Loud Mouth Brown Girl

One of the first things I felt when I realized what had been done to me, was disgust. The second was shame, and the third was guilt.

For decades I would scar my body by any means necessary, usually by “accident,” but the purpose was to remind myself of what was being done to me so that I wouldn’t forget.

Every scar on my body from the time I was five, until I was about twenty-five, were scars that were created directly after I’d been abused, because I was tired of forgetting to protect myself.

My scars became my way of protecting myself, harming my body became my way of controlling the narrative. The abuse wasn’t mine to carry, but then the scars became more of a calling card.

The more my abusers noticed what was going on, the less they cared about the harm they were causing. The more dangerous it was to get to me, the more the adventure for them.

It became an exhausting game of cat and mouse, and the struggle was real.

Now as an adult I don’t do that anymore, when the bad stuff happens, it’s usually because I’ve been thinking too hard about the bad stuff.

Like Persephone, I can’t help the fact that I keep getting dragged to the past mentally, but every time I do, I have to remind myself that was then and this is now.

I want to be healthy, and one of the things I have decided will help me get there, is the idea that I no longer need to feel ashamed about what I had to do, in order to survive.

The people who think of me as a rat or a tattle tail, are all people that think child rape, child sex trafficking, and child sex abuse, are perfectly acceptable.

I’m perfectly comfortable not being liked by folks like that. I’m uninterested in any way shape or form in protecting people who enjoy actively causing harm to the most innocent, and vulnerable among us and if you are, then perhaps you belong elsewhere, but it sure as fuck isn’t in my circle.

I can’t help the fact that an entire city spent decades neglecting the children that needed it the most. I can’t carry the shame of what was being done to me, because it’s too fucking heavy and that weight is killing me.

Speaking of weight, I’ve noticed that I’ve lost some recently. I think it’s due to the fact that I was in the wheelchair for about a month in a half and that required me to use muscles I haven’t used in a long time.

That and mom and I have both made a concentrated effort to eat better this year. I think each of us understand that the weight – although not the hugest problem in the world – isn’t helping us cope as well as we thought it would.

Each of us who deals with weight issues have different reasons for being overweight, sometimes it’s medical but sometimes it’s a choice. Like it was for me.

I chose to gain weight because I was tired of staying fit in a body that was constantly being abused. I wanted to weigh more specifically so that the men who were abusing me would find me hideous and leave me the fuck alone.

I know that’s not how it works God damn it, but I also know that at the time that’s where my mind was.

I am afraid of losing weight because I’ve always been so aware of my body. Everyone in my life from friends to family to teachers and doctors have felt comfortable commenting, touching, and abusing my body, regardless of what I wanted or needed.

I wanted so badly to grow up into the person who wasn’t getting raped anymore that I would say anything and everything that I thought would get me to this place, to this specific place so I could be the person who says it’s finally over Devon.

I don’t have to look back anymore, I don’t have to look over my shoulder, I don’t have to worry or fear because I know that I am loved, protected, and cared for.

Thank you for that.