On my KOFI page, I posted an article called “Find Less.” No comma, because it wasn’t a question, it was a demand. If I am too much for you, find less.

If you’re the kind of person who sees someone and thinks “That person is so much, I need to destroy them,” you need to get therapy.

In the Bible, the story of Adam and Eve places the blame on Eve for choosing to eat the apple. Not the snake for giving her the idea in the first place and lately I’ve been wondering a lot about that.

Eve essentially closed the garden to both Adam and Eve the moment she convinced Adam to take a bite out of the apple, but she wouldn’t even have thought to, without the snake interfereing.

When we think about who is to blame, often we stop at what we know. We don’t look deeper to see what we don’t know, because we can’t see all sides, until the situation we are dealing with is over.

When we look back we see what we weren’t able to see before, or what was hidden from us, and then we have all these “Oh, I see,” moments that change the game and allow us to push forward.

For instance. Yes, I was raped and abused, but that’s not the important part…any longer.

It used to be, it used to be the most important part in the world, and nothing else mattered, but now that I have some distance I am no longer focused on the volatile parts of my life, I am no longer sitting here wondering “why me?”, because I know why.

I trusted the wrong people. I didn’t even trust them, if I am being honest, I was lied to, snaked, and taken advantage of, by people not who had more power, but more numbers.

I know that I am loud, and that I make questionable life decisions….or rather, I used to. I am a much calmer, more calculated version of the person those who knew me before, got to meet. Today I find ways to navigate the abuse I experience, when it does happen, that don’t involve calling the cops or worrying my family members with my behavior.

Meditation has become a huge part of my life – some people call it disassociation, because I tend to “Zone out…” but really I am meditating, and thinking, and letting all the the thoughts I hear, flow through my mind as if I am watching a river of words and thoughts.

I don’t act on every thought the way I used to when I was a kid. I’ve learned how – often on my own – to navigate the intrusive thoughts, and I’ve worked really hard on myself to be a better, more sedate but still amazing me.

If what I am today, is too much for you tomorrow, then stay away. One of the the things I never understood about the men in my past is if ya’ll hated me so much, why didn’t you leave me alone? Why did you keep pretending to be my friends? Why did you allow what happened to us as children, to continue as adults?

It’s not the rape part – I could get raped tomorrow and know precisely how to deal with it. Not that I hope that happens, but I am sooo used to being abused by the power of the dick, that it no longer does anything but gross me out.

What I mean to say, is you know what was done to us as kids…and you know it was wrong. And you did it again so the same men who abused us as children, could do it one more time, and you cosigned that by calling me a rat…by telling the world I was crazy when you know damned well you’re a disgusting pathetic little goof, and I’m too much?

Bitch find less and choke on it.

XOXO

Devon J Hall,

The Original Loud Mouth Brown Bitch