#Truth Telling

[poetry-in-blood-and-brain-matter]

Telling the Truth

Whumpees who are forced to reveal important information that endangers the people they care about

Truth Serum:

how do they take the serum- swallowing or injection

The physical intimacy of forcing whumpees jaw open, whumper pushing their finger into the hinges of whumpees jaw, and holding their nose there forced to swallow

Injection, either quick needle jab or a slow IV drip

the fear of whumpee not knowing what it is until its too late

or knowing exactly what is being done to them and still not being able to stop them

Supernatural/fantasy- beings that cannot tell lies

maybe their truth-telling was always a point of pride, but after being kidnapped its turned against them

maybe they liked being a trickster and subtly manipulating people but still (always) telling the truth

or- its always been something that never benefitted them but it was never used against them in such a way

whumpee answers vaguely while there anxiety climbs as whumpers questions get more specific forcing whumpee to reveal more and more

Both:

maybe they bite there tongue untill it bleeds(or clean off)

clenching their jaw till it hurts

long term guilt or self-loathing

[ancestorsalive]

Maḏayin Exhibition Opening: W. Waṉambi Distinguished Lecture by Dr. Megan Davis.

Professor Megan Davis has officially moved to Boston to take up the Whitlam Fraser Chair of Australia Studies at Harvard University.

Last week, Professor Davis travelled to New York to deliver the W. Wanambi Distinguished Lecture at the Asia Society in New York. The lecture was part of a program put together to celebrate the opening of the Madayin Exhibition - Eight Decades of Aboriginal Australian Bark Painting from Yirrkala. It is an extraordinarily powerful exhibition, the largest exhibition of Aboriginal Art to be in New York for over two decades. Titled 'Seen but not heard', the lecture spoke to the pioneering work of the Yolgnu people in law reform and structural change, and their influence on Aboriginal politics over time. It also spoke to the tendency of Australia to applaud art and artworks, whilst ignoring its politics. People, and especially Governments, don't listen unless they are compelled to. You can watch the lecture in full on the Asia Society YouTube channel

[flopsy-art]

TO ALL OF MY AUSTRALIAN (and non Australian) FRIENDS

There are Land, Sky and Waters Headings being held by the Yoorrook Justice Commission right now. It is an absolutely MASSIVE collection of experts testifying to the impacts of colonisation in Victoria from all fields.

I recommend you go and listen to these incredible first nations people, elders, historians, MP's, legal experts and MORE discuss first nations rights in this country.

ALL OF THESE HAVE LIVE SIGNING AND EACH ONE IS TRANSCRIBED.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Ανθρώποις πάσι ταυτό αγαθόν και αληθές. Ηδύ δε άλλω άλλο.

- Democritus

Goodness and truth are the same for all men. But what is pleasant is different from man to man.

[britneybritneybitch]

Your heart is wiser than the mind — pay attention to what it’s telling you.

[cr8tifleeme]

...we start healing by telling the truth.

[dessertbird]

Daily Destiel 💙💚

Concerned angel. 🥺😍❤️

[vespertilio1]

The equator IS real guys and we are sleeping on the fact that it’s not. I’m not talking about the concept of the equator, i’m talking about the big red line you see on maps. It’s real. That’s why we always have to FLY over it it’s actually a big red wall in the sea. Have u ever ridden a boat over the equator? Exactly. No one has cause you CAN’T the equator (big red wall) is in the way. This is the truth. They can’t keep this from us any longer.

[tr4shpanda]

Wizard: *does magic hoodoo. "You will tell me the answer"

Hero: "I, I'm afraid I have the tism, and defiance disorder, and you just flipped my switch... I literally can't tell you, it's a real problem."

[seeyatellite]

Personal venting because sometimes it sucks talking only to a therapist and community based in professional psychology driven toward healthy conversation and human connection:

I think the chasm between mine and some family’s understanding is so vast because I’m not facing the world from their level of wealth.

