Loud Mouth Brown Girl

Trigger Warning
This Post Contains Conversations About Surviving Childhood Trauma, and Mental Health Issues With Survival Tips For Those Who Are Trying To Escape. If You Or Someone You Know Needs Help, Please Reach Out and We Will Connect You To Resources Anonymously.

Yeah, we’re stronger. Yes, we’re wiser, but no, we aren’t supposed to be these people. I do not believe that we are supposed to be people who understand trauma, abuse, and the horrific nature of human beings who can’t keep their hands to themselves.

Today, as I am writing this, the world is finding out that a rather famous actor, writer, investor, and model, has come forward with allegations of abuse.

I want to prepare you, the allegations are vivid. It’s difficult to hear, but it’s necessary.

As bad as you think as it was for you, for me, for those around us, it’s equally bad if not worse, for someone who is still stuck in the shame of silent shadows.

The ones who whisper “Me too,” so quietly you can barely hear it, but you can’t see who, are living in the kind of Hell I wish on no one.

The volume inside their heads is loud.

The pain of the abuse, the memories are graphic. The cycles we live in, when we are in the shadows are insanity inducing.

When we do come forward, unless we’re famous, few people will take us seriously. Few people will believe us, and even and ESPECIALLY when we’re famous, the ownus is on us to live through:

• The humiliation of others explaining why our accusations are either not valid, unimportant, or unworthy of beaing heard.
• Told we deserved it/wanted it/were made stronger by it (DO FUCK OFF with this narrative!)
• Somehow, someway, we must have invited it
• Being asked if we liked it by cops taking the report
• Told that we’re psychotic and that we made it up ala Alice in Wonderland (You should have your license revoked!)

On and on and on, there will always be Death By A Thousand Cuts, because if our abusers don’t cut us the negligence of our communities will.

BELIEVE SURVIVORS.

That’s the fucking mission. The very fact that you don’t see rape culture, is precisely what allows rape culture to persist. Men grow up raising daughters to be princesses instead of warriors, and sons as warriors instead of emotionally regulated human beings with empathy, which is precisely the opposite of raising princesses.

I chose not to have children because I was abused so badly that I was and am terrified of continuing the cycle. The cycle of domestic abuse, ends with me.

I will not allow men or children into my life, if I cannot ensure their safety, and as I work on myself, I begin to realize that I’m not the problem. I was the victim – chosen by men who had more than one or twelve screws loose.

Men who said shit like “The goddess chose me,” Bitch no, she didn’t. You were high on crack J. I remember distinctly, you fucking pedophile fuck.

And to every single person who watched people like me, girls and women, boys, men, trans, and non-binary and or a-sexual people come forward, to all of you who watched us came forward, stayed silent when you knew the truth and yet had the absolute unmitigated gawl, to judge us for coming forward? That’s the betrayal I am talking about.

I am coming on ten years of being domestic violence free, that’s not something I should have to celebrate, and yet it feels worthy of celebrating.

It feels like a birthday almost, like a re-birth of whom I might have been, had I had the space to grow. But the thing is, I will never be that person, because I AM the person who had their wings metaphorically ripped off, almost physically actually.

I AM the person who went through Hell to come here and say yup, it gets better, but the thing is…if you want it to get better, you have to fight for it.

I’m not the person who lived through life blissfully unaware that racism and sexism and white supremacy and colonialism go hand in hand.

I used to be, and then I got raped, again. By men who had been raping me as a child for as long as I can remember, and all I got in return was being told I was crazy.

I’m not huge on being bitter about this, but I am, because yes asshole, my saftey is at risk and no it’s not paranoid to think men who can do all this, and get away with it, couldn’t do worse.

But as many of you mental health patients understand, we’re not allowed to be honest about our fears, because if we are then we’re “Paranoid,” and that’s unhealthy.

Heavy dose of sarcasm. I don’t say all this just because I’m angry, I say this because I want you to understand that if the world were kinder to survivors and less kind to perpetrators, then we would have a lot less shit to heal from in this world.

I say this because if you’re going to come forward with your story, I have some tools to help you:

• Build yourself a network. Reach out to domestic violence shelters and put your name on every list you can, so that when you’re ready, you can escape as soon as possible. Most DV Shelters have a network, so they have ways of moving women and children who need to be moved with the aid and assistance of law enforcement.
• Save. Start a side hustle, knitting, sewing, laundry, whatever it might be, if you’re already working, start saving for escape time. Ask your boss/manager for a raise, explain you have tight times at home. DO NOT UNLESS YOU TRUST THEM IMPLICITY tell them why, they will be one of the first places your abuser goes looking.
• Go on a social media clense. Delete everything, and share with your trusted network, the next step.
• Create anonymous accounts, FROM A BURNER PHONE – or use a VPN You can trust (good luck with that, hello FBI) – tell your story as best you can and use this to DM/Privately message your network
• Get new credit cards and do NOT link them to your spouse. MAKE SURE AS YOU SIGN UP YOU DO THIS WITH A NEW EMAIL/ADDRESS ETC like don’t put your home addy on it, put the house three doors down, if you can.
• When it’s go time, leave everything you don’t absolutely need, or can’t grab in an emergency. Tell no one you’re leaving until the last possible moment, including your network, they’ll understand.

These are all steps I COULDN’T take when I came forward, all things that I didn’t have time to do after I was raped. My ONLY escape was telling my story, which was far worse, because I didn’t get to run away, like most survivors, I had to face it head on, one way or another.

Each of us is going to go through a different set of steps to escape when we need to, each of us is going to find something that works for them, and some things that don’t. The one thing I’ve learned however is that changing your weight and your hair color does wonders to confuse the fuck out of your abusers who will walk right by you without a second glance when you’re 100lbs heavier with purple hair.

I hope you come forward, because you deserve to live in the heat of validation. But I also hope, that’s safe for you to come out of the shadows, I know how cold it can be there, and I’ll do whatever I can to help keep you warm, but the thing that’s going to change your life the most is not accepting that which you can’t change.

It’s fighting back against the indoctrination of depression, and reminding yourself that you as an individual were not put here to suffer at the hands of weak minded individuals who are trying to turn you into something you were never meant to be.

You can come forward, and we’ll be here. You can hold onto it, and we’ll be here, just know whoever you are, wherever you are, we believe survivors.

XOXO

Devon J Hall

The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl