the first time i was raped

 so, if the title wasn't clear enough, this will be about rape.

if you have experienced rape, please be cautious reading this post, please protect yourself and your mental health. some of this things may be triggering or cause flashbacks if you've been through a similar experience.

your safety is the most important.

i've never told this whole story to anyone before. i've told parts of it. but stories deserve to be told in their whole. you can't acknowledge the truth without acknowledging the WHOLE truth. when you leave out or dismiss parts, say they're not as important, it makes that part stay there and hold on still waiting to be seen and heard.

so. here it is. in the whole.

the first time i was raped i was 18 or 19. i don't remember exactly when, i already had my son, but hadn't moved for college yet. it must have been late 1999, early 2000.

my brother had graduated from community college and taken a job as a sheriff deputy a few hours away from where we grew up.

one weekend he invited me to come stay with him and his roommate. a rare weekend away for me, the closest thing to a vacation a single teen mom could get.

the night i stayed, my brother ended up getting called into work, so he got his roommate to agree to take me to dinner so i wouldn't be stuck just sitting in their apartment with nothing to do.

the roommate and i drove and hour over the 4th of july pass for dinner. it was a fairly nice restaurant. i remember it was all wood walls, like, logs of wood, and maroon table cloths. any place with a table cloth was fancy to me.

i had never met my brother's roommate before this. he was a regular dude, early 20's. nothing particularly stood out about him, i don't even remember his name. his dad was the sheriff so that's how he had met my brother and they ended up roommates i guess? never really new how that happened.

the guy was super intense right from the beginning. during dinner the conversation somehow turned to his plans for marriage and how he wanted to get married and settle down right away. it was a LOT. i remember my antennae perking up and being annoyed right away. being a teen mom, i had very quickly come to recognize what i called "white knight syndrome" where guys would try to "save" me or "rescue" me from my perilous plight. it was incredibly insulting. i was in college, had my own apartment, i was raising my son. i didn't need RESCUED. i didn't need SAVED. i wasn't baby daddy hunting to get some guy to take care of me, I WAS TAKING CARE OF ME. 

it had happened a few times before and i already knew very well how angry guys could get when you have to break the news to them that you're not a damsel in distress and you're not particularly interested.

this time was just a little more tricky since we still had to drive an hour back to their apartment FOR THE WEEKEND

i knew how to be polite but not answer questions, change the subject, try to avoid the inevitable awkward conversation of "no, thank you."

by the time we got in the car to head back over the pass, the guy was saying that i was the perfect woman and i was a perfect mother and would make the perfect wife. it was so incredibly uncomfortable. i had known this guy for 2 hours: one driving, one dinner. and he was telling me i would make his perfect wife??

i was creeped the fuck out. i was so uncomfortable but had no other way to get back to my brother's apartment and no way to get home and no way to...anything. i don't even know if i had a cell phone then. or maybe did but it wouldn't have had much reception. there was no uber, no lyft, i had to ride back with this guy so i just tried to keep as quiet as possible.

on the drive back the guy "suddenly remembered" that he had promised friends that were out of town he would feed their dogs for the weekend, it was on the way.

i don't know where we were. we turned off the highway and he drove 20 minutes up a dirt road into the mountains to a cabin.

any alarm bells that had started to go off were quieted when we got to a really nice big cabin/house. lights were on, inside was very nice. very country cabin, big kitchen leading to a great room with a nice couch in front of the fireplace to the left, and a kitchen table/chairs to the right. he went right in, all the alarm bells went away, this was ok. it was a real house. these were real dogs. it was ok.

 i sat down on the couch while he fed the 2 huge dogs, shepards i think, and he offered to pour me a soda (i wasn't 21 yet). it tasted weird to me, but it was a ginger ale and i didn't like the taste anyway.

but it turned. something started to seem odd. he was too familiar with the house, moved around like he was comfortable in it. it was a regular country house. i had several friends that had grown up dirt roads in beautiful cabin homes. i was a city girl through and through. but country homes were always so beautiful and elegant to me. but he was too comfortable...it felt like...like he had home court advantage.

things get hazy from there. i remember starting to feel not right. there was a bedroom to the right of the couch and there was a bed straight ahead as you walked into the room.

i did NOT want to have sex with this guy.

i had *just* had a baby. sex was traumatic and scary and life changing for me. i did NOT want to get pregnant again. i was also still very religious and conservative back then. i was not into casual sex with someone i had JUST met.

also, i didn't like the guy. i had no plans on ever seeing him again, ever. i just wanted to get back to hanging out with my brother for the weekend then home to my baby and work and school.

it didn't go that way though.

i told him no so many times.

i remember "just the tip" and "just a little more" and not much else.

i don't remember leaving that cabin.

i don't remember going back to my brother's apartment.

i don't remember much else of that weekend.

there was a cave in at the mine where the roommate worked and he was stuck underground the whole day, keeping me safe away from him until i left to go home.

i tried to tell my brother.

he assured me his roommate would never do that.

i somehow reasoned that the roommate breaking his leg and being stuck in a landslide was enough of a swift karmic punishment that i should just stuff it down and pretend it never happened.

because i thought i deserved it.

i mean, i was a teen mom. i was damaged goods. i had baggage. i was trash. i had sex outside of marriage before, obviously it meant i was "that way." i was LUCKY someone like him would even take me out to dinner. i was LUCKY someone "didn't mind" that i had a kid already, i was LUCKY someone didn't care that i was damaged goods.

these are the things that lived in my head. these were thing things people whispered that they thought i didn't hear. these are the things the ladies in the church said to try to be reassuring. this is the way my mom treated me. hell, my own brother didn't even believe me. he believed some roommate he'd had for a few months over me, his sister.

i was LUCKY any man was willing to sweep in and rescue me and that very thing infuriated me more than anything.

i've spent a LOT of years with those voices in my head. i was admittedly a bit quick on the eject button any time a date talked about taking care of me. being fiercely independent and PROVING i didn't need someone to take care of me became my main focus.

hell, it still is.

i've been trying to prove to everyone for 20 years that i don't need someone to take care of me. ESPECIALLY with someone who would treat me like that guy did.

well, i did not see that coming.

there's an old writing legend of the story taking a turn even the writer didn't see coming.

what do you know, that's a real thing.

i'm really struggling with control right now. it's been a month of unemployment and i've been on a few interviews but have yet to land anything.

i'm scared. i'm fucking terrified.

and i'm going to have to ask for help.

i'm going to have to say i can't do it on my own.

i knew that was going to be hard because i don't like to give up control, who does?

but it's been more than that. there's a looming sense of failure. there's a fear of needing rescued.

this feeling that saying i need help now somehow means i deserved to be raped then.

whew. that's a hefty one to unpack.

that's what happens when you stuff trauma down for 20 years. i doesn't go away. it just hangs out waiting for you.

i've been carrying that around for 20 years. that feeling of: if i fail it means i deserved it. i should have been grateful. i did need a white knight. i should have been glad someone was willing to tolerate my damaged, less than self.

whew.

but here's the thing.

it doesn't matter how "damaged" i was. it doesn't matter how much "baggage" i came with. it doesn't matter ANY of it. it doesn't matter how lucky some people thought i should feel.

I DID NOT DESERVE TO BE RAPED.

full stop.

i said no. i did NOT want to have sex.

end of discussion.

anything happening NOW, twenty years later, does not change that.

needing help now, in the middle of a global pandemic and record unemployment and record deaths and political and social unrest and unexpected unemployment does not mean i deserved to be raped then.

needing help anywhere between then and now would not have meant i deserved it.

time to let that one go.

worst case scenario game

 one of the best and worst parts of having a writer's brain is the creativity. the imagination. the ability to think of 100 different scenarios and possibilities.

when you're trying to problem solve or trying to find the right words or having a discussion with someone, the ability to see a thousand different possibilities is an amazing thing.

when you're alone, and left to your own devices, however, as with any gift, it can turn into a curse.

there's things in life i'll never have the answers to. dates who have never showed up. people who made vicious comments out of nowhere. communications that have ended without resolution.

when you can think of a million different reasons and plot lines and scenarios, your ability to think of all think of all those possibilities quickly becomes...it's worst case scenario game lightning round.

it's been 10 years since my dad died. national news level died. there were a lot of questions and investigations and a gag order on the case and then it just...went away.

i never found out what happened.

there were so many questions, so many theories, so many different ideas- was it gang activity? was it something related to the governor? was it something to do with the union? was it the guy that had threatened to kill me after he was deported following a traffic stop? was it an accident? was it intentional? what started the fire? how did all three NOT make it out? medical reports didn't match what people were saying. timelines didn't match up.

maybe they all did in the end. maybe there was a completely basic boring answer in a report no one bothered to tell me about. i'll never know.

and when you have a brain like mine, that's hard. it's been a lot of work to not become obsessed or turn into a gerard butler movie.

 

 

 

 

i had to come terms pretty quickly. i didn't have the time or energy to be curious or worry about getting a real answer. i had kids to raise. i had to make sure there were groceries and sports equipment and a "normal life" after a year long campaign of trauma.

it was a LOT dealing with so much death in such a short time. 

suddenly, here i am 10 years later. 

i think the biggest lesson i'm still learning is how to wrangle that worst case scenario mindset.

yes, the ability to create a all the different possibilities and options and choose your own adventure avenues is amazing.

but of all those scenarios and options and paths my mind has wandered down about my personal life, what's going to happen, all the time and energy i've spent worrying and letting anxiety wreak havoc in my mind, NONE. absolutely NONE of them have been true or real. i could have never thought up the path my life has taken in the last 10 years.

i've spent so many hours. SO MANY HOURS. so much energy. so much time worrying. playing the worst case scenario game. 

and i have had so many completely different absolute worst case scenarios happen anyway.

all the worrying and imagining did was take away the energy for when i actually needed it. i was so exhausted worrying about what was going to happen that when something DID happen i was already drained.

this year in particular i think has been a little bit of that for everyone. the news stories are so outrageous and world events are things writers all over are laughing because they know their script or plot with any one of these events would have been rejected as "unbelievable."

i didn't expect to be fired in the middle of a global pandemic for standing up for mental health care because 5+ months of self-isolation mixed with nationwide social unrest due to police brutality led to massive widespread brutality and the government is being dismantled right in front of us and there's not a damn thing any of us can do about it for MONTHS and we just have to...yeah...you get the point.

that is not even a possibility i could have dreamed up 6 months ago.

and yet, here i am, one week in to being unemployed.

i am terrified.

my brain has moments of not being my friend right now.

that worst case scenario lightening round is right there. i've spiraled a few times already.

it's a real quick trip some really, really dark places.

when you start wondering if it would really be so bad to hope maybe you're one of the bad/quick virus cases...it's time to take a moment and step back a little bit.

i'm learning to not listen to that option. that's all it is, one of the thousands of options.

and just as quickly as i can spiral in the positive direction, maybe i'll find a million dollars on the street tomorrow...

but that's wasted energy too.

i'm learning to just take a breath, and do what i can right now.

