My view on the Bird Box movie. (Spoilers)

That Bird Box movie... (Spoilers ahead)

First I want to start by saying that I’m not a fan of horror movies and do not really do well with suspense either.  However, because of all the memes and apparent hype of this movie, I felt oddly prompted to go ahead and watch it.  Fourteen minutes into it and I paused it so I could go read what the movie was about and how it would end (I told you, I am terrible when it comes to suspense, there’s enough of that in my life already).  After watching the whole thing though, I felt that the movie was completely dumb!  I mean, we don’t ever get to see what really was causing some people to commit suicide and others to see these "invisible" monsters as something beautiful.

I went on one of my social media pages and expressed my dislike of the movie.  One of my friends pointed out that the movie is about blinding yourself when it comes to evil things that happen and also to try and not pay attention to bad temptations.  This didn’t quite resonate with me as I don't feel we can just turn a blind eye to the “bad” that happens out there and ignoring temptations can most times make us feel more tempted. Of course I responded to this with guidance from my spirit guides and angels (as I often do) and said that it’s more about fear and making us aware that those things we fear don’t go away just by ignoring them.  We have to have the courage to accept those things we fear so we can finally confront them and hopefully let go of them.

But what exactly is this movie showing that we fear?  I decided to continue to meditate on this and ask Spirit why I was moved by the hype of the movie (which I am not usually moved by).  I really didn’t know what the movie was about other that Sandra Bullock being blindfolded for most of it.  Before I started to watch it I seriously though that Sandra’s character was being kidnapped along with her children and was being forced to wear a blindfold the whole time.  The name of the movie was beyond my comprehension, maybe she was kept in a cage like a bird too or they were looking for a bird box and that is why they were kidnapped. Anyhow... what is this movie showing that we fear and what is it that most people seem to be missing here?  Mental illness!

The entire premise of the movie is that people are affected by some invisible force that makes them commit suicide while it causes others to see it as something beautiful.  Depending on how you look at this movie; you will either feel that this movie stigmatizes mental illness even more OR it tries to help point out that we shouldn’t blind ourselves to it.  That mental illness (more specifically depression) is an invisible force that most of us don’t understand but we should try.  I was divided on this until again my wonderful spirit guides reminded me of the part of the movie where the picture above shows up.

The guy who drew those pictures had survived seeing these invisible monsters.  He saw them as beautiful, even though they are obviously ugly and scary looking.  He came into the house telling a story about how people in a mental institution all survived seeing these monsters, how they all said they were beautiful, and how they wanted everyone else to see them.  I found it interesting that it was those who were already dealing with mental illness the ones who survived seeing the monsters and the ones who were happy to see them while the others would be filled with the desire to end their lives.  The message I got from people with mental illness surviving this was that they were happy that now everyone else could see these monsters.  They saw them as beautiful because now everyone could see them.  For a moment everyone else was able to feel what they feel on a daily basis and most people were not able to survive it.  Those with mental illness survived the invisible monster because they were already living with it.

So what was my message after watching this?  Well for one it made me more aware about how people see mental illness.  How fearful they are of it and how most wouldn’t be able to live with it for long.  It made me realize that those who are continuing to live with mental illness, depression mostly, are way stronger than one can think, stronger than even they think they are.  Even those who have given up and decided to commit suicide; they lived with an illness who most don’t understand, an illness that can’t be seen, and a pain that was endured for far too long.  They’ve dealt with something that most people stigmatize and see as something that they should just be able to "get over."

Don’t get me wrong, i am fully aware that a person has the responsibility to reach out and ask for help.  They have the responsibility to accept the help that’s being offered but I know it makes it harder to accept help when mental illness is so stigmatized.  When a person with mental illness is looked at as someone who is just whining about something they shouldn't be whining about.  I cannot imagine the embarrassment a person feels when they are unable to just do what others tell them and “get over it."  I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to want, need help, and be afraid of asking for it for fear of what others would say about it.  I mean, I still remember being told by domestic violence advocates and family law attorneys that I had to hide from the courts that I was going to therapy for the trauma I had experienced.  I was told that if I shared that I was receiving help to deal with that trauma then the judge would use it against me.  How sad it was that they were not wrong; the outcome of all that was a judge trying to ensure I was put in a situation where I would experience more trauma and wouldn't be able to get any help.

