Loud Mouth Brown Girl

That’s me.

It’s my new center.

I am continuously, constantly, and consistently, afraid. All the fucking time.

I have the house to myself today, for the first time since mom got hit. Mom doesn’t go out anymore because she’s in pain, the light hurts her eyes, the wheelchair isn’t comfortable, and since getting hit in the head by a stranger at work, all these things have combined to make Mom’s life truly miserable. So she rarely goes out.

But today she had some medical stuff to do, so out she went and here I am alone, trying not to freak out.

See here’s the thing.

Since we moved in, I’ve been adamant about keeping the place clean. I’ve been insane about it, if I don’t clean every day I clean every three days, and I make sure everything is where it needs to be, often if things are where they are supposed to be…I spent five or ten minutes just standing in my kitchen in awe.

I didn’t used to be able to do this. I didn’t use to be able to leave my house, and I didn’t use to be able to have friends because I couldn’t trust folks. Everything has changed, and it’s scaring the shit out of me.

When mom does come out of her room, I jump. When my neighbors and I are leaving at the same time and I don’t immediately know they are there, I jump.

I am afraid all the fucking time. People tell me that it’s normal to be afraid because I’ve been through some awful shit.

So yeah I guess I’m normal, but it doesn’t help when I have a doctor and a psych nurse who keep dismissing my fears and anxieties as made up because it makes them more comfortable.

I’m tired of fighting for validation. I keep waiting for someone or something to hurt me so I can say “See? I told you it was coming.‘

I’ve been in survival mode for so long that I don’t know how to just live my life. I spend a lot of time on social media, but I also spend a lot of time with my friends. I write, I work out, I go for walks and smoke weed, and I am more active now than I’ve been in ten years.

I don’t have kids, pets, or a partner, so I am not like a lot of the women here. Hearing some of the stories of the stuff they go through, and watching some of the drama some of the women choose to invite into their lives over and over…it’s giving me grateful vibes, that I made different choices.

Not because I don’t respect these women, but quite the opposite. I don’t know how some of these women survived. It’s a bit intimidating because I thought I was strong, but these women have gone through Hell more than once to get here, and they are in many cases, still in crisis, but here I am with all this space to heal.

They listen to my trauma, they welcome me sharing mine and they share theirs, and we’re friends, in ways that I wasn’t capable of making friends in my 20s.

Too many of the girls – including myself back then – were so interested in finding a husband and settling down, but we were choosing men far beneath our stature. We were choosing men who didn’t really have anything to offer, and I suspect it’s because too many of us were too afraid to look for something else.

When you grow up in a cycle of abuse, you look for what you know, what’s comfortable, what you’re used to having in your life. You look for the familiar, because you’ve been trained to believe that anything other than what you’re given, is asking too much and being greedy.

Now I am looking around and realizing that it’s okay to say “I don’t want you in my life.” I have friends, I have people I speak to, and the two are not the same.

It’s okay and it’s healthy to set boundaries, so that’s what I am doing, and for those who are uninterested in coming with me, I wish you well.

Yes I’m afraid all the time, but since when has fear stopped me?

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl