If I were to use a simile to describe you, and maybe it's unjust to do so, disrespectful to use someone else's experience metaphorically, but if I were to, I would say that
you are like an autoimmune disorder. You just flare up sometimes and then my body attacks itself.
Here's one of the problems with abuse: it makes you doubt your own (experience memory body). You wonder: am I the crazy one? Maybe I'm crazy, but.
My mom said, if you find yourself asking if you're crazy, that's a red flag. We walk down a well travelled path.
I'm just so angry. Angry at how many of the remarkable women that I know have bodies (minds hearts lives worlds) that have been hurt by the actions of men, by their relationships with men. I KNOW THAT THIS LANGUAGE IS A PROBLEM. Women and men are constructed terms and so many of us have genders that the government (our parents, jobs, lovers) don't recognize. I know that men get hurt and I know that women hurt each other too and the truth is that the more oppression you experience the harder everything else becomes, including abuse whether inside your community or not. I don't mean to use inaccessible language and I don't intend to speak in universal truths, but here is my truth:
so many of the women that I know have been hurt by men.
Sometimes the women I know who have been hurt by men turn out to have also been men the whole time. Sometimes the women I know who have been hurt by men go and confront them. Sometimes the women I know who have been hurt by men write letters to each other to try and understand. Sometimes the women I know who have been hurt by men find healing in loving sex again. Sometimes the women I know who have been hurt by men find healing in never having sex again. Sometimes the women I know who have been hurt by men learn how to name their experience. Sometimes the women I know who have been hurt by men decide it's okay to name their experience whatever it felt like for them.
(I won't say this, but I know it to be true and you know it too: this is your mother, this is my mother, this is his mother)
The space between the times I think about you is getting bigger. Mostly, you come up and then you disappear just as easily. You are an anecdote. You are one way I learned about healing. Sometimes you make the nighttime difficult and sometimes I cry.
But more than that, I blossom. You take beautiful things and break them. But I took what you left me and I am making it whole. I get strong. Not grateful, no, not thankful for any of this, but stronger and smarter, and generous with my love, intentional with my love, useful with my love.
