Sexism and Fear

 

When I’m at my father’s house, I lock the bathroom door when I take a shower. This isn’t because I’m afraid of our male roommates coming in on me—I trust them fully. But I have been raised all my life to fear and hate men.

That is not to say that I hate men. I don’t. But I’ve been raised to. When I was little I was told to never go out at night, because I would be kidnapped by dangerous men prowling the streets. Of course, I was never told explicitly that it would be a man taking me, but it was heavily implied. I was shown videos as a kid, and all of the examples of rapists and kidnappers were men, always men. When I was young and asked my parents why we didn’t take the bus, they mentioned these ‘suspicious people’, which were of course characterized as men. The adults in the unmarked white vans were men. The homeless people with the cardboard signs on the street were men. The occasional passerby in the big, scary city I was hidden from were men, which meant I should fear them, even if they meant no harm. All the others, they were women, which meant they were like me: merely hapless would-be victims of men. We were all waiting to be attacked in an alley, snatched and harassed, kissed and abused. I was taught to fear the world from a young age, so that even boys in my class could be watched from my peripheral for signs of evil.

Now,  I like to call myself a humanitarian: I believe that people should be viewed as if they were moral human beings until judged otherwise. I’d like to believe the claims of the homeless with the cardboard signs, and trust the kindness of the occasional passerby in the city. I would want to talk to these people and learn their stories. I love the night air and want to go out at night any time I can. But I don’t.  

The ethics and warnings I was brought up with stick to me even when I try to resist them. They were meant to keep me safe as a child, but I fear they have made me judgmental and cruel as an adult. What have men done to me to make me fear and despise them? Absolutely nothing. I have been treated with care and honest kindness all my life. That is not to say that there aren’t horrible, terrible men out there prowling the streets, but there are also horrible, terrible women, and the vast majority of both parties are regular people with regular morals leading regular lives. But while I know and believe these things, it doesn’t stop those deeply rooted stigmas to disappear. I still can’t trust as openly as I’d like to. I still live fearfully of a large half of the population. Not in a way that I openly dislike them, but in a way that it is hard for me to coexist with them at an unconscious level. I hate that. I hate fearing people without reason. It is unfair, unfair to men and unfair to myself.

I lock my bathroom door when I’m at my father’s house, but at my mother’s house I do not, even though I live with an older man. But I don’t fear my step father walking in on me in the shower; I have no doubt that my body doesn’t interest him. Instead, I lock my bedroom door—I fear him talking to me and harassing me. I hide in my shower because I know he won’t bother me, because in the shower I can definitely avoid him, and because in the shower I can’t hear him argue with my mother about how terrible and narcissistic her children are.

I have realized there is a difference between a taught fear and true fear of a person.

Life is good.

Change is Strange

I have thought about what happened during my sophomore year when I started dating Rachel. I realize  in hindsight that while everyone saw us together, and both of us, in that way, came out together, Rachel was the only one to get teased and pushed around. I was not. She had harassment in class, was accused of messing around with all sorts of girls, made fun of, avoided, called names. I sat in my classes with my Bi Pride button and my incredibly blatant and loud talks about GLBTQIA+.

I think it was either because:
A) Honors students are a lot more open to stuff
Except for Rachel had a few of those classes and they still harassed her (although not as much, I believe). Also, on my bus most were non-honors students and all knew about me, but only two ever said anything, and while they made fun of her, they seemed to support me.

which means it is probably
B) I was liked and respected more.

And that is stupid. I hate how badly she was treated. It wasn't fair. It would be one thing if I was also getting talks. But it wasn't even that. They just hated her. And she was amazing. She IS amazing. I miss her. We haven't talked in forever.

Is the wedding still happening? Is everything okay? Is she out of the hospital? Is she okay? Is she happy? Is she still cutting? Is her workplace still terrible? Does she ever think about me? Will we ever talk again?

It used to be my meaning and way of life to take care of her and know everything about her and man I don't need that in my life anymore but I knew so much before and I still worry,

Sometimes I think about how after a while of being with Rachel, thinking and caring about her saved me from relapsing depressing that would have come after Julie and I felt emotionally stable enough to take off the finger ribbons I had been wearing for four years. That was a huge event for me, and I still remember it really fondly. She gave me new ribbons when I lost me special ones (I kept a few that I never used),  gave me our matching ductape rings after I had gotten rid of the ribbons, and then when the rings came off continued to support me until I didn't even rub my fingers anymore.

