I’m scared: I have spent most of my adult life working in Newspapers. From the age of 19 – that is what I have come to know. Although I always gravitated to the lighter side of news, the features and lifestyle pieces, I was always surrounded by “the nitty gritty truth”.
“Five people where just killed, grab a photographer and go” , “We need someone to talk to the survivor of a rape”, “A child was just killed, get a nice emotive picture when you speak to the parents”… Phrases like these don’t shock me (Neither does, that model looks chubby in that shot or can we get some diversity in the photo please) Because I’ve been a photographer, a writer, a layout artist…I know it, I get it.
My husband is a homicide detective. His bad days at the office are mass murders, loved ones accidentally killing each other, grieving families and people so angry they take their pain out on him. I call him and can’t get hold of him because he is doing DNA samples of murder suspects or chatting to the coroner surrounded by lifeless bodies – and I don’t flinch.
Death, pain, abuse, hasn’t surprised me for a while if I’m honest (Yes, it upsets me, I’m not a monster) but I’m hardly ever shocked, until this month WTAF!!! Honestly people what in the name of all that’s good and merciful is even happening right now?
Let’s recap based on a quick 5min sweep of my FB newsfeed…
Henri Van Breda in court for allegedly brutally murdering his family
Pregnant Woman gang raped in Jhb CBD
Courtney Pieters; a 3 year old killed by someone living with her family
Eight year old raped by school mates in Randburg
Women sharing their own #menaretrash stories sparked on by Karabo
Four women raped and left for dead
Man’s car breaks down on N2 and he is brutally attacked, in broad daylight
Then I stopped reading
Because I did that as a test to see what I could see in 5 min then I got caught up in the comments section and then I saw a baby died at daycare after choking on milk and then I just went down the wormhole of blame games and race wars. A lot of people are saying “Cry our beloved Country, SA is so awful right now”, I don’t dispute this AT ALL, BUT international news isn’t all that much better…terrorist attacks, child trafficking, race/religious wars THE WORLDS GONE MAD – Or it’s always been mad but I’m only taking note now?
I’m scared
The thing right now is that I’m a little, nah, a lottle over stimulated. I’m a nervous wreck and had to have my husband take my phone away from me the other night so I could stop crying and reading comments.
Usually we as moms say we are scared for our kids, but let’s be honest, we are pretty damn scared for ourselves now too. When did the world get this SCARY!
The plan
I’m still going to stay informed, because that’s just who I am, but no more comments section for a while…No follow ups on follow ups.
Most of all
Be the change I want to see, in a little way… I feel so damn hopeless, don’t you? don’t you feel like everyone you love is currently in danger and we should go hide in a bunker until people stop being insane, but then who can you trust in the bunker with you? Is anyone trustworthy? am I even trustworthy? (see why I need to stay out of the comments section)
Well I’m researching self defense now, for myself and my loved ones. I’m looking at ways to keep the young ones in my life safe. I have contacted the pink ladies organisation for missing children to see if I can help out in any way. They have this project called My Little Finger Prints which aims to create a database with all the details the police would need if (God forbid) a child would go missing. You know weight, height, visible scars, that sort of thing (naturally it is updated regularly)
It seems a little “bad luck” like my gran would say, but if you saw all the pictures people give in for their missing kids, you would want to help out too. “My 12 year old is missing, but the last picture I have of her is when she was 5”. This happens all to often. We might take it for granted that we have tons of pictures of our kids, for others this is still quite a luxury.
Also…I’m going to pray, yes some people will roll their eyes at that last statement but honestly when I’m THIS OVERWHELMED all I can do is let go and let God
Do you have any safety strategies in place? please share, because if you know better you do better, I say…
So true and so current! Please let us know if we too can get involved and help. xx
I was actually chatting about this with my mom recently. I’m so much more aware of the horrors in the world, and I end up overloaded. Rapes in India, child soldiers in Sudan, famine in Nigeria and Somalia, political turmoil and economic crisis in Venezuela – the list goes on and on. And I don’t think as human beings we can emotionally deal with caring so much all the time. We end up overloaded or need to tune out at a certain point.
To answer your question – yes, I think it was always like this, we just didn’t hear about it in the same way that we do now. I almost miss the old days of 30 minutes of news time, a newspaper if you were really interested, and the rest of the day you just couldn’t hear about this stuff…
Ahhhhh Ella 🙁
eish you especially, stay out of the comments while we wait for baby
You’re spot on. We are right to be scared. For ourselves, our families and our children, most especially our children.
Cry the beloved country, indeed.
It’s truly so insane
Your husband is a homicide detective? That must take a huge toll on your entire family.
It’s a terrifying time. I am so afraid for my children.
It helps that he is willing to go speak to someone when things get hectic. He is also hardly ever the first one in line of fire (that’s for uniformed guys) so that sets my mind at ease.
Also YES! scary scary