Tag: survivor

Celebrate women on International Women’s Day

Today is supposed to celebrate women around the world… And it’s a tough time to be a woman but hopefully we can make it a better world for our daughters… I have a dream of a world where women don’t have to work twice as hard for equal pay, where paternity leave is as common as maternity leave, and where women are celebrated for the fact that they give life and aren’t told that math and science are too hard to worry their pretty little heads about. A world where people look back in amazement that in 2018 1 in 6 women have survived an attempted or completed rape in their lifetimes… And to honor all that I hope you watch one of my idols and a person who inspires me…

https://youtu.be/ffb_5X59_DA

If you don’t have the time to hear it live maybe the transcript will speak to you

I am a nasty woman.

I’m not as nasty as a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust. A man whose words are a distract to America; Electoral College-sanctioned hate speech contaminating this national anthem.

I am not as nasty as Confederate flags being tattooed across my city. Maybe the South actually is gonna rise again; maybe for some it never really fell. Blacks are still in shackles and graves just for being Black. Slavery has been re-interpreted as the prison system in front of people who see melanin as animal skin.

I am not as nasty as a swastika painted on a pride flag. And I didn’t know devils could be resurrected, but I feel Hitler in these streets—a mustache traded for a toupee; Nazis re-named the cabinet; electro-conversion therapy the new gas chambers, shaming the gay out of America turning rainbows into suicide notes.

I am not as nasty as racism, fraud, conflict of interest, homophobia, sexual assault, transphobia, white supremacy, misogyny, ignorance, white privilege.

I’m not as nasty as using little girls like Pokémon before their bodies have even developed.

I am not as nasty as your own daughter being your favorite sex symbol—like your wet dreams infused with your own genes.

But yah, I am a nasty woman?!

A loud vulgar, proud woman.

I’m not nasty like the combo of Trump and Pence being served up to me in my voting booth.

I’m nasty like the battles my grandmothers fought to get me into that voting booth.

I’m nasty like the fight for wage equality. Scarlett Johansson: Why were the famous actors paid less than half of what the male actors earned last year?

See, even when we do go into higher paying jobs our wages are still cut with blades, sharpened by testosterone. Why is the work of a Black woman and a Hispanic woman worth only 63 and 54 cents of a white man’s privileged daughter?

This is not a feminist myth. This is inequality.

So we are not here to be debunked. We are here to be respected. We are here to be nasty.

I am nasty like the blood stains on my bed sheets. We don’t actually choose if and when to have our periods. Believe me, if we could, some of us would. We don’t like throwing away our favorite pairs of underpants. Tell me, why are tampons and pads still taxed when Viagra and Rogaine are not? Is your erection really more than protecting the sacred messy part of my womanhood? Is the blood stain on my jeans more embarrassing than the thinning of your hair?

I know it is hard to look at your own entitlement and privilege. You may be afraid of the truth. I am unafraid to be honest. It may sound petty bringing up a few extra cents. It adds up to the pile of change I have yet to see in my country.

I can’t see. My eyes are too busy praying to my feet hoping you don’t mistake eye contact for wanting physical contact. Half my life I have been zipping up my smile hoping you don’t think I wanna unzip your jeans.

I am unafraid to be nasty because I am nasty like Susan, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Amelia, Rosa, Gloria, Condoleezza, Sonia, Malala, Michelle, Hillary.

And our pussies ain’t for grabbin’. Therefore, reminding you that are balls are stronger than America’s ever will be. Our pussies are for our pleasure. They are for birthing new generations of filthy, vulgar, nasty, proud, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sheikh—you name it—for new generations of nasty women. So if you [are] a nasty woman or love one who is, let me hear you say, “HELL YEAH!”

I am a survivor in many ways. I’m a survivor of rape and the fact that just typing those words made me pause and wonder how my friends will take that admission and feel even the slightest bit of shame, tells me how far we have yet to go…

Please help me make a world where women are celebrated… And one(ok it’s really two) last thing to inspire you… Have you heard Patrick Stewart speak on violence against women? I was a trekkie (always gonna love me some star trek the next generation) but I fell in love with the person behind my favorite captain when I heard his response at comicon take the time to watch these speeches… It is time well spent

