I think a lot about the past. The things I regret. The actions I made, the naivety, the ignorance - perhaps forgiving others more than I forgive myself. Arriving unsure of where to place boundaries, when to lend myself a kind hand when others would not. I think of the relationships I severed with otherwise close friends, afraid of how toxic they could be when my own emotional habits remained unchecked - distance becoming my safe house, ever uncertain of where love existed. I think of these patterns - how, for years, I was angry at myself for the assaults against me - how I blamed myself for being naive, loathing myself for being "intelligent," an "empathetic doormat," but not keen enough to label abuse and put it in its place, not courageous enough to feel no self-doubt, self-pity, self-destruction, living in a perpetual nightmare where I was afraid I would wake up alone and unsuccessful, waiting for people to proclaim their hatred towards me, to walk away. I blame myself for things, constantly - as if I were always supposed to be aware, hyper-vigilant, unwaveringly kind and sharp - not the girl who bumbles through flirting, butchers intimacy and boundaries in any form of relationship, blaming herself for not being better/faster/stronger (thinking of close-minded and ignorant blog posts such as "trauma feminist" post, wondering if the world of advocacy could forgive me when I mislabeled myself and shamed others efforts with my own ignorance). Pacing, restraining, biting my lips until the right words come out - I grow more and more aware of my privilege of everyday, and saddened by the fact I have it better than a majority of people in this world and still come home feeling exhausted, regretting things, blaming myself, body-tired mind-heavy, remembering in the thickets of my skull of all those who have less resources than me who work harder/receive less/stick out as a knave in the corruption of the economic and politically oppressive systems.
I do not sleep on nights like this. It's almost a punishment, reminding myself of the wear and tear. It's almost like the series of suitcases in White Oleander. Except I cannot pack myself into these boxes, sleepless over the graves of the future, the past that remains unburied with motives I still question, wondering how the symbols fall into place, when the past will end.
I think of sitting in a mental health professional's office, listening to her tell me my depression isn't severe enough to qualify for inpatient hospitalization, as she remarks "getting into inpatient hospitalization is more difficult than getting into an Ivy League college these days," too stubborn to say the words I would've easily said (and meant) years ago, depression so deep that thoughts of suicidality were pervasive. I somehow stopped qualifying the more I learned to deviate from the past, crudely coping on my own. She tells me she's been working with "women's trauma for years," but will not listen to me as I say I cannot afford that type of time off work that she is recommending for a separate program. She acts as if my job is an inconvenience - she does not ask about my coping mechanisms. She is putting me into a box, ignoring the vastness of trauma, and the reality that "women's trauma" is based on a series of oppressions including economic oppression (insert easily found statistics about how little land women own/how many hours women work/how much less they receive than men). I do not say anything: she is putting me into a box, one where my depression, my coping skills, my identity does not adequately fit into.
I remember not knowing my abuser, what abuse was. Being afraid Child Protective Services would find me. Scavenging homes in the spare rooms and blow-up mattresses and couches of my friends. Cutting so many classes they would almost not let me graduate high school. Over 20 medications. Over 15 therapists. Crunching down to bills and $1 in the bank account. Smoking cigarettes and nude modeling. Being involuntary hospitalized once (and almost again). Being recommended rehab. Drinking so much coffee, taking too much classes, working too many hours that my body would not shut down - falling asleep at inopportune times against my will, 2 hours a slot, dropping down to 100 pounds: hospitalized again. The thumb of economic oppression, waiting to lose all that I had been given because I had refused to lie and accept an abusive reality as one that was okay. I remember feeling nothing the first time I had sex - knowing I was nothing but a thing. Scraping the system, body exposed, scavenging for money amidst mood swings. I could not regret how I didn't feel anything, because most of the time I felt too much. Desensitized through vodka, my memories would not leave me alone. Being told of my greatness, my strength, my talents, my intelligence - feeling none of these things: feeling survival, knowing that others have survived "worse."
I wonder how long it will take me to regret this entry, laying myself down before the internet, vulnerabilities and truth: the fact that I think every night of the people I have deeply burned in my own attempt to survive, the fact that I think walls mean protection. So tired I bottom out below the looking glass. I know my whole life people have been telling me (and likely will continue to do so) who I am, who I'm not, what I should do with my life - trying to stick me into a box, label me, give me an identity. I know they will find a way to make a definition stick. I know that I, too, have engaged in these behaviors. It is my greatest hope, amongst all my mistakes and re-learning, that these identities begin to slip away until there's nothing left except the narrative of truth.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Preserving Your Sanctuary: Reality with PTSD, etc.
A lot of things have happened to me within the past few years, even within the past few months - and it's been more than a test of resilience. I find that with, having PTSD, every present moment becomes a test in and of itself - a question of awareness and hypervigilance. Being hypervigilant has a negative connotation, in the sense that it presents an over-alertness and intensified awareness of surroundings and motivations. Hypervigilance is sick - people who are hypervigilant have issues - they don't settle into their skin, they don't settle into the moment, they do not trust things to stay the same, constant, welcoming. I am admittedly quite hypervigilant, and half the time I'm not even aware of how hypervigilant I am. But it should be noted that I work in the mental health field and pursue the methodologies of writing and art with the idea that these otherwise troubling aspects associated with "mental illness" can simultaneously be our best gifts and our most creative assets if used properly. So, in this moment, I am very grateful for my hypervigilance: it keeps me alive, and more importantly, it keeps me from repeating the past. It maintains the progress I've made in looking back at my past littered with various abusive relationships, most of which masqueraded as love and self-blaming inadequacy. I mentioned to a coworker the other day that I don't trust anyone or any company or anything that masquerades as "perfect" or "above the others" or "a fully healing process," an organization or person that presents him/her/zeself as the only solution and best solution and full solution to any problem - those people and organizations trouble me. My coworker joked that this was because I was a cynical New Yawka. I responded that it was because, no, I just learned everyone has flaws and chances are, if you're masquerading as a person or company above and beyond flaws, you have some insecurity complex to work out because no one is perfect, and if you look closely into anyone's past, you will assuredly find one moment they regret or misstep. To err is human.
