For decades people have challenged everything about me; my looks, my spiritual beliefs and practices, the people I choose to let into my life, the decisions I make, the clothes I wear, the nails I do or do not attend to and on and on and on.
My life has been under scrutiny either by the people in my community, or my audience, my entire life. So putting a spotlight on what I’ve been through to get to a place where I can say “this is my life and I love it,” seemed like a good idea at the time.
I don’t know if I thought about the consequences, because I don’t know that I was capable of thinking about the consequences.
At the time it very much felt like I was standing on a digital corner screaming “HEY YOU THERE, LOOK AT ME, SEE ME, NOTICE ME, BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T SOMETHING REALLY BAD MIGHT HAPPEN.”
It helped more than most people in my circle understand, to unburden myself of all the secrets I’d been holding on to.
This isn’t just a project, it’s the foundation of my existence.
My origin story is filled with toxicity, trauma, abuse, and all things sorrow. The years of darkness it took to make me who I am today, are incalculable in monetary value.
Someone asked me recently, “If you could put a dollar amount to the trauma you’ve faced, what would you say it cost you?” and honestly I didn’t have an answer. So I asked Threads, a few people had some astronomical numbers, but at the end of the day most people said what I was thinking: “I can’t put a dollar amount to the trauma, because nothing will change what was done to us.”
You can’t unbreak a table, you can’t unshatter glass. Sure you can turn it into something beautiful, you can make it palatable for those who are hearing about it, but that doesn’t change that it’s still there, inside you, feeding away every time you get triggered.
Having a support system that genuinely cares about your wellbeing changes the game. It changes everything about the game.
I have friends today who I would die for, not because they’d want me to like friends in the past, but because they are the kind of people who deserve to be protected. Amazingly, they feel the same way about me.
I have a small, tiny in fact, group of beautiful friends, and then a wide circle of good aqauintences, who support me, love on me, and show me how to love myself.
S refuses to let me talk negatively about myself. H listens no matter how much rambling I need to do, even when she’s not feeling her best. And E feeds my soul by inviting me into her family and behaving as if I belong there without worrying that my skin color is different than hers.
Each of my friends teach me something different, new and interesting on a regular basis. I was asked recently who does most of the work in our relationships and if I am honest, it ain’t me.
I went through something this year and a few members of our friend group, stopped being a part of our friend group. I think that took the last out of me.
I no longer have the capacity to open my heart to new people, and the ones that are here, I try to show them I love them, but if it’s not enough, that’s no longer my concern.
I am wiped out. Tapped out, burned out, broken down, and just starting to recover from severe anemia, finally I found a doctor who took me seriously and set me up with iron infusions as well as b12 shots.
My relationship with my mom is 10000000000000000000000% better than it’s ever been before, and honestly I think for the first time in my life, I am starting to feel “settled.”
I’ve been nesting, cleaning out shit we don’t need, and making room for whatever is coming in 2026. Last year I asked for stability and now that I have that, I realize what a privilege it is to be in a stable living situation.
I don’t think I ever recognized that before because I’ve never had a stable living situation. With the exception of one bedroom, I’ve never had a bedroom that has been safe before this one.
I’ve been molested or abused in every single bedroom I’ve ever had. This makes the second time I have been safe, but the difference is that this time I know that I am safe. I don’t have to sneak out of the house and go for miles long walks just to ensure that I stay that way.
For about three decades in my life, I would sneak out of the house in the middle of the night, or go for a long ass walk late at night, just because that was when C, E, and the others showed up and I couldn’t protect myself.
Walking at night was my way of staying on the move, and it gave me a time to audibly say out loud, what I couldn’t say to other people.
I don’t have to do that anymore. I can just curl up in bed and sleep, it’s been a very long time since I’ve actually slept because I mostly just lay there with my eyes closed, but at the same time…I still wake up feeling relaxed. Not rested, but relaxed.
Every day is different. Today’s not a gym day, but it is an errand day, and so I’ll run around with my gf and get shit done while we gossip and laugh and cry together about the shit that aint’ right.
There’s no jealousy in our group, only love that each of us is bonding with each other and that each of us have found at least one person who can handle our crazy. It’s a special place to be, and I feel absolutely privileged and lucky to be here.
However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t still have moments of darkness, it’s just now I have the coping mechanisms to deal with it. We got this.
All this to say I fucking told you it gets better Devon, (not me), I wish you could be here to see that.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, the Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 