Rams in the Bush

 I’ve been off of FB for the past week to make sure I hit a writing deadline. Decided to jump on yesterday after a grueling work week and found this screenshot from my younger sister. 

She was cautiously updating me that she had been contacted by our  paternal aunt, who we’ve never met, to share that our father/my abuser, had died last Saturday. I told her I thought he had died years ago and that I wish him well in hell for the 2nd time. Then I checked on her to see how she was doing, though I knew our energies were aligned when I read her righteous response “We don’t want the body”.  Still I know our parents’ abusive behaviors have fucked my younger siblings up in some way and my oldest sibling heart breaks daily knowing that I could not protect them from harm when we were younger and after I left for  college. 

                                                          

I guess I’m here to testify once again that traumas are real AND that triggers are real AND that yesterday’s news definitely sent me spiraling. I’m also here to testify that my inner circle held me yesterday. At first my body went numb and I tried to just float away while I watched TV. This has been a coping mechanism for me since I was a kid. I’d “escape” my reality and travel to other worlds via Star Trek or fantasize about being a super shero like Wonder Woman or Princess Leai who kicked mofos’ asses or I’d become part of a safe, loving and well functioning family like “The Cosby’s” 🤦🏽‍♀️. This numbing/dissociative strategy worked for a bit yesterday but my current healing practice has been to allow my feelings in and deal with them. I wasn’t ready so after awhile I ratcheted up my numbing by emotional eating. I remember at some point becoming aware that I was heart hungry not food hungry and what I really wanted was a hug. Damn you, mindfulness! My old ways of surviving were not working so I began texting my family, friends and my therapist. They all responding with care and compassion though some shared that they didn’t quite know what to say. I acknowledged that there aren’t any Hallmark cards for people’s fathers who died who had also been their abusers. I decided that I would give them grace and did not feel unsupported when they didn’t say the “right” things because I didn’t even know what to say or how to feel. 

Some tried to call to check on me right away but I was still wanting to sit in my numbing space and wasn’t quite ready to feel or process the full heaviness of it all yet. But at some point I began struggling to find oxygen. I could feel the pain and tears bubbling up into my throat and I knew texts were not enough. When my childhood BFF, Akilah Monik, asked me if I needed to talk, I accepted her gift. No strong black woman here. I knew needed softness and connection. And because she has known this particular pain the longest, I felt safe coming undone. In fact, my tears began to fall right at that moment of texting, “yes, I would like to talk”. I felt myself return to my body but I also remember feeling surprised at how hot and deep the pain felt almost 35 years since the last time my father sexually violated me. It felt like fresh wounds again. Like I hadn’t “healed” one bit. Like I hadn’t spent pages upon pages journaling or hours upon hours in therapy. I was 5 again. 10 again. 16 again. But I needed to come undone again. I needed to be allowed to sit in my pain again even when I didn’t know why or what I was feeling. I gave myself permission. To feel the rage, the sadness, the neglect, the loneliness, the forced independence, the years of not knowing what love and safety were, the years of internalized slut shaming and suppressed sexuality and desire, and the loss of my family system, my sibling relationship and my home town. I opened the flood gates and chose to feel it all. 

I am so grateful that she  created a tender space for me to release it.  She said she was happy to be my “ram in the bush”. My heathen ass pretended to know what that Biblical reference meant and we laughed about it but she said she understands it to mean, being granted a choice/space that provides some ease and comfort. She was my ease and my comfort last night. The place where I could crumple. My ram. 

I also am deeply grateful for the other loving texts, attempted calls, and offers to stop by and care for me. I have accepted that  I may always walk with this pain but I also now walk with a safety net of care and love. And for that I am eternally grateful. We all deserve to have places to ease into our softness and work through our pains in this life

Season 3: Episode 1

I enjoyed watching True Detective (E1:S3) last night. It was not a show I generally watch but I have heard good things and love Mahershala Ali so I accepted the invite to watch it.