I may be cynical, but as this NPR article on mental illness and leadership postulates, I am also likely very realistic. In all my life experiences and mood swings and flashbacks, I had to find reality and define it every day - and still do. I learned to gauge: is this the bipolar? Is this the medications? Is it that time of the month? Was what that person said actually offensive - was my personal space and integrity violated and insulted? Is this happiness a fleeting euphoria linked to mania, am I genuinely happy? What does this feel like, why am I feeling it, is the feeling justified or biochemical or linked to memory/situation/projection and transference from trauma?
I get that most people don't live the way I do, or perhaps think the way I do. But this is the way I think most days - and I try to respect the world with the mindset I come in with and be fair to everyone else who has the distinct possibility of crossing me. And I try to treat my clients with the same respect and encourage them to fully consider things both objectively and subjectively, so they can channel their emotions in the proper direction.
And being an individual with PTSD, realizing your triggers and channeling your emotions in the proper direction is infinitely important to me and the way I cope with both the present and the past, respecting both and acknowledging the individuals in both - being hyper-aware and hyper-vigilant of myself and my surroundings helps me preserve the present, enhance my future, and help stifle the past from letting it dominate my judgments negatively when it could actually affect me positively through all the warning signs my life provided me.
In the past few years, noting all the turmoil I went through (mostly family related, but largely focused on identifying abuse and extricating it from my life on every level), I sacrificed a lot of things I love for the sake of what I perceived to be survival. I slowly stopped writing or reading at all. I stopped singing. I was hospitalized in an inpatient facility, and the counselor asked me what I did for fun, and that was when I realized I didn't do anything fun as I was left to stammer out: "I just... work." (As I threw fits about them confiscating my laptop, preventing me from completing academic work ;) ). It continued for at least a year or so even after graduating undergraduate studies - reading, writing, singing, doing the things I love suddenly became anxiety prone and stressful. Along this journey, I learned to sacrifice these things because suddenly, they stopped being about me. I met people, who I'm sure had good intentions, try to lead me one way or the other because they saw my potential in various areas and were very determined for me to follow their instructions that would assuredly lead me to greatness. This happened repeatedly. While this attention is flattering and my talents and intelligence are repeatedly noted throughout the various sectors of my life, it doesn't stop these sort of conversations from suddenly turning into a matter that has nothing to do with your ideas or your actual potential, but rather, what people want to see you do with your potential as it will greatly benefit their plans for you, their happiness, their reality and life choice convenience. Which is to say, the things I loved quickly became an otherwise draining and invalidating pursuit as I frequently found my own thoughts on what I wanted to do with my life, what I found important, and what I loved to do became inconsequential if it did not address the other person's needs and desires. If I did not think or love or care the way they wanted to, I was somehow useless and insignificant and wasting my time. Which sounds awfully like an abusive dialect to me.
Something, thanks to my hypervigilance, I am able to pick out incredibly quickly these days. Notably, I've begun to read and write again in bits the past few months, and have taken up singing here and there - of course, nowhere near to the extent I want to be - but it's a start. And I also notably put up with a lot less bullshit. For disclosure purposes, I can say this post is largely motivated by the fact I've spent the past month arguing with an insurance company over getting coverage for my mental health providers.... and is also motivated by interpersonal conflicts at work, where I realized I was putting in ample efforts beyond my status and job description (and have been doing so for months) and have not been adequately compensated in terms of money or adequate respect. With both these instances, I have been very upset - my immediate response was to feel depressed and blame myself or feel victimized that I live in a world where I am "punished" for trying to obtain what I need for basic survival (emotionally and financially). However, briefly after, another voice bounced in, in both instances, wherein I became somewhat passionately defiant and confident and enraged. A voice climbed into my head and said "I don't need this. I know what I'm worth. Shit, they can't treat me this way. I'm better than this. This was my past. I'm not going back there - I'm never going back there. If they think they're going to treat me this way and get by with invalidating my needs and punishing me for demanding what I'm worth and for what I need, they have another thing coming." Which isn't to say this isn't still at least partially depression - because it is. The important part is that due to years of hypervigilance and assessment of reality, I was able to bounce back substantially quicker than I used to - and rather than blame myself for demanding what I need out of this life (to get by without being substantially stressed each month), I realized that the likely culprits who should be blamed are the individuals who are reacting to my expression for need in such a negative and defacing light, that, for a moment I forgot the difference between the past and present and felt my abuser come into the present and impact my mood substantially, forgetting I had survived that already. Because, frankly, I know a personal life trigger when I see one. And when I see the trigger, I know its place, and I know that those triggers come with certain agendas and that my life intention is to stay far away from those agendas, triggers, and power-manipulating attitudes. I am done with all that. And I've noticed the fact that I'm done with all that is very alarming to a lot of people - that this intrinsic self-worth and the "this is bullshit" trigger radar - are not very convenient for people who would like to see my skills and other wonderful qualities pan out the way would best suit them.
I write this not because the "me who suffered severe prolonged depressions throughout high school and college, who lived under an abusive victimized mindset" is totally high five-ing the "me who can now largely compartmentalize triggers, minimize the impact of stressors, and continue on with her normal ADL skills/life as you know it while simultaneously being aware of her worth and when people are stepping on her Personal Boundaries which should not be disrespected," but because it's important to consider. Preserving the sanctity of your reality from being haphazardly power-maneuvered by individuals who would like to conveniently micromanage your worth into something that benefits them more than you when you are living your own life agenda is something that should become daily meditation. This sort of conflict is the type of conflict I find peace in - because, despite it all, I know I'll find myself at the end of the day (again and again), the more I assert my right to live a life where I am safe, where my necessities are met, where I am not impeded upon by another person's agenda and have the freedom to live out my potential as I see fit.
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.” - Sylvia Plath.
I may be cynical, but as this NPR article on mental illness and leadership postulates, I am also likely very realistic. In all my life experiences and mood swings and flashbacks, I had to find reality and define it every day - and still do. I learned to gauge: is this the bipolar? Is this the medications? Is it that time of the month? Was what that person said actually offensive - was my personal space and integrity violated and insulted? Is this happiness a fleeting euphoria linked to mania, am I genuinely happy? What does this feel like, why am I feeling it, is the feeling justified or biochemical or linked to memory/situation/projection and transference from trauma?
I get that most people don't live the way I do, or perhaps think the way I do. But this is the way I think most days - and I try to respect the world with the mindset I come in with and be fair to everyone else who has the distinct possibility of crossing me. And I try to treat my clients with the same respect and encourage them to fully consider things both objectively and subjectively, so they can channel their emotions in the proper direction.
And being an individual with PTSD, realizing your triggers and channeling your emotions in the proper direction is infinitely important to me and the way I cope with both the present and the past, respecting both and acknowledging the individuals in both - being hyper-aware and hyper-vigilant of myself and my surroundings helps me preserve the present, enhance my future, and help stifle the past from letting it dominate my judgments negatively when it could actually affect me positively through all the warning signs my life provided me.
In the past few years, noting all the turmoil I went through (mostly family related, but largely focused on identifying abuse and extricating it from my life on every level), I sacrificed a lot of things I love for the sake of what I perceived to be survival. I slowly stopped writing or reading at all. I stopped singing. I was hospitalized in an inpatient facility, and the counselor asked me what I did for fun, and that was when I realized I didn't do anything fun as I was left to stammer out: "I just... work." (As I threw fits about them confiscating my laptop, preventing me from completing academic work ;) ). It continued for at least a year or so even after graduating undergraduate studies - reading, writing, singing, doing the things I love suddenly became anxiety prone and stressful. Along this journey, I learned to sacrifice these things because suddenly, they stopped being about me. I met people, who I'm sure had good intentions, try to lead me one way or the other because they saw my potential in various areas and were very determined for me to follow their instructions that would assuredly lead me to greatness. This happened repeatedly. While this attention is flattering and my talents and intelligence are repeatedly noted throughout the various sectors of my life, it doesn't stop these sort of conversations from suddenly turning into a matter that has nothing to do with your ideas or your actual potential, but rather, what people want to see you do with your potential as it will greatly benefit their plans for you, their happiness, their reality and life choice convenience. Which is to say, the things I loved quickly became an otherwise draining and invalidating pursuit as I frequently found my own thoughts on what I wanted to do with my life, what I found important, and what I loved to do became inconsequential if it did not address the other person's needs and desires. If I did not think or love or care the way they wanted to, I was somehow useless and insignificant and wasting my time. Which sounds awfully like an abusive dialect to me.
Something, thanks to my hypervigilance, I am able to pick out incredibly quickly these days. Notably, I've begun to read and write again in bits the past few months, and have taken up singing here and there - of course, nowhere near to the extent I want to be - but it's a start. And I also notably put up with a lot less bullshit. For disclosure purposes, I can say this post is largely motivated by the fact I've spent the past month arguing with an insurance company over getting coverage for my mental health providers.... and is also motivated by interpersonal conflicts at work, where I realized I was putting in ample efforts beyond my status and job description (and have been doing so for months) and have not been adequately compensated in terms of money or adequate respect. With both these instances, I have been very upset - my immediate response was to feel depressed and blame myself or feel victimized that I live in a world where I am "punished" for trying to obtain what I need for basic survival (emotionally and financially). However, briefly after, another voice bounced in, in both instances, wherein I became somewhat passionately defiant and confident and enraged. A voice climbed into my head and said "I don't need this. I know what I'm worth. Shit, they can't treat me this way. I'm better than this. This was my past. I'm not going back there - I'm never going back there. If they think they're going to treat me this way and get by with invalidating my needs and punishing me for demanding what I'm worth and for what I need, they have another thing coming." Which isn't to say this isn't still at least partially depression - because it is. The important part is that due to years of hypervigilance and assessment of reality, I was able to bounce back substantially quicker than I used to - and rather than blame myself for demanding what I need out of this life (to get by without being substantially stressed each month), I realized that the likely culprits who should be blamed are the individuals who are reacting to my expression for need in such a negative and defacing light, that, for a moment I forgot the difference between the past and present and felt my abuser come into the present and impact my mood substantially, forgetting I had survived that already. Because, frankly, I know a personal life trigger when I see one. And when I see the trigger, I know its place, and I know that those triggers come with certain agendas and that my life intention is to stay far away from those agendas, triggers, and power-manipulating attitudes. I am done with all that. And I've noticed the fact that I'm done with all that is very alarming to a lot of people - that this intrinsic self-worth and the "this is bullshit" trigger radar - are not very convenient for people who would like to see my skills and other wonderful qualities pan out the way would best suit them.
