Author: Krista Osborne

[two_third_last]tanisi, Krista Osborne, nitisiyihkâson. I am the daughter of Donna and Frank Wright. I was born in London, Ontario and moved to St. Albert when I was three years old. I come from a long line of settlers on this land. Today I write to you as I continue my journey in understanding what being a settler means. I have long ago learned of the legacy of residential schools in Canada and specifically in our community. I like to think of myself as pretty open to learning and understanding about these things. We had two residential schools here: St. Albert Youville and Edmonton Poundmaker, the latter of which closed in 1968.

I go through times where I ignore the realities of what this means happened in our community. As a person with great privilege, I can do that. I can ignore things that make me uncomfortable and hide behind thoughts like, “It wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything. It happened a long time ago.” These are the thoughts of a naïve younger version of myself.

I know that my indigenous friends and neighbours don’t have the luxury of turning it off like I do. They live with the legacy of residential schools daily through racism, ignorance and family trauma. The news of 215 children that died while they were supposed to be in the care of a school in Kamloops pulled me again out of my head in the sand. How many bodies of children are on the grounds of the sites of our residential schools?

I knew that Vital Grandin was one of the key architects of the residential school system but what I hadn’t understood is how direct his intentions were about irradicating indigenous culture: “We instill in them a pronounced distaste for the native life so that they will be humiliated when reminded of their origin.”- Vital Grandin.

This is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to have our First Nations and Metis citizens to have to live within communities and schools that bare this man’s name. For anyone that has ever been a victim of violence you know the difficulty it can be to utter the perpetrator’s name. Now think about sending your kid to the school named in that person’s honour or driving down the road with that name on your way to the grocery store. It is unacceptable.

The role of allies is to take on this fight. I am choosing not to ignore this any longer. I have to say something and do something. I should have a long time ago. It should not be the role of our First Nations and Metis citizens to have to fight for this acknowledgement.

Healing happens through relationship. Respect is earned.

Hiya, Hiya.

This has been a rough week. A rough week for anyone that has experienced sexual assault. A rough week for anyone that has experienced sexual harassment and a rough week for anyone that has had to protect themselves from these things.  It has also been rough for those who love survivors. Because you are taking the time to read this, it has likely been rough on you and it has definitely been rough on me.

Hearing stories in the news of sexual violence can trigger our own stories of these events.  It can bring up many emotions including fear, sadness and in some instances rage.  Many people are driven to tell their stories, to say #metoo.  Others are driven to donate, volunteer and find ways to help survivors.  I feel like I need to do my part.  So here are a few things that come to mind that may help you or the people in your life that are struggling with the things going on around us.

1. You are safe now and someone will believe you. Part of the hardest part for victims of sexual assault is the issue of guilt and blame. Often this is an internal process. Survivors often second guess the events themselves.  Often they try to justify the actions of others by taking responsibility.  ” I didn’t say no.” or ” I don’t think he/she meant to go that far” or ” I think they were confused.”  It doesn’t help that society and our judicial process often reinforce these same stories.  So many survivors walk through life confused and hurt. They think that they are the ones that did something wrong. If you are supporting someone through an assault, your job is to listen and believe them.  They will have more than enough self-doubt for the both of you.
2. Prepare for what is coming.  Hearing of other people’s trauma will reconnect you with your own. This happens regardless how much time, distance and therapy you have had to help you process the events. This means that flashbacks, nightmares, hyper-vigilance and/or uncomfortable emotions may reoccur. The trick with this is to not panic. It is a normal part of healing. It is a warning sign that you may need to shore up your coping skills and emphasize taking care of yourself for a while but it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong.
3. You don’t have to talk, tell your story or do anything at all. While watching the news or reading stories about others who have been assaulted, victims sometimes feel guilt for keeping their stories quiet especially while others step forward. The brave people who step forward are often attacked, humiliated and re-victimized. It is okay to not want that in your life. Only you know if telling your story on a larger scale is worth it in your life. Only you can make that choice.  For some it is worth it to be heard.  It is worth it for them to fight. For others they want to move forward and leave that in the past. Either way there should be no room for judgement. Both take courage.
4. Bear witness or not.  Some people will want to listen to the news and hear the stories of these survivors and bear witness to their bravery. It is a way to feel community and to know that you are not alone. It can be powerful for those who have remained quiet to understand that others have struggled in the way that they have. The opposite is also true.  For some it is too painful to hear. For some they need to turn off the news and ignore the whole thing. The triggers are too raw and quite frankly it isn’t emotionally safe.  Maybe they just don’t want to. Whatever you need is fine. Your job is to take care of yourself and those around you. Trust that others will take care of these women. Putting yourself in harm’s way will not change what is happening to them.
5. Dosage is important. For me, I feel an obligation to listen to survivors that tell their story. I think this is an occupational hazard. I have to be careful not to overwhelm myself with the stories of others. Especially the stories that I have no control over. I need to limit my exposure. There comes a point when the TV needs to turn off and I need to step away from CNN. So be careful with the amount you expose yourself to.  Pay attention to your mind and body. When they are telling you that you have had enough, it is time to stop. Pushing through that boundary puts you in danger of re-traumatizing yourself.
6. Take care of yourself. When you feel triggered often self-care is the first thing to drop off the priority list. Focus on the simple things. Breathing, eating healthy, drinking water and exercise are good things to focus on.  Also don’t underestimate the power of a good “pity party”.  Sometimes that is what we need.  Pity parties are only a problem if you can’t get out of it.  However you take care of you is okay. You are doing the best you can right now.
7. “Look for the Helpers”.  I love this Mr. Rogers quote. It is easy to get obsessed with the details of the trauma but there are always heroes in these stories. Look for them. They can be found in small gestures, or big statements but they are always there. Stories of triumph, sacrifice and bravery deserve to be honoured. They are what brings me hope that things are changing for survivors and for women in general.
8. Reach Out for Help.  We all get wrapped up in our own lives.  I always ask my clients, “who in your life would want to know that this is happening for you?” or “Who in your life would drop what they are doing and come to help if you needed it?”  This gives me a clue as to who to encourage them to reach out to.  This doesn’t have to be a dramatic intervention. It could be a simple phone call or text message of support that you need.  It helps to know that you aren’t alone even if you don’t want to talk.  If you do want to talk, find someone to talk to. If you don’t have someone that you trust to talk to then use the services that are out there.  I have listed a few below in the Edmonton area. There are therapists, like myself, that also work with survivors if that is something that could work for you. Only you know what you need.

We are in this together. Whether you are a survivor of assault or a supporter, I believe that there are way more of us than there are of them. If we take care of each other without pressure or judgement, healing is not only possible but probable.

Links

Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton  – Crisis and Information Line- 780-423-4121

Distress Line of Edmonton  – If you’re in distress, call 780-482-HELP (4357). If you’re outside of the greater Edmonton region, call the Rural Distress Line at 1-800-232-7288.

It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens I think that it will all come out all right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again.    -Anne Frank 

Anne Frank wrote these words a few short days before her family was found and taken to the concentration camps in the last few months of World War II.  She saw the inevitability of the end of the war coming yet she and most of her family would not live to see it.

As I watch the news lately it is hard not to be catapulted into apathy.  Like Anne,  I can hear the thunder.  Yet the world’s problems seem so big for my voice to be heard against it.  It seems like the the people that need to hear my voice aren’t listening. They are consumed by their own fear.  It is hard to hear each other in the middle of a storm.

Then there are Anne’s words. Her desire at 14 to be heard and to influence the world is inspiring. Her inability to be anything but authentic changed the way people saw the war. She was thoughtful, intelligent and above all just a girl with hopes and dreams like any other.  She is proof of tenacity of the human spirit to fight for good. Despite all probabilities, her voice was eventually heard, not just because she had the courage to write but because others had the courage to listen to the uncomfortable reality of what happened to her and others like her.

I don’t know where our world is going.  I don’t like what I am seeing. Likely it has always been this scary.  I have just been blessed with the privilege of not always needing to notice.  I wanted to share Anne’s words with you in case they inspire you like they do me. Her youthful wisdom is as important today as the day she wrote them.  Her idealism lives on in me.

