Loud Mouth Brown Girl

I thought I would do something different today, so I decided to grab one of WP’s writing prompts and I couldn’t resist this one because it’s so delicious.

The truth is that I wouldn’t give my younger self advice, she did everything right and still got abused. There’s nothing I could say that would change that, if anything I’d ask her how the fuck she did it, because I honestly only remember being in survival mode in passing.

I have flashback memories these days, unless I read my journals, or stop taking my medications, the bad memories – or most of them – have faded to the background of my memory, which is precisely where I want those memories.

Buried deep so I no longer have to deal with them. I know that as life goes on, things will come up and I’ll have to deal with those emotions of fear, anxiety, depression, isolation, etc, but I don’t have to deal with them all at once, because then they become all-consuming.

I’ve been consumed by emotions before, and I know that I need my meds today to handle the trauma, but I also know if men had kept their fucking hands to their fucking selves, I wouldn’t be dealing with all this trauma today.

I don’t think my younger self was perfect – she was impulsive, sometimes mean, and not always “the best version of herself,” but that’s only because no one taught her how to be. Most men in my past – and many of my so-called friends- would look at me as if I were someone else, and very rarely would any of them see me, as an individual person who deserved to exist.

I live with so many microaggressions and so many horrible behaviors because I thought being lonely wasn’t as bad as being alone, and boyo was I ever wrong!

I’d much rather be alone today than surrounded by people who don’t care if I burn or die or not.

I have a great but small circle of women I can reach out to for help when I need it today, which was all I ever wanted. Today I know if my abusers come for me, I have people who will fight to protect me, and that feels fucking amazing.

In short, today I know I am loved, I know how to accept that love, and how to give that love in return. I know today what I didn’t know when I was twenty, and because of that, I know the next twenty are going to be phenomenal.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl

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