I want a day like that with my gloves. One day my gloves will come off and I will never need them again. I don't know how many years it will take this time. It hasn't even been one year yet. I'm taking them to college with me. I probably won't be able to get rid of them without someone to help me through again--I doubt it's something I can do alone. And so far I haven't gotten any comments on the gloves--not any mean ones, anyway--and that is only because I'm well liked still, probably, and I wonder if that will continue in college. I wonder if Rebbie will be the one to help me this time.

I wonder, will I lose track of my friends like I lost track of Rachel? It only took distance and time. Will I lose these people I love? Who will stay? They're a lot more connected to the internet, bit still. I've known these people since I began truly living. I don't want to lose them, even to make new friends. Losing Izzy already made me question so many things, and Kate and I have had so many ups and downs....

Change. things change. Things change differently for different people depending who they are and where they are and even how they are. That is weird. Change is weird.
Change takes away girlfriends and harasses them but change also takes away finger ribbons and heals wounds.

Change is strange.

Life is good.

I love it when people tell me I'm wrong

 Because obviously I'm not self harming. Nope, I'm just overreacting. Definitely. This doesn't count, it's just a little thing, completely normal, nothing to worry about.

Well, let me tell you.

I'm pretty damn sure that if I locked you in a room for five hours and just scratched your skin, you would say that I was hurting you. I'm sure that if you stayed in that room and for five hours, and had me pinch your skin until it ruptured and little bits of blood blotted your arms and your face and your chest and your legs and your back---when tears kept filling your eyes so you couldn't see the separate cuts anymore, I'm pretty damn sure you would say that I was hurting you.

And if I began opening all of those scars, every single day, reopening and squeezing the blood out from them, and making a few more, for quite a few hours, in that little room, in your class, in your bed while you were sleeping, I think you'd say I was still hurting you.

I bet that if I took a boiling mug and held to the back of your neck, and held it, letting it sizzle for a while before putting it down, I bet you'd say I was hurting you even if no one else noticed it. I bet that if I held that mug to your back, where all the very worst scars were, and held it there, burning you, over and over, a new spot every time, I'm pretty damn sure you'd say I was hurting you.

I'm pretty damn certain that if I took you outside in the middle of winter, without your coat, without your shoes, and rolled up your sleeves before shoving your scar-covered arms into the snow, freezing, burning, until I felt you had been punished enough---well, I think you would say I was hurting you.

 I can say with some level of certainty that if I began biting you--your hands, your knuckles, your arms--and began leaving angry red bruises on your skin, I bet you would say I was hurting you.

And I bet if I tied strings around your arms and pulled, tighter and tighter, so the circulation in your fingers cut off and you couldn't feel the tips, while it wouldn't exactly cause you pain, I bet you'd agree to the explicit terms that I was
causing you harm.

And if I can be confident in these assertions, please tell me why doing the same things to myself not be considered self harm. Please explain. I would absolutely love to hear it.

Because it took me years to figure out that these mild little  actions could be counted as self harm. It took me years to convince myself, and break through this crippling denial, that there was something wrong with me. I've seen people with self harm, and they had gaping holes where their thighs used to be; they had canyons and rivers and deep red gorges carved into their skin; they had rows and rows of deep cuts growing along them like prison bars, and it felt terrible to compare myself with that, to say that I was suffering from the same thing, when their pain was so very, very worse.

But somehow I was convinced that I was doing something terrible to myself. But if you would like to politely walk me back into that denial, go ahead; tell me about how I'm okay. Tell me about how I'm normal.

...You know what, I think it's about time we stop characterizing self harm as just the scars created. I think it's time to talk about what the real issue is: the fact that some people live their lives with the incredible desire to hurt themselves, every second of every hour of every day. We need to talk about the fear involved when people don't know how to resist their impulses. We need to talk about what it's like to feel broken, and strange, and disgusting, and so filled with self loathing for the fact that it doesn't even feel wrong to hurt themselves. We need to talk about the fact that their gets to be a point in some people's lives where the only way they can calm down and face life is if they cause themselves pain.

It doesn't matter how minor that pain may be. It doesn't matter if it even makes a mark on the skin. What matters is the fact that people want to hurt themselves, and isn't that something to worry about?

Life is good.

Return of Drunken Murmurs

 To start off with, a passage from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried:

"He tried to concentrate on...the war, all the dangers, but his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered." (11)

 And now, for the murmurs:

I'm not hurting myself, I'm just playing with my skin.

Stop hurting me, myself.

I'm sorry.

I'll keep singing this song into my skull until I'm sick.

I made a mistake. Help me I made a mistake.

Let's forget our cares and throw away our fears.

Running is fun.

Destroy me.

I want to hurt myself, but I don't feel like pain right now.

I'm stupid. this is stupid. I'm stupid.

I'm so, so happy, but I can be so, so sad.

After all my scars, I am anything but beautiful.

Every second I lead you on, I feel like I'm hurting you more.

He's going to break. he's going to break into a thousand million pieces, and it will all be my fault.

I just want you to be happy. And that's why I have to break you.

Grow up.

Just forget about me. Stop loving me.

I'm so, so sorry.

How many hearts do I have to break?

I'm so, so sorry. Forgive me. I'm sorry.


I'm sick of saying sorry.

Just gotta have faith.
Life is good.

Things I wish I could say to my Stupid Boyfriend

You’re acting childish. I won’t start babying you because you’re sad, stop questing for attention and grow up. Be more independent. 

Get a life. Find a hobby. Create a way to spend your time other than waiting for me. I already have a life, you need to find one too.

I want you in addition to my life, not at the expense of it.

I can’t be your life. I can supplement it, but I can’t BE it.

If I have time, I will give it willingly and freely. But if I don’t have time, I don’t have any time to give. Stop asking for what doesn’t exist.

I will give you everything I have. If that isn’t enough, find someone else who can make you happy.

We just aren’t compatible. I think you’ve realized that as well. This isn’t going to work.

I want you in my life, but not in every second of it!

Is this working? Do you really think this is working?

No, forever isn’t going to happen.

….I love you.

Life is good.

A Long Hill

 Self harm is like riding a bike along a long, long, long hill.

I start in the middle. And a few months ago, I decided to finally try riding up the hill and try to get to the top. At first, I was sure I could get to the top. I pushed and I pushed until my legs were sore, but it was a satisfying sort of sore, a sort of  'I can do this' pain that spurred my forward even as my knees began to shake. Sometimes my pants would get snagged in the spokes, or I would start to lose my breath, but I kept going, it was long, tiresome work.

But after a while of riding up, I am so, so tired. So, so pained. I know I'm going to make it to the top, so no use rushing. I get off my bike and decide to walk instead. I go up slowly, but at least it's progress. I tell myself I'll get back on my bike once I catch my breath, and once the sun gets a bit lower in the sky.


Then, so ragged and worn, I stop walking. I stop, and feel the force of this enormous hill. I feel like I'll fall over, that's how great and long the pull is. And looking up, it's harder and harder to see whether I've made it up this hill at all. The top is far, far away, and I wonder why the hell I'm trying to bike up this thing, anyway. I wonder if getting to the top is so important.

Then, when I am so disillusioned I can't continue, I decide that I'll bike down the hill, just a little bit. Just for a bit of fun, to get some breath back into me, give off some energy. Because biking downhill is a blast. I'll make up for it, I'm sure, just a short, short loop down, and back.

The logic doesn't make sense, but I'm far too exhausted to care. All I want is a bit of movement that my muscles don't have to work for. Even if it's downward movement.

I get on my bike and point down that hill, and immediately begin to move without any effort. I don't even need to work. It comes effortlessly and naturally, and it feel amazing. I laugh as I begin to race, because it's the most fun I've had since I started up this hill, and I feel the free.

A few seconds become a few minutes as I've become enthralled in this incredibly fast race downward. In moments, I realize that my speed has caused me to plummet downward farther than all those days of going up, and now I've raced past that starting middle point, and watching progress become erased, and then I'm heading down. And I look at how fast all that work disappeared, and I think that there's probably no way in hell I'm ever gonna get back up there again, not to mention to the top.

And since I realized there's no way I'm getting up there again, there certainly isn't any point in turning around. I let myself race faster and faster downwards, and create a new goal to see how fast and how far I can go before I get hurt. Or whether I can reach the bottom of this hill. Or whether I can race downward and not crash.

At one point I realize I'm scared, but if I try to turn this bike, or try to break, I'm going to flip off and die. I'm going to die. It's just a matter of when.

That's when I realize that the hill to getting rid of self harm is one that I can't mount alone. I'll never get to the top by myself. Not when it's so much easier to ride down. There's no way I'll keep pushing.