Over the course of my career I have written too many of these types of posts. I feel like our community has been through so much over the last few years. For me it started with Thomas Wedman, a young boy that died on his way to school, then there was Constable Wynn, an officer that died protecting our community and of course the loss of Darian Mar last year, a young man struck by a vehicle while on his bike. Many in my community have felt these losses personally. I have spoken to many clients about the direct and indirect impact these losses have had on their lives. While each of us have likely experienced our own losses over this same timeframe there is something unique about a grief that hits the community as a whole. This type of grief ripples through us and touches us all deeply in a shared sense of loss.

This week St. Albert lost four young men. These young men were doing what so many of our other young people do in this community. They were going to play hockey. For so many of us, St. Albert is a hockey city.  So many of us parents spend hours at the rinks watching our children have the same dream that Conner Lukan, Logan Hunter, Stephen Wack, and Jaxon Joseph were working hard to make real. Hockey parents can put themselves directly in their parents’ shoes. Not only is this a personal loss for so many in our community, it is also a loss that hits the rest of us so close to home. The loss has not only personal roots but cultural ones.

It could have been my boy on that bus, just like it could have been my daughter on that bike. We go through life pretending and ignoring the brutal reality that it can happen to any of us.  The grief we feel is about Conner, Logan, Stephen, Jaxon and their families but it is also that we are faced with the shared delusion that we all have more time. Some day there will be no more time left with the people we love.

Here are a few things that I am hoping that you will keep in mind while we walk through this grief again.

This is personal. 

Everyone in our community will be touched by this in one way or another. For some it will be deeply personal. There are families, friends, neighbours, schoolmates, teachers and coaches that will feel this grief directly. For others it will be more indirect. We may not know the boys but we are connected to their stories through people that were close to them. Either way the grief is real. Grief has a way of touching all the other losses we have had throughout our lives. So even those indirectly connected can feel this on a deeply personal level. Hearing the stories of this loss has me re-experiencing the loss of my father even though these two events are completely unrelated. The feelings touch each other.

If you are personally grieving this trauma here is a previous post I did on Surviving a Crisis that may be helpful.

Try not to judge your reaction or the reaction of others. 

Grief is unique. Some people will hear the story and quickly move on while others will obsess over the details. Both are okay. As long as you trust and listen to yourself and what you need. We as a community have been here before.  Here is a post I wrote on how we as a community can help in times of tragedy.

Support our young people.

If loss isn’t something that someone has experienced directly yet in their life, a loss like this can be life altering. Being faced with the reality of death can be shocking for youth. Brain development is such that one of the last areas of our brain to develop is our prefrontal cortex.  This is the part of the brain that is responsible for decision making and moral development. What does this mean? Teenagers and young adults are insightful, intelligent and not as concerned about risks.  This makes them highly creative, inventive and open minded.  The problem is that they don’t always understand the full weight of the consequences of risk taking because many of them haven’t yet experienced the fragility of life. Having death happen to someone they know or close to them can shake their feelings of safety and security. They understand on a deeper level that those they love and they themselves will ultimately die.  That can be hard for any of us to face.

Here is a previous post I wrote with some tips on how to talk to your youth:  Helping children and teens through loss.

Do something.

Action can be empowering when we all feel helpless. That is part of the reason I write these posts. I do it in hopes that it will reach someone that needs it. I do it in hopes that my words will make some impact. Others donate money, bring food or tie ribbons on trees.  All of these actions can have huge impacts. While you may not be able to do something for these families, there are many families that could use help in many ways. Reach out to those communities too. I have spent a fair bit of time thinking of not just the families of these young men but of the families of other young people that have died in other communities recently. Don’t forget them either. Grief has a way of connecting us all and compassion is the glue.

I never know how to end a post like this. There is so much more to say and yet there are no words. Take care of yourself and each other as we walk through this together.

 I think a lot about death. I talk a lot about death. I read a lot about death. I guess I’m a bit morbid. I have come to believe that the way we view death is problematic. It is something to be feared, postponed and avoided.

I have seen a lot of suffering in dying. I have seen feeding tubes put in, organs transplanted, cancer removed all in an effort to avoid death. I have seen bodies radiated, medicated and mutilated in order to prolong life. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it is worth it. Sometimes the suffering is short. Often it is not. Often we only prolong suffering. Often we forget the kind of life we are saving them for. We sometimes deny people a good death only to have them struggle with slow decline.

