I’ve been toying with the idea of going back to school – that’s an inevitability, because everything I know about the industries I am interested in, are things I learned when I was a volunteer and subsequent employee of my last real workplace.
I am no where near ready to go back into the work place, but I need to start learning a new skill, or learning how to hone an old one. I like helping people, it’s where I am at my best, when I am doing something…that’s what all humans need, more than anything, to do something that gives their heart purpose and fills that hole inside.
I know this, I am just not sure what I want to take or what I want to do. I toy with the excuse that it’s too hard to worry about getting a student loan and going through the process of actually having to make it a reality.
This leads me to believe that the reason I can’t decide what I want to do with my life, is largely because I know I have so many more options today than I did ten years ago…or even last year.
I know that I am finally finished being a volunteer, I want a job where I help people and to get there I need to go back to school, finish whats left on my High school and move on to some kind of diploma program.
Being repeatedly told through various forms of paperwork, by my Psychiatrist that the rapes I have experienced throughout my life time are dillusions are not helping. I am trying hard not to question every memory I have, because that of course triggers more panic attacks, anxiety filled moments and me having to remember where I am at any given moment.
In short, this whole experience this last year has forced me to really look at my life, and the lies I’ve told myself and others to cover what was happening in the shadows of my life.
Having to consistently, and constantly remind myself that my memories are true and up to date is incredibly damaging to your self esteem, believe me I know this for a fact.
The author of Brave and Reckless wrote a poem called “My Body Remembers” and all I can say is yes, it fucking does.
Your body remembers whether its through tattoos or scars what was done to you, and no one can take that away. The scars, internal and emotional can last a life time, being told these scars aren’t real…well fuck you Sir. Fuck you to hell and back again, because I can see the scars on my flesh where they hurt me. I remember them, as if it were yesterday.
I’ve learned who my attackers were, I remember the men who raped me as a teenager and passed me around to their friends.
Fuck you for telling me these things are not real because you Sir are holding me back from my greatest healing.
I’m usually stoned when I have these great insights, but the thing is that these people who want to deny your existence, who want to deny your experience they will not be swayed from their decisions.
The thing that kills me is that I am always stoned when I have these great epiphany’s so they sound completely irrational but the truth is that these people who want to deny your experience are either afraid or they are lazy.
Some of us have seen the result of war on this earth, whether it’s a war against mass nuclear weapons or a war on wary women who just want to go through an entire day without someone grabbing their ass.
War has affected every area of our lives in a million different ways and until we admit that we are all soldiers fighting against all kinds of weapons used against us to destroy us we can never truly be healed.
This is the lesson I am learning, because for years I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me, what it was that I did to end up in the kinds of situations that ended up with me being raped.
It’s this song on you tube made for Lucifer the TV show, the song is simply called “Monster”, I don’t know who it’s by but it hit me, I am not a fucking monster that these men were trying to slay.
They were not hunters looking for vampires they were not hero’s they are and will always be for the rest of their lives, rapists.
I have not turned into a monster. I have not gone on a killing spree, and I haven’t consciously tried to hurt anyone while I was hiding and suffering without telling anyone, although I am sure I hurt plenty of people in my life time. If only because I’m human and by no means perfect, but I am never and never have been a Monster.
The men who raped me for years, were monsters. The men who passed me around like I didn’t matter, were monsters.
Recently I heard the words “eye for an eye” whispered in my mind over and over again, and it’s made me question everything about myself. Trying to figure out, still what I did wrong, and it hit me.
That eye for an eye shit goes both ways. You raped me, so I get to say you fucking raped me, and you can’t be mad about it because it’s the truth. You’re not even mad because it’s the truth, it’s because in raping me you tried to make me feel weak, you had for a moment in time, power over me and you don’t any more and that scares you.
It fucking terrifies you because you know I know who you are, and you’re afraid of what I would do with that information. Well for one I’ve already posted it online, I’ve passed it to the RCMP I’ve written lists and put them in the hands of people I can trust who know what to do with them if anything happens to me and yeah your power over me is done.
You broke the code first, you wanted loyalty, but you gave me none and now I am done hiding and being afraid and ashamed. I might not be ready to go back to school yet, but I haven’t given up writing, I haven’t given up my dream of publishing a novel, I will always stand true for my brothers who suffered with me, but I will never again, ever allow anyone to make me feel that way again.
I’m stronger now than I have been before because I know what I have to do to survive, I feel ashamed for the men who did the things they did to me that last time, but I am not ashamed of myself.
I made them think I was crazy, I went nuts, I listened to the voices in my head telling me that I was stronger than them and I surfuckingvived and no one can deny it happened.
I mean they can but it won’t affect me any more. I won’t let it. I deserve to remember my truth, to honor it and to spend the rest of my life making sure I live my best life, so fuck anyone who tells you that you’re crazy.
That you’re wrong, if you can look at your life, honestly, purely and come out the other side being a better more positive version of yourself, then you deserve to raise a glass to yourself. To love yourself, to hug yourself, to shower without shame, to fart when you fucking please, to get fat, take care of your body the way you need to to get through the darkness, and when you’re done I’ll be here waiting for you.
Fucking researching your own life for a book is the hardest thing you will ever do, but it’s not impossible. I refuse to let this doctor break me down, he has his opinions but I have fact on my side, and fact always outweighs opinion.
Sending all my love to the soldiers still fighting,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 