The Social Contract

I am a warrior, a kick ass she warrior, a warrior who has survived a life time of battles I never wanted to fight. . . .but I fought them. . . . not always willingly or gracefully, but I fought them. And while many of these battles have been against my will, I generally don't whine and I don't complain (and very rarely do I even feel sorry for myself). . . .I do therapy, I read books, I go to workshops, I blog, I talk with friends and other warrior survivors, I meditate with God about the nature of my exisitence, and I do everything in my power to both accept and change how these wounds have affected my life so that I can to grow and develop and heal and recover, because while I'm not responsible for the wounds themselves, it becomes my personal responsibility to heal them.

I'm a survivor, not a victim. . . .but even survivors have wounds that need to be healed.

Yesterday afternoon I went to a lecture in Prescott by one of the author of Death in the Grand Canyon. The last part of his lecture was about the social contract versus personal responsibility. He was referring to a hiker's personal responsibility to train and prepare for their trips into the back country wilderness rather than simply relying on the social contract to save their ass when they have not trained or prepared appropriately. The social contract is a beautiful thing, that "civilized" society's code of ethics that wraps itself around its people  with the sole purpose of providing safety and protection of rights to life and liberty, but also to rescue when harm finds its way to the inside of the social fabric.

So, what happens when the social contract breaks down?

The social contract isn't perfect. In fact, there are actually great big gaping holes in it, but it's the fabric of our idealism, so it's never going to be "perfect," because it's constantly evolving with the constant change and evolution of our society. Yesterday I felt like the social contract had let me (and my brothers) down, but it didn't. The neighbors who saw and heard but never made the hard calls, they didn't lived up to their part of the social contract, that's true. And the friends and family who either didn't see or didn't want to see, yeah, they also didn't live up to their part of the social contract. But that doesn't mean that the social contract failed, because there have been many other people along the way who did step up. They may not have been the people who should have stepped up, but they did.

The question of "Why didn't anyone step in to help?" is a hard question to answer. Was it because I didn't matter enough (even as a human being) for the observers and witnesses to rise above their own crap and baggage? Was it because we're all flawed human beings doing the best we can with what we have under given circumstances? Were they too blinded by whatever was going on in their own lives to look around and see what was happening around them? Were they overwhelmed by what they saw and just didn't know what to do or how to do it? Or did they fail in their obligation to uphold the social contract by failing to make the hard call, even when that call may have violated a family's right to privacy but would have made a differenece in the lives of the children involved?

Trying to find out why no one stepped up to help protect us is sort of like asking, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Toostie Roll Tootsie Pop?"

So maybe I'll never know why, but what I do know is that the social contract is a living breathing part of the social fabric, so the beliefs of this contract are constantly evolving and changing. The social contract used to allow human beings to be sold and traded like commodities on the stock market. The social contract also used to allow women to be sold like property of men. And The social contract used to have laws on the books for the humane treatment of animals, but none for children. So, yeah. . . .the social contract is constantly evolving and changing. . . .and sometimes it's just going to break down.

The world is a very different place today, and there is so much more information about child abuse and neglect woven through the social contract. And the truth is that even if I were to answer the question of why no one did anything to help, it doesn't really change the fact that I'm only sleeping right now because I'm medicated, and the only reason why I feel better is because I have completely isolated myself down here in Prescoot, away from that which was triggering me.

So I'm clearly pissed off right now, as is my right to be. It's not fair that I have wounds from human induced trauma. It's also not fair that I have to medicate myself so that I can get a good night sleep, or take an unpaid leave of absence for a treatment program that may or not make any difference with the PTSD at all. Yeah, it's not fair, and I honestly have a right to be angry that I am once again forced to fight a battle that I neither want nor choose. But I'm a survivor, and a kick ass she warrior who's going to fight this battle and do what I can to heal this layer of wounds because that is the part that I do choose. . . .

Personal responsibility sucks :)