I write this not because the "me who suffered severe prolonged depressions throughout high school and college, who lived under an abusive victimized mindset" is totally high five-ing the "me who can now largely compartmentalize triggers, minimize the impact of stressors, and continue on with her normal ADL skills/life as you know it while simultaneously being aware of her worth and when people are stepping on her Personal Boundaries which should not be disrespected," but because it's important to consider. Preserving the sanctity of your reality from being haphazardly power-maneuvered by individuals who would like to conveniently micromanage your worth into something that benefits them more than you when you are living your own life agenda is something that should become daily meditation. This sort of conflict is the type of conflict I find peace in - because, despite it all, I know I'll find myself at the end of the day (again and again), the more I assert my right to live a life where I am safe, where my necessities are met, where I am not impeded upon by another person's agenda and have the freedom to live out my potential as I see fit.
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.” - Sylvia Plath.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
On "Surviving" and Silence
There are so many complications to it: surviving. "Survivor."
I think of all the ways I've been surviving lately, breathing underwater in a stubborn refusal of reality: can't drop out of anything I've gotten into. Suffocating - surviving? I think of surviving - how I haven't updated this blog in what should be considered an absurdly long time for a writer (although I suppose there's been longer). I think of how many times I've come to a blank page with "nothing to say" - how writing my grad school packets becomes torture. I don't want to reveal to you what I know -
"The real question is about love:" Carol Gillian* asserts, "if I love you, will you leave me? It is a child's question: if you leave me, how will I survive?"
And when I say, I don't want to reveal to you what I know, I begin to really mean, I don't want to tell you of this great pivotal source of pain in my life that pushes so many people away, yet happens to have created so much of who I am. I tell myself, knowingly, recognizing it as fair: not everyone wants to know your story - sometimes, it's just too much for them. It doesn't make it better, but everyone has their limits of what they can handle, and that should be respected.
I work anywhere between 30-50 hours a week, dealing with variously traumatized or otherwise injured populations (mental health services, brain injury services, etc.) - and I spend this time attempting to micromanage chaos and crisis, trying to inspire motivation and healing amongst the mundane, the fights, the stubborn refusal to do anything other than watch television. And in this world, I try to pretend my own struggles don't exist - as I feel, professionally, they can't exist. And in interpersonal relationships at work, I make only vague illusions to "struggle" or "dealing with my own stuff" - I grow too afraid to unravel my history before them, watch people ricochet away from me, say things like "she belongs in our services, she's not fit for the job, she can't handle it on top of her own personal history - how can she help other people?"
I smile, oversimplify: "You know - I go to work all day and deal with trauma... and then go home... and study trauma.... It's hard."
I leave out, "and then there's my own trauma to deal with..."
I survive. I go through the day repeatedly catching my chest constricting, remind: breathe. Take in a gulp of air. I survive. And I spend a lot of time involved in my own silence.
It seeps out in dreams of death, of repeated panic attacks in the middle of sleep - dissociating. It leaks out when all I can find is this barring cloud of silence every time I try to write: frustration. It laughs at me as my paranoia escalates over the most casual of conversations, repeatedly reanalyzing the words I did say as if they were so much more worthy and caustic just because they were said. My relationships tremble before me as I wonder how long they'll last, if they'll last when the person becomes closer to me.
I begin living a life precariously on the edge. I begin splitting off from reality, dangerously. Fantasies kick in again and again, illicit if only for the content. Dangerous for their increasing frequency. They suggest another world - one where I ramble, and people listen. One where I confront others and this confrontation is respected. A world where my love is welcomed and reciprocated. I imagine conversations where I detail the ramifications of all I've been through, the consequences of having had my family and my situations - how my present is a conglomerate of the "if I must..." decisions. In these fantasies, people stagger with the weight of living which I am living - in my fantasies, I have witnesses and willing advocates for the traumas I've been through. In my fantasies, I am living in a world where I am laughing, where people realize when you're overstressed and willingly take the extra burdens off your plate without making you feel guilty about it.
I split off into these fantasies, where I am smiling (for once) at the triumphant conversation or the relationship that does not actually exist, leaving the world that's grounding me for the pleasant alternate scenario where hope actually exists and my voice is vibrant and alive. Where the only consequences of my voice are loving relationships, conversations over coffee, late night rendezvous. In this world, there is no awkward stigmatization and distancing, very little of people leaving - and there is generally an increasing acceptance that we're all flawed. It's a particularly unique form of dissociation and coping.
But I always ground myself again: pruning my thoughts and words, reprimanding myself on time wasted. I try to place myself back in reality, reading my homework or attending to an assignment. I concoct to-do lists that I can only hope I'll fully attend to. I remember to be elusive around people, protect stories. I try to control my focus, which tends to wane over the unrealistic for hours. I try to live in the silence which, in an almost disturbing sense, becomes my safe and realistic option. My silence becomes, what feels like, my essential survival tool.
Despite the consistent fatigue, the hyper-vigilance, the restraint, my body clutches silence in fear that it would all be much worse if I were not silent: trying to save up what little resources it has. It is an action that routinely begs many questions:
Is silence healthy or unhealthy?
As an advocate for sexual assault survivors, what example do I set by silencing myself?
