Anxious has pretty much been the main component of my internal personality since the moment my mother decided she wanted to be a mom, making my existence an inevitability within the reality I occupy. Though, it took me 29 years to be able to admit and name it.
Posting pictures like this is a vulnerability and therefore anxiety in and of itself.
I kind of had this belief everyone lived in a perpetual state of trepidation that something horrific would happen for the simple act of daring to breathe when they don’t deserve that air let alone a roof let alone *gasp* joy. Mmmm… apparently, a healthy percentage of the population doesn’t wake up thinking, ‘huh, again?’ Wild. Mentally stable people are real and live among us. I’ve even met one or two.
I, as a human, am not completely devoid of intelligence—though, there is loads of proof to the contrary. I’m also incredibly rational. Anxiety could not possibly compete with my capabilities for logic and analysis. Jk lol smiley face. My anxiety also possesses a finesse for semantics and strong predilection for emotional manipulation.
Even as I write this, I keep thinking, “Is this too dark? Will anyone read this? Am I being relatable or psycho? Am I funny? Is this even well written? Do I need to quit my job and live in a tent beneath an overpass?” The reality is. I’m not writing this for you. I’m not writing this for her. I’m not writing this for them. I’m not writing this for anyone. I’m writing this for me. For whatever fucking reason, some people read this and send messages saying pretty words just frequently enough for me to know putting my inside thoughts not just outside but on the internet—of all places—is doing some good. I’ve turned my deepest shames and anxieties and fears and guilts and traumas into a little, tiny career for myself.
Some days, it feels like writing and publishing helps. A lot of days, it feels like it’s a facade of a sacred act to waterboard myself with all the pain I’m already drowning in. Why the fuck do I keep doing this to myself? Is it fucking worth it? Is feeling like this helpful to me, myself, and I? Am I better off because I look my most painful moments in the eye every goddamn day?
Anxiety says: no. You just like the attention.
Logic says: Yeah… super fun being known as the girl who got raped over and over and over again. I know how many hugs I’ve given. I know how many tear stained shirts I’ve washed. I know how many stories I’ve been the first person in the world to hear from someone who had felt as alone as I did so many years ago. I know I’m not alone anymore. I know the joy of celebrating justice for another. I know the joy of holding space for people to break and put themselves back together again. I know that I am living a life I could not have dreamed to hope I would live to see. I know if I hadn’t spent the last thirteen years writing, I would not be okay enough to be where I’m at, let alone really chasing the joy I’m chasing.
Which is exactly why I post them. Exposure therapy.
My best friend is also a frenetic ball of anxiety. One day, we were going back and forth with the things creating anxiety in our souls. I typed, “My brain…” and autocorrect changed it to, “My Brian…” Honestly, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that myself. Personifying and gendering objects and feelings male with basic bitch names has been something I do for a long time. It’s really easy to tell a frustrating appliance or ill-founded anxiety/depression to fuck right off. Pyoter, the Rumba, is yelled at quite often around the house. Being the raging lesbian woman I am… women are rational, while men are testosterone, I mean, aggression. So, I followed the autocorrect miss-send with a “From now on our anxiety brains are Brian.” Oh boy, we talk shit about Brian.
Dealing with anxiety has gotten easier. Not really because life has gotten easier or the anxiety has lessened. At 32, I know, I’m going to be okay. Because I am going to be okay. I’ve been through quite a lot. It hasn’t always been good, but I’ve gotten through. I’m not great, but I’m doing okay. I’m in a really good place. I have people who love me and I love in return. Not a single person in my life gives me a single brick of foundation for anxiety. I just got back from Australia and Cambodia, and I’m heading down under again a lot sooner than expected. My bills are paid. I have food in my fridge. My dogs are safe and happy and healthy. My credit score went up last month. I haven’t had a serious suicidal ideation in over a year. I’ve made some really amazing new friends in the last year, nine months, even three months. Every day, I have some real, tangible joy. So, when the anxieties about life, love, people, money, travel, health pop up, I have a lot of anecdotal analysis to prove: It is getting better, and I might actually like this life. Maybe, one day, I’ll even deserve it.
The last three months have been a special kind of hell. A hell, I hope to never repeat again in the entirety of my life.
This bathroom was a place I could go to break alone a little bit at a time every day.
