Raising Awareness

• Anny Jacoby writes that Teens Face More Consequences from Sexting than Congressmen Do! reflects on the way laws against electronic transmission of images are being used against teens. In some states, prosecutors have charged teens who text images of themselves with transmitting child pornography. Students who send the images to others can end up 70 or more such charges, one for each person on their male list. Both can end up on sexual offender lists. She also tells the story of Allyson Pereira who paid a terrible price in terms of bullying. Pereira is now is educating students about sexting and trying to change laws that leave teens with heavy legal consequences for an impulsive or accidental act.

Publicity and Milestones

• Angela Rose. Activist Angela Rose, founder of PAVE, talks with ABC News about PAVE, the organization she founded, and the kidnapping and sexual assault that turned her into an activist. PAVE is celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year. Its name stands for “Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment”
• The Angel Band Project. At the end of May, the founders of the Angel Band Project were keynote speakers at the 2011 SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) conference in Austin, Texas. The Angel Band Project was started as a creative musical response to the rape and murder of Theresa Butz. Her family and friends created a benefit CD of original cover songs. They donating royalties from the CD will be donated to the Voices and Faces Project.
• Maria DiBari‘s Tri-County Crisis Center (TCCC) has received a grant from Verizon Wireless. The center will provide services to domestic violence victims regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Male and LGBT victims often lack services and TCCC wants to address that issue. Maria DiBari is a survivor of domestic violence. Her experience opened her eyes to gaps in services and she has been advocating for legal reform and solutions to service gaps since 2008.

Collaboration

• Alexis A. Moore from Survivors in Action and Maria DiBari from Tri-County Crisis Center (TCCC) are working together to improve GPS monitoring in Dutchess County, NY, USA. They are also working together to help domestic violence survivors get free reconstructive surgery for injuries casued by domestic battering.
• Betty Makoni from the Girl Child Network will be speaking at the London event of the first ever Global “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes”® Day on June 19. This day is a joing project of The Pixel Project and Venture Humanity. There will be events around the globe to raise money and encourage men to work together to prevent domestic violence. Venture Humanity will raise money through “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” events. This is a march where men where men do their best to walk literally in women’s shoes, i.e. pumps and high heels. A admission fee is charged to each man, depending on where they march. In Kuala Lumpur it is US$ 12. In London it is US$ 25. The Pixel Project will raise money through its Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign. This campaign will raise US $1,000,000 for domestic violence by drawing a million pixel picture of four mystery male role models. Each time someone donates US$ 1, a dot will be added to the picture.

Volunteering

• Erin Merryn, who advocates for teaching young people how to recognize and react to sexual abuse, is spending the week as a camp counsellor working with abused children in foster care.

Calls to Action

• The Office of the Inspector General of the Peace Corps is conducting a review of procedures for handling sexual assault. They are requesting that survivors of sexual or physical violence while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer, please contact the OIG at OIG@peacecorps.gov to share your experience. For more information, see First Response Action. First Response Action is a coaliation of former Peace Corps volunteers who were sexually assaulted during their service.
• In 2008 a cheerleader at Silsbee High School in Texas was raped by one of the members of her schools basketball team. After the rape she participated in all basketball game cheers, but she refused to shout out the alleged rapist’s name. The school kicked her off the team and her family sued. After three years of legal battles she lost her suit and was ordered to pay the schools legal fees to the tune of $45,000. The alleged rapist had not yet been indicted at the time she refused to cheer, so the court ruled that the suspension from the team was legitimate.

  Change.org has put up a petition asking that the school waive the legal fees and set up a proper policy so that students don’t have to cheer the name of a student they allege has raped them. Please visit the site if you would like to sign it.

  If you would like to donate to a fund to offset the legal fees, you can visit http://www.helpthecheerleader.com/ .

Religious protest

• Linda Fossen, a survivor of CSA, but also a Christian, writes a post explaining why Jesus should use the church for defamation of character.
• Karenp@RealGrace, another christian survivor of CSA, writes a post challenging superficial understandings of the idea that “God is behind every trial”. She argues that trials that are a by-product of human wrong doing cannot simply be brushed off as the handiwork of God and we need to understand God’s ability to bring good out of these situations in a different way. See “Is God Behind Every Trial?”.

