Rising From The Ashes

When will we stop judging girls and women on their bodies and sexual prowess? When will we stop promoting "rape" culture by blaming females for being the cause; short skirts, studded nose rings, high heels, and on their experience or lack thereof. Every single girl I've ever spoken to from teen to adulthood has been assaulted. Fear most for our young women, the ones who have to go to school in hostile environments, still today, where it is always their fault; if they are constantly gawked at, harassed for their bodies or what they chose to do with them.

We women and girls have to be it all, look it all, yet can't enjoy our sexuality. How can we? When if we dare do so, we get judged most of all. The dichotomy isn't in our favor. We can't be both smart and dumb, thin and curvy, prude and sexual. We can't win? Therefore, why even try? I used to wonder why so many of my girl friends or girlfriends throughout the years couldn't climax or couldn't enjoy sex at all, so much they started to refuse to do it at all.

In my life alone, as not even a teen, an older trusted LDS spokesman and someone I'd known since infancy, conned.me into taking pictures in my bathing suits and speaking pornographic language. Before I knew any of that was porn. I didn't know it wasn't a model shoot. I didn't even find it odd he wanted the lights off.

Later in my life, I was forced into sex as a virgin Mormon, not knowing it was rape till a decade later, to discover this out in my Comm and Gender class during our 'rape' chapter. I didn't know anything about my sexuality, before it had ruined me, always assuming I'd marry my returned missionary as pure as snow. I was blamed for being assaulted by men in a day treatment center only a few years later by a shared therapist, because of my choice in clothing options. Still dressing pretty modest, as I still had Mormon roots.

Also, in my twenties, I had a group of men take me home from a bar, without my consent and force me to strip for them, and doing other ungodly things as the only woman there, while they threw money at me. No wonder I blamed myself for being drunk.

    I was an innocent virgin before all this. I was innocent. But that was nothing compared to my thirties, even though I started out strong and happy, finally proud of who I was. Over a decade since a return of my illness. To end up destroyed by my late thirties. As I was tossed into one pathological or narcissistic relationship after another, hoping to save them as they threatened suicide or my life, where I was raped more than once. To then be blamed by them and others, even therapists, for having the courage to stand up to an abuser.

     I'm afraid to leave my house, to believe in love, in romance, in humanity. Pure evil exists. I've known that since adolescent. I tried to disprove it. Tried to discover it was all a lie. That we were all good at heart.

    Sad part is, it is a culture. It is inside every single one of us. We need to get rid of it, purge it, stop defining men and women, girls and boys. Dichotomy doesn't exist. It never has. So why push it so hard? What are we trying to do now? What are we succeeding at? I also learned in my Comm and Gender class there are at least three genders. Why then are we so hell bent on two? Is it religion? Is it God? Cause God or the higher beings are the only humanity I believe in, even before my NDE where they were genderless. I know they'd never support a girl going to school, with a scarlet "S" on their chest, no matter the clothing choice that day.

    Very few of my guy friends get it, got it. Why I couldn't support Trump. Why I act the way I do. Why I'm so scared to let anyone close, moving from relationship to relationship. Trying to resolve the bullying and sexual assaults as a child, to end up running into just that.

   I cried all day yesterday when a few men at the park told me I couldn't sit with them at the park bench. I thought they were friends. But they laughed at me and made fun of me. I sat by a tree, close by, trying hard not to cry. As if I could. As if I was any closer to resolving my painful past or my numb, cold state. Finally, unable to love.

I have high empathy.  Or had. I wanted to help the felons, the outcasts, the drug addicts find redemption.  I wanted to help all of them.

   But as I failed to help them. Maybe even made things worse for them, but mostly for me. I was the one held responsible. The only one.  Is it cause I'm the woman? She should have known better. She should have left him. It's her fault he scared the life out of her over and over. No better than dead, in my weakened mental health state.

Is it any wonder, five more women then men attempt suicide? Is it any wonder as a girl I cried in the bathroom stalls, wondering what is wrong with me. Why everyone scooted over to not let me near them. Why the boys spit on me and called me names, sexual or otherwise. That I believed alongside them, that I was a disease who needed to cover everything evil inside and outside of me up. I didn't have the strength to talk and I know people are getting tired of listening, even now. But there is nothing worse than not having a voice, no pain so real, when the world around you is tearing you to shreds and there is no escape except when I write. When I pray I get the resolve  to get back up to finish my life mission. For much work is to be done. For the higher powers whisper in my ear, I am chosen, I am kind, I am beautiful just the way I am. I discovered through everything, I don't need anyone else. And no matter what is thrown at me, I always get up to learn again. Rising from the Ashes, as a soul not a body. (HRG: Memoires of a Mute Girl)