We are what we pretend to be

When my dad told me this, I had been hit by a car. Hit by a car. I’ll let that sink in. Hit by a car.

When I was hit by a car the first time around, I didn’t just go home. I didn’t have a change of clothes with me, not that I needed it as they could let me go the very next day. I didn’t have a place to shower at the hospital. Most of it was sitting in the lobby waiting to do x-rays and see the results. 

And my dad was the one to pick me up. And long story short, he’s not a person I want anyone to meet.

Sure, he was all nice and sweet and worried in the hospital. All by my side and concerned. Brings my sister in because I walked home with her and she had to see it.

So everything’s ok. I am not injured very badly. Just bruises all over my legs. Mostly numb and cold from shock. So, my dad has to take me home. He has my sister, his current wife and his baby son. He had his wife’s family there. And my brother was like the only reason I even wanted to see him before even his mom decided to keep in her room when we visited.

Now, I’m still numb. This is like a horrific experience for an eleven year old whose being bullied at school as well at the time (which stopped after I was hit). I  try to make the conversation light on my own. Ask how my brother was? Divert from it.

The first things out of his mouth driving home the daughter whose just been hit by a car was telling me I smelled. Comparing to some stranger dude friend he had in his car from another time who made me nearly vomit. Saying my clothes looked horrible. No shit, I was hit by a car. I smell like the asphalt on the street.

Tell me @unamerican-girl, if this was your child getting hit by a car, would you tell them they smelled and their clothes looked bad? After being hit by a car? After being hit by a car?

This was a man who used to buy his kids sweatpants because he rather buy computers. Suddenly, he’s all up about my appearance after my step-mom comes in. Buying me too tight shirts and skirts so short bending is something that shouldn’t be done. Pointing out how other women dressed, how like older women dressed.

So eleven year old me took that as, “Why don’t you look nice after being hit by a car? Who cares if you could have been hurt more, you don’t look good and smell nice.”

Where’s the concern if I’m ok? That I am not like completely out of it? Why not ask if I need anything at home because my mom was working night shift raising two kids? If I wanted him to stay with me and be there? Why did it have to be how I looked after the fact?

We are not passive consumers. We shouldn’t be passive consumers. We can and should be as critical of the text as we damn well please. We will not shut up and take whatever we’re given without comment. We’re not mindless automatons. The creators aren’t gods and we shouldn’t just gratefully accept their offering. We should talk about it, write about, criticise it. Fandom does affect canon. It is OUR SHOW JUST AS MUCH AS IT IS THEIRS. 

While packing for my move, I unearthed the prints I sold to raise money for my gap year trip a few years ago. Some folks expressed interest, so I’ve put the remaining prints up on etsy. 

PentapodArt’s Etsy Shop

I plan to add some new prints and a commissions option. It’s an experiment that I hope will encourage me to finish more pieces, whether I’m selling them or not. STAY TUNED. *jazz hands* :D

I hope you enjoy the art. I really enjoyed making these.

The negative portrayal of electroconvulsive therapy in movies and television. 

ECT saved my life. ECT was, without a doubt, the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me feel like myself again. And it did so with only a fraction of the side effects (tiny bit of retrograde amnesia from the treatment days) that I suffered from other attempts to treat my mental illness (the side effects from antidepressants were brutal by comparison). 

The experience of ECT itself was pleasant. The nurses would come and wake me in the morning and take my vitals and take me downstairs to a comfortable lounge room to wait. When it was my turn, I would go into the ECT suite and all the doctors and nurses said good morning. I lay down and the nurse would cover me with a warm blanket and maybe hold my hand and the anaesthetist would insert the drip and I would go to sleep. I would wake up some time later in the recovery room feeling a little groggy and clumsy, but otherwise fine (admittedly, before they got my anaesthetic quite right, I was a little nauseated afterwards). The nurses would take me back up stairs in a wheelchair, get me breakfast and make sure I had everything I needed. 

When it started to work (I had an acute course of about 9 ECT treatments), I began to feel like myself again. I no longer spent every minute wanting to die. I felt like I should be feeling after graduating university with a great job and a great apartment. I felt like the world was at my fucking feet. I felt actually happy for the first time in years. I felt like I have an amazing life and future for me just out there for the taking. 

There was no way I would have recovered without ECT. ECT saved my life. 

If you think the media and its industries aren’t going to punish her for it then I need you to pay real close attention to her the next coming months, because you can bet she won’t have as many appearances or invitations, you can bet she will get even less recognition and even more criticism, you can bet most mentions of her will associate her with the Angry Black Woman stereotype without ever addressing why she was angry or recognizing that her anger was justified. They are going to make Nicki out to be the ultimate bad guy when the reality is she was defending herself-and by proxy, Black women in entertainer everywhere-against some serious displays of ignorance and racism. But you watch. Watch what’s going to happen to Nicki after this.

The clap back was hilarious, yes, but there is a reason Black people are celebrating it; because Nicki showed some serious courage. Black people, Black women especially, are expected to shoulder any and all abuse silently. She refused. At the end of the day, to these people, she is just a Black woman who is supposed to shut up and take whatever bullshit gets thrown at her. She isn’t supposed to defend herself, especially not if it means hurting white people’s feelings. Protect Nicki Minaj at all fucking costs. Support her at all costs, because she’s going to come under serious fire.

One with eyes both brown and blue. One who shifts. A valkyrie, too. One with blood that rules the world. One who sings, his life unfurled. A warrior to be her guide. A healer always by her side.