...weird crayon in a world sized box of crayolas...

beautiful and honest

2011-06-09T08:51:59.708-04:00

beautiful and honest

Nice post

2011-06-09T07:24:51.123-04:00

Nice post

We have to look after ourselves and do what is rig...

2011-05-03T02:11:25.871-04:00

We have to look after ourselves and do what is right for us, we've spent so long pleasing others.Cut out anyone who is toxic, follow your gut and have no guilt.

Like you said, follow your gut. I too have cut fam...

2010-09-08T11:12:18.475-04:00

Like you said, follow your gut. I too have cut family members out of my life. Simple reason: Their presence had a negative effect on me. If you get past that point, where you think that your birth mother can be positive addition to your life, then fine, include her. If not, preserve yourself, preserve your strength. Some people say that blood is thicker than water. That is, no matter how shitty your family is to you, you never cut them out because they are the ones you can rely on, yadda yadda yadda. Those people don't live in the real world.

Don't feel guilty for taking care of you. From what you've written here, I think that you are making a positive decision.

I'm loving Michelle too. I'm loving that t...

2010-08-07T12:46:08.824-04:00

I'm loving Michelle too. I'm loving that the President of The United States Of America is a Black (well half but you know one drop and all) man married to a black woman. I'm happy that she is smart, beautiful and inspiring. You are right. It is about time... I hope this presidency will bring about the beginning of a new era...

Sorry to hear that this happened to you. I underst...

2010-08-07T12:16:57.730-04:00

Sorry to hear that this happened to you. I understand your frustrations at the whole myth (I call it that anyway) of a strong black woman. People say it like its a compliments but it almost negates the fact that we are complex beings that hurt and suffer and break down too...

I have just come across your blog and your story i...

2010-08-07T11:50:29.904-04:00

I have just come across your blog and your story is a powerful one. It is definitely one that I will put on my blogroll. I cannot imagine how you must have felt. I think in a situation like this you have to look at the positive side. Maybe it was a blessing that she was not on your life all these years. Maybe if she has been your values would be warped too.

Well, that didn't go well. :P I'm wont to...

2010-08-02T10:10:36.031-04:00

Well, that didn't go well. :P I'm wont to think, though, that if you'd never met her face-to-face, you'd always be wondering.

I have some family members too who are leeches. I avoid them like the plague, and on the few occasions that I have to see them face-to-face, I'm prepared and not afraid to tell them "no". These kind of people are very good at emotional blackmail (for e.g., your birth mother rubbing it in that your other sister sends her stuff), but we have to practice swatting them down - like annoying mosquitoes - before they suck us dry. ;D

Oh wow, thank you! Its an honour to be linked and ...

2010-08-02T04:04:40.758-04:00

Oh wow, thank you! Its an honour to be linked and mentioned!

Had to link this, hope that's ok, it's suc...

2010-08-02T03:41:38.157-04:00

Had to link this, hope that's ok, it's such a good post.

lulz!.. huh. good point! yea, i'm still spunky...

2010-07-21T15:03:05.384-04:00

lulz!.. huh. good point! yea, i'm still spunky and out there, lol!

LMAO! You crack me up! So happy to hear that you ...

2010-07-21T10:03:31.992-04:00

LMAO! You crack me up!

So happy to hear that you are alive and spunky out there.

Um... FYI, blog posts don't have to make sense. Just take a look at mine. ;D

thanks!

2010-07-20T21:08:32.364-04:00

thanks!

welcome back!

2010-07-20T21:05:12.811-04:00

welcome back!

The reality is always best..adoption is crap howe...

2010-07-20T20:11:02.925-04:00

The reality is always best..adoption is crap however it turns out.

When you say, “I don't know why I am writing t...

2010-05-08T00:48:50.930-04:00

When you say, “I don't know why I am writing this,” I think I know the reason. This experience is the foremost experience in your mind right now and if you don’t write about it then you’re really not writing anything about yourself at all. You might feel COMPELLED to tell your story to the world, as the only way of lancing the wound and letting some of the hurt come out. And letter others know that you understand why you feel afraid and even crazy sometimes.

You said, “Every damn day of my life I deal with what happened to me four years ago. Every time I get onto an elevator with a Black man by myself, or have to wait at a bus stop, or walk down the street. Instinctively my body reacts like the animal of prey in the presence of a predator”

This is what I call color-aroused ideation, emotion and behavior. It sounds like you had an experience in which one of the foremost descriptors of the gang-rapists is that they had brown skin. Your mind and body react (or are aroused in the sense of grabbing your attention) to that setting of being around Black men, with the belief (ideation) that all Black men are dangerous and threatening , and then you feel fear and hate (emotions).