Am I regressing back into my trauma or am I recognizing and incorporating my trauma into reality?
What are the limits of (hearing, engaging with) trauma in our relationships and working place?
How frequently do we stigmatize and isolate those who've been traumatized?
And, if silence is required to keep one's community from collapsing, how does one interpret the meaning of survival?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
*excerpt from "The Birth of Pleasure" by Carol Gilligan
I think of all the ways I've been surviving lately, breathing underwater in a stubborn refusal of reality: can't drop out of anything I've gotten into. Suffocating - surviving? I think of surviving - how I haven't updated this blog in what should be considered an absurdly long time for a writer (although I suppose there's been longer). I think of how many times I've come to a blank page with "nothing to say" - how writing my grad school packets becomes torture. I don't want to reveal to you what I know -
"The real question is about love:" Carol Gillian* asserts, "if I love you, will you leave me? It is a child's question: if you leave me, how will I survive?"
And when I say, I don't want to reveal to you what I know, I begin to really mean, I don't want to tell you of this great pivotal source of pain in my life that pushes so many people away, yet happens to have created so much of who I am. I tell myself, knowingly, recognizing it as fair: not everyone wants to know your story - sometimes, it's just too much for them. It doesn't make it better, but everyone has their limits of what they can handle, and that should be respected.
I work anywhere between 30-50 hours a week, dealing with variously traumatized or otherwise injured populations (mental health services, brain injury services, etc.) - and I spend this time attempting to micromanage chaos and crisis, trying to inspire motivation and healing amongst the mundane, the fights, the stubborn refusal to do anything other than watch television. And in this world, I try to pretend my own struggles don't exist - as I feel, professionally, they can't exist. And in interpersonal relationships at work, I make only vague illusions to "struggle" or "dealing with my own stuff" - I grow too afraid to unravel my history before them, watch people ricochet away from me, say things like "she belongs in our services, she's not fit for the job, she can't handle it on top of her own personal history - how can she help other people?"
I smile, oversimplify: "You know - I go to work all day and deal with trauma... and then go home... and study trauma.... It's hard."
I leave out, "and then there's my own trauma to deal with..."
I survive. I go through the day repeatedly catching my chest constricting, remind: breathe. Take in a gulp of air. I survive. And I spend a lot of time involved in my own silence.
It seeps out in dreams of death, of repeated panic attacks in the middle of sleep - dissociating. It leaks out when all I can find is this barring cloud of silence every time I try to write: frustration. It laughs at me as my paranoia escalates over the most casual of conversations, repeatedly reanalyzing the words I did say as if they were so much more worthy and caustic just because they were said. My relationships tremble before me as I wonder how long they'll last, if they'll last when the person becomes closer to me.
I begin living a life precariously on the edge. I begin splitting off from reality, dangerously. Fantasies kick in again and again, illicit if only for the content. Dangerous for their increasing frequency. They suggest another world - one where I ramble, and people listen. One where I confront others and this confrontation is respected. A world where my love is welcomed and reciprocated. I imagine conversations where I detail the ramifications of all I've been through, the consequences of having had my family and my situations - how my present is a conglomerate of the "if I must..." decisions. In these fantasies, people stagger with the weight of living which I am living - in my fantasies, I have witnesses and willing advocates for the traumas I've been through. In my fantasies, I am living in a world where I am laughing, where people realize when you're overstressed and willingly take the extra burdens off your plate without making you feel guilty about it.
I split off into these fantasies, where I am smiling (for once) at the triumphant conversation or the relationship that does not actually exist, leaving the world that's grounding me for the pleasant alternate scenario where hope actually exists and my voice is vibrant and alive. Where the only consequences of my voice are loving relationships, conversations over coffee, late night rendezvous. In this world, there is no awkward stigmatization and distancing, very little of people leaving - and there is generally an increasing acceptance that we're all flawed. It's a particularly unique form of dissociation and coping.
But I always ground myself again: pruning my thoughts and words, reprimanding myself on time wasted. I try to place myself back in reality, reading my homework or attending to an assignment. I concoct to-do lists that I can only hope I'll fully attend to. I remember to be elusive around people, protect stories. I try to control my focus, which tends to wane over the unrealistic for hours. I try to live in the silence which, in an almost disturbing sense, becomes my safe and realistic option. My silence becomes, what feels like, my essential survival tool.
Despite the consistent fatigue, the hyper-vigilance, the restraint, my body clutches silence in fear that it would all be much worse if I were not silent: trying to save up what little resources it has. It is an action that routinely begs many questions:
Is silence healthy or unhealthy?
As an advocate for sexual assault survivors, what example do I set by silencing myself?
Am I regressing back into my trauma or am I recognizing and incorporating my trauma into reality?
What are the limits of (hearing, engaging with) trauma in our relationships and working place?
How frequently do we stigmatize and isolate those who've been traumatized?
And, if silence is required to keep one's community from collapsing, how does one interpret the meaning of survival?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
*excerpt from "The Birth of Pleasure" by Carol Gilligan
Monday, February 21, 2011
what is feminism?
