!!!!!STOP!!!! Before You Read This Post Please Practice Self Care, This Post Details Experiences with Mental Health, Trauma, Rape, Torture, And Sexual Abuse
I’ve been yelling a lot lately. Not at anyone in particular but out loud when the house is empty. I’ve also been crying a lot lately, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I don’t feel like my body belongs to me.
I feel like I am so emotionally connected to everything around me that I can’t disconnect, and sometimes it feels like a whole other person has taken over my body, and in my head I hear this little voice that says “I just want my body back.”
Abuse did this to me, and people claiming that they were trying to help even as they ripped my mind a part did this to me, and all I want is to sit in one place for a moment and just be at peace, but my pain is so overwhelming that I can’t step back from it, because at any moment the next enemy might be around the corner.
I am a super powerful, abnormally strong human being, when I look at the full scope of everything that I have been through, I realize that were I anyone else, I’d be staring at myself in awe.
Do you know who said that? I do, I did. To outsiders who don’t know better it sounds kind of arrogant right? It only sounds arrogant to those on the outside who don’t understand how much spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental anguish those of us who deal with mental health issues go through.
My entire life has been spent trying to understand the universe, the same universe that sent one rapist after another to try to destroy me, because let’s be honest, on a spiritual level, that’s what the universe does.
I genuinely like to think that I am a threat to the world of rapists and abusers, I don’t give a fuck if they call me a rat, I don’t give a shit if they say that I am disloyal. Disloyal to what? To men who almost let me get murdered before allowing me to be raped for more hours while I screamed, begged, and pleaded for freedom? What the fuck is there to be loyal too fuck face?
YOU’RE A RAPIST, YOU DON’T DESERVE MY LOYALTY RESPECT AND HONOR YOU DESERVE TO GET PUNCHED IN THE BALLS REPEATEDLY WITH A METAL BASEBALL BAT.
And the fact that this HAS NOT happened to you, is only proof of my grace and my kind nature, because all y’all should be dead. Not just my rapists, all rapists, should just die at the mere thought of causing this kind of harm to another person, and yes Mousema, it absolutely is fair of me to feel like that.
Today I woke up extra angry, mostly because I am just so frustrated with it all. I sit here day after day doing trauma work by myself, because there is just not anyone experienced enough to understand all the shit that goes through my mind, and my rapists are walking around free without punishment.
I am living in Hell.
I was a child when this started, and some people are shocked to learn that it started when I was being baptized, and it didn’t end until I was into my late twenties, and now I have all these people who “think they know” what happened to me, but what they don’t understand is that it’s not just the abuse.
It’s the deep spiritual crater in my heart, it’s the battle between myself, the Devil, and God, for what’s left of my soul, and no, there ain’t much left. There is a part of me that is so angry that I just want everyone and everything around me to hurt, and then there is a part of me that goes “well that happened,” (which I actually said once after being raped by my friend’s much MUCH older pedophile boyfriend,) as I try to keep moving.
But the shit keeps pulling me back, some days I get through an entire day doing all the things that I want to do and I feel good about the work that I have put out there, and other days I am just trying to exist without losing my shit and ripping out all my hair, and no one, NO ONE who hasn’t been through this, can possibly understand how hard it is to go on living after you’ve been through the battle of trauma and abuse.
Then there is the part where people look to you like you have all the answers, and they wonder why you aren’t healed yet because you’re an old hat at this mental health game, but here’s the thing.
I am only 38. I only just “woke up” to how much I have been through. Imagine a lawyer’s office filled to the brim with files detailing all the abuse that I’ve been through. I’ve only just stopped reading the last file. There where hundreds, and now my brain is completely mind blown that THIS body, THIS heart, THIS soul, survived all of that.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. ~Robert Frost
I have a very long way to go before I am done this journey, before I am finished with this life, and don’t get me wrong, I think about it all the time, but I am so blessed because I have soo many of you wonderful people who pull me back from the brink like my friend Wendy from Twitter, like this blog, like my mom, my cats.
Seriously thinking about committing and all of a sudden it’s like “whose going to change the cat litter?” and I realize that I can’t because I have responsibilities that no one else in my life will take on.
And so I steel myself to get back into the fight, pretend that I am okay, pretend that I am in a good place and honestly I am still fighting. I am still dodging emotional and spiritual bullets, and I am still watching parts of myself drown behind alcohol and cannabis because it’s the only thing that gives my body a tiny bit of peace.
I am so terrified that I am going to get lost at the bottom of a bottle, and there is no way that anyone else in the entire world can stop me from making that decision, only I can, but I’m not strong enough to pull back from the brink of addiction on my own, and I don’t trust anyone else enough to hold onto them and let them take care of me.
THIS my friends is what mental health looks like. It’s a intricately interwoven spiderweb of bullshit, and even when I feel my absolutely most powerful and beautiful, there is always going to be someone there throwing rocks trying to tear me down just to show the world that I am not who I say I am.
Because I am a victim.
Because I am a survivor.
Because I was born Brown.
Because I was a born a Woman.
Because I choose to call myself bisexual.
Because I choose to demand my freedom from men.
Because I refuse to pick a single man to settle down with.
“Who the fuck does she think she is subverting convention? Why the fuck does she think she has the right to be whoever the hell she wants without asking us if it’s okay to be herself? Why does she think that she’s so fucking special?”
I’m the Loud Mouth Brown Girl, Bitch. And You will NEVER ever see the version of me you remember from the old days again, you will never stop wondering how I am doing this, or why the fuck it won’t stop. You are going to be forever stuck in the cycle of “we need to stop her, tear her down before she becomes too powerful,” because unlike me you’re weak. You can’t stand anything being stronger than you.
You can’t stand anyone telling you that your respect doesn’t matter to them. I don’t give a fuck if you respect me. I respect myself, and I refuse to feel ashamed for being a phoenix rising from ashes, just because you think you’re better than me. Honey you’re a rapist, you ain’t better than me.
There will always be a thousand reasons for people to tear me down, and no matter how many times I get close to the edge, I WILL ALWAYS roll over and get back into the fight, because that’s who I am. I was born to be a fighter, to be in the shit of it all telling rapists that no matter what they do I will literally move Heaven and Hell to protect my inner child.
You can keep sending letters, you can keep telling me that I am going to catch a beating, or that I am going to die, but I will fight back and beat you down every single time. I’ve done it before, I’ve BEEN DOING IT, surviving you Boys, and others, for twenty-eight fucking years.
What do you have that I HAVEN’T already seen before? because I am unafraid.
I’ve been raped, tortured, beaten, kidnapped, twice, nearly murdered, and raped again for hours. I’ve seen all your tricks. Now you’re probably thinking you could just shoot me, and you totally could, but I’d survive that too, because I’m bulletproof.
Sending all my middle fingers,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 