You said, “Every damn day of my life I deal with what happened to me four years ago. Every time I get onto an elevator . . . ” If you avoid Black men or are strangely attracted to the most abusive ones, then that, I think, is an example of color-aroused behavior. We seek or avoid based on skin color. I was afraid of Black women because my sister was a Black woman and she wasn't good to me when I was a child, much younger than her.

I would encourage you to take it slow with your birth family; meet them one at a time in a public place, like a restaurant; make arrangements to spend time with your close friends before and after the 90-minute encounter with your sympathetic brother, and later other family members.

It will be a lot easier for you to sort out how yo...

2010-05-08T00:48:50.929-04:00

It will be a lot easier for you to sort out how you feel with each person if you meet with them separately, and if you meet in a restaurant they will have no chance to scream at you or physically abuse you. (I'm talking from personal experience, based on advice I got that has worked for me.)

It sounds to me like you really need specialized support around the rape and men issues, and you can probably get that support from your local women’s center, and/or from a survivors of rape self-help group. And from weekly counseling with a (female) therapist who understands these issues. My mother got the kind of help I’m suggesting to you and it helped her as well as our relationship in a big, big way.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the original behavior of taking your friend to have casual sex in environments where the felt afraid to go alone was a kind of behavior where you weren’t keeping yourself safe.

Therapists tell patients that the first thing they need to do is to establish safety in their lives, and that might mean staying away from relationships for a while and only testing the waters later with the help of a therapist, to help you to make better decisions about when to date and whom.
I personally took a full year off from all romantic encounters with women, because I finally saw that these encounters were just perpetuating the illness I had that made me recreate the pain that was so familiar to me.
(As soon as my year of celibacy was over, I married a woman totally inappropriate for me, so maybe I need three years of abstinence from dating relationships and everything associated with that, instead of just one year.)

Please talk about what’s happened with you with people who will understand, like survivors’ groups and Women’s Center therapists, and rape counseling therapists.

If you blurt out years of negative experiences to your new-found brother, you might mind that it’s overwhelming for him and for you. Tell what you need to say to people who can definitely hear it.

My wife says that the “friend” who took you to all of the those dangerous places so that she could have casual sex really isn’t someone you can call a friend. Who was going to protect YOU while you were protecting your “friend”?

I found a way to read your compelling writing even...

2010-05-08T00:48:50.928-04:00

I found a way to read your compelling writing even though the type is White and the White photo behind makes the text illegible. I just have to cut and paste the text into Word and then I can read it with no problem.

I know what you mean about starting to write but not wanting to be negative. When I most need to write is when I feel the worst, when I feel like my head will explode unless I get the stuff out.

I’ve suffered from anxiety, insomnia and family-based PTSD so much that I stopped eating. Now, I’m at the other end of the eating spectrum, gaining forty pounds or so over the last year.

A have a psychiatrist friend who says that most of the people he admits to the psychiatric hospital are people who haven’t been able to sleep for days. Not letting people sleep is a well-known for of torture. That’s why after resisting for many years, I finally accepted to use an anxiety-relieving medicine that helps me to sleep.

I find that I CAN eat even at times of anxiety, if I eat what I want. If I want Sugar Pops, I eat that instead of not eating at all.
“Just need to relax?” Don’t these people understand that one of the most dramatic symptoms of what we’re going through is our inability to “just relax?”

Reunion with a birth family is a time when I would want to have a good therapist and a lot of support from my friends. Frankly, I can’t imagine anything more potentially stressful. On the other hand, it seems like you have an older brother who has been hurting for the loss of you (almost?) as much as you have for the loss of family.

When people tell me that “hate is a very powerful word,” I tell them that that’s why I’ve used it: to convey the level of anger I fear. Feeling a constant threat from others (fear) can also encourage us to hate them. I understand hate.

My father was sometimes a very intelligent and creative man who supported his family emotionally and financially. He was also sometimes a drunken sot who cried all night, interspersed with suicide attempts and breaking panes of glass out of the door with his bare fists. He could also be sadistic, intentionally causing pain to others in the way he knew would hurt the most, and then laughing about it.

Anybody who has one brother who is “a decent human being” is very fortunate indeed, even if it doesn’t make all of the other feelings go away.

I understand hating Black men, although I am a Black man myself. For years, I hated and feared women in general because of the way my mother and sister had treated me. Then, I realized that I feared Black women because in my family that’s the color that the women had. If I’d grown up in a white family where the behavior was the same, I’d probably have hated and fear white women or women in general.
That gang rape scene sound like something directly out of a horror movie. I’m sorry you had that experience.

I found your blog while at work---blog hopping and...

