Loud Mouth Brown Girl

I think I’ve been in mourning for longer than I realized. It wasn’t until my good friend started a podcast called Mourning People that I realized I am in mourning.

I am grieving so much.

The life that I thought I would have at this stage is definitely one of the things I am mourning. And it’s more important to talk about that fact than it is to just get over it.

“Oh well, life didn’t turn out the way I wanted,” is something I am mad about. Seriously angry. I didn’t get the life I wanted because of what was done to me, who did it, and the people who covered it all up.

I never thought I’d say that I am a part of a coverup, but how else do you explain the fact that more than thirty men raped me for more than two dozen years, and not a single one of them has faced any kind of consequence?

I am angry about that. And yes, I am in mourning for the girl who never got justice, I am angry at all the lawyers who turned down my case, who swore they wanted to help victims…just not me.

I am in mourning for the young woman who believed in Fairy Tales and got only trash in return. I am in mourning.

I don’t know what to do with all of this grief, I mean yes I built this website so I’d have somewhere to put it all, but the truth is, it’s not enough, you know? I need hugs, copious amounts of hugging, from people I love and trust.

But not physically, emotionally.

I come across to many people as intimidating, and they translate my size and my volume to not being safe, but the truth is I am one of the safest people to be around because I will protect you with everything I have. I’ve learned that.

I have learned that while many -too many of you for my comfort- see me as a Healer, the truth is I am a protector who needs a protector. I need a space where I can be soft, and not have to worry about the next attack from someone who both doesn’t know me, and doesn’t care to know me.

I’ve learned also that I do have boundaries, more than just sexual ones. I have physical boundaries too, I need breaks even from people I love. I need space, not just to grow, but to discover who I want to be.

These last few years have been so harried and so filled with trauma. This is the first year I’ve had in my entire life to just heal. To focus on my medical appointments, and to simultaneously have people care enough about me to say, “Let me get you some therapy.” I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to express to my loved ones, how much I fucking love them.

I have a community today. One that cares more about me than they do my abusers, and the sad part is that there were so many abusers, many of the people in my life today know exactly who I am talking about when I speak about specific men.

Largely because they’ve had similar experiences, or know about me through the grapevine. No matter how far removed I am from my abusers, their existence is always a present danger to me.

The people in my life today would do anything they can to protect me, but they won’t always be there, and so yes, I still mourn the girl who walked to work without a care in the world. I mourn the woman who was safe at work even while being surrounded by some of the sickest men in the world.

There are some days I wake up and I am full on ready to face the world, but as I told Nina from MP the other day, all this time I’ve spent healing has prepared me to get up and go this Pride season and I don’t want to.

I am mourning the world right now. I am mourning my friends in Gaza whom I met two years ago and are mostly dead or starving now. Many of whom are imprisoned by Israel.

I am mourning the children of Sudan, Congo, Haiti, and other places that, due to my economic status, I will never see. I am mourning the potential they have, to do things better, and the fact that many of them will be murdered, raped, and or tortured to death before they get the chance.

I am mourning everything I thought to be true, that fucking isn’t, like the idea that the world is fair for all people. So many of the lies I was told as a child are coming to light as I grow into my adulthood and if I am being 100% honest, I am not entirely sure how to deal with all of this.

I’ve never been a forty-something before, and I have absolutely no frame of reference as to how to handle all these “Big girl emotions,” I feel, when I honestly still feel like a child inside.

Anyone else feel this?

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Original LMBG