Rogue Anjel

If two people on SSI are married, the MAXIMUM they can receive is $1,491 a month, total, for both of them. (Meaning marriage to another SSI recipient reduces your maximum income possible to $745 a person each month.)

Could you live on that?

AND IT NEEDS TO FACE A LOT OF OPPOSITION, SO CALL AGAIN!!

Use the medications properly to prevent interactions with healthcare providers. The pills are very effective, but they have to be used right. Carefully follow the instructions provided on the How to Use Abortion Pill website. Note that misoprostol tablets should always be taken by dissolving them under the tongue. Do NOT insert misoprostol vaginally if you are self-managing an abortion. While this is medically safe, it can leave incriminating pill remnants that can be detected in the vagina during a pelvic exam if you end up needing to seek medical care. 

If it’s not an emergency but you need expert health advice, use a free calling service like Google Voice to call or text the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline at 1-833-246-2632. Medical complications are very uncommon with abortion pills, but they’re not impossible. The M+A Hotline is safe to use and is staffed by trustworthy clinicians who volunteer their time to help those who choose SMA. Do not use your own phone number to call as this will create a record that is visible to your cell service provider. 

Don’t disclose any information about SMA to emergency room staff if you do need to seek medical care. This is how most people who are arrested for SMA are reported. Healthcare providers are almost always who calls the police in cases of SMA criminalization. Contrary to popular belief, HIPAA does not protect your private health information from being shared with police if you are suspected of doing something that could be considered a crime. If you believe you need to seek urgent medical care, do not hesitate to go. Say “I think I’m having a miscarriage” and provide your symptoms. Do not mention any use of or purchase of abortion pills. There is no widely available test to detect misoprostol in your bloodstream. If you do not disclose it, there is no way for a medical provider to tell the difference between a medication abortion and a spontaneous miscarriage.

If this is the first time you're hearing a victim of abuse/ molestation talking about how their body could respond with arousal to the actions of their rapist, and it's shaken you, maybe because of your own experiences, I want you to know something:

Your body is not a lie detector.

The mind/ body connection can be complicated. Frequently, there's a disconnect.

One of these disconnects is something called arousal non concordance.

You can be desperate for the touch of someone you're attracted to, kissing them, drawing them closer, and have no genital arousal. It doesn't mean that you don't feel what you feel. Your body isn't "betraying a deeper truth."

Same goes for unwanted responses. You can be repulsed by someone's advances on you, but your body can respond with intense arousal. Bodily responses are morally neutral. Your body being aroused by something you're averse to says nothing about your vaules or desires.

I'm watching Half Man and it's apparent at this point that Ruben and Niall will die together likely through murder-suicide or mutual murder.

This story is not meant to have a happy ending where the victim of abuse kills his abuser and walks away to live happily ever after in peace. Perhaps Niall does kill Ruben and walks away, tormented or at peace, but I doubt it. Every new development points toward an inevitable tragic ending.

In truth, many victims of abuse end up killed by their abusers in the very moment they finally decide to get away and save themselves. And pointing that out as the most likely outcome in Half Man does not mean you are rooting for that to happen to victims in real life.

As someone who has first hand experience being abused, raped, stalked as well as having seen for myself an abusive situation culminating in a murder-suicide... I understand the sensitivity people feel toward this subject.

I myself have not engaged with this type of media in roughly a decade because I could not separate my experiences from the characters. It was visceral to me. Only recently have I been able to engage with media like this in an objective perspective. So I don't judge or shame anyone having intense reactions to this show and the discourse around it. I think this is why it's important to know our own limitations and care for ourselves in the best ways for us.

That being said - fiction can be a playground to talk about and act out the things that might be too unsafe in real life, to reenact the harm and try to rewrite the story. In the same way that rape survivors might engage in consensual non-consent or other forms of "taboo" sexual play in an effort to rewrite their experiences or come to terms with them.

Niall and Ruben are not real people. No one is actually being hurt. Half Man is a story written with characters being played by actors.

So, I understand the desire to see these two work things out, heal, and admit the love they have for each other. It's a messy and ugly and deeply broken love that is punctuated by COCSA, SA, stalking, verbal and physical violence.

Half Man honestly portrays that loving your abuser is a very real thing. Wishing you could work things out and stay in love with your abuser is a very real experience. This is often a point of shame and contention with many abuse survivors. So some of us wishing it would play out that way in a fictional (read: safe) environment is completely understandable. It's an attempt to experience the "what if " scenario, the alternate reality where we can believe they really love us because look they changed, they stopped hurting me, it's okay now. I didn't let them hurt me for no reason. They love me. I didn't survive days, months, years of my life in this abusive cycle for nothing...

However, in real life we'd want Niall to escape Ruben - to move on with his life, find healing and safety, and never see his abusers face ever again.

Unfortunately, given the way victims are not believed, taken seriously, or supported, this is highly unlikely. And a story of a victim triumphing over their abuser is not the story Richard Gadd is telling us.

I see so clearly exactly where he is leading us. And it does please me to see that an abusive relationship is being portrayed accurately, because I have seen these tall tales of everything working out in the end in the victims favor and... that's not my story... that's not my dead aunt's story either... In fact most victims of abuse (who are fortunate enough to be alive) will tell you that's not their story.

Instead, they'll tell you how they were repeatedly targeted by their abuser (or another abuser) and no one believed them or protected them. They'll tell you how confusing it is to love someone who hurts you. They'll tell you how often they were shamed into silence, or called a liar, because of that love. They'll tell you how they suffered for long periods with no help or chance of escape.

Few of us escape, and of the few, none escape whole. And after we escape we are faced with the excruciating burden of putting ourselves back together again - a lifelong process. Too many of us end up killed the very moment we try to escape.

I do want Niall to be dead at the end of this show. However, it's not because I think it's romantic for victims of abuse to die, it's because I want this story to be told. My story. My aunt's story.

I want for the reality to be laid bare, truth naked before an audience that still won't listen to a survivor's story, or worse, punishes it.

The world continues to turn away from abuse survivors. There is very little support for us. We are left to suffer alone and silenced. We are blamed and shamed for not being model victims. No one gives a shit about survivors til there's a body, and then they throw their hands up crying "Why?"

As if the signs weren't there all along. As if the victims and survivors haven't been begging for help this whole time.

Half Man is showing you exactly how and why our stories end this way.

Married the love of my life at 50.

Got my Class A CDL at 59.

You've got time.