There can be no doubt the Royal Commission into child abuse is the correct organised response to heart breaking experiences at the hands of evil. But in the background very close to the surface is a new stirring up of buried guilt and shame and sorrow that for me is impossible to push back into a place that I suppose all victims know about. And so I find myself in a place of acknowledging the victims must be heard but wondering if even some of them share my pain and wonder at us going through hurt all over again. Perhaps revealing the evil isnt meant to heal.
I was doing medium ok with the demons of the past jumping out from time to time. First was a television piece reporting on children living as wards of the State that has overwhelmed me. Second, in that exhibition for all to see is an extremely private recollection of a young female ward being placed in gynaecological stirrups. Extra sized lettering on a huge board quote the doctor telling her she will open up easily. The curator of this exhibition either personally understands something of my horror of being in stirrups at age 8 or he/she has no idea at all.
Are there any other victims suffering too much while not wanting to take away the right to be heard off others? Am I alone in feeling washed away by the memories? Is there language that could expose the evil without leaving victims exposed? Is it appropriate to expose our vulnerability on the over sized board, big letters heralding our physical and emotional nakedness? Why arent the sins of the evil ones on those boards?