Well, I would say, for starters - a good, basic article to read on what feminism is/is not, would be located here: http://blogs.menshealth.com/mh-feminist/the-f-word-an-introduction/2011/01/25/
Aside from that, I'd say that feminism has a lot to do with the concepts of sensitivity, equality, and the openness to learn. There's a lot of systematic oppression that goes in our culture and unless we are the group being oppressed (sometimes even if we are the group being oppressed), we're not even necessarily aware of it. There's a lot of behavior in our culture that has become normalized that really ends up offending/limiting/marginalizing certain populations, and we have to learn to become sensitive, as feminists and individuals in general, to the possibility that we could be offending someone with even the smallest behavior. We need to increasingly challenge our biases and enhance our awareness by participating in what may be perceived as challenging, charged dialects around heterosexism, classism, sexism, racism, ableism, and etc. Essentially, feminism involves the capability to listen to, and attempt to absorb, the stories of the oppressed in an attempt to not only assist the oppressed and broaden our own deepened knowing, but also to help achieve equality, which is feminism's end goal.
I hope that makes sense?
Something Unresolved
There is a voice in me lately that seems to continually beg the question, "Who are you to speak? What makes you important? What do you have to give the world? Why does the world need it?" It's been separating me from those around me here (at Goddard College) - those who who are apt to find the strength in themselves to pursue their study topics. And normally, I'd only post a blog entry if I had a resolution to it - something others could gain from my own struggle. But maybe something will be gained from the mere fact that I am expressing that I am, in fact, struggling - who knows? I am not perfect, and maybe that is the first of many candid confessions I need to make. I am struggling with the fact that I need to let a large part of myself go in order to let an even larger part of myself in, a part which I have yet to explore or understand. I'm grappling with the idea of self-progress, of determining "right"ness. I'm continually turning around to visit the perfectionist part of me with the new lens of mine that knows it's time to put the perfectionism away, to let the compassion in. I'm feeling splintered - torn in this rift of unknowing. I struggle with the dichotomies within myself, some of which are a result of personal trauma - while other are results of social trauma (oppression against women, for example). And I know I must recognize that whatever I'm feeling at any moment is okay to be feeling, to settle simply into that moment. It is surprisingly challenging, this idea of finding "home" in self.
[excerpt from a study plan preface, with my study plan still pending...]
If I were to summarize, I write,
I think I've struck all the poetry from my body,
a dull axe swaying
in the forests of being -
I jot down in my notebook: Where is home? I write on twitter, where is home for the sexual assault survivor, for the typical woman - where do we ground ourselves? what is our center? If everything were to come together to a right place, what would that place be? What would that place look like? Who would I be, as an illustration of my home? In relation to body, what does home feel like?
The questions linger, and I know they are the right ones. And I think that I must think like Rilke:
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
And I must ask myself what are the arguments that go on inside my house? What is the story, the dialogue it continually returns to? I must lay myself down before my house, open to the exposure and shame of “thawing out” and redeeming myself to myself, a moment in pride and a recital in self. Do I study the movement of my intentions? Or the intentions of my movement? How do I give voice to the body, and my voice a body in its own right? How do I make love a fence lining all the words in my speech? How do I grow unstuck from the patriarchal patterns I have inherited in my family? What dynamics come unspun by my one movement? My mind repeatedly confronts the question: “who am I and how am I to break this chain? If those before me were not strong enough to confront it, how will I be able to grapple with it? How long will it take?” One body with many voices, all screaming to be one fluid resource for healing.
Breathe in, breathe out, let go deeply. If you were to think of one word of what you’d need right now, what would it be –
COMPASSION: a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
What are the voices we internalize as women? What are the voices we internalize as sexual assault survivors? What are the voices we internalize as incest survivors? What are the roles we adopt as family members? What are the voices of the traumatized? How do voices of this dysfunctional family manifest? What about the voices of mental illness? The voices of the progressive education? The voice that keeps struggling for its own definition, the voice that’s afraid, the voice that asks for more? The voice that wants redemption sung out loud?
PERFECTIONISM: a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less.
There is a need to address the idea of wholeness versus brokenness, society’s notions of right and wrong –
How do we love ourselves in a society that demands perfection?
How do we love ourselves in a society that demands perfection for women?
DICHOTOMY: division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.
2.
division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.
How do we love ourselves as sexual assault survivors in a society that demands perfection for women – that deems we are already broken? How do we recover from the trauma of dealing with societal perceptions? What is freedom?
DOUBLE STANDARD: any code or set of principles containing different provisions for one group of people than for another, especially an unwritten code of sexual behavior permitting men more freedom than women. Compare single standard.
I have yet to find the answer(s).
[excerpt from a study plan preface, with my study plan still pending...]
If I were to summarize, I write,
I think I've struck all the poetry from my body,
a dull axe swaying
in the forests of being -
I jot down in my notebook: Where is home? I write on twitter, where is home for the sexual assault survivor, for the typical woman - where do we ground ourselves? what is our center? If everything were to come together to a right place, what would that place be? What would that place look like? Who would I be, as an illustration of my home? In relation to body, what does home feel like?
The questions linger, and I know they are the right ones. And I think that I must think like Rilke:
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
And I must ask myself what are the arguments that go on inside my house? What is the story, the dialogue it continually returns to? I must lay myself down before my house, open to the exposure and shame of “thawing out” and redeeming myself to myself, a moment in pride and a recital in self. Do I study the movement of my intentions? Or the intentions of my movement? How do I give voice to the body, and my voice a body in its own right? How do I make love a fence lining all the words in my speech? How do I grow unstuck from the patriarchal patterns I have inherited in my family? What dynamics come unspun by my one movement? My mind repeatedly confronts the question: “who am I and how am I to break this chain? If those before me were not strong enough to confront it, how will I be able to grapple with it? How long will it take?” One body with many voices, all screaming to be one fluid resource for healing.
