System Failure - Tumblr Posts
Women’s Shelter part 2:
My experience was not good, hence the negativity in my last post about it. Let me explain.
My intake worker asked me all of the questions that you don’t ask a survivor.
“Why didn’t you leave?” “You didn’t have children? What kept you there?” “So he did all that to you and you still didn’t tell anyone?” “Do you still love him?”
This woman had a lot of experience in her line of work. So not only does she know the answers to these questions, she knows that asking these things is outrageously distressing because I don’t have the fucking answers.
This wasn’t supposed to be therapy, and I'm shelling out my deepest, darkest broken bits during our first meeting?
After my Personal Danger assessment her advice was to “take extra care.” I half expected her to extend me her “thoughts and prayers.”
There are two different group meeting types - an "introductory" and “advanced” group. They recommend you do 6 weeks of the first before jumping into the second. Which is swell, except they only offer that during daytime hours, and I work a 9-5. So i choose the second one because I have to and then she tells me “Ok, you’ll probably be looking at getting a call toward the end of the summer.”
Let’s summarize, I was:
1. Unnecessarily emotionally ravaged by someone I don’t know. 2. Told in an official capacity that I am in mortal peril. 3. Given 0 tips, tricks, or otherwise on how to protect myself. 4. Recommended an 'essential step' and told " oh nevermind" because they can't accommodate me. 5. Advised that it would be MONTHS before I’ll be able to partake and further my healing.
HAVE YOU PEOPLE EVER HELPED SOMEONE IN CRISIS?
IS THERE A SUGGESTION BOX ANYWHERE?!
CAN I SWEAR IN HERE?!
Systematic
Tell me that
You’ve never seen a system with a crack
That however improbable
And however small
Someone fell down
And wasn’t welcomed back up.
Because only so many times
Can the nail be hammered
Before the wood begins to warp
And only so long
Can the earthquake go on
Before the ground begins to fail.
System failure, system failure
Throw the dying ones a rope
But cut off their hands before you do
Or this systematic failure could be fixed.
Tell me how you’ve never seen
Someone fall and fall and fall
Down a hole so deep
It swallowed them up
Never to be noticed again.
Letters on a paper
Ruining lives
Laws for people
Who have never been seen.
System failure, system failure
The hammer keeps on hitting
So cut off their hands
And keep shaking their world
So the systematic failure can thrive.
Systematic
Tell me that
You’ve never seen a system with a crack
That however improbable
And however small
Someone fell down
And wasn’t welcomed back up.
Because only so many times
Can the nail be hammered
Before the wood begins to warp
And only so long
Can the earthquake go on
Before the ground begins to fail.
System failure, system failure
Throw the dying ones a rope
But cut off their hands before you do
Or this systematic failure could be fixed.
Tell me how you’ve never seen
Someone fall and fall and fall
Down a hole so deep
It swallowed them up
Never to be noticed again.
Letters on a paper
Ruining lives
Laws for people
Who have never been seen.
System failure, system failure
The hammer keeps on hitting
So cut off their hands
And keep shaking their world
So the systematic failure can thrive.