Hearing someone scream in pain or terror...

is shocking and scary. Hearing a bunny scream is especially frightening because they are so small and vulnerable. Recently I was serving up lunch to the south warren bunch of buns at Heartland Rabbit Rescue when one of the bunny folks screamed/shrieked three times in succession. The screams were sort of brief but loud and full of urgency and alarm and pain or terror. I ran over to the area the sound seemed to have arisen from but aside from lots of rabbits being on full alert (and some were thumping in alarm) I could see nothing wrong with anyone.

I then walked the whole warren inspecting each resident to see if I could find the distressed bunny, everyone looked ok, nothing seemed amiss...I did a full walk through two times and never could discover who screamed or what happened. Slowly all the rabbits settled back down and I finally went back to my previous task. Weird.

Later, when I told the Director about it she reminded me about one of her first experiences with bunny screams. When she first started taking in homeless bunnies, her first pair of what we call 'great whites' (actually they are formally called New Zealand White Rabbits...but they are Mexican in origin...go figure) were rabbits that had been used (tortured) in a laboratory. Their backs and sides were covered with one or two inch long scars that covered over where slits had been made in their backs and various substances inserted underneath their skin...to see what would happen. That sounds like something sadistic children might do to some helpless being...but nope...these were all grown-up humans doing this...just to make a buck.

Most, if not all, animal testing is obscene and unnecessary...it is done because it is cheap and few object and corporations think it might save their butts in a lawsuit. Here is a link to see what corporations test or don't test on other animals. Harming an innocent being just because you think it might do you some good is indefensible and repugnant.

The Director said that sometimes these bunnies would begin whimpering and then screaming in their sleep, they would be having traumatic dreams reliving what had happened to them in the laboratory. Experiencing 'night terrors' and nightmares reliving their fear and pain just like us human animals might do that have been subjected to torture and/or terrorizing incidents. They would awaken themselves with their screaming and then it would stop.

She speculated that the screaming might have come from a nightmare that maybe Pippin or Brett had experienced. She mentioned those two because both are fairly recent arrivals at the rescue and both were in situations wherein they had been terrorized. Both Pippin and Brett had been kept in outdoor cages where attempted attacks by dogs sometimes occurred (and whatever other nightime predators that might have been around). While their cage might have kept them safe from the attack it did nothing to keep them safe from terror.

We still don't know who screamed or why they screamed but it is important to realize that terror and pain and memories and nightmares and trauma are not experiences exclusive to human animals...all of us animals live on the same planet and experience life much the same and have an array of reactions that are very similar (some might be different, but the great majority are the same)...it isn't much of a stretch to say that we may look quite different on the outside but on the inside, where our feelings and our essential being resides, we are much the same.

The best way you can help ensure you don't add to the misery of our sister and brother animals is to go vegan, please....it does the animals good, the planet good and it does good for your standing as a worthy relative of all animals.

Last night I couldn't get to sleep...

my thought set added a thought that belongs to a group of concepts which invariably disturb me. I thought about the baby cows taken away from their moms so the milk meant for them could be taken and sold. So some human could drink it and some other human(s) could make a profit...and in the process harm cows, harm the planet and steal from other beings.

Thinking about the fear and turmoil and sense of loss both the mom and baby must feel usually gets me started on a train of horrible thoughts about all the different animals and all the different ways they were frightened and hurt and suffering and how this just goes on and on and has gone on and on for hours, days, weeks, months, years and centuries. Then sleep is only a distant goal, unlikely to return for a long time. My sleeplessness is, of course, nothing compared to the misery my fellow humans deal out to Earthlings, but...it is mine and I do have to cope with it. Not sleeping is not an option if I want to continue to function, to live.

This is a dilemma I wrestle with constantly. How to continue to live, to function, to do all the things large and small that make up each day while at the same time being aware of the fact that fur beings, feather beings, fin beings and skin beings are being subjected to terrible and horrible pain and terror and misery...for the most selfish and disgusting and trivial of reasons. Because human beings want to do those things.

I struggle too, with interacting with other humans...because almost all of the people I love, almost all of the people I like and almost all of the people I know...are participating in this ongoing murderous, injuring, harming rampage on a moment to moment basis. Oh, not directly for the most part (I do have family members that "hunt"...they directly hurt, terrorize and kill innocent ones), most of the ongoing participation is a step or two or more removed from the actual shame of the atrocities. No, they eat "dairy" or "fast food" or "bacon" or "buffalo wings", avoiding clearly covering their hands with blood or filling their ears and eyes and minds with the visions of those being killed...murdered...of hearing the shrieks and screams and moans and sighs of the dying. No, theirs is a genteel joining in, a sneaky facilitating, a devious contributing, a superficially deniable participation. But a participation nevertheless...were it not for their eating, wearing, buying and enjoying choices and purchases most (not all, but most) of the misery showered onto all those billions of lives would stop. Their thinking (or maybe their not thinking), buying and doing is the engine that drives the horror story that we human animals have made of life on this planet.

