Last week, after posting “Karma is a Horny Coyote” on my Facebook page – about the neighbour who was accusing me for months about letting my dog bark to wake him up on a regular basis, and becoming downright abusive when I was able to provide video evidence that it was not my dog that woke him up – another neighbour responded with “My interactions with this neighbour have only been positive and pleasant," and then left the conversation.

And oo-eee, Little Lyssy's nervous system had a wee panic session over that one, because it felt soooooo familiar.  While the neighbour-blaming-me-and-my-dog-for-coyote-calls situation is, of course, vastly different from what Little Lyssy was growing up with, the impact of “he's never been like that with me” comments on those who speak up about bullying or abusive behaviour is especially painful and triggering – and part of what keeps so many people silent about all types of abusive behaviour, which in turn allows it to continue.

And folks, our world is currently chock full o' abusive behaviour, and power-over folks going full DARVO on those calling it out (when they aren't murdering them).  Can we maybe take a few breaths and be a little bit more careful about how we respond to people calling out any sort of abuse, bullying or harassment?  Because… butterflies and windstorms…

The following is the response I made to this neighbour within my Facebook thread, but I was told it was universal enough it should become its own post.  So I'm going to hold up on the follow-up post I had planned (because long-term readers will know that laughter is usually followed by a truth-bomb), and share this first:
 

Friends, for months I have been walking on eggshells, a little stressbucket whenever letting the dogs out after dark. Because I kept getting nasty emails (couched in passive-aggressive smileys, so he didn't look like an asshole) from my neighbour across the way, ordering me to "do something" about Laila, who was "constantly" waking him up in the middle of the night, "at all hours" and she's "very loud".

Keep in mind that his bedroom is at the back of his house, and there's quite a bit of space and trees and a road and a hill (and, this time of year, sound-muffling snowbanks) in between my back yard and his back window. However, there are some strange acoustical properties to my neighbourhood, with quite a steep ridge that serves as a bit of an echo chamber, so I was mortified that "my" dog was upsetting a neighbour so often. But I was having trouble understanding how a dog barking in my back yard could be loud enough to wake a man across the street, when I wasn't hearing her bark at all.

This started as a BlueSky rant, then grew to a Facebook rant, and now – as I get more and more irate with the idiocy of certain... well... USian idiots (plus a few Canadians who seem to have drunk from the same KoolAid – yet another U.S. product that is really, really bad for the human race) – I'm migrating it over to RantCentral (with a few new additions), so people can read it without supporting the Zuckerface.

It is also going to be NSFW, so buckle up.  And if any USian fucking makes a quip about how Canadians are supposed to be polite (as one did on the aforementioned BlueSky rant), I will make a Canada Goose look like a pleasant dinner companion – today is not the day to dance around the Karpman Triangle with me, because I ain't dancing.

(USian friends of mine, I know this does not describe you, I know how hard you've been working in real life – your strength and integrity is exactly why we became friends in the first place.  This rant is for the non-friends I see posting.  You are loved.  And welcome to a guest room any time.  The degree of safety of said guest room depends on whether or not your country is invading ours that day, so please do your best with that, okay?)

EDITED to put the safety info at the top.

If domestic violence or abuse touches your life in any way, please visit https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/stop-family-violence/services.html for a list of Canada-wide resources.

For Canadian emergency shelters and resources, please visit https://sheltersafe.ca 

Many other…

Hey all,

I've given myself some leeway on my own birthday breakdown, because it's been quite a year to process – many losses, many lessons, and I don't like barfing my guts into the public until I've had a bit…

Hello everyone!

     It's been quite the few years, hasn't it?  That "Alyssabbatical" stretched on forever, and, honestly, the last year has been a bit of a struggle, between last year's “Slanderpalooza” (check the blog roll), nursing and then…

The not-so-Annual Birthday Breakdown

Gosh, it's been a while since I posted one of these, hasn't it?  As my girlfriends keep, ahem, reminding me, checking in with myself has not been much of a priority – I seem to…

It is frustrating and disappointing that all the incredible work of a local, grassroots organization is being cast into question by a political satire account that has absolutely nothing to do with that organization—the Biased Scribe is not associated with…

As a follow-up to the previous Open Letter to Barrie City Council, I gave a deputation to City Council tonight on the same subject.  Since I was rather rudely interrupted, TWICE, by my other least favourite City Councillor, here's what you missed in the mayhem:

Open letter to Barrie City Council – #ChooseToChallenge

(or, why some seemingly innocuous things are actually a "big deal" to many)

Dear Councillors,

     Next week, March 8, is International Women’s Day – so Happy one-week-before IWD…

Saturday triggered the bejeezus out of me.  

          And I'm not using the term "triggered" in the modern new-agey snowflakey buttercuppy kind of sense – as someone who has spent the last several decades learning to live with her complex post-traumatic stress injuries, I am fully aware of the difference between being psychologically triggered and merely a little annoyed, thank you very much.

          It started when I saw the (sadly, unsurprising) news that last week's massacre in Nova Scotia had started as domestic violence.  Which the media twisted into being a rampage that had been sparked by "a domestic dispute".

         HEY, MEDIA:

A domestic dispute is arguing over which way the toilet paper roll gets hung,
or how best to allocate the family budget.
It does NOT include one of the parties having to run away from said domicile
to hide in the woods until 7am.  

The latter is ASSAULT, or DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (although the addition of "domestic" has always bothered me, as it often seems to be used to make the violence seem not as bad as if some stranger hauled off and punched you in the street).  

          Then, I was masochistic enough to read some of the comments (I know, I know...), which included such gems as accusing the woman who had to hide in the woods until 7am of being a part of the murderer's plot, or at least somehow responsible for it; another who was happy that the December 6 massacre was no longer Canada's worst (so we wouldn't have to hear from all those yammering feminists again); not to mention all these armchair pundits coming out of the woodwork to declare this to have been a random, unpredictable "snap" by someone with obvious mental health issues.

Sigh...

Okay, I'm going to go into further detail in a sec, but if you want to just skip to the punch line(s), here we go:

1. If you re-read paragraph #2, you will recall that I have spent the last several decades with some pretty damned serious mental health issues.  And yet, I have not murdered a single human being.  I haven't even hit one.  And while I now have lots of tools and knowledge to help keep my C-PTS symptoms at a low murmur, even at my wildest, bat-shit crazy moments, neither murder or violence were ever, EVER even a remote possibility for me.  There's a reason for that.  (Oh, keep reading, you didn't think I'd give the ENTIRE punch line away this early, did ya?)
    
2. For the last couple months, women's shelters and other organizations have been warning us all that the current self-isolation guidelines, mixed with stress and uncertainty over the pandemic, were going to create a tremendous rise in domestic abuse and femicide.  And we'd already seen those rates ramping up – at least, those of us who were paying attention.  This wasn't a random act, it was predictable and predicted.  Not because men would, in their boredom, suddenly decide to become abusive during isolation, but because those who were already abusive would, in a time of stress and uncertainty, escalate their behaviour, and the only target available would be the woman forced to stay in isolation with them, with no workplace or friend's place to safely and excusably escape to, even for an hour.
    
3. Using the term "mental illness" as an excuse for misogyny and toxic masculinity is just plain wrong, and perpetuates the damned problem.  It's about bloody time we call it what it is, so we can start to prevent these very predictable occurrences from occurring.

First off, I haven't forgotten about the "Birthday Breakdown" this year... I've just been too busy Alyssabbaticalling (yes, that's a word), and haven't quite gotten to it!

But many have been asking me for a copy of the speech…