Patrick Stewart Gives Passionate Response to Question At Comicpalooza 2013

This was my question to Sir Patrick Stewart at Comicpalooza 2013. I wanted to thank Patrick Stewart for his speech at Amnesty International it personally help me put a name to the abuse, sexual abuse in my case, I had experienced in the past. He responded very passionately and the last thing I thought I would get at was a heartfelt hug.

When he embraced me he told me "You never have to go through that again, you're safe now". I just kept thanking him.

I hope everyone who needs help in abusive or violent situations has the courage to do so. There are people willing and ready to help you.

This video is owned by Oswald Vinueza and full recording can be found here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWkLOestks

All right, we've got a question right here in the middle for Patrick Stewart. What is your name?

My name is Heather.

Hello, Heather. You OK?

Yeah.

OK, what's your question?

All right, this is more of a somber question. I recently saw on YouTube how you talked

to Amnesty Now, I think it was, um, about your view against violence against women,

and that speech was really moving to me, and it helped me through my own turmoils a little bit.

So I wanted to thank you personally for that. And then my question, segueing into that:

Besides acting, what are you most proud of that you've done in your life

that you're willing to share with us that isn't really into acting?

Great question.
Thank you.

I think you have very beautifully linked the important things together.

The work that I do in campaigns about violence towards women, particularly domestic violence,

is something that grew out of my own childhood experience, and I am associated

particularly with one organisation in England called Refuge, which has since the 1970s

provided, among many other services, safe houses for women and children.

And I mean SAFE houses where they can go and feel, perhaps for the first time in years,

secure with their children.

Refuge is a great organisation. Now, a few months ago I did do this event, the Million Man Pledge,

which was co-sponsored by the United Nations, and it is a great campaign which is based on the belief

that the people who could do most to improve the situation of so many women and children

are, in fact, men. It's in our hands to stop violence towards women.

So I do what I do -- I do what I do in my mother's name because I couldn't help her then.

Now I can. But since -- and I've talked often about this, I'm on record about my childhood --

but last year, I learnt things about my father that I didn't know and my elder brother didn't know,

and that was that in 1940, due to his experiences in France with the British expeditionary force,

my father was suffering from what was then called severe shell shock.

And that's what I read in his notes at the Imperial War Museum in England.

We now know it as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and we also know that there are soldiers now

all over the world, here in the United States and in the United Kingdom who are returning

from combat zones with a serious condition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now we know what it is,

and we know how to deal with it. In 1940 it was just shell shock, and basically soldiers were being told,

"Pull yourself together. Get a grip on yourself and get out there and be a man."

Well, it has put [incomprehensible] an expert in this condition who works with a charity,

another organisation I'm now happy to be a patron of called Combat Stress, has said to me,

"What your father had in 1940, because he was never treated, never left him.

And all the conditions of your childhood that you have described to me are classic symptoms

of veterans who were suffering from this serious psychological and physical illness."

So I work for Refuge for my mother, and I work for Combat Stress for my father in equal measure.

Thank you so much. That was a beautiful story.

Thank you. And, my dear, are you OK? You are?

Yeah... it, uh, knowing that the thing that happened... it's past and there was just a point of

accepting that it was OK that it happened.
Yeah.

And that I, you know, that I wasn't... because one thing that I've noticed is there's still that

shaming of the women.
Yeah... yeah.

And so, that, that speech really just finally let me say, "It's OK that that happened,"

and you know, I can move on and heal. So I really appreciate it, I really do.

As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, "Mrs Stewart,

you must have done something to provoke him. Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make an argument."

Wrong. Wrong! My mother did nothing to provoke that -- and even if she had, violence is

never, ever a choice that a man should make. Ever.

And you know...

Guys, thank you. I look around and I see a lot of men standing up, and that's brilliant,

because you have, here in Texas, a man called Michael Rawlings, Mayor of Dallas.

Michael was with me on that platform at the United Nations event, and he spoke so potently

and so powerfully about these issues. He spoke about it from his own experience of being

a Texan and of living and working in Dallas, and I was so proud to share that platform with him.

He's a remarkable individual. OK, we're gonna talk about other things.

You take care of yourself.
You want a hug? Go get a hug.

Almost impossible to follow. So, uh...