And I interact daily with these folks, and I don't scream at them and I don't grab them by the neck and choke them and demand that they see what they are doing. I don't do those things (which I sometimes want to do), but I do have nights like last night when visions creep into my thoughts and I hurt for the hurting and I suffer for the suffering and I can't go to sleep. My discomfort is obviously as nothing if viewed in relation to the burden endured by the victims...but it is mine and to continue I somehow must cope with it.

Numbing myself to my reaction to their misery is something I try to avoid. Pretending that no one gets hurt is not an option I choose to exercise. Lying to myself about this is something I don't want to do. Believing the fantasies and not noticing the omissions and distortions presented to me by popular culture via commercials and ads and recipes and essays and on and on is a degree of gullibility and willful ignorance I don't want to engage in...not anymore. I have done and did too much of that sort of stuff for too long...which is how I continued to support the unspeakable. Nope, I quit being purposively naive, I opt out.

So now I have this as one (there are many others) of the effects of opting out of those cultural fairy tales...sometimes I can't get to sleep.  So be it. I really don't want to be comfortable and at ease in a world where such things go on. Being "well-adjusted" to this sort of tricked-out grotesque horror show is, as far as I can see, the mark of functioning in a disabling and demeaning and destructive manner.

Does all this staying aware make me a "good" person, does that show how "sensitive" I am? Nope, not a bit. At the most, what that does is help me see or understand the world and events a little more clearly. That's all. Get a little closer to 'reality". My notion is that the more accurately we perceive 'reality' then the better decisions we can make because the decisions are based on correct information. If we misperceive reality (and we all do to some greater or lesser degree) then that distortion is liable to show up in the decisions we make. The better the decisions we make (the more closely in tune with reality that they are) then the more likely it is that they will turn out well. Bottom line is that, for the most part, I think reality is a pretty reliable touchstone and avoiding reality is something that should be minimized.

Every culture teaches its children how to avoid reality, how to fantasize, how to see things, how to do things, how to conceptualize things. That's part of what culture does. But cultures aren't infallible, they are made up...cultures are fantasies in one manner of speaking. And they can be pretty good at helping life or mediocre or poor at doing that. I grew up in a variant of the European culture that spread from that area of the world all over the western hemisphere. It has been a really 'successful' variant of culture evidenced by its spreading all over the place...but...it has been a really destructive and exploitive culture if you look at what it has done to the cultures it encountered (take a look at what Columbus did to the Native Americans) and it has been a culture that devastates environments and other animals (e.g. Passenger Pigeon). As long as it could spread after using up an environment, well, it could keep going...but now we're running out of planet...we're running out of indigenous peoples to rip off...we're running out of land to exploit...we're running out of water to waste...we're running out of trees to cut down...we're running out of being able to treat other living beings the way we do.

Occasional indulgence in fantasy or imagination is fine, necessary even, but choosing to opt for fantasy over reality on an ongoing basis is probably dangerous stuff...to me, anyway. My speculation is just that sort of willful blindness was and is a major contributer to the incredible, awful mess we European humans have made of the environment and of our relationships with our fellow animals and of our relationships with ourselves. So, time to give up some fantasies, time to get a little closer to reality, time to...but that doesn't come easy. There is a price to pay, and for me, one of those costs is some sleeplessness.

There are other symptoms and costs and if you're interested in learning more there are many online sources with information about the contagion of trauma. Psychotherapists have long known about the phenomena of "compassion fatigue"  or vicarious trauma. Dealing with those who have been wounded by life, no matter what sort of being sustained the injury, extracts a price and most who have moved into a life of ethical veganism are familiar with them. They are real and they are burdensome.  That's why everyone must work out ways to care for themselves emotionally...the possibility of self-injury, paralysis and ineffectualness is real and serious.

So, while I am sleepless at times, I'm not sleepless all the time...while I am sad and hurting at times, I'm not sad and hurting all the time...while I feel like weeping at times, I sometimes laugh and am silly and absurd. Nurturing myself fuels me to be able to keep pushing for the animals, to be able to volunteer for the animals, to be able to do what little I can to stop the awfulness that we human animals wreak on our sister and brother animals and on our planet. And that's a pretty good thing to try to do.