Security You Need But Don’t Know About

As many of you know, I am an Irma survivor.  Irma was projected to hit the county where I lived straight on and that was where it was going to make landfall and if that had happened  I don’t know that I would be here to make this post but we were saved by our neighbors to the near South and Marco Island.  My heart goes out to them as they took the hit that could have been ours. My sympathy goes to everybody else who has been effected by Irma. We have also been effected  although we were not as badly affected as we had feared there’s a lot of damage and it’s not just physical damage to buildings– it’s mental damage on a massive scale.  Having to evacuate and decide what you would take and what you would leave which pictures would go with you and how much clothes what could you carry what were your limits which shelters were pet-friendly versus those that were not does your next door neighbor have a generator or can you take shelter in the local church or what’s the best thing to do all of those questions were decided in a matter of days and sometimes in a matter of minutes. My main hard drive which has pretty much everything I use in my daily life was damaged due to my hectic flight from my home to a friend’s business that had a generator and was more sturdily built than my house.  It had so much of my digital life on it… And so much i cannot imagine losing forever.  I wish this offer had come along 3 weeks ago, before Irma.  But let my loss be a lesson to you… Take action today

OMG this deal is insane! And you can use coupon code lbmwxar which gives an extra 10% off 3TB of data for life for $60 forget about Dropbox or any other services that’s about their monthly charge and this is for LIFE

https://deals.androidauthority.com/?rid=4768501

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In Response to the Recent RWA Controversy, I am Reposting this Article from April

Samantha A Karp Hauser
https://www.facebook.com/samantha.karp.hauser/posts/10212256364831667 

For me, the Holocaust is a real emotional thing. I had no grandparents growing up, but we spent lots of time in our apartments in Miami in a Jewish enclave, I guess. It was a gated community on North Miami Beach with three towers, a little convenience store, a restaurant and pool, and Dock slips for boats. And so my babysitters were retired Jewish retirees, most of whom were holocaust survivors. I was 2 or 3, the first time I heard of the Holocaust. I was spending the night with the Fusses, whom I called Grandma and Grandpa Fuss. I had taken a number and written numbers on my arm, to be like them. I didn’t understand why it horrified these two Holocaust survivors. I still remember the tears pouring down Grandma Fusses face as she scrubbed my arm with a sponge from the kitchen. Eventually, I learned their story. Two people who were the only survivors of their families who found love after the camps. I heard about their parents and siblings who died in the camps. I remember that one of their sisters was a ballerina. She was a teenager when she went into the camps and she ade it through the initial separation because a guard thought she was beautiful. As an adult, I know what that meant but as a child I remember thinking it was so beautiful that she gave the food to her sister. He would take her to his office and have her dance for him. She would come back with extra food for grandma Fuss and cry herself to sleep. She never made it out of the camps. And though it hurt, Grandma Fuss to tell me that story, she did it in whispers and with tears. She told me it was my job to remember her sister, the ballerina, always and forever a teenager.

I was in 1st grade before I thought of it again, in a meaningful way. I went to school in our temples basement in Dunwoody, Georgia. and one Monday we didn’t have school. Over the weekend someone had broken in and defaced desks, couches and chalkboards with swastikas. I saw that symbol and remembered Grandma Fusses tears. And I knew that it was evil and I was hated. I never understood what those teenagers were thinking as they painted a symbol of hate or scratched it into surfaces.

I am shocked and horrified at the news today that Hitler never gassed his own people. I know that is not true. I am one generation removed from the survivors. Their children were my parents generation. As we remember our flight from Egypt this week, so too do Jews remember the Holocaust. Last year, Elie Wiesel , a Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Laureate author, died. He has many quotes…too many to list about why Jews wrote down their memories for my generation and forward. Read his Nobel speech, or even just the quotes that come up on google. We remember the generation lost. All 6,000,000 of them. Men and women, Mothers and Fathers, Children and Artists, Brothers and Sisters.

But I want to be real here. These are the approximate numbers:

Number of Deaths

Jews: up to 6 million

Soviet civilians: around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians, who are included in the 6 million figure for Jews)

Soviet prisoners of war: around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers)

Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the Polish elites)

Serb civilians (on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina): 312,000

People with disabilities living in institutions: up to 250,000

Roma (Gypsies): 196,000–220,000

Jehovah’s Witnesses: Around 1,900

Repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials: at least 70,000

German political opponents and resistance activists in Axis-occupied territory: undetermined

Homosexuals: hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials noted above)

But, Hitler never used chemical weapons on his own people, Right?!?

