Femme – …on the B.L.

I am not trauma bonding.

I’m incredibly open about my past, which was basically 24 years of constant trauma. (The last six have seen their trauma, but nowhere near the first two and a half decades of the hellscape I called home.) So fun! It’s a huge part of my life and led to my career in social justice and writing and depression (kidding?). If I could separate me the person from me the traumatized, I fucking would. But I can’t. It is ever present. A character in my story. It comes up. In my stories and especially in my humor. If you don’t like dark humor at my own expense… I’m probably not for you. To be in my life is to have some familiarity with my trauma. Don’t confuse that with bonding or asking others to take it on. I’ll carry that weight; I’ve got this; it’s not new. My pain is a familiar companion.

My trauma solidified my existence as a raging intersectional feminist in search of knowledge.

When a new person starts to enter my life in a non-surface relationship, I tend to give the ten minute run down. Friends, dating, whatever. The rundown will happen sooner rather than later.

I am not trauma bonding.

Sharing the events that made me is as necessary as where I’m from and who my siblings are. I am a writer who specializes in memoir work. One of the biggest reasons I give the rundown is because I want a person to find out from me what happened to me. It’s a heads up. A hey, I’m okay. I don’t want them to find out all the really violent and awful things that were my daily life through an Instagram post, an article on Medium, through my blog, on Facebook, or worse a 280 character tweet. I’m not about to do that to a person cause that just feels shitty to me. I wouldn’t want to find out someone I care about even a teensy bit was gang raped at nineteen. I want people to know I’m okay; I’m not a sploot on the surface of the Earth. I’m a broken, thriving human.

I am not trauma bonding.

My story opens the door for people to tell me their own stories. Or not. It’s up to them. I’m not trying to have a good cathartic cry and feel my feelings with someone. No one gets that. Tears and devastation are left for solo road trips and hot showers. I’m not looking to be raw and open. I’m looking to change the world, even if it’s just in small ways. My story is not new, but it has had an impact on people’s lives; helped them find their own voice; not feel so alone; know someone somewhere sees their pain and cares. My story is in the world because I want to end the stigma for survivors, for those who did not survive, for those who have yet to survive. Maybe my story will stop someone from going too far and creating another survivor. I don’t know. Do we ever really know the impact of our existence in the world? All I know is that I have a voice. I have a past. I will use my voice to do as much good in the world as I can.

I can be broken and strong, femme and capable, vulnerable and resilient, traumatized and healthy.

I am not trauma bonding.

I am simply preparing people for what the reality of being in my life is. To stand by my side in any significant capacity is to bear witness to pain that was, is, and will be. Though the events of my past are solidly in my past, the consequences and pain are ever evolving. I’m constantly reconciling and healing. Honestly, I’m also testing the waters to see if this new person can handle it. Out of sheer self-preservation, I’m not going to let myself become emotionally involved with someone who will flee when the hard stories start coming up. Let alone if they invest a lot of time and get to the point where they may see the consequences of another’s actions in the form of my anxiety, PTSD, depression, and OCD. The truth is, I am a bit of a mess. My life and mental health is really in a good place considering, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have bad days. I want to know I can potentially show a side of me that is not completely together and capable. I don’t want to hide integral pieces of myself. Fuck, I’m not going to stop writing, talking, and fighting for change because someone is uncomfortable with my past; I’ve been there too many times to do it again. I take pen to paper, fingers to keys, putting that pain on display for the world to see and hopefully feel. This is my job. This is my purpose.

I am not trauma bonding.

Silence was my protector for so long. I refuse to be silent. I refuse to be a well behaved woman. I am strong. I am broken. I am clumsy. I am kind. I am funny. I am sad. I like to think I’m smart. I am multitudes. But I am traumatized. I am not asking a single person to take that trauma on. It is just a story among many stories of my life.

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

Does this outfit make me look gay? Good.

Hey, y’all. I’m queer. Pansexual to be specific. This isn’t my coming out. I’m fully out of the closet. If I’m being honest, I never had an I’m-not-straight talk with anyone. It’s just been something that has existed as a solid fact in my life for a decade now. My non-heterosexual identity has been talked about for awhile, but as I get older, I’m feeling the need to live more loudly in my queer identity. This story is a whole lot longer than a single blog post, and, honestly, I may turn it into a collection of essays at some point. Let’s be honest, I’m unpacking so many things about my sexuality that I have kept firmly in a box unto itself, which is very unfair to my identity and journey as a human.

I never felt the need to come out for a whole lot of reasons. Too many to count. The two biggest being my family and my college.

I grew up in a weird house. Conservative in as many ways as it was liberal. So much progress mired in an ideology founded in my parent’s small, Midwestern childhoods’ of the 60s and 70s. My parents were and are accepting, but they did not grasp the nuance, language, or broad rainbow spectrum. They were products of their generation, and it showed[s] in their language, phrasing, expression, and beliefs. Equally, I am a product of my own generation, education, family, and ultimately genetics.

