Today I'm focusing on another Sark quote:
(page 19) “Choosing Succulence is a deliberate act of personal revolution. It means waking up! Embracing your true self, studying your patterns, and letting out your most alive self. We all have one!”
I've been struggling greatly lately, as depression has a hold over me. I think part of my struggle with depression at this point is realizing and recognizing that there are pieces of me that I don't particularly like.
I've recognized that I make excuses for the thoughtlessness of those I care about while condemning people I don't care about for the same mistakes. And when I recognize this trait in other people, it irritates the hell out of me.
I'm not even sure how to awaken and display my most alive self. Right now I have to remember daily that this too shall pass, that I will not be depressed forever, and that I will learn to be happy again.
I was on an anti-depressant, but I had to go off of it because it made the depression worse. It also caused my body to break out in acne, which seems like an insult to me. Now my skin has betrayed me? My skin is something I usually take pride in, but the acne itches and I don't like it. It seems to be going away now, but it's not very quick to leave.
I want my near-flawless skin back. I want to be content with all my pieces, even the ones that aren't very nice. I don't want to have to remind myself daily that things will get better, because I want things to be better now.
Guess I need to learn patience or else make my own miracle.
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Misery
Responding to “The Buried Yes” by Minnie Bruce Pratt.
If this is disjointed, filled with strange or abrupt transitions, so be it. I don't care about that.
(page 409) “Now she and I dance one dance, no spark with her except the thrill of asking for that dance by choice, not by default.”
Today I'm dancing with myself. I keep having images of child-me curled up in a corner. Most of the time, I see child-me backstage, and I proceed to have her leap and bound, nearly flying, in the spotlight. It's how I manage to replace my mask, no matter what's bothering me.
But last night, when I didn't have to deal with anyone else, when I didn't need my mask, mommy-me hugged child-me close, murmuring that everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to be fine. Lean on me and rest; I'll carry you while you're tired.
It's been a long time since I went dancing with anyone else, and I kind of miss it. But right now, I don't have the defenses. When I've gone dancing, I've danced for myself. I'm usually the one who asks, the one wades out onto the floor alone, not caring for anything but the music. Do I look good? Do I look stupid? I don't care. The point is the music, feeling it, letting it flow through me. I ask both people I truly want to dance with and random standers-by. Next time around, I need to give myself permission to ask women too.
(page 409) “I don’t know how to articulate what I can see, an enticing vista, what it might be like to talk among ourselves without always having to answer the men, or reassure them.”
The last time I started having an interesting conversation with another woman in a taxi-cab, the male cab driver felt completely free to butt in. It offended me to the point that I doubt I'll use that cab company again. It completely derailed the conversation.
Right now, I'm spending so much time maintaining the masks I need to wear to function in this world, that I don't have the energy to reassure anyone else. I can respond as reassuring mommy to my children, but that's about it.
My vision last night was of free falling into a cloudbank. At first I didn't have a parachute, but then I had a bright pink one. I knew it'd deploy before I got hurt. I knew that it would lift me high once again, that I wouldn't crash land. I can't see rock bottom, but I have faith that I'll land safely.
I'm not sure how I got in the sky. I guess it really doesn't matter. Maybe I followed the butterflies. Maybe I jumped out of the tower. I don't know.
(page 411) “Later a NOW member reprimands me: it’s unnecessary to push lesbians on the audience. A year before she had been upset when she learned I was a lesbian; she was offended that I had not trusted her enough to tell her. She’d said abruptly, ‘Being afraid to tell me is your problem, not mine.’”
I've been debating coming out to those less close to me as depressed, but haven't yet. My husband openly worries about me. It's not helpful. I'm big enough, strong enough, stubborn enough to hold on to myself. I can't deal with the worries of others right now. I have to function with all my worries, while mothering my children and fulfilling work responsibilities.
At the same time, I understand where the worry comes from. Will I be strong enough if I have suicidal ideations or urges? Will I, like my mother's brother whom I never met, take my own life, not thinking of my children in the next room? But I am a MOTHER, and I overcame many many urges to drive off bridges or cut myself while growing up. I learned the trick of holding on just another second, just another minute, just another hour, just another day.
I don't want to see that worry on anyone else's face. I will get through this, because I'm too damned stubborn not to.
I've realized that people who think that they're easy to talk to or who think that anyone's fear of talking about certain subjects is completely unjustified are delusional. Communication takes community. Communication takes trust. Rather than be offended that the trust isn't there, what would be helpful is to question the bigger picture. Why would someone hesitate to trust, just in general? Is there a pattern of failed trusts? Have you, intentionally or not, betrayed a trust already?
The woman in the quote above, claiming that the lack of trust was not her problem, was not worthy of trust.
(page 411) “I say, ‘We don’t know you; we don’t want to talk to you.’ Put barbed wire up between me and the intrusive hand that fondles, that rips, that pats and then slaps. Wrap my body in barbed wire when I go out in public, unwind it at night to be with my lover, both of us drinking to numb the pain that tracks across our arms, our breasts, our thighs. When we fight, sometimes she mocks me. ‘You are so queer.’ I wonder what kind of woman I would be past these boundaries. Maybe someone naked in a silk robe. The contours of my body shift as fluid as the fabric, skin flexible as silk. How much of a man would I be, how much of a woman? Who would I lie naked with, slipping off the robe of my skin?”
I wear air. I wear aloofness. I wear broken glass. I wear the promise of not putting up with it.
I don't want to be approached or talked to most of the time, especially when I'm in the midst of my customer service job.
And when I'm out enjoying myself, it doesn't necessarily mean I want to talk to random people, especially men. It's my choice if I respond to you, and I may very well not.
But when I do want to be approached, I wear velvet. But it's not always the same velvet. Sometimes it's thick and heavy, reinforced with bone. Sometimes its clingy and warm. Sometimes it wraps around you and pulls you closer. Sometimes it pushes you away.
If this is disjointed, filled with strange or abrupt transitions, so be it. I don't care about that.
(page 409) “Now she and I dance one dance, no spark with her except the thrill of asking for that dance by choice, not by default.”
Today I'm dancing with myself. I keep having images of child-me curled up in a corner. Most of the time, I see child-me backstage, and I proceed to have her leap and bound, nearly flying, in the spotlight. It's how I manage to replace my mask, no matter what's bothering me.
But last night, when I didn't have to deal with anyone else, when I didn't need my mask, mommy-me hugged child-me close, murmuring that everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to be fine. Lean on me and rest; I'll carry you while you're tired.
It's been a long time since I went dancing with anyone else, and I kind of miss it. But right now, I don't have the defenses. When I've gone dancing, I've danced for myself. I'm usually the one who asks, the one wades out onto the floor alone, not caring for anything but the music. Do I look good? Do I look stupid? I don't care. The point is the music, feeling it, letting it flow through me. I ask both people I truly want to dance with and random standers-by. Next time around, I need to give myself permission to ask women too.
(page 409) “I don’t know how to articulate what I can see, an enticing vista, what it might be like to talk among ourselves without always having to answer the men, or reassure them.”
The last time I started having an interesting conversation with another woman in a taxi-cab, the male cab driver felt completely free to butt in. It offended me to the point that I doubt I'll use that cab company again. It completely derailed the conversation.
Right now, I'm spending so much time maintaining the masks I need to wear to function in this world, that I don't have the energy to reassure anyone else. I can respond as reassuring mommy to my children, but that's about it.
My vision last night was of free falling into a cloudbank. At first I didn't have a parachute, but then I had a bright pink one. I knew it'd deploy before I got hurt. I knew that it would lift me high once again, that I wouldn't crash land. I can't see rock bottom, but I have faith that I'll land safely.
