Loud Mouth Brown Girl

For the first time in my life, I can look backwards and say “Yo, little me, I made it somewhere safe.”

It’s not perfect, and it’s quite probably transitionary, but by the same token, it’s so much better than anything I’ve ever had before.

I spent what felt like a lifetime thinking that I was alone. That I was the only girl, the only girl who also happened to be Black, that it was happening to. Once I woke up to the realization that I had a lot of internal anti-Blackness to work through, I realized, I wasn’t and am not, in fact the only one.

It’s actually not as comforting as you think. Only someone truly sick would think “Oh thank God, there are others,” in reality it’s “Jesus Christ, there are others!”

No one who has been through, what a survivor of childhood sex trafficking, wants to know there are others, but what we want and what we need are two different things.

If I was the only one, then maybe people could get away with ignoring it, but there are an untold number of us. It could and probably is in the billions.

We are not unique in our pain, or our suffering, but we are unique in what we do about it.

Learning to focus your pain into making something beautiful isn’t easy and it’s not always a choice. Sometimes the choice is “do I kill myself, or do I make a sculpture/painting/drawing/piece of work?” When the work wins, it’s a win for everyone except the artist.

Because what you end up seeing, the end result, is a tirelessly made effort out of tears, that have been wept so hard Jesus himself had to come and comfort us.

I will never forgive any man that made me forget who I want to be, I will never forgive any man who made me cry to God.

It’s just not in me to make room to forgive people, who hurt me so badly I almost died, and the expectation that I should – that any person of a marginalized community should just forgive those who oppress us, is a concept built of the oppressor to control us.

Once you break free of the abuse, you have to learn to break free of the trauma and that can take decades upon decades to figure out, and then maybe if you’re lucky, you get to a safe space where you start to actually heal the wounds.

And healing the wounds is a bitch because no one knows they are there, and often you don’t even know what’s wrong. From one day to the next you wake up never knowing how you’re going to feel because so much of your life has been in a flux, that finding any semblance of calm can be actually terrifying.

Chaos is something that far too many of us become comfortable living in. Having a clean and organized home isn’t just difficult for us, it’s deeply troubling, because then we’re so busy waiting for the other shoe to drop, we become self-saboteurs, who end up BEING the other shoe.

What I want for my future is only going to be possible if I change the way that I look at what I’ve been through. I know that, and I’ve always known that, but by the same time, I’m scared to live without the chaos and I’ve said this before.

Fear is a controlling factor in my life, which is precisely why I am finally taking the leap and going back into counseling, so that I can learn how to better cope with the triggers that affect me and those around me.

Abuse and the cycle of abuse, is the epitome of cause and effect.

The cause of abuse, is abuse. The effect is more abuse, and much more trauma. It isn’t going to end until the organizations that not only allow but also facilitate safe spaces for abusers, are shut down for good.

I don’t care that the Pope is a white American, that doesn’t instill anymore faith in me, then being beaten with the phrase “If you were white this wouldn’t be happening to you,” ringing in my ears with ever slap, punch, kick, or rape attempt or experience.

None of you who read this website, even my abusers, can pretend to know what I am going through, or what others like me are going through, but what you can do is stop making it more difficult for survivors to come forward.

So many of you, so very many of you, are actually more comfortable supporting abusers than you are the victims they hurt, and I really think that mentality needs to be studied on a larger scale.

This seems like it needs reiteration:

A Third of Male University Students Say They Would Rape A Woman If There Were No Consequences. Article By Jon Stone

This is actually frightening. In Palestine, men in particular, rioted when Netanyahu said it was no longer legal to rape the prisoners they are illegally keeping behind bars. They fucking RIOTED.

Rape culture has permeated our society so deeply that if you do get caught for such crimes, they make jokes about men named “Bubba” and people genuinely find rape humor absolutely hilarious.

When the #MeToo movement happened, I genuinely thought, “Okay we’re getting somewhere, we’re finally having the conversation.” We learned that during COVID, calls for help from victims of domestic violence, around the globe rose 900%.

Nine Hundred Fucking Percent. How the fuck does abuse become so normalized that these are the numbers we’re facing?

In India and around the world, but In Indian culture in particular, there are entire families who participate in honor killings, because being a murderer, is better than having a free speaking woman in your family.

In my family, speaking out wasn’t an option. There was an abuser around every corner, and every other corner was filled with the fear that if “anyone finds out, you’ll be the one in trouble.”

If you’ve ever seen the show Maid, you understand. When you’re being abused, you’re stuck in the hole, what you do to get out of that hole is up to you, but but but, it’s super hard to get out of that hole with no support.

Women, often the caretakers of the family, don’t get the support they need, because we are expected to be the leaders in the household, the caretakers, and the protectors. The healers, teachers, feeders, and everything in between including but not limited to an always ready to go sex object.

And you wonder why so many of us are taking fucking drugs of some kind. I don’t know anyone who isn’t on some kind of medication to deal with a brain that spirals out of control without meds. I also don’t know anyone (Thank goodness) who doesn’t smoke cannabis.

Everyone in my circle is in a space of healing, growth, and evolution. Every single one of us is doing something to follow our dreams, and every single one of us knows that at any time, the floor underneath us could crack. While I feel like I am the only one without a safety net, I know that’s not the reality.

The community that I have today is everything that I grew up with, and I couldn’t be more grateful, but I’ve also never been more aware of how much I have to lose.

There’s that fear again, always rearing her ugly unwanted bitch ass head. Do me a favor and go buy a hoodie or a sweatshirt so I can pay next month’s rent? Thanks friends.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl