A lesson in caring for our most vulnerable

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Some of the comments on this article make me sick.

  1. Because I am so very much over people who think they are better than others because things have gone their way in life and think those who aren’t as functional are pieces of trash. And….
  2. Because there but for the kindness and love and support of others, go I.

This woman’s story hit home for me. I am a politician, yes, but I write this blog as a human who gets it. I know what it is like to run from an abusive home. I know what it’s like to be raped, physically & emotionally abused, and what the mental unwellness consequences of that are. I know what it’s like to be a sex worker. I know what it’s like to bounce from house to house for a couple of years, with no certainty of where I’d be living in a week.

And that – thank goodness – is where our similarities end. But it is also where my empathy pours faster, because while I guess I have a little bit of me to thank for where I am today (determined is my middle name), it is mostly due to a long string of guardian angels from 16 yrs old onwards that I am standing for Parliament today, instead of sleeping rough in an empty section. And I know every at-risk person needs my angels, yet few get them.

I have been extraordinarily lucky that one or more were always there during crisis’s that were potential tipping points from tenuous ok-ness to complete disaster. And I was also lucky to have early counselling intervention from a good therapist and a strong grasp on the long-term goal of wellness. If it was not for this extraordinary alignment, I know I’d either be dead and buried, or in Tanz’s shoes.

When someone’s been fractured in this way, by the continued abuse of others at such a young age, even the most basic normal decision can be a bewildering, frightening proposition.

How are you meant to know how to properly look after and love a baby when you were neglected yourself and/or parent to your own siblings by 6 years old? How are you meant to know how to have a healthy relationship when you watched your dad beat your mum to a pulp? How are you meant to know how to stay straight when drugs & alcohol were part of your life from birth? How are you meant to enjoy a healthy sex life when all you know is rape? How are you meant to be mentally healthy when you’ve had complex trauma and PTSD (+ADHD +FAS + + +) since you remember living? How do you look after and maintain a home – feel comfortable in one place for a period – when you’ve lived/stayed at 60 odd in your life, most of which were not stable, functional homes? How do you work in a supermarket for $14.25 an hour on a regular schedule when since 14 you’ve worked men for far more, and despite assault & rape by clients, feel that’s the only way you can earn money – and more fundamentally than that – what your gross worth is?

I have known many other women in similar shoes. The stories are very similar, and there is always failure from at least one crucial system, often many, that tips them over, leaving them without the support I have had. It could have been CYF in their teens, the wrong foster parents, troubles with WINZ, issues accessing mental health care & being cared for properly by mental health services, issues in the education system, trouble with housing, lack of support during pregnancy or after the baby is born, et cetera.

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Armchair commentators never shut up about ‘individual responsibility’ and ‘poor choices’. What they seem to lack any understanding of is how messed up and unrealistic ‘choice’ is under ongoing desperate pressure, a childhood devoid of normality, and mental illness – and how vital it is that we all contribute towards creating real choices for everyone.

How do we do that? Our government, our society and each of us as individuals all need to chip in.

Firstly, we as a country need to accept that some of us are deeply affected by our childhoods. But that’s not our fault, and it’s not ok to blame us. If we’re looking for blame – look at the people who tortured, molested, raped, abused, and/or neglected this precious once-a-child human being – condemn them, blame them, and use your energy to join the campaign against family & sexual violence in this country. It should be a minimum standard to us that victims/survivors of hideous crimes live enriching, safe lives where their holistic needs are met.

Secondly, it’s time for a commitment from government level, down through all levels of bureaucracy and front-line services to ensuring no at-risk child or adult slips through the gaping holes in our health & social welfare systems. Those holes are huge:

Homeless people not having access to a benefit. The insecure security that is couch-hopping and sleeping in a mission. Issues with access to and quality of our mental health services. An extremely overstretched CYF. Lack of continuity of care and defined pathways between government departments & NGO service providers. ACC’s sensitive claims unit, which has let a lot of abuse & rape survivors down. A HNZ assessment system that doesn’t work, and not enough social housing. Lack of funding for meaningful transition programs. A nation-wide lack of shelters for at-risk women not exiting an abusive relationship. A court system exceedingly difficult to obtain justice from. Bouncing between towns, between prison and ‘freedom’, between various ‘systems’ with no real direction – living an endless ping pong game of a life.

And that list omits the number one hole – that we need to fix our poverty, family and sexual violence problems. This is the number 1 preventative measure we can take as a country to ensure in 14 years time there will be far, far less children having to make ‘choices’ like Tanz did.

Thirdly, comprehension from each of us of what life is like for people like Tanz – why they ‘choose’ the streets, prostitution and/or itinerancy over trying or pretending to be ‘normal’. I know it’s hard to understand if you haven’t lived this way, but please try to respect how hard it is to be functional when one comes from such massive dysfunction.

When home becomes more dangerous for a young child than sleeping on the streets, the very act of sleeping in a house in a warm dry bed can forever cause anxiety. It is a scary change of lifestyle. Many can’t sleep for weeks when they move into a house, which can feel like a trap. Those without the right support will go back on the streets. It is less triggering to be outside. If drugs & alcohol have numbed the mental & physical pain since youth, sobriety is painful, and it gets worse before it gets better. Those without the right support through that will go straight back. When all you have been since you were little is a target for men, then that is your worth. This is reinforced over and over, and even with tertiary training under your belt and a job or two, because of that belief, prostitution is not a path too far like it could be to you (I’m not saying all sex workers are in the industry for this reason, but women in the industry with this background often are).

Standing alongside New Zealanders like Tanz and helping them lift themselves up and out is not quick, or straightforward.  But it is a must. No child chooses the family they are born into. No child chooses to be abused. No child chooses to develop fetal & trauma-related conditions. No child chooses to set themselves up for a difficult journey through life – it is done to them. I don’t want good fortune to be the only difference between my journey and Tanz’s. I want every at-risk human being in this, our country, to receive the help I got as an expected standard held by every single one of us.

23 COMMENTS

  1. An excellent article Rachel, well written.

    There are a great too many judgemental armchair critics in New Zealand who have all the apparent compassion of a cucumber. They will vote only in their self interest, they don’t care about poor children and thats if they even acknowledge poverty in New Zealand!

    I too could have gone the same way Tanz went. I can identify two reasons why I did not; one my cousin who came to live with me at my most vulnerable time, and two was my school, Epsom Girls Grammar. That school made an enormous difference in my life right when I needed it most. I was made to feel that I could do anything, that I mattered, that I could make something of myself, that I was more than just my female bits in short.

    So our education system even can be part of a positive helping hand for people. It worked in my case.

    I want to live in a country where we love each other, care for each other, and focus on looking after our most vulnerable. Imagine what NZ would be like if instead of the RBNZ and Government focussing on inflation rates we focussed on eradicating poverty and ensuring all vulnerable people were cared for?

  2. Awesome writing here Rachael.

    Every word so true.

    You know, when someone does give you a handup – there is an overwhelmingness to this act of kindness.
    Fancy being overwhelmed, as a grown woman, just because another human being shows a kindness.

    A whole life full off hate and abuse, and then the overwhelmingness of kindness, and not even knowing that is what you are feeling – because indeed, you do not know kindness, and your mind is overwhelmed with this new emotion. How do you react to kindness when you have never had that emotion switched on before. You become overwhelmed.

    If that hand of kindness gets you as far as the Sensitive Claims Unit of ACC (SCU) where you can get help with counselling and psychological services, the shock of their unwillingness to believe your experiences, and the abusive manner from the staff there, retraumatises you, and the helping hand is gone again. You are back to being abused again. Abused by the system that is supposed to help you. They don’t help you. They bully you; harass you – no kindness there at all.

    But now you know what kindness feels like, and you want more of it – but it certainly won’t be found at the ACC SCU. All you get from there is more abuse, and they (SCU) almost seem to like retraumatising you as their standard benchmark of behaviour.

    I hope you can fix this when you are in parliament – fix this disgusting state of affairs at the SCU – that is the bullying of victims trying to survive and the seeking of a skerrick of kindness.

    I am glad you are going to be in parliament Rachael. It will be so good for so many of us.

    God bless you indeed on your path.

    Opinion.

