Irony

Irony

Grunty1967b

Registrant
Heres a little touch of irony that Im also glad to say I didnt react to and go off the deep end. I just sighed and moved on. I guess I must be getter better in my recovery.

Some of you may know that I decided a few weeks ago to allow myself to do something fun and creative that I never permitted myself to do or certainly didnt feel comfortable doing. I enrolled in a 6 week creative writing class at my local adult college.

I remembered as a child I used to love writing but then pretty much everything shut down for me as I tried to suppress my abuse years. Recent sessions with my therapist have reawakened this creative streak inside of me and I was so looking forward to this new venture.

Last night was my first class and I showed up after much fear and cautiousness. I didnt know what to expect and even to allow myself to do something like this was a big step but I did it.

Now here comes the irony. The course is about short story writing so our lecturer gave us some handouts of some short stories. On the first page was a story about incest with a young child. The lecturer made comment that he had received objections in the past about this story but he thought it was still a good example of a short story and he still feels to include it in every class.

Upon starting to read this story I got triggered and so I stopped. I could have kept on reading to complete the exercise but of course this is sensitive material to me (and many others Id guess) and I didnt feel like putting myself through this so I stopped reading. That was actually a good step for me. Previously I may have just continued reading despite how it might make me feel and then of course afterwards I would feel rotten. I stopped and moved on to the rest of the nights program.

Im in two minds as to whether to complain to the college officials. I know this guy is incredibly insensitive to content like this. How does he know how people will react and then again, he never knows who hell have in his class. It could be an incest survivor like me!

My main point I guess is that I understand I live in a world that cant be expected to walk around on egg shells and never mention things like incest just because I happen to be a survivor. The same ideals could be sought by the ex alcoholic who doesnt want to see another beer commercial. It isnt going to happen and we need to try and deal with these situations as best we can.

Im not trying to minimise the impact of thoughtless acts by people like this lecturer and I may still complain, but Im glad I was able to see it as just one of those things that Im going to come across in life and Im determined to not let that rob me of the learning that I intend to do as part of this course at college.
 
Grunty, I have mixed thoughts on this one. On one hand, I feel the offense, then on the other, I feel that with the billions of people in the world, we can't help but get triggered by these events, whether or not it is in a college classroom, the letters-to-the-editor section of the newspaper, or any other forum. When I first started dealing openly with my sexual orientation issues, anytime anyone would say something about gays, I'd get immediately angry. In church, particularly, people would ignorantly (and that's the key word) mention something about gays in a not-too-positive light. Did they know I was offended? No. Some of those people I was able to talk to privately, and they gained new understanding.

So my take here would be to selectively talk to one who could make a diffence.

Just my own rambling thoughts . . .
 
Grunty, the lecturer/teacher was probably more focussed on the quality of the short story than the subject matter. There are likely a whole bunch of subjects that might be classified as sensitive, depending on the sensitivities of the individuals in any given class. I understand where you're coming from, but I would probably not dwell on it too much. Peace, Andrew
 
With all things esecially teaching it matters how the exercise is set-up beforehand with lots of appropriate context. It sounds like the teacher did not do as effective a job as she/he could have done. Or providing options on the exercise. I think it would be prudent as a student to e-mail or have a disucssion with the teacher one-on-one about she/he could have done the exercise better, especially since she'll/he'll be doing the same thing with the next group of students.

Courage-Wisdom-Spirituality
 
Grunty - sometimes we just have to face it!

A week gone Saturday, I went out socially for the first time since the court case on 23rd Jan.

We went into a pub to watch the rugby (England won). Some old bloke came and sat with us for a few pints & seemed to be enjoying the company. We were obviously talking about the match and a few other topics.

He suddenly changed the topic to child abuse (much to the horror of my friends). It didn't really bother me, and I managed to keep the conversation going without letting him know I had personal experience of the topic. I would actually say that I enjoyed his conversation, because he was from the 'flog 'em and hang 'em' school of thought.

I think my friends were quite relieved that I didn't go off on a bluey!

Best wishes ..Rik
 
i think you should submit a short story about the effects of abuse and how insensitive people can make them even worse.hell you might get a a on it!
 
Shadow, that's a great suggestion...kills two birds with one stone. You get to make your point while completing your assignment.

Will
 
Back
Top