About 20 minutes in I found myself having to work through a triggering moment during the peep hole scene. My childhood bathroom had one and my father used to look at me undress and bathe when I was in 5th & 6th grade.  It was so upsetting. One day when I was getting undressed to bathe, I felt a presence near the door. I  looked through the hole and he was on the other side. Eyeball to eyeball. Father and daughter. Father on daughter. Daughter on display without her consent. It was scary and I felt powerless. I have no idea how long and how many times he had been watching me. After that, I would stuff wet toilet paper in the hole and hang clothes on the hook to keep him from looking at me.  

As I am typing this post I began to think about my naturist and exhibitionist tendencies and found myself for a split second questioning whether my sexual abuse history is at the root of things that I am into. It is not nor is this line of thinking productive. I recall as a young girl feeling violated by his predatory gaze. When I enjoy being free in my nudity as an adult (generally non sexual) and in my sexuality, I am asserting my power in deciding who gets to see and who can and cannot have access to my body on my terms. I share this caveat because those of us who have sexual trauma histories are often plagued internally and externally with having  unconnected dots about our very complex sexual and trauma histories inappropriately connected. Yes, our sexual trauma has impacted our lives and sometimes detrimentally. But we are allowed to have sexual desires, preferences and kinks that are separate from our trauma just like other people have theirs. We are allowed to be free—of shame, guilt and worry—and that includes our sexuality and bodily autonomy.  

I do want to say how frustrating and tiring it is be trying to relax and watch a TV show and then be sent spiraling back to a moment where I felt powerless and preyed upon. Triggers are real. Trauma is real. Fuck people who don’t get that realness we are navigating as we try to survive our lives. 

I am truly grateful for my survival, especially in the moments when my heart begins to race and the buried memories come flooding back. I am determined to live this life but sometimes must fight to take another breath when I feel the waves of past terrors washing over me. I am grateful for the gift of being able to write through my pain and I look forward to watching episode 2. 

Interview on Surviving Sexual Abuse with Allena Sindler

This interview was conducted in 2018 by a Northwestern University student who was 

using it as source material to create a performance piece. Allen Sindler's "Heal CTA" 

premiered at Chicago's 2018 PEACEBOOK festival and was recently accepted for the

2019 "Mother Moon" festival in NYC. I am honored to have been part of her healing

art. It was also healing for me to reflect on my own journey and theorize

 from a place of pain. 

Note: I made some minors edits to the original transcript but kept it as close to the 
original as possible.

Dr. Sekile Nzinga-Johnson Interview

INNER PEACE

Inner peace, for me, is really not a destination but a process and a practice, it is something 

you claw at everyday. The reason I say claw, is because life is really hard. You have to fight 

to stay alive. You have to fight to decide to stay here. For me, one of the ways I fight is trying 

to figure out what is joy filled in my life. Not foregrounding my pain, not backgrounding my 

pain, but just letting the pain live right there and out loud. I’ve also been really really fortunate 
to have my life since those traumatic events be very joy filled. For me, that’s what has been 

my inner peace. 

I know that I’m lucky because for someone else, they might have had another round of trauma. 

It’s difficult for me now, so I can’t imagine what it would be like if I got hit with something else.

 I live often in a state of terror because I have a daughter, and I say to myself “please don’t let 

anything happen to my daughter,” but knowing there’s a high chance that it could because of the 

world that we live in. So, I live in this state of terror, praying, because that would undo me. 

I’ve put myself together well enough to make it, but if another round hit me, then my fragile 

notion of inner peace would surely be dismantled. 

That's what I mean when I say we have to claw at life and fight at life. I don't know if it’s peace 

so much as it is struggle to stay here. I’ve had some really shitty things happen to me, but I’m 

still here. Right? And I want to live. And if I want to live, then I got to find some other stuff to help 

me stay sane in all of it. I really don’t know, but I can’t necessarily say that it’s a peaceful place 

so much as a place of acceptance and contentment. But I also think that space of inner 

peace is really hard to get to when you’re hit over and over again by violence. So maybe it’s 

not sexual violence but the violence of poverty, the violence of racism, violence of homophobia. 

There are so many forms of violence, and we tend to forefront one or the other, but so many 

people are being hit by so many forms of violence that it’s hard to reach this notion of inner peace. 

There’s a line from this movie called Sankofa and there’s a woman, an African woman who was 

enslaved and her name was Nunu. There was, I think this line she would say, “this is just the flesh, 

you can’t touch my spirit, my spirit is in Africa.” So when she, well I won’t spoil the thing, but I 

remember that really stuck with me. That distinction between what happened to my flesh and

what happened to my spirit. And I don’t practice any religion but I think about that, and I use that 

metaphor in my life. 

When I think about being a professor and what it was like for me struggling to get tenure and all, 

navigating this often hostile climate as a black woman, I would think about what happened to me 

in my childhood. What I was going through and I would put it in perspective. Like actually this is 

not real, this is the Matrix--fiction, a fabricated world! This is not pain, that was pain. Like this feels

 painful because it’s horrible and people are ridiculous and assholes for no reason but this is not 

real right? That was real pain. So I use it, I use the pain to ground me, too. All this other stuff is 

smaller than that. 

I think people can find inner peace by tapping into this spirit and also thinking about taking things 

into perspective. Those are kind of like strategies that I use, but I think inner peace is a practice. 

Like you literally have to practice it, remembering the joy, because sometimes the pain is so big 

and so multifaceted that it can make you forget. And that’s why it makes sense for some people 

to have spiritual practices to kind of remind them, like “what do I have to be grateful for?” And I 

guess the challenge for me in saying what I’m saying to you now is, that some people say you 

should only focus on that. “Well look you’re still alive! Look you didn’t die” So sometimes people 

use spirituality and religion to minimize people’s pain. I don’t want you to think that’s what I’m 

saying. I think your pain gets to sit right where it needs to sit, and no one can tell you where 

you’re supposed to put it because it hurts. Anyone who is like “I wish you could talk about it 

and move on,” No. It takes a lot of work to put that pain in perspective, especially if it’s happening

 multiple times. And for most women it’s happened more than once in their lives. And so they hold 

all that guilt because they think well I did something. So inner peace is very you know um, 

hard to get at. It is an active practice, it is not a destination. And I don’t blame anyone who hasn't

begun their journey yet because there’s a lot of shit that folks are working through to hold onto it, 

you know? Yea. 

HEALING 

Sexual trauma can look different for different people. Everyone has a different experience, and no

two people’s healing looks the same, but I think that healing, in general, from trauma, sexual or

other forms of violence is cyclical and enduring. I don't think that we ever quite heal, I think that 

you can be feeling very well for a decade, and there can be a moment that takes you back to the 

moment of victimization. And so part of it is knowing, and being aware of what your experience 

has done to you psychologically and physically. Having the support to be able to heal and to be 

authentic about what is troubling you and being able to name your pain and to friends and to 

family and to the world, to not be shamed for your experience and to know that that support is 

ongoing. 

The more support we have early on, the more likely we are to be stabilized. The less likely we are 

to have support, to be believed, to be affirmed and to name our pain, I think the longer that 

healing process takes to begin, and to take root. I’m a survivor of sexual trauma, and it is a 

process. I describe it as an ongoing process. There is no end point. I will be living with this pain for 

the rest of my life, and so for me, and for others, I think it looks like trying to figure out how to live 

and hold both your pain and joy in life. How to hold them at the same time. I think that is part of 

the healing process, finding ways to hold both pain and joy and to continue to claw at life and to 

live. Doing this though, you are going to need to be wrapped in resources informal and formal. 

Informal is your family and friends and formal may be therapeutic, or faith based forms of support, 
or it may be your hobbies, or exercise. All these things have to be with an eye on healing. Nothing

detrimental to your experience. But you could enter those spaces for healing and experience 

secondary forms of trauma. So those spaces have to be safe, and take up your quest in the 

healing process. 

So I’ll give you an example of someone who might have survived a rape and might go to the 

hospital to report the rape. And they're interrogated,” where were you?” “Why did you go there?” 

All these questions that begin to target you as the person, you who made a poor choice. What 

we call victim blaming. And somehow all of it has gotten away from the person who victimized 

you, to “what were the conditions surrounding the victimization and what role you played.” And 

so that is a secondary form of trauma. Because now you’re made to feel guilty or question your 

role in all of this. That is an additional traumatic event. The same thing happens when you go to 

the police. There’s often this notion that the police are this safe space, but that may not be true. 

