by MichelleRivera1@aol.com
In her article, The Escape, which appeared in Animal
Writes Issue 3/28/01, my friend and fellow writer, Laura Moretti wrote
of her visit to the Golden Gate Bridge. She shared her experience of
enjoying the beauty and charm of the famous scenery, only to be let down
when, after searching the bills of fare and finding nothing to eat,
purchased lunch items at a grocery store on the way home. As vegans,
this is an all-too-familiar situation for many of us.
I had the same experience recently while visiting the
infamous Fisherman's Wharf in Manhattan and admiring the beautiful
Brooklyn Bridge. I marveled at the tall ships and the life-sized
fiberglass cows that were present for a special art event. Cows on
surfboards, cows in tuxedoes, cows covered with dollar bills (cash cow)
and sadly, cows on the menu. I, too, could find nary a restaurant in
which to dine and, having surrendered any ideas of a nice riverside
lunch, settled for a fat pretzel and a lemon sorbet. Those of us who
have dedicated our lives to animal advocacy face these circumstances all
the time. We have come to accept them, quietly cursing the world around
us for the apathy, cruelty and sadness we see all around us. "Why can't
others see it too?" we ask ourselves. Are things ever going to
change for the animals?
These feelings of helplessness and hopelessness can lead
to genuine, indisputable, and certifiable mental anguish and emotional
ruin. Those of us who work in rescue are exposed to these feelings not
only in our activism, but in our professional lives too.
One day after attending a meeting of the sheriff's task
force on dog fighting, I attended a workshop on compassion fatigue, a
condition akin to post traumatic stress disorder -- the same turmoil
that soldiers who served in the Viet Nam war faced upon their return.
"Imagine standing next to your best buddy and watching his body blown
apart," they told us upon their return, and they asked us to consider
what it would be like for us to be yanked out of our lives and dropped
into a situation where we witness atrocities that are so unspeakable it
took movies like Full Metal Jacket to help the rest of us understand
just what those young men experienced. Many of them suffered, and
continue to suffer to this day, post traumatic stress disorder. Not just
a vivid memory, this is the reliving of horrible sights and sounds and
feelings and the depression that follows.
But we do know what that is like. We come home from work
at night and turn on our computers to find yet another Action Alert
describing yet another horror that animals endure. Be it the dogs and
cats in Korea being raised and inhumanely killed for food, or the
poaching of baby chimpanzees for Western zoos, or the refusal of
ranchers to discuss non-lethal methods of predator control, we are
assaulted with images of our friends, the animals, having their lives
and their bodies "blown apart" and we are shocked and saddened and
traumatized not again, but still. We take no breaks from our activism
because there is still so much work to be done, so we force ourselves to
write yet another letter to yet another senator,
sign yet another petition, or read the gory details of yet another
campaign so that when we argue our points we can be well-advised and
faultless. The animals deserve no less. The truth is, we are not so
shocked anymore, and that's a scary thought, isn't it? Just when did we
stop being the pacifist, non-violent activist and decide that euthanasia
may be put to better use on the vivisectionist instead of unwanted dogs
and cats?
We don't really think the same way much anymore either,
do we? I mean, last week I was visiting Broward Humane Society in Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida, and saw that they were selling Rodrique's Blue Dog
as a poster for a $50 donation. Now the Blue Dog paintings are very
expensive and even the
lithographs go for about $800. (see www.bluedogart.com) But the poster
can only be acquired by making a donation to the humane society, so I
did. I took my poster to a frame shop and had it beautifully framed and
it now hangs on my living room wall. The problem is, it speaks to me. We
all
know that art speaks to us and says different things to different
people. But even though I love my Blue Dog artwork, I must admit that
gazing at the image of the Blue Dog and the black cat sitting side by
side, their eyes wide open, staring intently back at me, says something
to me that makes me feel very uncomfortable. When I look at them I see
two animals saying "Oh yes, we have been saved, we have homes. See, we
are wearing collars! But there are thousands of other animals out there
still waiting to be saved! What are you doing sitting there on the couch
when there is so much work to be done! Get up! Get out! We're desperate!
Situation Critical! Go save some animals for crying out loud!" And the
guilt layer gets thicker and thicker so that I must look away from the
poster and go find solace in some
Rainforest Crunch.
For years, my family has been sending money to Save the
Children. I have been writing to my little friend, this boy in Africa
named Yezala for a while now. Last week, I received a letter from him
that says, in part "You asked me about Sako, my dog. This Sako is a
female dog and four years. She is not very beauty, she is white, less
color all over the body. I get Sako from my friend, the name Sako means
"unhappy." I always say Sako just for shortening her name, it's full
name is "Sakondwera" here in Melawi it means "not happy." I gave my dog
that name because others were not happy with my dog. Sake is not big and
she has young ones." And he enclosed a picture he drew of a dog. The
remarkable thing about the drawing is that he made the effort to draw
six large nipples hanging on the underside of the dog, leading me to
believe that this is a physical part of her that is so obvious, this
child made a point of including them. A testimony to the fact that his
litter of "young ones" is certainly not her first, and probably won't be
her last.
Suddenly, I am not so clear on who it is I am meant to
help through my contributions to Save the Children. Suddenly, I am far
more concerned about an innocent, defenseless animal who "others are not
happy with" and I cringe at the thought of how they display this
"unhappiness" with this poor dog. Further, I want to deliver my standard
lecture, complete with statistics and photos, flyers and all manner of
literature on the benefits of spay/neuter. What will become of those
poor puppies? What has become of the other litters?
I am no longer enjoying my little pen pal, I am angry
and concerned and frustrated.
At this Compassion Fatigue workshop I learned that one
of the worse things we can do is "vent" to someone outside the
animal-rights movement. They won't get it, and their not getting it will
only serve to frustrate us more. If I am working on a certain
dog-fighting crime, and the gory, heinous, I-wish-to-God-I
could-lose-this-scene details are keeping me up at night, I cannot
expect my spouse to understand what it is that I am going through.
Debriefing with another cruelty officer is the only effective way of
venting the hatred and working through the anger. They, and only they,
won't respond with empty solutions, demands that I "quit this job" or
looks of horror at the slightest mention of what goes on inside
bloodsports. They will just listen and sympathize, perhaps responding
with "that happened to me once" or "remember the time…." And a bonding
has taken place that will quell the demons for a short time once again.
All this unhappiness and anger and frustration cannot be
good for our spirits and our psyches. We must be a powerful support
system for one another, we must learn to overlook little oversights and
find our way to the bigger picture. I once sought relief in a therapist,
but like Tony Soprano, I could not make her understand what it is I do,
how important it is to me, and why I must continue to stay in the fight.
Those outside the movement just don't really understand, so how can they
offer help? We must support each other, all of us. We must find a way to
keep a close watch on one another, in case someone you know starts to
fall too deeply into a slough of despair from which there is no escape.
In other words, be kind to each other, therapy for one another, and
strength for one another.
And remember to take time for yourself. Remember to step
back once in a while and breathe. If you don't take care of yourself,
you can't take care of the animals and they will have lost another
powerful ally. How's that for irony?
There will always be animals in trouble. Always, too,
will there be sympathetic cashiers just around every corner.
Go on to Mindfulness
Return to 15 April 2001 Issue
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