Last week, I attended a beautiful week-long event in Donegal called “Daingean” organised by Indigenous Ireland. I’m still struggling to describe it, other than to say, “We talked about big things in a soft way” — I’ll probably write more about this at some stage when I can word my thoughts.
I was there to give a talk about ‘Trauma and Healing’ in the context of the Women of Ireland Project Work, and I share that talk here with you now.
When I was asked to say a few words on Trauma and Healing in the context of the Women of Ireland, I will admit that my initial thought was “yikes”!
Not for lack of something to say, but more for what to focus on? There is so much I could talk about.
I could talk about intergenerational and colonial trauma.
I could talk about the sexual, physical, emotional violence, abuse and assault many women of Ireland have experienced, including women I’ve interviewed for this project.
I could talk about how trauma exists in memory but is held in silence, and how it then makes itself known in the body.
And I could of course talk about the institutional based abuse so many women of Ireland have experienced at the hands of what James Smith calls Ireland’s “Architecture of Containment” — the Magdalene Laundries, the Mother and Baby homes and the industrial schools.
But the sad reality is that such a short list does not even begin to cover the traumas and wounds that exist in the minds and bodies of the personal, collective and intergenerational story of the women of Ireland.
And it’s that reality that has led scholars like Madalina Armie and Veronica Membrive to describe Ireland as a landscape:
“Populated by.... women with wounded bodies, minds and souls”
(Trauma, Memory and Silence of the Irish Woman in Contemporary Literature)
So, as I became somewhat overwhelmed with that, I found myself turning towards the other element of the title of this session “Healing”. And I asked myself, where is the healing happening? What are many of the women I have interviewed actively seeking to heal within their own lives?
— The Expectancy Wound
The Expectancy Wound is the name I’ve given to a theme that I have seen emerging out of the 36 interviews I’ve done with women centring around their life stories and their experiences as women of Ireland. So, I’m honoured to be able to share with you some of their words on this, about how it shows up in their lives and how they are healing or addressing this.
— Worlding the World
But, whenever I am in a situation like this, were I’m about to share or write with the words of the women who have taken part in this project, a question I am constantly asking myself is how best to do that? How best to share their stories and their words?
That is an ongoing question and challenge for me that I have not yet fully figured out, but I keep trying.
But I have been finding some help and inspiration on this recently in the writings of Māori philosopher Carl Mika on “Worlding the World”.
Worlding the World is a very different way of working with story, language, and narrative to what I have been taught to do as a qualitative social science researcher. In my world, working with story and the words of others is all about asking “What does this mean?” When someone says this to me “How can I make sense of it?” “How can I interpret it?” “How can I explain it?”. My world is all about working with words, language and story in a way that assigns it a fixed meaning and a fixed reality.
But that is not using story to “World the World” that is using story to “Word the World”.
“In wording the world, we are socialised to treat stories as tools of communication that enable us to describe reality, prescribe the future, and accumulate knowledge.
In worlding the world, stories are living entities that emerge from and move things in the world.
Worlding stories are not trying to index reality in language, to arrive at a perfectly secure place of description or prescription, or to wrap the world with a single heavy blanket of interpretation.
Worlding stories invite us to experiment with a different relationship between language and reality. These stories do not require anyone to believe in anything; rather they invite you to believe with them”.
(Vanessa Machado de Oliveira Andreotti - Hospicing Modernity)
So, as I move into the main part of this talk, where I will be directly sharing some of the words of participants of the Women of Ireland Project, I’ve done my best to step outside of my socialisation, as a qualitative researcher, into always wording the world. In other words, I’m just going to share the words as they are without giving any deep analysis or explanation or interpretation of them.
But even in doing that I recognise that I am still a long way off working in a manner that is “Worlding the World” — I still remain in the realm of “Wording the World”.
However, I mention this as I’d like to invite that, as we now read these words, that together, instead of asking “What do these stories and words mean?” we ask
“What are these stories trying to move?”
“I have this massive sense of responsibility.....and I think a lot of Irish women do, you know... it is a thing... It really is a thing.... We try to do the right thing and we try to fix [things for everyone around us].... And I think women have, throughout the ages in Ireland, women [have been the ones who] have tried to make [things] palatable for everybody [else]”.
[It’s like, whatever is happening] “my initial stance is.... ‘Ah it’s not that bad. Come on and we’ll sort it’ and I’ll go and I’ll sort it.... I will occupy myself with making [whatever the problem is] look good..... I’ll make it look good to make it easier [for everyone around me] to [be able to] digest [it]”.
[Because] “you're expected to take everything [on] and be the one who settles the water for everybody else and explain [whatever is going on]....and say it's okay. Even if you're struggling”
Women have this incredible “capacity to normalise things in extraordinary circumstances”
[But the burden of that can be great, because] “I couldn't not be seen to cope, because women are expected to cope....[and sometimes you just go.....]
