(Wo)Men Speak Out™
(Wo)Men Speak Out™

(Wo)Men Speak Out™

Christopher & Ophelia de Serres

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(Wo)Men Speak Out is an organization dedicated to eradicating rape, sexual assault and gender violence. We seek to educate both men and women, cultivating healthy relationships and gender equity. The (Wo)Men Speak Out BLOG is a collaboration of survivors, advocates and writers who share our mission. We welcome your comments: [email protected]

Recent Episodes

Playback Theatre
FEB 23, 2009
Playback Theatre
Ophelia and I had the opportunity to spend our pre-Valentine Day show watching, or rather participating, in Playback Theatre. What is Playback? It's been around a long time, and it's like no other theatre you probably have been to.<br /><br />In Playback, members of the audience are invited to come up to the stage and tell a story. The theme that night was Valentines Day. So people came up and told their stories. Some were happy, some sad, some angry, and some were inspirational.<br /><br />The awesome thing about Playback is the general vibe of the audience. Everyone is so open and they are expecting to share a little of themselves for a performance like this.<br /><br />At one point the host came around asking for an audience member and Ophelia raised her hand. I hid myself in my seat as I fully expected her to share some embarrassing moment involving yours truly.<br /><br />She started tellling the story of how we first met. Just as I thought I was off the hook she said,"...but one thing that really annoys me about him is that he plays the Bee Gees all the time on the stereo..."<br /><br />Before I had a chance to register embarrassed I yelled out, "It's NOT the Bee Gees IT'S Andy Gibb!!" No one disses on Andy while i'm around!<br /><br />As you can probably surmise the Playback Troupe's performance ended with a playful rendition of some 70's disco dancing.<br /><br />It was a great night. I encourage you to support Playback Theatre. They are all over the U.S. and Canada, and they are not for profit, making ends meet largely on audience donations.<br /><br />So look up your local Playback and attend! For those survivors of trauma it can be quite therapeutic to see your local playback act out a difficult experience you may have had in the past. It's just another way of speaking out!<br /><br />Chris<br />WSO<br /><p><a href="http://www.playbacktheaternw.org/">http://www.playbacktheaternw.org/</a></p>
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Only One
JAN 7, 2009
Only One
It can be difficult sharing your story of abuse with others. I held onto my secret for over 20 years. The sad thing about holding onto secrets is that it makes you feel like you can't be you. I hate secrets. I had so many and I felt this scraping on my soul for having harbored them. I know that we all have our secrets, it's just part of living I guess. The erosion of ourselves comes when we feel as if we need to cling so tightly to them.<br /><br />I speak about my abuse publicly, in front of different kinds of people. Many of them are survivors who are still clinging to the secret, trying to find a path to freedom. Many survivors are compelled to finally let someone know that they were abused. This is usually a highly emotional event, sort of like a human volcano erupting. It's been years and sometimes decades that we have been holding this back, this cataclysmic dark negative aura around us.<br /><br />Even as I have told my story to loved ones and they have accepted it wholeheartedly. Even as I have felt the love and support from many of you out there. Even as, there is still this vestige of shame that is slow to dissipate.<br /><br />We have been feeling shameful for our thoughts and actions for such a long time, especially those survivors of child abuse. But in our journeys back to the truth, to the free expression of the truth, we shake a little more shame off. Until one day we will reach a point where we fully realize we were not to blame, we didn't ask for this.<br /><br />I can honestly remember most of the moments where I shook a little more shame off. No matter how far I have gone in my healing I still feel the tingle when I hear your stories because I can relate to these destructive events that happened to you. I can relate to your hope for freedom from the web of abuse you are in. I can be inspired by your path to freedom.<br /><br />I started reading a book this morning and all those feelings stirred up inside of me again. The disgust, the fear, the deep shame to be who I was. But I wasn't alone. This was the authors story and I felt a little less shame after each turning of the page. I felt all those things that he did, and once again I knew I wasn't the only one.<br /><br />You are not the only one.<br /><br />Knowing this brings us out of our lonely, hopeless worlds. So I continued reading the book and felt a sense of relief. Like a gray cloud clearing within me. That all the thoughts in the heads of other survivors were my own. That all the feelings, emotions, and actions that other survivors have taken were my own. I felt relief that I wasn't the only one.
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When You Get There
DEC 20, 2008
When You Get There
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fgJpu3881vg/SU0ybkhVFcI/AAAAAAAAH1U/070IBXKWHjg/s1600-h/ses+001.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fgJpu3881vg/SU0ybkhVFcI/AAAAAAAAH1U/070IBXKWHjg/s320/ses+001.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281933387216786882" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>When you get there, it will not look like healing. There, where exactly is that? There, where are we going? There, she says, as if it exists on a map. THIS WAY TO INCEST HEALING. RAPE GOES AWAY THIS EXIT. There, there, as in, to the place of new Earth. You have never been here before, away from the evil of your so called elders, unenmeshed from the black-widow-spun-incest-web. This is healing. It is barren at first. You will look out over the land and think to yourself, why am I here, where there is nothing?  It hurts. It is scary. You will feel alone. Maybe you will feel nothing as you approach the precipice. You will jump, free falling. You must jump, girl. Jump into that nothingness you see, feel, and hear. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing. Upon landing, you will turn around and see the demons retreat. You will be free. Lonely, yes, aching, yes, but free. Yes, free of lies, of intergenerational poison. Free of Daddy, with his raping heart, Mother who took flight, others who deemed you unseen, unheard.  But this is not nothing, this unexplored place. There is YOU. You are never nothing. </div><div>But when you get there, it can feel and look like nothing, you may want to run into the past, cling back to the old tree vines, rotten and slick as they are, for fear of this seemingly barren nothingness. </div><div>But, if you listen deep and hard and still, you will hear it, you will feel it; </div><div>something….</div><div>You are a human seed. You are life springing anew. You are the reason. At first this uncharted territory is blindingly lonely, you look for Proust’s new eyes to guide you, Maya’s strength to rise, Alice’s purple fields to speak to you. Where is everything? You are the first, woman. You are the roots, the branches, the trunk, the rings within the body, the sap, the bark armor. </div><div>At first, it looks like fucking Chernobyl, so vastly damaged. But your eyes become newer all the time, your strength rises toward the sun daily, and in the long, slow future, purple blossoms.  Life herself is what you are. </div><div>Grow your new tree. Your soil is beautiful, your seedlings whole, babies bursting into Earth like light through a prism, all miraculous color and light and reflective. You are a pioneer, Woman, you have led yourself through a quaking terror so sharp and piercing most would have given up, given in, gone along, saying,” There is no other pill to take, so I swallow the one that made me ill.” But not YOU, for you are life herself.  YOU are never nothing.  The trees know this, as do your children and spirits yet to be your children. The light kissed dawn knows this, you are surely something, surely within you a teeming garden awaits germination, the robust, fully grown oak tree within the acorn. THERE, that’s where ‘there’ it is. There lives in YOU. That child inside of you, the one you were, sacred and innocent, curious and free, THERE is the place you are going. And You will know the wonder of it all, when you get there. </div>
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