Loud Mouth Brown Girl

Sit down and think about it, you’ve me, we have been through some shit in the last few years. I mean you watched me escape a cult, you saw me grow into being unhoused as I lost my mind and went down the rabbit hole of abuse I experienced, and now you’re witnessing another change as I prepare to register to finish High school.

We’ve been through some shit together, and when I sat down and really thought about it, I began to realize that it’s actually ten years in January that I started this blog, not nine.

Before I wrote one word on the blog, I sat down on the couch and whispered to myself, “I don’t know where we’re going, but we’ll figure that out when we get there.” Whelp I’m here and the view is phenomenal.

I’m in the place that the world told me exist, but the same world that told me this place existed, also told me that I didn’t deserve to be here.

Well friends, I’m here, and I am only here because I had people in this little village who wanted to see me get better. There are people out there who have read every insane and sane post I’ve ever written, that’s…weird, but it’s also cool.

This little library of stories I’ve built have helped me heal, grow stronger, and pushed me to want more and to want to keep doing what I’ve been doing in bigger ways.

I made a few big decisions today, but one of the biggest ones that I’ve made is that I really want to focus on helping other women, who are like myself.

Women who have been abused, women who need an escape, women who need a place to go to that no one can take from them. In order to build that, I have to go back to school, which I’ve mostly been putting off due to the trauma I faced the first few times I tried this shit.

School was never a particularly safe space for kids like m. I remember one kid who got thrown into a wall by a vice principal, then called “Violent.” By that same vice principal.

I was in sixth grade the first time I called the school board to complain about my teacher, because back then you could do that. I don’t know that he thought I was serious about the abuses we were experiencing, but he did call the vice principal who then put me in detention because “How dare you call my boss?” Bitch, it was the emotional equivalent of calling your mommy, but you bet your ass, it was the last time I did that.

I learned early to let the abuses go, to pretend it didn’t happen, like many of you I learned to mask the shit I was going through, and to do things that made me feel better. As a kid that included stealing, I didn’t “like” to do it, but it made me feel better. If I wanted something I just took it, isn’t that what the boys and men had taught me we do?

It took me a long time to break the habit of stealing, and now that I don’t do it anymore the very thought brings me into a near panic attack, because of the trauma of getting in trouble for stealing.

The trauma wasn’t that I got into trouble. It’s that the boys, men, and even girls and women who bullied and or abused me, got away with it, while MY Black ass always seemed to be in trouble.

The difference now however is that I am older. I have the freedom and the autonomy to fight for myself, and to gather others who want to fight with me, for people like me.

When I was a kid it was “eye for an eye” if a kid tells you he’s going to rape you, (which did happen), it was perfectly acceptable to kick him as hard as you could between the legs. My father figure at the time, said so. This may or may not have happened, my memories are hazy.

HOWEVER, My point is, today that is…well it’s probably still acceptable to react that way so he knows his piece is never welcome but it’s not LEGALLY acceptable, as an adult to behave in such a matter.

And so instead I tell you, I share my stories with the world not only so that I don’t feel so isolated, but so that we can gather around and exchange and experience each other’s wins and losses together. The thing is, I haven’t been so good at sharing this platform because I’m…openly selfish, y’all know this.

And I am probably not going to be great at doing that in the future either. I’ve decided I am not going to go ahead with Stay Lifted Sis, because as much as the name means to me(I’m still keeping it as part of the LMBG Garden,) I don’t really have it in me to lift up others right now in that capacity.

My girlfriend Nina started a small podcast called Mourning People Podcast, and it’s all about the different ways in which we are mourning different parts of ourselves. It’s absolutely brilliant, and it’s inspired me to want to remind myself, to love myself.

I didn’t realize that what I’ve been doing all these years is grieving. I just knew I didn’t feel “Happy’ I didn’t feel right. I didn’t know that what I was experiencing grief until Nina pointed out that I’ve never really stopped to cry about it all.

I was talking to someone today and I said “There’s just so much and there are so many different branches of abuse,” I know now there are people who don’t believe me but the thing is that because I have the options to live, and to thrive, and to heal, because I am safe, I no longer give a fuck.

I wasn’t born to be a victim, I am a survivor, maybe not by choice, certainly not because I fucking wanted to survive that shit, but regardless, I’m here, so I figure, as long as I’m doing something with it, I can’t be doing too badly. Right?

I don’t know what the future holds, but whatever it holds I’m ready to embrace with my full chest.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl