7:36 p.m. - 07/13/03
it's been one of those days for a lot of days now...
[erm...this entry contains seriously personal material falling under categories like "puberty", "dirty secrets", "things girls who don't want to believe they have a sexuality won't want to read", "sexual abuse" and "things I've never said out loud." the only reason it isn't private is because that would once again beat into my head the notion that this is something I can't talk about...so, um...reader discretion advised. and even moreso...practice kindness in guestbook signing. because I'm already going to stop breathing for far too long having posted this, and I don't need to hurt at people's responses because of it. ...oh, and as always, if you're a family member who has secretly found this journal and is reading it, go the fuck away. thank you.]
Something wrong behind my eyes today, I'm trying to move around it through script-revision and sleep. I felt seriously outraged earlier, more proof that I should stay away from message boards. I'm so overwhelmed by all the people in this world who don't understand some of the most horrible things that go on in the world. I'm irritated by people whose naivete is so thick they don't even know how egregious their words are. People don't even know what assholes they're being, how they're contributing to a society where such impossibly wrong things take place constantly. And when I try and explain it to them, I just end up feeling like everything is pointless again. Because for the most part, people don't hear. For the most part, people hang onto their innocent outlooks for a reason, and no amount of truth will change that. There are too many people in the world like my N*land guidance counselor: intent on ignoring anything that doesn't fit their scheme of happy life. And maybe it makes sense for kids, for children who don't know what to do with the information they've been handed, and so have to distort it into something else...but why the hell are children being given this information if they can't handle it? Now, we're at a point where little kids have opinions on issues like rape, despite having no personal experience (Gods willing), and most adults are so clueless that their beliefs are as distorted as (and contribute to the distortion of) the children around them. And it pisses me off. I do not want to hear, "Well, it's sad that she got raped and all, but she was kind of asking for it with what she wore/ what she said/ drinking/ or anything else" ever ever again. And not from a 9 yr old. Not from a kid who doesn't even understand sexuality and physical being enough to understand what a violation rape is. I have actually heard today - "Well, she was raped, but the guy was cute and he used protection, so it's cool." What the fucking hell is that?
And I don't really blame the kids, even though at a time like this when they're spouting the speech of everything I hate in society, I do feel an urge to pound them. First of all, some kids do know what they're talking about, and their words - no matter how outrageous they appear to me - come out of real pain and real experience. Some people who have been through hell talk like the hell, if that makes any sense at all. And those who haven't had personal experience have this social experience that warps them all by itself. Few (material) things piss me off more than all the t-shirts turning ten-year-olds into billboards spouting "sexy", "boy crazy", and worse. I saw one the other day that had "Not everything in Kansas is flat" printed across the chest, and I left the store. These are children. And clothes like that (combined with a whole world with that fascist commerical sort of thinking) don't let them be children. I have no need to keep them young. I hate the whole "maintain innocence" idea; staying innocent means never growing into an adult, an individual. But I do believe that children have the right to be innocent until life (not media) hands them something real and important to deal with because losing innocence is about gaining self; it's about understanding and defining who you will be in this world, and when kids are pushing at the boundaries of their age because of t-shirt slogans, they aren't learning who they are. They're learning how to be what the fashion industry tells them to be. And I can take post-it notes into department stores and talk back to the clothes, so people have to think twice before buying them, but I can't stop the fucking mind-control. I'm seriously not someone who thinks that Barbie dolls cause eating disorders or anything like that; Godd knows I denied that the pressures of the media even existed well into my recovery. I'm not saying that what's wrong in society stems from the fashion world. I'm just saying that kids are forced from every end to be something they either don't understand or understand without adult awareness. If tiny children are getting eating disorders and talking about sex and rape, then the adults sure as hell better have a more impressive response than, "It's sick! They're so young!" It's reality. Today's nine-year-old is yesterday's twelve-year-old; children develop faster physically, and that means their becoming teens before their teens and preteens before they're kids. And the correct response to that isn't "this is so weird!" or "they're just too young!" It's "what the hell are we going to do about this?" I didn't do well with age ten when it was age ten. I don't know how I'd handle age ten being age thirteen; I seriously don't. And kids deserve more attention than fucking marketing. I hate all these industries that seem to be teaching kids to date when they're seven, but at the same time, they're pretty much the only groups responding to the change. They're responding in a generally predatory and exploitative manner, which I'm sure makes whatever is going through this non-kids-kids' minds even more confusing, but they are responding. Who else is? Who else is really listening to these kids? Ten is hard enough when the adults around you are clued-in. And I will not settle to be a part of another generation that uses, "When I was your age, we just weren't like that" as an excuse not to listen. Hell, to understand even, if I dare. I'm not sure I do. This scares me as badly as c.a.g.e.d. and that's saying something. Something along the lines of, "it makes me as vulnerable to think about being a kid facing things before I am ready as it does to think about eating disorders. It digs at a similar vein."
And you know if there's one ed-generalization that I've always hated beyond words, it's the idea that people develop this disorder to avoid growing up. And I'm smart enough to know that some percentage of the things I hate hearing, I hate because there's a grain of truth in them. I think there's a grain of truth in that one for me. I think puberty hit me like a bag of bricks, knocked out my wind, my confidence, my sense of steadiness and control in the world. And it hit me young. Way, way before I was ready - despite the health classes and mom-initiated talks that made my skin burn. That's a large part of why I shut it off, mentally, and was more scared of continuing on than of physically "reversing" it - through my eating disorder. I feel really shaky typing that. I knew I was endangering whole systems of my body, but to think...that maybe I could somehow "damage" the reproductive system so that I'd never have to deal with it again...so that I'd have this excuse for not wanting all the things I didn't want... it didn't motivate me, but it seemed like a nice perk. I was already enveloped totally in my eating disorder, already convinced I could not get out, and this was just like...the one horror the doctors detailed for me that I could hear as a benefit.
Ok, now I'm almost crying as I type this, so obviously...I need to keep going. As long as I can. This is something I don't even talk to myself about.
I was ten when I got my period. Saying that is like saying, "I was ten when I murdered this person and buried their body under my bedroom floor." It was summer, and when I saw the stain I felt really sick inside, terrified, and I changed my clothes. For some reason, it didn't occur to me then that I wouldn't stop bleeding just because I changed from the clothes I'd first bled into. I changed into pajamas, and went to bed. When I woke in the morning and saw the mess all over my clothes, I wrapped my Precious Moments (oh, the irony) comforter around myself and wore it like a cloak all morning. My mom came home from the grocery store, and I felt really stupid holding onto that blanket; I felt transparent, and I knew she was going to figure me out. I kept trying to think of something to do, but I couldn't, and then she went into my room and found the clothes from the night before. A pair of shorts with parrots on them, I think. (I was ten...) She got so excited and asked me when it had happened and hugged me and helped me do what I needed to do to not ruin all my clothes and stay hygenic and such. She talked to me a little about how it was important to know when your period was because it effected when you would have sex if you were trying to get pregnant. (I thought the exact opposite of what's true. I thought if you were going to have sex with someone, you better damn well not be a bleeding, disgusting mess. But I just nodded when she said that was the time to do it.) Then she started talking about how this period was about more than sex and pregnancy; that it was about me growing up, being a woman, developing into an adult. And I nodded at that, too, even though I felt the most like a terrified kid that I ever had. She painted my nails and toenails and took me to get my ears pierced the same way she had with my sister. My sister came along. My mom had told her, and then told me that her response had been, "Sucks to be you" (meaning me.) I wanted to cry because of how much it did suck, even though it was the first thing that sounded like truth. I didn't feel like a celebration was in order. I remember hating how the bras felt, all scratchy and tight. I hated them on principle, too; I hated that I had to wear them now. I hated that I had to change. I hated the fucking smile on my mom's face that said she was proud of this, this horrible, bad thing that I couldn't control. That day, I also got a massage. I remember feeling so terrified of that massage. I'd had one before - from my dad, when he first went into the business - but that had been hard enough (I laughed everytime he touched me, feeling ticklish)...with this woman, I was holding my breath to try and keep from laughing (hysterically, out of fear) or pulling away. As it was she didn't quite make it past my knees or very far down my back. She didn't get near my stomach. My stomach. The private place where I had stored every bit of pain since the first time I swallowed my anxiety - God knows when. The place that had been prodded and examined and x-rayed and poked and pushed while doctors tried to make me lie back down. I couldn't lie down. I would spring up reflexively, pulling my chest down and my legs up, protecting my stomach. Ticklish, they called it. Terrified.
Every time it came back, I tried to ignore it. I dealt with it as little as possible, undepreparing, which led to leaks and more shame. Through middle school and high school, I came home with stains on my jeans; I left classes having marked the chairs red. I wanted all of it gone; I wanted to be as round and pristine down there as a doll. Anatomically incorrect. I didn't see the point in ovulating when I knew I could never have a child; I could never have sex. I didn't see the point in menstruating when I could barely make it through the day, let alone imagine making it to adulthood, to that elusive, obscure, and oh-so-important title of "woman." I avoided using the word (woman) in my writing. I said lady, I said girl, I said adult. To recognize characters in my writing (even supporting characters) as women was to recognize characteristics of that in myself, something I would not (could not) do. As much as the word "man" may have terrified me, I didn't have to avoid it the same way. The power and the forcibly violating nature that I associated with the word terrified me, but I didn't associate them with myself. I didn't think about masculinity in females. I had a hard enough time thinking about femininity.
And then there was feminist. A term I avoided for years, until I found myself more outraged with the non-feminist culture than I did afraid of its counterpart. I ended up with books on my shelves and music in my stereo that was decidedly feminist, sometimes uncomfortably so. Most recently, I bought Alix Olson's "Built Like That" which is positively seasoned with "cunt", "vagina", "clit", and so forth. It took me weeks to even be able to listen to "Armpit Hair." I've often wondered how I can fit into the feminist movement, when I can't handle the sexual part of being a woman. Or, when I haven't been able to handle it up until now. Is there a place for girls (women) who want liberty from oppression but can't shout and reclaim the same words that have pained and shamed them for years? Or do I have to heal? That same old question: Do I have to grow? Do I have to change?
I noticed a day or two ago that I'm becoming much more comfortable with change (which is to say, I'm more mildly entirely against it.) I found out Ruth was no longer with Young Playwrights, no longer even living in New York, and I was basically fine. This may appear less than earth-shattering to the average reader, but normally such things are earth-shattering in my world. About ninety-five percent of the people who made middle school bearable for me no longer work in N*land. Several people who made Rogers home for me have moved on as well. And I spent more time with and was more invested in those two places and their people, but YPI came right after I left the hospital, and I definitely transferred some of the investment into Ruth. Anyway, it's not just the realization that "the one thing in life you can count on is change" does not necessarily presume doom and damnation; I've seen myself more and more ok with it in other areas, too. But when I was ten, I wasn't. And even now, I have to wonder if it being ok in other people has anything to do with it being ok for me.
I mean, obviously, I'm all about evolution. Personal growth, progress, recovery. I'm all about growing when it comes to mental processes, emotions, practical steps toward looking after myself, becoming more of who I want to be. None of that includes physical change. And you know, I've never really made the connection, but maybe the fact that I didn't need to gain a lot of weight back, being only a few pounds underweight, when I started recovery is why I never broke down and talked about this. I knew there was more to the pain of gaining weight for individuals in the early stages of recovery, but I didn't really think about what it would have meant for me...because I didn't have to do it. I had to deal with what it meant to look so much the same as I had in the deepest trenches of my sickness. But if I had to physically grow, maybe I would have broken down about it, way back when. At Rogers. That would have shaken some worlds. Even at Rogers, the discovery of one of my feminist books (a collection of excerpts from zines entitled A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World) in the day room led to a hugely shaming episode where shocked fellow residents acted like it was a dirty magazine. I, entirely lower than dirt, couldn't even go to my main confidantes - the RCs - because I didn't want them to know about the book. I had no reason to believe they would consider it a harmless, or even healthy, thing to have. I had no reason to think that they might say, "it's their sickness, not yours, that's playing out in this scenario." All I could feel, all I could know, was that if I went into that room I'd have to explain what I had, the possession leading to the scenario, and I couldn't do that. It would have been like the times my parents found containers of vomit before I could deal with the mess. It would have been like bleeding in front of them. I still believed my shame.