I’m facing the world from a position of utter poverty and that’s where my values originate. I don’t see an absolute need for a bed, a car, a pretty dresser… I see needs for blankets, a pillow, shoes and a bag or crate to store my clothes in. Those are my foundational desires.

From there I begin working toward functional accessories like kitchen essentials, cleaning essentials, body soap and hygiene essentials.

I have let go of all need to maintain an image beyond anything but survival and capacity which is normal when you make a fixed, unchanging $1,500 per month under significant spending restrictions due to guardianship, making some things more expensive than others since the modern world makes things cheaper through digital means, erasing a paper trail and limiting in-person service to cut employee costs.

So, I prioritize survival. I don’t care to find a wife or settle into a marriage or raise kids. I care about art and celebration of the art of other people. I prioritize celebrating life in terms of flourishing life; nature, human collaboration and compassionate connection.

Yes, I may be absolutely terrible at a great many things including those which deepen my connection with people who share my values. I also am willing to learn and adapt which is a much easier process with absolute accountability, awareness of exactly which influences shaped me and what seems to hold me back or limit my receptiveness.

These are core values and principles for me. I have been raised mostly by external community, not family. In fact, most of my life it was family who constantly handed me to someone else and blamed me for their decisions to do so.

I am naturally inclined toward accepting others and being curious about them. I never developed the sort of attachment love that comes from consistency in nurture and healthy protective parenting.

I’m probably polyamorous or I’ll either feel insecure and unfulfilled in a stagnant monogamous relationship or even possibly cheat… which I’d imagine is a stretch. I’m more inclined toward self suffering than causing that kind of pain especially if my partner and I agreed on mutual exclusivity.

My point is, I think I understand where my family and I clash. They have core positions of comfortable and self-sustaining wealth with values and principles rooted in systems of belief and community governing their choices and actions which I have had very little significant experience with.

Yet they expect me to have the ability to act on knowledge I never truly received through means I never experienced. I was not raised in the same way, by the same hands or even toward the same goals. My entire life has been focused on healing, not thriving… and I’ve even been shit on for trying to do that.

Our society seems to separate the struggling from the “successful” and it has various methods of shading and shadowing the divide between these groups. We’re often taught to suffer in silence, to keep quiet so people don’t know you’ve felt pain at all… we’re told to learn and work in secret so we only share our success for contributing to collective surface-level harmony.

Thing is, life is not just a solo artist’s song… it’s an infinitely evolving orchestral assembly complete with every instrument we’ve ever known and many we’ve never even heard of.

So, yeah… I get why I don’t fit into the family’s collective narrative.

I wasn’t even written with the same ink.

You have money; boats (plural), cars (plural, houses (plural), an inherited lake house, hundreds of thousands if not millions invested in your sports cars, jet skis and massive Star Wars fan cave basements… that’s an assload of material wealth.

…and you judge me for what? Not finding that stuff important enough to protect over truth and compassion for people and acknowledging the differences in conditioning experiences here.

You call it love to say the words and offer me a seat for dinner or the occasional barbecue. You don’t act like love is a verb. You act like it’s a noun.

To my father, you say “you know I love you,” then cause emotional and physical harm and deny the reality we both shared. You deny responsibility for your own actions and call me selfish or needy and want me to lie for you.

You race across the US to drive Pikes Peak with your Viper buddies and host an annual “kennonball run” event from the Chelsea Proving Grounds to your inherited lake house… with your son nowhere in sight as I suppose I’m an embarrassment on disability income who can’t legally own a second car so classy to show off… because of legal restrictions you introduced me to.

I have nothing. You own 3 houses and a condo, 2 classic cars, a performance car and a pickup truck, 2 boats and two jet skis kept in a marina and a lake house inherited from your father who built it with his bare hands. Your father also built a house in that same neighborhood for your disabled brother and nurtured a family relationship with beautiful people who cared for him.