I'm not sure how I got in the sky. I guess it really doesn't matter. Maybe I followed the butterflies. Maybe I jumped out of the tower. I don't know.
(page 411) “Later a NOW member reprimands me: it’s unnecessary to push lesbians on the audience. A year before she had been upset when she learned I was a lesbian; she was offended that I had not trusted her enough to tell her. She’d said abruptly, ‘Being afraid to tell me is your problem, not mine.’”
I've been debating coming out to those less close to me as depressed, but haven't yet. My husband openly worries about me. It's not helpful. I'm big enough, strong enough, stubborn enough to hold on to myself. I can't deal with the worries of others right now. I have to function with all my worries, while mothering my children and fulfilling work responsibilities.
At the same time, I understand where the worry comes from. Will I be strong enough if I have suicidal ideations or urges? Will I, like my mother's brother whom I never met, take my own life, not thinking of my children in the next room? But I am a MOTHER, and I overcame many many urges to drive off bridges or cut myself while growing up. I learned the trick of holding on just another second, just another minute, just another hour, just another day.
I don't want to see that worry on anyone else's face. I will get through this, because I'm too damned stubborn not to.
I've realized that people who think that they're easy to talk to or who think that anyone's fear of talking about certain subjects is completely unjustified are delusional. Communication takes community. Communication takes trust. Rather than be offended that the trust isn't there, what would be helpful is to question the bigger picture. Why would someone hesitate to trust, just in general? Is there a pattern of failed trusts? Have you, intentionally or not, betrayed a trust already?
The woman in the quote above, claiming that the lack of trust was not her problem, was not worthy of trust.
(page 411) “I say, ‘We don’t know you; we don’t want to talk to you.’ Put barbed wire up between me and the intrusive hand that fondles, that rips, that pats and then slaps. Wrap my body in barbed wire when I go out in public, unwind it at night to be with my lover, both of us drinking to numb the pain that tracks across our arms, our breasts, our thighs. When we fight, sometimes she mocks me. ‘You are so queer.’ I wonder what kind of woman I would be past these boundaries. Maybe someone naked in a silk robe. The contours of my body shift as fluid as the fabric, skin flexible as silk. How much of a man would I be, how much of a woman? Who would I lie naked with, slipping off the robe of my skin?”
I wear air. I wear aloofness. I wear broken glass. I wear the promise of not putting up with it.
I don't want to be approached or talked to most of the time, especially when I'm in the midst of my customer service job.
And when I'm out enjoying myself, it doesn't necessarily mean I want to talk to random people, especially men. It's my choice if I respond to you, and I may very well not.
But when I do want to be approached, I wear velvet. But it's not always the same velvet. Sometimes it's thick and heavy, reinforced with bone. Sometimes its clingy and warm. Sometimes it wraps around you and pulls you closer. Sometimes it pushes you away.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Telling My Stories
Responding to “A Year of Living Dangerously: 1968” by Dana Densmore
(page 79) “My faith was in finding a way of telling the truth so accurately, in ways so consonant with people’s own experiences, that the person herself had to acknowledge it: something in her soul would turn with gladness to what was its own.”
My happiness seems to be spiraling away from me, out of my hands, out of my reach. I never wore happiness comfortably to begin with; I have more experience with depression. When I started writing, I had faith in my ability to cope with my memories and the emotions I had kept at arm's length so long. Instead, I feel that I am losing or have lost everything.
I started taking a drug to help with depression, moodiness, and anorexia, but it didn't work. My inner journey has indeed helped me gain my bearings in controlling my response to the decay of my world, but I never had control over the interlocking relationships that made up my world to begin with.
This weekend I resolved to let go of the conflicts of others, for all attempts at building a bridge of understanding have either backfired or been undermined. I can only tell my own stories, not those of others.
I have lost so much, and I am convinced that I am not done losing.
And I've begun to wonder what I should put my faith in.
(page 79) “My faith was in finding a way of telling the truth so accurately, in ways so consonant with people’s own experiences, that the person herself had to acknowledge it: something in her soul would turn with gladness to what was its own.”
My happiness seems to be spiraling away from me, out of my hands, out of my reach. I never wore happiness comfortably to begin with; I have more experience with depression. When I started writing, I had faith in my ability to cope with my memories and the emotions I had kept at arm's length so long. Instead, I feel that I am losing or have lost everything.
I started taking a drug to help with depression, moodiness, and anorexia, but it didn't work. My inner journey has indeed helped me gain my bearings in controlling my response to the decay of my world, but I never had control over the interlocking relationships that made up my world to begin with.
This weekend I resolved to let go of the conflicts of others, for all attempts at building a bridge of understanding have either backfired or been undermined. I can only tell my own stories, not those of others.
I have lost so much, and I am convinced that I am not done losing.
And I've begun to wonder what I should put my faith in.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Frustration
Today, I am sprinkling some of Sark's thoughts among mine.
Today, as I have been for some time now, I am frustrated. The men in my life are not getting along, and I have been doing what I can to hold things together. It's not in my power.
(page 53) “Explore healing options. If you feel unloved, look to yourself for love. Whatever the issues are, ultimately self-love and acceptance are the answers.
“We all have tiny, mis-shapen parts of ourselves that we hide away and don’t love. Turn towards those parts and cradle them.”
Perhaps it is passive-aggressive that I write this. Perhaps it is cruel. Perhaps the fallout will be harsh.
(page 90) “Nobody tells us as little girls that we may fall in love and have moments of hating our beloved, or have ridiculous arguments at 2 am over something neither person understands.
“My friend John calls it, ‘the nuance of annoyance.’ After you’ve been with someone for awhile, all the tiny and large things they do that annoy you, come forward.
“We are not taught something I call ‘intimate negotiations.’ It involves adjustment, compromise, integrity, truthtelling, options, willingness, and heart-full listening.”
But I am at the end of my rope, and my only option now is to let go. I can't keep holding on. It's not helping anyone that I am, least of all me.
What does letting go mean? Like most other meaningful questions of late: I don't know.
My counselor tells me that the only true thing we can control in this world, and even that only in degrees sometimes, is how we respond. The way we feel, to a degree, is a choice. My choice not to be numb, to seek help in navigating my memories and feelings, has led to depression. I have chosen to fight, and the fight is mostly in fancy.
This week I started out unable to visualize, to seeing that I was washed away at sea, to finding a boat, and then oars. And now I'm in the stuff of dreams: an emotional forest. I have seen both images of Shrek, where Fiona takes on bandits, and Snow White, where when she's calm, all the forest is her friend, but when she's scared, the forest is instead her enemy.
And I don't want the forest to be my enemy, so I'm watching closely.
(page 83) “Creative exploration will always result in mistakes, and if we fear those, we risk paralysis and a numb ‘good girl’ mentality.”
I let go of my rope, and I continue to explore. Where that will lead me, I don't know. I did realize that I wasn't dangling from the rope, poised to fall. Instead, I am deeper in my emotional landscape than the rope allowed.
I'll figure it out eventually.
Today, as I have been for some time now, I am frustrated. The men in my life are not getting along, and I have been doing what I can to hold things together. It's not in my power.
(page 53) “Explore healing options. If you feel unloved, look to yourself for love. Whatever the issues are, ultimately self-love and acceptance are the answers.
“We all have tiny, mis-shapen parts of ourselves that we hide away and don’t love. Turn towards those parts and cradle them.”
Perhaps it is passive-aggressive that I write this. Perhaps it is cruel. Perhaps the fallout will be harsh.
(page 90) “Nobody tells us as little girls that we may fall in love and have moments of hating our beloved, or have ridiculous arguments at 2 am over something neither person understands.
“My friend John calls it, ‘the nuance of annoyance.’ After you’ve been with someone for awhile, all the tiny and large things they do that annoy you, come forward.
“We are not taught something I call ‘intimate negotiations.’ It involves adjustment, compromise, integrity, truthtelling, options, willingness, and heart-full listening.”
But I am at the end of my rope, and my only option now is to let go. I can't keep holding on. It's not helping anyone that I am, least of all me.
What does letting go mean? Like most other meaningful questions of late: I don't know.
My counselor tells me that the only true thing we can control in this world, and even that only in degrees sometimes, is how we respond. The way we feel, to a degree, is a choice. My choice not to be numb, to seek help in navigating my memories and feelings, has led to depression. I have chosen to fight, and the fight is mostly in fancy.
This week I started out unable to visualize, to seeing that I was washed away at sea, to finding a boat, and then oars. And now I'm in the stuff of dreams: an emotional forest. I have seen both images of Shrek, where Fiona takes on bandits, and Snow White, where when she's calm, all the forest is her friend, but when she's scared, the forest is instead her enemy.
And I don't want the forest to be my enemy, so I'm watching closely.
(page 83) “Creative exploration will always result in mistakes, and if we fear those, we risk paralysis and a numb ‘good girl’ mentality.”
I let go of my rope, and I continue to explore. Where that will lead me, I don't know. I did realize that I wasn't dangling from the rope, poised to fall. Instead, I am deeper in my emotional landscape than the rope allowed.
I'll figure it out eventually.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
On a Rowboat
Responding to: “An Old Enemy in a New Outfit: How Date Rape Became Gray Rape and Why it Matters” by Lisa Jervis.
Today is a better day than yesterday, and so I'm tackling a memory I've not wanted to tackle. But in the rough seas of my emotions, today I remembered to imagine a rowboat, and then I realized I needed oars, and the Room of Requirement in my soul provided them. Some people would believe that I have called out to a higher power, but whose metaphor is it? I've caught a glimpse of land, and I just have to make my way there. Yesterday it was all I could do to tread water, and all I saw was darkness.
(page 163) [Gray rape is] “…a disgusting, destructive, victim blaming cultural construct that encourages women to hate ourselves, doubt ourselves, blame ourselves, take responsibility for other people’s criminal behavior, fear our own desires, and distrust our own instincts.”
Once upon a time in my late teens/early twenties, I read an essay that described the trauma of another teen girl who had frozen up and not resisted the advances of some boy. She appealed to an older woman, asking for understanding that the girl had been raped, that the memories were crushing her, and the older woman said "you raped yourself."
(page 166) “This is how the language of ‘gray rape’ accelerates the victim-blaming cycle. The very concept the phrase relies on—that a supposed gray area of communication or intoxications means that you cannot trust your own memories, instincts, or experiences—is designed to exploit the stigma and fear that fuel the guilt, shame, and denial.”
And while I was reeling, trying to understand what had happened between me and JRS, I started wondering if I too had raped myself. Could it all have been some huge, almost cultural, misunderstanding? Was it only rape in my own mind, and I the perpetrator? And, because of that essay and the comments of a few others, that's what I chalked it up to: my failing.
(page 164) “…everything about so-called gray rape seems awfully familiar: The experience is confusing, makes victims feel guilty and ashamed, and leaves them thinking they could and should have done something differently to prevent the attack.”
Part of my misunderstanding is that I had enjoyed kissing and fondling with JRS before he bulldozed me into sex--sex I wasn't ready for, sex I didn't want.
(page 169) “But here’s the thing: flirting and hook-ups do not cause rape. Rapists and the culture that creates them—with its mixed messages and double standards—cause rape.”
It took more than a year to come to terms with my experience and to move past it. I buried the experience, never quite satisfied with it. I had an easier time recognizing what MZ did as rape. After all, I said no over and over and over with him. He just didn't listen.
(page 164) “…any therapist, sexual assault counselor, rape survivor, or close friend or family member of a rape survivor knows that feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame, and denial are common almost to the point of inevitability, no matter what the circumstances of the crime.”
But I didn't resist with JRS. How could it be rape? At least, that's what I thought at the time.
(page 165) “When the culture teaches you that lack of consent is measured only in active, physical resistance, when your actions are questioned if your date refuses to respect ‘no,’ you’re going to have a hard time calling rape by its real name.”
I've unburied those memories, and I am ashamed that I blamed myself. I betrayed myself in framing JRS as a colossal misunderstanding. It was JRS who refused to pull his head out of his ass and recognize that something was horribly wrong--that I was not willing, that I was not cooperating, that I was just enduring, that I was frozen, that his attention was not welcome.
(page 166) “Despite gray rape proponents’ eagerness to use their phenomenon to shift responsibility from rapists to victims, the fact remains that the reluctance in question is a symptom of the very social disease—sexism, misogyny, men’s entitlement to women’s bodies, and the idea that sexual interaction involves women’s guarding the gates to the land of the sexual goodies as men try to cajole, manipulate, and force their way in—that enables rape in the first place.”
JRS raped me. I did not rape myself.
And I've filed that essay into the "WTF? Lies people say to enable rapists" drawer in my head.
Today is a better day than yesterday, and so I'm tackling a memory I've not wanted to tackle. But in the rough seas of my emotions, today I remembered to imagine a rowboat, and then I realized I needed oars, and the Room of Requirement in my soul provided them. Some people would believe that I have called out to a higher power, but whose metaphor is it? I've caught a glimpse of land, and I just have to make my way there. Yesterday it was all I could do to tread water, and all I saw was darkness.
(page 163) [Gray rape is] “…a disgusting, destructive, victim blaming cultural construct that encourages women to hate ourselves, doubt ourselves, blame ourselves, take responsibility for other people’s criminal behavior, fear our own desires, and distrust our own instincts.”
Once upon a time in my late teens/early twenties, I read an essay that described the trauma of another teen girl who had frozen up and not resisted the advances of some boy. She appealed to an older woman, asking for understanding that the girl had been raped, that the memories were crushing her, and the older woman said "you raped yourself."
(page 166) “This is how the language of ‘gray rape’ accelerates the victim-blaming cycle. The very concept the phrase relies on—that a supposed gray area of communication or intoxications means that you cannot trust your own memories, instincts, or experiences—is designed to exploit the stigma and fear that fuel the guilt, shame, and denial.”
And while I was reeling, trying to understand what had happened between me and JRS, I started wondering if I too had raped myself. Could it all have been some huge, almost cultural, misunderstanding? Was it only rape in my own mind, and I the perpetrator? And, because of that essay and the comments of a few others, that's what I chalked it up to: my failing.
(page 164) “…everything about so-called gray rape seems awfully familiar: The experience is confusing, makes victims feel guilty and ashamed, and leaves them thinking they could and should have done something differently to prevent the attack.”
Part of my misunderstanding is that I had enjoyed kissing and fondling with JRS before he bulldozed me into sex--sex I wasn't ready for, sex I didn't want.
(page 169) “But here’s the thing: flirting and hook-ups do not cause rape. Rapists and the culture that creates them—with its mixed messages and double standards—cause rape.”
It took more than a year to come to terms with my experience and to move past it. I buried the experience, never quite satisfied with it. I had an easier time recognizing what MZ did as rape. After all, I said no over and over and over with him. He just didn't listen.
(page 164) “…any therapist, sexual assault counselor, rape survivor, or close friend or family member of a rape survivor knows that feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame, and denial are common almost to the point of inevitability, no matter what the circumstances of the crime.”
But I didn't resist with JRS. How could it be rape? At least, that's what I thought at the time.
(page 165) “When the culture teaches you that lack of consent is measured only in active, physical resistance, when your actions are questioned if your date refuses to respect ‘no,’ you’re going to have a hard time calling rape by its real name.”
I've unburied those memories, and I am ashamed that I blamed myself. I betrayed myself in framing JRS as a colossal misunderstanding. It was JRS who refused to pull his head out of his ass and recognize that something was horribly wrong--that I was not willing, that I was not cooperating, that I was just enduring, that I was frozen, that his attention was not welcome.
(page 166) “Despite gray rape proponents’ eagerness to use their phenomenon to shift responsibility from rapists to victims, the fact remains that the reluctance in question is a symptom of the very social disease—sexism, misogyny, men’s entitlement to women’s bodies, and the idea that sexual interaction involves women’s guarding the gates to the land of the sexual goodies as men try to cajole, manipulate, and force their way in—that enables rape in the first place.”
JRS raped me. I did not rape myself.
And I've filed that essay into the "WTF? Lies people say to enable rapists" drawer in my head.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Guilt
Today I feel like concentrating on another Osho Zen Tarot card: Guilt.
Guilt: “We all long to be better people—more loving, more aware, more true to ourselves. But when we punish ourselves for our failures by feeling guilty, we can get locked into a cycle of despair and hopelessness that robs us of all clarity about ourselves and the situations we encounter.”
I have a tendency towards guilt. Guilt can be a blight for joy.
I enjoy sex, but when I feel guilt about sex, it feels less wholesome. Sex is not healing when it has guilt in the mix. When I'm immersed in guilt, I want sex less.
I want sex that feels like my soul is flying, a butterfly. I want sex that makes me forget my name, forget anything but skin on skin, heat, passion. I want sex that makes me feel glorious, powerful, radiant. And guilt will block it all.
Whenever I worry that my marriage or my lover's marriage has hit a rough patch, whenever I worry whether I'm paying enough or not enough or too much attention to one person and not enough or too much to another, then I feel guilty.
Right now, I am wrapped up in guilt, not just over my sex life, but as to whether I'm a good enough parent, whether I'm providing enough or doing enough for my family, whether I'm selfish--that word such a trap for good girls like me.
Part of me wants to be quite matter-of-fact and open about the depression I'm mired in, another part thinks that it'll be too much hassle, another part thinks I shouldn't make people uncomfortable by being open.
And yet I'm not willing to tiptoe through life so as not make others uncomfortable. If my depression is too much for the masses, then the masses give themselves only false comfort.
I guess I need to figure out what I can and what I cannot live with. And also what I can and cannot live without.
I'm tired of feeling guilty. And I'm working to find a new way.
Guilt: “We all long to be better people—more loving, more aware, more true to ourselves. But when we punish ourselves for our failures by feeling guilty, we can get locked into a cycle of despair and hopelessness that robs us of all clarity about ourselves and the situations we encounter.”
I have a tendency towards guilt. Guilt can be a blight for joy.
I enjoy sex, but when I feel guilt about sex, it feels less wholesome. Sex is not healing when it has guilt in the mix. When I'm immersed in guilt, I want sex less.
I want sex that feels like my soul is flying, a butterfly. I want sex that makes me forget my name, forget anything but skin on skin, heat, passion. I want sex that makes me feel glorious, powerful, radiant. And guilt will block it all.
Whenever I worry that my marriage or my lover's marriage has hit a rough patch, whenever I worry whether I'm paying enough or not enough or too much attention to one person and not enough or too much to another, then I feel guilty.
Right now, I am wrapped up in guilt, not just over my sex life, but as to whether I'm a good enough parent, whether I'm providing enough or doing enough for my family, whether I'm selfish--that word such a trap for good girls like me.
Part of me wants to be quite matter-of-fact and open about the depression I'm mired in, another part thinks that it'll be too much hassle, another part thinks I shouldn't make people uncomfortable by being open.
And yet I'm not willing to tiptoe through life so as not make others uncomfortable. If my depression is too much for the masses, then the masses give themselves only false comfort.
I guess I need to figure out what I can and what I cannot live with. And also what I can and cannot live without.
I'm tired of feeling guilty. And I'm working to find a new way.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Daily Routines
Responding to "What Feminism Means to Me" by Vivian Gornick.
Of late, I've been trying to be content with what I have, with my family, with my home, with my friends, with my husband. I've been searching for meaning in my daily routines, as depression pours down on me.
Sadly, I think my mother's brother's death was the last straw that led me back on the path of major depression.
Happily, I am ready to deconstruct and heal myself from the inside out.
(page 372) "It remains one of life's great mysteries--in politics as well as in love--readiness: that moment when the elements are sufficiently fused to galvanize inner change. If you are one who responds to the moment you can never really explain, you can only describe what it felt like."
There are many fronts on which I am looking for peace. I am looking for peace within me, to accept who I am (who I've always been, but buried because others may not like me), to accept the partnership and relationship between me and my husband, to not overwhelm my children with my persnickety demands, to have friendships that aren't dependent upon my being happy.
And I know somehow that happiness can't be more than a side effect of my inner journey: to make it the point is like making orgasm the point of sex, dooming yourself to failure.
My journey has to be about reintegrating the rainbow of mes wandering around inside my inner landscape and learning how to navigate my world.
(page 375) "I understood that I would have to face alone the very thing my politics had been preparing me for all along. I saw what visionary feminists had seen for two hundred years: the power over one's own life comes only through the steady command of one's own thought."
My happiness can't come from without. It has to come from within. I have to chase away the doubts, the resentments, the loneliness, the fear, all the emotions that could block me from happiness, and I have to do that constantly (or, more accurate, recognize the negative emotion, study where it's coming from, and find a way to calm it). No one else can do it for me, it's as ridiculous as asking someone to go to the bathroom for you.
(page 376) "The daily effort became a kind of connection for me. The sense of connection was strengthening. Strength began to make me feel independent. Independence allowed me to think. When I thought, I was less alone. I had myself for company. I had myself, period. I felt the power of renewed wisdom."
Earlier this school year, I felt lonely on the mornings when it was just me and the baby. Lately, as I've stated before, I've taken a Zen approach to some of the daily chores, especially laundry, and doing the chores, blogging, and thinking have all helped me overcome the despair I might find when lonely. My contentment with being alone in turn makes it easier to spend time with others. I no longer depend on them to stop my loneliness. Because I don't expect them to rescue me from myself, I can appreciate others more for who they are.
(page 376) "...life is an endlessness of 'remembering' what I already knew."
I have already overcome depression, because my depression came in cycles throughout my life. I know I will heal. I know I will overcome this again. I just need to remember how. I'm on my way.
There is another thing I know, that makes this depression different. I have not had the suicide ideation and urges that came with my previous depressions. I am not plotting the death of anyone close to me either. I knew (somewhere, somehow) that I didn't have to go down that path. I remembered not to take it.
Of late, I've been trying to be content with what I have, with my family, with my home, with my friends, with my husband. I've been searching for meaning in my daily routines, as depression pours down on me.
Sadly, I think my mother's brother's death was the last straw that led me back on the path of major depression.
Happily, I am ready to deconstruct and heal myself from the inside out.
(page 372) "It remains one of life's great mysteries--in politics as well as in love--readiness: that moment when the elements are sufficiently fused to galvanize inner change. If you are one who responds to the moment you can never really explain, you can only describe what it felt like."
There are many fronts on which I am looking for peace. I am looking for peace within me, to accept who I am (who I've always been, but buried because others may not like me), to accept the partnership and relationship between me and my husband, to not overwhelm my children with my persnickety demands, to have friendships that aren't dependent upon my being happy.