“Does it ever let up!?”
[Like if you think of all the social change that has happened in Ireland in the past few decades, how] “in a relatively short time our whole culture has changed” [We’ve moved away from being that really closed country, riddled with ‘Catholic guilt’, and gotten to a point were you can think well] “if I'm so far out of that, I'm entitled to time to myself, I'm entitled to selfishness”.
[But then, just] “when you start thinking it’s going to be my time.... [you realise] “you’re going into [the looking after] parents [stage].....and then you just go bloody hell....there's another big draining thing that I'm expected to sort for everybody because... I'm a woman, I'm the carer.... like [it’s] very difficult. It [is] very, very difficult, you know.... but that....happens to women of our age (50s to 60s)”.
“And, at the same time, you're still expected [to keep everything else going], because [all your other jobs and responsibilities don’t go away]...[you’re] still expected to be everything [for everyone]”.
“My mother [once] told me and other people said it to me [too], [that] they were delighted when they saw daughters come along, because that meant they were going to be looked after. It's a horrible responsibility to put on another human being. So that's what my role was, and my God did I take it on”
“I would say....for the last 20 years, I've been my mother's mother. She's always looked to me to sort out everything, and I've done it. To the detriment of myself sometimes"
[I’ve] “always picked up the pieces. I'm the person who picks up the pieces of my family".
[But the way I look at it is]....someone has to do it....if not me, who?.....I kind of think, well, it's your choice to do this, which is not really [true] because my two brothers are useless when it comes to my mother.....so I just seem....yeah I do, I kind of do pick up the pieces but look, that's where I am and that's where I've been put so, what else can you do, you know?”.
“Like my sister [said] one day that....I may be a pain in the arse, and annoying. But like, if you ask me to do something, I'll do it for them. That's how they view me.... that like, it doesn't matter how you treat her....if you need something, she'll do it for you. And that's how I'm viewed [in my family] as someone that's there to pick up the pieces".
[I feel this] “kind of over-pouring of responsibility from [my] immediate family to [my] extended family [and that]....has influenced my life hugely. And personally, I feel it’s a huge thing.... in Ireland in general, with a lot of women [is feeling this pull] of responsibility between my [immediate] family [and] my extended family [and] even the next generation".
[There’s this] “sense of family duty that's kind of bred into me”.
[So, any] "sense of my life is my responsibility and nobody else’s, that was never really given to me; to take responsibility of my life”.
[So] “for most of my life so far, I've been living my life to meet other people's standards or goals for me, and to please other people".
[I think] “a lot as a kid....I felt like I was the one who needed to keep peace and make everybody happy and be a ‘good girl’, and they'd be happy with me. That idea of being the ‘good girl’ has really lasted with me”.
[Like] “as long as I behaved myself, everything was grand”
[So, from a young age] “I learned to shut up.... I became a real people pleaser. I loved pleasing people. And I loved being the ‘good girl’”
[It was all about] "being obedient and not being disruptive and going along with the pack".
[Even things like, you would never, as a girl, say] "Can I have?" You would have said "I'd like to try that". Like [that] was the language; it was the whole language...... associated with being a ‘good girl’"
“Just meeting everyone else’s expectations of you....[that’s what being a 'good girl' is]".
"There's a lot of pressure on women to be a certain stereotypical way.....to be the perfect mother, be the perfect lover, be the perfect...physique. Like there's still a lot of pressure there”.
“Especially nowadays, with women working and then also being mothers and trying to juggle everything, there's....a huge amount of pressure [on us]”.
"We are being fed this thing of.....all women must do this, and you've got to have a degree and a high-powered job. And raise three beautiful, perfect children. And take them to everything, every event every evening, and work for charity and deliver Meals on Wheels. And and and and and"
“And you just kind of go....when am I ever going to get space for me? Like, I have been running since I [was] 15. I've been working hard....I've been doing the career I've been doing the mother [I’ve been doing everything for] everybody.... [because my generation] was told no, if you're a woman you're not successful unless....you're the mother and the career woman....And, we tried, you know, to this state that we’re bloody knackered”.
[And] “I gradually lost [who I was] and became a carer and, and the wife and all [these] things [that I] sort of I don't particularly want as my identity, as it were”.
[Like] “My sisters-in-law....two of them are on drugs for depression.... So I kind of think the fact that they....never found themselves and what they wanted to do....They went from waitressing to housewife to children to whatever. [And] I don't think it has been good for them. And yeah, so....that's how some Irish women cope”.
