Dr. Sarah Marusek

Something happens inside of the depths of your soul when you are existentially unsafe, and yet the people around you do not recognise this.

This is what inspired me to research social oppression.

Oppression is not just a feeling; it is a physical power.

Acts of oppression, whether intended or not, are living things. They are experienced over and over again by the oppressed.

Sometimes for generations.

So, when these acts are not recognised, it matters even more.

I love how American legal scholar Patricia Williams conceptualises oppression as akin to a ‘spirit-murder’. It has a cumulating effect.

Williams defines spirit murder as a ‘disregard for others whose lives qualitatively depend on our regard’.

As the subject of spirit murder herself, she talks about how even minor acts of oppression can still trigger in her a ‘blind rage’.

She cites the example of needing to buy something from a shop for her mother and being denied entry.

As she explains:

In the wake of my outrage, I wanted to take back the gift of my appreciation, which my peering in the window must have appeared to be. I wanted to take it back in the form of unappreciation, disrespect, and defilement.

While ‘this rage’ may have been ‘admittedly diffuse, even self-destructive,’ it was also a ‘symmetrical’ response to the wider picture.

My rage against the healer was also symmetrical to the harm caused, however unintentional he was in hurting me.

I have felt existentially unsafe my entire life. However, every time my nervous system screams out flight, or suicide, it goes unrecognised.

It is like my spirit has been murdered over and over again.

I am scared of everybody and everything right now for a reason.

Of course, I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like if this were happening to me because of my skin colour, religion or ethnicity.

This is the meaning of white privilege. We cannot begin to imagine.

It is why I write about the limitations of white empathy.

But this does not mean that white people do not suffer. My experience in higher education was atrocious because of identity politics.

I have suffered my entire life and it has gone unnoticed. Most importantly, what I experience as existential risks to my life are completely disregarded.

This is how and why I learned to hate myself as a child.

I was taught to believe that my life is worthless because whenever it is in mortal danger, the people whom I love do not believe me.

I thought I had found somebody different in the healer.

I really, really, really looked up to him and his abilities.

I now know that it was a misunderstanding, which is why I have de-identified him. The healer is a kind person, he was just unaware of my darkness.

But when I spiralled into needing to kill myself and he did not respond, it made me feel more worthless than I have ever felt before.

For years now, I have had no career. No friends. Until recently I was not even able to create art. I still cannot read (my nervous system is too manic).

It is also important to add that I have never felt this ugly.

I know that he did not mean to, but the healer made me feel worthless.

This is why I convinced myself that he did not care about me even as a patient. That he was laughing at my suicide attempt.

I felt and still feel utterly worthless.

Hence the blind rage in my exchanges with him. I was blaming him for everything bad that has ever happened to me.

I am trying to learn how to find worth in myself now.

Turning my oppression into art is helping immensely. Just because the healer could not help me does not mean that I do not deserve help.

I am not worthless.

And I am not hopeless, because I can still help myself.

I have to finally learn that there is intrinsic worth in me.

This is why I needed to declare war. My nervous system did not know how to fight and my only other option was flight, or suicide.

Declaring war allowed my body to feel safe enough to let the facial nerves begin to release. Today, for the first time in my life, it actually feels like the right and left side of my body are learning how to collaborate like equals.

But what if I had killed myself before knowing that healing was an option?

What if the healer had lost more than his job?

In fact, how many people who are suicidal would not go through with it if their loved ones would simply just listen to them?

We will never know, because this research question is untestable.

Perhaps this is why we should all try a little bit harder to listen?