 

right now i can apply for jobs. right now i can follow up on financial aid paperwork. right now i can have a dance party in my livingroom. right now i can practice yoga and meditation and work on helping my brain be kinder and not do those exhaustive spirals in either direction.

 

i can channel that energy into writing. into creating, but i need to stop letting that energy run me down and dominate my thinking.

funny how it keeps coming back to writing. it always does. you'd think after 40 years on this earth i'd quit fighting the thing that has been a part of me since the beginning. 

BUT, my extremely slow learning curve aside, the point is that i am learning. i am recognizing behaviors that don't work for me anymore. i'm working on changing them.

it's hard. that anxiety spiral is right there. a six shooter on each hip of terrible things, locked, loaded, always ready to go. 

well, isn't that a particularly interesting analogy for someone who does not like guns, at all.

the thing that is the worst for me, my most dangerous behavior, i just compared to an object i strongly regard as dangerous and deadly.

i'm sure a shrink would have a field day with that.

i think it's time to retire from the worst case scenario game, at least personally.

how long have i been saying i'm tired y'all? 

maybe it's time to stop exhausting myself.

maybe it's time to just focus on today. today i can do what i need to do and that is enough.

if you build it...

so.

the world is trash and i hate everything.

but.

the world does keep turning and the sun does keep fucking appearing every morning, so i guess i need to knock the dirt off my boots and just keep fucking going.

so. fine. you fucking win universe.

i'll actually do the thing that i know i'm supposed to do when everything turns to shit: i'll fucking write.

FINE.

i'm so fucking annoyed right now.

fine. i'll do the thing that helps. 

AND WHEN IT WORKS AND IT DOES HELP...

what?

i'll be better?

YEAH. I GET IT.

fine.

i'll fucking write.

so.

the world is shit and i hate everything, and when that happens i like to dream about a better place. shocking, earth shattering information right there.

i'm sure i'm absoluely the only person that does that.

for, well, forever, my dream place has been a little single wide trailer on a little piece of land.

i'm still mad i passed up the opportunity to buy a trailer and a 1/4 plot for $2000 back in 1998 because my mom convinced me it was trashy.

damnit.

i dream about it all the time. a little air stream, a little singlewide. just a little place on a little piece of land. that's it.

having kids, it was never practical. we had to be in town near schools so they could walk home or to daycare while i was at work.

we had THE BEST set up for years when we first moved to spokane- school was 4 blocks one direction, daycare was 4 blocks beyond that, work was less than a mile the other direction and the grocery store was only two blocks past work. it was a DREAM. little stand alone house, fenced back yard, washer and dryer, enough bedrooms that i was able to have a live in nanny/friend for a while.

then the landlord forgot to pay his mortgage and we got kicked out 2 weeks before it went to auction. 

fast forward to now and it's just me.

my studio apartment is tiny and perfect. 

and now tiny house living is a thing.

holy.

fuck.

ya'll, i have a serious pinterest addiction to tiny houses.

i. am. OBSESSED. with tiny house living.

dirty little secret: i applied to go back to community college to get an interior design degree so i can design tiny houses.

long story short i was accepted! yay! but applied to the wrong school that doesn't have the program and now have to start again and then depression and then here we are and i haven't applied again.

BUT.

tiny house living.

omg.

my dream is to buy a trailer park or a piece of land and make a tiny house community.

a tiny house every other lot, the buffer spaces are a shared community garden, a pet area, a shop/garage for oil changes/auto repair/wood working/whatever, one is an open shared yard area, you get the idea.

AND, step further, the intentional community is for kids aging out of the foster system. provide a place for them to learn to build a safe, stable home in an intentional community of shared experience. rent would go toward hiring local people from the community to come in and teach classes available to help the community to learn how to start out a stable adult life. cooking classes, budgeting classes, yoga classes, oil changes, change a tire, how to make doctors appointments, time management, how to apply to jobs, how to interview, basic home repairs...again, you get the idea.

just, a safe place to help fill in some of the gaps that may have been overlooked because i don't think it's any big secret how chaotic and challenging the foster system can be and how some of these kids age out with no where to go.

they say: be the thing you needed.

i needed help when i started out. i was a 17 year old kid with a kid.

i didn't have a lot of room for mistakes.

i could have used a safe place.

so, how amazing would it be to help make that for someone else?

in a gorgeous little trailer park of tiny houses.

so.

there. i did it.

i wrote.

i focused on something that energizes me and excites me.

and i fucking feel better.

ARE YOU HAPPY UNIVERSE?

the world is trash and i hate everything

so. normally when i write i try to not whine, not pity party, not complain without solution, i try to find some silver lining. i try to...i don't know what the fuck i try to do.

i vomit out what's in my brain, but through a filter.

filter is fucking off today.

i fucking hate EVERYTHING.

i fucking LOATHE my job. this isn't the first job i've said that about but this is the worst.

i had a job where the girlfriend of the owner threatened to burn down the building with me inside (she thought i slept with him to get the job. not so much).

i had a job where a coworker would grope my breasts every time he walked by my desk (and the female owner let him apologize by hugging me).

i had a job where i was accused of trying to blackmail the boss AFTER i had already resigned (because i turned him in to HR for illegally bypassing the bidding process for on site contractor work).

i had a job where i listened to coworkers complain about what trash single moms are. the same coworker would go on racist rants about the BLM movement (back during the ferguson protests), LGBTQIA, any minority group.

i had a job where the owner defended a political manifesto stating gays should be killed if they wouldn't convert to being straight.

i had a job where the owner was a literal pimp (it was a furniture store as a cover business).

but this job...holy fuck man. this job is worse than all those. i've been employed a little over 9 months and i dread waking up every day. my entire job is to spend all day talking to comcast, verizon, att, all the nationally recognized WORST customer service platforms. all while corporate is shoving metrics and performance requirements down our throats while in the midst of a pandemic that has us working from home, paying for our own internet and now requiring us to use our personal devices to "help" transition their platform update (with zero compensation). they promise a great insurance package and forget to tell you the deductible is cost prohibitive. they intentionally list their jobs with zero insight into what the *actual* work is, and then require you to be a specialist from your first day on the job (even with zero training) while paying a non-living wage. they have an HR team that pretends to care and want to help and then management that punishes you for speaking out. they have executive leadership telling us we need to make sure to use our vacation time because it costs the company too much money if we don't.