Answer (1 of 2): As the other two answers have stated: “Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.” But a quote on the wall of the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Elsternwick (near Melbourne, Australia) says this: “It…
quora.com
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Something to make you think, just a little

“People aren’t so good at being good to one another. We try hard enough, but something essential was left out in the making of us, some hard little patch of stone in the fertile soil that’s supposed to be our hearts. We get hung up on the bad, and we focus on it until it grows, and the whole crop is lost.”   Seanan Mcguire Dusk or Dawn or Dawn or Day

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Wisdom and a Laurell K Hamilton Quote

There is wisdom in this. We all have a choice in how we deal with bad things. We can rant and rail and drive ourselves crazy with all the bad in our lives, or we can accept that bad things happen and look at the positive. Be grateful that we have a chance to react and find a way to focus on that. That is my wisdom for the day… Be a victim of life or a survivor… I choose to survive and be grateful for what I have and can do… Rather than bitter about what I cant

Wisdom and a Laurell K Hamilton Quote was originally published on Best Book Lover Book Reviews

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Shiloh Walker’s Pieces of Me

Book Review of Shiloh Walker’s Pieces of Me

I am a huge fan of Shiloh Walker.  I have been for a very long time, so when I
heard about Pieces of Me I got excited.
I love all of Shiloh’s series and had read a good number of her other
works.  The great thing about Shiloh’s
work is that even within the same genre each story is unique.  Shiloh is able to really encapsulate the
feelings of her characters and this book did not disappoint.   If you like romantic suspense novels, this is
definitely a great read.  This book has
graphic sex and violence against women.
While the heroine does a great job being a survivor, it could be
upsetting to those who have experienced abuse.

You have the main
heroine, Shadow Grace-A woman who has been broken so completely she doesn’t
know how to survive.  She struggles to
make a life for herself while recovering from a traumatic experience that makes
Russian prison camps look nice.  Yet, as
broken as she may be, she clings to her art and has the talent to bring beauty
into an unforgiving world.  Shadow isn’t fully
healed but every day she is getting stronger and she dares to reach by starting
to fantasize about a guy she sees on the beach regularly.  Shadow barely dares to dream about a man, but
for some reason, this one-well he sticks in her brain.  And he doesn’t come out easy, even when
fantasy starts to merge with reality and they meet.

The hero of our story seems perfect in so many ways.  Strong, supportive and a little bit dark with
a body that doesn’t quit, Jenks seems like the perfect man.  As they start to build something together, he
doesn’t fall apart when Shadow starts the revelation process, in fact he seems
to stick a little harder.  But he has a
secret and once it is revealed-well things are not quite as simple as they
first seem.

Of course, the past comes back to haunt Shadow and not only
Jenks but some of the other friends she has made find themselves in
danger.  While Shadow know just how sick
and depraved people can be, others doubt that it could have really been that
bad.  When the past swallows all of them
whole, only a few will have the chance to survive.  And after that—life will never be the same.

Shadow manages to rebuild herself and truly become strong,
facing not only her past but her present and deciding that she deserves more
than what Jenks can give.  But when her
past still threatens her, she finds that safety can be found in a strong
partner and Shadow has to decide whether to stand on her own or chance being
hurt again.

Pieces of Me
Shiloh Walker
July 25, 2017

Obsession can be deadly... Nobody knows that better than Shadow Harper. It seemed like a dream come true when a rich, suave older man noticed her during her second year of college. Stefan Stockman seemed to love her obsessively. He came into her life and swept her off her feet, seduced her, married her...and then slowly, eventually, that dream come true became a living nightmare. Now, three years after she finally escaped him, she's trying to put her life back together. Haunted by memories, struggling with post-traumatic stress, she spends most of her time locked away in her home on Pawley's Island, a small town on the South Carolina coast. Her rare moments of joy come from her trips to the nearby beach. She compulsively checks the locks on her doors, makes sure she has her cell phones--five of them--and if she misses something on her schedule, it throws her into a panic. When she accidentally leaves a sketchbook on the beach, an anxiety attack seems imminent. Her art has become her salvation, her sanity, and losing even one sketch is like losing a piece of her soul. When she returns to hunt for the sketchbook, already fearing it's gone for good, she's surprised to find it still sitting there, saved by a sexy fellow beach lover--the mysterious Dillian Jenkins. He's brash, bold, brutally handsome...and gentle. He's the exact opposite of the man who'd tormented her for years, and Shadow finds herself slowly, almost reluctantly, falling for him. Even obsessing over him. When her ex-husband once again intrudes on the happiness she's finally discovering, Shadow turns to Dillian. But will she find shelter there...or another betrayal?