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We’ve been on hiatus so this week’s roundup will include a few tidbits from earlier in the year and not just the last week.

Survivor artists, writers and activists

Anne Jacoby

• Expresses her opinions of two recent rape cases in new york city: the failure to convict two police officers of raping a drunk woman whom they were supposed to be escorting home and the media reaction to the Strauss-Kahn case.
• She has also trained as a facilitor for Darkness to Light‘s child sexual abuse prevention program.

Beth Fehlbaum

• her young adult book Hope in Patience continues to receive positive reviews from librarians. Fehlbaum’s book tell the story of a young woman recovering from a childhood sexual assault and is on the list of 2011YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers.

Erin Merryn

• On February 14, 2011, after many years of advocacy, Erin’s law was signed by the Governor of Illinois. We congratulate her and all who have worked along side of her on their efforts. The law ensures that school aged children will be educated about child sexual abuse prevention. Erin Merryn herself is a survivor of childhood sexual assualt. For her story and future plans,see her website.

Ginger Voight

• Tells the story of the first time she told her story of stranger rape at age 4 and contrasts that with the reception that Ben Stein gave the Strauss-Kahn story in the American Spectator.

Maria DiBari

• continues her coverage of issues with electric monitoring devices. In the past few weeks she has cross-posted a number of articles on this topic:
  • Dutchess and Ulster County: an inability to coordinate an electronic monitoring effort for a teen (NY, USA)
  • Predators roam free with out of date GPS tracking devices (Queensland, Australia)
• She has decided to start a non-profit calld Tri-Country Crisis Center which will work in partnership with Survivors in Action to address gaps in social support for survivors of domestic violence and stalking. For more, see here and here.

Wendy Blight

• Melisssa Taylor is leading an on-line bible study based on Wendy Blight’s book about her recovery from rape, Hidden Joy in a Dark Corner: The Transforming Power of God’s Story. The book chronicles how one woman’s faith and friendships helped her find healing and purpose in trauma.

Survivor founded organizations and projects

First Response Action, started by a group of Peace Corp volunteers who had been raped during their Peace Corp service, works to improve prevention and care for Peace Corp volunteers who have been assulted during their service.

• a newly created Peace Corp’s Volunteer Sexual Assault Panel.
• reviews and reflects on a Kojo Nnamdi show interview with the current director of the Peace Corp and subsequent comments.
• a New York times article covering their work: Peace Corp Volunteers Speak Out on Rape.

PAVE, started by Angela Rose, survivor of a knife-point abduction at 17. The organization encourages and empowers survivors to work towards the elimination of sexual violence.

• Security On Campus (SOC) and Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE) are developoing a joint program Safe Campus, Strong Voices in response to the recent Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE) Act (S. 834/H.R. 2016) . For more information see the press release.

Survivors in Action is a project of Alexis A. Moore, a survivor of cyber-stalking. The organization focuses on raising awareness about domestic violence and stalking survivors who fall through the cracks. Recent activities include

• collaboration with Maria DiBari of Tri-County Crisis Center.
• A Parent’s Guid to Cyberstalking and Cyberbullying.
• an open letter to Lynn Rosenthal, White house advisor on Violence Against Women
• posts about difficulties in accessing services faced by teens and seniors.

Stilletos and Self-Defense is a project of Jennifer Cassetta, a survivor of attempted assault and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She discusses her motivations for the project. From time to time her blog contains various self defense tips including this interesting set of safety tips for actresses: How to Stay Safe at Auditions.

Where’s Your Line is a project of Nancy Schwartzman, a survivor of rape who made a documentary that included her rapists confession that he raped her. The project examines the meaning of consent and advocates to bring the conviction rate for rape in line with the conviction rate for other crimes. In the past month the blog has had posts on:

• French attitudes towards sexual harassment
• rape as a war tactic
• why we need SlutWalk
• GOP attempts to prohibit government funding of abortion in cases of statuatory rape

In addition Where’s Your Line is partnering with Planned Parenthood and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention program to lead a day long seminar on sex, consent, and intimate partner communication.

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Survivor Project News

Marcella Chester @ Abyss2Hope publishes a “carnival”, or roundup, of posts on sexual assault related issues on the first and 15th of each month. The latest carnival was published May 15, 2009. If you have an article you would like to recommend for the next carnival (June 1), you can submit the link, using this form. In general, recommendations should be submitted at least 3 days before the 1st and 15^th.

Erin Weed, who founded Girls Fight Back after a friend of hers was murdered, writes about attending and being inspired by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network and Women’s Funding Network conferences. She is beginning to talk to major funders about internationalizing Girls Fight Back, possibly with the goal of teaching self-defense to women in war zones.

Art, Literature & Entertainment

Ellen Moody discusses the literary and cinematic influences on two Jane Austin movies originally made for TV: Sense and Sensibility (2008) and Miss Austin Regrets.

Carol Lehman reviews the book Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan . She describes it as a fantasy book that “honestly address issues that child sexual abuse survivors face”. The book is a fantasy story based on the Grimm Brother’s tale, “Snow White and Rose Red”. Note: In 2009, the UK Guardian book reviewer Meg Rosoff called it “the must-read of the summer”.

Purple Stained Skin has written up a list of the major poetry magazines available on newstands and libraries and provides a short description for each. In a second post Purple Stained Skin provides commentary on the poems published in No 23 of the Columbia poetry review. In a third post he has a review of Ally Malinenko’s The Wanting Bone.

White Dove’s Nest has written and posted a beautiful poem about learning across generations: A Boy Looking After Teddy Bears.

Feminism, Ethnocentrism, and other isms

Ayanna Nahmias reflects on the good and bad of a 1917 National Geographic story on North Africa. The photography in the story preserved a culture that has since changed in the face of global connectednes. But the commentary on the photos reflects the extreme ethnocentrism that develops when cultures do not meet each other.

Facts for Working People reflects on spending priorities in California, disputes over African investment policies, the never ending corporate search for cheap labor, and low usage rate of US industrial capacity, all from a socialist perspective.

Body and Self

This week, the body and self category was dominated by posts on the oversexualization of young people.

Abyss2Hope reflects on the phrase “prostitots” and argues that this particular way of describing over sexualized children is problematic because it uses “slut-shaming” to deal with the problem of oversexualized children.

Anny Jacoby comments with concern about a video of 8-9 year olds dancing in the World of Dance competition. She feels that by approving this dance routine the coach and the children’s parents were sending the wrong message and teaching their children to gain applause and approval from sexualized behavior. Note: The video has since been taken off line, but two ABC segments about the video contain partial images, a response by the parents, and commentary by a child psychologist.

Health and Wholeness

Ayanna Nahmias discussed a 7 year old Russian boy whose adoptive mother decided that he was “too difficult” and sent him back. She observes that parenting is a life-long responsibility. Children, whether born or adopted, shouldn’t be discarded because they are too difficult.

Just Be Real focused on people pleasing and why that can become a destructive addiction. She quotes liberally from evangelit Joyce Meyer. Both Just Be Real and Joyce Meyer are survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Reasons You Shouldn’t Fuck with Kids continues her exploration of the many ways childhood rape can impact a life. This week she discussed the impact of being raped by her brother on her adult relationship with her husband and reflected on how a prior face to face confrontation with evil magnifies her reactions to events like the Columbine massacre.

Crime and Terror: Advocacy, Prevention, and Aftermath

Anny Jacoby tells a wonderful story about how an attempted stabbing was thwarted by a combination of self-defense skills and cooperation. One student ran to security to get police to the scene. The other, Jesse Hladik, worked to subdue the attacker, along with two other students. When Hladik noticed the knife in the attacker’s had, she was able to force him to drop the knife by applying pressure to appropriate points on the wrist.

Anny Jacoby has also written two posts questioning how much protection against dating violence is provided for by current laws in Virginia and the proposed policies of the University of Virginia. University of Virginia student Yeardley Love was murdered by an ex-boyfriend on May 3, 2010.

Abyss2Hope compares the social tolerance for false rape claims to the social tolerance for auto insurance fraud.

Gayle Force @ Unnatural Forces reflects on how rape changes the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. She also shares an example of how the right kind of humor can help us deal with rape.

Theology, Religion and Ethics

Shen @ Reunited Selves has just finished a long series of posts describing a private retreat where she carried out a ceremony she created for herself to symbolize and carry her through a transitional moment of healing and letting go.

• What Exactly is an Awareness Ceremony?
• Part 1: Arrival
• Part 2: Setting up and Settling in
• Part 3: Searching for Courage
• Part 4: Connecting with my Higher Self
• Part 5: We Can’t Move Forward from Yesterday
• Part 6: Final Preparations
• Part 7: Sensing a Presence
• Part 8: Awareness and Acceptance
• Afterwards…

Darlene Ouimet reminds us that sometimes positive affirmations and religiously motivated actions are sometimes the end point rather than the starting point of a journey of healing. Before we can deal with matters like forgiveness or the belief that God doesn’t make junk, first we must give ourselves permission to feel and experience ourselves as we are now, in the moment, and not as we think we should be. Two part post: (1, 2) .

Wanda’s Wings explores her anger at God. Harriet J @ Futitivus describes how taking a risk with prayer helped her defuse her intense anger at her less-than-nice neighbors.

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Survivor Project News

• Beth Fehlbaum is progressing with her efforts to market a line a young adult novels about survivors of childhood sexual assault and abuse. The first book in the series, Courage in Patience, is now available on Amazon through Marketplace Sellers. The second will be published in October by Westside Books. She has also added a Facebook community page (a.k.a. fan page) to support her marketing efforts.
• Erin Merryn‘s bill was approved by the Illinois Senate.  The bill must now be approved by the state House of Representatives.  An article on Erin Merryn and her advocacy work was published in Chicago’s Daily Herald.    She has also written a post describing the hearings and the actual vote.
• Maria Phelps has been working on an amendment to strengthen protections of women whose partners have violated a restraining order. Zebrowski and 8 co-sponsors have introduced bill A. 10736. The bill will prevent a domestic abuser who has violated a restraining order, from being released without seeing a Judge first, or being held for at least 12 hours. The bill was inspired by the case of Isol Cotto who was murdered by her husband when he bailed himself out 2 hours after being jailed for violating a restraining order.

Survivor Milestones

• Madeleine Flannagan‘s ex-partner, Travis Eugene Burrell,  has been sentenced to 9 years for rape, 6 years for unlawful sexual connection, and 4 years for attempted unlawful sexual connection.  Flannagan attended the sentencing at the request of the two children she had with Burrell and the victim.  The victim was raped after she canceled a date with Burrell and had gone to sleep.  Flannagan says Burrell raped and physically abused her as well, but she never pressed charges.  She closes her post with a thank-you to the victim who spoke up where she could not.
• Blogger Gayle Force‘s post on Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) has been syndicated on BlogHer.  This is the first time a major site has requested content from her blog.

Survivor requests for Feedback or Action

Note: We provide this list as a service to readers. Inclusion in this list implies neither the endorsement nor participation of If She Cries Out.

• The Angela Shelton Foundation is trying to raise $25,000 to create a video series of healing techniques.  The project has been included in Pepsi’s list of May “Good Ideas”.  To vote for the project and watch a video describing it, visit their page on the Pepsi Refresh project site.    Voting ends May 31.
• Maria Phelps is exploring ways to improve improve compensation for domestic violence related medical expenses.   The connection between injuries and domestic violence is often poorly documented and she is working on ways to help hospital personnel screen patients at the time of injury.  She has put together a questionnaire and is requesting feedback from both the medical and survivor point of view.
• Anne Carolyn Drake is inviting anyone who is in Austin, Texas on June 7 to come to the courthouse steps to support Jacqueline Costadura who is fighting for custody of her daughter.  Costadura pressed charges against her husband for attempted murder and her husband is claiming that the law suit represents an attempt to alienate the daughter from her father.
• Annie Jacoby is encouraging people to sign a petition urging the NFL to set up a sexual assault awareness program for football players.  The petition was created in response to 3 separate rape allegations lodged against NFL players in less than a year.
• Jenn Q Public is encouraging people to write letters of  complaint to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Board of Pediatrics, and the American Board of Medical Specialties.  The AAP has recently recommended that doctors offer to “nick” female children’s genitals in lieu of full female circumcision.  Jenn Q Public is opposed to any sort of female circumcision.   Postal addresses, email addresses, and a sample letter are available at the Equality Now website.

Art, Literature and Entertainment

• Purple Stained Skin has posted poems by Alfred Corn and several new poems by C.P. Cavafy (1 2 3) .
• ~Enola~ watched the Academy Award winning Precious and discusses her reactions.
• Ellen Moody has reviewed the movie Falling in light of a long tradition of women’s novels and memoirs beginning with Jane Austin.
• Just Be Real has shared several Christian songs that she has found helpful in her healing process: “God Help Me”, “Refiner’s Fire”, “Let the Healing Begin”
• Dana Antonia Truesdale has produced a sculpture series reflecting the wide range of emotions felt by survivors of childhood sexual abuse.  She will be donating 50% or more of the profits from the sale of the sculpture series to the Angela Shelton Foundation.

Body and Self

• Beth Fehlbaum recommends a wonderful article about on clothing written by a man to a hypothetical 16-year old girl concerned about the number of older men hitting on her.
• Ayanna Nahmias argues that child beauty pageants promote false ideas of confidence by teaching young girls that poise comes from how closely a young girl can imitate the sexuality of grown women.  True confidence comes from developing a child’s innate gifts and abilities so that “her external beauty compliments her personality and talent instead of dominating her existence.”

Health and Wholeness

• Shadowlight discusses the potential impact of UK politics on financing of mental health services (1 2)
• Ayanna Nahmias discuss the balanced approach American football player Myron Rolle takes to sports and studies and why that is causing problems with his ranking in this years NFL draft picks.  Rolle took a year out of college football to study in the UK as a Rhodes Scholar.
• Kate1975 provides a long list of tips and links to help those who want to de-clutter their lives.
• Ivette Attaud offers several suggestions for cost-free relaxation for busy moms.  The suggestions were the result of a conversation that she, Anny Jacoby, and callers had on her weekly radio show.
• Shadowlight discusses her frustrations with being diagnosed with controversial mental illnesses like Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Orthorexia
• Reasons You Shouldn’t Fuck Kids writes about how the skepticism faced by child sexual abuse survivors translates into social phobias even in adulthood.
• Carla Dippel @ Emerging from Broken discusses the meaning of pain and what it says about our own worth.  Dippel is not a trauma survivor but speaks with wisdom that comes from a life long struggle with anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.
  

  Pain feels like something is wrong, and if something feels wrong our old belief system tells us that we are wrong. We try to avoid the pain because of this misconception, one we have suffered under for so long…. Pain invites us to look deeper, to look through. It is not telling us that we are wrong, just that something is wrong…. It wasn’t our brokenness that was the problem; the real problem was what caused the brokenness.

• Just Be Real tells a beautiful story of how grief over a cockroach and a sparrow turned into the realization that even though she did not fight back when she was molested as a child, she was not to blame.

Social Concerns

• Richard @ Facts For Working People has been following a student hunger strike against the new Arizona immigration law at the University of Berkeley, California (1 2 3 4)

Crime and Terror: Advocacy, Prevention, and Aftermath

• Silence the Lies, Give Truth a Voice decided to look at how Google searchers are likely to be viewing the Jack Tweed rape case.  Trying a variety of key words she found that searchers had to go several pages deep to find even one article presenting the prosecution’s side of the story.
• Anny Jacoby has been following the death of UVa student Yeardly Love whose was allegedly murdered by her ex-boyfriend. observes that awareness of one’s situation is the first step in prevention.
• Anny Jacoby shows how friends and family are remembering the life of Irina Yarmolenko who was murdered two years ago during her freshman year of college.  Although there are two suspects, the case has not yet gone to trial.
• Erin Merryn shares the story of her rape and her healing process in verse.

Theology, Religion and Ethics
None this week.

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• Silence the Lies, Give Voice a Truth has started a blog “to educate readers of some of the misconceptions about rape that are rampant in our societal subconscious.” She was raped when a fellow guest at the birthday party for a friend’s 9 year old daughter offered to walk her home.

