Mental Health – …on the B.L.

Houston, In My Own Words, Lifestyle, On the Town

Musings in a Storm; Hurricane Beryl

July 15, 2024July 15, 2024 RaeAnna

One Week Later…

On Sunday, July 7, 2024, I started taking pictures as the bands of Hurricane Beryl started to sweep over Houston. Alone in my house, I went to bed wondering what condition my world would be in when I woke. The power went out while I was on the phone with my fiancée (who lives in Australia) at seven in the morning on Monday, July 8, 2024. She went to bed for the night, and my weather watch began. Two hours later, I lost cell reception and internet. As an avid read, writer, picture taker with literally nothing to do, I decided to document the storm. I’ve been through my fair share of hurricanes, storms, tornados, and derechos at this point in my life. But, for the first time, I was bored during it.

I spent Sunday night and Monday taking pictures. The following pieces I wrote over three days in a notebook; then transcribed on my tablet in a note that I, later, turned into a .doc, which is now my first post in months. Each piece stands alone; though there are likely themes to be found. Some bring levity, and some are quite dark. They’re all very much me. The photos separate piece from piece. So, enjoy.

Open front door of Pearl Bar onto Washington Avenue as the bands of Hurricane Beryl begin. — Pearl Bar’s front door opens onto Washington Avenue as the bands of Hurricane Beryl begin.

Laying, clothed in very little, with the windows open: I’m hot. The kind of hot that feels like it’ll never get better. The kind of hot that makes air heavy in the lungs. If this isn’t nostalgic, it would be misery.
Laying on a sheet-covered couch—because cotton is cooler than brushed velvet—my underwear and bra stick to me. I’m glistening with sweat. I’ve read three-quarters of one of the best novels I’ve ever consumed. I realize: I’d be working if it weren’t for Hurricane Beryl shutting down the fourth largest city in the United States. A category one. No internet. No power. No communication with the outside world. It took a natural disaster for me to have my first real day off since the day after I put my dog to sleep… three months ago. There’s literally nothing to be done but pick up sticks and read. And I’m not about to go pick up sticks.
Laying on the couch, the only breeze I can feel is the hot breath from the dogs who love me so much they can’t find another spot to lay except my lap in all 3,000 square feet of this damn house. My day was spent reading and writing, the old-fashioned way. I love days like these. Ones where I lay by an open window, reading, drinking tea, and listening to nature. Today, doing just that, Instead of the birds, beach, breeze, city, leaves, I’d normally find lulling, I’m currently being serenaded by my much too nice neighbors’ generator. I hate them. But they’re too nice to hate, even in this heat.

A friend walking her dog as the storm started to roll in Sunday, July 7, 2024.

I have so many unanswered questions. | Does my mother believe in heaven? | What is the worst lie I’ve ever told? | Why do fascia confuse scientists so much? | Does Beau resent me for rescuing Tessa and the Puppies? | Why didn’t he protect me? | What will I regret when I lay dying? | Will she still think I’m beautiful in 50 years when she walks into our room after brushing her teeth to find me reading on the same side of the bed I’ve slept in for the majority of our lives? | Why did that question make me cry? | How did performing on stage go from being my whole life to a place I haven’t been in a decade? | Does he know he’s the villain in my story? | Why do I like Peach Rings but peaches not so much? | Do my dogs know how much I love them? | There are happy-sad people and sad-happy people and sad-sad people, but are there happy-happy people? | What’s even the point? | Why do I think I’m interesting enough to be a writer? | Can she remember the smell of the space between my shoulder blades the way I remember her? | When we leave the house, do our pets think we’re going for pupcups and dog walks and pet stores and beach adventures because that’s all they do with us? | Do they feel abandoned? | Am I capable of writing a book? | When does it get better?

As I drive through my neighborhood, there is a ton of damage. Trees felled. Roofs in streets. Families raking yards. Neighbors calling on each other. Hands being lended. Bayous overflowing.

The general post-natural disaster mahem and comradery.

Beau’s head hangs out the passenger window. Soaking up the breeze as much as the sun. She’s always loved a car ride. I drive slowly as much out of safety as curiosity.

As we slowly creep down the street, the decimation of homes, trees, and fences allows us a public viewing into private moments. On the main road, a backyard fence lays half across the sidewalk, half across the street. A multi-generational Asian family sits around a table on their back patio. Mom, dad, and grandma stare with a mixture of defeat and exhaustion. Martini in every hand. All the while, their ten[ish?] year-old son flits around the backyard with the joy of a kid in a world devoid of technology.

Using the dictionaries I loved so much in college to look up the gender of a noun. #old #nerd

Sometimes, I feel like Pyoter, my robot vacuum—named because a) I like men who clean b) I can yell at a man when it fucks up c) I speak Russian d) it just felt right—who is currently sat, wheels run-up a dog toy, in the corner where the hearth meets the wall.

Pyotr does a great job. A real go-getter. He’s aged, but his battery isn’t suffering. With the right care, he does as well as he ever did. His years show in the collection of dust and scuffs. He’s reliable and beloved. But he’s stuck. He’s not out of battery. He’s not full either. Nor is he empty. He’s kind of in the middle phase of vaccing the floors: where enough progress has been made, it seems like things could be done. Nowhere near perfect, but definitely above the expectation people have when I tell them, “I have five dogs.” Pyotr has the capability to do a great job, not just the average state my floors exist in now.

But he’s stuck.

I’m sitting on the couch engrossed in a book about a rich, lesbian writer who’s suffering from severe depression, childhood trauma, depersonalization, derealization, some delusions, and can’t finish her novel—that’s actually a memoir—which has put her in a trust funded [see what I did there] psychiatrists’ office not to feel and do better but to write again. Same. But I’m too poor for a psychiatrist to help me finish my damn book. Also the protagonist(antagonist?) is younger and further in her book than me. Fuck her. Now, I’m realizing, I am genuinely jealous of a genuinely ill and equally fictional woman. Then, again, I’m also (mostly undiagnosed) mentally ill. I mentioned I’m too poor for a psychiatrist? yes. This tracks.

Anyway.

I promise these two are related as to why, sometimes, I feel like Pyotr.

He’s stuck.

I’m stuck.

He needs me to get up, move him, push the button so he can be unstoppable. The problem therein lies: I won’t get up.

My brain is home to: CPTSD, childhood trauma, rape, violence, audhd, stripping, and more. At 33, like my floors, I’m doing better than you’d assume. To the outside world, I’m doing great. But I have so much energy. My mind is only getting more interesting. I know there’s potential. Somewhere. What’s been done is good enough; it really is.

It’s not good enough for me.

I’m wheels up on my own metaphorical dog toy. Therefore, I have no—completely devoid of metaphor here—no ability to stand up and press Pyotr’s button so he can go do great things for my mental health through dog glitter confiscation.

Which is a symptom of my own being stuck.

I need a me to come in and unstick me, so I can unstick Pyotr. So, he can finish the floors. So, I can finish my bestselling book. So, I can afford my wife’s dream job of being a rockstar. Then, I’ll be unstoppable. And maybe, but probably not, have a little more money. (I plan on my wife’s first tour eating up the $37 advance I get from that “bestseller.”)

But, I’m going to go back to reading.

I know I dated men for so, so, so many reasons. It’s something I’ve written about loads. Thought about far more. Why did I spend a whole lot of years dating a gender I have literally zero attraction to? There’s a bit to it I hate and don’t admit to often. But it’s also true and part of it.

Dating men is inherently traumatic. (For all women, yes. They are our natural predators. I’d choose the bear, but no one is asking me.) But for me. As a gay woman with years of sexual Trauma with a capital t. Sex, every single consensual time, was traumatic. Some more. Some less. I was walking a tightrope above a flowing lava river of memories I am deeply afraid of and equally curious about. I have an entire lived-life that I don’t really remember so well. It’s there. But not. I know I can. But do I want to?

With the right circumstances, those memories come back. Do I want them? Nope. Do I need them? Healing is a long, painful journey. I quickly realized… The easiest way to remember the memories living in my body and not so much my mind was sex with men. With the force of a freight train going down a hill with no brakes or conductor, every new rememberance would chug right over my mental health.

To be clear, this was all done consensually and unconsciously. It took me a long time to figure out what I was doing. Eventually, sex with men didn’t bring back memories. I think I’d collected all the Trauma I could the old fashioned way.

I took all the puzzle pieces and put them together. My puzzle was definitely found at a rummage sale because pieces are missing. I have enough of them to have a really clear understanding of who I am and where I come from. Then I took the time to heal. Like really heal. I’m not healed. Clearly. But I’m better.

