4 posts tagged “thoughts”

Recently, I came across to this blog, “Compulsory Pressing of Domestic Violence Charges?” as a result of my Tug Surfer. At first, it seemed innocent post just explaining author’s opinion about the poll in the local news paper: If a person calls for a cop for Domestic Violence dispute and doesn’t press charges, should they get fined? And 60 some percent voted for yes.

Something in this whole situation disturbed me. I couldn’t point out what for a while. And I couldn’t stop thinking about this post and I now know the reason why. And I feel obliged to post my opinion about it before someone else decides yes or no without thinking.

I must emphasise that I am not having a go at the author. (If someone challenges me against my opinion, I cannot respond to the challenge. I’m sorry, but I am just too ill to argue and make my point across.) Everybody is entitled to express their opinion and I respect them when they are based on reasonable explanation.  The author’s concern was that public funds and police efforts are being wasted by attending the calls for Domestic Violence disputes repeatedly which the victims are not willing to press charges. And I can clearly see the frustration.

However, please think about the depth and severity of Domestic Violence. If we take consideration of statistics of Domestic Violence, these victims could easily be your daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, granddaughter, friend, or yourself. And please remember, the victim could also be a male.

This maybe just an innocent poll, but it may influence public opinion. Please think, imagine and picture what is actually happening behind the closed doors.

These victims probably tried to get help before. But chances are:

·         They were told and encouraged by their family, religious mentors and friends to stay in the relationship and try harder to make it work.

·         They were ridiculed to be over reacting to “relationship gone wrong”.

·         They were told not to be a quitter for her children’s sake.

These calls for police for help are not an attention seeking game. No matter how annoying it may be, the significance of the incidence is equivalent to witnessing someone drowning in the water or someone trapped in a burning house. We cannot just disregard the significance of the incident and solve the problem by penalising the victim’s cry for help.

These victims are ashamed of being in the situation. They are very scared. They are isolated and have nobody to turn to. This is the most important time to give them support, rather than punish them.

If some action needs to be taken for the police calls due to Domestic Violence, I’d rather propose this than fining the victim.

Take the victim (and her children and pets) to safe house for her safety. And then educate her with Domestic Violence. Once the victim is safe and educated, the victim would feel more comfortable pressing charges. (These shelters also provide great support of the process.) If the victim still refuse to press charges at this stage, it is reasonable to fine the victim. Even then, there is more chance that the victim will leave the Domestic Violence before it is too late. The victim may pass on the knowledge to friends and family with confidence. This would increase public awareness of the truth about Domestic Violence and hopefully it would help reduce number of future victims, therefore, calls to police.

It will cost government to educate the victim, but (in my opinion) the cost is less expensive than sending one soldier to the war. It is about saving lives, reducing number of hospital visits due to Domestic Violence and about stop vicious cycle of children becoming another Domestic Violence victims and/or predators.

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From my personal experience, I feel there are similarity in ME/CFS and Domestic Violence. They both ignored by public that they are real and serious problem. And they both blames sufferers for being in that situation.  

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28 June 2007

I add this link to the following post as I thought it was quite relevant to what I was trying to say.

True Story: Out disturbing brush with domestic violence by the observant woman

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30 June 2007

What would you have done?

I have been trying to adjust my mind to live with ME/CFS. Comparing to the last year, I am less confused and angry about everything. Yet, I cannot feel that being chronically and severely ill is a blessing as some of the fellow bloggers mentioned in their blogs. Obviously, I need much more time to feel that way.

This is about how I am feeling these days. They may change in couple of months or in couple of years. But this is where I am at this very moment. And as always, I am still work in progress.

DISABILITY

I am just getting used to the fact that I am Invisibly Disabled. The title, “disability’ used to belong to someone else who uses wheelchair or someone who lost their sight or sound. I used to get nervous around disabled people because I just didn’t know if they needed help and also feared I might offend them if I offer help. I didn’t know that there is Disability Etiquettes. These days, I look at people in supermarket and wonder if he/she is invisibly disabled like me.

I was thinking about getting a wheelchair for myself, but at the same time, I feel it will not help me much. First of all, I cannot go out much. Second, I believe people wouldn’t like it when they see me getting out from a car with my own legs and then pulling out wheelchair by myself. I would be very offended if someone approaches me and ask, “Excuse me, but what exactly is your diagnosis?” If my opinion, it is my own business if they are not prepared to support me. And last, doing a grocery shopping on wheelchair would be harder than leaning on shopping trolley. I would not be able to push the trolley on wheelchair. And I would not be able to reach stuff on shelves from wheelchair. So, I just walk very slowly and keep my head down (to avoid dizzy spell and extra stimuli from people and advertising signs) as if I’m 100 years old.

I didn’t wonder about what my disability is. I don’t feel weird about I am disabled anymore. I am disabled because I just cannot do basic and simple things that healthy people would do without thinking. If and when I could do these things, it is still a huge task and challenge for me.

“Invisible” is the hardest part I must deal with in public. Because when people cannot see it, they don’t believe it. So that people rather give me harsh attitude and/or the look than offer support and compassion. I don’t wish people to help me as if I am a 4 year old child, but I DO wish they understand what I am going through. I am also worried that someone might complain to Centrelink that I am faking my illness to take advantage of the system. (I’m sure that Australian people can recall some current affair programs that accusing a Disability Support Pensioner that they are having a good life. Well, I know majority of them were welfare fraud, but it sent public message that all Disability Support Pensioners are cheaters.) I AM very grateful that government and fellow Australians are giving me the pension so that I can keep living. But please do not think I am having a luxury life as pension is only for survival. You cannot get anywhere with pension income and I prefer much much more to be healthy and earning my own money and working hard towards my goals.