WHERE THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO TAKE A VACATION RIGHT NOW YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING TWATS?

i dread clocking in every day. i cry on a daily basis because i hate it SO MUCH.

and so i try to find something else. 

i apply to any and every job i might even tangentially be qualified for or be able to learn.

i search every job board i can find on a daily basis.

i go on IN PERSON interviews, during a fucking pandemic, just to never ever hear from a fucking company again.

I RISKED GOING TO AN HVAC COMPANY FOR AN INTERVIEW JUST TO BE GHOSTED.

a fucking HVAC company. their 50 employees are in and out of houses and businesses ALL DAY LONG. and i risked going there for an in person interview just to be fucking treated like i don't fucking exist. just straight up ghosted. "...we'll call you tomorrow either way..." and expect me to fucking believe it.

i've lost a handful of friends since this fucking pandemic bullshit started and i didn't have many to begin with.

i've been isolated for MONTHS with my only human interaction being the curb side pick up orders at target or fred meyer. 

even stella is fucking sick of me.

i have daily thoughts of death again.

my anxiety is off the fucking charts.

i smoke weed constantly to try to calm my thoughts and allow my mind a few minutes of non-terrible death filled thinking only to be told i can't apply for jobs because they drug screen.

i fucking HATE everything.

i'm lonely.

i'm terrified.

i have no one to TALK to and bounce ideas off and stop me when i spiral.

yeah, i can snapchat or text but it isn't the same.

i'm just....

it's bad right now.

july is the start of a few fucking MONTHS for me every year. and i know memories only hold the power we let them. i know we control our own thoughts.

buy july is when tyra and roman died. when steve had his TBI that led to his suicide. july is my mother's and my oldest son's birthday. july leads into august when my dad and anne and christopher died.

i fucking DREAD this time of year. all the milestones.

this year is 10 years since my dad died.

ten fucking years.

what happened in the last 10 years? i had to cut all communication with my mother because she chooses to stay married to a pedophile. both my kids had to leave my home due to violence and threats (and drugs for the younger one). my career has been absolutely destroyed. my finances have been gutted. my mental heath has been absolutely wrecked.

and i know.

I KNOW ALL THE FUCKING THINGS.

i know i have to be the one to change my thinking and my behaviors.

i have to be the one to make things better.

i have to find the positive. i have to find the solutions. i have to...all the self help books. i get it.  i know.

i know if you only focus on the negative, the negative will be all you see.

i know good things have happened. i do have good memories and good experiences. 

but they're fucking few and far between.
 
and i'm so fucking tired.

i've been trying to make things better for 22 years, alone, with no help.

i've done therapy. financial workshops. tried to learn cooking. educated myself. tried new things. searched for better answers. tried every out of the box idea. i've done religion, spirituality. i've meditated and prayed and tried fucking tarot cards.

i have tried for twenty two years to make a better life and here i am.

and i fucking hate it and everything is terrible.

i'm tired of middle aged white dudes fucking up my career.

i'm tired of all ages of dudes fucking up my self worth and self image.

i'm tired of abusive relationships and shitty behaviors.

i'm tired of rape and sexual assault.

i'm tired of body shaming and mocking my intelligence and my beliefs.

i'm fucking tired.

i'm tired of constantly feeling not enough. worthless.

i'm tired of being told over and over it's my fault. it's up to me. i have to make it better.

I'VE BEEN TRYING MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE TO MAKE ME BETTER.

and i'm still a fucking pile of shit that gets stepped on and ground down.

i'm tired of being the one trying to sort out and change generational trauma.

i'm fucking tired.

i don't know what else to do.

i don't know what else to try.

i need fucking help.

i need someone to help me process ideas. someone to listen and rell me when i'm being a fucking asshole and when it's fucking valid.

i need someone to hug me and stroke my hair and tell me it will be all right even if it won't be.

i need someone else to worry about the groceries and the bills and the laundry and meals and cleaning.

stella will help with the eating, but she's absolute shit at meal prep.

i fucking hate everything so much.

everything feels like swimming through quicksand with fucking cement shoes right now.

oh, and the world is fucking ending too.

i hate it all. all of it.

i'm so fucking tired.

acceptance

one of the most annoying things possible is when the universe thinks it's being funny.

i sat down to meditate tonight and asked the universe for a word to focus on.

things have been...pretty rough lately. it's been getting pretty dark.

i had a meeting today that could possibly result in some major stress relief (intentionally vague until the outcome is settled), but right now i have all this stress in my brain. this meeting, work, life, the world, and with everything going on and is now the right time for ANYTHING? but now is the only time we have...my brain has just been on full OVERTHINK mode, so i decided to use my therapy tools, do what i know works for me and sit down and meditate on it.

and i asked the universe for a word to focus my meditation on:

ACCEPTANCE

backtrack just a bit: one of my forms of stress relief the last few weeks has been crafting and making things (and plants. so many plants). one of the projects that i did was using some of the clay you can bake to make a bunch of little meditation stones. they're nothing fancy, just little discs of all shapes and sizes.

words are incredibly powerful to me, so i'm taking these meditation stones and writing the words that are given to me when i meditate. reminders of different moments of struggle or clarity or insight or just MOMENTS.

and tonight when i asked for a word to write down, the word was ACCEPTANCE.

i am, if nothing else, a complete nerd, and, in true nerd fashion, i wanted to make sure i had an accurate definition before i started meditating.

so i looked up acceptance.

if you're me, in my brain, i think of acceptance as: well fuck. this is going to suck but i gotta get through it. grant me the serenity to ACCEPT the things i cannot change.

the definition technically is: willingness to tolerate a difficult situation.