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“See…we’ve all been wounded.” Goddess, what an understatement. “We’ve all been violated. Me, Adrian, Cory, Renny—hell, even Nicky, and now you. It’s what happens when you’re given great gifts—wonderful, amazing, beautiful gifts. Great buggering git asshole fuckheads always want to steal those gifts for themselves. Being wounded means you held on, that’s all. Being wounded means you can heal. If we live long enough with these gifts, and we’re not wounded, it means we’re probably like Mist and Morana and Sezan and Goshawk and hell, even Titania and Oberon, although I didn’t know either of them more than to give them the best fuck available at court, right? If we’re not capable of being hurt, then we’re not good enough people to deserve the Goddess’s gifts in the first place. If you don’t know that you have something to lose, then maybe you deserve to lose it, and Blessed Father, Holy Mother, Beloved Son, all of us know what we have to lose, because we’ve all lost it at one time or another and none of us wants to feel that pain again…” And then he couldn’t speak anymore, because Bracken, who didn’t want to be touched, had pulled Green into his arms, and every vow Green had made not to weep anymore for his lost freedom and violated faith fell at his feet with his brother’s tears. Both of them held there, still, clenched together so tightly their muscles ached. And they held, and held, and held, until they could breathe freely and look clearly and know that neither of them would be weeping soon again. With an unspoken word, they both pulled back and resumed their human male posture on the couch, the screen.

Wounded. Amy Lane
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I can’t stay silent…Please read!

For me, the Holocaust is a real emotional thing.  I had no grandparents growing up, but we spent lots of time in our apartments in Miami in a Jewish enclave, I guess.  It was a gated community on North Miami Beach with three towers, a little convenience store, a restaurant and pool, and Dock slips for boats.  And so my babysitters were retired Jewish retirees, most of whom were holocaust survivors.  I was 2 or 3, the first time I heard of the Holocaust.  I was spending the night with the Fusses, whom I called Grandma and Grandpa Fuss.  I had taken a number and written numbers on my arm, to be like them.  I didn’t understand why it horrified these two Holocaust survivors.  I still remember the tears pouring down Grandma Fusses face as she scrubbed my arm with a sponge from the kitchen.  Eventually, I learned their story.  Two people who were the only survivors of their families who found love after the camps.  I heard about their parents and siblings who died in the camps.  I remember that one of their sisters was a ballerina.  She was a teenager when she went into the camps and she ade it through the initial separation because  a guard thought she was beautiful. As an adult, I know what that meant but as a child I remember thinking it was so beautiful  that she gave the food to her sister. He would take her to his office and have her dance for him.  She would come back with extra food for grandma Fuss and cry herself to sleep.  She never made it out of the camps.  And though it hurt, Grandma Fuss to tell me that story, she did it in whispers and with tears.  She told me it was my job to remember her sister, the ballerina, always and forever a teenager.  
I was in 1st grade before I thought of it again, in a meaningful way.  I went to school in our temples basement in Dunwoody, Georgia.  and one Monday we didn’t have school.  Over the weekend someone had broken in and defaced desks, couches and chalkboards with swastikas.  I saw that symbol and remembered Grandma Fusses tears.  And I knew that it was evil and I was hated.  I never understood what those teenagers were thinking as they painted a symbol of hate or scratched it into surfaces.
I am shocked and horrified at the news today that Hitler never gassed his own people.  I know that is not true.  I am one generation removed from the survivors.  Their children were my parents generation.  As we remember our flight from Egypt this week, so too do Jews remember the Holocaust.  Last year, Elie Wiesel , a Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Laureate author, died.  He has many quotes…too many to list about why Jews wrote down their memories for my generation and forward.  Read his Nobel speech, or even just the quotes that come up on google.  We remember the generation lost.  All 6,000,000 of them.  Men and women, Mothers and Fathers, Children and Artists, Brothers and Sisters.  
But I want to be real here.  These are the approximate numbers:
Number of Deaths
Jews: up to 6 million
Soviet civilians: around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians, who are included in the 6 million figure for Jews)
Soviet prisoners of war: around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers)
Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the Polish elites)
Serb civilians (on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina): 312,000
People with disabilities living in institutions: up to 250,000
Roma (Gypsies): 196,000–220,000
Jehovah’s Witnesses: Around 1,900
Repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials: at least 70,000
German political opponents and resistance activists in Axis-occupied territory: undetermined
Homosexuals: hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials noted above)
But, Hitler never used chemical weapons on his own people
https://www.quora.com/Why-should-we-never-forget-the-Holocaust

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Casey Duncan

What if there were a place where you could go and completely disappear? A place for those who had to escape their daily lives for one reason or another. It’s whispered about in abuse survivor meetings. A town so far off the beaten path that there is only one way to get there, and that requires proof of why you must disappear. It’s a whisper in the group meeting, “I’m ready” And then a call comes in on your cell phone with a time and location. From there you are interrogated and if your story checks out, you have 3 days to get ready. You lay a false trail of internet searches and speak vaguely about needing a vacation. and suddenly you disappear…. Welcome to the Casey Duncan series by Kelley Armstrong

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