30
Mar

How to Never be a Victim Again – Sexual Harassment and Seatbelts

A couple months ago, I went grocery shopping at Walmart in my black, Lulu yoga pants.

Commando.

BEFORE YOU EVEN ASK, “No.”   This is not a common occurrence.  I do not generally run around without underpants.  I am, in fact, a lover of underpants, and almost every pair of my underpants are of the granny variety.  I think they’re technically called “boy cut,” like men’s briefs only a bit slimmer through the hip, but still.  I have as much fabric in my underpants as I do in my sports bra.

[Sad, but absolutely true.  Itty Bitty Titty Committee founding member, call sign “Skittles.”]

i-accidentally-bought-granny-panties-but-damn-if-they-arent-comfy-as-shit-ac95aRead More

06
Apr

When the Bad Stuff Keeps Coming Back – PTSD and Survival

Last night, I had a bad dream.

It was a lucid dream.  It was a dream that was so real, I woke up in a daze.  The lines between sleep and reality were blurred for a long while after the alarm went off, and even after I was up and walking around, the dream clung to me like sticky, wet fog.  It clogged up my brain like cotton wool, and stuck behind my eyes like the brightness-burn you get after staring at your computer for too long, when every blink illuminates against the inside of your eyelids a perfect, colorless, reverse image of real life.

The dream I had was about real life, and it still burns.

The life and the dream.

When I was six or seven, I was the target of sexual assault.  The abuse lasted almost three years.  I don’t think of it often, and until I had a daughter that hit the age I was when it happened, I never thought of it at all.  Those memories were dark and ugly, denied and decidedly irrelevant, tucked away in the back-most corners of my head.  I didn’t drag them out, I didn’t talk about them, and the armed guard in front of the closet door where they lived knew to not let anyone inside.

There they sat.Read More

19
Aug

Stained Does Not Mean Unclean… Healing After Sexual Assault

I’ve been keeping an ugly secret since I was six years old.

I kept quiet for a lot of reasons, the biggest being shame.  MY shame.  I am ashamed of myself, ashamed of the circumstances I allowed myself to be in, ashamed of my stains.  It’s never a fun thing to admit that you’ve made a mistake, even if the mistake wasn’t completely your fault.  The secrets I keep have enveloped me in shame for all of my life.  In fact, shame has been a fundamental part of my emotional make up for so long that I don’t really even notice that it’s there anymore.  I ALWAYS feel shame.  Humiliating, shoulder drooping, brow beating shame is just a part of my everyday self.

I think the second reason I’ve kept my disgusting secrets is to protect people.  To protect myself, of course, from the shame I just talked about and from punishment for my actions, but also to protect the people I feel I’m supposed to protect.  Namely my family.  My parents.  My parents, and the people my parents care about.

If they ever find this blog post online….   Sorry Mom.  For being stained, and for being damaged.  And for failing to be everything I could have been.  And Dad, please don’t kill anyone.  I know you’ll want to, and that’s okay.  It just means you love me.
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