Each of us has at least one person who is suffering in silence and shouldn’t be.  I know I won't stop talking about it, I know I will not stop learning about it.  I know I will not stop speaking up against those who make this issue more controversial than it needs to be.  I wish more people realized that if there came a time when each of us would be hit with the invisible monster of depression, that very few of us would survive it, so maybe we should all be more compassionate about those who suffer from end and those who didn't win the battle against it.  It is time we stop fearing mental illness, learned more about it, and open up the conversation on it.

Victim/Survivor's Strength

When having been a victim/survivor of domestic abuse/violence there are too many times when you don't feel you're strong enough.  There are way too many times when the abuser will tell you how weak you are, how you are nothing without them, how you are insane and everything is your fault.  There are times when the abuser will have gained enough power to make you believe everything they say it's true.

If you are lucky enough to leave or think about leaving and ask for help, the majority of people will not believe what you have gone through.  There will be times when people, other than the abuser, will tell you that you are crazy.  There will be times when the abuse you have endured will be belittled because he didn't leave a physical mark but just a psychological one.  There will be times when the abuser will have a new victim or other victims and those victims will take his side.

There will be times when even the people you love will not understand why you have changed so much, why you are afraid to go out, why if it was so bad you didn't leave before or why if it was so bad you went back many times.  If you are so scared for your life then why go anywhere near them? 

All of it will make you feel like you don't matter, that you don't have the strength to keep going.  I'm here to tell you that you're stronger than you think and than anyone else thinks.  You don't have to hurt others to make yourself feel better, that alone shows amazing strength.  You don't blame anyone else for your actions and mistakes, you take responsibility for them.  

Because you have learned that the majority of the time the system is not on your side, that most people do not understand unless they have gone through it themselves and that those who have gone through it like to keep it hidden because there is still so much stigma and victim blaming about it, you go through it on your own.  You deal with the ups and downs and the fear mostly on your own.  

 

I'm here to tell you that you're still here warrior, you are somehow making it on your own.  You keep going somehow, you keep going without having to victimize another person in order to make your case stronger.  You keep going without manipulating others with lies.  You keep going without blaming others for what have happened even when you have all the right to do so.  You are not just a survivor, you are a warrior because you keep fighting and that makes you stronger than you think you are. 

There does not need to be bruises in order for there to be abuse.

A 16-year-old girl is beaten by her father.  Her hair is pulled, she is pushed, and hit on her back.  Her stuff gets thrown out of her dresser and she is pushed to the floor to pick them all up.  She is freaked out and wants to call the police.  At this time her father stops and gives her his cell phone.  Scared and knowing that he has done this before to his wife in an attempt to scare her from calling, the girl calls.  The police arrive and see a 16-year-old girl in a panic, all scared, crying and rolled up like a ball in the corner of the room and a man on crutches who is calm and collected.  They talk to him and he says to them that the girl is on drugs and that he did not do anything.  His wife comes out of the car and backs him up.  The police seeing that there were no bruises, only emotional distress walk away and send the girl off with her abuser.

The girl talks to her guidance counselor about this and the guidance counselor contacts children services.  The social worker comes in and takes pictures, there were no bruises.  She visits the father's house, the father calmly explains his concern for his child.  He comes up with a story that the child is around bad influences and well all he wanted was her well-being.  Looking calm and collected vs a girl who was scared to death of what he could do to her, the social worker goes back to speak to the girl and tells her he is just concerned, there are no bruises so there is no abuse.  That is when the girl learned that no matter how hard she asked for help, or how scared she was of someone she should just stay down and keep quiet because help would never come unless there were bruises.  The only thing left to do was to try and protect herself, all on her own and in order to do this she had to become just as calm and collected as the man who abused her.  She had to be in control of her emotions because panicking only means people will not believe you.

4 years later, now an adult, she meets a man.  Instinctively she knew she should stay away from him, but being that people will always say you should give people a chance to prove themselves she gives the man a chance.  The guy was controlling and moving too fast, she never loved him and because of this she thought that she could leave at any time if things got bad.  There wouldn't be a "ohh I can't leave because I love him" statement.  It would be easy.  But it wasn't, she got pregnant and that made her more vulnerable.  Now with a child, her biggest concern was to make sure that the child was well taken care of.  She stopped working and eventually her husband decided to ensure she had no control over finances, no access to money.  He would make sure to ration her meals, if she ate too much he would get mad.  She had no way of communicating with anyone if she was in an emergency because he isolated her as much as he could.  Now it was hard to leave, not because she was emotionally attached to him but because she was in a position where all her power had been stripped out.