2010-05-07T16:46:50.489-04:00

I found your blog while at work---blog hopping and it was a blessing to read it.... this post is not only powerful... it's intense... real... transparent... emotional... I felt it because until I met my husband--- I had no idea what real love felt like...I had not known the love of a man at all... all the men in my life abused me either sexually or emotionally-- or just played those games... so I too am a survivor--- but a different kind--- love this post and I hope that as time goes on that you gain strength and bless many who read your blog and hear of your story.

Thank you everyone for commenting. This was a very...

2010-05-04T19:18:00.808-04:00

Thank you everyone for commenting. This was a very difficult post to write, but it had to be done. The reason its taken me so long to respond is that I've avoided going anywhere near this post because I was afraid of how I'd feel once I reread it. I finally did read it again for the first time a few nights ago, and I'm in shock at how powerful this post makes me feel. Writing this was really empowering, and really helped to get me out of my head, and talking to people who are close to me that I trust.

Viajera:
Thank you so much for commenting! I was very moved by your response, and am thankful for the advice. My experience with therapy has been much like yours. Immediately after it happened I made the mistake of talking to a male therapist. Men just don't seem to get it when it comes to sexual assault because for the most part it would seem, they don't have to. I avoided therapists for a few years, but I am now seeking out professional help, and hoping for the best.

black in alberta:
My blog sister. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you for your rage. Things will never change for us afflicted by the condition of Black femaleness if we don't get angry and demand that things change. Your passion is inspiring, and I am thankful that you, and women out there like you exist and will not be silenced. You may not have realized, but you inspired me to begin this blog, and for that I am thankful, and I truly do look up to you.

Kit (Letters To A Young Sista):
Thank you so much for stopping by! It means the world to me that you enjoyed this post. Your blog has been absolutely instrumental in giving me the courage it took to write something like this. The rawness with which you write, the stark nakedness of truth, your strength and vulnerability is not only exceptionally beautiful, but inspiring too. Please never stop.

Missinpiece
Thank you for always having something encouraging to say, I too hope that meeting my brother turns out to be a good thing. I am so thankful for the people I've had a chance to learn about since starting this blog, and I've especially enjoyed learning about you and your personal story. I admire you greatly, and you as well have inspired me with your courage. Thank you, a million times...thank you.

I really don't know what to say either, only I...

2010-04-30T13:09:28.345-04:00

I really don't know what to say either, only I wanted you to know I read this and am deeply affected by it: the pain and trauma you've experienced are so unjust. I admire you for speaking out. I hope meeting your brother turns out to be a good thing. (missinpiece)

Hello Black Kitten Roar. This my first time visiti...

2010-04-29T21:20:54.090-04:00

Hello Black Kitten Roar. This my first time visiting your blog and found it quite by accident. I read this post twice; the intensity and honesty in the way you express your feelings and thoughts leap out at me. I am so dreadfully sorry you have gone through so much pain. I don't know what else to say, other than I will be a regular reader after today.

I do not even know what to say. I have a lump in ...

2010-04-28T20:35:42.803-04:00

I do not even know what to say.

I have a lump in my throat from reading this.

I hope things get better for you soon.

I'm also feeling a real sense of rage about how some men think they an treat women.

To be black and a woman is really a perilous "condition" to be in.

I hope it won't freak you out that an absolute...

2010-04-24T23:31:18.858-04:00

I hope it won't freak you out that an absolute stranger is responding to your post. But I couldn't let it go without comment. As a women who has been in a similar situation (yes, I am a survivor), as a woman who did not grow up with a family structure , as a woman who has been abanadoned emotionally in the past because ppl in my life thing I`m indestructible, and as a woman who didn't grow up with any positive male figures in her life, I know where you are coming from.

You are hurting real, real bad and I think you need to get out of your own head. I don`t know all that you are feeeling, but I have a pretty good idea, having been there myself, and being fully aware that I am still dealing with my ìssues, though I thought they were left far behind. I would say that I don`t think that your `reclaimed` family needs to know EVERYTHING that has happened to you. Not right now. Not until you`ve built up trust.

And I hope taht you are seeking someone to talk to. For me, therapy was a 60-40 experience. But one thing is that I made sure to take the good things that I could and build upon them and try to use workbooks, positive self-talk and such to help me deal. I`m not there yet, but I`m working at it. Don`t stop working at it. YOU are worth it. When I read your post, esp. when you talk about not eating, my fear is that you will stop being functional. I lost about 20 labs in 2008 because of shit like this.

I know I just tried to give advice, but I suck at advice so I probably didn`t many any sense whatsoever. I`m a stranger, but I just want better for you.

Thank u so much! I'm very excited to meet baby...

2010-03-29T20:25:58.128-04:00

Thank u so much! I'm very excited to meet baby sister (she's nameless at the moment!) and everyone else!