And I know somehow that happiness can't be more than a side effect of my inner journey: to make it the point is like making orgasm the point of sex, dooming yourself to failure.
My journey has to be about reintegrating the rainbow of mes wandering around inside my inner landscape and learning how to navigate my world.
(page 375) "I understood that I would have to face alone the very thing my politics had been preparing me for all along. I saw what visionary feminists had seen for two hundred years: the power over one's own life comes only through the steady command of one's own thought."
My happiness can't come from without. It has to come from within. I have to chase away the doubts, the resentments, the loneliness, the fear, all the emotions that could block me from happiness, and I have to do that constantly (or, more accurate, recognize the negative emotion, study where it's coming from, and find a way to calm it). No one else can do it for me, it's as ridiculous as asking someone to go to the bathroom for you.
(page 376) "The daily effort became a kind of connection for me. The sense of connection was strengthening. Strength began to make me feel independent. Independence allowed me to think. When I thought, I was less alone. I had myself for company. I had myself, period. I felt the power of renewed wisdom."
Earlier this school year, I felt lonely on the mornings when it was just me and the baby. Lately, as I've stated before, I've taken a Zen approach to some of the daily chores, especially laundry, and doing the chores, blogging, and thinking have all helped me overcome the despair I might find when lonely. My contentment with being alone in turn makes it easier to spend time with others. I no longer depend on them to stop my loneliness. Because I don't expect them to rescue me from myself, I can appreciate others more for who they are.
(page 376) "...life is an endlessness of 'remembering' what I already knew."
I have already overcome depression, because my depression came in cycles throughout my life. I know I will heal. I know I will overcome this again. I just need to remember how. I'm on my way.
There is another thing I know, that makes this depression different. I have not had the suicide ideation and urges that came with my previous depressions. I am not plotting the death of anyone close to me either. I knew (somewhere, somehow) that I didn't have to go down that path. I remembered not to take it.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
On Self-Respect
Responding to "A Year of Living Dangerously: 1968" by Dana Densmore.
I've been exploring the reaches of my mind and emotions, rethinking limits, and doing my best to love and respect myself. Unless I'm able to love and respect myself, I won't be able to love and respect anyone else.
(page 83) "As I saw then, and still do, the thing we want as women is full humanity, not male privileges and female privileges. And it has always seemed to me... that full humanity is about deciding what one wants for oneself out of life, and then working to make one's choices a reality. Until we are fully self-respecting, how can we really demand respect from others?... But no one, male or female, will be likely to truly respect anyone who does not respect herself. Hence I thought we must learn to respect ourselves by giving up passivity, by resisting the stunting and crushing of our wills and aspirations, by taking action and taking risks, by rejecting excuses about the barriers to women, substituting a determination to know down, climb over, or slip around any obstacles.... living dangerously."
And I am indeed living dangerously at the moment. As I struggle to keep myself afloat amid the chaos of depression, as I struggle with reconciling and rethinking and reopening old wounds and hurts, as I struggle to be at peace with who I am rather than the idealized version of me that I wish to be, I find myself unable or perhaps unwilling to reach out to anyone else. So I risk losing relationships that are important to me, because I am rebuilding myself.
Sometimes it may seem like I don't care. It's far more complicated than that. I can't really explain myself at all on this point, just trust that I do care, whether I show it or not.
And as I progress through renewing myself, I have an obligation to stop unhealthy patterns that I unconsciously repeat with my children. My children rely on me to model how to interact with the world, and I need to remember that.
I'm not done responding to Dana Densmore's essay. This is just the beginning. This is just one piece. There is so much more to explore, but I'm not ready yet.
But I'm sure she'd appreciate that I have begun.
I've been exploring the reaches of my mind and emotions, rethinking limits, and doing my best to love and respect myself. Unless I'm able to love and respect myself, I won't be able to love and respect anyone else.
(page 83) "As I saw then, and still do, the thing we want as women is full humanity, not male privileges and female privileges. And it has always seemed to me... that full humanity is about deciding what one wants for oneself out of life, and then working to make one's choices a reality. Until we are fully self-respecting, how can we really demand respect from others?... But no one, male or female, will be likely to truly respect anyone who does not respect herself. Hence I thought we must learn to respect ourselves by giving up passivity, by resisting the stunting and crushing of our wills and aspirations, by taking action and taking risks, by rejecting excuses about the barriers to women, substituting a determination to know down, climb over, or slip around any obstacles.... living dangerously."
And I am indeed living dangerously at the moment. As I struggle to keep myself afloat amid the chaos of depression, as I struggle with reconciling and rethinking and reopening old wounds and hurts, as I struggle to be at peace with who I am rather than the idealized version of me that I wish to be, I find myself unable or perhaps unwilling to reach out to anyone else. So I risk losing relationships that are important to me, because I am rebuilding myself.
Sometimes it may seem like I don't care. It's far more complicated than that. I can't really explain myself at all on this point, just trust that I do care, whether I show it or not.
And as I progress through renewing myself, I have an obligation to stop unhealthy patterns that I unconsciously repeat with my children. My children rely on me to model how to interact with the world, and I need to remember that.
I'm not done responding to Dana Densmore's essay. This is just the beginning. This is just one piece. There is so much more to explore, but I'm not ready yet.
But I'm sure she'd appreciate that I have begun.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Depression and Me
Responding to "Mental Illness: The Stigma of Silence" by Glenn Close.
I didn't originally plan to talk about mental illness in this blog, but to not do so is to silence a piece of me. I have struggled with depression off and on for the vast majority of my life. My mother was the first to tell me that depression runs in my family, that her mother suffered, that her brother committed suicide, that her sister had trouble participating in life. And yet, when she discovered that I too struggle from it, her first response was to silence me: what would people think? Oh, the stigma.
I really don't care what people think. I came out to my friends and a couple professors as depressed, and while a few stated that they thought differently of me because of that, they didn't stop being my friend.
"What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation about illnesses that affect not only individuals, but their families as well. Our society ought to understand that many people with mental illness, given the right treatment, can be full participants in our society."
When I have difficulty functioning, I rely more on my husband and children to pick up the slack. I have sought treatment to stabilize my moods, which clears my thinking (it gets foggy, and I have difficulty thinking things through), and gives me the energy to survive.
This is a process. I don't know how I managed to convince myself that I could explore the reaches of my psyche without once again unleashing depression, how I could possibly talk about the experiences of my life without discussing depression.
Depression is part of me. But it doesn't have to define me. I don't have to let it hinder me.
I didn't originally plan to talk about mental illness in this blog, but to not do so is to silence a piece of me. I have struggled with depression off and on for the vast majority of my life. My mother was the first to tell me that depression runs in my family, that her mother suffered, that her brother committed suicide, that her sister had trouble participating in life. And yet, when she discovered that I too struggle from it, her first response was to silence me: what would people think? Oh, the stigma.
I really don't care what people think. I came out to my friends and a couple professors as depressed, and while a few stated that they thought differently of me because of that, they didn't stop being my friend.
"What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation about illnesses that affect not only individuals, but their families as well. Our society ought to understand that many people with mental illness, given the right treatment, can be full participants in our society."
When I have difficulty functioning, I rely more on my husband and children to pick up the slack. I have sought treatment to stabilize my moods, which clears my thinking (it gets foggy, and I have difficulty thinking things through), and gives me the energy to survive.
This is a process. I don't know how I managed to convince myself that I could explore the reaches of my psyche without once again unleashing depression, how I could possibly talk about the experiences of my life without discussing depression.
Depression is part of me. But it doesn't have to define me. I don't have to let it hinder me.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Turning Rainbows Into Tie-Dye
Today I'm wandering my psyche and quoting Sark.
(page 54) “Sometimes we are stuck in a maze of our own making and could use a helping hand.”
Last night I was at work when depression caught up with me. Nothing and Everything flooded me in a deluge of emotion like bricks, and I was miserable. I haven't felt that down in over a decade, right before my last suicide attempt. It was awful.
I'm still not sure what exactly triggered it. I thought that when I went home I'd either wake up my husband and cry, or that I'd call a suicide hotline.
(page 36) “Women’s hearts are big enough to bear the pain, peer into the dark, and do the work.
“We are led into darkness anyway by events of life: death, loss, and pain. We cannot pretend that we don’t live with the darkness, or smile it away or think somehow we will escape.
“There is no need to escape!”
Somehow last night I was able to turn in all around all by myself. I grabbed back the reins of my mood, remembering my counselor responding to my description of my emotional landscape, that I was able to save myself. So I did.
I started wondering what color my misery was. I wondered if it was blue. And I wondered what color my anger was, and I got angry. I dug myself out of the wet bricks with anger. And I let anger fuel me into purpose. I did my job with purpose, focusing on getting everything done that I needed done.
After a storm, there is often a rainbow, if you look away from the sun. I looked for the rainbow, and then I used that to make tie-dye banners to decorate the castle of my soul.
I also stayed up even later than I intended, talking about what happened with my husband, who loves me enough to talk about Everything and Nothing even though he had to get up in a couple of hours.
I am in a more peaceful place today, but very tired.
(page 54) “Sometimes we are stuck in a maze of our own making and could use a helping hand.”
Last night I was at work when depression caught up with me. Nothing and Everything flooded me in a deluge of emotion like bricks, and I was miserable. I haven't felt that down in over a decade, right before my last suicide attempt. It was awful.
I'm still not sure what exactly triggered it. I thought that when I went home I'd either wake up my husband and cry, or that I'd call a suicide hotline.
(page 36) “Women’s hearts are big enough to bear the pain, peer into the dark, and do the work.
“We are led into darkness anyway by events of life: death, loss, and pain. We cannot pretend that we don’t live with the darkness, or smile it away or think somehow we will escape.
“There is no need to escape!”
Somehow last night I was able to turn in all around all by myself. I grabbed back the reins of my mood, remembering my counselor responding to my description of my emotional landscape, that I was able to save myself. So I did.
I started wondering what color my misery was. I wondered if it was blue. And I wondered what color my anger was, and I got angry. I dug myself out of the wet bricks with anger. And I let anger fuel me into purpose. I did my job with purpose, focusing on getting everything done that I needed done.
After a storm, there is often a rainbow, if you look away from the sun. I looked for the rainbow, and then I used that to make tie-dye banners to decorate the castle of my soul.
I also stayed up even later than I intended, talking about what happened with my husband, who loves me enough to talk about Everything and Nothing even though he had to get up in a couple of hours.
I am in a more peaceful place today, but very tired.
Monday, October 19, 2009
What Is Normal?
Responding to the song "What Do You Hear In These Sounds?" by Dar Williams.
"I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks
And I could hear their radio
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing
And they’d know that I was scared
They would know that I was guessing
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling
And their calling out just like me..."
This is my confession: I am scared and guessing and trying to keep my head afloat in a storm of emotions that I don't know how to handle beyond pretending they're not there.
I worry that I'm not good enough and never will be.
I worry that I'm not normal, that I'm scary-strange, that there's something wrong with me.
And I wonder if my worries are normal, then does that mean that what's wrong is in fact something about the culture/society that I live in?
I've finally noticed that I am depressed, and that I am not the only one in pain. I don't know if what works for me will work for anyone else. I'm not even sure what works for me.
After years of false starts and struggling with the decision, I am in counseling with a therapist that I feel I can trust.
And in talking about my problems, I can see that I'm not the only one with them.
I've also realized that I'm not going down this path searching for happiness. I'm aiming to stop being miserable. I'm sure I'll realize that I'm happy somewhere along the way.
"I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks
And I could hear their radio
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing
And they’d know that I was scared
They would know that I was guessing
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling
And their calling out just like me..."
This is my confession: I am scared and guessing and trying to keep my head afloat in a storm of emotions that I don't know how to handle beyond pretending they're not there.
I worry that I'm not good enough and never will be.
I worry that I'm not normal, that I'm scary-strange, that there's something wrong with me.
And I wonder if my worries are normal, then does that mean that what's wrong is in fact something about the culture/society that I live in?
I've finally noticed that I am depressed, and that I am not the only one in pain. I don't know if what works for me will work for anyone else. I'm not even sure what works for me.
After years of false starts and struggling with the decision, I am in counseling with a therapist that I feel I can trust.
And in talking about my problems, I can see that I'm not the only one with them.
I've also realized that I'm not going down this path searching for happiness. I'm aiming to stop being miserable. I'm sure I'll realize that I'm happy somewhere along the way.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
All In the Head
Responding to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
(page 723) “’Tell me one last thing,’ said Harry. ‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’
“Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“’Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
Right now I'm on medication for depression because of all the hurt I feel and have felt for much of my life. I'm in counseling because I am reliving and rehashing bad memories. Perhaps not too surprisingly, as I go through this journey or process, I'm having a difficult time keeping my relationships in positive places.
As I try to re-imagine my psyche into a healthier, less pain-filled place, I have a some wonderful imagery, often borrowed from pop culture. One of the images that recur in my head is that of Raven on Teen Titans, the episode where Beast Boy and Cyborg get lost in her head and meet a rainbow of Ravens. I too have a rainbow of Anons walking about in my head. I'm not sure what color I am manifesting at the moment.
Healing the emotions is hard work. My meditation/thought of the week is to not worry about good or bad, and to focus on being. And I'm also supposed to buy myself some clay to create with.
In the meantime, I'm still on my laundry from a Zen approach project. It never ends.
(page 723) “’Tell me one last thing,’ said Harry. ‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’
“Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“’Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
Right now I'm on medication for depression because of all the hurt I feel and have felt for much of my life. I'm in counseling because I am reliving and rehashing bad memories. Perhaps not too surprisingly, as I go through this journey or process, I'm having a difficult time keeping my relationships in positive places.
As I try to re-imagine my psyche into a healthier, less pain-filled place, I have a some wonderful imagery, often borrowed from pop culture. One of the images that recur in my head is that of Raven on Teen Titans, the episode where Beast Boy and Cyborg get lost in her head and meet a rainbow of Ravens. I too have a rainbow of Anons walking about in my head. I'm not sure what color I am manifesting at the moment.
Healing the emotions is hard work. My meditation/thought of the week is to not worry about good or bad, and to focus on being. And I'm also supposed to buy myself some clay to create with.
In the meantime, I'm still on my laundry from a Zen approach project. It never ends.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Reconnecting
I'm back to blogging, hopefully on a near-daily basis. I need the creative urge, which has been sorely lacking this past month as all the negatives overwhelmed me.
Today I'm responding to a post from kateharding.net about approaching women.
"Human connection, love, romance: there is nothing wrong with these yearnings."
It is human to want connection, love, and sometimes romance. But even when I desire love and/or romance, I don't want that with just anyone. It has to be with someone of MY choosing. Sometimes I may want a conversation with a person who doesn't trigger my creep alarm, but that doesn't mean that I want physical closeness. And even if I want physical closeness, that doesn't always mean that I want sex.
And sometimes I just want to be left alone.
"Those women do not want to be approached, no matter how nice you are or how much you’d like to date them. Okay? That’s their right. Don’t get pissy about it."
