Slowly going mad

OK, it's official - I've hit my personal limit...... In the past few weeks, I've been struggling with the ugliness of the news cycle around the Kavanaugh hearings, and the ongoing stressors around finding affordable housing in my city. I feel as though I'm slowly going mad. Memories that I thought where long put to bed have come back to the forefront of my mind. It's hard to process all that is happening in the external world, when there is so much going on in my internal world.

I have been expending what feels like extraordinary amounts of energy to simply get through each day. I know that I've written before about my exhaustion, but things haven't improved from those previous writings, and I'm worn down by the attrition of daily life coupled with the multitude of challenges I'm facing. Housing is a basic human right, and yet my search (which has encompassed talking to everyone I know and even perfect strangers about room-mating, online searches, and endless self-promotion) has so far been fruitless. I'm starting to really fear that I won't find somewhere for me and my cat to live. Especially since Bear has already found alternative housing. It's keeping me up at night! And the lack of sleep is really messing with my cognitive and emotional equilibrium. To help me voice my concerns and to also let other folks in the city know about my plight, I have posted my first ever video to YouTube. And then I shared the video (below) to my Facebook wall, and another group that discusses the housing challenges of our city. My desperation is real...I even said to a coworker the other day, "Who do you have to blow in this city to get housing??!! Because I will gladly get on my knees if it means finding a place to live." She laughed, but I was almost not kidding. It is that bad.

Autumn is upon us and I can feel my depression starting to deepen as the light disappears from our northern hemispheric skies. I've upped my dose of antidepressants to help me adjust to oncoming S.A.D., but honestly, these days just getting up to go to work takes a lot of spoons. I just want to go back to bed, pull the covers over my head, and shut out the outside world. But that doesn't solve the issue, it just delays the anxiety for a little while until it comes right back around, louder and meaner than the first time. Yay, Mental Health Awareness Week.

Hide Away by *B1nd1 on deviantART

Big breath in and out.

Now, turning to the Kavanaugh senate hearings and the testimony of Dr. Blasey Ford (news sources have been dropping her Dr. title as a way to disrespect and discredit her). As a survivor of sexual assault and rape, the news in the past few weeks has been incredibly triggering for me to read and hear about. Memories that I have actively repressed have come right to the surface. Every day, every headline was injurious to read. And then came the day that Dr. Ford had to testify before the senate judiciary hearing committee. I couldn't bring myself to watch the whole thing but I did feel it was important to listen to Dr. Ford's opening statement. And wow, was she ever able to keep herself composed even while sharing some of the most painful and scary memories of her life. Anyone listening to her understood that she had been through something godawful. Hell, even president Drumph himself said that she came across as a very credible witness (until he was told to change his tune and go back to supporting that rapist Kavanaugh). Even Fox News seemed to believe her testimony.

Dr. Ford shares her emotional testimony 

Kavanaugh's response was spastic, angry, and conspiratorial. His repetition of, "I like beer," was almost comical if it weren't for the fact that he was using his position of entitlement to make a case. And then, after a brief and rather pathetic FBI investigation into the allegations, the senate confirmed Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court - the highest judicial body in the USA. And everyone - and I mean everyone - who has ever been a victim of sexual violence lost their shit. Dr. Ford and her family have received numerous death threats, and they've had to move five times already just to stay safe! I simply cannot bear to think that in 2018, an intelligent, honest, and credible woman had her life destroyed again by a piece of shit, entitled, white hetero cis-male who gained even more power at the end of the day. My mind cannot comprehend this miscarriage of justice! All I have been saying in my head for days is "This is RAPE CULTURE in action" and I fear for all those young people growing up in a world where is has happened and is considered OK. How do we explain to younger generations what happened here? What kind of entitled, paternalistic society are we allowing to flourish in the 21 Century? The president added insult to injury when he apologized to Kavanaugh for his "pain and suffering" on the day he was sworn in. Even on Facebook, there's way more apparent support for Kavanaugh, just look at this snip of some of the groups related to him:

The first group, "Confirm Kavanaugh" has more than 10, 000 members!!! Who are these people???