Breathe in, breathe out, let go deeply. If you were to think of one word of what you’d need right now, what would it be –
COMPASSION: a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
What are the voices we internalize as women? What are the voices we internalize as sexual assault survivors? What are the voices we internalize as incest survivors? What are the roles we adopt as family members? What are the voices of the traumatized? How do voices of this dysfunctional family manifest? What about the voices of mental illness? The voices of the progressive education? The voice that keeps struggling for its own definition, the voice that’s afraid, the voice that asks for more? The voice that wants redemption sung out loud?
PERFECTIONISM: a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less.
There is a need to address the idea of wholeness versus brokenness, society’s notions of right and wrong –
How do we love ourselves in a society that demands perfection?
How do we love ourselves in a society that demands perfection for women?
DICHOTOMY: division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.
2.
division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.
How do we love ourselves as sexual assault survivors in a society that demands perfection for women – that deems we are already broken? How do we recover from the trauma of dealing with societal perceptions? What is freedom?
DOUBLE STANDARD: any code or set of principles containing different provisions for one group of people than for another, especially an unwritten code of sexual behavior permitting men more freedom than women. Compare single standard.
I have yet to find the answer(s).
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
how does it feel to be starting grad school so soon? what are you doing specifically?
Honestly, it feels stressful, mainly. But I think this is my perfectionist talking - I had a lot of things I ideally wanted to accomplish and catch up with before grad school started. Realistically I also hadn't planned on starting grad school so soon, and lately, I'm even remembering the time I graduated high school thinking, laughably, that MAYBE I'd go to graduate school. Such surreal memories. Things changed and I can honestly say the economy had a large influence on my decision to go back to school - after reading so many Craigslist job ads and fending off monthly undergraduate loan payments, I decided it was the best decision for me to make. WHICH ISN'T TO SAY I won't enjoy and didn't enjoy selecting the program I'm going to attend in exactly ONE DAY. I firmly believe the program I selected was the right choice for me, and that it'll likely be beneficial for me on both a personal and a professional level - forcing me to grow in ways that standardized education ignored and frequently reinforced (see: lack of self-care and perfectionist habits). While I chose going back to grad school for “logical, responsible person” reasons, I chose the school I’m attending for the heart of it – and for the passion in me. If I didn’t find a suitable program for me, I likely would’ve continued floundering with undergrad loan payments every month. Which is to say – I’m also greatly looking forward to meeting like minds and I do have waves of excitement about the whole ordeal as well – they’re just currently bogged down by fear of having to change my habits and pondering if I’ll have enough time to execute everything I want to execute.
What I’m doing specifically is a really good question – particularly because I sent in, and got accepted with, a completely over-ambitious study plan that I’m almost certain will be completely modified even within the first residency I attend (tomorrow). I basically want to further my studies, which began in my undergraduate independent study, where I studied gendered sexualized language dynamics (the words we use to constrain or liberate a woman’s sexuality) and the impacts they have upon a woman’s mind and physiology, her actions. I also want to hone in on sexual assault survivors – and then bring more creative writing to it, as well as some bodywork and a bit more background on the basic physiology of trauma. Lots to do in such little time – I’m almost certain my grad program will fly by me in a very cumbersome, challenging sort of way.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
The Body as Home: A Creative Writing Prompt from an Incest Survivor
I was wandering around Nothampton, MA lately, trying to de-stress, thinking about bodies. I'm not sure if, at that point, "forcible rape" had been temporarily pushed into the HR-3 document, but I know I was definitely thinking of pro-choice arguments. I was thinking of generic trauma and recovery, the body's psychosomatic memories. How important, at the end of the day, all our bodies are - that we respect and encourage them to grow as part of our own wholeness. It's a concept I struggle with on a personal level, so maybe that's why I can't get the subject of "body" dislodged from my head yet. Bodies: it stuck, and continues to stick there as an undercurrent. Bodies - and so, (bodies), as I was walking around Northampton, (bodies) I stumbled across this quote: "we may leave a house, but never its memories, its voices," and thought to myself "BODIES! What if we were to view our bodies as houses? Homes for all our memories? If our bodies were homes, what would the story of their life be? How would our bodies be represented as homes? How would we treat our homes (bodies)? Are we treating our bodies as dearly as we are treating the concept of "home"?
And I took that big, whopping (redundant enthusiasm!) idea and I ran with it (notably my whole passage is tinted at and addressed towards my experiences as an incest survivor). So, down below, I'm going to show you what I came up with as "my house as body that can never leave its memories or voices," the natural trauma state.
Prompt:
BODIES! What if we were to view our bodies as houses? Homes for all our memories? If our bodies were homes, what would the story of their life be? How would our bodies be represented as homes? How would we treat our homes (bodies)? Are we treating our bodies as dear to us as we are treating the concept of "home"?