*sigh*

yup.

that sounds about right.

learn to accept things. learn to tolerate things. be willing to trudge through the shit storm.

but then the universe, in it's grand sense of humor, reminded me via google of the OTHER meaning of acceptance:

the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.

you get ACCEPTED into college. you accept a marriage proposal. you accept an award.

 
and, i just have to say. DAMN IT UNIVERSE.  well played, good sir, well played.

for real though, how fucking annoying is that? here's a word that can have two VERY different meanings. HAVE FUN MEDITATING ON THAT ONE.

i'm so annoyed.

but, meditate i did and it really hit like a 2x4: HEY DUMBASS. MAYBE QUIT FOCUSING ON JUST THE NEGATIVE? stop letting that be your knee jerk reaction to everything? 

the first direction my brain went with the word was the negative connotation. the depressing connotation. the ugly perspective. of course i have to ACCEPT whatever is coming. UGH. FINE. whatever. i don't get it but i'll find a way to deal with it.

i get in this...trench of survival and negativity and here's this whole other perspective sitting out there just being like HEY, WHAT'S UP? I'M A POSSIBILITY TOO YOU KNOW!

not so gentle reminder from the universe that i have A LOT of work still to do on perspective.

that's hard ALL THE TIME, let alone in the middle of a giant shit sandwich.

i need to remember that there's still good out there. there's still an ember of hope glowing among the ashes.

and not to be too much of a drama queen, but holy fuck am i sitting on a massive pile of ashes.

i feel like job and i could kick it over a cup of coffee and really bond.

if you're not familiar with the parable of job, basically god and satan got in a pissing match and decided to FUCK UP this dudes life to settle a bet. they took away his farm, his family, his health, they just massively WRECKED this dudes entire life. it was to the point job was sitting on a pile of ashes, rending his garments SCREAMING at the heavens. and holy fuck do i feel that.

i've lost my family, battled mental health, money is gone, jobs have come and gone. i have had *plenty* of nights of screaming at the heavens.

but somewhere in that giant pile of ashes there is still a glowing ember of good. of hope.

i have to admit, this isn't the first time the universe has kicked my ass about this lesson.

i tend to find negative things really easy. it's easier to believe the bad over the good. it's easier to just know things are going to go against you. it's just easier not to get your hopes up. it's less painful to plan on everything being terrible from the beginning.

i see the daily headlines and i think, "...oh, well yeah. of course."

all the bad news, all the BREAKING HEADLINES, all the uncovered secrets, all the terrible, terrible things people do...it doesn't surprise me. of course things are terrible. of course people do terrible things.

DID YOU NOT KNOW THAT?

how are people still shocked by the pure ugly nasty nature of human beings?

doesn't everyone experience/see that on a regular basis?

maybe it's a trauma response. maybe it's a bad habit. maybe it's a pessimistic personality.

the negative has always made sense to me. it's easier to believe. easier to grasp. easier to understand.

even when something good happens, my initial reaction is, "...what's the catch?' or "...wait for it..." 

i don't even allow myself a moment to enjoy the good that's happening because i'm so caught up in looking for the negative. i'm waiting for the 2 on a 1-2 punch.

BUT

there's still good.

even if i haven't learned to sit in the moment, there is still good happening.

good things still happen. people are still nice and kind and thoughtful. people still help each other. friends still lend a shoulder to cry on. strangers still pay it forward at a drive thru. the good guy does win sometimes. 


i don't know what will happen tomorrow or a week from tomorrow.

i don't know if it will be good or bad.

probably plenty of both.

but i do know there's more than one negative option.

not just a willingness to tolerate a difficult situation.

the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.

i need to work on seeing more than one thing. i need to work on looking for the positive. i need to work on finding more perspectives.

acceptance.

universe, you tricky bastard, thanks for the reminder.

mental health care

a little over a year ago i signed a contract with my therapist that i would not end my life or self harm before my next session.

it wasn't a REAL contract. there was no double signature, stamped and notarized agreement.

it was a hastily written agreement on a yellow sheet of legal paper with her signature and mine.

to me, it's a real contract. i still think about it every day.

self harm has never been my thing. suicide has never been my thing.

pervasive thoughts of death and how little i care about staying alive from day to day? that's my thing.

