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Monday, 17 October 05 ::
i sent this letter
i never ever thought that i would be able to tap into something in me that would let me relive stuff that happened years ago. i never ever thought that i would be able to give voice to something deep inside me that has carried a great pain from 20 years ago. today i got to stand up to someone who didn't listen to me when i tried to stand up for myself back then. i sent him this letter.
Hi ___________,
I read the article that featured you with great facination. The reason I did so, was because I was a pediatric endicrinology patient at ---------------. I was first there as an infant and small child, between the years of 1973 and 1975. I was later there during my prepubescent years. I want to tell you that I am glad that researchers and doctors are finally realizing that short stature isn't a big deal anymore. For me, my height wasn't a huge deal, until I was a prepubescent, and I was told by my mother and a team of doctors at your facility that it should be. I was not a willing patient at your facility, and 20 years later I still carry some emotional scars from that time. The big thing I remember from that time is being in conversations with the doctors that I saw trying to make a deal with them about never going back. I think the deal I tried to strike was "When I get to be 4'10" tall, I don't have to come back anymore." I never did reach that height, but for some reason all the adults involved finally got it that I never wanted to be there. I only wish they had gotten it from the first visit. I'm done blaming the adults involved during that time, being angry about the situation does not serve me. Letting you know, though, that there is someone like me in the world, who still carries emotional scars from fighting to keep her body as it was -- perfectly normal, just a little short -- does serve me. I hope that if you run across a child, in future studies, who does not face a health crisis and who does not want to be anywhere near the study, that you let that child fully be in choice about her decisions. Children must know that, unless they are in a health crisis, they have control over their bodies and what happens to them. Adults don't always know what is best for children, even with our years of experience.. if we sit back and listen to the words of children, often times we are able to hear a profound wisdom, a profound wisdom that is not tainted by years of the influence of a society that often times does not have our best interests at hand. We must do what we can to protect our children from all possible harm that might come to them, even when that harm is not so apparent, or not apparent at all to the adults in charge. Children know things we don't, and to be better people, to be better advocates for them, we must stop and let them teach us what they know.
i dug deep inside of me and listened to those voices from 20 years ago, i listened to what she wanted to say and translated it into adult speech. i don't care what this person has to say back, but my hope is that he'll respond with compassion.
today that little girl from so many years ago got a voice. she got a voice with an adult backing her up, she got a voice with an adult cheering her on, knowing that her anger and pain is full of righteousness, knowing that her anger and pain has a source. today i gave her validation.
will it help things for me in the long run? i don't know. but i do know that it can't hurt anything.
posted by brooke at October 17, 2005 12:52 PM
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about
i'm brooke, born in '73. i am currently a phd student in instructional technology. this is the blog where i capture all the neurotic, and the few non-neurotic, moments that seem to come with being a phd student (if you want to read less neuroses and more professionalism go to: oer's, dl's, reuse and culture: it's about a phd student researching digital resources in a multicultural world). i have been from eugene, oregon for a long time.. 8 years specifically (its my home now, but i grew up in southwestern virginia), but now i'm here in logan, utah at utah state university. after finding my roots in eugene i never could have expected that i would leave that liberal oasis and head to utah. but i did and there are days when its a blessing and days when i'm tempted to go back to oregon and beg the folks at lost valley educational center to let me move in. but i won't leave because there are days when this process is better than any kind of high i could ever imagine. what else? i collect things, i have 2 cats, 2 kayaks, 2 laptops (i'm a geek - one mac, one pc). i can be emailed at brookesblog@rivervision.com.
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