Should I ignore deniers, or have my say?

[Ceremony]

There's plenty of denier bait out there right now. That is, if others see things like I do? A reminder of why deniers anger me might help to at least give others a chance to know my side of it.

I can't prove anything, like the majority, it's my word. I don't even know their faces anymore, and I have no idea if there is a trail. I do know there's statute of limitations, and no bother on my part will show gains to seek them. They're from another country, here on student visas. I am sure, with my experience about students like that, that they're gone. It was 1977.

What has sat in my mind all these decades was that it was my fault. I've had to struggle with that occasionally when I first began my journey in 2016. I feel heavily threatened by deniers of the victim vs perpetrator paradigm. Though, the more I learn, the more I know how it's the majority. We don't get justice. The few who do are an exception. It's the same for women, I'm not picking on we men, this is ubiquitous. What's not too common is how MeToo has brought forward the drama we're now inundated with.

Yes, we can, and I do ignore some of it, but once I've read a particular story, and there are at present only two that I've bothered to read, I find myself an occasional check to see what's happening. It's regrettable. My T told me to avoid it. She's of the mind that I'm hurting myself. I'm of the mind that I want my say to counter deniers.

I felt powerless then, and I'm really sick of feeling powerless. My voice has a renewed purpose. I am starting to demand a bit of notice about our issues. I present facts, I don't use my story, and I don't call attention to me other than I'm a survivor. I mention studies, like the National... sexual violence survey , DOJ statistics, EEOC statistics and might show a counter, like a video that's apropos.

There are supporters of what's going on out there, but the deniers are the majority and very vocal. That's what's gotten to me. I see that if it were me, and it was in real time, and somehow I was accusing to police and an adult, it's possible I would face deniers. That's not reality, so I can let it go. However, that deniers are harassing, and re-victimizing those who are in that position, gets to me as if it me.

I suppose that's not supposed to make sense? I don't know, my T wants me to rethink it, stay out of it, and I want to think very hard about what that means to me. What's it doing to my mental health if I advocate in this toxic environment, and stay in to counter just a few, or many? I know there are those out there, whose purpose is to bait, to incite. They're sociopaths, deranged by the pleasure of others discomfort. There are more though who are just ignorant, they're closed minds don't see, they've not had any exposure. They've not known what trauma like ours is.

 

[Echoes]

Rick, my situation is different from yours, so I can't ignore the deniers. They're everywhere in my life because I had no choice in who would know and who wouldn't, and they sided with him because he was more credible than me. For me there's no escaping this because I still have to face him in court at least one more time, and along with it all the deniers who would like me to pretend nothing happened and those who wish I would just drop dead. I was about to get married to one of them, the others were my surrogate family and my closest friends. This hurts more than I can put in words. The despair is thick and hard to swallow through sometimes, and I wouldn't wish it anyone, least of all to you, if you can avoid it. I know advocating is important for you, you've said it before. I can't tell you what to do, but if you do feel like it might drag you back in recovery maybe it's best if you could avoid engaging with them.

 

[Ceremony]

Hi Echoes, and to you too, if I could manage to make a small difference out there, to have just one see their error in judging victims, it is worth the effort.

I can't know if any of your deniers might be reading the stories I refer to, they do happen to be hot headlines of our time. I remember your story very well, it angers me for you, that so much is taken from you. You know how much I care about validation. To me, Male Survivor stands together in strong community to validate our lives.

I wrote this because, it threatens me that we have stories which create such a vehement public response of deniers. Reading how they change the narrative from the original story that's available to read and reread for reference.

I know this is a trigger for you, and hope you'll message me if you've down, or write an open thread like this to keep on top of your despair. I get it, it's why I had to write this. Where would I be if my story were rejected? To me, it's not far from a what if story, because I see what people do with stories written about public figures and the facts laid out, are given harsh judgements without thought for the victim. I'm appalled. I'm angry, I'm enraged. That's got to be why my T wants me to back away, but too, that part that's had to hide me, not be me, I'm tired of hiding.

I'm getting to where I'll tell the most important people what I know, how I think and what things mean to victims. I've studied a lot Echoes, I know a lot now. That information is documented in hundreds of my posts and writing to myself in Wordpad on computer. It's in my mind, my consciousness, It's part of me, it's who I am now. The passage of time to me, means that I have an opportunity to give back and write to those whom are in influence, to speak out.