People give me the look at supermarket aisles and I know they are wondering if I am dangerous or not. I walk very slow, leaning on the trolley rather than pushing them. I spend way too much time determining which brand gives me better value or which brand would not cause trouble to my body. Sometimes making decision is not easy and I spend way too much time choosing one item. I drop shopping list too often, and struggle to pick it up with pains and weakened muscles. Sometimes I need to keep reading out the shopping list for myself because my brain refuses to match the item I’ve written down and actual item. But I am not crazy. While I shop, joint pains get worse and my muscles lose their strength. And my mental RAM is about to crash. Sometimes, I have to leave the supermarket before I get everything I need because I must make sure that I still have enough strength and mental RAM to drive back home safely and put perishable items in fridge.  Not to mention that this simple task will give me post exertional malaise and I would be suffering from extreme fatigue and pains for a while.

I cannot go out to do grocery shopping as I wish. I must rest before hand to save up enough energy to make the trip. Usually, I wait for 10 days, two weeks and sometimes more than three weeks. I need to choose less busy time to go out. Occasionally, I get a spare of moment energy and strength, and then do Kamikaze shopping. In either case, I cannot afford to enjoy window shopping.

When someone asks me if I could do grocery shopping, the answer is “yes”. However, that “yes” is far more different from healthy people’s “yes”.

What is my disability? My disability is severe ME/CFS, the invisible illness. I don’t have ability to do the basic and simple things. And just like people who lost their limbs or sights, I cannot get the ability back.

 CFS Equation

I was fascinated by RachelCreative’s attempt of finding the equation of ME/CFS. She is trying to find a formula that can explain balance between energy, time, tasks done and potentials. So I tried to come up with my own version of ME/CFS formula.

However, it was an impossible task. I felt there would be lots of subtractions and divisions but not much adding.

My first attempt to find the balancing formula would be to trim down everything to the core and absolute essential.

For example…

·         Hope is important to hang on and keep going. But we have to look at them and shave off false hopes and keep only the reasonable and possible hope.

·         Things I want to do need to be my only passion. I need to trim off things such as the things I want to do because it would make me look good or everybody else is doing. I need to stick to the only thing I am passionate about doing, otherwise I would waist lots of energy I don’t have.

·         Things to do list for everyday life also needs to be trimmed down and try not to feel guilty about it. I don’t answer phone calls because they are all telemarketers or rude person calling to the previous owner of my telephone number. When I’m very sick, I don’t even attempt to answer the door because by the time I reach the door, nobody is there waiting for me. I don’t feel bad when I cannot have shower for a day or two. I am trying to get used to dirty dishes piling up for a couple of days. I am trying not to worry when I cannot clean the house for more than a month. And etc…

I am not sure what would be left when I shaved off all non-essential stuff about me and my life. I didn’t renew membership to CPA Australia this year. It was a false hope that I could go back to accounting profession. I am only an accountant on paper now. I shaved off my lifelong slogan “stand up and fight for my principals”. Life is so unfair and I cannot keep wasting my precious energy to prove my principles to people who do not care. I just have to keep the satisfaction of being right and good to myself. I look away from things that upset me rather than challenge them. (It doesn’t mean I don’t care the important issues for fellow human beings.) These were not easy decision to make. However, I am slowly getting used to the process.

Each time, I shake off the thing and belief that used to be very important, I get closer to finding true me. I am hoping that I will find my true passion when I trim off all non essential things.

And when I trim off all non essential things from my life, I may find my own balancing ME/CFS Equation.

My condition seems to be improving a little bit after I could not leave bed for a month and struggled to do just very basic things to survive. I pulled all my energy and courage today to do grocery shopping. I stocked up lots of nonperishable food, vitamin & mineral supplements, dog food and worming tablets and etc, just in case this activity would push me back in bed for long time again. I almost got heart attack when I pay for them.

Although, it was physically very tough, I enjoyed my first outing in a month mentally. My dogs also enjoyed the short drive in the dark and gave me positive feedback when they sniffed to check grocery bags. It was wonderful to have decent meal and some treats.

It was also a relief for me to feel ’Battle of Rachels’ is ceased for now.

When my ME/CFS condition gets worse, I start to suffer mentally. I become very bitter and become the person I hate. This ‘ugly Rachel’ takes over control and makes me hate the whole world, makes me feel that hope means pathetic and makes me feel that I am such a useless existence. ’Ugly Rachel’ encourages me to just give in and forget about ‘trying to become the person I want to be’, ‘there is always positive in any situation’, and ‘people were born as good’.

And it is painful to feel that ‘ideal Rachel’ is loosing her power to keep positiveness, hope and love to fellow human beings. Every thoughts and moment was the constant battle of ugly and ideal Rachels. It is such a dark, lonely and torturous place to be.

Now I am feeling that ‘ideal Rachel’ is getting stronger again and cheering me up that I can still hang in there and will find the way to live with ME/CFS. ‘Ideal Rachel’ is making me sure that I can still become the person I want to be. I will eventually find a purpose in my life and will become a contributing member of society again. ‘Ideal Rachel’ gave me a pat on my sholder and congraduated me for not giving up who I am during the ‘Battle of Rachels’.

At least now, I can picture myself smiling again. And it is a good sign.