This started as a fb rant, but it got long as there are a lot of disclaimers. But in the past few days, for some reason, this has been on my mind.
Caroline Flack. A talented, funny, vibrant, much-loved person who will be greatly missed. She is not someone that I was a particular fan of, purely because the kind of shows she did just aren't the kind of shows I watch. I am, like most people, shocked and saddened by her taking her own life at such a young age.
A slew of 'when you can be anything, be kind' messages have been flying all over my various feeds since the news of her death. I agree wholeheartedly with this message, I try to remember to practice it myself when I have a fit of unwarranted hatred towards an unsuspecting millennial who, eyes on phone, headphones in ears, steps out to cross the road in front of my car despite the pedestrian crossing 15 metres away, thus causing me to break sharply and the dog to shoot out of his bed. If I was 'being kind' I wouldn't swear all sorts of obscenities at him whilst the dog scrambles out of the footwell. I would think that maybe the poor soul had just lost their grandma and be searching through tears for appropriate funeral music on their phone. You never know. I'm obviously being facetious here, but I do genuinely believe we need to be a bit kinder, and teach our kids to be too. So this isn't a dig at those messages. I am just not sure that 'being kinder' would have helped Caroline last Saturday.
If the press is to be believed, and I am not sure it can, but for arguments sake, let's say it is correct in saying that Caroline ended her life shortly after discovering that her case was to go to court. She dreaded the thought that the details of the incident with her boyfriend was going to become public knowledge, the 999 call, the body-cam footage of the police officers, her reaction when arrested etc. This sent her to even deeper lows than she had already suffered during her lengthy battle with severe depression. So deep, that death was the only solution she could envisage. No one should ever feel like that.
We want to blame, it's human nature. So we blame nasty people who say unkind things on the internet, but that's too general, we need a proper figure to blame. Consequently, the Crown Prosecution Service has become the target because they dared to continue with the court case despite her boyfriend dropping his complaint.
So let's turn it around. Let's say Caroline is a boy. I'll call him Carl. Carl is a popular outgoing, fun loving TV presenter. He's good looking, he parties, he's good at his job. The press love him because he provides plenty of fodder to fill the gossip pages. Carl has yet another younger girlfriend, he's been engaged before, it never lasts long, there is no conscious uncoupling in Carl's world, his break-ups are feisty and newsworthy.
Carl has a fight with his girlfriend, the girlfriend calls 999, there is blood and shouting and screaming and it is all recorded by the police. The girlfriend says he hit her over the head with a lamp cracking her head open whilst she was asleep. Later, she retracts this and says it's fine, she doesn't want to prosecute. She loves Carl and wants to go back to him. You see where I am going here. But the judge, being a good judge in 2019, has seen the evidence (that we, the public, haven't seen) and says no. This incident is serious enough, that you, young lady, are not allowed to see or contact Carl until the case has been heard properly.
The girl is upset, Carl is upset, they miss each other, it was just a misunderstanding. They pine over social media so that the world is aware of how much they love each other and regret this whole sorry mess. CPS, however, with the evidence they have, decide to go ahead with the trial because they feel the incident is serious enough to warrant it.
The public and the press are happy as violent men need to be stopped. Battered women need protecting, and we all know that women in violent relationships, for some strange reason, tend to stay in them. They forgive, retract accusations, and they stay with the person that controls, hurts and abuses them. It needs to stop so we are pleased that the court is protecting this girl so that she can't return to this volatile situation.
Carl kills himself. We're shocked, and saddened at the loss of talented Carl. Carl's famous friends aren't blaming the CPS though, or nasty people on twitter. Carl was a violent man and Carl needed help to control his abusive tendencies. Carl hit his girlfriend and couldn't deal with the guilt.
This story should be the same for Caroline. But Caroline is a lovely girl, she won Strictly! We don't know how violent the incident was but we like her and her bouncy personality, so we want to believe it was a one off jealous squabble, that the lamp was an accident, that the blood on her wrists and the front door had some other explanation. But the CPS knows more than us, and they decided that this act of violence warranted prosecution. So why are we blaming them for carrying out their job of protecting the public. Protecting women AND men from violence and abuse.
I don't think we would be blaming them or even the 'unkind' people out there were Caroline a man. We have fought for equal rights for women for years, and those rights should be equal for both positive and negative things. Caroline had already plead not guilty and would have had her chance to tell her truth in court just like any other person.
I read a quote from Ben Affleck today. 'Shame is really toxic. There is no positive byproduct of shame. It's just stewing in a toxic, hideous feeling of low self-worth and self-loathing.'
I believe that shame drove Caroline to commit suicide. That she felt what Ben has felt, and she was well aware that those hideous feelings were going to get even worse in the coming months. This doesn't make her demise any less sad, or regrettable.
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