Eventually she left, but she left to go back to her other abuser because that was the only one who she thought could help her.  Why? Because the second time around there were also no bruises, no bruises meant no abuse.  When she spoke to a lawyer to see if she could get a divorce, the first thing the attorney asked was: Was there abuse? When she told her what he had done the attorney said: That's not abuse, that is neglect but he never hit you so he never abused you.

For years she thought that was the truth: no bruises mean no abuse.  She always felt like she was over reacting, over thinking, that her fear was unfounded.  When she finally got out on her own she would fear not having enough food, she would fear losing her home.  Her husband had disappeared but the fears and emotional distress never did.  Eventually he appeared again and with him all the emotional distress that she had worked on getting over came back.  This time it was not just because of her but because the little girl they had together would be in the middle of it.

Their little girl was forced to go with someone she did not know only because they share DNA.  The mother in an attempt to make it not so scary for her daughter showed up with her to the first visit.  When an agreement was not reached, his mother (who was present) tried to snatch the child out of her car seat, and then went on to yell that she would physically hurt her mother and then put her in jail.  There were no bruises so there was no abuse.  After that the little girl would have nightmares of her mother being arrested, she would get scared every time she saw a police officer because she thought mommy was going to go to jail and she was not going to see her again.

In order to keep things calm, the mother would tell the little girl that everything would be ok, that all she needed to do is act calmly and be nice even if she did not want to be.  Now the little girl is learning to not ask for help, to keep calm and that if she feel uncomfortable she should not even think about that, just keep it to yourself and hide your feelings.  The mother always thinking because unless there are bruises there is no abuse and she sure as hell did not want her little girl to be hit and hurt.

Here is the thing though, ALL OF THIS IS ABUSE, abuse can come from anyone who is an abuser and it is often not in the forms of punches.  There does not need to be any bruises in order for there to be abuse.  That is the biggest mistake society makes now a days.  It is never the bruises that cause the most harm, it is the trauma that someone is put through that causes it.  We have come so far as to know the signs of an abuser, we know that they only escalate, we know that it is not the drugs or alcohol that make an abuser an abuser; yet we don't do anything until there are bruises.  That is the problem with our justice system, even though we know that someone will escalate and that the escalation can come from just calling the victim names to hitting their victims so hard that they kill them in a matter of a second.  Nothing is ever done before there is a blow, and even if there is a blow, hardly ever there is something done if there are no marks.

Emotional marks never count, but those marks are the ones that matter, they are the ones that make a difference.  They are the ones who open up a circle of abuse victims.  The one girl who was abused and never got help now teaches her daughter how she feels it is best to protect herself: by controlling her emotions and not saying when she is scared because it is hard to be heard and we don't want to be bruised up and hit or even dead in order to be heard so it is better that way.  The system also tells this new child that it does not matter if she feels uncomfortable about someone, she must stick around that person because that person loves them and wants to spend time with them.   Their feelings are not taken into consideration.

What is this teaching them though?  It is teaching them to not follow their natural instincts, those we are all born with to protect ourselves, the ones who tell us that if someone is making us feel uncomfortable we should go ahead and walk the other way, only because this person says they love them.  These kids are being conditioned to end up in abusive relationships, this is how love looks like and it does not matter if you are uncomfortable, they love you so you gotta stick around.

This story is not the only one, there are many just like this one.  Millions of people being abused every day, a lot not asking for help because they do not think it is abuse.  Others not asking for help because they asked for help once and since there were no marks there was nothing anyone could do to help.  They have the choice of either let it escalate to a point where there might not just be a mark but where they will actually get hurt badly enough that they will end up dead or to just keep quiet and continue to secretly be emotionally abused.

The system needs to change some things, if there is enough data showing the signs of an abuser and it has been proven over and over that all they do is escalate, then why is it that we have to wait until they do before we do something?  Why is it that we don't protect children more when there is a cycle of abuse and when the signs are pointing to a new cycle of abuse?  A child who is not comfortable around someone has a reason to not be comfortable, so why don't we listen?  Why do we diminish their fear to it being nothing?  Why do we continue to promote this cycle rather than stop it?

Sometimes the world does not make any sense and one can only hope that eventually all those voices are loud enough that they are heard.  That eventually we can prevent tragedies from happening rather than doing something after the tragedy has already happened.