…and you just placed me on disability income at age 15 then abandoned me at 17 to live with beautiful strangers, my girlfriend and her family.

On the note of disability, you also frequently deny my lived experiences through childhood and teenage life; relationships, exploration, extremely active lifestyle… we had to visit our family-owned glasses place a few times per year because I always recklessly busted my glasses from ridiculous levels of natural activity.

You defend your disability decision against the truth of lived and shared experiences with vast social groups outside your domain of community.

Who’s the problem here?

Because therapy and professional help are telling me it’s not me… and I’m finally coming around to wholeheartedly believing it.

Where’s the “truth” and what does that word even mean to you? Is truth just a narrative support mechanism for maintaining your position and respect? Is “reality” just your story written to make you the infallible protagonist?

To the rest of the family and friends dazzled by his shiny toys and pretty boats and cars… how the hell can’t you see this?

[tenth-sentence]

While the history wars were fought largely over the reality of the attempted destruction of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and our removal from recorded history, this new era has seen a widening of the lens to include the destruction of our country, and debates over our sovereignty and a treaty.

"Country: Future Fire, Future Farming" - Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe

[familywebs]

Health

I’m currently in that special time in a woman’s life, many of you know the one, when you are several decades old and your body suddenly decides your life isn’t hard enough. You have plenty to do … getting your offspring through their final years of dependency, managing increasingly complicated financial affairs, coming to a point in your career where it’s either do or die, coping with the demands of significant others, and freaking out about the state of the world. It’s a lot. Then, your hormones change and stuff you thought you could count on, such as your energy levels or emotional resiliency, is gone. You don’t even recognize yourself anymore. In my case, I knew it was coming and I knew I’d reach a point where I had to figure out how to get through it. But what about when you don’t know it’s coming? It just happens, suddenly, due to factors outside of your control. That happened to my maternal grandmother. 

It’s the 1950s. One day she was puttering along in her mid-thirties, raising her five kids, still in a relatively young marriage, and active socially through her parish and bowling league. The next day it all changed, she had a total abdominal hysterectomy. My mother was very young at the time but she remembers that my grandmother was in the hospital for more than a month. And when she returned home she was never the same again. I don’t know what my grandmother knew about menopause, or what doctors told her would happen. I don’t even know what condition she had that necessitated the procedure. She would not have been given hormone replacement therapy which I don’t think came about until the 1960s. Dealing with sudden change is not one of my strengths in life. And I don’t know if it was one of hers either. My grandmother was viewed (by others who told me stories about her) as someone who showed her feelings for others through constant efforts to see that her loved ones were well taken care of, but she was also viewed as cold, critical, and judgmental. My mother said that she was a loving mom, affectionate with my grandfather, and engaged with life until her hysterectomy. Afterward, she quit clubs, began sleeping separately from my grandfather, and was often irritable. “Mean,” “tough old broad,” and “bitch” were tossed around by various relatives speaking of her. 

I think this mid-thirties plunge into menopause was a life-altering experience for her. And it was a life-altering experience for the family. I wonder how confusing it was for my mother who wasn’t even in school yet. Or how my grandfather felt because by all accounts he loved her deeply. They were a family that usually did not discuss their emotional fears and needs. When we think of family history we frequently chronicle who begat whom or dates and locations, but those are the physical details. Sometimes the emotional and mental health of people in the family have much greater impacts on relationships and connections than anything physical ever could. I see how chaotic and unbalanced my life feels right now, and I have such sympathy for a woman who had changed so dramatically thrust upon her sixty years ago.

---------------

I'm following along with Amy Johnson Crow's excellent family history prompts, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. This was the theme for week 23 (June 3-9). You can read more about my grandmother at her profile on WikiTree.

[akanemnon]

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[innervoiceartblog]

Tragic and important Truth Telling…

[manny-jacinto]

a message from Rahul Kohli 

[eveningrainstorm]

take responsibility.