Here is a link to Lemn's blog Gold from the Stone and to the article in the The Guardian where he explains why he chose to have this Psychological Report read to him on stage in a "live theatre performance."
“I was in care for 18 years. The care system should be a place where 18 years is a gift because you’ve got all the resources, the best education, the best psychotherapeutic work, and actually it was 18 years of betrayal, secrets, lies, beatings, incarceration.”
"This is the genesis of the Royal Court show. To challenge the compensation offered, victims of abuse have to provide a psychologist’s report detailing what they suffered and how it affected them. “You have to justify why everything that has happened to you has happened to you – and how it has played out in your life. Somebody told me the process of doing the psychologist’s report was worse than the abuse she went through. Part of the reason I’m doing this on stage is to show what people have to go through to get redress.”
"There is another reason. Sissay has found it too painful to read all his files, let alone the psychologist’s report. He says he will find it easier in the theatre. “I feel good on stage. I feel, in a bizarre way, like I’m with family."
I find his story so incredibly unbelievable and terrible, and there are so many very similar terrible stories of children let down and harmed by the system as it was then. The horror of realising you had been lied to and that your Mother had asked for help but had never agreed to your adoption, is unimaginable. The rejection and shame of being rejected by the very people who had been identified as responsible enough to care for you for the whole of your childhood, must be unbearable. Then the mistreatment and racism within care.
Lemn's words to end with.....
“This is not about me picking the scab. It is about getting redress, navigating my way through this minefield and trying to articulate what was always meant not to be articulated. We were meant to be ashamed of our experiences and not talk about them.”
Hello Jan. Saturday is the day I try and catch up with reading some of the blogs that challenge me. I often think of you on a Saturday and anyone who has a demanding job. I hope you all have the opportunity to take a break at the weekend. Of course, that's not the case with those who are on a work rota and have to work weekends. I know about fostering, adoption and the care system as my husband and I adopted an older child who came to us from his foster carers when he was six years old. Lemn is brave, but there is a need to bring out into the open the disturbing aspects of the system. You've highlighted issues that are upsetting and I hope all who have suffered in some way receive some degree of healing mentally.
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