Stick the pity!

Don’t you think that PITY is just the most demeaning,  insulting emotion? 

Since I spoke out about being a clergy abuse survivor I have come across this attitude much too often, usually from  people who have very little knowledge of the subject and make the  “Two blokes in the pub” assumptions.

Don’t get me wrong, I have also been overwhelmed by the support from REAL compassionate people of integrity and decency, (and I have to say they have almost exclusively  been atheists, humanists, secularists! )

But I have been embarrassed on more than one occasion by others who mistake “PITY” for compassion, and who want to run the show rather than stand in solidarity. 

I have been insulted by those who want to pray for me because they presume that I have a desire to be “reunited” with that appalling  church, even pitying my exclusion! 

What arrogance to think  that  having experienced the church’s narcissism I would  still have anything to do with them? 

It is actually shaming for  people like me to be “PITIED” as if we are incapable victims with low intellect and few resources.

Survivors are actually very strong in many ways, we have honed those survivors skills out of necessity.

Lets face it,we have pretty much always had to look after ourselves, it is only recently that there is a flurry of interest in our cause! And even that comes with all sorts of agendas!

So having battled through  pretty much on our own, - despite the betrayals and life destroying experiences, the last thing we need is PITY! 

That demeaning attitude is even  reinforced every day by many “survivor organisations” who  are making careers out of their fellow survivors, presuming that they are a step ahead in some way.

I was recently sent a flyer by a friend in Australia  that is regularly distributed by a large child abuse charity here in the UK , and I have never heard such patronising condescending claptrap in my life! Negative and disempowering, it is presumptuous and disgraceful.

That “The two blokes in the pub” with their limited knowledge get it wrong is bad enough, but when people who should know better and who constantly  “fundraise”  in order to perpetuate their own agendas and exploit fellow survivors it is far worse. 

And all they actually offer is PITY! wrapped up in a cloak of assumed knowledge and their own hubris and grandiosity.

To top all of that these people are metaphorically “rattling their begging tins” in competition with charities of REAL need, and who are actually DOING some good! Then they relegate their fellow survivors to the role of victim where they will experience  again that feeling of being inadequate and of little consequence.

Real Survivors don’t do that! Real Survivors are standing shoulder to shoulder with each other, and sharing their strengths. Real Survivors are using those  strengths to help in all areas of life, all manner of fields, not feeling they alone have the monopoly on suffering. Real Survivors don’t put their trust in those who disempower them, instead they celebrate each survival, each unique irreplaceable human being, knowing that despite repression and against all of the odds they are alive!

I for one didn’t go through all of that shit to be pitied! 

I actually PITY those who are still in the grips of that abusive church, and cannot see the wolf for the sheep’s clothing.