"i've had a good run" is something i say all the time, half joking (because it hasn't been good), half resigning or almost welcoming the thought of things being over.

it's not great.

today i had a call with HR about some concerns i've raised at work and some problems that have developed in my department.

today is not a good brain day for me. yesterday was a TERRIBLE work day, i was still reeling from that, while dreading the resulting call with HR (it's like being called into the principal's office no matter how old you are).

today started out rough.

the first thing anyone asks you in any meeting is "Hi, how are you?"

i should say, the first thing anyone who DOESN'T KNOW ME asks is...

i don't bullshit. i gave that up a long time ago.

with the guidance and honest feedback from friends i've learned to be a little more...tactful when i answer (thanks to a good friend who chewed my ass for being too blunt to a poor drive thru worker on my way to my dad's funeral), but i will always answer honestly.

today i had to remember that my honest answers can be terrifying, even when tactful.

if you ask me "are you ok," and i'm NOT ok, that's the anwer you'll get.

when you're talking to HR, that takes on a different life.

today they both asked me at the start of the call if i was ok and i answered honestly NOPE.

they were both concerned by my reply, and thankfully so. i do appreciate they HEARD my answer instead of just brushing it off as part of introductory conversation or an employee with a greivance.

i then followed up and explained: NO, i'm not ok. BUT, i own and control that answer. no, i am not at risk for self harm. no, you do not need to be concerned. i am not ok, but i have the tools, the practice, and the self awareness to know it's an issue i'm working on.

my mental health, my response to my mental health, my behavior around my mental health is MY work to do. it is MINE to own and be responsible for.

i thankfully have had access to enough therapy at different times to know that answering honestly is what works best for me. you can't fight something you can't face. i know my demons by name. i am very open talking about my specific struggles because when you SAY it it takes away some of the power, some of the fear. it gives you a specific thing to work on.

i know mental health care is still a devise topic. so many people are still ashamed. so many people still think it's imaginary or "that time of the month" or someone being difficult. so many people have been straight up abused or tortured for their mental health issues (so thankful i'm not a kennedy).

and here comes the soap box:

MENTAL HEALTH IS NO DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER KIND OF HEALTH ISSUE.

you heart can have electrical wiring issues and doctors will give you a medication for that.

you pancreas can have a chemical imbalance and doctors will give you a medication for that.

your reflexes and response times can be slow and doctors will treat that.

your muscles can be damaged and injured and doctors will treat that.

WHY IS IT ANY DIFFERENT FOR THE BRAIN?

if you tear a hamstring you will have medical help, therapy, a treatment plan that is openly discussed and adjusted to achieve the peak recovery.

why not make that available for a traumatic brain injury?

NEEDING MENTAL HEALTH CARE IS NOT A

on racism

i don't like to talk about racism.

as a transparently white, incredibly sheltered, shit public education, shit college education, small town girl who grew up split between baptist and evangelical churches, it's not my place.

i grew up in a really small town of 5,000 people and i think you could guess how many of those would check anything other than "caucasian" on a government form.

when i really think about it, i can logically know that there were a multitude of cultures in my school. it was a fort town, a trading post back in the day. the middle school is still named Fort [small town]. it was a city built around railroads, sawmills, fur trade, farming. it developed as natural melting pot of cultures between native americans, eskimo, traveling tradesmen, railroad workers, timber mill workers/loggers, coal miners...etc. most of those industries didn't care what color you were if you showed and didn't get killed on the job, they were happy to treat ALL of their workers equally like absolute shit.

but i'm a slightly oblivious person and i was incredibly introverted as a child (reading books in my closet to avoid people); it never occurred to me that people were different. we all lived in the same town. we all went to the same school. we were all the same. the only difference was money, and my family didn't have any, so, that was that.

i didn't have friends. i didn't do sleep overs. i wasn't exposed to any other way of life outside the 4 cedar sided walls of our tiny little house two blocks from the city park. i didn't do sports or dance lessons. i attended 2 meetings of some kind of FHA (future homemakers of america) before they kicked me out. my biggest exposure to the outside world were the few years we were on a canadian swim league. all that taught me is french canadians are weird because they don't shave their armpits and to be scared of doukhobors, again because of a body hair issue. i don't know either.

was there was no such thing as play-dates. i was only allowed to associate with kids from my church and their lifestyles and skin colors were for the most part very similar to mine. maybe an extra sibling. probably not a step-parent. they all had "real" parents. the REALLY GOOD (rich) christian families sometimes adopted a baby from china or haiti, maybe india. those were the only colors in a very whitewashed town: the ones being rescued by good white christian families.

it was a small town and a sheltered life.

but i knew about racism.

i grew up face to face with racism.

family history time:

in april 1955, my mother's father was killed in a plane accident while looking for land to build a nursing home in idaho.

at the time, my grandmother was 6 months pregnant with my mom and already had 3 little boys. she had been excommunicated from her family back east (iowa) because the order of the 3 little boys and the marriage were slightly OUT of order.

this is all very sketchy information i picked up over the years. no one ever talked directly or openly about it, but i've had the power of invisibility since i was tiny and was able to sit very still and very quiet for very long periods of time and hear grown ups talk about PLENTY of things never intended for my ears.


so, 1955, excommunicated from her family, widowed, 3 babies in tow, one on the way. she had to pay $5,000 to have his body transported via rail road from napa, idaho, to kirkland, wa where they lived.

to this day...i just...i can't. a widow in 1955 with 3 babies and one on the way trying to find $5k to have her husband's body sent home for burial.

fuck man.

so, after a few years, my grandmother did what she needed to do and she got married again.

second verse was NOT same as the first. again, i don't know much, but i do know her second husband was in the military at some point and was somehow involved in WWII where he apparently began to adopt his racist beliefs.

here's the snippets i've picked up of the type of man he was:

when my grandmother was giving birth to baby 5 (or maybe 6), at home, on the bathroom floor, he was screaming at her that dinner wasn't ready.

when they were kids, my mom and her brothers would get beat with "whatever was handy" as in literally the first thing his hand landed on. horse shoe? yup. metal stake pulled out of the ground? yup. hair brush? yup.

my grandmother passed in 2011 from SO MUCH CANCER the doctors said: here's a morphine patch, good luck. while she was on a hospital bed, in their living room, unable to speak or breathe on her own, having to have mucus and liquid suctioned out of her throat, in her literal dying days, he was screaming at her that she just needed to get up and make him a sandwich. just walk it off. she's just being lazy.

