A Horse with No Name

I’m thinking about names today. I’ve had conversations these past few months at the Blue Borage Conversation Café events with some of you. Beyond my connections here, it has been incredible to be present with so many compassionate and brave, lived experience people, advocates, educators, and professionals, choosing to come together in that safe space to talk and learn. We lived with this in silence for so long, and that no longer has to be how it is.

Thank you for showing up; however, you show up

I deeply believe in the power of conversation and communication. I’m talking not just in therapy, writing comments on posts, responding in peer support groups, or listening to a podcast in silence. It’s the verbalising, the speaking, the hearing ourselves saying the words out loud that is making the change. It’s also the writing of emails (new-fashioned letters) upon reflection or to co-create something. This is a step forward towards making good things happen. If we don’t express it, we cannot truly break the stigma and silence surrounding sibling sexual abuse.

I feel honoured to have been in the presence of people like you at those events. I also thank fellow soon-to-be-published authors in Australia and participants in the Conversation Cafés. People are reaching out via email or meeting me for a chat on Zoom to share visions and stories with me.

Embracing My Name More Fully

These words ran through my mind this morning and inspired this blog:

“I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain. In the desert, you can remember your name, because there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.” – America*

Now, beyond Resolve, I’m stepping further into the space as the person behind Alice Perle. Many of you have told me that Blue Borage is building a sense of community and connection. If you’ve been there, know that you have co-created this space with me. You’re giving me that sense of a safe space too, and that is not to be underestimated. Thank you.

Writing under a pen name to protect the identity of the person who harmed you is not fun. It’s complicated and frustrating.

I’ve shared before that I didn’t write under a pen name to protect my own identity nor to protect my brother because I love him. I do not love my brother. He has not been in my life for 30 years by my choice. I respect whatever choices others make, but if you read Resolve, you’ll know that I found forgiveness in my own way. That included me acknowledging that he forfeited a space in my life and those of my daughters. Let alone now being anywhere near my granddaughter.

That said, I am still protecting my mother. I don’t have to—but I see her trauma. I don’t need to add to it in her 80s. The ‘ladies’ in her retirement village would have a field day if they read Resolve! My mother knows all about the book and what I have shared. Now, over coffee, we speak about what was once unspoken. We both deeply acknowledge that we were not alone. We’d both felt alone. If only we had known how common this form of abuse was, we might have reached for help. Now, our experiences will help others seek support sooner.

Showing Up More as Me

New Zealand podcast host, Scott Rado, from We Need More of This, asked me last month how much of me is now ‘me’ versus Alice. I pulled the figure ‘30% is Alice now’ from the top of my hat. I’d not been asked that before. In reality, the pen name Alice allowed me to get an important story shared.

We, as lived experience survivors, all know the feeling of duality. The silent, hidden past bubbles beneath the surface while we show up in day-to-day life. For me, the pen name is a necessary part of that duality. As I step further into my own name, Alice Perle’s Resolve will be a story in itself. A story that I champion and share creatively as part of my advocacy work to bring the hidden taboo out into the light.

“Our creativity, once put on paper, is set free.” – Liz Gilbert, Big Magic

I remember those words of Liz Gilbert. They were shared with me by my first editor, Mel Uys, when I worrying at her about what I was sharing. ‘Once written, our words are set free’. Forever. We have no control over where they land, who reads them, how they interpret them, or who keeps a copy of our book on their shelves for generations to come. I still take a deep breath and feel that. It’s a thought that fills my heart.

Resolve is published, housed in national library collections, in the parliamentary library, stocked on bookstore shelves, and read or listened to daily worldwide. I never envisioned that. What kept me moving forward was to share my story and get it into one pair of hands, the right pair of hands, at a time.

I love writing here, freely sharing the ‘inside-out’ perspective of childhood through to adult life. My life where sibling sexual abuse diverted my path as an eight-year-old child. My story, up to the time of publication, resides in Resolve and here. I have continued to read and share all the latest research that comes out across the world, and it’s shared with me as well. There’s a feeling of collaboration between leading organisations in the field and other advocacy leaders and authors. So, www.aliceperle.com.au exists as a space where I can share my lived experience and reality and apply what I am still learning and healing as I continue to move forward.

Expanding on Where and How I Show Up

✨ A Pecha Kucha Presentation in April – in my real name.

Responding to ‘The Role of Lived Experience in Preventing HSB (Harmful Sexual Behaviour)’. I just learned that Pecha Kucha means ‘chit chat’. They are PowerPoint-style presentations that consist of 20 slides, 20 seconds each, to be delivered in just over six minutes. It’s mostly simple images, minimal or no written words, and me narrating the key themes timed to fit within the 20 seconds per slide! I’ve got a flip chart page divided up into 20 squares, and this morning, I found the flow of my story sharing – via post-it notes, now stuck onto each of those squares. I even practised the timing loosely. It fits! So creatively inspiring.

✨ Digital Poster Presentation at an International Conference in August – Also in my real name.

The organisations that asked me to present to their audiences are safe spaces that focus on doing what they can to prevent, intervene, and support families like mine. I feel their audiences are equally safe – people wanting to do good. They understand safety and risk, and they want to understand more from our point of view. So, I’m starting with safe spaces.

Honestly, it’s still incredibly confusing to figure out what belongs where, but I will keep moving forward. My husband often asks ‘so who are you today, for that presentation, zoom call or that blog?’ I’m testing what I can express and who I can be in each setting.

Gratitude

Thank you for your support. Thank you for walking beside me on this journey beyond Resolve’s release.

“Alone is hard. Together is better.” – Simon Sinek

Shared with love,

Alice

Fun fact: The song “A Horse with No Name” by America is a metaphor for a journey of self-discovery and a desire for peace. The horse represents a vehicle for escaping the chaos of life and finding solitude.