Violence Against Women- stop derailing the conversation

In the current political climate, the shit  state of affairs overseas and with six women  being murdered  in Australia in under  a week, I've seen many women post and talk about sexual-assualt and violence against women.

I've seen men post about it too and am forever appreciative of those that do and continue to support so I am prefacing with that as I do do not want to create more of a divide with what I am about to say

....and I while I think I have purged myself of the 'not all men' types for the most part, I have had my share and I am over it.

Every single woman in your life is over it.

We are over the conversation being derailed by the same dickheads who jump on 'Black lives matter' posts and rant about how all lives matter.

I've seen this compared to someone running into a cancer ward and screaming "THERE ARE OTHER ILLNESSES TOO"... Because for fucks sake, WE KNOW!

The problem is that these people that yell about violence against men only ever do it when the conversation is about women.

You will never see them donate to causes to help depression in men or to assist male victims of violence... but the second anyone mentions violence against women, these people turn up to distract, to derail and spout random, completely unrelated stats.

I posted a Facebook status recently, sharing accounts of why women don't report rape, including my own experience with having taken a rape kit and how invasive it is.

This was met with a response from a dickhead that I used to work with about how women murder their children at a higher rate than men and "why are you not posting about that?"

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I initially had no idea how to react to this random statistic thrown at me.. I first felt fired up and wanted to engage with more stats about male violence and mad because the whole thing became about everyone agreeing that it was a moronic thing to say but not really discussing the original issue...

And that is what the aim seems to be. If you can spout a random stat that in no way relates, if you scream 'Not all men!"

 .... Then in that moment, our energy goes toward responding do the idiotic comment and for as long as that can go on, nobody is talking about the original issue and that is just fucking perfect because these people didn't want to talk about the issue or admit that there is one in the first place.

I want to believe people are capable of change.

I don't need to live in an echo chamber where I am constantly told I am right.
I am ok with being wrong sometimes or accepting that some issues have subtle nuances and are not always black and white.

I am forever open to having my mind expanded and learning a new point of view on an issue but not when that issue is only raised in an attempt to stop another from being heard.

I know some people love a good internet argument but often the ones that start them are only doing it to diflect.

If you read something and feel personally attacked because you feel like it genralises men or white people or whatever the group is and your first thought is:

 'Hey I don't fit in to that category'

 instead try reading again, taking it in and going:

"Ok this is a thing that happens and someone it has happened to is trying to tell me that it's happening, what can I do to help?....or at the very least, not make it worse"

The Value Of RUOK

I know initiatives like RUOK? Day sometimes get a bad wrap but I think it's a nice reminder to ask those questions of our loved ones more often.

As someone who spent several years in and out of hospital, I can easily say that I encourage any discussion around mental health.

'Okay' means something to different to everyone at different stages of their life.

For me now, Okay is any time of day where I don't feel physically unwell and am able to relax or concentrate as needed but about 4 years ago, the bar was much lower, Okay was any moment of my day where I could possibly consider my future or anything that I looked forward to.

Of course I loved my family and friends but depression and medication had killed my spirit.

It was around this time 4 years ago that I was at Liverpool Hospital,where I was grabbed by a gaurd and forced to be injected with a medication that I had already told the hospital had previously given me an allergic reaction.

 "Don't be a baby" were this man's exact words

I can not tell you just how powerless I felt in that moment

What came next was worse for me, a string of people I care about and who I KNOW care about me who all sided with the actions of the hospital staff and that they were 'just doing their job' and I should 'try to see it from their perspective'

It wasn't until my caseworker visited and reaffirmed that what had happened should never have happened to me. She reported the incident and I was moved to another unit that day (but still left on the medication)

Once transferred a second time back to Campbelltown, I was able to see my  old doctor, who acknowledged that my side-effects were valid.

It's hard to explain what it feels like to have zero body autonomy and to have decisions made on your behalf

I talk about this because for anyone who doesn't see the value in RUOK? Day, for me it goes beyond being tokenistic, or it should.

It should be something that helps break down barriers and see the importance in the change one person can make in another person's life.

My caseworker was the ONE person that actually listened to what I was saying and didn't treat me like a belligerent school girl.

She was the ONE person who asked if I was ok and really listened to the answer and what I wanted to be done about it.

There are huge changes that need to be made at higher levels of government in regard to mental health funding, early intervention programs and nurse to patient ratios and that all 100% needs to happen and it comes from listening to people with lived experience.

So I think for today it is enough to ask the question and take time to think about what we can all do to both help our loved ones and also to help  mend a very broken system

MK2point0 (Aka: Michaela Is Still Talking)

I realised recently that I have been feeling the need to rant on Facebook a lot more frequently and that perhaps my long-winded complaining was not for everyone.

 I figured I should find myself a piece of internet real-estate where I could set myself up and ramble away… such a place did already exist but it’s now been 5 years since I last updated Michaela Is Still Talking… so even though I very much am still talking (almost constantly) it felt weird to continue doing so on there.

The last post on there I wrote was on the 19^th of July 2013, it was about refugees and it was right as Kevin Rudd had taken back over as PM.

We’ve since gone through another two P.Ms and are up to our third…I think maybe after Libs got in (twice), I lost faith in any hope for real change and didn’t feel like writing.

There’s probably more to it, I know there were one or two other manic posts I definitely wrote and probably quickly deleted since.

In any case, It seemed appropriate to start MK2.0

Michaela Is Still Talking will still exist, along with all my outdated and sometimes embarrassing rants and intentionally terrible photo-shopped pictures… but this place will now also exist for current and sometimes embarrassing rants and intentionally terrible photo-shopped pictures (Oh how I have missed them)

If you want to read any past blog entries just click on the picture of me and be transported back to a time between 2011-2013