“I think a lot of people in my generation are wrecked. Because we’ve never got a break from [all the expectation and the sense of responsibility we carry]”
[But then, I started to see it] “I learned about martyrdom. And I learned all of these things that I then saw [in] my countrywomen, I saw it; [that] that's how we've been raised. At a woman's funeral; Granny's funeral, you know, just think of Granny's funeral…. This is what you can hear: “Ah wasn't she great, she did.... everything for them kids. She did everything for them neighbours. She did everything for everybody fucking else but herself”. And let's all sit here while she's in the ground and celebrate her for doing absolutely everything for everybody else and doing absolutely nothing for herself”.
“And I thought, that's not what I want. I want people to talk at my funeral about what I did for myself, and how and what I gave my children in the process of doing so. I don't want to be remembered for putting every single person before myself. I don't want to be celebrated for being a martyr. Because every single Irish woman who has lived before us, that is what they've been celebrated for, is being a fucking martyr”.
[In Ireland, we really celebrate that strong woman archetype, the woman who just gets on with it and keeps everything going, but] I don't know?.... Is it that they were strong or they weren't given the ability to take time to themselves?"
[And it’s that thing of having to be strong, to be seen to cope] “that's been a huge pressure for, certainly my friends, the generations around me, and I sincerely hope it won't be a pressure for your generation....I hope if we've learned nothing we've learned to say, make it on your terms, you're not not a success if you don't do everything that's expected. If you've got good mental health, you're a success. I hope to Christ that that message has come from our generation because a lot of us are fucked, you know”
“I was raised that a strong woman was somebody who gave gave gave. So a strong Irish woman to me is somebody who holds their power first and then gives gives gives, you know. But giving is very important, giving back, helping other women. But not before yourself.... No more sacrificing ourselves to help others. You can do it much easier if you hold on to yourself first, you know”
[Because] “While I believe my mum and my granny were very strong women, they didn't hold on to their power. They gave away their power, to their husbands....to do their jobs, to whatever. So a strong Irish woman to me [now], is some of these women out there that are fighting the fight; they're looking after their family, they're looking for better all the time. But they're holding their own power purposely. Purposely holding an awareness, that I have got to mentally hold on to me because I could be stripped down, taken away, you know, almost that idea of women [having].... an invisible bubble or boundary [around them]. So, they're empowering themselves”
[So, in my life now I’m working on] “shedding junk.... shedding the roles that you adopted but aren’t actually you..... so like, the role of carer is one of the roles I think is natural to me, but I’ve taken it too far... and you end up exhausted.... [So] yes, working out what means something to you and what doesn’t [has been important]... because we do carry a whole load of stuff with us that we don’t really need to”
“What I had to do is resource myself enough with; I had to go to the root, I had to decide like, I am enough, I am good. I am worthy. I am allowed to be here.... I'm allowed to talk the way that I talk. I revamped. I got back to who I was growing up”
“I have reclaimed an identity”.
[I think it's really important] "that people find a way to tolerate themselves....[that] they find a way to meet themselves and embrace themselves and to understand themselves.... I think, if you can do that and if you can spend time every day getting to know yourself and understand... like the shift that you've been through and understand.... what you're carrying and what.... you're hurting over and what you love and what's really important to you..... If you can do that.... not that everything else is fine or anything, but you know, things change around you, when you start to address [them]”
“Because you start out in this life knowing yourself very well. And then that.... has to be changed because you have to be able to function in society..... So I understand that, but it makes it very sad how.... I mean most of us change beyond recognition. And.... I want young people to retain this sense of self, and to be constantly protecting that, that truest nature....and [to] just be constantly understanding, like OK, this happened to me in my life, it was horrific, and so this is how I'm going to deal [with it]. You know, I need to be nice to myself, I need to understand, or I need to apologise.... I think that should be everybody's job, like literally, you should be paid to do that. And then whatever we manage on top of that is a bonus”
[So] “I just want the world to be an authentic world, you know, like where people can be their authentic selves. I know that’s a twee saying, but I’m really striving to it, to be myself and trying to help other people to see that it’s the only way forward”.
[And] "I think as an Irish woman my age now, there's a lot more freedom and there's a lot more opportunity to be who you authentically want to be, than there would have been even you know, 20 years ago”
"That....idea of we're coming back...into our power, into our ability to kind of lead and to correct things a bit more. We do have more freedom and scope to do that now".
[So, what has helped me heal are things] “that brought me back to myself, and....back into my body, and [in] reconnecting me to my sovereignty.
But not in an angry, fuck you, rageful way; in a very soft way but with a strength.....
[So] the answers [to that question of] what are those big things that shaped me?
[It’s] those early experiences of abuse, [the] lack of sovereignty..... and then to [have] come back around to [being] sovereign as a woman but bearing witness to men....that reconnection to the earth [and] reconnection to the feminine.....
[It’s] the coming home to myself”.
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