Lived Experience Forum

[Zoe7]

Oh @Owlunar I can understand your feelings here - not good enough. I hope the AIC receives your email and rectifies it all quickly. Not getting your permission nor getting the information correct is inexcusable - if you were contacted beforehand then both would have been done correctly. So sorry this has happened Hon. I know this is not the same but someone used my words to start a new thread and I was not asked - it is a minor thing compared to yours but I know how much it affects us when permission is not sought. Backing you all the way and hoping that the AIC get back to you quickly and the error is fixed. Sending you lots and lots of love now and always 💖💖 (one for you and one for your son)

[Former-Member]

Life certainly can be a pain. 

Whilst it is good to remember that there will be both good times and bad ahead, it doesn't making experiencing them any easier. 

I'm sorry things have been a bit rougher of late. 

I hope you find something positive to hold on to and that the pain and stress ease up a bit soon. 

Take care.

[Owlunar]

Hi @Former-Member 

I have left a post for you on the new thread you have started.

You are right - nothing actually makes the whole deal easier - though a good and understanding specialist - even a GP - can make a huge difference.

Being heard does too - and here - we listen to people

Owlunar

[Owlunar]

Hi @Zoe7 

And many thanks for your post. 

It is wrong - I have been plagiarized in the past - by one of my students actually - it is very unpleasant - as I know you know too - anyone stealing someone else's intellectual information does break common law rules - I have been working on this last one today.

I have gone through the AIC statistics into Aboriginal Deaths during the Royal Commission and the details in 1986 for Youth Detention are incorrect. I had never gone through them in such detail before - today I did - and found the hard copy of my writing in an AIC publication. And so much other material I am at odds with. 

There was so much I didn't know then - and doors were closed - locked - adoptive parents had no access to the information they needed - when I had the chance to exchange a letter and photos for information - bingo - I had it - but my son couldn't know - he had already died.

There is so much about our First Nations People I am for - and I will vote for their "voice" in our government. There is only so much I can do myself - I also found my submission regarding the Task Force into Youth Suicide - I thought I had lost that. I have already done a lot and it feels strange that so many years later I am back at it again - realising I could have been doing something all this time. Perhaps time needed to pass and this is the right time.

Many thanks - many blessings - and my love

Mumma Bear

Owlunar

@Appleblossom 

[Zoe7]

@Owlunar Last week in our PD there was a teacher in our group that made a suggestion to the whole room that I had suggested in our smaller group. I was pretty taken aback by it but said nothing to her - sometimes we have to choose our battles and that one was not one I could be bothered with under the circumstances. Your fight though is important. I understand you needing to right the wrongs here and fully support you in doing so. When things are published, they need to be correct. I do find a lot in education that research, stats, arguments are all hand picked to suit the person's (sometimes narrow) point of view. We can find any research to support our arguments if we try hard enough but when this research is so obviously wrong then it is great to have people like you standing up for them to be changed. I do wish you strength in doing so - knowing it is very personal for you and there will be moments that are difficult - so sending a whole lot of love and some hugs as well to use when you need them 💕

[Appleblossom]

I agree with @Zoe7 

@Owlunar on the importance of your stand and that battle.

You know I also take suicide information very seriously. 

I also find various ways to pay the rent and pay homage to various aspects of our First Nations.

On the intellectual property issue. My son and I had a terrible experience with an ambitious American woman in a local writing group.  She was desperate to boost her online profile and highly competitive and into vanity publishing.  She took various aspects of our life and story and wove it into her book.  I was at the book launch as we did them every few years.  When I read them I felt extremely violated.  The overall plot of the story was different but a lot of the character filler was straight from our lives or my words.  She went back to California to hobnob in highlife in one of their retirement villages that her rich son bought her.  It happened around the time I first started posting here.  it was devastating.  My son had a different experience to me.  I was totally outraged and full mama bear feelings, and did use the words "cease and desist" to her, but his reactions were more nuanced.  It turned me off writing for a long time.  Starting to think about it again but not in an open group.  I may have mentioned this story before.

It is one of my many challenges that have made me more wary and helped me develop a bit more armour. It is how very isolated my son and I were when I joined.

[Zoe7]

I had not heard that from you before @Appleblossom and am so very sorry that has been your experience in the past. I hope that woman had some regrets and shame over it but the fact is she probably didn't - if someone can 'steal' another's experiences and then make money off them then they obviously have no guilt in them at all.

[Appleblossom]

No I do not think she cared @Zoe7 She was so arrogant. She had a big farewell with the writers group and I watched and quietly fumed as my son did his good byes with her.  She was extremely patronising about Australian culture and thought we were very backward, but stole from my son's story to pad out her character.  I cannot blame her for my son's episodes, but I do not doubt it was a significant betrayal of him that contributed to it.  I was trying to socialise him and proceeding with trust. Mea culpa for being isolated and naive.  Anyway it is history now.  

[Zoe7]

Yes it is history @Appleblossom but would have been so hurtful for you 😔

[Owlunar]

@Zoe7 @Appleblossom @Shaz51 

I am really tired and can't type much - it has been a big day for me

The short story is all the information about my son and several children who died in custody has been deleted from the internet. The Deputy Director and his staff had no idea these articles existed and the use of names is beyond their policy. All of this is a good thing.

And my son's statistics have been included in the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody - as I really believed.

And I have sent the Deputy Director screen shots of the information about the books that have been published - though if they have been issued to other people - there's nothing I can do about that.

Now it's time for me to destroy the hard copies I have of all this stuff - why should I keep it any longer? I don't want my daughter to ever read it - there is no need for that.

Thanks for your support everyone - I really have to take it easy tonight and go to bed early - and I appreciate all of you and what you have said.

Owlunar - your Forum Mumma Bear