Personal Advocacy Reflection

Personal Advocacy Reflection

I am the youngest of my siblings and was always jokingly mistreated. This treatment was unintentional from my siblings; they were just having fun by always teasing me and doing a lot of name calling. However, I was also being teased and bullied at school as well and I had no one advocating for me. My mom had me at a late age, so she allowed my older sister to take care of me most of the time. My sister was eleven years older than me. This left a scaring in me and resentment. My thoughts were to never allow anyone to tease me or mistreat me. This transformed into an attitude of being upset whenever I heard or witnessed anyone being mistreated or taken advantage of and then I must act. Since I didn’t have anyone advocating for me growing up, this started my journey of advocacy. I stood up for everyone when I was growing up and in my adult life.

One story I have is about my sister-in-law who is very meek and docile. One of her son’s girlfriend was very disrespectful towards her and the situation became a threat to her health because she became very upset which made her ill. Her blood pressure became dangerously high and she was admitted into the hospital. Her son wanted to marry this girl, but my sister-in-law did not approve because the girl was verbally and physically abusive to her son.  I immediately contacted this girl and told her how all of this was wrong and how it affected my sister-in-law. This girl apologized and admitted things got out of control. When my sister-in-law got out of the hospital, I begin to advocate for her and called a family meeting to create a safe space so that everyone could get their thoughts out. My sister-in-law felt safe and was able to speak her mind. When she felt intimidated I was there to support her so that they could get everything resolved. The girl did not feel she was being disrespectful or abusive. She grew up with her dad being disrespectful and abusive to her mom, so she thought this was the norm. We were able to hear all sides, apologies were made, recommendations were made for counseling and the family became unified.