Just a joke

A man called me a misandrist today. I replied, “Wow, that’s a big word for a male!”

And for some reason, he got upset.

I said, “Relax, bro. It’s just a joke.”

But he didn’t laugh. He got angry. Men are so emotional.

Misandry of course, coming from the Greek– misos, meaning hatred of, and andros, meaning male,

— for all you men out there who didn’t know.

Now I don’t hate men. If anything, I find myself liking them more than I reasonably should. More than logic would bear.

Sexualized since before puberty.
You see, when I was 12, I was groomed and repeatedly raped by a full grown male. My breasts barely bumps on my bony, child-like chest. Didn’t matter.

Groped by ancient coworkers in my budding teens. Catcalled on the street more times than I could count before my 20th.

There were the ones who preyed upon my kindnesses, weaknesses,

Those who just used my body and left. Those who took it by manipulation. By intoxication. By force…

The bear, at least I know what to expect. Growling advances to keep me from their lair. Death by razor-sharp claws and teeth sunk into my flesh should I ignore their warnings.

Death seems cleaner than the scars left behind by a lifetime of objectification. Abuse. Trauma. That comes wrapped in a sweet, sweet package that is sometimes enjoyable and kind. Unable to tell which one you might unwrap, until it’s too late.

That reminds me of another joke.

What medicine do you give to a diabetic misogynist?
Incel-in

I know, I know. Men. Insulin is this medicine we give to diabetics to help with their sugar levels and incels, well…

Oh, I’m sorry, was I femsplaining again?

Their tempers aside,
we should give them another chance.
Just not at anything important.
Politics.
Leadership.
Raising children.
You know how men get.
Testosterone.
Emotions.
All that instability.

But jokes aside.
anger
after a lifetime of abuse
isn’t hatred.
It’s memory.

Ask your sisters. Ask your mother. Ask your daughters. When do they first remember being sexualized by a man?

And if the answers make you uncomfortable, if they make you angry,
if they make you defensive
congratulations.
Now you know a fraction of what women feel every single day.
And if naming that reality makes me a misandrist:
then maybe the real question is
why the truth about men sounds like hatred
to the men who taught women
the word misandry
in the first place.
And why
every time women tell the joke, it’s
suddenly just
not funny anymore.

Forests

A flower bloomed
from seeds stashed
by a prehistoric squirrel
thirty-two thousand years ago
locked in permafrost,
frozen, forgotten,
filed beneath a thousand lifetimes
before finally breaking open.

Your ideas travel too.
Through a thousand seasons.
Spoken in small sentences.
In kindness.
In careful correction.
In accidental affirmation.
Indirect.
Unintentional.
Like a squirrel
trusting a future
it will never meet.

A memory of where it buried hope.
Believing it would weather the winter.
Built-in instinct.
Bone-deep belief.
Gravitating toward survival.

But even with the best of care
that squirrel is long since dust.
Folded back into the garden it once fed.
Its hidden hoard risen into trees.
Sheltering its lineage.
Softening severe suns.
Bones becoming bedrock.
Ruin becoming root.

The trauma of my past lies locked in permafrost too.
Hard shell.
Heavy history.
Pressure-packed protection.
But inside
something stirs.

Something softens.
Something germinates.

I am not barren.
I am buried.

I wait for spring.
For the split.
For the shedding.
To rise
tender and tenacious.
Beautiful.
Something resembling the confidence
carried in my bloodline.
Blessing braided with bruise.
The good
and the grievous.
Death turning the soil.
Destruction feeding the field.

Even endings enrich the earth.

The voice in my head tells me
to treat myself
like my best friend would.
With compassion.
With patience.
With radical, rebellious kindness.
To break the curse.
To interrupt inheritance.
To pass on a stronger start.
But there is no child for me to cradle.
No lineage for me to carry.

And still
the acorns I scattered
stay.
Careless kindness.
Dropped words.
Unplanned planting.
They may be nuts instead of seeds
but they carry forests.

Forests inside them.

Tomorrow is a new thaw.
A new turning.
A new tender beginning.
Only time knows
what will bloom.

And I
am finally
ready
for spring.

Wife #2

When I think about my life right now, I can’t really complain. I have a comfortable place to live. I go to school. Work at my own schedule. Have several partners who treat me well and keep me satisfied. Good friends who check in on me. Fulfilling volunteer work. I find myself smiling each day.

My one partner is the second love of my life. I can’t believe I’ve met him. He feels like comfort. Like home. I enjoy every second with him, and despite being with him only twice a week, it’s more than satisfying. Despite being aromantic most of my life, with only a small handful of people who have even remotely sparked my interest, I am now very interested in dating him. In him meeting my friends and family. Of being romantic with him.

He allows it and reciprocates. I feel like anymore would be overwhelming and become codependent for me, so I am thankful that he is married and is polyamorous. Her and I communicate and work out our time and are happy to share the parts of him we each want.

It may be unconventional, but it works for us. I’ve told my sisters, but don’t know how I’d ever tell my dad. He wouldn’t understand and would feel sad for me. I don’t feel sad for me. I feel quite happy being wife #2. Having him for pieces of my life but sharing him out as well.

Healing

I’m healing. Little by little from the car accident. My head is the last refuge of pain, despite the faded bruises on my body. I am taking physiotherapy for the concussion, paid for by my insurance, thankfully. I am taking no chances this time. No lingering symptomology to rise up in later years and cause me grief.

I’ve been working on some neat projects that have my brain fully engaged and am feeling love from and for my community. I have taken over mutual aid for a local community group and, in doing so, have solidified my position in the community as a helper; a position I relish.

It feels good to be useful. To be helpful. To ensure those in my community have what they need to not only survive but thrive. It’s a struggle now that I can’t drive for the current moment. Can’t make deliveries personally and ensure goods get where they are meant to.

Missed two really big events in my life because of lack of car, and it pisses me off the woman ran that light. She took my life in her hands and then lied to the police to blame it on me. I will always have a dash cam from now on. Never again.

They Come in Threes

“They” say that bad luck comes in threes. In my current case, I hope that three is where it stops. While on the way to helping my dear friends and adopted Indigenous family facilitate an intervention for grandpa to get off meth, I was t-boned. A woman ran through a red light and hit me as I was stopped in the intersection, turning left. She blazed right by a car in opposite me, turning left and around to my car.

My four passengers were grandpa’s wife- grandma, their daughter, and two grandchildren in their 20s. Thankfully, only a concussion and some contusions and abrasions, and no more serious injury.

Then my dear community sister lost her husband in a freak illness that took his life within days.

I think I’m done for the week! I hope things settle down. I’m doing a fundraiser/auction for the sister, so I feel useful and can run it all online.

Unloved

I’m feeling very unloved today, even though I’m surrounded by it. My heart is in pain, and my sexual addiction is once again out of control. Even though I would describe myself as mostly aromantic, my self-consciousness sometimes takes a hit.

I fucked eight sessions this week. Four of those times were with regulars, and four of the people were new. Two in a threesome. One encounter went sour after I sucked him dry, and then he clogged my toilet and left. Another said he was going to get his vape from his car and never came back after I blew him. And the third, the threesome I thought went really well, she squirted on my face twice, then blocked me on all media sites.

I’m starting to feel like it’s me. That I’m the problem. I can’t help but overthink, but instead brought that thought to action; I’ll write it out and maybe feel better again. Sometimes, that works. There’s few people I can talk to about it. My body physically hurts as a response.

I don’t normally get hurt when rejected, but so many, so rapidly, and so brutally, stung. Deep breaths. Fucking randoms is the problem, MOV. You have several partners. Maybe it’s time to stop fucking random men. Stop feeding that never-ending addiction.

But I can’t. Even after five sessions in 24 hours, I crave more. I yearn for it. I need more. I know it’s the addiction that’s calling out my name and dragging back into repeated heartbreak. I feel totally and completely rejected.

Finally support

After years and years of being mentally disabled, and 4 years of being physically disabled, and after I’ve started to heal, feeling better every day; support finally arrived. I had been on a waiting list for a PSW for 4 years. Three of those years, unable to bathe, clean, or cook for myself at all, in any capacity. Now that I am on a new medical therapy, my body is responding positively, and I am able to bathe on my own, and do the other tasks do some degree, they have decided I am now the proud recipient of 2 hours of support every 2 weeks.