If I'm not receptive to being approached, and you take it personally, I will forever more consider you a jerk that I don't want to know. Because you're acting like a jerk. I don't care if you're hot, if you volunteer for a feminist organization, or whatever makes you believe that you're all that. When you get mad because I don't want company, then you've blown it.
"Because a man who ignores a woman’s NO in a non-sexual setting is more likely to ignore NO in a sexual setting, as well."
When I say no, it should be respected. I should not have to apologize for saying no, and if you feel that I should, then you are marking yourself as threatening. You are revealing yourself as someone I cannot trust to respect my boundaries or me.
In relationships, there is always some give and take, and depending upon the levels of trust and commitment, we can discuss or negotiate boundaries. But that is in an established relationship built upon shared trust, reciprocity, and respect.
Only through time and effort can you demonstrate that you are someone who will never rape me, which is my requirement for sharing my body. If I don't trust that you will never rape me, then I will not engage with you sexually.
"Don’t rape. Nor should you commit these similar but less severe offenses: don’t assault. Don’t grope. Don’t constrain. Don’t brandish. Don’t expose yourself. Don’t threaten with physical violence. Don’t threaten with sexual violence.
"Shouldn’t this go without saying? Of course it should. Sadly, that’s not the world I live in. You may be beginning to realize that it’s not the world you live in, either"
Because sadly, too many people do not recognize that we live in a culture that condones rape. So now it's time for a re-posting of the "Don't Rape" list that pops up from time to time around the Web.
A reminder, both men and women can rape, and both men and women can be victims of a rapist. This is written about not raping women, but it applies to everyone.
A lot has been said about how to prevent rape.
Women should learn self-defense.
Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark.
Women shouldn’t have long hair and women shouldn’t wear short skirts.
Women shouldn’t leave drinks unattended.
Fuck, they shouldn’t dare to get drunk at all.
Instead of that bullshit, how about:
If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at5 am , don’t rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you’re still hung up on, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don’t rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don’t rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don’t rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don’t rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don’t rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don’t rape her.
If your friend thinks it’s okay to rape someone, tell him it’s not, and that he’s not your friend.
If your “friend” tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there’s an unconscious woman upstairs and it’s your turn, don’t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he’s a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it’s not okay to rape someone.
Don’t tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don’t imply that she could have avoided it if she’d only done/not done x.
Don’t imply that it’s in any way her fault.
Don’t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he “got some” with the drunk girl.
Don’t perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.
If you agree, re-post it. It’s that important.
Today I'm responding to a post from kateharding.net about approaching women.
"Human connection, love, romance: there is nothing wrong with these yearnings."
It is human to want connection, love, and sometimes romance. But even when I desire love and/or romance, I don't want that with just anyone. It has to be with someone of MY choosing. Sometimes I may want a conversation with a person who doesn't trigger my creep alarm, but that doesn't mean that I want physical closeness. And even if I want physical closeness, that doesn't always mean that I want sex.
And sometimes I just want to be left alone.
"Those women do not want to be approached, no matter how nice you are or how much you’d like to date them. Okay? That’s their right. Don’t get pissy about it."
If I'm not receptive to being approached, and you take it personally, I will forever more consider you a jerk that I don't want to know. Because you're acting like a jerk. I don't care if you're hot, if you volunteer for a feminist organization, or whatever makes you believe that you're all that. When you get mad because I don't want company, then you've blown it.
"Because a man who ignores a woman’s NO in a non-sexual setting is more likely to ignore NO in a sexual setting, as well."
When I say no, it should be respected. I should not have to apologize for saying no, and if you feel that I should, then you are marking yourself as threatening. You are revealing yourself as someone I cannot trust to respect my boundaries or me.
In relationships, there is always some give and take, and depending upon the levels of trust and commitment, we can discuss or negotiate boundaries. But that is in an established relationship built upon shared trust, reciprocity, and respect.
Only through time and effort can you demonstrate that you are someone who will never rape me, which is my requirement for sharing my body. If I don't trust that you will never rape me, then I will not engage with you sexually.
"Don’t rape. Nor should you commit these similar but less severe offenses: don’t assault. Don’t grope. Don’t constrain. Don’t brandish. Don’t expose yourself. Don’t threaten with physical violence. Don’t threaten with sexual violence.
"Shouldn’t this go without saying? Of course it should. Sadly, that’s not the world I live in. You may be beginning to realize that it’s not the world you live in, either"
Because sadly, too many people do not recognize that we live in a culture that condones rape. So now it's time for a re-posting of the "Don't Rape" list that pops up from time to time around the Web.
A reminder, both men and women can rape, and both men and women can be victims of a rapist. This is written about not raping women, but it applies to everyone.
A lot has been said about how to prevent rape.
Women should learn self-defense.
Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark.
Women shouldn’t have long hair and women shouldn’t wear short skirts.
Women shouldn’t leave drinks unattended.
Fuck, they shouldn’t dare to get drunk at all.
Instead of that bullshit, how about:
If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you’re still hung up on, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don’t rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don’t rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don’t rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don’t rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don’t rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don’t rape her.
If your friend thinks it’s okay to rape someone, tell him it’s not, and that he’s not your friend.
If your “friend” tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there’s an unconscious woman upstairs and it’s your turn, don’t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he’s a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it’s not okay to rape someone.
Don’t tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don’t imply that she could have avoided it if she’d only done/not done x.
Don’t imply that it’s in any way her fault.
Don’t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he “got some” with the drunk girl.
Don’t perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.
If you agree, re-post it. It’s that important.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Telling Our Stories
A reflection on "The Not-Rape Epidemic" by Latoya Peterson
(page 211) "No one escaped [not-rape] --all my friends had some kind of experience with it during their teen years."
When I was in junior college taking a creative writing class, I wrote a rape story. A male classmate scoffed, because just too many chicks wrote rape stories and he was tired of hearing them. They were "cliche."
Talk about privilege.
(page 216) "This is how the not-rape epidemic spreads--through fear and silence. Women of all backgrounds are affected by these kinds of acts, regardless of race, ethnicity, or social class. So many of us carry the scars of the past with us in our daily lives. Most of us have pushed these stories to the back of our minds trying to have some semblance of a normal life that includes romantic and sexual relationships. However, waiting just behind the tongues are story after story of the horrors other women experience and hide deep within the self, behind a protective wall of silence.
"When I first began discussing my not-rape and all of the baggage that comes with it, I expected to be blamed or to not be believed.
"I never expected that each woman I told would respond with her own story in kind."
Want to hear fewer rape stories? Work with men and advocate against rape and not-rape. Let men know that such practices as asking for sex multiple times an hour until at the end of the night she says yes just to make him shut the fuck up.
Silence quietly condones rape and not-rape. Silence allows it to continue. We need more rape and not-rape stories to circulate. The more we talk about it, in mixed company as well, the more awareness and less victim-shame there will be.
(page 217) "Not-rape comes in many forms--it is often known by other names. What happened to me is called sexual assault. It is not the same same as rape, but it is damaging and painful. My friends experience statutory rape, molestation, and coercion."
My first sexualized experience happened around the age of six, when my mother's brother began to molest me. My memories of it are scattered, snippets of this and that. I think I remember my mother spotting it once (on my sister, not me), telling her brother that she'd better not have seen what she thought she saw, but somehow convincing herself that it didn't happen.
An aside: at least two people I spoke to about my experience thought that because he was retarded--with perhaps the mental facilities of an 8 year old--that I should think of this as "playing doctor" between kids. However, when it was happening, I looked up to my uncle and did not comprehend his differences from other adults. If anything, this thoughtway has added to my confusion and difficulty in moving on. Like I should be ashamed for thinking it was molestation at all.
