News Woody Allen Is Not A Monster. He Is A Person. Like My Father.

[Survivor2Thriver]

@Pencil. "The point is to suspect anyone and everyone around you." You don't understand that comes naturally with me and many many others?!Click to expand... And you seem to think that you are the only what that that comes naturally to? That has always come naturally to me even as a small child. I would say there is unlikely to be a person in this thread that doesn't have this awareness.

LOL! I clearly stated "You don't understand that comes naturally with me and many many many others.

And you reply with "And you seem to think that you are the only one that comes naturally to?"

Such a simple sentence and you managed to slay it. LOL

With all due respect having an objective conversation with you is impossible, Good day.

 

[Survivor2Thriver]

. I will always have a lower stress threshold.

Clearly Solara. Clearly. I wish you the best in your recovery. Sincerely.

 

[Echo]

It is fascinating to read about the many different approaches to dealing with these problems associated with educating the public and children. I for one really feel that it is necessary for survivors' voices to be heard, and for that reason, I very much appreciate this article posted by Lost Pup.

It is all too easy for people who think they have no direct experience of all of this to make both perpetrators and victims/survivors other than themselves. I guess it is a defence mechanism, and not a very useful one at that, but people don't want to believe it can happen to them and their children, so they have a need to think a whole variety of things are true about us and perpetrators. This is the root also of victim blaming, I think. This deep-seated fear, however, prevents people from actually seeing the truth.

It is also the same, I think, with miscarriage (it can't happen to me, people think, because I am more xxx and less yyy than that person) and with serious diseases like cancer (blame the sufferer, do anything to make oneself other than them).

Fear is a great creator of blinkers. People don't want to widen their worldview to accept that rape can happen to anyone, that any of us can get horrible diseases, and that perpetrators of many crimes go undetected until it is too late, because people refuse to believe that they look like everyman and everywoman.

I hope this upwelling of so many more media reports (when they don't distort) is educating people, making things more real and possibly even identifiable. Hearing the accounts of those brave enough to come out and share their stories with the public, whether anonymous or otherwise, brings a human dimension to it all. It means people cannot monster perpetrators so easily, but realise they are humans who do dreadful things. And they can develop empathy and understanding for survivors and the long-term effects of such violence, about which we all know far too much.

Before CPTSD crashed into my life in its full-blown way, I had no idea, so I find it understandable that people around me just don't get what it means. Only yesterday a supposed friend told me I should just grow up, stop loving my abusive parents and learn to hate them. If only it were as easy as switching off a light. And I will never chose to hate anyway. I would be the only one damaged by that. I am about to challenge my parents with a letter stating my diagnosis and the effects on me, and I am dismayed by how many people think this will lead to a grand cathartic healing between me and my parents, with lots of hugs and the love that has always been absent from their side suddenly being available in bucket loads. I know this isn't what is going to happen. That's not what I'm doing it for. People just want this nightmare to be over for me and they don't want to have to think about it anymore.

But I will stand up and tell my truth, and one day I will also find the strength to write about it and educate people to the best of my ability. Congratulations to the author of this piece for doing that. We all have our part to play, each of it partial. We have to heal too and not get overwhelmed by the bigger picture until we can manage it without it damaging us and before we are ready to speak out. Many of us can be powerful advocates. Some of us have other roles to play. We can't all do it all, but whatever we do, from showing that we can get well all the way to taking a public stand, is valuable and has the potential to help others and to educate. I am grateful for this discussion.

 

[Pencil]

But I will stand up and tell my truth, and one day I will also find the strength to write about it and educate people to the best of my ability. Congratulations to the author of this piece for doing that. We all have our part to play, each of it partial. We have to heal too and not get overwhelmed by the bigger picture until we can manage it without it damaging us and before we are ready to speak out. Many of us can be powerful advocates. Some of us have other roles to play. We can't all do it all, but whatever we do, from showing that we can get well all the way to taking a public stand, is valuable and has the potential to help others and to educate. I am grateful for this discussion.

The slog up to the tipping point is always long and tiresome, but a tipping point is always reached. @Ms Spock don't give up, although I know it is disheartening.

 

[Abstract]

I am dismayed by how many people think this will lead to a grand cathartic healing between me and my parents, with lots of hugs and the love that has always been absent from their side suddenly being available in bucket loads. I know this isn't what is going to happen. That's not what I'm doing it for.

This is very true and common and you are very wise in the way you are approaching it. They think it will lead to that because they can't grasp that type of engrained dysfunction. I also think you are right about it partially being a coping mechanism.

I too am glad to have read the article.

 

[ms spock]

I am so sorry your mother did that Ms Spock. It is despicable. And yes, if she is capable of that she is not safe to be alone with children. Neither is your father. It is frightening to think of people who are capable of these things being at large.

And they are common and pretty much everywhere.

 

[ms spock]

I would be the only one damaged by that. I am about to challenge my parents with a letter stating my diagnosis and the effects on me, and I am dismayed by how many people think this will lead to a grand cathartic healing between me and my parents, with lots of hugs and the love that has always been absent from their side suddenly being available in bucket loads. I know this isn't what is going to happen. That's not what I'm doing it for. People just want this nightmare to be over for me and they don't want to have to think about it anymore.

Yes and that is not helpful at all.

 

[Lost Pup]

I should've acknowledged when I posted this that I have a personal connection to the author. I have been pondering saying so for two days and decided I need to add that I am a bit saddened by the criticisms of his language and the charge that the piece was somehow not enough, either because a reader found it shallow ("wide but not deep") or because it failed to address a variety of larger social questions which, albeit good ones, are far beyond the scope of the format and website.