And the reality is, I still do. Not so fully maybe, but in this one area, still far too much. It's a bad, bad idea to keep those things that you're ashamed of secret; the secrecy feeds the shame. And I know that. But this is a secret I've kept forever; this is a secret I've kept from myself. And I have no idea how to begin telling it. Not when I'm so terrified. Not when my doctor is male. Not when I don't know all that I have to say or what could come out if I start talking.
So, when I was ten, I came up against something that literally terrified me. Puberty. A word as nasty as all that it entails. My mom asked me if I thought I was pretty, and that one time, I told her no. She asked why, and I told her "this" - meaning menstruation. She said, "You're not beautiful because you bleed?" and I tried really hard to think of it as just that, as just bleeding, nothing else, nothing bigger, nothing that could overwhelm me. But it did overwhelm me. I hated everything between my waist and my thighs long before I hated the rest of me. When they couldn't diagnose me (in terms of insurance) with anorexia (they did for all other intents and purposes) because I hadn't quit menstruating, it hit me particularly hard. I knew by that point about bone density loss, osteoperosis, and all the other problems that would plague me if I attempted to bring on menopause in my teens...but as usual, I knew better the problems I was facing. I knew I would die (eventually) if I continued to have an eating disorder; I knew I would die any day if I gave it up. I felt certain of that, of those stakes. I know better now, but I can't say I simply "thought" it then. I knew it then. I believed it, wholly, and therefore it was the truth. I didn't have any other way to survive, so it damn well may have been.
In my dreams, to show shame, embarrassment, lack of control, I bleed. I'm never naked or in my underwear in public. I just bleed and bleed and bleed. In my nightmares, that is still the case. And I try to learn to accept this part of myself that I, for an unknown reason, could not help but be terrified of at such an early age. Trying to accept something you've never admitted to anyone is about as possible as trying to swim against rapids never having learned the strokes. I believe (rather quietly) that my uncertainty about sexuality goes back to here, to the point where I tried to shut off as many parts of this dimension of myself as I could. But even sexuality, I've talked about. If only very rarely, if only in my writing. And the truth is, I can come to a point where I discuss orientation, but when I think about sex, I have to think about what exists between my waist and my thighs, and all of myself that I couldn't let exist. It's true that I don't know if I even have some of what sexuality implies. I'm not sure that my efforts, unconscious and aware, to kill off that part of myself weren't on some points successful. At the very, very least, they were temporarily effective. Sleeping Beauty might not have died, but she was in a coma for a hundred years... and that's serious, too. As I've been writing in my most recent play, there's a difference between nothing and something-squashed-down. When there's really nothing, there's really nothing. When there's something you've attempted to turn into nothing, all these other somethings - like fear and shame and anger and worry - pop up along with the original something, and they grow thick and dangerous around you. So, whatever I might have known at age ten, had I not had reason to be terrified (and we'll say, for the sake of debate, that said reason was *not* the actuality of my sexual side but what I believed about said sexual side for some unknown reason), it hasn't been frozen in a box and delivered to me now. It's been distorted and hidden and made more terrifying by everything that I've used (again- consciously and unconsciously) to try and "deal with it." It very much reminds me of what Britt said (or what I heard in what she said) - that all of what you learn around something, whether its a disorder or just a part of yourself, whether you're trying to live with it or find a way to live without it, can end up equally (or more) dehabilitating than the original something. I avoided so much of myself through my illnesses, only to fight through horrible pain and discover - I was avoiding pure and wonderful gifts. Do I believe that's true about this side of me, too? No. I still contend (for safety's sake) that I probably don't have "this part" at all. But shame must die. Health must win. And I do not want to say this, but...talking's always been the bridge.
Oh, Dr. R...how are we ever going to keep me from passing out or throwing up before I'm a sentence into the subject? At least, you seem to be paying attention to that aspect. (He gave me a glass of water during our last session, worried that I was dehydrated. Probably because I wasn't crying my eyes out, and that's unusual...) At least we have time.
So, you see, it wasn't really (all) about the ten-year-olds. It was about me as a ten-year-old. It's always about me. That's how I survive: I balance shame with serious self-absorption.
kidding-
chord
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