i feel like talking about the politics of trauma.
you know for most people, at least most people here in NA, when they experience trauma it's obviously horrible but either they leave or they have the possibility of leaving. when they do get out they go to therapy and unlearn all the maladaptive thinking patterns they've accumulated over their time and may eventually "get better".
for some people, like me, that's not possible. I was traumatized a lot as a kid, abused in almost every way possible and that sticks with me to this day. however, it isn't just that. I'm still being traumatized now and the things i know to be true are the only things keeping me alive.
what is there to say of someone who will never stop being traumatized because the world is their abuser. people are taught nationwide to not only hate you specifically but to see you as less than human. as an animal. as trash.
they beat you, they use you, they rape you, they insult you, they do it to hurt you and sometimes they don't even mean to because it's just so easy to do it they can on accident.
to live life as a black disabled trans woman who needs a caregiver is to live a life marked by exploitation and denigration. i will never leave my abuse. almost everyone i meet is more powerful than me and has the leverage to do whatever they want to me without consequence. people in my life could kill me, abuse me, assault me and nothing would happen to them. it's so much easier to treat me as everyone else has because there's nothing stopping you and it must be nice to interact with someone you don't have to worry about being seriously hurt in return. the only reason people have to not hurt me is purely their good will and god you have to have a lot of good will not to hurt me.
i submit not out of hatred for myself but because i know i am not human. i do not get to go to therapy and "learn to assert my boundaries" or "realize my personhood" because to do that invites even more pain. everytime ive tried to stand up for myself i suffer for it, all i can do is run away. when you're not only an object to be exploited, you're also so subject to becoming a monster, you really can't do anything, you can barely live.
i AM a concubine. i AM a dog. i AM a monster. i AM an object. i AM a robot. i AM a slave. i AM a mammy. and i have to be okay with that. i have to be as strong as possible if i want to live.
i will live my life this way indefinitely because i want to survive. i think i deserve to make it past 30. living will be and always has been hard but ive survived this long and i want to see where i can go. that's my healing from trauma.
