Perhaps that’s why it’s taken me so long to start this thing. I feel like every blog needs an introduction piece, or “here’s me, here’s what you’ll find” section. That’s daunting, but I think I’m ready to kickstart this project, so I’m kickstarting.

I’ve tried to find ways to describe who I am, why this blog matters to me, and why I decided to use this method of expression in the first place. To fully understand where I’m coming from, I feel like I should give you a biography of the life events that bring me here, that formed my surroundings and informed my decisions. Every time I try to start, I see one of those word clouds (ie these things) floating around in my brain. What are the buzz words you should know about me before I start spouting off all sorts of shit about me and my life and my thoughts?

What you should know about me is that I am extremely introverted and have a lot of shame when it comes to emotions. It’s one thing I hope to explore through writing this blog — writing publicly is far more outwardly expressive than I am in person, and I will write things here that I may have never uttered aloud. I’m not saying I don’t have friends and co-workers and family, I’m just saying that I grew up in such a way that I have never felt comfortable showing weakness, I have never felt comfortable expressing emotions, and as a result, I am not that great at anything that involves feelings. But, I’m working on it. I’ve found a really helpful MFT who works to understand me where I am now while also making sure I feel I can move forward from there in a healthy and sustainable way. In the general history of my life, just taking the step to find a therapist was a big one. Actually going on a regular basis and not lying to her was another one.

There are, of course, things I haven’t been able to talk about yet, things I’m sure exist that I don’t even know about, things that I think are fine that aren’t, things that aren’t fine and it’s ok that they aren’t… But, again, I’m working on it. Baby steps, right?

You see, I got to the point about a year ago when I realized that no matter how “strong” and “smart” and “together” I seemed, I’d been burying sadness and pain and anger and confusion for decades and burying things doesn’t make them go away.

I’m starting this blog because therapy is great, but it isn’t enough for me. My partner lost her dad in 2008, right as we were graduating from college, and since then we’ve both done a lot of talking. We’ve talked about it with each other, we’ve talked about it with mutual friends, we’ve talked about all of the other people in our lives who have lost people, who are losing people. We’ve talked to doctors, therapists, family members, co-workers, people we meet through other friends. We’ve talked about the hurt and exhaustion and the anger. Sometimes it feels like we’ve talked about it all. And, honestly, I think talking has been the most helpful part for her.

But, lately, especially since my foray into the great, wide world of therapy, I’ve realized that it’s a very particular kind of grief we talk about. It’s her grief. It’s loss. We all have our own hurt to deal with, and I don’t intend to belittle any of that hurt or the work that goes into understanding it. What I do intend to do is talk about something that no one talks about. I intend to talk about my own journey with grief, and it’s one that I’ve been on for a lot longer than I used to admit. My grief doesn’t come from losing some else, necessarily, my grief comes from losing what I think is part of myself. I was sexually assaulted multiple times as a child. It happened the first time when I was 5, and as I tell my therapist, “that one wasn’t that bad.” It “wasn’t that bad” when I was 6, either. It was pretty damn bad when I was 10, though. So bad that I didn’t even remember most of it until I was a sophomore in college, a full decade later. Now, I’ve rarely said the words “I was sexually assaulted” or “I’m a survivor of sexual assault” — in fact, I still use a sarcastic tone in therapy or use other words to introduce the topic. I’ve never told my mom, never really told my sister, my friends don’t know, my teachers didn’t know. Even at the young age of 5 years old, I understood, somehow, that this was not something I should talk about. It was something I felt shameful about, it was something I was embarrassed about. It was something that seemed almost other-worldly to a 5 year old kid. I didn’t understand why it was wrong, I didn’t even fully understand what was happening. I just knew it was a secret. It was my secret. And I kept it.

While I kept it, I developed depression, anxiety disorder, disordered eating, masochistic behaviors, insomnia and dealt with (what I now know are) bouts of PTSD. I have nightmares sometimes. I often don’t sleep well or at all. I am hyper-aware of my surroundings and have a crazy tendency to profile everyone around me. Until recently, I thought a lot of this was normal. I didn’t realize that my need to control situations was because I had likely felt like I didn’t have any control as a kid. I didn’t realize that my suppression of emotions was probably because, at age 5, 8, 10, I didn’t know how to deal with some of them. I didn’t realize that my insane need to protect my mom, protect my sister, came from an internal desire to protect myself, too. If I can make sure everyone else is ok, that means I must be ok. How can I help other people if I need help myself?

Everything got worse after I started remembering more. I was scared to sleep because I didn’t want to dream. I was scared to be awake because it meant I had to keep pretending like everything was fine. I was both terrified of, and desperately in need of, rest. I still am. But, I’d like to think I’m making progress. I wake up some days feeling like I’m trapped in an hourglass. I go to therapy, I talk about stuff, most often not this because it’s just too damn hard, and I dig myself just a little bit further out of this hole. Then, a few hours later, something triggers my stress, something sets me off, and suddenly it’s like someone flipped the hourglass and I’ve got a whole new pile of sand rushing down on me, suffocating me, reminding me just how far I still have to go.

I guess this is the beginning for me. Who says I have to bear this burden by myself? I didn’t choose this. I didn’t do this to myself. Someone else did this to me. Fuck that. I’m the one dealing with this 20 years later. I’m the one who doesn’t sleep, I’m the one who just can’t stomach food some days, I’m the one who remains closed off, guarded, aggressive. I’m the one digging myself out of this, grain by grain, and I’m sick of shouldering this type of grief alone. So, I’m gonna talk about it. Maybe no one will read it, but I’m sick of people pushing this under the rug. I’m sick of people talking about my uterus and who I should or shouldn’t marry and what type of healthcare I have the right (ha!) to, and how if people would just work harder they’d have a better job.

Yup, that shit pisses me off, but this pisses me off more.

-FTL