It seems so clear to me that it would be best for survivors to build upon one another's work, not accepting it wholesale, but finding what is helpful within, so that we can stand in solidarity, building a collective voice that is more powerful than any of our own voices individually.

Can you imagine how anxiety provoking it must be to have shared one's story and to know that 200K people have read it, many of whom are the sort of angry skeptics that defend Woody Allen and talk about Dylan's "palpable bitchery?"

 

[Valentino]

I revisited Dylan Farrow's open letter, and I think she makes a very important point about how society often silences abuse survivors. The secondary abuse from being silenced and being socially banished might be just as hurtful as the original abuse. If not worse, because it's like a form of gaslighting by family members, peers and society.

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/20...=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&

I couldn’t keep the secret anymore.

When I asked my mother if her dad did to her what Woody Allen did to me, I honestly did not know the answer. I also didn’t know the firestorm it would trigger. I didn’t know that my father would use his sexual relationship with my sister to cover up the abuse he inflicted on me. I didn’t know that he would accuse my mother of planting the abuse in my head and call her a liar for defending me. I didn’t know that I would be made to recount my story over and over again, to doctor after doctor, pushed to see if I’d admit I was lying as part of a legal battle I couldn’t possibly understand. At one point, my mother sat me down and told me that I wouldn’t be in trouble if I was lying – that I could take it all back. I couldn’t. It was all true. But sexual abuse claims against the powerful stall more easily. There were experts willing to attack my credibility. There were doctors willing to gaslight an abused child.
...
For so long, Woody Allen’s acceptance silenced me. It felt like a personal rebuke, like the awards and accolades were a way to tell me to shut up and go away. But the survivors of sexual abuse who have reached out to me – to support me and to share their fears of coming forward, of being called a liar, of being told their memories aren’t their memories – have given me a reason to not be silent, if only so others know that they don’t have to be silent either.
...
But others are still scared, vulnerable, and struggling for the courage to tell the truth. The message that Hollywood sends matters for them.
...
Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.

Let's try to remember to respect and honor the courage of Dylan Farrow to share her story in such a public way. Maybe her courage can inspire us to be more vulnerable with sharing our story, but also just a vulnerable to be willing to be more open to fully listen to another fellow trauma survivor's story.

Seeking justice is important, but let's not overlook the also very important issue of offering recognition and honor to the abuse survivor's story. Including finding the courage to also honor and share our own story.

 

[Abstract]

Lost Pup, that must be hard. I have to admit that as time went on it occurred to me that it was either you or someone you knew. I think this is the difficulty of having something out there on social media even when it is linked to on somewhere like here. People do tend to respond to it differently.

If posted originally on somewhere like here or if you mentioned a connection then I think the response would have been different. It is incredibly brave to post it at all let alone in that sort of environment. When I read it I remember thinking there could be a lot more nastiness in response than there was. I hope he is OK and resilient enough to have done something like this.

I think these issues are almost more emotionally charged amongst those with a direct connection. As Ms Spock mentioned, it tends to open up a can of worms but is important none the less.

 

[Pencil]

society often silences abuse survivors. The secondary abuse from being silenced and being socially banished might be just as hurtful as the original abuse. If not worse, because it's like a form of gaslighting by family members, peers and society.

Which is, ironically, exactly what happened on this thread with all the criticism. And what makes it worse is the fact that he is not criticized for getting his facts wrong, or absolving abusers. No, he is criticized for giving a personal account in a very sensitive, highly literate and eloquent way.

@Lost Pup: I checked to find his name, as I wanted to try and find more pieces by him as I gathered from his style that he is a professional writer. His writing is - for me - iridescent, incandescent. I was disappointed to see that he had used a pseudonym.

 

[Echo]

I also feel it unnecessary for the author to have been criticised for his writing style, which is eloquent, considered, sensitive and conveys what it is to be faced with these things very clearly for the intended audience. I write and edit for a living and I find it to be excellent within the context.

It is not an academic piece, and is not intended for that audience. I am quite sure the author would be perfectly capable of holding his own in that field, don't get me wrong, but then he would have written it differently. Therefore, I can't see that there are any grounds for it to be criticised for not including every possible aspect of the subject matter. It is a moving personal testimony giving voice to the survivor's viewpoint and his empathy as such with Dylan Farrow's account.

We can't all like every kind of music, nor every kind of painting or artistic style. Just because we don't like something doesn't mean it is wrong. It is just a question of taste. I am really sorry that he has been criticised for these things, particularly given the strength needed to write such a piece, seek to get it published and then let it hit the outside world of people who will never know what it is like to be a survivor. It is a shame that we who do know cannot be more sensitive to this.

I also don't see it as absolving abusers in any way. He writes about his personal confronting of his father and makes the valid point that abusers are amongst us unrecognised as such. He argues that society's monstering of the stereotypical abuser blinds people to their prevalence. If only they did have a label in neon blue lighting attached to their foreheads, but they are humans, unfortunately, who do other things in life, some of which, like Woody Allen, the artist, Paul Klee and many other prominent creative people, just happens to endear them to the wider public. Sometimes they are brilliant in other fields or have the charm of the psychopath and people are taken in. The author is saying that they can be, and often are, the least expected people. They are hidden in plain sight. All of that just makes it harder for victims to be believed, and Dylan Farrow not only has to deal with people in her immediate circle, but has to face down the barrage of indignation and abuse from so many of Woody Allen's fans and the film world.

I find it very touching that the author is able to say on behalf of so many of us, that he believes Dylan Farrow, because her story rings true to the survivor. The outside world needs to hear that. And it needs to hear more testimonies like this one offered by the brave author.