They Would Have Called Me Transgender

When I was age 13 to maybe 15 years old, I would pray every day, “God, please don’t let my boobs get any bigger. Please don’t let my boobs get any bigger.” I would whisper it repeatedly like some sort of exorcism chant. This is one of the only prayers that has ever been answered for me. Funny, sad, and true. I also had this strange notion that if I massaged my breasts until they hurt, they wouldn’t grow. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m pretty sure I just have the genetics for small breasts. I would wear sports bras and claim I didn’t need “regular” wired bras. I wasn’t really wrong. Who really needs boob cages? At the time, for me, however, it was more about not wanting to be perceived as having breasts or playing the feminine role that underwire breast cages symbolized for me. I did not want to be a woman!

If I was a teenager nowadays, some extremists (really starting to become the norm) might have labeled me transgender. Transgenderism was not “a thing” back then the way it is now. What I mean by that is that it just wasn’t a trendy thing to be back then. That statement will probably be interpreted by some as invalidation of the experiences of many transgender people. But the truth is usually hard for many to hear. Transgenderism and gender theory are social pressures intended to force people to validate transgenderism as a healthy, and natural way to live.

Lisa Littman is an American physician who began conducting research into the phenomenon of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. Here is her study. Most of those with Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria are teenage girls, autistic girls especially being overrepresented among them. Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria is when someone has shown no signs of Gender Dysphoria their entire life and then suddenly “comes out” as transgender. Honestly, J. K. Rowling (author of Harry Potter) who has been verbally threatened and attacked, and criticized by what seems like most people for simply saying that "people who menstruate" are called women, has already taken the time to write a bit about this in a detailed, personal essay on her site. (By the way, the argument that not all women menstruate is stupid. True, not all women menstruate, but all people who menstruate are either women or girls. So why not say "women who menstruate" or better yet, "women and girls who menstruate"?) I’ll just quote Rowling here:

Most people probably aren’t aware—I certainly wasn’t, until I started researching this issue properly—that ten years ago, the majority of people wanting to transition to the opposite sex were male. That ratio has now reversed. The UK has experienced a 4400% increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment. Autistic girls are hugely overrepresented in their numbers.  

The same phenomenon has been seen in the US. In 2018, American physician and researcher Lisa Littman set out to explore it. In an interview, she said: 
‘Parents online were describing a very unusual pattern of transgender-identification where multiple friends and even entire friend groups became transgender-identified at the same time. I would have been remiss had I not considered social contagion and peer influences as potential factors.’ 

Littman mentioned Tumblr, Reddit, Instagram, and YouTube as contributing factors to Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, where she believes that in the realm of transgender identification ‘youth have created particularly insular echo chambers.’ 

Her paper caused a furore. She was accused of bias and of spreading misinformation about transgender people, subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work. The journal took the paper offline and reviewed it before republishing it. However, her career took a similar hit to that suffered by Maya Forstater. Lisa Littman had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans.  

The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’ 

The writings of young trans men reveal a group of notably sensitive and clever people. The more of their accounts of gender dysphoria I’ve read, with their insightful descriptions of anxiety, dissociation, eating disorders, self-harm and self-hatred, the more I’ve wondered whether, if I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.  

That was a huge chunk to quote, but Rowling puts it all together so well. I encourage you to read her entire essay on her website here. As Rowling pointed out, those who have tried, through research, to point out external influential trends on teens claiming to be trans have been shut down and threatened.

Transactivists do not want the truth to be known. In many, I would say most, if not all cases, identifying as transgender is at least a partial result of environmental influence. Like Rowling, I have wondered whether if maybe I had been born a decade or so later how I would have perceived my own resistance to our society’s concept of femininity. As I said before, transgender and gender identity were not “a thing” when I was younger.

For a little background of how I was when I was a child, when I was a little girl, I loved playing with cars, I also loved playing with Barbies because I liked the cute little clothes and I thought the Barbies were pretty. I never created relationships or talked with my toys, I just organized them. (I don’t think that I would intentionally buy my children Barbies if I ever have them unless the company drastically changed their appearance (as the company has gradually been doing), but the little Barbie grocery store that I had was my favorite.) It was my dream to become a cashier.

My favorite things were the monkey bars, playing store, playing with cars, jumping on my neighbors’ trampoline, and playing in weedy sagebrush land behind our yard. And while we kept our baby dolls in my room because my brothers were too embarrassed to keep them in theirs, I didn’t find the dolls interesting to play with at all. I remember looking at them trying to understand how they would be fun to others, and I just found no use for them. I loved wearing “skorts” (but not dresses most of the time), my favorite color was purple, I loved sparkles (still do), and I liked playing around with makeup. I felt outraged that long basketball shorts were not sold in the girls’ section and I had to buy them in the boys’ section.

I soaked in pretty things. I would sneak away and find moments to myself outside in isolation and listen to the beautiful quiet and look at the green wheat fields rolling like ocean waves. I loved to sing…all the time…on the toilet. I remember cutting and pasting pictures from magazines with my neighbor friend to create a “Girl Book”. The stuff we copied and pasted were practically all pink and “girly”. I was annoyed that no one ever bought me remote control cars as gifts, and that they only bought them for my younger brother, and that he never let me play with them. I was always better at fishing off the docks with sticks than my brothers and friends who were boys.

One boy in my class at school and I were the strongest and could do the most chin-ups and flex hang the longest. I was very competitive, a little shy, extremely bossy, perfectionistic, had undiagnosed OCD (that I grew out of), also undiagnosed ADD, and was outraged that one of my teachers at school said that girls were more likely to be catty than to punch. I raised my hand and said that “I punch people”. I also was repeatedly told that I was ugly when I was angry because I was a girl, and that girls should be “sugar and spice and everything nice,” which enraged me. I felt hurt when my older second cousin spat on my mesh shoe because I was playing defense against him too well while playing basketball. It hurt because I was just playing a game and he took it as a personal offense that a little girl could play so well against him when he was twice my size.

Overall, I was definitely influenced by the culture to categorize things into “girl things” and “boy things” pretty intensely. Despite being a kid that mostly did my own thing regardless, by my pre-teens, I also started to believe that I wasn’t like other girls to the point that it was a pride thing to me. I looked down on “other girls”. The diminishing messages that I heard from boys infuriated me as a little girl. What I didn’t realize is that so many girls, if not most girls in our culture, have at some point said, “I’m not like other girls.” If most girls are claiming to not be like other girls, then maybe our concept of what girls are is pretty warped.

When I hit puberty, and started wearing “training bras” when I was almost 11, I felt extremely humiliated. When I got my period at 13, I sobbed and felt humiliated. When I was told that I was turning into a young woman, I felt infuriated and utterly humiliated. I remember my younger brother, whom I used to play with a lot, saying that I drastically changed around age 13. I wasn’t as playful and I hid myself. I don’t know how to describe it other than I was hiding myself. Modesty was preached to me and contributed to my hiding, and I saw it in practice by my mom. I remember feeling embarrassed to be living. I had a far from perfect home life like many or all, especially as a teen, so there were many factors that contributed to this, but the way women had been portrayed to me out in the community, at home, and especially in the Christian community we were in had a seriously negative impact on my understanding of who women were. I was being forced, so it felt, into joining the ranks of a disrespected, submissive, supposedly weak, and especially lower-ranked class of people: Women. Transwomen will never, ever, ever understand. Never.

Elle Palmer, who now has a Youtube channel, tells a similar story of a sudden change in how she felt and presented herself when she hit puberty. The difference in my story and hers is that she actually went the route of attempting to transition to being a man, though she claims that she had no signs of Gender Dysphoria before she began puberty. She talks about the constant sexualisation of women and girls which I also obviously experienced. No girl escapes it in their teens. Now in her 20’s, she has decided to detransition. Some things, like the depth of her voice, will never go back to the way they were before she transitioned. Luckily, she never went to the extent of some other unfortunate teenagers who claim to be trans, and she never had any surgeries. By the way, here is a link to her channel.

Elle is far from being the only detransitioner out there. More and more detransitioners are speaking out about having been deceived as teenagers into believing that transitioning is truly an option, and that it really is the healthy way to deal with their feelings. Most teenagers are especially vulnerable to the messages of the culture, and transitioning should not be offered as an option to teenagers when creating fake genitalia is an experimental Frankensteinian business, and no one can really change their whole makeup. Yes, I said “business”. It is a business that is increasingly being funded by taxpayers’ money. Again, the mutilation of teenage bodies are increasingly being funded by taxpayers’ money. It is so important to some that transactivists blocked a bill in Wyoming that sought to make Female Genital Mutilation illegal as some religious communities that still carry out the practice. Clearly, the care and safety of women tends to take a back seat.

Another children’s author, Rachel Rooney, was under attack for creating a children’s picture book called My Body Is Me, which transactivists described as “terrorism”. The book is an attempt to combat the current cultural message that you might have been born in the wrong body. The book says, “You’re born in your body, you don’t have a spare, so love it, hug it, treat it with care.” Rooney was surprised at the level of backlash she received as a result of publishing the book, which only seeks to encourage positive self-perception of one’s own body to children. The illustrations include children who are physically disabled and have sensory issues to try and encourage a healthy self-image amongst all children. If you’re interested in buying the book, you can purchase it here. I just did.

Seeing as encouraging a healthy self-perception in children is considered terrorism these days, then I think as a culture we’ve gone in a seriously wrong direction. You will never be able to convince me that children having a healthy self-perception is transphobia, nor is it just as healthy to be uncomfortable in your own body as it is to be comfortable in it. It is always more ideal for a child to accept their body than it is for them to identify as transgender. Always. Always. Always. There are states making it illegal for “conversion therapy” of transgender people, placing it on the level of conversion therapy for homosexuals. Apparently, it’s hateful to try and address the discord between one’s mind and the rest of one’s body through psychological means before slicing off one’s genitals, forearm, and thigh flesh (google phalloplasty) in an attempt to change oneself.

The concept of being above one’s body to the point that one can completely change it is utterly sad. It’s tied to the concept of believing that human beings are above the natural world and that we can do whatever we want to it. We are part of the world, and it deserves our respect. But if we are part of the world and we do not respect it, how can we respect ourselves? I respect the wild forest of hair on my legs that doesn’t grow in an OCD pattern, just like I respect and prefer the sporadically placed trees in a forest. We are not above the world of Earth.

If I had grown up in a more liberal home and been born a decade later, would I have considered myself trans? I don’t know. All I know is that at this point, the gender identity movement has propelled me to stand up for women more than ever, especially when you see transactivists trampling all over women repeatedly, in just about every area of life, making it quite clear that the rights and safety of women do not matter to them. When transactivists try to reduce transgender rights down to “please let us pee”, they are trying to distract you from the fact that transwomen and transmen are winning in women’s sports because they are men; transwomen are assaulting women in women’s prisons; transwomen are being reported in the news as simply “women” when they murder, rape, assault, groom little girls, etc. etc. giving the false idea that violence by women is particularly on the rise; our stats and data about all sorts of things are being skewed by the inaccurate labeling of a person’s sex; in some places they are keeping men’s bathrooms as is and turning women’s bathrooms into gender neutral bathrooms; women’s rape relief shelters are being defunded because they refuse to let men who claim to be women into their shelters; many transwomen are trying to force lesbians to have sex with them, etc, etc, etc. For a bitter laugh, read these altered lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody, written by a Radical Feminist lesbian who is sick of transgender bullshit.

The word female is not sufficient enough to describe women. Female is used in reference to females of just about every species out there. Woman is a word specifically meant to refer to us humans who are adult, human, and female. We deserve our own word, don’t we? We’re not even allowed to use it anymore according to more and more people. I will not sit silently while women are threatened into silence and submission because some transgenders are hailed as brave because they decided to dye their hair pink instead of just embracing the fact that they’re a man who likes pink, which would have been a hell of a lot braver.

To claim to be transgender rather than a woman with a complex personality and a capability of feelings along the whole spectrum of human emotions unlike the strict feminine or masculine stereotypes, would feel like a betrayal of myself and women as a whole, and I would feel like I was letting those people promoting the misogyny of the stereotype win. I won’t let them. I will fight to the death on this issue. I am not transgender. Even until a couple of years ago, in my mid-twenties, I used to sometimes say that I wished there weren’t men and there weren’t women, and that people just didn’t have a sex or sexual intercourse. I am not non-binary, and I'm not non-binary just because I stopped shaving my legs. My hair is normal and natural, and I grew it when I became a woman. It is normal pattern of hair growth for women of my race, so though it defies our cultural standards, it’s very feminine. I do not have a gender identity. I am not androgynous. I am not gender nonconforming. Gender is a made-up construct. I am simply a woman. I am not asexual. I have just been traumatized by the constant objectification of women and shallowness of many.

Nobody is non-binary. It doesn’t even make any sense. But if what “non-binary” people are trying to say is that as a human being they are more than a stereotype, then I am totally with them. I have more self-respect as a woman than to betray who I am and my womanhood. I have more healthy pride in my being than to call myself “non-binary” because I don’t fit a stereotype. As a woman, I am tired of being continuously disrespected, oversexualized and objectified and treated as less than human.

It’s been a process throughout my 20’s to get to a place where I can call myself a woman without cringing a little inside. For this reason, I have to fight for women. I have to. I have no choice but to fight for woman against the false notion that any of us are born in the wrong body. We are not born wrong. I am not born wrong. Women have been betrayed too often throughout history, and I will not offer you an apology for refusing to betray them once again!

Behold the Negative Truth and Heal

I tried to draw something. It sucked. It was one of the most hideous things I’ve ever drawn. “My soul is dead,” I thought to myself, and I half-laughed. Do you see the drawing above? Enough said.

“If you had 5% more energy, what would you do to help yourself?” my therapist, Hillary, asked me.

“Well, I’ll lay there thinking of things to do, like going outside for a walk, but that just makes me angry and I just don’t know why.”

“Hmm. How about if we get curious about the anger. Do you have any ideas about why you might be feeling angry?”

“Well, ideas will come to me, but I can’t decide if they make any sense.”

“I’d love to hear them!”

I slowly mentioned about 4 different reasons, one of which was, “I’m just tired and it’s too much work." She said she liked the sound of that one.

“I just don’t understand how people just live. They just live their lives and do normal things and keep a routine and…and…yeah. They just live their lives and I don’t get it!”

Hillary acknowledged my feelings and asked, “Can you remember anything we’ve talked about before that might be a good reason for why it feels like things are harder for you? Can you think of what I might say to that?”

I replied, “The only things that keep going through my head right now are people thinking that I’ve been given a good life and upbringing, and that I've had it better than most, and that I just constantly think of the negative, and I just need to think positively and that’s my problem...”

“Do you mind if I share some thoughts?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“When you bathe a child in stress hormones, it is toxic for their brain.”

I can’t remember all of her words exactly, but that’s one line that I can remember exactly as it was said. She continued to remind me that I had grown up in a certain environment, and that unfortunately, that meant that my brain had wired itself in a certain way, and this is what made normal things feel so hard for me. She reminded me that all the things that we had talked about me experiencing in therapy and that I was currently complaining of—Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, memory problems, immune system problems, etc—were all issues that many children who have experienced relational trauma have grown up to deal with as adults.

She reminded me that there can be healing, but that it is a lot of work, and that it is okay to have moments of mourning about how much work it is just to function normally and how it isn’t fair. She reminded me that it wasn’t very long ago that I had mentioned things that I wanted to experience in life, even if I didn’t have specific plans. And she reminded me that it might not be very far away from getting back to feeling that way again.

I’m not sure why I was a little surprised at her response to me. I don’t know why the things she said to me sounded as if I had never known them. We hadn’t talked about my Complex PTSD specifically in a long time, but I met her almost five years ago. With an exception of an 8 month break that I took a few years ago, she has consistently been there for me for all these years. And what she says to me feels right, but when I’m not talking to her, the messages I am and have been bombarded with everywhere else take over in my brain. The messages that say, “You’re just a pessimist, you’re a downer, you’re crazy, you’re an ingrate, you need to be more positive, you need to let go of the past, it’s your fault, you’re just weak, you’re lazy, you act entitled, you need Jesus,” etc and on and on, harass me daily.

(Despite the fact that she is a professional in psychiatry and much of her training has been in helping those who have experienced trauma, I used to doubt her. I've met more than one idiotic psychiatrist and counselor. One who yelled at me over some sort of philosophical problem. One who told me after 45 minutes of talking with me that I probably had a mood disorder instead of  ADHD because people with ADHD would never pick up trash on the side of the road like I did and so he said, "Congratulations, you've stumped a psychiatrist." My current therapist knows what she is talking about, but I remember asking her once, "How do you know that I'm not crazy and making all of this crap up?" In response she said, "I have talked with many people in therapy, and in addition to listening to what you say to me, I notice how you react to me during our interactions. The way that you respond to me lines up very much with how a person who has had the kind of background that you say you have had might act. In that moment, she proved to me that she was not a nincompoop.)