Survivor Project News

• Marj aka Thriver is fullfilling her dream and learning to draw botanical sketches. She showed off a sample of her developing skills here.
• Erin Merryn who was sexually abused by her cousin at age 11 has been advocating to change the Illinois school code so that children are informed about how to recognize, report and get help for sexual abuse. On April 19, Tom Bivins formally turned her proposed school code ammendments into a bill and asked her to testify You can see the proposed ammendments here. If you live in Illinois and want to support this bill, we encourage you to contact your state senators and representatives.
• Denise Brown, whose sister, Nicole Brown, was a victim of domestic violence and murder, has founded the Elite Speakers Bureau. The Bureau meets a need for celebrity and nationally recognized speakers on family and sexual violence for corporations and shelters fundraising events.

Upcoming Survivor Events

• Saturday, May 8 @ 11 am EST. Domestic violence surivors Anne Jacoby and Ivette Attaud will be chatting with callers on blog talk radio about cost free ways moms can unwind and take care of themselves.

Art & Literature

• The Nahmias Cipher Report discusses Wangechi Mutu’s exhibit at the Gugenheim.
• Purple Stained Skin has posted poems by C. P. Cafrey , Donald T. Williams and Oliver Reynolds.
• Reveries Under the Sign of Austen has written a review the opera Armida by Rossini, performed at the Met with soprano Renee Fleming.
• Gayle Force @ Unnatural Forces has drawn a lovely sketch of the sirens and hopes to do more drawing soon.
• Kate1975 reminds us of the need for beauty and play in healing in her piece, B is for Healing.

Feminism, Disablism and other -isms

• Gayle Force @ Unnatural Forces discusses her ambivalence about Courtney Martin’s suggestion that feminists develop a personal style that appeals to our aesthetic sense and makes feminism look “cool”.

• Cara @ Feministe.com writes a post in honor of Blogging for Disablism Day. She reflects on the damage caused when we casually use terms that describe mental or medical conditions, for example, calling a post we don’t like “lame” or an illogical idea “crazy”.

Crime and Terror: Advocacy, Prevention and Aftermath

• A movement against Domestic Violence has linked to an interview with Carolyn Fish, the director of Rockland Family Shelter. Fish discusses the pros and cons of mandatory arrest policies and the importance of respecting a victim’s understanding of her situation and her choices about what is best for herself and her family. The role of the advocate is to present options and facilitate these choices.
• Anny Jacoby has a forward looking take on “saying no” that includes both personal and cultural “nos”. She also provides some interesting advice on choosing a personal safety class that matches your personal lifestyle.
• Shadowlight summarizes a UK survey that compared fears of future victimization for victims and non-victims
• Silence the Lies, Give Truth a Voice discusses some of the reactions people close to her had after she was raped.

Mental Health/Self-improvement

DID, PTSD, and depression have been on the agenda this week.

• Blooming Lotus wrote posts looking at the subjective experience of alters coming and going in a multiple personality ( 1, 2, 3 ).
• Wanda’s Wings has been discussing the benefits and side effects of ECT treatment ( 1, 2, 3 )
• Reasons You Shouldn’t Fuck Kids looks at the impact of PTSD on job choices

Theology, Religion and Ethics

None this week.

Personal stories

Beautiful Dreamer reflects on renewing her friendship with a childhood friend

The resuming of that old connection is like discovering money in an old  forgotten bank account. Every time we hung out together as kids I was investing in that account, depositing riches I would some day–during my nana years–need to withdraw. Suz is a touch of sanity in my often confusing world. …
I know you, her very presence seems to say.
I enjoy you, she might as well say every time her eyes look at me with delight.
I know that when she looks at me with the same expression she must see reflected on my face (a sort of stunned joy), she is seeing my little girl self of decades ago, but also the me who has grown into my adult self. A nana, a stumble-bum, but the me my younger self was in the process of becoming all along.

The Art of Blogging
Gayle Force @ Unnatural Forces weighs in on the debate about anonymity in the blogosphere:

Look, I get really shitty anonymous comments, …But I blame this on misogyny, not anonymity. Anonymity doesn’t make anyone a douchebag. Racism and sexism and all kinds of other things make people douchebags…. Anonymity may allow people to show the symptoms, but it’s never the disease; how could it be a disease when I could not be writing to you without it?

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