Research

It’s the people who hide behind their keyboard and make nasty comments.

Diminishment of people is a barrier. Bullying is a classic example. Something of your sense of self is under siege and it is diminished. And it is very hard to get out of that “alone place.”

In a workplace, there are some serious misuses of power that diminish people. We know when we feel happy and nourished in our places of work - it’s good to ask, “what heartens me?” But also, “what disheartens me?”

For me, doesn't happen much, but that gut feeling when walking or going somewhere, or someone makes a rude comment about how you are walking or acting or generally how you look. So, I put it on Facebook, and people we knew were like, ‘Hahaha, I swear all the time so I have Tourette’s Syndrome! Hahaha!” That was the beginning of running into that attitude.

Nurses at the hospital, they would stare at her like 'what is she doing'. If you say anything about these things, you’ll be called a dumdum, an idiot. [relates to treatment due to stoke]

I came across a Year 7 kid at the water fountain who was hyperventilating - I took him to sick bay - turns out something happened at class and he didn’t want to go back. Belonging is a topic for the younger children. They will go beyond what they would normally do just to belong. Crazy what friendship means to them. Young girls, 8,9 10 years old, already full of anxiety. It’s very scary.

He and his family left, to do with a problem with a couple of kids with difficulties who were bullied at school and spilled out to outside school. That pushed them out. That’s part of the lack of connection that we now have. At university I was the only woman in my physics class, with a sexist tutor, who bullied me and I complained but it still continued.

I hate doing things in front of people who I think are going to judge me. If I think I’m really bad at something or not going to do it at the standard that they expect and that they’re going to judge me. I don’t like doing things in front of people.

You’re valued if you’re articulate and present yourself in certain ways. But maybe there are other ways of presenting in the world, that are softer, more neuro-diverse, different faiths, languages. There’s a beauty in the wholeness of the differences.

When I am in places where people are not in the same demographic as me, I may not feel as comfortable, as I feel awkward answering questions which are personal and assumption.

There’s a sense of failing, of not belonging or falling short. There’s a sense I had these expectations and you didn’t meet them.

I get judged, people make assumptions about me. There is so much ableism.

There will be comments made [to international students], whether violent or mocking. That to me, highlighting their difference is making them feel they don’t belong.

When I refer to my being raised in the State, I spent 14 years in state care. Don’t know who your family are. Many of the carers abused me and my siblings. You feel really alone, because there are parts of you that don’t develop as a child. There are thousands of us who have been abused and taken from our families.

When my community [travelling community] are getting attacked physically by locals who see us very negatively, and people are being trespassed and fined and for really doing nothing wrong, doing no harm.

I grew up in a family dominated by men, and I went on to have 3 sons and a daughter. I was sexually abused as a child and an adult.

I still feel, especially up North, have had some stuff thrown at me, that wasn’t nice. Everything to do with the fact I was gay, and not very quiet. Experience discrimination and threat, people saying they’d like to smash your face.

I saw it when my boss touched me inappropriately. I won the case a year later. That’s when I felt dislocated and didn’t belong. I got on drugs, and I got on alcohol.

Isolation is a key part of being a Domestic Violence victim. From my experience, I don’t know if victims ever really recover from it, it changes who you are, how you think and your perceptions of safety in the world.

I've seen violence against women. I remember pulling a woman out of a car, her husband was beating her. Wanting her to get in my car, she didn't want to. We stood and hid behind a fence. Domestic violence out on the street, it's so far from my realm of life experience but without a doubt it is out there.

Blindness and deafness is a huge barrier to overcome as well. Often, they have immediate frustration with us [at women’s refuge], because they feel they are not fully understood. But we do have access to translators.

Where I am now, I’m so drained and tired, and there is PTSD, there is very little left to try to belong to anything. There are actually a lot of ways you can belong, but when you’re navigating the system as a victim of domestic violence, it’s very belittling and it’s very hard, people don’t believe me. Because he didn’t burn me or beat me up.

He didn’t physically abuse me, he psychologically abused me. Traumatised me, traumatised my children.

When people walk around the school, it’s quite clear what group they belong to [mufti]. And how different – through your parents.

My opinion of the high school is low. The creative arty people are treated badly. The netball bitches and the rugby arseholes. The teachers all love them. Very competitive.

Not being up to the level of everyone else. Kayaking: if someone is better than you, you feel disappointed if you’re not as good at them. They might have more experience, but even so.

We are not an inclusive society, even though there is diversity in Whanganui. I went to [school name], but I didn’t fit in, because the girls there, their criteria for success was their status. I was ostracised because those weren’t my values. And I had that problem and I look white.

Is that not forcing it into the socio-economic argument though? We’ve got this very self-centred society these days “it’s about me.” And people have to work hard and they’re tired.