My video connection with her hadn’t worked out so we could only hear each other’s voices at this point, and she couldn’t see the tears on my face. I heard her say, “I can hear in your voice that there is maybe some feeling there that is different than before. Can you tell me a bit about what is going on for you?”

I answered, “I am crying…” It sounded and felt weird coming so confidently from my own voice, like I wasn’t ashamed of my tears. I have been getting better and better at this over time. Since I have been continuously abused for my tears in the past, and treated as if my tears were a personal offense against others, it has been difficult to get to a place where it’s comfortable staying calm with my tears as I share them. I continued, “I think maybe I feel a little sad. And I don’t know why, but I feel like I can go for a walk now. Like I can fight.”

She asked if I knew what caused the sudden change. I said that I thought it was because I felt validated. She told me that she is always willing to remind me of things, but that I am also capable of reminding myself.

I don’t feel capable of reminding myself. I am trying. My goal is to feel the same confidence that she helped instill in me in a few weeks from now when I talk to her again.

It’s odd that all she did was remind me of what I have been through. And as she did so, I felt a fighter rise up within me once again. I felt the power of having a story that was mine.

I didn’t need her to tell me to think positively. I didn’t need her to preach to me the power of positivity. I didn’t need her to tell me that other people have used the abuse they've endured to empower themselves, because that's utter bullshit. Abuse is never empowering. I recently came across something that I wrote a long time ago:

I think sometimes people look at the rough things that happen in your life as fuel that you should just burn to make you stronger and keep going. But you can't burn dirt. Dirt puts out a fire. Sometimes you have to find the right shovel to remove it and reclaim the buried treasure underneath. And once it's found, share it with the world.

Hillary helps me find my shovel when I've lost it, so I can keep digging. I needed her to show me that she sees me, that she doesn't doubt what I have been through, and that there is hope. Apparently, that's all that I needed.

Forcing Sadomasochism

The fact that I'm about to state seems rather like common sense, but apparently, people feel that it's just a "grey area". But I'll say it: we are just as human and deserve the same rights and respect when we have sex as when we don't. 

In any other setting but sexual, if someone asked to be punched for their own pleasure, bound, or slapped, or spit on, or choked, we would assume that that person "needs help", that they need to see a therapist. We'd think it was sad and "messed up", wouldn't we? Because it's a self-destructive behavior. People seek out this role of victim in sexual relationships as well. To seek to be dominated and seek out self-destructive behaviors and relationships is called Masochistic Personality Disorder, and it's often the result of severe abuse in childhood. 

My thought when I try to imagine a scenario in which someone asked someone else to hurt them on purpose in a non-sexual way, is that maybe the person thought they deserved it. Why else would they ask? Regardless of why they asked, you'd still be questioning their request, wouldn't you? It's absurd for a person to ASK to be hurt. It feels wrong, because it's self-destructive. 

So why is it an ever-increasing attitude that violent behavior in sexual relationships is "normal" and "healthy" behavior? Are we not human in a sexual relationship? We have established that there are certain healthy behaviors for people and ways that people should be treated as human beings. We have established that slavery is wrong. We have established that domination over another in a demeaning way is wrong. In any other situation besides sex, we'd perceive the actions of the violent sadistic person as disturbing and potentially psychopathic to so greatly enjoy watching the pain of others. And when that's combined with sexual perversion, we seem to recognize it as another level of disgusting...as long as they're a serial killer.That is literally what serial killers do. Seek out others to cause them pain usually for their own sexual pleasure. 

"But it's different..." people say. "But it's not like that." But, yeah it is like that. It is. In order for you to believe that it's not, you have to very seriously, negatively compartmentalize your brain. Yes, it's good to know what's appropriate and what is not. Sexual interactions with children is extremely wrong, for instance, so yes, certain types of brain compartmentalizations are extremely important, yes. But that's not what I'm talking about. To say that you have a strong sense of self worth, but that you like to be humiliated and beaten during sex, which is one of the greatest opportunities for a person to bond with another person, isn't consistent. And you would have to seriously fool yourself and compartmentalize your brain to write off that behavior as appropriate and empowering and consistent with a belief about yourself as a human being worthy of affection. 