the thing people tend to forget about ugly, hateful, racist people: they don't just save it for strangers.

all that ugliness lives at home every. single. day.

i don't know what specific brand of racist he was. i heard a few different names over the years but nothing that particularly stuck.

i think the closest i can describe it is this: think of kenneth copeland, the super smooth televangelist. so polite. so charming. so charismatic. a seemingly docile, heartfelt southern gentleman. then think of the videos where he snaps. that INSTANT ugly, pure hatred that comes whipping out. so fast, so viscous, so evil, you don't even see it coming til it's too late.

mix that personality, that religious intensity (he ran his own church) with some deep anti-government conspiracies.

he was more of the fuck the government first, racist second. he didn't like the aryan compund in idaho particularly; to him were a bunch of undisciplined punks. they were good if you needed to scare someone though. i honestly never heard the klan mentioned growing up. it wasn't until i was an adult i realized there were active members in wandering around the woods around the PNW. so while his wasn't an "official" cult, there were several families that attended his church every week and plenty of people that subscribed to his beliefs: heavy on the religion, heavy on fuck the government, heavy on snorting cyan pepper will cure cancer. racism was thrown in as kinda standard boilerplate beliefs in association with the rest.

yes, he believed snorting cyan pepper will cure cancer. you can't make this shit up.

bet your fucking ass snorting cyan pepper will cure cancer. the exact same way drilling a hole in your fucking skull relieved headaches in egypt. you'll never complain about it again, so you're cured!


we didn't spend much time a the ranch growing up. maybe it was my mom's way of sheltering us from the hate? maybe it was her fear of us accidentally stumbling on a cache of weapons in one of the barns (that was somehow part of things)? maybe it was her worry that we would get beat like she did as a kid? i think her growing up was a very egg shell kinda life, always waiting for whatever was the next thing to set him off.

either way, we only went to the ranch on special occasions. for better reference, "the ranch" is 680 acres of land tucked into the valley basin. most of it is in a federal land trust, and thereby protected/not lived on. think of ashton kutcher's ranch- a farmhouse that probably looked rundown the day it was built, a few outbuildings, vehicles parked wherever there was space in various states of repair. a dirt driveway ended at a carport that didn't so much house cars as much as abandoned equipment and broken household items. there was a massive upper garden and an acre potato garden down below. there were rows and rows and rows of raspberries you could spend hours picking and still barely make a dent. up the road to the north was a pond and the church building as well as a few random driveways with older single wide trailers smashed in between groves of tree rented out to "friends of the cause" that were probably on various watch lists.

and as little as we went to the ranch or talked about it, i knew FOR SURE not to talk about the ranch to people. names didn't only live on newscasts. places like waco, texas, ruby ridge, idaho, and wilmington, ohio had connections back to the ranch.


i grew up face to face with racism and hatred.


in the early 00's a black family moved to town once for about 3 days. they moved into a run down little house adjacent to one of the worst trailer parks in town behind the walmart. it could not have been a move they did by choice, it must have been a move of desperation. a mom, dad, a few little kids. they lasted somewhere around 3 days before crosses were burned on their lawns and they were "strongly encouraged" to consider living in another town.

thankfully, not my family, but, you see, in addition to whatever brand of racim was tied to my family, there's also (as in currently, today) still active klan and a militia community 20 minutes away.

i mean hell, the first fucking thing you see when you hit the city limit sign is a giant white cross up on a hill overshadowing the whole damn town.

racism was everywhere growing up.

i never understood it. i didn't know what they were angry about. to me it just seemed like they hated everyone who wasn't them.

which, i guess, is basically what racism is. hating everyone who's not like you.

it's not logical.

you can give all the beautiful speeches you want, write all the deeply researched, soundproof factual think pieces, all the obscure unread blog posts you want. it won't change racism. you can't use logic against the illogical.

the anger and hate behind racism isn't logical.

to hate everyone who's not like you.

because i'm a particular fan of pointing out irony, i think i remember overhearing once that my grandmother's husband was actually a twin. he and his brother had both gone off to war together. they both came back and had a parting of the ways over ideology.

literally hated his own twin. i don't know if this is 100% true. it may have been just a brother, not a twin? i don't know. i never met anyone beyond the grandparents.


back to it: there's nothing logical about someone who hates someone simply for being different than them self. to hate another person because of the color of their skin.

there's nothing rational about a person who spends every moment of every day soaking in hate.

i don't like talking about racism because it's a waste of breath. because talking about it brings trouble and talking about it doesn't change anything. i'm sure PLENTY of people are hyper aware of the doxxing, attacks, stalking, harassment, death threats, violence, intimidation, life destroying results from even mentioning certain ideologies and groups.

i'm hyper aware that there's a lot of words i've typed in this post that are on watch lists, especially when all smashed together in one space (what? people wouldn't keyword scan content with out consent, that's crazy talk! ahem).


i am very familiar with the fight against hate.

and i'm not talking about the people who didn't really know they were racist. ones that are just now realizing just how entirely system is fucked from the ground up. the people who, by lack of exposure, education or experience have never really had to think about where they stand. people who haven't understood just how systemic the problem is; the ones *just now* finding out about juneteenth and the tulsa massacre. there may be hope for them. rational, reasonable people still have the chance to open their minds, consider new points of view, make a change.

