Trigger Warning
This post may contain stories or triggers memories that may be difficult for you, the reader, to consume. I apologize for that, but this website is entirely about talking about the things that we do not talk about. If you or someone you know needs help, please use this page to find a helpline phone number in your area. If you can’t find it on this list, please use any search engine in the world. You are not alone.
Trigger Warning
When was the last time you treated yourself to a fancy dinner? Or bought yourself flowers just because? When was the last time you decided you were going to cherish your being by talking to yourself out loud with the positivity that you deserve?
In this post, I am specifically speaking to those who have been at war. Whether you were a soldier in the enlisted army, or a victim of domestic abuse, if you have ever had to fight for your life, I question, why it is you don’t remind yourself that the things you did to survive, and possibly to save the lives of others, deserves to be honored?
There are plenty of people who get awards for the work they do and for those of us who don’t we get stuck in this “if other people don’t notice then it doesn’t matter” self-talk rhetoric, that can literally destroy our own lives. It’s like wrapping ourselves in darkness and expecting light to penetrate when we’ve deliberately told light to go fuck itself.
Each of us needs to start talking to ourselves differently. Today I heard a voice ask “why do you hate me“, and I knew it was my childhood voice – it didn’t take long for me to feel like there might be some resentments I didn’t think I was holding against myself because of what happened.
I still feel guilty for saying certain people are innocent, but that’s not because they aren’t, it’s because what happened destroyed what could have been, so a bunch of pedophiles could protect themselves by hiding them raping me, forcing their other male victims, to rape me too.
This shit happened, so you have me, and all these men, and their women, not fully understanding the psychology of what we went through, and a bunch of doctors who don’t believe me because I’m the only one that’s come forward.
I hold a lot of anger towards myself for coming out, but I also know if I hadn’t come out and told my story, it would have just happened again to me or to someone else. And that wasn’t something I was willing to live with.
When we’re talking about PSTD we don’t often – outwardly at least – talk about the stuff that comes with that.
- Guilt
- shame
- self-disgust
- Constantly questioning whether we could have done things differently believing we could have, even though we know that’s probably not true
The reason I call the Loud Mouth Brown Girl audience Soldiers is simple, we are. Many of us are people who have had to survive shit – that most people will never consider getting through. Parents with Munchausen, or abusive partners, or coming back from a place that isn’t our home, and trying to reacclimate to a world we no longer fully understand or comprehend the way we did “before the war.”
The way that we speak to ourselves is a really great way to bolster self-confidence and lift our spirits. When we get dressed in the morning we should compliment ourselves, and we should say thank you for the compliment. Too often we’re trained to focus on the kind things that other people say, only allowed to appreciate ourselves when other folks give us permission, and when we get out of that self-doubt phase of our lives, it can be really cool to discover how talented we really are.
Earlier today I said I could feel my dreams fading away, but that’s only because new dreams are starting to take shape, and in those dreams, I have to learn to let go of what I wanted before, or what I thought I wanted, to make room for new possibilities, but there’s a part of me that feels bad because it feels like what I’m saying is that my old dreams don’t matter. It’s not that, it’s just that they’ve changed and evolved from what they used to be.
The people we were when I started this website, are not the people we are today and yet I still live with terror that the men and women who I outed – in an effort to remind them that I will never stop chasing the pedophiles who abused us – have a lot of reasons to resent me, but not because I said they weren’t criminals, but because I said something at all.
The rules that we were conditioned to live by came from a foundation of violent, vicious abuse, and in order to break those rules, we have to train our brains to think differently. The only way that I know how to do that, is to speak to myself out loud. I wrote about it in Uncomfortable II: Fundamental Foundations for Mental Health Content Creators, because no one thinks you’re weird when you tell them you’re practicing dialogue. I’ve finally had to come out and tell my family that if they see me crying during meditation to let me be because it’s healing and I don’t often let myself release like that.
Each of us has to find new ways to deal with old pain. At Pheonix Center, which is a rehab center for those living. with Drug Addiction Disorder (or Opioid Addiction Disorder), one of the clients started a knitting club. Another friend takes photography so they don’t forget moments, and another does painting. I do a little bit of everything but I haven’t started knitting yet.
The habits and hobbies that we use now to make money used to just be things that we did to pass the time because we didn’t have televisions or computers, they only became businesses when there were new ways available to sell the products of our hobby work.
But not everything we create has to be for the entire world to see, it’s okay to hit record and to keep the memory to yourself. There’s this troubling idea that every human must share all the things in order to get likes and loves on social media and that can be really dangerous for those us living with PTSD.
When we put too much value on what others think of us, and not enough value on what we think about ourselves, we are literally letting them destroy our self-esteem because they don’t all the time have the capacity to give us as much love as we feel we need.
And so the way that we talk to ourselves, the self-dating, the going to a film alone, the getting to know yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and sexually without another person is a massive way for you to find the happiness you seek.
I hate that phrase “as soon as you stop looking for love…” baby do you love yourself?
Do you give any fucks at all about yourself?
Then buy the dress, go out to dinner, go for a walk, listen to music, film a movie in your mind as you talk to your spirits, ghosts, or allies, tell them who you are, take them on a tour of your city, take YOURSELF on a tour of your city. I promise on the days that are cold and sad, these will be the moments that make you smile the most.
I have a certain amount of shock when it comes to my own greatness. I am genuinely surprised when I think about how far I’ve come because I still have a certain amount of “wow I said that and didn’t get killed,” because for so long I just wasn’t allowed to speak at all about anything.
In coming into my own, I am finding a sensuality about myself I didn’t know existed, I am finding respect for myself that I didn’t know I was capable of, and that’s filling me in more ways than having a partner can right now and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
We need to learn to love ourselves outside of what others can say or do for us before we can learn to love anyone else, and every single person we meet is going to have. different love language. I for instance hate being touched, but some people will insist even when you say no, and it can be really difficult to find a way to make the way YOU share love, match what others are willing to offer.
However, if you don’t know what you want in all the areas I mentioned before:
- Mentally
- Spiritually
- Sexually
- Physically
- Lovingly
Then how can you communicate these things to other folks? You have a specific feeling about yourself and that’s all well and good but if it’s a feeling that inspires you to stop believing you belong here, then I highly recommend you stop talking to yourself the way you have been.
When was the last time you hugged yourself? Or said “I love you” to yourself? When was the last time, you openly wept because you’re fucking amazing and deserve to feel that way every day?
Try a new language…I just sort of feel like “I love myself,” feels better to say than “I wish I was dead.”
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
If you have thoughts you’d like to add about this post, please leave a message, and let’s talk about them
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 
Thanks for sharing this!
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