And I think you'd have to lie to yourself even more intensely to believe that it's okay for you to abuse someone and exercise dominating power over them during  sexual interactions, but not in any other situation. Because yet again, humans are no less human during sex than when they aren't having sex. To gain pleasure from someone else's pain is horrifying to us in any other situation. We know it's inhumane. And somehow this can be "safe" behavior? People can be allowed to somehow "safely" express their evil urges, but only because it's sexual and...let's not judge because sex is somehow the only area we have no right to have judgments about? 

Well, I have judgments. I have strong criticisms. And I still recognize demeaning behavior when I hear of it and I see it. I recognize the humanity of people in ALL scenarios. And I recognize that these sexual perversions, though so heartbreaking in their essence for what they imply about a greater culture, are an ever increasing trend. Because regardless of what people say, our sexuality is so largely influenced by our culture and our upbringing. It's a frustrating thing to hear people say, "Oh it's just who I AM, it's me," When "me" is more complex than being born with DNA. And the culture that has been created for us and influences us, and the aspects of the culture that we later decide to feed, are all stronger forces than we want to think. Because there is strength in a group, and the forces of a group are strong. 

What forces are you contributing to? 

When Unfair Blows the Wind

When Unfair Blows the Wind

By Jessica Cruz

Unruly Heart so gently untamed.

It said not a word to me when you came.

While you were here, my heart was still. 

And when you left, it showed no will. 

And now it whispers,

"Where did you go?"

It reminds me now,

Of an unspoken known.

It flits and it flutters, 

'Round me, round the world.

My heart gently mutters,

In mellifluous whorls.

Not a torrent, no. 

Not a senseless bluster.

Not like a tornado.

And still I shudder.

It nags and I see.

My being can't follow.

Circumstance glares.

I frown back at the hollow.

In a wreck I can float with the breeze.

In denial I can push against its force. 

Or I can breathe it in and wheeze,

And gradually change its course. 

I know of a strength,

When unfair blows the wind.

To feel wisps of my sorrow,

Cold air on my skin.

------------------------------------------------------------

Creativity changes the course. 

Living It

When I first started this blog about 5 years ago or something, I didn’t know that I had Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I didn’t know that the inability to connect both the Rational and Emotional parts of our own brains is often a sign of Trauma. I didn’t know that this topic was talked about amongst Psychiatrists. I didn’t know that this concept of connecting these parts of our brains was a thing. And yet, I called my blog “Feelings to Think and Thoughts to Feel”.

I remember finding out later that I wasn’t the first to coin that phrase and I was surprised. I thought it was all mine. I’m trying to remember how I came up with that. I seem to have a knack for expressing my inner turmoils in written words pretty well. And I guess I came up with just the right phrase somehow.

I also had never actually read any books by Rilke, but I saw a quote by Rilke (probably on Goodreads) that I put at the top of my blog and have kept there ever since. For those reading on a mobile device that might not show the quote, it says,

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. ~Rilke With the Ultra Long Name

Yesterday, as I was attempting (that’s really all I can do is attempt) to focus on an audiobook while I mowed the lawn, the monotone man of the audiobook quoted that exact quote. It was quoted from a quote in the book called The Body Keeps the Score: Brain Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD. I missed half or more of what I was trying to listen to, and didn’t understand much of the science, but I didn’t miss that familiar quote.

I also didn’t miss the following (from Kolk, not Rilke):

For now, I want to emphasize that emotion is not opposed to reason. Our emotions assign value to experiences and thus are the foundation of reason. Our self-experience is the product of the balance between our rational and our emotional brains. When these two systems are in balance, we feel like ourselves. However, when our survival is at stake, these systems can function relatively independently.

So thinking our feelings and feeling our thoughts is actually essential to feeling like ourselves.

As I listen to this book on trauma and recovery, I am learning so much and hearing so much that resonates with me. I like things like this book that help me understand myself better. And I feel so proud and impressed at myself that before I had sought therapy, and despite the things that were overtly stated to me in my upbringing, I was headed in the right direction in this way. Without even knowing what listening to feelings really meant, I thought beyond what I had been told, that they could not be irrelevant. And I am grateful for any hints that might have pointed me to here from those rare and special souls who I came into contact with. Perhaps if I hadn’t been headed in the right direction and blindly seeking the right things, I would not have ended up in therapy with my current therapist. And I wouldn’t have developed to the place that I am at now.

I feel I have so far to go in my self-discovery and learning how to navigate relationships. Right now, though, I am glad to have years ago begun a journey on my own that I wanted to undertake. A journey that I sensed had depth, but had no idea what it really entailed. And I’m glad to now not be alone in that journey.