On August 15, my best friend, roommate, and puppy co-pawrent had a hip replacement because the military was hard on his body. After eight months of working with the VA and repeated fuck ups on their part—I have opinions on how we treat vets—he finally had the surgery. I cleared out two months of my schedule to be there through it all. Fuck were there some bad days and scares, but he is getting back to normal, and I’m finally catching up on all the sleep I lost. Was a hip replacement the reason the last three months have been hard? No. Was it a contributing factor? Yes. I’m going to ignore deaths, family emergencies, near death of a beloved dog, work, wonky relationships, difficult travels, and all those things—which are definite contributors because they made everything harder—but that’s life. I could have dealt with them all much better if I’d had my fucking hand. We’re going to go on a teensy tangent to set the stage, though. So, bear with me. I am a writer. Shocking. I don’t actually enjoy anything about the writing process until it’s done. But akin to breathing, I must write, or I’ll die. I found out I won’t die, but I must write. It’s how I process stress, life, challenges, love, and everything in between. I carry pen and paper with me everywhere in case an idea or feeling needs to be written down. There is something about the act of writing that helps release whatever it is from my body. I prefer handwriting those things. When that’s not feasible, I write emails on my phone or computer. Voice memos are not the same. I need the physical act of writing. I have always been active. Looking back, training to be a professional ballerina and cheerleading got me through growing up. I was extremely active in college and never stopped. In the last year, I have really started being active for old-RaeAnna’s mental acuity and current-RaeAnna’s mental state. But when my stress levels rise, so does the exercise. (Ha that rhymed.) I had a really stressful spring, and I dove into all the exercise I could take. I got happy. I got fit. I started running races during Pride Month. I was finally in a place where I felt happy in my body for the first time since I was at the height of my ballet abilities… only fourteen years ago. It’s fine. Also, I tend to swell a lot when I work out. (This will be important later.) (Done with the 239 word tangent now.) I cope with stress by writing and exercising—or going to my friend’s house to play piano, but that requires more effort and two functional hands. At the end of August, I broke my right hand. Breaking either hand would be unpleasant but breaking my dominant hand… heinous. It was the bone inside my hand of my pointer finger and some fun things with my knuckles. Do you know how much you use your dominant pointer finger? A whole shit ton. Just typing this, I’m using it constantly. Not to mention literally living. It is also the hand I have nerve damage in, so that’s fun. All the fun. Hands are important. Don’t be a dumbass, RaeAnna Not only am I writer, I’m a lesbian. If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you, but oh the jokes. The how isn’t even an interesting story. But I ended up with some deep cuts that had to heal before I could have a cast. I spent three weeks braced, changing the bandage every couple days. It was awful. I was in shit tons of pain and had nothing to really protect it from… falling, the six dogs, sleeping, existing. I couldn’t even drive because my car’s a goddamn stick shift. Those first three weeks, I was still very much alone in taking care of my six pack [of dogs] and Dylan and the house and everything in between. I ended up not taking on any work at all for a month and a half because I physically couldn’t. Dylan and I were trapped in the house together and pretty much went on a three week long binge of all our favorite shows and hoped we wouldn’t hate each other. Then again, we survived the pandemic, but we were mobile then. As a Type A doer and goer, not being able to do anything really took a fucking toll. The amount of stress I was under to keep the immediate beings in my life together and fed—the bare minimum—with a broken dominant hand was awful. But then there were so many things happening with my friends and family that were stressful in their own right, and I could do nothing. Hell. I was trapped in my own personal hell. I could not do anything to help the people I love. I could hardly do what I needed to get by. Washing my own hair? Really hard. Shaving? Not happening. Cooking? How about DoorDash. Work? I’m out of the office. Could I type? Kinda, very slowly, very painfully. It was easier to all but stop working, which is hard because I love my job. I love working. It’s fun for me and keeps my brain busy. It also helps relieve stress because then I’m doing something! Being in a brace: not great. Being in a cast: much worse. Being in a brace, I could at least go for walks because I could adjust the bandage when I swelled. I’m too much of a fall risk to go running with a broken hand. I don’t know many limits, but I recognize that one. I could take it off to wash my hand. There was more movement, which is exactly the opposite of what I needed. But being able to let my hand out for a couple minutes every day helped with the anxiety and panic of being restricted, confined, limited. Being in a cast, I could not go for walks anymore. First of all, the idea of working out and sweating in the cast I’d be living in for over a month. No thank you. I had a brother who had a habit of breaking bones as a kid, so I knew the funk. Avoided that with everything I had. The bigger issue… I live in Houston. Though your Instagram is full of fall vibes, it’s still in the humid 90s here. Under cool weather circumstances, I swell when exercising. In hot weather, I really swell. Swelling in a cast is really fucking painful.
Showers have always been the space I can cry, but showering with a cast on… don’t do it. Unless you’re having it taken off immediately after a shower photoshoot.
Once the cast went on, I was immediately filled with panic and anxiety. My life has been tough, even during the good parts. Trauma, rape, abuse, neglect, and just about everything in between has been a part of my story at one point in time or another. Even during the good periods, I still get triggered. So I write about it, and I’m okay. I have worked my ass off to heal. I have made a career out of sharing my stories. So when times are tough, I turn to writing and working out more. Because I know what I need, I know how to cope and manage, I know how to be a good human to myself so I can be a good human to everyone. Even when I had no control over my life, I have had control over my body. Outside of lifting really heavy things and extreme sports, there isn’t much I can’t or haven’t been able to do. I’m in my 30s and have never not been able to do the splits. I’ve always been able to count on my body to do what I need it to do without many limitations. (I have torn my ACL, broken toes, pulled/torn muscles and ligaments, popped things in and out of their sockets, but the ballerina in me knows how to push through with that super-duper healthy mentality.) Losing my fucking right hand…. It took away the two things I have always been able to do to cope with stress: move and write. I didn’t lose my hand’s functionality during a good period. I lost my hand and ability to cope with stress during one of the most stressful periods I’ve been dealt in about a decade. I was trapped in my head and in my house, which historically have not been safe places for me to be trapped. The following story should not be replicated, but I’m a grown up and I can make my own bad decisions and then be open about it on the internet where even my closest friends will be finding out about it. Cause you can’t be mad at me now…. Love you, I’m fine, k, thanks, bye. Anyways. The first night I had the cast on, to put it kindly, I lost my shit. It was tight. “That’s normal,” they say. I couldn’t hold a fork. I couldn’t do anything but barely wiggle my fingers. The difference between brace and cast was huge—mentally even bigger. I started having an anxiety attack that evening, which rolled into a panic attack, which rolled into an anxiety attack, and so the cycle went until about seven in the morning. When I grabbed a pair