The molestation culminated in a single incidence of oral sexualization. It completely disturbed me. I did not like it. It felt Wrong. It gave me the voice to say never again.
Eventually I worked up the courage to tell my mother. I was nine. She went on warpath, furiously confronting him, and like any child confronted by a raging parent, when asked if he did that, he stammered no.
That was enough for my mother. She whirled back to me and called me a liar. This was something the neighbor girls and I made up, because we hated her poor, stupid brother. If I ever spoke of it again, I'd wish I hadn't.
(page 212) "My friends and I confided in one another, swapping stories, sharing our pain, while keeping it all hidden from the adults in our lives. After all, who could we tell? This wasn't rape--it didn't fit the definitions. This was not-rape. We should have known better. We were the ones who would take the blame. We would be punished and no one wanted that. So these actions went on, aided by a cloak of silence."
I buried that memory until I read a magazine while in high school about victims of sexual abuse. My stomach dropped, a chill down my spine, and I had a name for what happened to me.
And then the shame came. Why had I allowed this to happen to me? It ended so easily the moment I said stop. Why hadn't I said stop sooner? If escape was so simple, why had I not even tried? Worse, on a purely physical level, the touching had felt goo. We are wired that way. Had I WANTED it to happen? I wanted desperately to talk about it with someone, but is was ABUSE, so I couldn't, because it would be reported and would destroy my family. Didn't the shame belong to me, and me alone?
(page 217) "Internalized shame is what I experienced, that heavy feeling that was it was my fault for allowing the sexual assault to happen. So many of us are conditioned to believe that these actions are our own fault, that if we had made a better choice, if we had been smarter, then we wouldn't be in that situation."
Is it any wonder that I spent years wrestling with suicidal thoughts? Is it any wonder that I spent years plotting the murder of my entire family, which I'd hide by burning down my home?
The consequences remain even as I am an adult. I've had flashbacks during tender oral sex, tongue stroking me. Oral sex, especially spontaneous oral sex, got me flinching. It took me years to get up the nerve to express why I'd gone from loving to dreading oral sex.
I've nearly overcome this. I've requested my lovers ask/warn me before diving in. Even better, rougher, more frantic, enthusiastic, angular oral sex has allowed me to enjoy, and even love, oral sex again. Back to front gentle tongue strokes still give me problems from time to time, and my confidence in requesting a different approach sometimes wavers.
By the way, my mother's brother--he died. I learned about it on Facebook. That's how close I am to my family, and the sexual abuse is one of the biggest reasons why. I was never offered help, and when I was finally unable to continue coping with living with them, revealing my depression and suicidal thoughts led to my mother shaming me again. What would my neighbots and family think? I was weak. I needed to be silent (and go on medication).
And sometimes I still wish my family dead. But I forgive myself for that. I'm still working on forgiving myself for letting it happen.
(page 211) "No one escaped [not-rape] --all my friends had some kind of experience with it during their teen years."
When I was in junior college taking a creative writing class, I wrote a rape story. A male classmate scoffed, because just too many chicks wrote rape stories and he was tired of hearing them. They were "cliche."
Talk about privilege.
(page 216) "This is how the not-rape epidemic spreads--through fear and silence. Women of all backgrounds are affected by these kinds of acts, regardless of race, ethnicity, or social class. So many of us carry the scars of the past with us in our daily lives. Most of us have pushed these stories to the back of our minds trying to have some semblance of a normal life that includes romantic and sexual relationships. However, waiting just behind the tongues are story after story of the horrors other women experience and hide deep within the self, behind a protective wall of silence.
"When I first began discussing my not-rape and all of the baggage that comes with it, I expected to be blamed or to not be believed.
"I never expected that each woman I told would respond with her own story in kind."
Want to hear fewer rape stories? Work with men and advocate against rape and not-rape. Let men know that such practices as asking for sex multiple times an hour until at the end of the night she says yes just to make him shut the fuck up.
Silence quietly condones rape and not-rape. Silence allows it to continue. We need more rape and not-rape stories to circulate. The more we talk about it, in mixed company as well, the more awareness and less victim-shame there will be.
(page 217) "Not-rape comes in many forms--it is often known by other names. What happened to me is called sexual assault. It is not the same same as rape, but it is damaging and painful. My friends experience statutory rape, molestation, and coercion."
My first sexualized experience happened around the age of six, when my mother's brother began to molest me. My memories of it are scattered, snippets of this and that. I think I remember my mother spotting it once (on my sister, not me), telling her brother that she'd better not have seen what she thought she saw, but somehow convincing herself that it didn't happen.
An aside: at least two people I spoke to about my experience thought that because he was retarded--with perhaps the mental facilities of an 8 year old--that I should think of this as "playing doctor" between kids. However, when it was happening, I looked up to my uncle and did not comprehend his differences from other adults. If anything, this thoughtway has added to my confusion and difficulty in moving on. Like I should be ashamed for thinking it was molestation at all.
The molestation culminated in a single incidence of oral sexualization. It completely disturbed me. I did not like it. It felt Wrong. It gave me the voice to say never again.
Eventually I worked up the courage to tell my mother. I was nine. She went on warpath, furiously confronting him, and like any child confronted by a raging parent, when asked if he did that, he stammered no.
That was enough for my mother. She whirled back to me and called me a liar. This was something the neighbor girls and I made up, because we hated her poor, stupid brother. If I ever spoke of it again, I'd wish I hadn't.
(page 212) "My friends and I confided in one another, swapping stories, sharing our pain, while keeping it all hidden from the adults in our lives. After all, who could we tell? This wasn't rape--it didn't fit the definitions. This was not-rape. We should have known better. We were the ones who would take the blame. We would be punished and no one wanted that. So these actions went on, aided by a cloak of silence."
I buried that memory until I read a magazine while in high school about victims of sexual abuse. My stomach dropped, a chill down my spine, and I had a name for what happened to me.
And then the shame came. Why had I allowed this to happen to me? It ended so easily the moment I said stop. Why hadn't I said stop sooner? If escape was so simple, why had I not even tried? Worse, on a purely physical level, the touching had felt goo. We are wired that way. Had I WANTED it to happen? I wanted desperately to talk about it with someone, but is was ABUSE, so I couldn't, because it would be reported and would destroy my family. Didn't the shame belong to me, and me alone?
(page 217) "Internalized shame is what I experienced, that heavy feeling that was it was my fault for allowing the sexual assault to happen. So many of us are conditioned to believe that these actions are our own fault, that if we had made a better choice, if we had been smarter, then we wouldn't be in that situation."
Is it any wonder that I spent years wrestling with suicidal thoughts? Is it any wonder that I spent years plotting the murder of my entire family, which I'd hide by burning down my home?
The consequences remain even as I am an adult. I've had flashbacks during tender oral sex, tongue stroking me. Oral sex, especially spontaneous oral sex, got me flinching. It took me years to get up the nerve to express why I'd gone from loving to dreading oral sex.
I've nearly overcome this. I've requested my lovers ask/warn me before diving in. Even better, rougher, more frantic, enthusiastic, angular oral sex has allowed me to enjoy, and even love, oral sex again. Back to front gentle tongue strokes still give me problems from time to time, and my confidence in requesting a different approach sometimes wavers.
By the way, my mother's brother--he died. I learned about it on Facebook. That's how close I am to my family, and the sexual abuse is one of the biggest reasons why. I was never offered help, and when I was finally unable to continue coping with living with them, revealing my depression and suicidal thoughts led to my mother shaming me again. What would my neighbots and family think? I was weak. I needed to be silent (and go on medication).
And sometimes I still wish my family dead. But I forgive myself for that. I'm still working on forgiving myself for letting it happen.
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