I am in a rage over all this. #Metoo was about holding men accountable, but instead it's being spun as a witch hunt against the hetero, white cis-male establishment. It sickens me to my core.

I am so grateful to news anchors like Trevor Noah who took to the airways to talk about how Drumph uses the Weaponization of Victimhood to continue to back POS like Kavanaugh. Please, if you haven't watched Trevor's monologue, click that link! Stephen Colbert has also had some good interviews with several guests (I'm looking at you, Lady Gaga!) to help understand what happened, and John Oliver continues to lead the pack with his trending work on #feminism. And Samantha Bee is killing it with her monologues! I am also grateful for writers like this one, who help explain to people why so many (specifically) women are so furious with the Kavanaugh appointment confirmation. And to the law students who have been walking out in protest of this appointment. And to Anita Hill, for weighing in on a subject that she (unfortunately) knows so much about. And to singers like this woman, who are setting the record straight and encouraging Americans to go out and vote in the midterm elections:

What does the USA have to do we me, a Canadian? Well, whatever toxic waste is in our basement, it has started to seep into the foundations of our country. We cannot simply ignore what is happening to the south. Especially when a Drumph-esque politician has recently come to power in Ontario (what happened over there??!!!) We need to dismantle the structures of rape culture:

TRIGGER WARNING: descriptions of my sexual assaults and rape follow

And as a survivor, many memories of sexual assault and rape have come flooding to the forefront of my thoughts after listening to Dr. Ford's testimony. I'd like to share some of these "events" with you to show how prevalent they are for women, and perhaps to understand me more?

The first time that I remember being assaulted, I was 13 and in grade 7. I had a crush on a boy that was in my grade and in the school play with me. He knew that I was interested in him. During one of our rehearsals, he grabbed me by the throat and held me against a wall. None of the other kids stopped him. I frantically tried to get away from him because I couldn't breathe. I was afraid that I would pass out from the lack of air, or even worse, that he would accidentally kill me. Eventually, he let go of my throat and laughed, thinking it was hilarious. There were many other kids milling about backstage of the rehearsal. No one intervened. No one said anything. I never told anyone about it until now.

The second time I was 15 or 16, drunk, and hanging out with my friends. We called one of my coworkers over to hang out and we all ran around outside in the rain. Afterwards, he dropped us off at my friend's house to save us the walk back as the rain had worsened into a thunderstorm. He didn't let me out of the car though and locked my door. He sexually assaulted me and I just sat in the car seat frozen in total shock. Eventually, my friends came and got me out of the car... I later told my boyfriend what happened, he believed me at first but after talking to his (guy) friends, he dumped me. I was tainted goods. 😡 And heartbroken and traumatized to boot. I felt so abandoned by the person who was supposed to be on "my side." To say nothing of how difficult it was to have to go back to working with my assailant.

The next time, I was 19 and it was my birthday party. I invited a coworker who I had a crush on over. He brought a few of friends and some booze, and I didn't think anything of it. If thought that I was safe in my own home, I was wrong. The coworker was very inebriated and much stronger than me when he cornered me in my sister's bedroom very late into the night and tried to force himself on me. I told him that I didn't want to have sex, but he didn't listen. He kept going. I got away from him and ran to the bathroom, but he chased after me. He forced himself on me again in the bathroom as I twisted and turned and tried to flee. I was raped in my own home during my own 19th birthday party. I went to the youth health clinic a couple days later where they checked me over and suggested that I report the rape. I didn't report the rape because I was scared, and part of me felt responsible for it happening (even though I know it's not the truth). I didn't really run into that rapist at work again, but I did run into him at a party, which was super traumatizing for me and I had to leave early.