Many women and femmes are victimized at the hands of law enforcement--sex workers, trans 

women, working class women, femmes/women of color, and femmes/women who are 

incarcerated are more likely to be victimized again when they come into contact  with law 
enforcement. These are compounding forms of sexual trauma. Maybe they’ve already experienced 
some form of sexual trauma in their life and then they come contact with this organization that is 

supposed to be supporting them or even rehabilitating them, and it becomes a site for more 

violence. Maybe you go to your minister looking for support, but that becomes a vulnerable space for 
many people who have been victimized. So, trust in that person who is in power, also becomes a 
vulnerable space to be in. So, I think we don’t really talk about that. There are so many forms of 
secondary violence and complex trauma that happens when we are told to go to these spaces 

that are supposed to be helpful. 

SUPPORT 

I feel that we need to be heard, I think we need to be validated, our experiences need to be 

validated. I think we need to know that our communities are safe and affirming and welcoming.

 I think that communities need to hold people who have victimized others accountable. I think that 

whatever accountability looks like it has to evoke their humanity and not compromise it. 

If you put someone who’s victimized someone in a more inhuman setting, we can’t 

necessarily say that that’s going to make that person a better person at the end of the 

accountability process. I would want that person to become a better person. To somehow 

be able to recover and to be able to think through the harm they have caused to the person 

they have victimized, to themselves, and to their community and to think through “how do I 

become a whole person after this?” I also think that person who is a perpetrator is also a 

victim, because they have now compromised their humanity. I think that the person who has 

been primarily victimized needs to be prioritized and protected and needs to be empowered to 

know that they can move forward. We are stronger than we think we are. And how do we 

remember to hold pain and acknowledge that still there is opportunity for joy. But it’s really hard, 

depending on how violent the attack was and depending on how much you trusted the person 

who attacked you. The conditions make it really hard. 

I feel like that person needs to be loved, protected, and affirmed, listened to but we have to be 

really patient with survivors. Because we want people to get over it, we want people to snap out 

of it, but you can’t! It has shaken you to your core, whatever that thing is that happened to you.

And you need time to put yourself back together. If you were told that it didn’t happen to you, 

if you were told or received societal messages that said it was your fault, it can take a really long 

time. If you haven’t been given the resources and you have to show up at work or school the next 

day, if it happened to you at work or school--because we’re assuming that these things are only 

happening in dark alleys and parking lots. No, it’s happening at home, most people who have 

been sexually victimized are being victimized by their partners, or people they know. Married 

women are victimized by their partners, girls are victimized by their boyfriends, right? Children 

are victimized by adults that are supposedly protecting them, teachers, priests, coaches, parents, 

aunts, uncles, older siblings. Then you get to college and it happens on a date or after a party. 

So I think that there’s also an assumption that its only happening once in someone’s life, or that 

we should get over it when it’s really persistent and chronic. And so if the attacks against our

 humanity are persistent and chronic then I think the affirmation in support of our humanity 

has to be persistent, consistent and loving. 

About Last Night

I am hard on myself. I work really hard but sometimes when I am trying to articulate myself while speaking I stumble through my words. I then become anxious worrying that my audience will think I sound incompetent and I begin rushing to finish, which makes me stumble more. This most often happens in academic settings and even after being a professor for most of my adult life, I still find myself almost in tears after I speak in front of academics. This is a carry over from being socialized in a culture that has made me feel like I don't belong despite me working so hard trying to be their kind of smart. 

Recently I have been resisting and in fact rebelling against trying to "sound" smart. I recognize it as Western middle class cultural imperialism and have begun saying fuck you--i may not speak your language but I have shit to say. And right when I think I have recovered from feeling like an imposter and begin feeling myself for the bad ass I am, I stumble in the middle of a speech and I am spiraling downward again. My heart races, I feel small, I speed up, I skip over sections of my paper to get to the end faster. It's like all the self work disappears. Sometimes i catch myself and remember to breathe, sometimes I lie in bed playing it over and over in my head, tossing and turning wondering why I still suck at this thing. But what I will say is this--fuck academia and the damage it does to us (women, first gen, POC, queer, immigrant, people with disabilities, etc) and the way it violently dulls our shine. I'm working to embrace my stumbles and will keep saying what the fuck needs to be said. My people will hear me and those who focus on my articulation and enunciation are not the people I am speaking to in the first place.

