I survived.
Rape.
Torture.
Branding.
Ownership.
Freedom.
I have that last one now. I have my freedom. I am my own person, but beyond me as a singular individual, there is all the baggage that I carry with me.
Anxiety, depression, PTSD, emotional struggles – all of these things are baggage that I carry with me, the heaviest of them all, is survivor’s guilt.
Not three months after my best friend helped me survive being houseless, her entire homeland was attacked and her people murdered en masse.
I didn’t, and as a Western-raised, non-binary, bisexual, human, still do not know what to do with the information I have regarding Palestine.
That’s a heavy load to carry, and if I knew what to do with it, I’d probably be okay with it, but I don’t know what to do with survivor’s guilt, and therein lays the problem.
When we have these big emotions that threaten to overwhelm us, we don’t always know how to behave accordingly.
I remember days on end when I would curl up in bed and scream until I had no voice, I didn’t have the words to explain my frustration and I didn’t have anyone to talk to anyways, so I had all these emotions and no way to process them.
I drove my neighbors nuts, but I needed to get it out – to let out all the anger, resentment, rage, pain, sorrow, fear, and anxiety, so I wasn’t holding onto them anymore.
Today I have much better ways of processing. I talk to my friends, and I have officially told my entire trauma story, with names, places, and dates, to at least 3 people. Three people in the world know the whole story, how it started, where it stopped, and how it all ended. That’s a fucking win.
From around the world, I see people sharing stories of abuse, stories that tell me that I am not alone and that the world is not in fact against me as I was previously led to believe by my abusers.
In this place of healing, life is truly beautiful and I am utmostly grateful but I am also very much aware that I left folks behind – metaphorically speaking – to get where I am today.
I left people behind when I left the church. I left folks behind when I moved, and I love them so I have to make the extra effort to show them I love them so they know they aren’t forgotten.
There are a lot of different paths to healing, but once you’re here everything changes. There’s a part of you that wants to rush back into the chaos because you know you can help, you’ve done it before, and you know the work has to get done.
But you also know that those years of working in support for other folks wore on you, and so much so that you’re still incredibly raw, so going back to that kind of work isn’t an option anymore.
Then you have to figure out where you belong, and that can be a long, scary search.
A lot of folks don’t make it through survivor’s guilt. They get clean and sober, or they find a place after not having one for a while, and they can’t maintain it. I’ve been working really hard to maintain.
I will admit for the last several weeks I’ve just been enjoying having a place to call home again. I’ve been walking by myself for the first time in years. Yesterday I went to the river and I made a video for Palestine, it’s available on my TikTok. and I’m working hard at just being okay for now.
I know that there’s an entire genocide going on, in several places around the world. I also know that if I don’t take care of myself first, then I am no good to anyone, but that doesn’t change the fact that I still live with the guilt of having been chosen to find a safe place, when so many others are still searching.
It’s not easy to turn your gaze away from the suffering, so I guess that’s why I refuse to. I want to know what’s happening, I want to lend my voice to the issues that matter to me, and I never want to be in the position of not speaking up because it’s “not good for business.”
So I’ve decided if I just keep speaking out, then they can’t stop me when the world knows my name. Right?
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 