This is a journey that will never end for me. I am living it. And I am learning better how to live it every day. Even when it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, I have grown closer to me.

The Most Oppressed Peoples

I came to a new world of people. I didn't choose to come. I just came, and people welcomed me.
I did not speak the people's language.
After a while, I picked  the language up and learned to speak.
But I could only speak when the people in charge told me that I was allowed, which really meant whether they liked what I said or not, and for no other reason than that.
I soon learned that I did not have freedom of speech.
If my leaders told me to be quiet, and I did not listen, I was yelled at, physically hurt, or socially isolated for a time.
But I did not dare slap back, yell back, or even question my leader's decisions and judgments.
My leaders had strong feelings which they were allowed to express.
I dared not express mine too freely, or I might get yelled at or hit.
My leaders could be angry. I was told I could not be.
My leaders could be disappointed. I was told that I better be grateful that they allowed me to even come to this world at all. I had no right to disappointment.
I was granted food and drink and clothing and shelter, though I was not capable of working for it.
For this I was expected to be eternally grateful, though I had not chosen to be with these people.
I was given many items that I was told were for my enjoyment, and that I was expected to keep in order.
My leaders often handed them to me so they would not have to deal with me.
They attempted to buy my silence as they were far too busy to be bothered with my thoughts, feelings, and creativity.
My leaders told me that I didn't have the capability to know what was best.
They told me not to question their decisions, and they didn't explain why they made them.
I was clumsy and untrained but I tried to help.
I was yelled at, though I had tried so hard.
When the people in this land acted negatively, the label that was used for my people group was used derogatorily to describe their behavior.
Respect was not something I was given. It was expected that I could only earn it with time and with my actions.
My leaders demanded respect from me and my people regardless of anything they said or did. They didn't have to earn it.
I was expected to learn from my leaders.
My leaders were given credit for my commendable actions.
My leaders saw me as a reflection of them. My individuality was sacrificed for the sake of my leaders' egos.
I was new to this world, but I was expected to react to those in it with the most self-control of all. My leaders only acted that way with their peers. They felt no obligation toward me in this regard.
I was to endure all without question.
And told to be grateful. Always grateful.
"Because", I was told, "Your life will not always be so free. Someday you will be a slave like us with obligations when you have served your time as a "carefree" person."
But am I not already psychologically a slave? It is normal for my people to be psychologically enslaved, and threatened with a slap.
I am a child of the average, unenlightened parent.
Of all peoples in my land, I am the most oppressed.
I am a slave of the enslaved.

Happy Birthday: A Letter from My 16-Year-Old Self

"From Jessica at age 16 to Jessica at age 26"

It’s my birthday. I’m 26 now, I guess. And I finally opened a letter that I happened to find a couple of days ago while cleaning out some stuff in my bedroom. It was a letter addressed to myself at age 26 from myself at age 16. I had been waiting to open this. I was a little nervous about how it might affect me as I was sure my life had not panned out as my 16-year-old self had hoped. But my 16-year-old self seems to have had a good sense of humor, or at least tried to appear like she did. I mean, yeah, about half of it was about a boy I was insanely in-love with at the time…ugh. But the rest was a pleasant surprise. Some of it a real hug from my past self, much less judgmental than I had expected. Here are a few pieces I felt I'd share.

           

"August 20, 2018...I got the idea to write this note from possibly my favorite series of books: the Emily Series by Lucy Maud Montgomery. This is a letter from me at age 16 to me at age 26, and is not to be opened until then. Hopefully I live to be that old and I remember that I actually wrote this!"

Yeah…you are really obsessed with those books…not bad classics…but I fear they brought you a little too out of touch with reality for your love-starved soul. But perhaps I should really reread them before I make that a firm opinion. You definitely lived to be that old. And you only remembered because you were going through some crap in your room. But, hey, it worked out and you opened it at the right time.

"Just incase you wanted to know, about 10 years ago, you sat on your bed in your bedroom in [my town] and wrote this note with hairs on your legs about 4 mm long (yes, you even took the time to measure), wearing red basketball shorts, a black Creation Fest t-shirt, and a ponytail, while listening to your 4 gb ipod nano (you're probably thinking that those are way outdated!)"