I do too, I do more than I probably should, but, I just don't care anymore. The threat about being believed, the fact that so many victims don't come forward for fear of this horrid pushback and invalidation, it's why so many of us hid. I won't stand for it.

Ahhhh.... see, I'm fervent in my stance, and in so, maybe I'm too fervent? I don't know if it's for my own good, am I still doing things which are a detriment, because all along I discount my needs? Am I? Really? Caring about others is a detriment for me? It's part of my soul... how would it be that I reject myself that deeply, or have read whom I am so badly? I think this is me, it's whom I am? Or, am I trying to convince myself it's whom I am, an excuse to keep writing out in the real world, where dangers lurk and my fear of them is my naïve nature, my security is to ignore danger? What danger can someone do, that's not already been done?

See all those thoughts, I don't rush through my decisions, I think and think. I have many other paths of thought I've gone down too. It can be too much, it could be overwhelming, but, even writing this, I stand up and don't want to back down. I'm tired of backing down. I'm tired of having any of my voice hidden. Any of our voice denied some proper appearance to be heard.

I push Echoes, I push pretty hard. I do it politely, but it's very noticeable. Very noticeable.

Friend, survivor brother, brothers here who might read this, do you think like me in any of this? Do you see an ego, my ego run amok, or a caring spirit having had enough and standing up? Some of you have gotten to know me, so I think it's valid to ask here. We can share about me, I learn because we share here. I listen.

 

[Echoes]

We're human, there's a little bit of ego in everything we do, but I think your heart is in the right place. I don't think you're naïve either, you have a real reason to want to change things and the drive to do it, and that's great as long as it doesn't hurt you more than it helps anybody. This applies to anything that is potentially hurtful. Sometimes we want to reach out for others, but we're only human. We can only do so much before we break, and I wouldn't like to see you punch a brick wall. I've done that for years and it's not fun.

I'm sure you know there is more than one kind of denier out there and only some of them are worth to reason with and therefore worth of your effort, because only some of them will ever change their opinion. There will always be deniers to the suffering of others. My father's side of the family is German Jewish, and what I know of them is that most of this side of the family died in ghettos or in Auschwitz back during the war. I'm not sure if you're familiar with holocaust revisionists? They're also huge deniers that the holocaust ever happened. If you had the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian museum and see part of the horror that happened, we can think, how come they can deny that? It's so obvious for anyone to see that this happened and that they suffered and generations still suffer to this day because they have the weight of what happened denied.

Their rethoric doesn't make sense to anyone who knows the truth, but they deny with ferocity since the truth isn't what matters for them, only they do. Some of them will never change because the truth will never serve them, and some of them will be like my mother, who will change what they think when it finally fits their needs. She saw at first hand what my stepfather made me go through, but she chose to deny it to anyone who could have tried to help me because it didn't serve her. Nowadays she admits what happened because it's more favorable for her to be on my good side, she wants to leech off of my money. But what does her not denying it do for me now? It doesn't mean anything. These people aren't worth your effort. They truly don't care and if one day they change their minds it won't be because of us, it will be for them. They don't put us in their mental equation.

There are other deniers who deny because the truth is uncomfortable. They can see themselves in our place and believing it, accepting it, would mean they have to accept that this could happen to anyone, including them. There are also people that just don't know any better. I think these are the ones who are more reachable, but really, with the amount of resources and information out there, why are these people still sitting on their ignorance? I can't answer that, I don't know how much punching requires to shake them. I'm beaten. I think some of my deniers don't know any better, but I don't have the energy or the endurance to challenge them anymore. It hurts me and triggers me and sets me back in any progress when I try to talk to them. Their words always find a way to go through my protective shield because they were important for me for so long. They chose the easy way and it hurts to try to convince them of what is as obvious for me as the fact that the holocaust happened.

I think you should keep writing, and if it's so integral of a part of you to keep trying to change these people's minds, why not? We survivors know better than anyone else that we need validation and that people don't deny what we've been through. But I think maybe you should keep in mind that this message will never reach everybody, because while some people don't know any better, some of them just really don't care. There is an idiom in Portuguese that says "ficar dando murro em ponta de faca". It roughly means "to keep punching the tip of a knife", that is, to try to do something that might be ultimately hopeless and that only hurts you while you try to achieve it. Does knowing that reaching everybody is impossible detain you? Does it hurt you more than not engaging with them at all? That is for you to decide, there is no one size fits all answer. I know I can't do it, but you aren't me. Maybe you're made of stronger stuff, and then, who can tell what you can or cannot do?