So as you know by now I am working on a new book, and attending group therapy now, and I have to tell you that this new book is far more difficult than I thought it was going to be.
I only started writing it to see if I could recreate the process of the last one, because Uncomfortable helped me heal in so many beautiful ways, that I honestly thought that I could do it again.
As it turns out, the second time is even harder than the first, because I am realizing that I am digging deep to talk about things that I haven’t ever talked about or acknowledged before.
Part of this process is knowing that I am healing as I write, and I am writing as I heal, so for this book, you are being taken into a real time record of my journey and that’s really scary because I keep thinking “what do I have to offer anyone?”
Then I remember that I am not doing this for anyone else, I am doing this for myself, because I need to remove all the negative, I need to let go of the hurt and the pain so that I can come to a place of healing.
I am learning how to unlove my abusers, which is difficult for me, because I am so used to believing that abuse is love and love is abusive. I know that this is not true, naturally, so I am working on deliberately talking about how angry I am about my abusers, and I am finding a genuine disgust and hatred for the way they choose to behave…I am trying not to…confuse that with who they are as people, but it’s not easy.
How do you separate someone’s behavior, from who they are outside of what they show the world, if you never see the good sides?
The truth is that I have to take everything I know to be true into account when writing this book, and it’s a scary process. Partially because I still have this fear that I am going to die, before I say all the things that I want to say, and partially because I am genuinely facing my fears by talking about what happened.
I spent most of yesterday in a shame spiral that ended in me voicing my anger, pain, and sorrow, about what happened.
I keep thinking back to see how the women in my life were treated, versus how I was treated the night I was gang raped, and it’s so hard to believe that anyone could hate me so much they would put me through that on purpose, just to get revenge.
There weren’t just men involved, there were women involved who set me up to be raped, who set me up to be abused, for years, and they did so knowing full well what was going to happen to me. And when it was over, when people couldn’t look at me because I walked back into that strip club with my head held high as if nothing had happened, I felt nothing.
I look back to those days when I kept the secrets of that night to myself, I look back to the nights I continued to party with my abusers, and I think about the fact that I felt nothing. Suddenly I didn’t care what they thought of me, or how I behaved, because I had lost all respect for myself.
I had learned that night that I was never going to be “respectable” again, because I was the good girl who worked at a church by day, hung out with gangsters by night, and I let myself get raped.
I know that that last part is absolutely not true, I did not choose this, it was not my fault, but you have to understand that this is what has been going through my head the last few days and it’s been very difficult to deal with.
It’s something that I am working through, because I know the importance of reminding myself that it’s not my fault, but it is absolutely a lot of work.
I am going to keep writing on the blog about my journey writing this book, and I am going to keep writing the book, but I need y’all to know I am not over here having a good time.
I don’t think writing a book about the lessons you’ve learned in life should be easy, I think it should be one of the hardest things you do in your life, because that’s how you know it’s authentic.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 