Hi there. It's Jan. Welcome to "The World's Longest Open Love Letter" Introduction.
If you're at this page it's because I or someone involved with making this project invited you here. You were invited because you're a survivor, someone who loves a survivor, or a health / social services professional. First and foremost, I'm sorry that's the case. Truly, deeply sorry. Well, mental health professionals excepted.
My hope is to facilitate an audio/video/text/still image space in which we can all learn together how to make lemonade out of the lemons of emotional, sexual and physical violence. By thinking and talking about it, using the very effective medium of motion pictures, still images, text, and sound.
I've spoken to a few folks by telephone now (see blog post update HERE). The first thing that should happen after you decide you might want to participate, is for us to conduct a telephone call. See how it feels. You can call any time: 862-571-5334
Please feel free to edit this page as you see fit. It's just like any other word processing program you ever used, except that it has a retrievable 'history', including editors' login names.
Nobody gets in here without an invitation and phone conversation first.
Don't worry about making mistakes since any mistakes may be easily fixed.
I should be honored if you would make yourself at home.
You'll notice that I'm being rather open about who and where I am. Decided not long ago that if I was unafraid, I should be wholly unafraid. The easier for you to figure out if I am who and what I say I am.
Jan
P.S. Here's my résumé in PDF.
Film maker premises:
- That at some point, healing requires a witness. This project can fulfill that purpose for some good people out there.
- That family & friends don't really GET how / if to maintain a dialog with survivors. I want to explore that.
- That dealing with depression is as much a 'craft' as knitting and may therefore be taught.
- That each survivor requires different healing strategies at different times, and is unique in their recovery direction & speed.
- That survivors and their loved ones can benefit from conversations about successful and unsuccessful healing paths already taken.
- That mental health professionals and survivors can benefit from candid Web 3.0 social networking conversations.
- That issuing this documentary as a video blog - with short sections released as they are made - will be of help in creating a feature-length documentary; that extant short pieces of the longer work will give survivors first-hand knowledge that this is a safe environment in which to speak frankly about what it means to be a survivor and techniques for surviving well.
- That there will be lots of survivors who will speak freely if they are given an option for anonymity.
Questions for Survivors - What's your name - if you care to share it. It's of paramount importance you feel safe to speak your mind.
- If not, why not, and what name may we use to address you here?
- How much information are you comfortable sharing? Please state exactly what we may say about who and where you are.
(We ask the above questions for security reasons, out of respect for those who will require varying levels of anonymity.) - Describe your healing path thus far.
- First steps toward healing
- The 'best things" you ever did to heal
- The "worst things"
- To whom do you speak regularly and comfortably about your history / healing?
- Who knows you're a survivor?
- Friends?
- Family?
- Significant other?
- Colleagues?
- Under what circumstances have you told people about your history?
- Is it important for folks to know this about you?
- How often do you think about surviving? Every day? Many times a day? Once a week? Once a month?
- How has being a survivor impacted your life?
- Personally
- Professionally
- Spiritually
- Have you always known?
- Have you 'proof'?
- What relationship (if any) do your abuser(s) have to you?
- How old were you when it began?
- How old were you when it ended?
- How did they insure your silence?
- Why did it end?
- Have you spoken to your abuser(s)?
- What about forgiveness?
- What about anger?
- What about numbness?
- What about depression?
- What has depression given you that is positive?
- Successful strategies for dealing with it?
- Do you have photographs, audio or video recordings from before, during and/or after the abuse that you'd be willing to share with us for the documentary?
- I would like you to think about the lingo of surviving. What words or phrases do you often use when thinking / talking / writing about your life as a survivor? Remember them. I would like at some point to have an audio and / or video recording of you saying that list of words.
- I would also like to get from everyone a kind of AA introduction. "Hi, my name is [name or pseudonym you've decided to use] and I'm a survivor of [tell me the one-sentence gist of your story].
Questions for Family / Friends / Colleagues of Survivors
- How did you learn of what happened to your relative / friend?
- What was your immediate reaction?
- A month later, what was going on?
- Six months later?
- A year...
- Five years...
- Has your knowledge of this changed you / your relationship since you learned of it?
- How often do you speak to your relative / friend about this?
Questions for Social Services / Mental Health Professionals
- What is at the root of violence?
- What is the current thinking about how to change this behavior?
- What are current best-in-show modalities for treatment / short-term & long-tem?
- How many survivors of domestic, emotional and sexual violence do you think there are?
- Of that number, how many are unable to hold down jobs or remain in stable relationships?
- What percentage are 'high-functioning'?
Related Pages:
