I completely agree, Nicole. Women who write and share their birth stories with other women often begin to heal in ways not possible without the sharing. I posted a while ago a link to many stories which were responses to caesarean for NCAD as I felt that was one way to help carers remember that we're women not jobs. Many women I see are too traumatised to consider talking about their birthrape and I know there's no way I could set foot in RWH again hence my meeting with the HSC which amounted to diddly squat in real terms. As part of Accessing Artemis, women know that we will go to the hospy meetings with them but even then it's too hard. No one expects us to confront a rapist one to one but a raping health care professional we are supposed to sit in the room with? One of my friends vomits uncontrollably when she sees photos of her own child's birth. Another friend moved states to get away from the hospital where her son was cut out of her body against her wishes. Few people take birth trauma seriously and put it down to women having unrealistic expectations or a history of child sexual assault. It's as if the experience cannot possibly create such trauma so we must find other reasons that stop us being responsible as carers or as a society. But given women's poor access to all kinds of services, our rates of rape and domestic violence, why would women expect anything different? Women often internalise the experience because they are told "how lucky" they are they got a healthy baby, or told to be grateful to their carers. And many of us are told we have PND when actually we have PTSD - vastly different! Trying to get help in Melbourne after my birthrape was a nightmare and it wasn't until I became suicidal (also very common among the women I know) and sought counselling from Rhea Dempsey that I began to heal. The process continues. I still grieve a little every day that RWH took my son from me in the first 2 hours of his life. J -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