of scissors. Why did I do this? Well, a good portion of this was because I had never felt so limited. I needed my freedom. Immediately. It unlocked a few memories from childhood. And when I say unlocked, I knew they were there and had talked about them with two of my best friends, they know and that’s it. I don’t think I had realized the extent of how fucking abusive those stories were until I was trapped in that cast that night. What happened was not normal parenting. And the fact is, I’m not going to write about a lot of those things publicly until my parents are dead. I will let them live with their dignity. But it made the panic and anxiety attacks worse because PTSD loves to show up to the party at the worst time with a flash mob. The other reason: it wasn’t just in my head. I couldn’t feel my hand; my fingers were turning blue. All rationality had left my brain hours ago. So, I grabbed the scissors. I hacked it off. By the end, my left hand looked like I’d gone up against Muhammad Ali and won (duh). Fiberglass is a bitch, I have lesbian nails, so there was a lot of tearing and hacking and angry crying as I stabbed at this thing that felt like it was taking my life away. It was desperate and not cute and alone on the couch in the living room. Even the dogs were put away. I was raw and breaking. Being around anyone, even the dogs, would have broke me wide open. I knew, from experience, if I caved into that depth of pain, I wasn’t in a place where I would be able to pick myself up again for a good long time. And I didn’t have the luxury to break; everything and everyone was depending on me to keep going. The moment the cast came off, I started regaining feeling in my hand. It was an immediate ‘I’m okay.’ It wasn’t a problem anymore. The anxiety and panic disappeared immediately. Braced my hand. Took a nap. Eventually, I talked myself into allowing another cast because I might not be great at taking care of myself, I do know the importance of saving my hand. It was a looser cast that didn’t go as far up my forearm. It was still really hard, but it was easier to manage. Mentally and physically. When I broke my hand and saw the next two to three months ahead, I thought I knew what it would be like. I was a dancer who’d been through many restrictive and even debilitating injuries to my feet, knees, hips, elbow. So, losing the ability to move, exercise, exist in my body fully wasn’t new. I thought I knew what it was like to have something I loved and need taken away from me. But I’ve always had writing, since I picked up a pen at two years old. I had no idea what it was like to not be able to write. Even this piece, something that once would have taken me an hour or two to write, is taking me three days because my hand gets tired. The only positive the cast gave me that I didn’t have in the brace: driving my car. The cast was sturdy enough I could shift without pain. I could see my friends. Do some things. It didn’t solve my problem, but it did help just enough to keep me sane. My friends showed up. As much as I let them. My best friends, Kelsey and Alex, found out two days later. The rest of my best friends found out a week later. Everyone else was kept in the dark until I posted on social media a month after the cast had been on. In times of crisis, I tend to retreat inward. I’m private and introverted, though social media and my writing tells a different story; you’re only getting what I want you to know. This is open and vulnerable but still curated. Even those closest to me, I struggle with vulnerability. At best, I think I’m forgettable, that my life and problems are a burden or uninteresting, so I tend to under share when there’s a lack of direct questions. Everyone was so gracious and offered to help in any and every way. They gave me understanding and told me they couldn’t even begin to get what I was going through as a writer. Lesbian jokes were made to lighten the mood. Even new friends had an expression of knowing this was hard for me in a way it wouldn’t be for most people since writing is more than just my job. I started having panic attacks every day on my bathroom floor. No one knew. Dylan only found out when he surprised me by climbing the stairs for the first time after surgery and to find me in the bathroom. In that moment, he knew how much I’d been holding it together for him and the dogs, while I was crumbling. He knows what it takes for me to get to that point. I was alone while being surrounded by people who, as much as they could and wanted to help, couldn’t give me what I needed.
I haven’t been so raw and broken in well over a decade. I’ve also learned those periods leave me ready to grow. God I hope I get to grow from this.
My junior year of high school, I started getting a stress rash. It was horrible. Junior year, in a generation and a school dedicated to creating resumes for the Ivy’s, was hard. Overscheduled, overworked, we were a class of high functioning, sleep deprived young adults. Alone, it could have triggered a stress rash, but I had the fun sprinkles and cherry on top of that overwhelming sundae, consisting of getting raped on the daily, a highly abusive mother, a younger brother I tried to protect, and working 20 to 30 hours a week. That stress rash would come and go until I left everyone and everything behind to go to college and start over. It hasn’t had much of a resurgence since then. But oh fuck did it come back a few days after the cast. I was in agony and started doing what I did in high school even though it was in the humid 90s: wearing bulky sweaters and layers to keep me from scratching my fucking skin off. Things I didn’t know in high school that I know now that help get rid of the rash but have also kept it away for well over a decade: 1) Benadryl, if it doesn’t help the itching, it will put me to sleep until the itching goes away. I also had the time to sleep, which I did not in high school. 2) It hasn’t been around much because I can write now. I live in a home where my words are my own until I decide to share them. I was never able to write anything real in high school or before because my mother would find it and make me pay. 3) This pain and restriction, it wasn’t forever. Though it felt like it. I made it a month in the cast. That was long enough. Should it have stayed on longer? Yes. Could I take it any longer? No. It was healed enough the cast could come off. Recovery could begin. Life and work could slowly start to resume. I am usually very realistic to a fault. I was not. I was delusional to a fault. I thought, once the cast came off, everything would be back to normal. Hahaha, wrong. So wrong. I lost so much strength. It’s still incredibly delicate and painful. The skin where the cuts were is still fresh and sensitive. It’s ridiculous, and I hate it. I don’t like feeling weak or incapable. Instead of dwelling on what I can’t do: writing as much as I used to, opening things, yoga, handstands, cracking my knuckles, dexterity, handwriting, etc. I’m concentrating on the fact, I can write and I can move again. I’m doing what I need to be okay mentally while still being kind to my hand as it is. I wear a compression glove a lot to help support it. When I’m not actively using my hand, I wear a stiffer brace to let it relax safely. I’ve started focusing my energy on getting back into working again and moving my body. I can’t yet do the things I really loved doing before, like yoga or trail running (I fall sometimes. I’m clumsy, okay). But I’m trying new things. I’ve taken up racquet sports to build my hand strength. I’ve started lifting because I’ve been meaning to and now it’s one of the things I can mostly do. I’ve gotten into swimming again for the first time in two decades. No playing mermaids here, I’m doing laps. The road to getting my hand back to what it was will take a while. There’s also a chance there will be a new normal. Either way, I’m okay. And looking back over the last three months, it was hell. I was not okay. I’m leaving out so much shit that I went through because it’s none of your business, and I’m also not writing a book here. But it’s also the first time my life has been that horrible and I haven’t woken up in the morning thinking “God-fucking-damnit.” Life was bad, but I didn’t want to die. And for me, the life I’ve lived, that is huge.
I drove myself to the airport this morning. It’s not the first time I’ve had to park my car while I jetset. It definitely will not be the last. But I was not supposed to drive myself. I hate spending money I don’t have to, and honestly, there’s something really lovely about having someone care enough to do the airport drop off and pick up dance with.
I masked up. I was just alone and drinking coffee.
I booked this trip two weeks ago, and for me, that’s some pretty good advance warning. I spoke with my platonic life partner and roommate and best friend, all one person, about driving me. I had picked flights that would work with his work/life schedule. He agreed. It went on our household calendar. Last night, he got home from work. I was working at the table. He’d been invited out with friends. Great! Have fun. Remember we need to leave the house by 3:45 am, so just be home by then. He gives me a hug and says he’ll be home by nine so we can watch a show before getting some sleep and heading to the airport. 10:30 hits, and I head to bed.
When I wake up and head downstairs to leave… No truck in the driveway. No ring notification. No man on the couch or in his bed or anywhere in the house at all. It’s 3:30. You know. Still time. Four calls straight to voicemail while I’m brushing my teeth. I eventually leave a voicemail. “I’m not angry. I’m not even disappointed. I’ve just come to expect this.” The petty asshole in me responds to his midnight-thirty “Love you!” text message with “Then maybe you should be home to take me to the airport…..” “But I guess not.” I did not take the high road. Grace was not given. Not my proudest moment. I let all the doggos out and said my goodbyes before hopping in the car and driving my independent lady ass to the airport. I did cry in the car. Not a breakdown cry. The silent stoic tears of a war bride waving goodbye on a train platform in a 1950s black and white movie. Probably not that pretty, but you get the picture. Hurt.
I’m taking this trip because I miss my best friend; I’m going through an intensely tough time and need to get away; the day after I get back my life will revolve around the out-all-nighter because he’s having his hip replaced, and I’ll be taking care of him. This is me being punchy about the fact I’ll be his nurse round-the-clock for six weeks and he couldn’t make it home in time to take me to the airport. Not sorry. I am also not sorry for airing this information. I’m a writer. He knows this. Life is copy.
Two quick things before I get to what I actually want to talk about. 1) This scenario is not actually a huge deal and was easily solved. The emotional aspect… Different story. Had this happened ten years ago, I would be a proper mess, but I’m so much more healed now. So I’m a slight mess instead. 2) If this were an isolated incident, I would be mad or disappointed. The problem, it’s not. So I’m hurt because it never feels lovely to be forgotten, and it’s pretty terrible never being a priority or able to depend on someone.
Trauma is a huge part of my story. I have issues. I am excessively familiar with all of my issues and triggers and the coping mechanisms I’ve developed over the course of thirty-one years. I’m quite good at telling my people what I need from them to keep functioning as optimally as I can. These things are quite easy and simple because at the end of the day, they’re my problems and I hate being a burden. I wear my trauma on my sleeve; it just makes life and relationships easier when I’m not hiding things that impact me so deeply. So everyone close to me knew what they were getting into and decided to stay. To the extreme point that if I’m dating someone or getting to know someone as a friend I lay it all out there on the first date/hang out. Truly, all they have to do is Google me and so much is out there for consumption. I am old enough to know I don’t want to waste my fucking time on people who will judge me, not support me, are intimidated by whatever, think what I do is dumb, can’t handle it. Trial by fire. Their reactions say it all.
Sad and hurt for too many reasons but ready for adventure.
When you have a relationship, platonic or romantic, with a person who has survived and lives with trauma, you have to accept that your actions, even the innocuous ones, can have a huge and sweeping impact. I struggle with worth, abandonment issues, being enough, and just feeling like an entirely forgettable human. Among other things. So when I was left to fend for myself this morning, the thought was “Alone. Like always.” Maneuvering the logistics of getting to the airport: so simple. Maneuvering the emotional toll of being forgotten and abandoned: not so simple.
Trusting people is so hard for me. I’ve let people in and been hurt over and over and over again. Trust is built over time and in the little moments. Watching TV on the couch after a rough day. Text messages to check in after falling down the stairs. Sleepovers for funsies. Showing up on time or at all when plans are made. “Safe travel” texts before planes take off. Not canceling. Including people in conversations. Remembering how to pronounce a name. Randomly reaching out for no reason. Sending a postcard. Listening without judgement. All these little things are teeny moments building trust and relationship between people. Trust takes time to build and often so little to corrode or destroy. To protect myself and cope with a life of abuse, I keep people at a distance, don’t give them chances to build trust, and make it incredibly hard to get to know me. How I have any friends is quite the mystery at this point. I’m working on it. As shitty as it is to say, when one person lets me down, it feels like another tick mark against all of humanity. Like, welp, this person can’t be trusted, and they’re human, therefore all humans are ashtrays. Refer to the first sentence of this paragraph… I am aware this is a problem.
I’m not someone who needs, wants, or even craves grand gestures. (Maybe I am, but I’ve never had anyone remotely try, so I wouldn’t actually know. I do love doing them, however.) Little things mean the most. A ride to the airport is not life altering, but it’s a little thing. Love, true love, exists in those little things, the quotidian, the quiet moments, the in betweens. It’s not always explosions or fireworks. It’s life altering in fundamentally consistent, persistent ways of sharing joys and sorrows, every big and little moment. Love is showing up and bearing witness to a lived life. Those tiny moments mean everything. To someone with trauma, it means everything and so much more. I don’t ask for much. I don’t need much. I probably need more than I realize, but I’ve been alone and self-sufficient for so long, I don’t know what it’s like to lean on someone or ask for help. Maybe someone will force my walls down and make me realize it’s okay to need things. To that woman, I say, “Best of luck. I’ll be quite the challenge.” Until then if ever. Fuck that shit; I’m a strong, independent woman. I don’t need anyone. I got myself to the airport like I’ve done numerous times before. And I’ll take myself home.
That doesn’t mean I’m not hurting. I’m not struggling. I’m not wondering if he forgot because I’m forgettable. Or he didn’t come because I wasn’t supportive enough of his night out. Or he didn’t think I was worth taking to the airport. Or that maybe I just don’t deserve someone to care about me. Or he just doesn’t want me in his life anymore. Or he never cared at all. Logically, I know all of this is untrue and it was an accident. But that doesn’t mean I believe it. Feelings and logic rarely coexist peacefully.
When you decide to be in someone’s life who is dealing with trauma, you better be damn sure you know what you’re getting into and that your actions have repurcussions. Your accidents and mistakes carry more weight. Little things mean the most, for the good and the bad. I know what it’s like to be on both sides. Being the traumatized and loving someone with trauma. It’s hard doing the loving, but I also know just how worth it it is. Then again, I also know how to be there for them because I know. And when you love someone, you just show up. Trauma or no trauma. Show up. That’s the bare minimum, and it shouldn’t be a lot to ask for. Then again, my bare minimum was “This one doesn’t rape me!” for the longest time. It’s been upped to, “This one doesn’t make me cry every day!” I’m fucked up. I know.
So I’m sitting on this fucking plane, crying my big, gay tears next to a man in a MAGA hat, trying to convince myself that maybe someday I’ll find someone who will ask if I need a ride to the airport and show up. (Shout out to Amanda, who offered, but I “had a ride.”) It should be simple. But it’s not for me. The idea of my having worth enough for anyone to take me to the airport let alone love me does not exist. The accident of falling asleep at a friend’s house after a fun night out is small, but to me, it carries connotations of so much more.
Writing is about cracking into one’s soul and extracting truth. It’s a raw and often painful process. Especially when one’s chosen genre is memoir or creative nonfiction, like mine. Fiction has never called to me; not that I don’t or can’t. Creativity is not my talent, and I’ve lived an interesting enough life to provide a good amount of therapy, I mean, content to write on for a good long time to come.
Sometimes I feel like I should just be a hermit in the wilderness I avoid so many essentially human things.
The genre is an interesting choice because I’m an intensely private person. What a conundrum. From a very young age, I realized if I shared enough seemingly personal things, I wouldn’t have to share anything of actual importance. As a writer who puts words into the world about my life and story for the purpose of starting conversations to change the world for the better, I have been able to find an incredibly delicate balance. My writing is far more honest than I am in person. Face-to-face, I have a tendency to undershare through rose colored glasses.
During the four years I was a stripper, coworkers, who I had spent thousands of hours with naked, never knew I had been raped until one my rapist walked up to my stage on my second to last night. Suffice to say, I lost my shit. I’d been hit and abused in front of these men and women for years, and they’d never seen me cry or even lose a smile. I am a well curated façade allowing people to see only what I choose, except under the most remarkable circumstances.
My ability to share an overview of my abused past or even the gory details of certain events without allowing people to know me is, honestly, exceptional. People feel like I’m letting them in, but, in reality, all they would have to do is google me to find out far more. It’s my way of testing the waters; seeing if they can and want to handle it; but I’ve done it so many times over the years, it’s just one of many stories to tell in the “This is who I am, who are you?” dance we do with new people.
As a coping mechanism to keep people at a distance there are so many things I don’t do or won’t talk about or avoid in general. Never were these choices I made consciously. Habits developed over time from experience, callousness, pain, or goodness knows. I have always held people at arms distance, only letting them get so close, only showing so much, sidestepping vulnerability in favor of mock intimacy. As you can imagine, this is detrimental to relationships of all kinds. More often than not, it has helped me survive. But I am consciously trying to move forward differently because I’m not trying to just survive anymore.
Sometimes I feel like I live in isolation surrounded by humans.
Feelings Having them. Talking about them. Other people’s feelings are welcome, valid, heard, honored. Mine… I’m sorry. What feelings? I’m just happy, rainbow, sprinkles, sunshine lady all the time, forever. I spent a very good chunk of my life ignoring the fact that feelings outside of happiness existed. When I went to college and met someone who made me confront those feelings, it wasn’t pretty. There’s a strong history of disassociating from all feelings outside of a very compact zone of happy because the moment too much joy, an inkling of sadness, a smidgen of discontent crept into that zone, I did not know how to handle it and would absolutely crumble. I’m better. I’m not great. Feelings are still hard because they’re a gnarly, interconnected yarn ball with a potential to unravel if a random string is pulled a little too much.
