers.
There were these fragments and I continued to get myself tangled up in this mess.
Feeling worse – and ‘unacceptable’ as a human.
Over the years, I spent so long trying to ‘analyse’ why I was perceived in the way I thought I was.
I wanted to know..
How do you see me?
And why is that?
I cared so much, and so deeply, but was seen as a foot-stomping and ‘difficult’ teen, who had so many opinions (they could say ‘too many’ – I disagree).
I could appear so self-assured.
I needed reassurance.
Part of walking to school, or walking around town at the weekends, meant men shouting comments from cars or making an approach.
This felt both violating and confusing.
At times it angered me, too.
Not just seeing things that might be said to me, but to lots of other young people of my age.
Hearing stories and not having a very good impression of how men could be.
There has been trauma over the years.
I am thinking, in these instances, about some adults appearing entitled to be close – and taking of personal space.
Talking to an older man, about something completely separate, and feeling like he was angling to turn the conversation around.
Sex would come up as a topic. I would wonder how that had happened.
As a younger woman or girl, you can think ‘what did I do?’
Nothing.
It was not my fault.
It is not our faults.
That day (as a fourteen or fifteen year old, maybe) I had felt uncomfortable and expressed it to adults afterwards.
It wasn’t about the man, but this was about their relationship with me.
Mine with myself.
Even though I came across as a confident, and strong-minded girl (or young woman, in some people’s eyes), deep down, I wasn’t.
Deeply sensitive, I wanted attention and care.
What would have made a huge difference here was TO BE VALIDATED.
Everyone knew the man.
In the grander scheme of things, it could have been viewed as ‘just’ comments or looking at someone in a certain way.
Maybe there was an awkwardness on the other adult’s part.
I was probably smiling through my unease, feeling put on the spot and not knowing how to behave. I was not expecting this.
No one said anything.
At least, I don’t think so.
When I spoke about the man and his behaviour, all I wanted to hear was agreement with me
Yes. What that man said was unacceptable.
He should NEVER have done that.
It is not your fault. It is his.
I wanted to check that I was right.
In this instance, someone at a party spoke inappropriately and there were some adults there who were very much aware.
One person, possibly fifty years older than me, made a comment about him ‘liking Tara’, in a wink wink, nudge, nudge kind of way.
This was probably what she had been raised with and part of this can be a generational thing.
I am a child.
And girls and women are not a wink wink, nudge nudge
I’ve also lived with internalised misogyny myself and have had to peel some of the layers of society’s messaging off. In this instance, I wanted to hear from care givers.
Reassurance. Validation.
His behaviour was not alright.
At the time, I felt judged for wearing low cut tops as a teenager.
Perhaps adults around me were acting out messages that they had been given. So, this became one part of a larger issue.
I don’t want to criticise.
I, also, am sure that I haven’t always had perfect responses, or ideal responses, to younger people in my life, but I care a lot about these things.
And, in my opinion, how you respond to situations like this, can really matter.
At least it mattered to me, when layered onto existing shame.
I felt alone, because I had no back up.
Yes, the closer adults probably knew that he behaved inappropriately (or maybe they didn’t see it that way, who knows) but I needed the validation and confirmation that that was the truth.
He had been in the wrong.
I remember, as a teenager, wearing certain clothes and being looked at as if I was ‘exposing’ too much. I’m sure there were worries about me going out and being approached, harassed, attacked.
This language around my clothing, though, made me feel that when men said anything, that I was to blame.
Even when part of me knew that I wasn’t. That it wasn’t a friend’s fault if a man started following her.
It was the man’s fault and his solely.
There was a part of me that internalised it all.
We spend years unpicking all this..
What consent is.
Looking back at painful situations.
The takeaway for me was that I wasn’t ‘worth’ protecting.
I think, sometimes, there was a fear amongst adults of saying something when someone treated me badly.
I wanted, and needed, to know that my gut was correct.
A comforting, calming voice.
He should never ever say that to you.
That is completely wrong.
You did nothing wrong.
I was building my barometer on how it was ok for me to be treated.
I needed reinforcement.
….
..
..
.
Belonging.
Belonging is key.
If you don’t feel you belong, are seen, are understood and are worthy, you can go about trying to ‘prove’ that you matter in many other ways.
Protection.
A baby wants, and needs, to be held and soothed, when crying, showing them that they have value, that their actions illicit a response and that they are intrinsically worthy of care and closeness.
I also needed to be shown how it is OK to treat me.
..
For the first time I feel WICKED
12 Days of Christmas (not Christmas-related necessarily)
Another open letter..
harassment, trauma, self-worth, protection, validation, misogyny, sexism, children,
Tara star
You are enough
You matter
