Days like this I think about my refuge in the woods. The rotten fruit I would throw at passers-by who come too close. ‘Stay away’, I would scream with every ounce of my being. As if my whole life I haven’t been screaming ‘LOVE ME ‘, into the void with all my might.
Days like today are days for giving up. Giving up and living my days or giving up on living my days. Picking up from my life interrupted at 16, to continue at 40 staring in disbelief at those around me. ‘Do you not see?’ I ask, as if they would hear or listen. Now I have the anger of a child not knowing her way in a world she knows cannot be trusted, in the body of an adult that carries the trauma from the same world that tricked her into trust. Manipulated her into trust. Drugged her into trust. And continuing to navigate a world that abused every second of that ill-gotten belief.
It's not ‘Something DOES happen at 40’. It’s not ‘there is something to this angry awakening trope’. It is an individual story of abuse and trauma, medicalisation and bullying, of knowing a pain very young that others never seem to realise exists. And the fact that we each have a story. We each have harrowing tales of neglect, mistreatment and unfair societal pressure that we deal with every day.
The worst part, for me, is that it’s not to be spoken. I can’t speak about my brother’s abuse of me to my family, or anyone for that matter. I can’t say that how Mal treated me was wrong. I can’t say the way mental health is treated in society is wrong just generally. I can’t say ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, because people don’t understand indigenous right to self-determination on their land is not a call for the extermination of anyone. I can’t talk about ableism or the treatment of ill or people with disabilities or differences in the community, without it being referred to as ‘my lived experience’ and not evidence of systemic failure and the privilege of the able and the healthy.
It is always up to the mute individual to improve their situation. It is an unwinnable battle. ‘You will be missed’. ‘Tomorrow will be a better day’. ‘Try to stay positive’. And it is still just me, screaming into the void.
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