Being Held Touch is integral to my relationships, platonic and romantic. I’m a very touchy human. I love cuddling. I’m realizing by cuddling, I mean holding someone because I can hold people without a problem. Turn that around, not so much. Being held is hard for me. Really, really difficult. I don’t let people hold me much. If ever. Or very long. Hugs. Being the one cocooned in a cuddle. Little spoon. There’s a time limit that my body reaches where I have to let go, become the one doing the holding. I would rather stand sobbing in my kitchen with someone watching me at arms distance than be held. For me, it feels so vulnerable and intimate. There’s a sense of depending on someone, letting them take the weight of me and my pain, a transference or sharing of emotion. If I’m crying and someone holds me, I may not stop. I have this innate need to suck it up. Do it alone. Being held feels like my independence is being taken away because I’m letting someone in. Just a calm night on the couch with no drama or anything other contentedness, if I’m the one being held, I could tear up because I get overwhelmed feeling connected to someone. Even typing this, the thought of someone holding me for too long makes me antsy. I get this is problematic and that I likely need more human touch than I’m getting. Also I should learn to be vulnerable with people, but I had a really bad habit of choosing all the wrong humans to be vulnerable around, so I compensated by never leaning into people. I guess quite literally.
Attachment Getting attached to people sucks because there’s feelings, and I think I’ve been very clear on how I feel about feelings. Many people in my life have turned out to be… abusive. To put it bluntly and a bit lightly. When parents, close friends, and romantic partners are highly abusive, it makes forming attachments with new people even just as friends incredibly hard. There are some trust issues here. Staying detached makes it hurt less when I get treated like shit or they leave or they leave after treating me like shit.
Sex with Lights Off I can’t. I don’t like. In the dark, I can’t see my partner. With my past of rapeyness, I have some lingering issues. Sex with the lights on allows me to feel safe and comfortable. The likelihood I lose my shit is much lower. Fluorescent, stage lighting, super bright isn’t necessary, but I do need some light.
Crying I hate crying. This feels self-explanatory. I don’t like crying in general. But crying in front of people. Whew. No. Way too vulnerable. We’re very far outside my compact zone of happy, and I am not happy about it. If you see me cry: a) I’m really in my feelings. b) I trust you. b alternative) I might be really angry, so this is not a trust you moment. c) I am hating it while it is happening and will do everything in my emotional wheelhouse to stop immediately.
Hope This is a depressing one. I am an optimistic person for other people. When it comes to myself, I take realism to an extreme. I expect the worst, prepare for the worst, and don’t dare to hope for anything except the worst. The few times I have allowed myself to even contemplate things might be turning around… the things I was optimistic about turn out to be pretty insurmountable obstacles. I have surmounted them but always at great cost. Hope has led me to dark and even dangerous places. I just don’t. I tend to take each day, each moment as it comes, as it is. I keep going not out of hope but out of obligation, necessity, the fact others need me to.
Mixing Public and Private There are clear divisions in my life. A whole lot of compartmentalization. My home and what goes on inside it is very much a private place. Very few people know what is going on in my family. Maybe one day, I will feel like opening up more about the relationships in my life, but I keep them private. For as much as I share on social media, I keep it very much in its own lane. Whether people realize it or not, there are very clear boundaries maintained at all times. Part of this is because it’s nice having things just for me. Partially out of respect for my family and friends’ privacy. Honestly, mostly, it’s for self-preservation. Until things are cemented, I don’t write or talk about them. I DO NOT LIKE CHANGE OR EXPLAINING THINGS THAT ARE NOT AS CERTAIN AS LIFE CAN BE CERTAIN. There are three relationships I will write about with a degree of freedom, and those are my three people. One of which I spent many years romantically entwined with; the other two have always been strictly my closest friends. These relationships are going nowhere, probably. I can write about them honestly and openly because I know they love me, support me, and are stuck with me because I know too damn much.
Silence I love silence, but I have to be incredibly comfortable with someone to be in silence with them. Normally, if there is silence, I will fill it by asking lots of questions. Get the conversation moving… as far away from me as possible. Or I’ll start dancing like the uninhibited human I am for a laugh. The only time I’m really comfortable with silence is when I’m letting questions or statements sink in, allowing my conversation partner time to think and open up more than they would otherwise. I like hearing people’s stories, and silence makes other people just as uncomfortable so they fill it with all sorts of interesting tidbits. I don’t like silence because it gives people time to read me or come up with prying questions. I have a great poker face, but I don’t like to bank on it.
Prolonged Eye Contact I think most people avoid this. Eyes are telling. It’s cliché but true. This is a double edged sword. Like silence, I love good eye contact because it allows me to really see people, but it also allows them to see me. Abuse and stripping taught me to veil my eyes, but some people are good at seeing through it, calling bullshit. I rarely look at someone with unguarded eyes. One of the most interesting compliments was from a gay man in the strip club. I was 21 and tired after ten hours on my feet with four more to go. We sat and chatted for a while when he said, “You have Marilyn Monroe eyes.” Obviously I said thank you, but he continued, “You’re both beautiful. Her eyes were sad in the way your eyes are sad. It’s not a fleeting sorrow. The kind that killed her. You both guard your souls because all you’ve known is pain. It’s hard to see, but it’s there.” I felt so seen. I hated it. A stranger called me out, on the job. No thank you. It hasn’t happened since.