Just in case you wanted to know, 10 years later, you sat on a different bed (yes, a bigger one) in that same bedroom, in the same place, and wrote this note with hairs on your legs about 29 mm long (yes, you even took the time to measure), wearing a blue hippy-like 3-quarter sleeve top, and hippy-like bellbottom leggings, and a ponytail, not listening to anything at the moment. 

And just a few things:

1. Leggings are a big thing now. People wear them a lot…but not like the ones I have. They don’t wear bellbottom ones. They wear skinny jeans…and leggings…as pants…yes, pants. You all probably hadn’t even reached the point of skinny jean popularity yet. You may not know what skinny jeans are. You were outraged along with many other people during your last year of high school about all this when the rebels started wearing leggings. 

2. You don’t shave your legs anymore now. Or your armpits. At all. The rebels we are. It’s wonderful.

3. You rebelliously used that 4gb ipod nano for many, many years, longer than was cool, because you use things until they die. And boy did that nano finally die. You woke up one morning smelling something that was a combination of what smelled like skunk, burnt rubber, burning hair, and who knows what else. It was your nano charging in your ipod speaker. It’s a gonner now. May it RIP. You listen to music on your cellphone now. It’s called a smartphone. It has a touch screen. And internet. And lots of things. Yes, you have an actual cellphone. Congrats…it’s a hand-me-down.

"If you're married, what's it like? To me right now, it seems sweet, yet scary at the same time. I could never imagine myself with kids, but do you have any? What's it like to be grown up with lots of responsibility? It terrifies me to even think of it! As of now, I don't know what I want to do once I graduate from Highschool in two years. 26 seems so old! Is Dusty still alive or has he gone to doggie heaven, leaving his body under one of our trees as furtilizer? (Not that I really believe in "doggie heaven.")"

1. You’re still not married now, and you don’t know what it’s like. To you right now, it seems impossible, and scary, and even scarier to date someone. You still can’t imagine yourself with kids, and no, you don’t have any.

2.  Being grown up still terrifies you now. You’re not exactly fully independent, and you’re not meeting people’s expectations. The pressure is real. You still don’t know what you want to do now, but you graduated high school. Congrats! You’re now one class away from an Associate of Arts degree that you decided to finish after taking a break from college for 5 years. You’ve been procrastinating on that last class for the past few months. And would you believe it? You took calculus…by choice…it didn’t even apply to the AA. I know you don’t believe it. 

3. You still think 26 seems old. And you found a few grey hairs despite the fact that most people think you still look like a teenager.

4. Well, don’t you just have a morbid sense of humor. Fertilizer? Heartless. Just like Lucky the Cat, though, right? And yes, Dusty went to doggie heaven years ago. He is still in my heart. There is no puppy like him. My heart is a little sad as I tell you the news.

            

"And now! My biggest questions: Are you married to [insert name of crush]."

No. I'm not.

           

"Were you so blessed as to win his love? Or did it not work out, and you perhaps found someone else you thought special too?"

Oh girl, you were smitten. You rejected him 10 years later. Yes, believe it or not, you rejected him. And no, you did not find someone else.

"If you're single...kiss a teddybear or something, and hang in there! You'll meet your man someday...hopefully...just remember that you wouldn't ever kiss anyone unless you were at least engaged, right? Remember that promise? Hopefully you've kept it!"

1. I don’t remember you being so funny. You are snarky. You still don’t own a teddy bear. Perhaps I’ll buy one now. I’ll try and hang in there. But the truth is, you eventually woke up to the fact that most people in the world are not as innocent as you are, my sweet Jessica. You really are sweet. I don’t think you ever knew that. I might not ever meet my man. And I’m learning to be okay with that. And I have no idea how to ever tell if I “met my man”. I don’t know who to trust, and I don’t even know 100% who and/or what I want.

2. You had higher expectations than any 16-year-old I have ever met. Don’t be too disappointed when I tell you that I broke that promise. You’d gasp if I told you who I kissed. You wouldn’t believe it. You’d be horrified. It was gross, by the way. So it was probably good I didn’t wait until I married him, even though I didn’t marry him.

"Do you miss age 16? I doubt you do! Yours truly,"

You’re right I don’t. You went through some hard things. And you made me feel a little less terrible about being 26 somehow, even though it’s rough in many ways now too. I love you, Jessica. Some hugs and love from the future.

Yours so Sincerely and Understandingly, 

Jessica