When I was a kid, I distinctly remember driving through Calgary with mummalove, my younger brother, and my mom’s boyfriend.
I remember thinking “I want out.” “Can I go to boarding school…in England?” I asked out loud as we were driving, he laughed, mom said absolutely not, and that was the end of the conversation.
I wasn’t very good at fighting for what I wanted back then, because I was a child. I honestly didn’t know I was allowed to act out, especially where he was concerned.
He made life more than difficult, he made it downright ugly. He hated his life, and mummalove and I were his punching bags. My brother however, was his prize possession, a thing to be waded out at parties and shown off at every opportunity. My younger brother is the true genius in the family.
He learned to work past the trauma and is building a life for himself, meanwhile I’m still wading through what seems more like a river rather than an ocean of garbage, trying to get my head above water.
I spent a lot of years being in a stunned stupor, writing because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. Painting because I’d always wanted to, and had never had the courage to try, dancing just to release the energy without having to use words.
I even stopped talking verbally for a short time, speaking only when spoken to, and using my toes to communicate at least to myself, what I was thinking and feeling. Only a few people have figured it out, but language doesn’t always have to be loud. Sometimes it can be soft, and quiet, the Deaf community has known this for generations.
I have a dozen different languages, some written others I will never write, because I never want to have to share them, that I have created, just for me. Because the English language is just that. The English, language.
Written for and by English people, who don’t understand the colorful nuance that comes with being a person of color, let alone Black.
The reason that so many people (specifically Black people,) argue for there to never be a written dictionary of AAVE, is because it’s a closed language. Only certain people are invited in.
When I use AAVE it’s not because I’ve picked it up with social media, it’s because it’s the language of the people who raised me.
There are a lot of things I dislike about this world, but the one thing that irks my gears more than anything else, is the assumption that everyone must assimilate.
I don’t want to be like everyone else. I don’t want to jump on the “Let’s build AI so it can kill us all and we can manifest a destiny that’s been written about twelve dozen times in films, television, and on the stage,” era of our world.
I want to be on the “Let creatives thrive the way they were meant to and put down the weapons already,” era of the world, but since I didn’t get to choose when I was born, I will damned well make sure I choose what I do with my time here.
I fully remember being nineteen and completely having zero direction in my life. Nowhere to go, no one to show me, and no one who cared enough to pick me up and take me to a place of healing.
I had literally no one, who saw just how hard it was for me to exist. Everyone in my life at that time, was too busy trying to fix me. No one stopped to ask where it hurt, or why I was so messed up and even if they had, I couldn’t have told them because I genuinely, literally, had no memory of being raped prior to that.
My memories only started to resurface a few years ago, as you know, and so now that I have them, it’s really interesting to see how gung ho I am about moving forward, when I remained stuck for so long.
For the first two and a half years I was here, it honestly felt like I was nineteen again, frozen in time, totally terrified to move forward and do something with my life.
But now it feels different. Unlike last time when I was looking for a man to save me, I am in my “save my self,” era at long fucking last.
We talk a lot about “Love Language,” and what your love language says about you, but we don’t ever talk about “Trauma Language,” and what that says about what you’re going through.
I think it’s time we start.
Healing internal trauma is ugly, it looks like throwing up from stress; it looks like screaming at the top of your lungs when no one is around. It looks like curling in a ball in bed and watching the same cop show over and over and over and over…and over and over again because it’s the only thing that turns your brain off.
Trauma language looks cruel – sometimes we say things that we don’t even want to say, that aren’t even true, just because we’re so fucking angry we need to direct our pain and hurt somewhere, and usually that means throwing it at people we love.
This is specifically why I suggest taking a baseball bat to your bed, or better yet a broom, because a broom will make you laugh. Have you ever hit your bed with a broom? it will absolutely make you laugh.
Take all your clothes off, and ugly dance in front of the mirror, if you don’t laugh then you definitely need to go to the next level of counseling because there’s nothing funnier than seeing all your jiggly parts jiggle, for no reason other than you just feel like being ridiculous for a moment.
There are reasons to keep living, even though the darkness makes you feel like it’s going to swallow you hole. This I know for a fact.
I remember when I was in Winnipeg – before I got arrested, but after my room was ransacked by that record producer, – I was holding onto this anchor curtain holder I got at a gift shop. It was the only thing in the world I wanted, was an anchor, a symbol of stability.
So I bought it for ten dollars, but in a fit of anger later on, I threw it away and broke it, I was so angry, because the memories were starting to surface, but more than that, it wasn’t just the abuse I’d experienced that I was remembering.
I was remembering the racism. I couldn’t help it. Winnipeg, especially Fredericton, was this little place with all these antique Victorian style homes, but you could tell, that the people who lived there, hadn’t had much experience with people of color.
Being in a town that treated me like I was a foreigner in my own country, for the first time in my life, without family, friends, or allies, to protect me in any valuable way, was eye opening. I never knew it was the whole country. I thought it was pockets of the country, but as it turns out white supremacy lives, breathes, and thrives, everywhere it goes.
Remembering as a child how innocent and scared I felt, came rushing back in Winnipeg, and I didn’t handle it well. I told the truth as best as I was able but let’s be honest, I should have been designated insane and left to rot in a hospital somewhere until someone listened to me.
But instead I learned to mask and I hide it now behind clever words and humor.
“You’re funny.” “Thanks, I was very nearly murdered on multiple occasions and no one cares.” Is pretty much my life theme.
The rage, anger, and resentment that comes with knowing my story wasn’t “Important enough,” to investigate stings, but it’s no worse than millions of other women have had to experience throughout their lives. And they moved on, so I will too.
That’s my anchor.
I never wanted, or needed to be an original, or even seen as original, I just needed to know that what I was going through wasn’t so big, that I was alone.
It took me many years to find people like me, but I know they are out there now and that changes the game. It gives me the confidence to learn to change my language not so that I can assimilate, but so that I can communicate my needs but especially my boundaries, in ways ordinary people are willing to accept.
It’s difficult to understand that maybe not everyone wants to speak English, maybe not everyone in the world can understand this, but English doesn’t as accurately capture the angst that comes with a visceral, violent, released breath of fresh dragon screams.
Sometimes you just gotta go into the woods, take a large branch, and beat the fucking shit out of the forest floor while you scream and dance to the moon and praise the Goddess, because I have news for you:
Women who danced in the woods, the women who screamed and howled, the women who released their wild in the night with their closest friends and loved ones, knew how to live.
They understood that women were not meant to be subservient unless that was a role they chose for themselves. They understood that women were and are, powerful, vibrant, and yes even wild, creatures who do not need to be tamed the way that we tame horses.
I think the major problem that I have with men is that too many of you need to be taught how to appreciate what is right in front of your face. At first when men would come to me and tell me I’ve helped them understand it was healing, but now it just feels like a responsibility that came with being abused, and I didn’t ask for either.
In understanding that trauma has it’s own language, I feel more in control. “Okay my depression needs to be fed, for whatever reason its’ there, what can “I” do, to make myself smile?” And you know what? On days when you just give in and let it take over…that’s okay too.
But some things about mental health are a choice, when you find the things you can control, you alter the state within which your brain is convinced you must confine yourself.
But here’s the thing: The brain is the largest learning muscle in the body. If you teach your brain that you overcome, she’ll believe you.
Just another rambling few thoughts,
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 