I’m drinking white wine. I’m being a bad girl.
I don’t care right now. I’m tired of being sick, being hurt, being broken. It’s not normal.
Sang and Sam tease me, howling their sympathies. I want to kick them; I want to scream. It’s not right.
I want to yell, “please stop hurting me.” I yell this during my twitches. I guess it isn’t just the Andys I’m trying to fight off. Every man scares me. Every man is pinning me down in some way. I hate them.
Well, not Sang but certainly any man I become sexually involved with.
Fuck. When I freewrite like this, I say things I hadn’t realized. For instance, I didn’t meant to write, “I hate them” just now. I meant to say—nothing. I’m drunk off little more than three sips. Another bad decision. I can barely type. I want to say I forgot I was taking meds again. Maybe that’s true. All I know is I’m feeling loose, and I’m happy about that.
I’m tired of always thinking about the rapes. I’m tired of remembering. I want it to go away. I wake up from flashbacks with my face pressed back, turned to my right, as it was the last time it happened. I can feel his body on mine. I can feel his weight and his warmth.
When does the rape stop being a good excuse? When is it just me fucking up and not a sad girl who’s just trying to do a little more than just survive? As I become increasingly frustrated with a friend, a fellow victim, who just won’t stop making excuses for herself, I wonder if I have a right to get frustrated. Or am I just like her? What am I doing to make sure I’m not standing still?
Okay, I’m writing. I’m talking about it. I’m dealing with it.
But am I dealing with it effectively? Or is the writing just another distraction?
I know it’s not, but I have to check. I have to ask. I can never trust any of my own thoughts.
I’m turning circles. This post hardly seems worth publishing. Nothing seems worth publishing. I feel like I’m just saying the same old thing. I’m tired of my own voice. I hate—myself.
But I guess that’s trauma.
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You’re right. I haven’t been me. And I fear you’re also right about men. Every day, I struggle to see men as fellow victims. Intellectually, I know they are. I know the patriarchy has claimed them as it’s claimed us.
But then the two men I respect most in the world tease me for the aches and pains my constant anxiety have caused. “It was all harmless kidding,” I tell myself, “and it is kind of comical. I’m always whining.”
A long list of self-deprecations are proven true by their laughter.
I—I hate to admit it, but I feel very much like you do. I still sometimes think, “aw, look at that guy with his kid.” That, however, is quickly subsumed by images of him molesting her.
I’m probably naive, but I just can’t embrace that image, yet. I can’t think of all men that way. I feel that, for me, and I only speak for myself, I would be giving into the trauma and condemning myself to this fractured reality.
I know. I’m a fool for hoping. They keep beating me, and I keep licking their hand. But, as I see it, if I give up on men, I give up on women, too. It’s the nature of a dichotomy. To that point, I’ve dated women. Their good intentions are equally worthless. Even the ones you don’t so much as kiss will caress your soul as they lead you toward their parapet.
No. Forget what I said. My argument is flawed. None of those women damaged me for years: stole into my mind, ripped apart my anatomy, and irrevocably harmed my sexuality.
You caught me, bradamant. I’m having some difficulty accepting my feelings against men. I know it doesn’t end. I want to say there are exceptions, but every man I’ve thought was an exception has proven to actually be damaging in a way so subtle, his damage is more perverse than the last one’s.
But I’m afraid to hate men, bradamant. I’m afraid to leave them forever. I fear I would be letting the Andys win.
Not letting them win is the only thing that drives me.
Oh, God! That’s an ugly realization! They’re at the essence of my every motivation. They define me.
Have they already won?
Oh Luz, this new voice of yours hardly sounds like you at all. You hate yourself? I doubt that. That sounds like someone projecting his emotions, his feelings, his anger on to you. It sounds like a man for heaven’s sake.
I understand, Luz. I really do. You and I know both know that this never ends. I know what it’s like. I know how it feels to cringe every time one of them from outside your circle comes too near. Yeah, you put on a brave face when you’re out in public but inside you cringe. And you resent. I know that when I’m out and about and I see men, I’m not thinking “oooo, he’s good looking” or “I wonder what kind of man he is?” or even, “Gee, what a nice dad.” Oh, I used to but some man beat that out of me many years ago. And now I just don’t trust them. You see, Luz, I resent the air they breathe. I resent the space they take up. I resent the notion that even one of them feels that he should have a say in my life.
I know you feel safe among the men of your own group but let’s examine the facts. Your friends are making fun of your trauma. They are laughing at your pain, at your emotions….at your feelings. You see, Luz, they have it in them too. They are capable of attacking someone, sometime and laughing about it. They are probably capable of planning and organizing just such an attack. They would be relentless, and manipulative, and secretive. And all the while they would be laughing at the person, the woman, that they have singled out to abuse. They have it in them. And why would they want to behave in this way? Because they want to win. They want to win at any cost. They won’t stop, they would be relentless, they would be single-minded in their goal. They would lie, they would cheat, they would cover up any and all of their own problems and indiscretions because they must win. They would put their heads together in the huddle and make their plays so as to win at all costs. But Luz, no one wins these games. Everyone loses. That’s the nature of these games. Everyone loses. It never ends.
In times past, people recognized the effects of rape trauma and allowed women to seclude themselves in convents. I’ve chosen celibacy. Others may not understand but they don’t have to understand. They just have to respect my choice.