The next time, it was around Halloween the year I was 19 years old (so about 10 months after my birthday rape). I went out with my boyfriend, a 28 year old guy, and some of his friends to a party in the East Side warehouse district. I had a great night and had planned to sleep the night at my boyfriend's house. He had a friend also crashing on the couch there as well. My boyfriend had gotten very drunk that night, and was impossible to sleep next to with his flailing limbs and snoring, and drunken sleep-talking. His roommate wasn't home, so I decided to camp out in her room for the night. In the middle of the night, his friend came into the roommate's room and began to remove the sheets from the bed until my body was exposed. Then he tried to strip off my panties...all while I was still asleep!!! I woke up part way through, freaked out, and tried to fight him off. I kicked him square in the face, and that finally made him stop. In the morning, I told my boyfriend what happened, but he was too hungover to really understand what had transpired. Later, his friend told my boyfriend and his entire circle of friends how I had "wanted it" and that I'm just a "dumb young slut." The sad part is, my boyfriend actually believed his lying, shit-bag of a friend. I was in shock, crushed, and numbly stayed with this asshole of a boyfriend for another six months. Man, all of those sexual assaults really took their toll on my self-esteem. 😢

The last time, I was about 21 years old and I was at a fraternity party on my university campus. I had been drinking and was in a flirty mood. I messed around with a guy and had a good time with him. I went back inside the frat house trying to find the friend that I came to the party with but couldn't find her. I went down a dark hall that was crowded with men, saying that I was looking for my friend. One of the men led me into a room. I told him that I didn't want to have sex, that I was looking for my friend. He thought that I was looking for sex regardless, why else would I walk down that dark hallway? I was pressured into having sex with this stranger, but used a condom for harm-reduction purposes. When I reported it to the RCMP, they called me a liar and completely re-traumatized me. During the police report filing, I discovered that my assailant had given me a fake name, and to make matters worst the frat stonewalled the police and tried to discredit me. "Bros before hos" to the end. When I received help from WAVAW on campus, my story brought about an initiative for all campus RCMP members to have sensitivity training for dealing with sexual assault survivors. Every member except for the one who interviewed me took the training. She (she!) flat-out refused the training. It was a punch in the gut. I told friends of mine what happened and they told me that what happened wasn't rape because I gave the dude a condom. I'm sorry, but if you are trapped in a dark room, in a building you don't know, with a stranger who is much bigger and stronger than you, and you can't get away...don't you think that still counts as rape/assault? Why split hairs over this? I lost some friends over this - many of them were women friends that I had known for years. I just don't understand the lack of solidarity amongst women sometimes.

These are the "major" sexual assaults that I have dealt with in my lifetime. You'll notice they're all perpetrated by men, and I knew all of them except the frat boy. But as a petite, pretty femme, I have experienced a myriad of other micro and macro sexual aggressions in my lifetime, and I simply cannot list them all here. But I am not alone in my experiences, sadly. I am not a victim of what happened to me, I am a survivor. And I cannot tolerate anyone who thinks that bringing a rapist or sexual predator to justice is a bad thing. We can no longer gloss over the aggressions of white males in our society. You'll also notice that most of my assaults involved alcohol use, and this is a well-documented substance used for sexual assault and rape:

For the longest time, I thought that these assaults and rapes were my fault. I had internalized rape culture - that I was somehow responsible for these men crossing my boundaries to hurt and injure me for their own gain, amusement, enjoyment, ego boost etc. Through extensive counselling, honest discussions, and self-exploration, I have managed to heal from these trespasses. But I will never forget them. And I know that Dr. Ford won't either. I'm not afraid of these memories anymore. They do not define me. And yes, I'll have to probably continue to work on healing my heart, my sexuality, and my mind when it comes to sex - especially sex with men. I've noticed that I am no longer sexually interested in men. Part of it is the fallout of my marriage and separation from Bear, but another part of it is that my interest in men has begun to fade since the #metoo campaign began. I don't know if I'll want to have sex with a man again, the jury is out on that. But I know that I am not in any kind of hurry to go and explore that with any guy at the moment. I love my male friends, especially the woke ones, but dating/sex is off the table for me until further notice.

Thanks for reading and witnessing me.