 I also must remember that my harsh evaluations of myself are often unfounded. Last night, when all I wanted to do was crawl under a rock after I spoke, an audience member walked up to me and thanked me for including my sexual abuse survival in my remarks. She said she was especially grateful that I named it in an academic setting because said she had been sexually assaulted at Northwestern and had not told anyone yet. She said maybe one day we could write about it together. She re-centered me and I affirmed her. I am not here to sound eloquent. I am here to tell the truth. and so are you. 

You Too

So the majority of women I know and love, who are on social media (and many who are not),  have been victims of sexual and other forms of gender based violence. Men and people responsible for raising men, are you fucking telling me that our daughters do not stand a chance in living lives without being preyed upon?! Are we expected to warn them that their bodies & spirits will always be under attack by you, people who look like you, and the sons of the world?! Please tell me this is NOT normal but our testimonies, both spoken & unspoken, say that sexual assault & rape are expected, normal, pervasive & chronic! Do not respond to this post, just go do the work of humanizing manhood and masculinity.

And if anyone even tries to come for me with that “not all men” bullshit I will quickly shut that shit down by saying, I’m not a fucking idiot. I live with 3 beautiful feminist men. I know what manhood and masculinity can look like and I have faith in men’s capacity to grow and evolve. Having said that, it is up to ALL MEN to address rape culture head on with all the other men they are connected to. We are tired and many of us are assaulted just as much by your silence & apathy  as your son’s, brother’s, uncle’s, father’s, grandfather’s, teammate’s, frat brother’s, pastor’s, coach’s, friend’s, neighbor’s, colleague’s, coworker’s, favorite athlete’s, and your boy’s attack on our humanity.

Make a plan: Guard Your Spirit

I know some folks hate lists but I'm too drained after the heaviness of this weekend's pain to write sentences. This is what poured out of me this morning right before I let the tears flow. I call it, "how to survive tolerating/being in a relationship with family members who have hurt you". It might come in handy for some of you, especially during holidays, graduations, weddings, funerals, or pretty much any other "obligatory" time we are sacrificing our souls in the name of "family"

1. Prepare an escape plan-have somewhere to go if shit gets too heavy. I was lucky to have a friend offer to let me come to her house if I needed
2. Be open with your support network about the status of your mental health before, during and after they arrive. Let them know so they can be available if you show up at their door in your underwear in the middle of December or you need call/text them at 2:34am. I was grateful to receive texts and hugs from friends all weekend and openly told people I was not feeling ok.
3. Build a support network that can handle your anxiety laden, random, and frequent texts or calls (you need this to do #2)
4. Force yourself to drink water
5. Force yourself to eat 
6. Leave the house solo to go run "errands" without apology. 
7. Have a place that brings you joy to retreat to if things get bad--for me it's thrift stores (went to 3 of them yesterday) or I go somewhere in nature-flowers, water, weeds--whatever!
8. Process your trauma with a therapist. Process the ways maintaining this relationship affects your life with a therapist. This level of support is needed in addition to the support we receive from friends, family and our faith communities.
9. Eat ALL the fucking sweet potato pie you like and fuck anyone who judges you for doing so.  
10. Go for a walk, run, etc-be active, it helps release the endorphins you need to balance out all your feelings of depression, anxiety & rage! 
11. Ask other family members to act as your buffers/stand in hosts. My grannie and Ced do this for me all the time. I love them both deeply for enduring when I cannot
12. Take "naps". They can be real naps or fake ones but take 'em! Anything to run out the fucking clock! Including faking headaches!
13. Don't feel obligated to be "on" or host around the clock
14. Don't tolerate anymore abusive or controlling language or behavior! It is a privilege for them to even get to see you so fuck them if they start acting a fool! Seriously! Fuck them! Show them the door! This is your life! 
15. Decide which environment and what time periods work best for you. I prefer hosting because I feel more in control. If on their turf--hotels it is for me. In both cases 48-72 hrs is all they get and I consider that a gift. It's sucks no matter what but I have learned where my tolerance limits are and don't give a shit whose feelings I hurt. 
16. Name your pain!! Share your story of trauma AND your story of survival! Your silence will not protect you (Audre Lorde)
In short, make a plan for your survival but remember you DO NOT have to stay in relationships with people who have hurt you. I don't care what your cultural, religious, or gender norms say! You deserve to be safe and if you are not safe, get safe! ️

