Resilience is Futile
CBC Books | | Posted: February 18, 2020 4:17 PM | Last Updated: December 1, 2020
Julie S. Lalonde
For over a decade Julie Lalonde kept a secret. As an award-winning advocate for women's rights, she criss-crossed the country, denouncing violence against women and giving hundreds of media interviews along the way. Her work made national headlines for challenging universities and taking on Canada's top military brass. But while appearing fearless on the surface, Julie met every interview and event with the same fear in her gut: was he here?
Fleeing intimate partner violence at age twenty, Julie was stalked by her ex-partner for over ten years, rarely mentioning it to friends, let alone addressing it publicly. The contrast between her public career as a brave champion for women with her own private life of violence and fear meant a shaky and exhausting balancing act.
Resilience is Futile is a story of survival, courage, and ultimately, hope. But it is also a challenge to the ways we understand trauma and resilience. It is the story of one survivor who won't give up and refuses to shut up. (From BTL Books)
Lalonde is a women's rights advocate and public educator. Her writing has appeared on CBC, Wired and Flare. Resilience is Futile is her first book.
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Why Julie S. Lalond wrote Resilience is Futile
"Prior to writing the book, I would have told you it was months of pure bliss or maybe even a year before things went sideways. But going through my old journals and notes to write the book, I discovered my first journal entry was a few weeks after he had moved in with me; we'd been together for mere months at that point.
"I didn't realize the extent to which this was dangerous until I was in too deep and had been together with him for about two years.
When someone's obsessed with you, you almost stop becoming a person. It's a very dehumanizing thing to go through. - Julie S. LaLonde
"He was a very obsessive person about a lot of things. If he had a hobby, he was all in. And at the time, I admired that about him.
"He was very committed. He was very ambitious. He was hungry for life and I am that way too, so I felt like we connected. But then I realized that also includes me. That this isn't just deep, deep love; this is obsession.
"When someone's obsessed with you, you almost stop becoming a person. It's a very dehumanizing thing to go through."