  3. ” Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes , no matter the external reality , are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance . Their attitudes need correction . Once we adopt an upbeat version of reality , positive things will happen . This belief encourages us to flee from reality when reality does no elicit positive feelings . These specialists in ” Happiness ” have formulated something they call ” Law of Attraction ” . It argues that we attract those things in life , whether it is money , relationships or employment which we focus on . Suddenly , abused and battered wives or children , the unemployed , the depressed and mentally ill , the illiterate ,, the lonely , those grieving for lost loved ones , those crushed by poverty , the terminally ill , those fighting with addictions , those suffering from trauma , those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs , those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills , are to blame for their negativity . The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism , shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress . And many of us have internalised this pernicious message , which in times of difficulty leads to personal despair , passivity and disillusionment . ”

    Chris Hedges .

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges

    My personal despair is that I will never know the New Zealand / Aotearoa that could have been . I’ll never see how extraordinarily unique we might have evolved into as a lucky band of brothers and sisters living in a Utopia of beauty , nature , peace and security , perhaps even showcasing a New Dawn in human evolution .
    Instead , we were butchered in our peaceful sleep by monsters . The damage from that will echo into the future and it will take generations and generations of hard work and deep understanding by our State , i.e you and I , to repair .
    My personal feeling is that an extremely important part of that healing will be to make those monsters atone . They must be held accountable and any new , progressive , and humanist Government must undertake that task . To bring our abusers to justice .

    One last thing .

    The abuse and trauma we’ve suffered is the very worst kind of abuse and trauma . It’s an abuse/trauma that’s left US feeling as if We are to blame . At least in a war with its associated horrors , you can see the enemy shooting and bombing and killing . With an earthquake , you know it was a natural event and that can be survived . The abuse and trauma that we , as normal New Zealanders , have had levelled against us is worse than warfare , worse that a trashed city . The Neo Liberals have ruined entire generations of Kiwis , Kiwis who will reflect that abuse out into their homes and communities for years to come .
    Unless we can view our abusers for what they did . That might give us some kind of rare objectivity to our lives .

  4. Hi Rachel,

    You’re right that people should help those less fortunate than themselves. The problem is that when the state gets involved the relationship can change from one of empathy and assistance to coercion and waste. Coercive taxation is an unavoidable part of NZ’s civil state, and the waste occurs through administrative overhead and misdirected policy.

    The solution to this problem isn’t popular amongst those who are aligned with Fabian socialism – it involves a fundamental rethink of the security arrangement between the people of New Zealand and the state and its citizens. Glen Greenwald’s allegation hints at the problem: a state that sees everyone as a potential threat to its power. The security modus operandi of the civil state has a long and sordid history, but today is wrapped up in nice language like “keeping people safe” and “social democracy”.

    • What?

      You’ve jumped from the state providing support for vulnerable people… to state security apparatus? Not the same thing?

      So… to provide support for vulnerable is coercive and wasteful? That’s an interesting assumption. And clearly, from international examples, not always true.

      I think the coercion you don’t like is the paying taxes part?

      If no one pays taxes (no one is coerced) then we will not have funds to provide basic infrastructure, education, healthcare, justice, police… how exactly would those things work without funding via taxes?

      User pays? So if you can’t pay (if for example you have a chronic illness) then you can’t use (cannot access healthcare). That does not work!

      • Lara,

        Of course state assistance and the security apparatus are not the same thing. My point is that the needy don’t get assistance from the state unless the underlying machinery is involved, because coercion and the civil secuity apparatus go hand in hand.

        There’s no waste with direct assistance, and I’m not suggesting that state assitance is always ineffective.

        The bit that I don’t like is institutional corruption as the driving force of coercive tataxtion.

        Social services function more effectively when they are administered locally, just as the free market is better than the state at allocating resources. I’m not advocating an entirely market driven approach here, only that third party support should be voluntary rather than coerced. Infrastructure isn’t as straightforward, as it involves negotiation and dispute resolution for the advocates of disparate strategies.

        Pure market driven capitalism isn’t the answer here, what I’m talking about is a philosophical shift from rule by power to a more natural approach to the problem of fair use of social services.

    • “UglyTruth” (Mike@NZ?) – as per usual for “Libertarians”, you’ve totally missed the point of Rachel’s position and defaulted to ideological black and white absolutes.

      Here is a reality for you; no ideology that deals in absolutes, and ignores human needs and complexities, will ever gain support from 99% of the human race.

      ” The problem is that when the state gets involved the relationship can change from one of empathy and assistance to coercion and waste.”