KEEP HAVING THOSE CONVERSATIONS.



i don't like to talk about racism, but i know i have to because i still have MASSIVE amounts of learning (and unlearning) to do.

i still struggle DEEPLY with the phrase "i don't see color" because i was taught to ONLY see color. i was taught to immediately judge someone by their skin tone.

ironically enough, being taught hate by a racist only teaches you to be scared of angry, shaved head, white dudes.

go figure.

but they tried to teach me: black is violent drug criminals. red is alcoholic trash. yellow is fine as long as they stick to the books. brown you just pretend is white as long as they don't act brown. just pretend they have a tan.

and yes, i was taught race by color JUST LIKE THAT.

jesus loves the little children: red and yellow, black and white.

let that sink in for a minute.

one of the most well know, most enduring, most widely taught children's songs in churches: red and yellow, black and white. 

the entire world, the entire sum of human experience boiled down to four COLORS of people.

that doesn't even include the brown color of jesus' own skin.

but go on about how christianity isn't inherently racist. TO THIS DAY i've never heard one person i grew up in church with acknowledge the fact that jesus was a brown man. to be perfectly transparent,  it was never even something i thought about until well into my adult years. he was middle eastern. OF COURSE HE HAD BROWN SKIN. maybe that's why brown people were marginally accepted. a grudging non-acknowledgement. but my precious moments bible had pictures of a white jesus, so white he was. and yes, somewhere in my head jesus and the 12 apostles all still look like precious moments cartoons.

circle back: i know i have more to learn, more to unlearn.

i don't know how to change my language yet. i don't know how to change my perceptions going forward.

when i say "i don't see color" i mean i'm trying like fuck to not have that be my knee jerk judgement and my entire basis of interaction about a person.

i want to see the PERSON. their beliefs, their sense of humor, their values, their fears, their goals, their experiences, their taste in music, their work ethic, their humanity, their kindness, their empathy, their obscure interests.

i would rather judge someone for the weird way they pronounce cinnamon or aluminum than by the amount of melanin in their skin.


BUT i know that saying "i don't see color" is also discounting entire cultures, collective histories and unique experiences. and because it's from my perspective, it whitewashes entire life experiences. it strips away entire layers to interactions, histories. it automatically blocks the ability to see from a different perspective; it attacks the ability to have empathy. to say you don't see color is to say you don't acknowledge other people have a difference experiences just because the color of their skin. waking up in the morning, or, holy fuck, even just sleeping in their own damn house is different. saying i don't see color takes all that away. i HAVE to acknowledge that. i have to acknowledge that skin, one of the basal layers of cells, one of the first things to begin to develop on an embryo at 5 weeks. a fucking basal layer of cells, one of the most basic building blocks to being a human being, is enough to inspire hate.

so, i struggle. i don't want to see color, but i need to see color.

i've spent a lot of time over the years dating.

95% of my experiences have been with white men.

i know that i see color because any color or ethnicity automatically got a left swipe for a long, long time. 

i was terrified for a person of color to even consider dating me. shut it down. stay away. warning cones and caution tape. i feel toxic by association.

how the fuck could i ever consider potentially exposing someone to the pure, blind, angry, vicious, unbridled hate in my family?

those were people that would shoot a dog for taking to long to respond when called, and they liked the dog.

i would NEVER, EVER ask someone to walk into the lion's den like that.

it's the same reason i never dated a woman around my family. there's no way i could open the door to someone else being screamed at and told they're disgusting, dangerous, going to hell, inhuman, that they should kill themselves.

i know the hate. i know the violence. i know the anger. i know the destruction.

but i don't know what to say.

i don't want to see color because i believe people are more than color.

i need to see color because, i mean, holy fuck, how can you NOT?

and around and around in circles i go.

the one thing i DO know, the one thing i CAN say is this:

i condemn, with every fiber of my being, the brutal murders of people of color, trans people, indigenous people happening across the country.

racism, hatred, bigotry has no place in our homes, our communities, our businesses, our government.

RACISM HAS NO PLACE

i will stand against racism every chance i get.

i will quit more jobs. i will get screamed at in more nail salons. i will keep calling out the jokes and stereotypes. i will have the hard conversations. i will ask the ugly questions. i will read the history. i will read the proposals for the future. i will hear as many voices and perspectives as i can. i will continue to speak up for people who are being mistreated and ignored and murdered.


i don't know how to change people who choose hate and cling to it.

but i can show a different way.


i have seen racism. i know it exists. i grew up with it.

don't listen to the dog whistles. don't let people say it's not a problem anymore. don't let people say it ended with the emancipation proclamation. don't let people say it ended with juneteenth. don't let people say it ended with integration. racism is still thriving across the country.

i honestly, i don't know if it can ever end fully because some people cling to their hate, so hard, with both hands, til their dying breath. you can't legislate hearts and minds. you can't reason with the unreasonable.

but i can stand up against it.

and so i do. in my bubble, in my world, in my circle of people, racism is not welcome. i will stand up against it, i will say it is wrong, i will not associate with it. i will separate myself from people who allow it in their bubble. i will stand in the gap and use my privilege to de-escalate situations or take the abuse myself.


but i don't know how to make it stop.

maybe if enough of us speak up and say it is no longer allowed.

don't stay quiet when a coworker tells a racist joke.

don't stay quiet when you see someone threaten to call the cops because another human being simply exists.

don't ignore the under-the-breath comments and out-of-earshot snide remarks.

don't walk away when you see someone be ignored or overlooked.

don't walk away when you see someone being attacked and targeted.

don't allow it in your bubble.

maybe if enough of us say it isn't allowed in our bubble we can stand in our bubbles, side by side and create a safe space.

i'm sure that idea is simplistic and flawed, but it's what i can do.

i can't change it. i've seen it up close. i know that even in death people will cling to their hatred.

but i can stand against it.