Confrontation This isn’t even the angry kind of confrontation; I can handle that, even if I don’t love it. I avoid confrontation in the being confronted kind of way. I find people fairly predictable. They ask the same questions in different but similar fashions. My life story and what I do isn’t exactly run of the mill, so when people find some things out, they tend to ask questions. I have no problems with questions. I love them. It allows me to share my passion with people and learn from them at the same time. Due to severe anxiety, I have tons of canned responses to an array of common questions. This makes me sound smarter than I am and doesn’t require thinking on my feet. I hate being flustered and having to come up with cohesive and interesting answers representing my truest feelings, opinions, or facts on the matter is very stressful and not something I’m naturally gifted at. It’s rare that I find someone who asks new, interesting, and nuanced questions. I have unfortunately found one of those humans recently, and she’s full of smart people questions. It’s throwing me off my game, and I’m realizing just how much I rely on these go-to answers. I say unfortunately but actually it’s fascinating the questions she asks because it makes me think and forces me to articulate things I do not usually disclose or even formulate into cohesive ideas outside of the thought clouds in my brain. I end up sounding like a bumbling stream of consciousness rather than the tenacious writer I pretend to be. I am a writer not a speaker. I can edit words on a page. I cannot go back three days later and say, “Hey, remember that miniscule conversation we had twelve days ago in passing? No? Well, I can’t stop thinking about it, so here is my dissertation on it anyway.” I HATE, HATE, HATE not being clear or concise. Being misunderstood is one of my great fears in life, and being confronted ups the chances I will be misunderstood.
Women Weird since I’m very gay, but also why it’s taken me so long to just be very gay. This is kind of a culmination of this entire list. Men and women are different. (The feminist in me feels the need to state that does not imply women are undeserving of equality/equity.) Men trend towards surface level interactions for much longer than women. Even after years with men, the conversations, questions, interactions are more surface level and less intrusive than with women. I’ve covered more on a first hangout with a woman than I have after a year with a man. This is terrifying when you’re a very private person with a shit ton of baggage and trauma who also has a chronic problem glossing over all of these things. Opening up about all of these things ever let alone quickly is intimate, intimidating, and rough for me and, oftentimes, for them. Women are excellent at all of the things on this list that I avoid, whether that’s biological or environmental—I’ll let scientists fight over that. Women, on average, are exceptional at creating deep bonds quickly, which I avoid… always. Making it difficult to have and keep women in my life as friends or whatever. I’ve been doing a lot of work on this since moving to Houston. I’m getting better. I’m intimidated. It’s great. I’m fine.
I’m done now. This list caused a lot more emotions than I thought it would. I only cried twice. A few more things I need to work on have been identified. Shocking I have friends or people in my life. I’m a dumpster fire. God help me.
bisous un обьятий, RaeAnna
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I love Christmas. It is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday because it is a season. Yes I am usually that human who starts playing Christmas music around midnight on November 1st. I could give Buddy the Elf a run for his Christmas cheer, and our likeness this time of year has been referenced more than a few times.
I really did dress up just for this picture. I was not feeling it at all… and actually cried a fair bit of today.
Normally I bake like I’m Mrs. Claus trying to take on world hunger. I fill my Instagram feed with all the Christmassy things I’m dragging everyone in my circle to do. I dress in ridiculously over the top red and green ensembles for a month straight. I read and review all the latest Christmas rom-coms. All the new and cringey Hallmark movies are watched, along with Netflix and Hulu. I am not normally the gooey romantic type, but at Christmas I become a trope steeped in tradition and sentimentality.
Today is Christmas Day, and I’m sitting in a Starbucks watching the sun rise writing this. Christmas has always been that one time of year that I could not be stopped… But over the last few years, I have been not so slowly losing my Christmas spirit. To the point that this year the only reason I even have a tree in the house is because of my pawtner. I don’t think I would have bothered to get one. The reason my office tree is set up is because he brought it into the house and stuck it in my way until I decorated it. Very few Christmas cookies were baked. I have watched all of five Christmas movies, zero Hallmark, and only because of other people. I have taken a total of none Christmassy pictures. I’ve posted zero Christmas book reviews. I didn’t even do anything for Christmas Eve yesterday. My person is in town, who I have spent eleven years of my life with, and all we did was lay on the couch and watch movies and order Chinese.
What the fuck is wrong with me?!?
Depression. Anxiety. PTSD.
I hate using these things as crutches or excuses, but I’m finally to a point where I can/have to admit: They have been seriously affecting my life. I have been in survival mode for so fucking long. Doing what I can to get by and make everyone around me feel better. Things had to go. Pieces of my soul, life, person, career, heart have been left behind bit by bit.. So much in my life has been sacrificed to maintain the status quo, to make it through, to keep existing. The struggle to not give in to the parts of me that just wants to call it quits. I have too many dogs who depend on me for that bullshit. Although, it’s not just depression, anxiety, and PTSD, there are outside factors that have been exacerbating and contributing to my current less than optimal mental status. I spent 2020 being a mess at the heart of puppy chaos. 2021 has been spent figuring out what needs to go, what needs to change, and what I want. 2022 will be the year I get the hell out of this dark pit I’ve called home for about 30 and a half years. I think I know who I am again… for once. If I don’t, I’m at least heading in a direction I don’t gutterally hate.
It’s Christmas. People always use the New Year or birthdays as a starting over point, but Christmas has always been my time to shine. It’s always been a starting and end point. The place where the year ends and I can begin looking forward to next year. I doubt this will make sense to anyone, but it’s what works for me. I’m using today as my reset button. Things have to change. I need to get back to me. I want to love Christmas again. Next year, I will.