So now I'm finally going to ask someone to help me. I'm going to tie my bike to the back of a stranger's car and hope the rope doesn't break or he doesn't drive to fast or I won't fall off or get hurt or go nowhere. I'm putting my trust in some stranger with some professional degree in whatever, and hope that somehow that engine runs and those wheels turn even though I don't understand the mechanics and I don't believe in the results.

I fucking hate this hill and sometimes I want to to jump off and fall down into the eternity beside it.

Let's hope I can remember why I'm trying to get to the top. Let's hope I can leave this hill behind.
 I'll just keep repeating my mantra.

Life is good.

Gloves

I hate how much these gloves have become a part of me.

I go without my gloves for a few seconds and my heart nearly leaps out of my throat. Mini panic attacks are becoming more common when a few months ago ther had completely disappeared (there were a few when I just broke up with Rachel and then stress with Kate but after a few phone calls I never had these attacks.)

Now I sleep with my gloves on. When I don't, I begin to scratch myself in my sleep and in half sleep and then I wake up with new scars. Before when I slept with my gloves on it felt a bit like my hands were suffocating, but now I sometimes forget they're on, they feel so natural, and that scares me. And Amber sleeps with me so she can tell I wear them. That also scares me.

These gloves are strong. They're marching band gloves. They went with me through a whole year with me marching through parades, drills, shows, and a few chilly practices. They never wore down. there was not a string out of place. But a few months on my hands and they have rips, tears, and holes, and I hate it. I feel like every time I loos at those rips, those are rips that would have been in my skin. But every time I see those loose seams, I feel like my own seams are tearing.
The string coming from my pointer finger makes it difficult to do anything, and the large hole on my middle finger let's me cheat and hurt myself. But I dare not ruin any more of my precious gloves, so I'll wear them until both them and I are torn apart.

Which doesn't solve anything.

I'm realizing that most of what I do doesn't solve anything. I have all of these bad habits, and I try to get rid of them by giving myself new habits. I avoid the mirror a certain way, play with a tangle, or wear gloves. Well, it doesn't work. Most of the time the new practices fall through, since habits are made through being natural and comfortable, so things like avoiding the mirror and don't work, and I forget the tangle in my hands. Yesterday I broke down with the mirror with a good ten minutes. Today I also feel through. It isn't the four or two hour spurts of before, but I'm taking steps backward where I had previously covered ground. I hate that.

Bu then, the few strategies that work even a small but, like the gloves, just makes things worse. Now these panic attacks are happening, which is a huge, HUGE step backward in terms of my mental health, and the thing is, even with the glove habit now becoming a natural additive to myself and my habitations, they don't even work to serve the original purpose of stopping me from hurting myself. Sure, now I can hurt myself far less, which is good, but these holes are destroying that small degree of protection, and now I often just take them off for a few minutes when the cravings get really bad. Which is terrible. I argue with myself never to take them off, the original purpose, but that only works half the time.

The only thing I'm good at is teaching myself new bad habits to learn and never defeat. I can't beat habits. I've been trying for years. I feel like my whole life has been bad habit to bad habit, from the baby blanket I had for far too long, to the late nights that started innocent and turned deranged, to the new late nights when the old ones are in a different room, to just depression in general. And fixing bad habits with new habits is like trying to get rid of a smell by spraying perfume. It doesn't work. It dissipates after a time, or only makes it worse.

I hate how these gloves are becoming a part of me, I hate how they are becoming a metaphor for how I'm living and who I am, I hate how I'm realizing how truly broken I am. I hate how I've started needing to wear my gloves in public, I hate it when people asking me questions, I hate having to lie, I hate having people mock and dismiss my problems when I tell the truth. I hate how some of the closest people around me cannot comprehend how bad this is. I hate how I want them to know.

I hate how the only thing I ever seem to hate anymore are my hands and myself. I love absolutely, positively everything, except for my hands and myself. I hate my hands and myself.

And I hate that.

And I hate how I've said this all and know there's pretty much little to no way I can help myself out of this, and I promised mom I'd go to a doctor if I couldn't make it better, but I don't want to. Because how could they possibly help me? Medication? Therapy? That may make me feel better, but the depression is fine. What I need to break is the habits, and those things won't get the memories out of my fingers. I can't imagine anything less than a shock collar helping me.

How long will it take until the me covered with scars is just a memory? I still imagine leaving these childishly habits behind once I reach adulthood, but will I ever make it there? How?

Gotta have faith. Gotta have faith.

Life is good.