Then I came out. Not because I hadn’t known I was gay before. But I needed to reTraumatize myself over and over and over again to uncover the hardest truths I needed to know so I could get to a place where I wasn’t so actively trying to die.

Too many years into an already full life. I’m out, I’m proud, I’m a functional calamity. At 33, I’m really fucking happily engaged to the most incredible woman. And I think… deep down, I might actively want to live.

The anxious ones were kept in their safe spaces.

With generators and chainsaws and bugs and children and dogs and sirens and storms, the world has never seemed louder. More intrusive. More in my space.

So, I put in earplugs to drown out the noise. I try to find sleep laying on the couch with all the windows open in a breezeless night in July. There’s still a ringing. A haunting that won’t go away. It’s louder in my brain than any of the aforementioned noises could ever be loud in real life.

I wish this were just tinnitus. But no.

Not new, but particularly jarring tonight. As a little girl, I used to think of it as an alarm sounding. That voice my mom told me about. It told me when I was doing something wrong. When I was being bad. It didn’t take me long to learn: that alarm never relented.

So, it didn’t take long to know: I was just bad. Most of the time, I still believe it. That I deserved it all. Every malintent, violence, shame.

But some days, more than there used to be, I think: maybe it’s all the alarms I didn’t listen to, warning me of all the people I believed.

Sometimes, it hurts being alone in my own head.

So, I take the earplugs out. Letting the sound of crickets and generators drown out the alarms I didn’t know how to listen to.

A lot of sniffing and following me around the house.

Stuck in a house with no electricity, no air conditioning, no reception, no internet, and no help at the height of southern Texas summer is a lot like camping. Except terrible.

If I tell you it was a first. I’m probably lying to you.

When I think about the unedited version of my whole life. The one common thread has been lying. Changing the narrative of my history. Sometimes, as it’s happening.

I tell firsts as if they’re not really seconds or thirds of fiftieths because they are more palatable. Cleaner. Easy.

Because, the thing is, the first time… well, that’s the first time I’ll write about.

But

To friends who know me, there’s the first time I talk about like it was a passing thing because looking at the threads that wove my Trauma, it hardly even feels like it matters.

Then

There’s the first time that felt like the first time. Only three people have seen that pain.

However

There’s the first time that was the real first time. I’ve never spoken it out loud. To even think of it pulls all the air that ever was from my lungs. Even writing—admitting to it here—scares me so much. I want to run. I want to hide. There is pain I so instinctively don’t want to be true that if I never speak it, never share it, maybe it’s not. But lately, in traffic, on walks, alone, in the moments where my mind wanders… I keep being led there. I’ve had to stop writing three times so my eyes could see the spelling errors I’ll edit out through tears sometime between me writing and you reading this. If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t edit this one out. This is hard. This is brave. This feels like dying.

Telling firsts which weren’t actually firsts, I’m lying to you. I’m not lying to myself. I was there. I know the truth. I always have. I just wish I didn’t. So I tell the firsts I’m comfortable with. Because I’m better. But I’m not fucking healed.

My love for you is a very well tended garden.

It’s an allegory I like because I like gardens. Not a perfect one since I don’t like gardening. In this figurative garden, I have no problems being a figurative gardener. Although, my darling dearest, the literal garden is your literal responsibility.

When a garden is planted, watered, tended, weeded, watered, tended, weeded, planted, so on and so forth, it will grow and thrive. New things will come. Some things will wither. Sometimes, it doesn’t *seem* to be doing so well because of winter or drought or too much rain or not enough sun, but a very well tended garden always survives, coming back stronger and more beautiful each time because the soil keeps getting richer. It is always growing and changing because it was never not well tended.

My love for you is that. A bit simplistic, but you get the idea.

Ludicrous! Not the rapper. The idea!!!!

The idea! at one point in time… a very, much too long point in time in my life, I thought it was important to carry a small suitcase on my shoulder everywhere I went.

They’re known as purses.

Highly helpful for the ladyfolk in a world where the ladyfolk are legally not allowed functional pockets [if pockets at all—depending on your state and county legislation]. Not really, but that’s how it feels shopping.

Anyway. I carried a large purse because I deemed it necessary to carry every single item anyone could need in events ranging from a wedding to a natural disaster. True fact. The pouch-thing I carried inside my purse was so well stocked with all sorts of odds and ends, it really did come in handy at both weddings (two friends) and a natural disaster (hurricane Florence). It was hefty! Lifting the damn thing, which sits utterly-and-quite-suddenly-forsaken, dusty, and on the top shelf in my entryway, put down never to be picked up again until… now, when it feels like something between training for an Iron Man and giving up completely.

I had purses—yes plural—big enough to carry the well-stocked pouch-thing, wallet, phone, a tiny tripod, book, pen, tablet, all my friends’ things, and a brush every single time I left the house.

It is baffling to me.

I don’t even brush my hair anymore.

I don’t like my body.

I don’t think I see what other people see.

All I see is endurance. Not the long-distance running kind. The servived kind.

I look at my body and see every flaw. Every dimple. Every stretch mark. Every varicose vein. Every lump. Every wrinkle. Every sag. Every scar. I’m vain. Sure. But…

I see pain. I see a body I didn’t think belonged to me, had control over, a right to. I see a body that I think of as not me. What happens and happened to this body… that’s not me. It’s just a body. Because if they did that to my body and I am my body, they did that to me. And they knew me. And they still did it. Then looked me in the eye and called it love.

I don’t want to look at my body and see that.

I don’t.

But, I take beautiful pictures of my body in beautiful places. They call the place beautiful. They call the body beautiful. But I just want to keep a record. I want proof. I want to know that I was there. I did it. This body did enough to get to those places.

But also…

I hope one day I look back on all the pictures I’ve taken in beautiful clothes in beautiful places with beautiful people and think, maybe, ‘I was beautiful once.’ I guess, that’s how I’ve always—well, not always—known to not give up yet. That’s hope, an emotion I’m rarely accused of. I haven’t lost it. So, maybe, one day, I will look back at all the art I made with eyes that somehow found enough self-love (it hurt me far more to write than for you to read) to think: ‘As much as I hated it every singe time, I deserved to be called beautiful.’

But I guess that’s healing from being treated like an ugly thing for so very long.

Life is an exhausting to do list.

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Anxiety Is A Fickle Bitch

October 2, 2023October 3, 2023 RaeAnna

Anxiety is a fickle bitch.

But so am I.

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.

So, Fuck Brian. That dude sucks.

11..., Lifestyle, So Gay

11… Reasons I’m Proud… of Myself

June 19, 2023June 19, 2023 RaeAnna

This is hard. Necessary. But hard.

It’s Pride Month, and my heart hasn’t been in it, which is fine and life. Some years, things hold less weight in our hearts or minds than other years, and that’s okay. But I need to care a little bit because I am le gay, and I can’t not. So here I am, forcing myself to Pride for the last eleven days, and I’m starting in the most uncomfortable way I can.

Being proud of literally anyone I know is so easy for me. Like… have you seen people? Pretty incredible. Okay, less so for white dudes. I’m so proud of my people for just being them. To the point I could explode with how incredible and strong I know they are.

How do I do that? How do I give myself even a modicum of grace I give everyone else? What have I done deserving enough of pride? Nothing. That is my visceral answer. That is what I truly believe to my core. I have done nothing nor am I worthy of being proud of myself. I know, logically, this is not true, but it feels true. My internal monologue can be boiled down to: feelings fighting logic. Feelings never win out against logic. Except when logic is trying to convince my feelings that I’m a good or decent human deserving… anything remotely on the cusp of kindness. Pride falls into this strange category of feeling based on logical analysis. Or it is, at least, for me.

Making myself create a list of reasons I’m proud feels like a form of self-harm; though, I know, it’s actually a good exercise in self-love, which is indicative that I love myself. I do not. I am solidly pretending that I love myself. Fake it til you make it. Going on 32 years, I’ve gotta have a breakthrough at some point in time. It’s not today, but over the course of 16 days—truly started this one a hot minutes ago—I came up with this list. I stretched. Maybe #12 should be: I’m really proud I finished this list and actually put it into the world.

Just a Pride photoshoot. Nothing to see.

I came out. Simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I am alive.
I got tattoos. I now have ten with appointments for two more this fall. They make me happy. They make my body feel like it belongs to me just a little bit. My tattoos are personal and public reclamation and declaration.
I don’t respond to my parents’ anymore.
I cut out toxicity. The people who made me feel anxious, less than, unworthy, undeserving, too much. I shut out the people who wouldn’t or couldn’t match me. Being in my life is an investment, just like I believe being in other people’s lives is an investment; so I’m not making shitty investments anymore.
My puppies are safe and loved. In 2020, I spent a lot of time, money, and emotion rescuing and raising a dog and her thirteen puppies. Every single one of them is safe, happy, loved, and thriving in their furever homes.
I’m chasing peace rather than chaos.
I’ve sought out friends who accept me as I am.
I keep going.
I’m trying really hard.
I’m making an effort to be vulnerable with those who have earned it.

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

For Ocho

May 7, 2023July 30, 2023 RaeAnna

Cats have never been my animal of choice. I grew up with them; I love them; I am very allergic to them; I need my animals to follow me around the house and never leave me alone; I have never had a cat of my own.

He was the most handsome cat and so loved.

The only tattoo I have solely in honor of another being—at this point—is for a cat. A year ago today, Ocho, one of my closest friend’s cat died suddenly. At just under a year, he was still just a little kitten. Meghan and I had spent a lot of time together over the end of 2021 and the first five months of 2022, so I was well acquainted with Ocho. We were buddies. We played aggressively. To the point of bleeding. His murder mittens got me every time. He’d come running at me with no warning, latching onto my ankles, knowing that I’d pick him up and play with him in a way no one else did. Although, maybe, he just hated me and was trying to ankle bite me right out of the house. I’ve never loved a cat more.

Loving someone who doesn’t belong to you and grieving them is a wild thing. I grew up with cats who’ve been kittens grown into old ladies. I spent years loving and playing with them. It’s not that I didn’t love them, I did, but Ocho was different. Grief is sadder when they die young and out of the blue. He didn’t suffer, but everyone who loved him did.

My relationship with Ocho was so much deeper than even his mom knew. Meghan and I met at a really weird time for both of us, and our lives collapsed into one another. For more than a few reasons, I spent a lot of nights at her house. Her home and she herself became my safe haven, and that has never really gone away. I have never felt peace the way I do with her in her home; she is just that kind of human, and her pets are just like her.

I have a history of night terrors combined with sleep walking. They had never plagued me in adulthood. I thought I’d left them at my parents’ house. I think the combination of coming into myself truly, feeling peace and safety for the first time, starting to deeply heal, and the amount of stress I was under created the perfect storm. The night terrors came back.

I don’t like to think of myself as a dangerous person, but I grew up in violence. It’s hard to leave that behind. On more than a few occasions, I’ve had to choose violence to survive. Unfortunately, under certain circumstances, violence is my body’s natural reaction. My brain moves fast and has always stopped myself before doing what I do not want it to do. None of these had been tested when another person was involved and I was asleep.

For the first time in twelve years, I started having night terrors. In Meghan’s house. Really bad ones. They were memories of moments I actively try to forget, and if you know me, you know I don’t shy away from much.

He gets to be with his dog brother forever.

Meghan is strong and capable and intelligent, but she is also kind and gentle and sensitive, though most don’t see it. Her strength is rooted in a quiet self-assuredness, coming from a foundation of stability and love she’s known her entire life. My strength comes from the complete opposite. Listening to her talk about anything has always filled me with such hope because she’s proof that goodness exists. We are so very similar in so many ways, yet we couldn’t be more dissimilar. When I look at her in her life, I see the possibility of what could have been for me if everything had been different. I’m not jealous; I’m fiercely protective. For some reason, she has deemed me worthy of existing in it with her. All of this to say, I have loved her from the moment I met her, and all I’ve ever wanted to do was shelter her peace and safety and sense of hopeful optimism. It’s not my job. It’s my privilege as her friend. My greatest hope for her is that everyone treats her better than I ever could because the world needs her and people like her, and I don’t want anything jading her heart.

Nothing is scarier than wanting to protect someone from everything, but the only threat to their safety is you. That’s where I was at. I was the danger.

I will never know when they started or ended, but I know the first time I realized what was happening. The night terrors had returned. Except at 30, I had more memories to be scared of than I did at 17.

This story is one of my greatest shames. I would love to never tell it. I will because I love Ocho and his memory deserves it.

One night, I couldn’t tell you which night, but it was deep into the night. Houston had fallen silent. The house creaked in the way old houses do. Nigel was asleep at Meghan’s feet. Ocho slept on the pillow next to her. The winter air blew outside. It was the kind of night perfect for deep sleeping, and all four of us were. Then, I wasn’t.

I woke standing over her with a fist raised and my other clenched at my side. I don’t know what I was going to do if I was going to do anything. But I knew there were two tiny paws kneading my chest and a kitten shaped head rubbing against my chin. I immediately knew. My body seized up. I breathed in and couldn’t let it out. I started shaking as tears dripped from my jaw. I looked at her peacefully not snoring, laying on her back, completely unaware of the danger I had just posed to her. Nigel didn’t even raise his head, but he was looking at me in his soulful way.

Ocho bit my collarbone hard.

I breathed out.

I stepped back and looked down at him. He gave my hand a little bite and lick before he curled up by his mom’s head. Her hand reached for him, and they snuggled in closer. I backed out of her room, turned around, walked into the kitchen, grabbed the garage keys. I walked out the back door, down the stairs, and into the garage. I didn’t even turn on the lights when I shut the door behind me. I laid down in the middle of her garage workshop and sobbed. The full self, feel it in your body, pure grief kind of sob. I had almost hurt the one person in the world I would have gone to the ends of the world to protect. She had the perfect life, and I had arrived to ruin it. I was the thing she should worry about, and I had done nothing to protect her from me. The what ifs flooded my mind. I know what great harm I am capable of conscious by choice. Asleep by guttural reaction? That had never been tested, and I was horrified for her. I was also selfish: fearful she would hate me, and I would lose someone who I’d come to need, and I don’t need people.

Eventually, I stopped sobbing when the first bird sang. I sat up, realizing I’d left a me-shaped sawdust angel in the middle of her garage. I grabbed the broom, sweeping the sawdust into chaos again. I took a shower in the garage shower because I’d taken some sawdust with me, and it would be weird having to explain sawdust in the sheets. I crawled back in bed and stared at the ceiling until my alarm went off and it was time to make coffee.

One of the first things Meghan said to me that morning was my hair looked curlier than it had when I went to bed. The day began like every other day I spent the night. Except Ocho was a bit cuddlier with me than usual. Not a single ankle bite.

I was distant for a few days and found my evenings too busy to spend the night. But when I did see her, I started telling stories about what I have done in moments where I’ve chosen violence. I told her I had bad nightmares and sometimes my PTSD makes it hard for my body and mind to communicate, and that has historically led to unpleasantness. I didn’t sugar coat anything, but I also left out quite a bit. She met stories of some of my worst moments with the same grace and compassion she always has. She told me to just be me and not be afraid for her. She kept telling me she’s very strong and tough, which I already knew, and she could take care of herself, which I already knew. But I never wanted her to have to around me, and I really never wanted her to have to protect herself from me.

Eventually, I spent the night again. The first three times, I didn’t sleep at all. I stared at the ceiling the entire time. The fourth night, Ocho curled up on the pillow touching my shoulder and face, so I drifted off to sleep. I went a week without a night terror. The second time I remember having one, Ocho nibbled my ear until I woke up. He did it every time. He kept his mom safe. He gave me enough security to fall asleep, hopeful that I wouldn’t be a threat. I never have been since. To Meghan or anyone else.

This past winter, the night terrors started colliding with insomnia and tactile hallucinations. Oh, it was a rough few months. I wasn’t sleeping. When I would I’d have horrendous night terrors. When I’d wake from them, I would physically feel whatever traumatic event I’d had to watch in my sleep. I was losing my goddamn mind. Ocho had long been gone, and all the reasons I spent so many nights at Meghan’s were no more. Then one night, the worst night, laying in my own bed, I felt like I was dying in a prison of my own body unable to move or escape what was one of the worst tactile hallucinations of my life. Ocho walked across my chest and curled up on my pillow on my shoulder. He nibbled my ear. He broke me out of my prison, put me back into my body. The tactile hallucinations disappeared all at once, but he got up and I felt him walk away.

The nights I can feel their hands start touching my body and their breath on my skin and the pain bloom like Moonflower planted in my soul, Ocho walks across my chest. Every time, he curls up and nibbles my ear, staying with me until every touch and breath is gone. Then I feel him walk away. The Moonflower wilts in my soul as Ocho takes the darkness my pain needs to bloom with him.

I don’t believe in God or ghosts or an afterlife. I believe my brain is fucked up because of trauma, and it’s doing its best to servive. I also believe Ocho knew what he was doing, and my soul has decided to keep him alive on the nights I still need him.

Ocho was such an asshole. I have scars on my ankles from where he bit me. He gave Meghan and I so many heart attacks when he’d find newer and cleverer ways to escape the prison we call a house. I hate bugs, and yet I’ve crawled under her house so many times to pull him out. I would wake up to him biting me in the middle of my back at night to play with him. But he gave the best snuggles. He was always full of vim and vigor, triggering laughing fits. He just knew. Every time. He knew when I needed him. He knew when his mom needed him. He was perfect, and I miss him every day.

I tattooed his name in the place he just loved to bite as a reminder of all that he had done for me. I had no idea what he would go on to do. He saved his mom from me. He has saved me from me so many more times.

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

I Disowned My Parents So I Could Survive and Write

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 RaeAnna

My parents aren’t a part of my life. Not for their lack of trying. I set boundaries again and again and again, but our perceptions of our own realities are not compatible. They are allowed theirs, but they do not allow me mine. They cannot listen with compassionate hearts or accept me as I am nor own responsibility in our downfall yet expect all of this and more from me. I might be a real adult, but I’m still their child.

Life without my family is hard. I won’t lie. But it’s so much easier than giving up who I am to be who they want me to be. Fitting into a too small box and swallowing the truth, I couldn’t do it anymore.

I have chosen the unpopular route: disowning my parents.

For so many reasons. This is not the first time. It may not be the last, but it likely will be.

One of the biggest upsides to continuing my life without them is my ability to write. I am a writer. One who has always found real people’s stories to be far more interesting than fiction. The life I’ve been dealt and the choices I have made or were forced into making sure do make great copy. My life isn’t just interesting, it’s an example of how far we have yet to go as a society. I refuse to stay silent when I have a voice and the ability to use my voice. I know why so many people choose silence when they’re confronted with abuse or the ramifications of what telling their truth means after it’s over. As a survivor, sometimes the event itself isn’t the most traumatic part; it’s the after. Choosing what to say and to whom for fear of not being believed or worse being believed and told to hush hush. I have been towing the line for eight years, trying to be the good daughter, creating fewer waves. But the waves have always been my favorite part of the ocean, and I’d rather be in them than watching them.

For the first time since the last time I cut off my parents, I’m writing again with emotional depth, clarity, and vulnerability. I have spent eight years playing diplomat. Weighing every word I type to avoid hurting them because my story and, in many ways, my existence causes them pain. Though it may not seem like it, I am a people pleaser. In order to write what I do, I have to fight against every instinct in my body to stay silent, to save people’s feelings. The problem is trying to prevent pain. There is a moral component to telling stories and who owns a story. As a victim and survivor, this component becomes even more nuanced with power dynamics and silencing tactics coming into play all but immediately. In a great many of my stories, my parents were not direct players and fall into a category of affected bystanders. Though, I have plenty of stories to tell where they are active players and even abusers, but the majority of the stories I am ready and capable of telling have nothing at all to do with my parents. The only reason they hurt over the stories I tell is because they are adjacent to me and my stories are a reflection upon them as parents, people.

Over the last eight years, I haven’t written these stories because I don’t want to cause pain unnecessarily. Except the pain is not unnecessary. This is necessary pain. I haven’t spoken to my mother or father in over two years, and it’s been within the last six months that words have started pouring from my soul again. I needed time to heal. I am writing my truth, my pain, the life I have lived. It has been a painful life. A beautiful life, but painful. And I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’ve gone beyond ambivalence.

I’m not purposefully inciting pain, but I’m not going to skirt around it anymore either. I’m bringing a lot more fuck you energy to the stories I’m telling because I’m not making this shit up, and if I’m the only one who believes me, then fine. If my stories hurt my parents, then good. I was raped for years in their house. I’m not angry and I don’t hold it against them, but let it hurt. I have hurt for a decade and a half. They parented me for nineteen years and failed to do the one job they should have done above all else: protect me. Maybe I am and was as good at hiding behind a mask as I think I am, but I asked for help and was turned away time and time again. Precedents were set that I would not be believed, my safety was not a priority, my mental health was to stay hush-hush. They chose to not protect me, to not stand by me, to not pay attention to their daughter when I needed them, when I begged for help, when I was assaulted, when I told them I wanted to die.

So what was I to do when a boy held me down and raped me for the first time? Or the second? Or the fiftieth? They had proven they didn’t care and I couldn’t trust them. So I found solace in myself and learned to depend on no one. Now that I no longer need them to parent or protect me, they want to do both and by doing so silence me, whether that is their conscious goal or not.

I love my parents with all my heart. Truly. Though no one will believe me, family is the most important thing to me, which means it is so hard every day not caving in. But it is possible to love someone and not want them in my life. I am happier and healthier without them. I wish them well. I do not wish to cause them pain, but I will not stop writing the stories that matter.

More than anything, I wish they would let me go.

11..., Lifestyle

11… Phrases Partners Have Uttered in the Past

February 20, 2023February 21, 2023 RaeAnna

You know… I’ve dated. I’m 31, never married, no kids. I have yet to make someone projectile vomit when they look upon me. I have a pretty successful career, not lucrative, but successful. I’m tall. I wouldn’t say I’m a catch, but I have enough going for me that I could catch a date if I felt so inclined.

Sometimes people say stupid shit, and that’s why I love being in nature… without people.

I am not so inclined, but I have spent years romantically attached to humans. I wouldn’t call myself a dating expert; although I am in possession of stories. I was thinking of some of the more ridiculous things that have been said to me while coupled up. Also hurtful things. The people we date have access to our inner selves in a way most people never will, so our partner[s] has the ability to hurt us more deeply than almost anyone. And the shitty bit is: we give them all the ammunition.

Partnership is great. Truly. Almost all of the best moments in my life have been shared with and when I was in a relationship. As I get older and more set in my ways, I’m not sure how for me it is. At least, right now, I’m so good with what is.

The world is vast. I am so glad I haven’t let the words of others keep me from exploring and living.

I like other people’s opinions; I tend to search out criticism. Especially from people I love and respect. I am not perfect, but I do try to be a safe space for people to talk about anything and everything. I also really try to make it known that I want my friends to tell me when I fuck up, fall short, hurt feelings, can do better. Life is hard, and the least I can do is love my people the best I can—so much of that is accepting my own shortcomings and doing better when I can. Don’t be mean, I am sensitive underneath all my armor, but I can take well meant criticism. Most of the time, my people’s opinions help me grow and become a better person… But these comments, not so much.

I don’t think I love you anymore. This is number one. This is the worst. It’s an absolute gut punch. I’ve heard I don’t love you anymore. That doesn’t hit quite like the addition of think. Cause guess what that means??? There’s still a chance. Which means… I’m gonna spend way too much fucking time trying to remind you of all the reasons you fell in love with me to begin with. It did work… It just took nine years, a lot of money, a bunch of tears, and then I came out as a lesbian.
You’re conniving cunt. Yes I am… Said in the heat of a break up after I was tired of having my money stolen from me.
If you need to have sex with women, that’s fine as long as you love me. Oh buddy… Sweet, sweet dumb-dumb. That is not how that works.
Ex Nothing Situationships are the best. I did cry after this one. That stung.
You’re so fucking quiet during sex. I sure fucking was. I earned that. My high school rapist, I mean boyfriend, had a penchant for violence. He liked to hear the pain he was inflicting. So I didn’t make a noise. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. No matter how hard he hit, no matter how he raped me, no matter what he said, I never even let him see me cry.
If you break up with me, I’m going to kill myself. I did. He tried. It was not a good day.
Will you marry me? This is wild. I’ve been proposed to four times. I said yes once; it did not last more than ten hours. Good times. Thank god that didn’t happen.
You show signs of psychopathic tendencies. It’s called dissociation and compartmentalization due to extreme trauma and CPTSD with psychotic features, thank you very much. I was just serviving and didn’t have time for sharing feelings. I’ve done a lot of work in the ten years since that comment. But also being private with feelings does not equate to psychopathic tendencies.
I’ve never met anyone like you before./You’re different. It’s called trauma.
You’re fat. High school rapist again. After two years of severe abuse, this was the comment that made me leave. I wasn’t fat. I knew I wasn’t fat. And there’s nothing wrong about being fat. But when it’s said the way he said it… Fuck right off.
You only talk about getting raped because you like being a martyr. Yeah… That’s it. It’s super duper fun being this open and honest with the entire world about my past. The pity is 100% worth the rape/death threats.