LIVING SCARED

Abuse is scary, and living scared demands our full attention. Imagine you are holding an uncooked egg in one hand while someone is trying to get you to drop it. They poke you, grab you, twist you, come at you from behind, or startle you. You are so focused on keeping the egg safe that you can’t turn it into an omelet or add it to the cake mix. This is how it is to live scared. Our full attention is needed to stay in one piece; thinking about how to turn ourselves into what we can become is too dangerous. Abuse, and I include all forms, doesn’t just hurt us for a time,...

BULLIES AND TARGETS

Regardless of your age, if you are being abused, you are the target of a bully.   I am a Wordie, which means I can spend as much time considering the power and use of words as an NBA hopeful can spend shooting hoops.   I used the re-write of the INOKA book to do that with the word bully. The word carries an inherent call to action and desire for a swift response. Step in. Do something.   Have you noticed, though, that bully is used to describe abuse in schools, streets, and the workplace, but not in families and intimate relationships? In those cases, the...

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

The soundtrack from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes is playing as I write this. Patti LaBelle is singing Barbecue Bess. The feelings of tension I had while watching that scene are re-visiting me. Do I laugh, gag, or cry? One of my big takeaways was the word Tawanda! I agree with the reviewer on epinions.com who said, “TAWANDA, it seems to be a cry of liberation. It seems to be equated with being self-sufficient, having worth without defining it by virtue of a man, what you do, how you act; but who you are and how you feel about yourself. TAWANDA! I mean, shouting the...

ARE YOU EXPERIENCING ISOLATION?

Hi, my name is Judy and I will be one of the contributors to this conversation about gender violence and INOKA, the book that will support you through the process of getting safe and creating a life of peace.   To give you a little of my own story, my experience with domestic and sexual violence is from both personal experience and professional experience.   I lived it through three of my relationships and I was an Executive Director for twelve years of a non-profit that supported victims of both domestic and sexual violence.  In this first writing I want to share...