Once again, in Australia, our darling politicians are showing their true selves.
It seems to happen every few years, and every time people seem… surprised?
And every time, it has made me physically sick. I get this awful nausea, this round ball of stress in my belly and I just want to hunker down and put my head down and hide until it’s all over.
I feel so many emotions. I’m hurting – I call it the Mother Wound. I’m hurting for the women who were assaulted, I’m hurting for my own past, and I hurt for weeks and weeks on end. I also feel the rage – surely we’ve done this enough? Why aren’t we further along now?
I talked to my doctor about a particular story that hit me so hard I go to pieces just thinking about it. “This,” she said, moving her palm in a circle around me, “is not ‘sorted'”. And wrote me another referral to a psychologist so I could try and sort things out better. I get one every year, but I never quite seem to make it to a session.
The politicians refuse to understand how their actions affect so many women. They claim they don’t know, they claim they didn’t do it, they lie and pretend and obfuscate and gas light us again and again and again. And then wonder why women will suddenly grab the kitchen knife and try to make them listen.
I believe her.
Sarah Lee Parker 