BRUDER.SESSION1.JOURNAL The transformation for me was becoming sober. I have been clean from drugs and alcohol since March 13, 1997. I moved back home with my parents and started to help them with their daily life as they were helping me to start a new and sober life. I hadn’t seen my parents in 20 years and realized that if there was ever going to be a time for us to mend fences and grow now was the time.…
Experiencing something new can be frightening. One of the most nerve-racking experiences I’ve had was when I had surgery for the first time. One day over the summer I started to have pain on the right side of my abdomen. The pain was mild at first but it got worse.…
The pain began slowly, pricking me with its sharp needles only while doing barre in ballet once a week. I ignored it, believing it to be normal, common discomfort that would soon go away, typical thoughts of a dancer whose entire sport is centered around “good pain”. Six months later, it had escalated to the degree that every step I took felt like an arrow to my knee. Dancing had become impossible, and it was determined that I should be taken to the orthopedist. The bland, brown and beige lobby became extraordinarily familiar as I waited two hours to be examined.…
A big issue for me was the fact that, even though Julie was abused by her father, there had to be a way to play the side of Julie that it’s hurt and not angry. My first instinct was to play fear. I thought that Julie kept this fear for her father over the years. When I found out that Julie more than scare was hurt finally could have an overall vision of what my main purpose was. She is there at the hospital because she needs to face her father before he passes away, she knows that this is her last chance to close that door and start a new page, even though she will not admit it Child abuse is a big deal no matter what it is wrong and there are no excuses for this, nevertheless a big deal for me was to find the way of showing that hurt adult that Julie is.…
As a child growing up in Rhode Island, the smallest state in the Union, the idea of a vast planet brimming with civilization and culture was more like something out of a fairy tale than it was reality. So, when my father announced that we would be leaving the country to go to Scotland, the home of his and my ancestors, my world began to expand at a rapid pace. This trip could not have been timed more perfectly. The summer of 2007 marked the end of fourth grade, my first year at Saint Mary Academy Bay View.…
America today is known for the seemingly perfect opportunities for many people, many not even knowing what it is like to be abused, go without food, or without contact with a friend or loved one multiple times a day. It’s often hard to imagine what slave’s lives were like and how they coped with the most challenging times. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs discuss in their slave narratives, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and The Life of a Slave Girl, how they are able to find hope and comfort through the toughest of times. Through the harsh reality of slavery, slaves had the comfort of family, friends, and God to give them hope to one day have freedom.…
I know the pains of the oppressed, the rejected, the depressed and the deprived. I know what it feels like to always have ones dreams aborted for lack of advice and help. This always made me, in the past as in present, to fight assiduously against these economic and social odds so I can be in a position to help others. My fight to end poverty was never born out of selfish interest but to be able to seek for the betterment of others whose lives are also riddled with poverty, which is mainly occasioned by neglected and oppression. As a result of this, I struggled through high school and university, as I knew it is only education coupled with determination and hard work that can take me out of the fringe of society into which I seemed to…
The smell of burning books, or maybe that’s just the smell of suffering. I inhale the scent for what seems like two minutes and forty eight seconds. I count the seconds until the time reaches three minutes. One, two, three, four seconds I have left to take it all in. I see four pieces of a young man’s body.…
As an immigrant, I have no experience of oppression per se; however, I believe no matter how I/we look, where I/we came from, how many languages I/we speak, we are/ I am viewed minority in a new country. In my old country, though, I have experienced greater oppression and limited privilege, as I was a minority in Romania. While I lived in White society, skin factor never was a problem. However, Jewish people or Gypsies were viewed different, as they were considered different.…
Pierced by Reality The idea of me getting my body pierced at age twelve was outrageous. It was crazy. It was foolish.…
My parents were right. My parents were right when they told me then that they do not like the guy i'm going to marry. Although we are still together, conflicts comes every now and then. There was a time when i became a battered wife.…
The hours blurred together in one, awful memory of pain and suffering. I moved every box inside the house, within three hours. My jerk of a dad had long since gone to sleep, but the fear of what would happen if I didn’t finish drove away the temptation of going to bed too. At last, I collapsed back into bed at five thirty in the morning, hands scraped raw and blistered, and weary as can be. I fell asleep miserable, not knowing what the coming day had to offer.…
The sickness that I live with is one that some would find excessively appalling, making it impossible to talk about; so I kept it to a whisper. This sickness I thought was to embarrassing to talk about, making it impossible to seek help, left me feeling alone in the dark. This sickness ruined friendships, without me realizing it. This sickness that made getting out of bed a struggle for me. This sickness made it impossible for me to see a positive future, until the day I stopped calling myself “crazy” and began to grow from what we all call, depression.…
Pain or Just Anger Do you ever feel like something out of your control is your fault? I did for many years after my father left us. I blamed myself for being a bad daughter although I was only 6 years old. I had to cope with only having one parent who knew no other language other than Spanish.…
The night prior was physically taxing; I was still feeling the degradation and pain from the brutal encounter. Dressed in the light pink pencil skirt, cream linen blouse, lace bra and pantie set provided as a gift, and my white stiletto heeled shoes, just as instructed; I parked the 67 white Ford Mustang and proceeded to walk across the parking lot. Lusty and rancorous again, he opened the hotel door. Each nerve within me feared him; I stayed my course and curved my lips upwards to a smile. My eyes out-rightly rejected his disgusting ugly, ruddy appearance, therefore they took it upon themselves to divert elsewhere in the room.…