      Only a ideologue can see State assistance for the most needy and vulnerable as “coercion”. That kind of thinking is just plain twisted and self-centered.

      • Frank,

        I’m not Mike@NZ, and I’m not affiliated with the usual libertarian scene in NZ. My take on liberty is more aligned with the liberty of English common law.

        My focus isn’t on the human condition, but rather on society in its natural state. The human condition has been a part of western culture for so long that most people believe that it is universal, i.e. that humanity and mankind are equivalent terms. Originally people were described as being human, or “homo humanus”, to distinguish them from those who were not citizens of Rome.

        I don’t see state assistance for the needy as coercion, what I see is that without coercion, such assistance would not be feasible in the long term.

  5. This is absolutely brilliant, thank you. I only wish writing of this quality would be published in the nzherald so the mainstream could understand what you are talking about.

    Mike

  6. It astonishes me that in NZ we still publish this sort of left wing drivel. Things have not always gone my way, or that of my families. But I have never not fed my kids. I have never hit them or abused them. I have never bought something I couldn’t afford. I have never blamed the Govt for something that is my fault.

    Yes I will, and have, take kids and battered women into my ‘circle of support’, but to those of beneficiaries who believe they are entitled to state housing, unemployment benefit when they could be working, or sickness benefit when so little is wrong with them, I say stop their payments. Now!

    • Good grief. Did you actually read the news article and my blog? This woman has not starved her kids, she has not hit or abused them, and has not bought things she can’t afford. That happened to HER. She is entitled to state housing, would likely be on today’s equivalent of the Invalids Benefit due to her mental health issues, which she is not responsible for or can control.

    • @IV:

      I see you never bothered to catch any wisdom, or empathy in your lalala land life!

      Benebasher IV be gone! (Maybe you are Paula Benefit in disguise!) IV, We have former beneficiaries running our country right now for goodness sake!
      FJK Be gone!!!!
      All gNat supporters be gone!!!!

      Opinion.

    • Why don’t we go a bit further and heard these week losers in to swamp land on the borders of the the cities were us winners don’t have to look at them.

    • Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue – I say you’re full of self-righteous, ignorant garbage.

      You obviously hold yourself in high regard – though many other see you as a pious prat who judges others by your own hypocritical standards, and has little or no understanding of the complexities of the human condition.

      Good for you that you have “never not fed my kids” and “I have never hit them or abused them”. You obviously have no understanding that your circumstances are not the circumstances of other folk less privileged that you.

      Instead of grandstanding how f*****g fantastic you are (note sarcasm), how about a little intuitive thinking about why poverty has grown in this country since 1984.

      C’mon, use the brain that 4.5 billion years of evolution has gifted you and figure it out. Clue; people don’t voluntarily choose to live in poverty, regardless of your ill-conceived prejudice.

      Because it seems to me that the neo-liberal “reforms” of the 1980s and 1990s has been a dismal failure, and the likes of ideologues like you can’t accept that.

      So you choose to blame the victims of those “reforms”.

      Better than accepting responsibility for the ideology that you identify with is a fraud for 99% of the people.

  7. Great article Rachel totally agree with what you say here. I would add that neo liberalism which is creating this personal choice culture is the issue here. It’s just so easy for people to say this in a culture where this propaganda is drummed out daily from our leaders.

    This I feel removes all empathy for people on lower rungs like Tanz in the story. Therefore a smug ‘I’m alright Jack’ culture seems to dominate.That’s my 2 cents anyway…

  8. IV,

    You have no right to say that right wing drivel.
    With the compassion of a worm, you are a disgusting specimen of right wing extremes.

    One day the hate and disillusion you harbour will come back to haunt you.

    You sound so sick perhaps the medical fraternity can hook you up to a good spirit Intravenous cocktail IV.

  9. The thing that I dislike most about IVs trolling of this article, is that the entire point of this great article was lost! And I expect that was IVs intention.

    IV, I propose to you, that you follow the link (above) to my recently published ebook, buy it, read it – especially part one, and then see if you have changed your attitude! See if it makes you grow a heart of flesh – if you have the balls, and a stomach to face reality!

    Opinion.

    • It hasn’t been lost – people read the blog before the comments, and it is blatantly obvious what a disgusting troll he is. I am confident that his/her comments will be seen for what they are, and my blog stands strong.

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