The most shocking thing about this support is that they will not help with the cooking of any meals, which is what I need most help with. But it is nice to finally get my place deep cleaned after 4 long years of dust and deterioration, so I will hardly complain.

The sad thing is, if not for the support of my dad and 3 friends who did light cleaning and making meals for me, I would have been in big trouble this last 4 years. Without the support of one friend who helped me bathe once a week, I would be a smelly, emaciated mess right now.

These supports are vital to people with disabilities, yet they are so underfunded and overwhelmed that they have years’ long waiting lists. We let those with disabilities languish on under $1,300 a month in Ontario, without the necessary supports, when the average one bedroom alone is $2,000/month. And if you happen to fall in love and decide to get married, your spouse better make enough to support you because you will be cut off all supports. God help you if your relationship is financially abusive.

Please consider the disabled when you vote next. Remember that almost everyone will be disabled at some point if they live long enough; it’s just a matter of when and vote like it may be you next.

What to do in a crisis

I want to open a crisis centre for families and individuals to come to that would house several yurts or teepees or wigwams surrounding some fires, preferably in a private wooded area. Around the fires, sit trained professionals. A therapist. An Indigenous Elder. A social worker. Faciliators. It would run 24 hours a day.

Families or individuals in crisis would come in. They would have to sign in and do an intake with the therapist who would address the severity of the crisis and assign them a private structure and a trained professional assigned to their case.

The yurt or structure would be comfortable inside, with a bed and a couch for individuals, and several couches for families/couples. Each case would have its own separate space with a fire and some chairs or benches around it, preferably surrounded by the privacy of trees.

Instead of spending a crisis in a hospital, locked in a room or tied to a bed; or in a jail or with the police after an explosion; the individuals or families/couples can come in and have a facilitated discussion, therapy, peace, quiet, and time and space for reflection. Instead of being in a sterile, institutional environment, the cases spend their time in nature and inside a colourful yurt or teepee.

During their time in the centre, the clients would have a chance to tell their story, be shown love and compassion, and arrange for short-term and longer-term supports and resources. This would all be trauma-informed, culturally-informed, and individual/family/couple specific.

I think this non-judgemental, non-clinical, non-institutional approach to therapeutic crises would be far superior to what currently exists; locking clients up without proper support. As someone who has used crisis services of the ER or the mental health ER many times, they are garbage. Sit alone in a room for hours. No distraction. No discussion. A therapist or doctor may talk to you for an hour. How is that helpful?

What do you think? What supports would you like to see as an individual or family in crisis?

Change

I’m hard pressed to find anything to complain about these days. My PTSD is all but gone. My lifelong adulthood depression is all but gone. I have a partner I love, who treats me well, and who lets me explore other partners freely. My friends love me and show their love regularly.

When I started this blog, Memories of Violence, violence and trauma were all that existed in my world. I was immersed in it. It was part of my identity. Now, it’s just another part of my life that happened. One that doesn’t evoke any particular feelings or emotions.

This next phase of my life, I’m in a new direction. Trying to live my life honestly and fully. Getting reeducated. Starting a new career in a new direction. Finally got my ancient one-and-only tattoo covered. This is a fresh start.

Does this blog’s title make sense anymore? Probably not, but I’ll continue with it anyway. It will just be more random. Less sad. Less traumatic. But wasn’t that the goal of all this writing in the first place? To get this out on “paper” and get over it. To get to a place where violence wasn’t the only memory.

And it’s not anymore.

So what to write about now? The muse doesn’t feel as strong without the emotions. I haven’t cried but once in ages. That’s unbelievable. So here goes nothing.

Moving on

I don’t know which email is associated with this account and just spent ages trying to log back in.

It’s funny, I titled this blog memories of violence because that’s what my life was. That was what plagued me. Kept my nights. Flashbacks in the days.

But now, it’s all different. I feel regulated. I feel happy. I feel grateful to the doctors overseas who gave me better treatment than in Canada and actually gave me my mobility back. I feel ready to live again.

The symptoms of PTSD are all but gone, and I don’t want to focus on violent things anymore.