I've got to hide some place and find myself again

Today is the second day of PTSD Awareness Month, and while I am pretty hesitant to share this with the internet I think it needs to be said.

Please note that this entry will be speaking on child abuse, domestic violence, sexual violence, medical effects thereof, and on going symptoms. These are your trigger warnings and this is your last chance to exit. If any of these things are upsetting, please note that this is not the entry for you.

I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was 6 years old. It has since been refined to C-PTSD. I have a few other things wrong with me, too, such as auditory-processing issues, obsessive-compulsive tendencies (which may or may not be hereditary). They thought for a period of time that I might be an Autistic, but since there is neuro-divergence without autism and so many symptoms of PTSD/C-PTSD have overlap with autism, they have decided that's 'probably' not it. I also have a history of disordered eating related to my sexual abuse. There was some talk in my teenage years about the possibility of Borderline Personality Disorder (which I was refused treatment and formal diagnosis for), but since the criteria for C-PTSD and BPD overlap, the jury is still out. Oh, and apparently somewhere in there is garden variety depression, but how can any person with a degree of empathy move throughout this world and not be depressed?  Diagnosis: broken. 

My history and experience with violence came on my warning label. It was something that everyone in my town I grew up in knew about me: she was the girl with the "drunk Indian" father who raped her. In fact, other kids were not allowed to play with me (or even hang out with me well into teenage-hood, long after this person was gone from my life) because of this person. I lived through physical and sexual violence and neglect. I was used as "bait" to illicit sympathy for drug money. After my parents' divorce, I was subject to frequent break-ins, stalking (both at school and at my grandparents' house). All of this is well documented with police reports,  school records, medical records, restraining order and other court records, and eye-witness testimony. There are people who still may not believe me, and, frankly, I don't know what the fuck to tell you.

I still struggle with PTSD daily, and I cannot drive because of it. I still have issues with my pelvic floor because of the sexual violence I experienced as a child.

In grade school, I was subject not only to being stalked while at school, but bullying by my peers, which included but was not limited to: racial and socio-economic based bullying, sexual harassments, having my belongings regularly stolen or broken, and being physically beaten up in school, for which school authorities did nothing about. Children were encouraged by their parents to shun me because of who my father was and what he had done to me, as if that had been my fault. They taunted me asking me if my dad was "Injun Joe," or "OJ Simpson" (no, that doesn't make sense, but, you know, bullies). I was mocked that my (Mexican) mother was "a maid," which she was not and it doesn't matter even if she had been. My (male) classmates sent me home with bruises and fat lips.

Let me tell you, me snapping  as a teen should have never shocked anyone, but apparently it did? I was a very "good" child, an invisible child, a child who put everyone else's needs before her own at all times. After being stalked since grade school, I had to endure my grandfather's death without ANY fucking grief counseling, I had to stay in school while someone I had dated (who was very aware of my history) sexually humiliated me and I was removed from my own friend circle. All of this I was just supposed to tolerate in silence. "What do you mean Melody went rogue?" BRUH.

 Also as a teenager I had actual-factual (though certainly not satisfactch'll) mental health professionals, multiple, tell me that I was "spoiled" and "asinine," and that it was "just going to be so much hard when [I] grew up." I was subject to a bumper crop hit parade of incompatible psych meds that almost killed me (I even wrote a song about this!), and now refuse to take any kind of psych meds, and instead choose other therapeutic solutions, which include, but is not limited to, frequent check ins with myself about my mental health and doing active, continued work to be accountable and to keep myself under control. If I had not taken control and responsibility of my own self-care and mental heath, I would be dead, because I was absolutely failed. One of the pysch meds they had had me on briefly was removed from the market whilst I was taking it. I know that pysch meds have changed a lot and they are better now than they were circa 2003, but, you know, after several horrifying and near-death experiences, I would much rather NOT, you know?

And it would be remiss of me to not talk about the times that I was toxic, or said and did things that were bad. A lot of which I did was because of the psych meds I was on, the one in question having faced multiple lawsuits because of its  adverse side effects. And, look, I am sorry for things I have or may have done or said that were out of my control because of the way side effects made me behave. I am sorry that that was your experience with me, I really am. I am sorry for the hurt that I may have caused because I did things or said things that weren't okay, because I was being failed and ended up hurting people by accident because I could not get the treatment I needed. My lack of appropriate treatment hurt others, and I still think about that a lot; I cannot even begin to express the deep shame that I feel about things or said or did that I knew were wrong that I could feel and see myself saying as literal out-of-body experiences. Sometimes my boundaries were bad, because I didn't know what they were, and I am so deeply sorry. I was not given the treatment that I needed, the way that I needed, and I ended up hurting a lot of people in the process. I am so sorry that I may have hurt or failed you in any way, and I mean that.

I will not, however, apologize for  things that happened where my boundaries  or my misunderstanding of boundaries were intentionally exploited. I will not apologize for the way that some people took advantage of my history and my unwellness to purposely target me, harass me, bully me, only to turn around and lie and say that you were the victims. I will not apologize to the people who picked and picked and picked and PICKED at me until I exploded at them and then acted like they were the victims. I will not apologize for people who made it seem like they accepted my  very sincere apology to my face and letting me think we were friends again, but then kept lying about me "harassing" them. So, no, I will not apologize for lashing out at the people who put razor blades in my locker and then telling school authorities I had weapons, or using my history to lie about me because I got an award that you thought should have gone to you. Shit like that. You know who you are. And if your response to this is using this to say that I am "toxic," sounds like victim shaming to me, but what do I know?

I have had issues with self-harm in various forms, including disordered eating, which was to deter future abusers from seeing my body as desirable, because the trauma I had endured most likely accelerated my puberty. As of my typing this, I am self-injury free for over 2 years and eat just about everything. Except for the fact that my body hates food. Ha.

Over the course of my lifetime, I have had many, many people either weaponize my abuse against me, or use it to exploit me. I have had multiple stalkers, not including my biofather, I have been assaulted by two close male friends, been  manipulated and coerced into sexual activity, specifically targeted by narcissistic and other emotional manipulators because of my previous history of abuse. The one thing no one tells you is that being abused makes you vulnerable to other abusers, because they purposely seek out abuse victims and survivors to manipulate because they are vulnerable. And, you know, turn around and mock your "daddy issues," but what do I know?

Despite  all of this, I am relatively "okay-ish" most days. Part of it is that I don't have an option not to be. I know that me being as "together" and "successful" as I am really does seem to shock people. I was told by adults, which included school employees and mental health "professionals," that I would "never make it," that I was a "lost cause." Sorry that I did not fulfil your sick fantasy of me being a "lost cause" or "destined" for failure. There are a lot of folks out there who just love a good "failure" story, especially for BIPOC. Like BIPOC trauma-tragedy sets off the pleasure centers in their brains like nothing else.

Conversely,  people love to fetishize my "survival" and push the label of "survivor" onto me, even though I have repeatedly expressed that I do not identify as such and am incredibly uncomfortable with it. I am especially uncomfortable with it when it comes to shaming over people who haven't "made it" who come from similar backgrounds and circumstances. Let me just make something perfectly clear: I am not special. I was just very lucky. Never in a million years should you ever use my experiences or my triumph to either victim shame or push respectability politics on someone YOU could be helping instead.

So, why I am I even sharing all of this? 

I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I am not trying to manipulate you. I am not the "survivor" poster child. I am not your trauma mascot that you can use as your bizarre avatar you can project onto the way that teenagers use Elphaba and Éponine and Tom Hansen. I am not that, I want nothing to do with that, and I most certainly would never monetize my experience.

I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. I want you to understand.

I share  these things because not everyone can talk about this. I can, because it was never a secret. It was a very, very public thing that haunted and hunted me down my entire life. Everyone knew about the horrible things that happened to me, and I was judged for it, as if I, a child, was responsible for my own abuse. That's why I talk about it. This has been my entire life. I was diagnosed with PTSD as a 6 year old child. I have never known a life that wasn't seen through the prism of violence and terror. Every waking moment of my life, I have lived in fear and have been terrorized. I was failed by adult and authority figures who were supposed to protect me. I have been systemically failed. But I can talk about it because I don't know how to do anything else.

My personal experience is my personal experience, and other people's experiences are not about me. That's why when you share things from the news about celebrities' or 'famous' cases and say, "survivors can see you" I know that has nothing to do with me. I mean, first of all, we as victims and survivors would like to NOT see that ish, but YOU KEEP SHARING IT, but I digress. Those have nothing to do with me. Sharing that stuff isn't even for me or people like me. Only my personal history has to do with me, and I don't make other people's histories or recounts about me. Least of all to pray on ignorance about things to center a conversation about someone to be about me. So, I beg of you, before you weigh in things that don't pertain to you or use it for your own platform and clout, ask yourself, 'who is this for?'

I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was 6 years old, and it has been the trajectory for which my entire life has been framed. This has been my every waking moment and I have never known a life without it.  Despite all of this, I have been very, very lucky. If nothing else, I am a more informed, more compassionate, more empathic, more understanding,  and more humane person because these things were never afforded to me, these basic human dignities were never extended to me, and I want that to end with me. I want the world to be a better place, a safer place, a softer place. I want to take what I never got and give it to everyone else.

Any moment of any day that we can make the world a safer, softer, and kinder place, a place that may one day be free of the causes of PTSD, however small the step, is a good one.

That's all.

“I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”