Cornell College, my alma mater, is incredibly liberal. The epitomization of: college is for self-exploration. My friends embodied “Do the thing. Do all the things. Try them now before life crushes us with debt and responsibility.” Damn, I love those humans. There were labels, but if you were on a journey and didn’t label anything, well that was okay too. Label it or don’t, just be a good person.

I remember writing, “I think I’m gay.” at twelve. I quite literally burned that piece of paper. For so many reasons I couldn’t name back then. Shame (which was not instilled in me by my parents or church, just, you know, society and the patriarchy). Isolation. Mostly uncertainty. I knew I wasn’t gay in the binary that I was aware of. Bisexuality wasn’t even presented to me as an actual sexuality… I’m not even going to get into that here. The isolation came from knowing I wasn’t straight, but knowing I wasn’t gay either. In a progressive town that had… all but no gay people (that I knew of, especially at the time), I would have been very much alone in an identity I still had no name for. For the kids reading this, this is pre-high speed internet, and I would have had to know the term to look it up in a dictionary—it’s a large book containing all the words and their definitions. I remember hearing people say, “Oh, she’s gay.” But “she” had moved out of town years before. Had I known what I was and been out in high school, it would have changed nothing because there were only boys to date anyways.

For so many reasons, the unknown of what I was didn’t affect my adolescence in any way. Truly, there is zero trauma stemming from my pansexual existence; loads and loads of trauma from other things in my life, though!

I don’t have that trauma because of a seminal moment in my adolescence.

But first, back story. I was an incredibly late bloomer. I didn’t get my first period until I was sixteen. I was not interested in sex until I met the love of my life at almost twenty. (I did get raped repeatedly by my high school “boyfriend” from 17 to 19. Oh hey there, trauma. Sup?) My sexuality wasn’t a crisis because it didn’t really exist for twenty years. I did not go through the boy/girl/sex crazy phase. Ever. I might be entering it now at thirty. Like I said, late bloomer. I became a sexual human at 19.5 when I fell in love and entered my first serious relationship with a human, who happened to be male. I fell in love with the human because he was and is incredible.

More back story. As a kid, I was pretty intensely into ballet. I was also a cheerleader, had a huge affinity for dresses, played the flute, was working on being a classical pianist, had straight As for most of middle school and high school (getting raped affected that a bit), obsessed with wearing heels. In so many ways, all arrows pointed to girly-girl, on the surface. (I still present super femme.) Dig deeper into my psyche and for those who knew/know me, the gender expression and sexuality waters get a lot murkier, but I won’t get into that right now.

On to the seminal moment.

At fifteen, I was walking through the kitchen, having just gotten home from cheerleading practice. My mother was in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce. One hand controlling the wooden spoon. One hand holding the pan. One foot grounded and the other on a stool, a bit Captain Morgan-ish now that I think about it. As I walk past, she says, “RaeAnna, I have a question for you.” My mother is never this formal. The Type A personality in me froze. What had I done wrong??? “Okay?” Without missing a beat or looking at me, still very much focused on her task, “Are you a lesbian?” Not the question I was expecting at all. It was so far off my radar, I really never ever thought I would hear that question. I had always known that if I was gay that it would be no big deal. My parents would be able to accept that without a problem (probably one of the few things about the authentic me that have been easily accepted). I hadn’t really thought about it since writing “I think I’m gay” three years prior. Like I said, not a sexual human at that point in time. “Um… Not that I know of.” Again, without missing a beat, “Okay. Just asking. If that ever changes, let me know.” One of the most nonchalant conversations I have ever had with the woman. She has given me a lifetime’s worth of writing material, but this is one of the moments I look back on and respect the hell out of her for.

If you don’t know me, if you don’t follow me, if you’re just meeting me for the first time, I present as ultra feminine, conservative, Christian, Suzy Homemaker, Type A, straight woman. I can be femme, but I also have some serious masc energy. I am absolutely not conservative; I get why people think that, but yikes no. I live my life pretty conservatively because that’s my comfort zone. Haha, trauma. But I am not conservative in any way at all. I am quite the flaming liberal, progressive, intersectional feminist. I’m not Christian; I’m atheist, but I was raised Methodist. I am definitely a Suzy Homemaker. Call me grandma; I love cooking, baking, sewing, cross stitching, knitting, crocheting, taking care of people, and keeping a clean house. I hate cleaning, but I AM Type A with a touch of OCD. Hey there, I’m neurotic, fun neurotic, still neurotic, though. I am NOT straight. I have only been in relationships with men. For a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with preferring men to women.

There was never an announcement of my queerness. No discussion. No party. I never officially came out. I never felt the need. It started with an “I’m attracted to women.” progressed to “I would definitely date women.” before turning into “I would have sex with women.” and eventually became “I’m attracted to people. I could spend my life with any gender.” It was slowly and steadily established as a fact about me. It’s been the last six years that I started using the term pansexual to describe myself. It’s been in the last year that I’ve started claiming queer. It’s a journey, and I’m on it.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Tag: Femme

Hey! I’m Queer. Happy Pride!