My father’s death was horrible but also kind of perfect. There was little struggle. It was expected. There was no fight. We had no choice but to accept it. We got to prioritize him. We spent time as a family that we don’t often do. All the other events in our life became unimportant for a while. I got to nurture, comfort and protect him in ways that I never did before. He got to see how strong we were and feel the pride of knowing he did well by us. While he suffered, it wasn’t long. There is something beautiful in that kind of death. We had no choice but to embrace it.

Not all deaths are peaceful and expected. Death is often about trauma, heartache and failure. We sacrifice the last moments with our loved ones to doctors, medics and machines. We pull people from the brink of death only to have them have to do it again. What if we viewed death differently? What if we recognized its inevitability? What if we prioritized a good death rather than a longer life? How would things change?  What if death was about life, about connection, and about celebration?

Contemplating the end of my own existence is sad. I enjoy life. I enjoy watching my family grow and change. I would not want to miss any of it. I have come to think of my death much like I thought of birthing my children. I worried about the potential pain and the uncertainty about what was on the other side. As I got further along in my preganacies I worried less. Labour is a natural process that I would get through one way or another. There was no choice. It is a part of life that all mothers experience. There is a deep connection there to my ancestors and to the future generations of my family. I wonder if there is a similar feeling of connection in death.

It is not my place to judge people’s choices. I have no doubt that if faced with a fatal illness I too would fight. I just also hope that I would know when to stop. I hope that I will spend my last moments with someone peacefully rather than in traumatic desperation.  Either way I will have to do it eventually. It is on my to-do list, although at the very bottom.

Parents often struggle with finding ways to help kids dealing with hard events that happen in life. This week our community lost another young life. Here is some advice for parents on how to help their kids through this difficult time.

In 1994 I was a different person, or so I thought.  I was young, naive and pretty headstrong. I got into the University of Alberta with mediocre marks thinking I didn’t belong. I was full of ideas but low on self-esteem and confidence. I was on the brink of adulthood with no plan, no map and no idea. I did have opinions, gumption and no filter. I was happy to voice an opinion without thinking through consequences, and hurt feelings.

One thing I did know is that I wanted my English Professor to admit that not everything was full of metaphor and that it was not possible to write an eight page essay on a 16 word poem. It was hard to believe that “so much depends on a red wheelbarrow” or any other wheelbarrow for that matter.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

 By William Carlos Williams

Twenty-two years later I had barely thought of that class or the petite young professor with her long blonde hair perched on the table at the front of the room gracefully dodging the class’ criticism and negativity. I do however think often about the texts we read. I will never forget Frankenstein and its connection to the modern day question of humanity. I won’t forget the astonishment I had when reading Obasan and the realization that Canadians are just as guilty of human atrocities as other countries. Honestly, I think that book was the beginning of my passion for social justice. The spark of my feminist roots can also be traced to a nameless woman trapped behind The Yellow Wallpaper.

This week has been a week of reflection. I turned 40. It hasn’t been traumatic. Truth be told I have felt 40 for a long time. My life as a parent, professional, and caregiver have left little room for the notion of immaturity. In many ways I can relate to all the women Charlotte Perkins Stetson described lurking behind the yellow wallpaper. My life is full of responsibilities and expectations. I think I understand now about the red wheelbarrow, although I’m still not sure about the chickens.

It isn’t as much of a downer as that sounds. My life is also full of purpose, success, and joy mostly because of those responsibilities. I am very grateful for how things have turned out. I am proud of myself and the life I have built.

This week 22 years later, I was sitting in a yet another classroom. One of the facilitators of the course approached me during a break. She said she only taught one Krista as a professor and it was in her first year teaching. She described to me the young lady that somehow was etched in her memory. She described that young woman as smart, opinionated and fairly abrupt in her critiques.

There is something strange in seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes 22 years later. She told me that my essay on The Yellow Wallpaper was probably the best essay that she read that year. I guess I was smarter than I thought.

This year I got the best birthday present. I got to visit with a younger version of myself. I got to see myself through someone else’s eyes.

I also got to thank a mentor. The sign of a good professor is when her lessons stick with you even years later.  I would say she was an enormous success.