I attended Dr Turner’s lecture with Stillpoint Spaces (for the psychologically curious), BLM 2021
Heard about how racism is a complex identities projection, how others are our shadow opposite self, relational and threatened by our own power. About rescue.
Thinking about my internalised racism. I felt a huge sense of threat when I joined my first anti racism group. It was powerful and I held on to a need to rescue. Even verbalised it, which felt embarrassing, immediately made me feel ‘other’ and small. A threat that was existential.
I’m conscious of intersections here. Fears held. Waiting to raise their ugly head, familiar triggers of grief. Intersections both as perpetrator and having experienced marginalisation.
Dr Turner reminded us that the trials of the bystanders to George Floyd’s murder are yet to be heard. I think of the role of bystanders in the everyday, from those at the storming of the Capitol to those who I disclosed to at work about the racism I’d seen. A white man quick to deny and twist words, a white woman who didn’t reply. Colleagues standing silently by who had likely read my words.
One person who wrote me a little note later. This is how racism and marginalisation are upheld. Did I mention how my attention to clinical details was criticized, ridiculed rather than being seen as holistic assessment yet at the same time appreciated by some.
I need to let this toxicity go but also break the silence. That violence that is silenced.
Back to the theme in hand, we were reminded that the population are 4% black in the UK. Like race “BAME” a social construct.
We heard about Dr Fanny Brewster’s work; complexes are split off aspects of the psyche originally caused by trauma. Racial complex driven by Whiteness.
Interesting that a white woman should call out the patriarchy in response to racism. Reminded again of the intersectionality of prejudice and its proximity to power.
Here I stand. A Karen by another name yet at the same time powerless when experiencing the denial, report, suggested criminality.
Envy only partially acknowledged, history here. Shackles still present but now seen. A movement felt.
I’m conscious of how trauma is internalised. Conscious of my soul bird. (From this book, see link https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Michal-Snunit/The-Soul-Bird–10th-Anniversary-Edition/7064799)
Draws flying open with little provocation. Unexpected bursts of emotion coming from dehumanising, lack of choice, existential death as discussed within this space. Real not imagined in the past, redirected into justice doing as Vikki Reynolds suggestions in her book Justice-Doing at the intersections of power. Restoring my calm when not up against those systems of injustice and moral injury.
I talked about my shackle dream in response to Dr Turner’s reflections. Remembering the dreams of the oppressed that Dr Turner discusses in his book (link https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Dwight-Turner/Intersections-of-Privilege-and-Otherness-in-Counselling-a/25649206)
We listened to Nina Simone. I notice how I’m more in touch with the rhythm, the complexity of the notes. Words jumping out. “If we aren’t free we are murderous”. Speaks to me of those draws of emotion flying out.
These pages my soul bird flying free.
I recognise how I’ve held shame about my privilege. How it effected my writing connecting to my working class roots but not how I held the power to walk away. Not something that is an option for many. Yet at the same time a shackle to unlock. Shame of not knowing how to open. Perhaps just in need of new fertile soil to grow. Potting on as I once described a move to our daughter.
Trauma shows up in our control of food. I’ve let go of that. No longer denying my love of fats, (can’t help but wonder at my cholesterol!) alcohol just an infrequent indulgence as and when and in moderation. Interesting the liberation I feel.
What is it to be the white woman we were asked. The question makes me feel unsure. Haven’t explored that part of myself, a work in progress in the reconstruction of self.
A year on I am passed tokenistic gestures. Exploring what is needed next. Restorative, mindful of self care. How has our identity changed, what part seeking the foreground. Has that ossification ceased? Still fragile not so rigid? More connected? Still aware of unanswered questions.
New connections for sure. Blessed and appreciated.
How I’ve enjoyed the sense of being free, unconscious and authentic, burning bridges as I’ve gone along in the way of denial of personal power. Holding the need for vengeance. The most longed for no longer possible, how the hurt has changed me, who am I now? Speaking my truth has been needed for self healing, a life work in progress. Writing through the darkness into something new. Reclaiming my envy, shame and sexuality those projections that fuel racism…a life work as identity changes over time.
I attended our community group. We looked at Dr Kinouani’s latest piece “On writing, Colonial Schemes & Liberation”. I alluded to it before. Little did I know as I joined this time last year. I feel it’s the same as I start my second year, dipped my toes in, conscious of the years others have put in but not wanting to deny the deep experience in learning. Somewhat fearful of what the future holds.
Perhaps I’m still writing without direction. Pick up a question here and there for further exploration.
A question I’m not sure I’m ready to explore. A question posed nevertheless, an accountability for racism one might suggest.
Dr Kinouani mentions schema’s that are militaristic; punitive engagement with our bodies and how we have been taught to be distrusting of our bodies. This reminded me of my first miscarriage. How I felt my body had let me down. How I knew something wasn’t quite right, fearful of what might be happening or not. Pushing those lack of pregnancy signs away, pushing them to the back of my mind while at the same time knowing that I was feeling physically better, my breasts returning to their not painful/swollen state, more energy again, no longer feeling sick…
Not wanting to know what this might mean waiting for confirmation on the pregnancy scan. Putting off that moment of truth, true realisation that the longed for baby wasn’t going to be. A gap between the excited expectation and seeing and hearing no heartbeat on the screen. Our little butter bean that wasn’t going to grow into the person we held in our heads. Carrying the weight of the first longed for child and grandchild.
Then just wanting the pregnancy gone. Opting for an operation rather than trusting my body’s own processes.
How different and less traumatic my next miscarriage was when I allowed myself to connect to my experience, let my body do what it needed to do. No less the trauma of grief but this time minus the hospital trauma and those big expectations of the baby starting school, getting married, all of life’s milestones, that trauma of the unknown experience of bleeding, passing clots as I came out of the library, that horrible slipping, bubbling sensation, lack of control…. but most of all the loneliness of loss just a reminder this isn’t Nursing advice. Just a retelling of part of our life and how this works with internalised racism. Exploring and unpicking as I let go. Mindful of the pain that might be in the audience. New and rawest for some. That pain will ease in time my love but for now just needs to be held. Let those healing tears flow, the emotional and physical pain will, become less acute, you will find ways to be, always your beloved baby. Named by some, to some a loss unknown.
Is that why it’s suggested wait twelve weeks before you announce the pregnancy news? Another way to invisibilise the pain? Whether that’s those first few weeks of pregnancy, the stretching and the painful breasts or a longed for life coming to an end. Pain that doesn’t lessen on remaining unspoken? Harm closed up in those soul birds draws?
We were asked to look out. Is it instinctive of my resistance to look in? Just another expression of trauma as those who are hurt do. Still so much work to do. Mindful of work done, work yet to do. How time becomes limited yet we grow nevertheless, learning from those around us.
A thought like a passing cloud of how the time to heal feels like a thousand years. A long time but none. Bearing no relationship to the tick tock of the clock. Is that the lost in translation that Dr Kinouani implied?
I’m disconnected. It’s all about head rather than body response. Sense the weight of psychological trauma intersecting as it does… tired from a long day of cognitive exercise. Late to bed. Night night.