"we may leave a house, but never its memories, its voices" - Stoneheart and Company (Dianne Hanna)
I catch the precipice of my falling at every windowsill, my unspoken screams reverberating against the white walls of my youth, voice shrinking, cluttered, caught stammering beneath the taut barriers of my skin. The beams are cracked and bleeding, falling apart: these are the vessels of the house, the circulatory system, the things that help it stand. Everything overflows here: the grief doesn’t stop for any plumber (nor any contracted relationship trying to clear it out), no matter how genuine and honest. People come and go, and I remain – and my body remains – and we will be at odds with each other until I can see the floors again, when I stop getting splintered from trying to fix the beams of me: Splintering at the touch – is this what it feels like to continue to renovate a house for years with little to no progress? Useless, the voices hang around me: the criticism creaks up at me as I press against the floorboards – “stupid bitch,” it says – and it used to be louder. It fills up the corridors of my house like a great phantom. Like this, I am haunted, with my past on me no matter where I go, strangling the method of breathing... I feel the tremors in my body, the earthquake lying sporadically alive beneath the foundation of my house: every memory surfacing at its own capricious, haphazard leisure. The fires of my youth pop up and spill as if candles licking curtains, the anger unleashes itself over all the furniture, the places I might sit or rest: my body agitated with the persistent burning and dousing: the cooling and reigniting of self. Never dormant: the house continually echoes. There are animals resting in the crevices of all my thoughts, chewing away slowly, scurrying up the brave limits of my sanity. These voices I know are not my own: but they are inside me, they consume me. I am only a person with walls: walls, walls, walls meant to be knocked down and built up again – but I am so much thicker than walls, so easily plastered in the moment: phrases tacked upon me, feelings framed on my very surface. Age grows on me decadently, carving out my features, decaying the connections. I am regal in all the stories I have grown to tell, every limb slung tiredly over another: my body collapsing into bone. An artifact, a testament: I know the damages of my livelihood and the need for redemption, healing, renovation. I seek the carpenter who knows, by vicarious intuition, the thrum of my body’s honesty as vibrantly as I know my foundation.
So, although my experiences with my "body as home" were written from the perspective of an incest survivor, I know everyone has their own unique relationship with their bodies, and therefore, what they write could radically deviate from what I've written, and address topics such as weight, pain, disability, violence, society judgements, or even aging (see "Crossroads," a beautiful poem on this by Louise Gluck), ETC. And I encourage (mainly because I would love to read) everyone to give this prompt a try - and while you don't have to show anyone (and you can keep it as private and confidential as you want), I know I'd love to read some of your responses. Consider all this, please. In the meantime...
Thank you for treating your body as a home, tenderly and with consideration. Thank you for building up your body strong and unique, soft and considerate. Thank you for living in your body at this time in your life, thank you for considering other bodies. Thank your body for being a beacon of self, an extension of who you naturally are.
And I took that big, whopping (redundant enthusiasm!) idea and I ran with it (notably my whole passage is tinted at and addressed towards my experiences as an incest survivor). So, down below, I'm going to show you what I came up with as "my house as body that can never leave its memories or voices," the natural trauma state.
Prompt:
BODIES! What if we were to view our bodies as houses? Homes for all our memories? If our bodies were homes, what would the story of their life be? How would our bodies be represented as homes? How would we treat our homes (bodies)? Are we treating our bodies as dear to us as we are treating the concept of "home"?
"we may leave a house, but never its memories, its voices" - Stoneheart and Company (Dianne Hanna)
I catch the precipice of my falling at every windowsill, my unspoken screams reverberating against the white walls of my youth, voice shrinking, cluttered, caught stammering beneath the taut barriers of my skin. The beams are cracked and bleeding, falling apart: these are the vessels of the house, the circulatory system, the things that help it stand. Everything overflows here: the grief doesn’t stop for any plumber (nor any contracted relationship trying to clear it out), no matter how genuine and honest. People come and go, and I remain – and my body remains – and we will be at odds with each other until I can see the floors again, when I stop getting splintered from trying to fix the beams of me: Splintering at the touch – is this what it feels like to continue to renovate a house for years with little to no progress? Useless, the voices hang around me: the criticism creaks up at me as I press against the floorboards – “stupid bitch,” it says – and it used to be louder. It fills up the corridors of my house like a great phantom. Like this, I am haunted, with my past on me no matter where I go, strangling the method of breathing... I feel the tremors in my body, the earthquake lying sporadically alive beneath the foundation of my house: every memory surfacing at its own capricious, haphazard leisure. The fires of my youth pop up and spill as if candles licking curtains, the anger unleashes itself over all the furniture, the places I might sit or rest: my body agitated with the persistent burning and dousing: the cooling and reigniting of self. Never dormant: the house continually echoes. There are animals resting in the crevices of all my thoughts, chewing away slowly, scurrying up the brave limits of my sanity. These voices I know are not my own: but they are inside me, they consume me. I am only a person with walls: walls, walls, walls meant to be knocked down and built up again – but I am so much thicker than walls, so easily plastered in the moment: phrases tacked upon me, feelings framed on my very surface. Age grows on me decadently, carving out my features, decaying the connections. I am regal in all the stories I have grown to tell, every limb slung tiredly over another: my body collapsing into bone. An artifact, a testament: I know the damages of my livelihood and the need for redemption, healing, renovation. I seek the carpenter who knows, by vicarious intuition, the thrum of my body’s honesty as vibrantly as I know my foundation.
So, although my experiences with my "body as home" were written from the perspective of an incest survivor, I know everyone has their own unique relationship with their bodies, and therefore, what they write could radically deviate from what I've written, and address topics such as weight, pain, disability, violence, society judgements, or even aging (see "Crossroads," a beautiful poem on this by Louise Gluck), ETC. And I encourage (mainly because I would love to read) everyone to give this prompt a try - and while you don't have to show anyone (and you can keep it as private and confidential as you want), I know I'd love to read some of your responses. Consider all this, please. In the meantime...
Thank you for treating your body as a home, tenderly and with consideration. Thank you for building up your body strong and unique, soft and considerate. Thank you for living in your body at this time in your life, thank you for considering other bodies. Thank your body for being a beacon of self, an extension of who you naturally are.
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