the lives we live

as I read for women's studies tonight I realized that dorothy allison is overwhelming right. it's the first time I've cried about my life since last semester when I got my shit together. it is now that I realize like her there is so much in my life that I have worked to forget and cover up. only because it is scary to think about them and you wonder what your life would be like if you were to allow yourself to fully get over them and not let them affect you now. honestly though can that even happen seeing as how your experiences shape you? at any rate the overwhelming experiences that I had in middle school all came flooding back to me. sure I talk about them but I talk about them from a disassociated stance as though it happened to someone else. so as I was reading I thought  about the extensive bullying I experienced from everyone around me including my close family. I thought about the number of times I was used and allowed myself to be vulnerable. I thought about the times my mother ignored me and tossed me aside for her sister and I thought about the time my grandmother decided I wasn't important enough to visit in the hospital. I thought about the fact that I was coming into my sexuality but instead of embracing it I hid it, picked at others whom I thought to be queer and became deeply christian. I thought about the conditions I lived in and how hard my father worked to change it all for me. I love him for it but it just honestly wasn't enough. and I thought about how the culmination of all of this led to a very long drawn out case of severe clinical depression and how it led me to contemplate suicide constantly. the reading struck a cord in me. I never thought I would have to experience those things again. what's funny is that I've come to terms with things such as being gay/genderqueer/queer/whatever I'm currently identifying as and all the stigmata that comes along with it. that I've come to find a home in that community more than I ever has as a woman or a black person. the queer community will probably always be my home too because the social anxiety I experience around both black people and large amounts of women are both overwhelming. however, I don't think I can ever come to terms with what happened to me back then and maybe that's an immature me saying that but to get over those things would cause me to admit things I've never admitted to anyone and to examine a part of my life I'd rather leave buried. and it may seem that by writing this blog I'm not doing that but I've discussed nothing in depth nor do I intend to and I've still not said many of the shameful and hurtful things that happened. my point is that I love my family from a distance now and it left me yearning for attention. it left me with a vulnerability that I hate. it left me with poor coping habits and little trust for any human being. it left me with a fear of rejection. it left me with battered emotions and a flaming temper. it left me with only negative effects. many say that experiences are needed for character but I'd rather not build my character that way. I'd rather no child build their character that way. no child should ever experience that amount of dispair and loneliness or that much hatred for ones self. I am understanding today in part because of it but mostly because I would never want anyone to feel the amount of intolerance I've felt.

&& that's all.
- lexy