I let Christmas go this year; it’s what I needed to do. I took it easy and posted nothing. I celebrated a little with the people I care about most. Today, the day of, will be a good day. It’s a simple day. I get to spend it with the people I want to, and those who I don’t get to see, I’ll call. I’ll cook, watch movies, drink hot cocoa, and go see Christmas lights. I’m healthy. The dogs are fed and happy. I have a home. I’m not where I want to be, but I think I’m on my way. I’m starting to do things for me again… for the first time? I’m tired, but I am looking forward to what the next year will bring. I’m going to put my head down and work, work, work to get to where I need to be for myself, for my dogs, for those I love.
It may not feel like Christmas for me now, but a lot can change in 365 days.
Right after college, I started writing a lot about my experiences as a rape survivor. After a while, I started being inundated with messages from people—strangers, friends, and family alike—asking questions or just letting me know how much my stories helped them through their own recovery. Once I was able to accept I had been in a sexually, domestically, psychologically, and financially abusive relationship, I started talking. I did a whole lot of reading, researching, and listening too. But I started talking. I talked to friends, I talked to strangers who had their own stories, I got up and spoke in front of groups, I lectured at a university, I performed slam poetry, and I wrote. It was a part of me, and a part I was not going to hide.
Except I have been doing just that. Hiding. Not necessarily on purpose. It’s been pretty inadvertent. A byproduct of my life, relationships, working, and the world at large. I’ve had a hard time writing. I can blame a lot of it on the pandemic, a lack of motivation, wanting a break from reliving those painful memories, and/or a surge in depression and anxiety. Although, that would only be a half truth.
Living is choosing pain.
I have been censoring myself.
Censorship is something I really do not like, but that opinion is a completely different piece. Yet, I have been taking part in censorship, and, in my opinion, the very worst form of censorship: self-censorship. Over the course of my blogging/content creating/writing journey, I have written and posted about depression, anxiety, being a rape servivor, PTSD, mental health, and all that jazz. Except, I’ve written and posted about the sunny side of those stories. There’s a way to write about trauma and pain with a sense of humor, a brief overview, a silver lining to make it palatable. A piece that makes people go, that’s a bummer and continue on their days without being weighed down by the story they’ve just read.
For the longest time, it remained a mystery. Why couldn’t I write? Why couldn’t I post anything I did write? Because I love the fact that my darkest pain can be a light for other survivors. To share the burden, help others heal, create a community, be seen was so meaningful.
The answer was simple: I didn’t want to hurt anyone.
I have always been bad at opening myself up to people. Showing emotions and vulnerability is not a strength. If anything, I’m realizing at 30, the people I thought knew me best really don’t know me well at all. It’s not their fault. Not even remotely. I am so private about everything, that I don’t let those closest see me. They have proven they care over and over again, but being open does not come naturally. Instead, I allow myself to exist in their lives as a fairly emotionally one-dimensional human. I’ve been censoring my existence to everyone my entire life. Censoring comes easy. It’s easier than being raw and open. It’s hard letting the entire world really see you. Especially when most of what there is to see is pain.
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Friedrich Nietzsche
I don’t shy away from hard work, and I have always found it much easier to write than speak (my friends are used to getting letters expressing my emotions when I’m feeling anything other than Happy), so that’s really not the reason I have been silent on the topics that mean the most to me for the last five years.
Pain. My reality, my truth causes other people pain. Pain, not discomfort at the violent and abusive behavior they’re being brought into. My pain causes others pain because the experiences that I was forced to endure challenges their perception of me, themselves, and life. I deny my experiences to maintain peace, which denies a huge part of who I am, which only causes me more pain. I was taught to tip-toe and hush-hush, make myself small, and never hurt anyone’s feelings or create waves even if that means not speaking the truth or denying the truth completely. So I have been protecting feelings. Other people’s feelings. Feelings belonging to people who wouldn’t give a second thought to what it’s like to be in me.
I live a non-traditional life. I like it this way. It makes me happier. I watch people struggle to fit into a box that society has made for them. They find happiness or contentment. Sometimes they don’t. But I’m not convinced they’re all soaking up all the happiness and joy the world has to offer. I’m not happy when I’m conforming or doing what is expected of me. Though I’m good at it, I’m miserable chasing the traditional ideals. Those who have chosen to be in my non-traditional life support and love me no matter what. I don’t talk about so much of it anymore because it makes things difficult for some. I don’t even think about it anymore because I’ve spent so much time overthinking how a post or picture will upset the status quo.
People take my silence as shame or guilt. I’ve made some really hard choices. I’ve made out of the box choices. I’ve made dangerous choices. I’ve made stupid choices. I’ve made choices for love. I’ve made choices for money. I’ve made choices out of necessity. I’ve made choices with great repercussions. I’ve made choices of all kinds. I’ve mostly made them alone. I have been very alone yet surrounded by people my entire life. As an adult, I’m more comfortable alone than in partnership because I will be solely responsible for my choices no matter the outcome. The one thing I am not is guilty or ashamed. I am not ashamed of the life I live or the person I have become or the person I was or the things I did. In fact, I’m pretty fucking proud of every choice I made because so often I made desperate choices when there were very few options and none of them were good. But I have not lived with that pride because it causes pain.
At 30 with a lot of very serious health problems, I am goddamn tired. I am tired of always censoring what I say because it hurts people. I am tired of having to not talk about huge swaths of my life because it hurts people. I’m tired of not being able to be me all the time because it hurts people. I’m not going to continue to be small because it makes other people’s lives uncomfortable.
I’m not censoring myself anymore. It’s all going to be out there. Because I’m not being real. I’m not being authentic. I’m not doing everything I can to make the world a better place.
