thoughts from the beginning of psychosis ☁️ pls don’t reupload
Liv Ullmann, from Changing
I watched life and wanted to be a part of it but found it painfully difficult.
— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 6: 1955-1966
I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.
— Roger Zelazny
When #MeToo became a movement, they all wanted to help the picture perfect version of me up there on the billboard but not the version of me on the ground and I’m still figuring out how that can be. I am the ugly version of the story, the ugly survivor, the girl with thick scars and a thin stomach lining. I have poured my blood into pint glasses to prove that I could do something other than let it soak into bandaids. They told me if I stopped drinking so much that maybe I wouldn’t get myself in these ‘situations’ but it wasn’t alcohol that raped me. It was someone’s son, brother, friend, coworker. I thought it was lucky that it was me and not someone else. As if my body being battered and used was something I was ok with, it’s only me anyway. I can handle this, I thought. As if, being raped was as easy as calling in sick to work. I thought I was lucky that he only raped me and not killed me, as if what he did to me wasn’t the same as sending a cow to a slaughterhouse. Seeing people share their #MeToo story on social media and wondering how they could do that? Because I knew, if I did that, they wouldn’t believe me. A girl like that, raped? No way. She should count herself lucky. The unfuckable, fucked? A heroic story, what kind of courage and strength he must’ve had. And suddenly my story becomes his. This is the part of the story where they start calling me a victim, a liar, a complainer instead of a survivor. They tell me that I wear my rape too loudly, as if I am a sports commentator announcing the winning goal. Too loudly? If I could be louder I would, there is no platform for a woman and her body. I want to be louder but all I can hear is, what was she wearing? She was practically asking for it. But she didn’t say no. She said yes at the start. She flirted with me. I bought her a drink. I can not stop my anger when a country votes a predator into presidency and all a survivor gets is a hash tag. To give a predator a voice, you silent the survivors and their stories. I want to say #MeToo but I am afraid you won’t listen or I am afraid you will and nothing will change.
— Hannah Green, from ‘#MeToo.’
maryaetlart