Birthing Healing

As I got off the CTA train yesterday evening, I felt a twinge in my midsection. I wondered if it was my uterus actually hurting because I was grieving my son’s impending move to college the next morning. They felt a bit like cramps so I decided to call them “labor pains”. 

I needed a familiar reference point to process and cope with the pain I was feeling, whether physical, spiritual, emotional—or combined.   I needed to push myself to accept that the life that I had brought into the world was about to enter another stage of life’s journey. I also knew I had survived labor pains before so I told myself that I could survive this life transition as well. So with my hands gripping my abdomen and at times throwing up into one of Illinois State University's garbage cans, I’ve spent the last 24 hrs laboring and reflecting on the past 18 years since I’ve become his/a mother. 

One of my biggest goals in raising a son has been to make sure that he never intentionally hurts women and that he would grow to advocate for their freedom. I prayed for him to be gentle,  justice minded, peace loving, and to have a fighting spirit. I am so proud to say that the 18 year old that began college today, has become a warm, caring, sensitive, fun loving, and informed young man that I hoped he would become. 

A few examples flashed through my mind during the 2 hour car ride and like calming waves they washed over me dulling the pain. Sometimes it was remembering the small things like his love for cats or being a caring and highly flexible older brother. Other times it was the big things like remembering him sitting in the back seat of the car explaining the menstrual cycle to his little sister (thank you, World of Inquiry 8th grade science teachers!) or when he asked to stay while I delivered the placenta following his sister's birth. I recall, at age 4, he reminded me to be more patient and gentle with his younger brother who would not go to sleep as instructed. He said calmly but assertively, " He's just a baby, Mom!". Then there was the time he tied a pink bow in his hair during track meets in support of his coach’s wife who was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She mentioned that he would always check on her. I didn’t even know they had a relationship but to learn your teenager found space in his heart to care for another is heartwarming.  Or the time he came home from school raving about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. Then there was the day he began to draw connections between my life and the Black women characters in Alice Walkers' books. He was the one who got me into reading the Suzanne Collins' "Hunger Games" series. Here was a boy who wasn't big on reading was suddenly under his covers for days diving deep into fiction worlds of injustice & resistance with a girl as the shero. 

He, like his siblings, have always been supportive of my dreams and interests. They understand me as a working mother and they also get that I value life outside of motherhood. He has always been there coaching me along whether it was roller derby or road races. He was one of my first customers when I began selling vintage clothing. He partied hard with a drag queen at one of my fundraisers for the Chicago Abortion Fund. He wears a button on his visor that says “Value Women” and proudly identifies as a black feminist. Yes, his room stays a mess and he plays video games nonstop. 

But he has blossomed into a young man that moves through this world not harming others. This is an essential intervention that I and his father have been committed to in loving our son. His masculinity is his own and is not bound by other people’s limited views of what it means to "be a man". (sidebar: His blackness is also his own and not bound by other peoples’ limited notions of what it means to "be black").

All of this floods through my mind as we unpack and get him settled into his dorm. I did not cry because I began to realize he’s ready, not only academically ready for college, but ready to offer the world the positive energy that it needs…the peace loving and kind man that it needs. Just like labor, it felt horrible during but then there was pure relief and elation in the end. I knew he was going to be alright and that he understood what was expected of him as a human.

His presence in my life and our world has helped me to heal.  He is joy. 

This is 11

I wrote a poem in 1993 entitled, "she was only 11". It was a poem about my father sexually molesting me as a young girl and and my mother's failure to protect me. It was poem of violence, trauma and abandonment. It was a poem that tried to make sense of what had happened to me as a girl decades before. 32 years later, 11 visits again.

Today, my 11 year old daughter and I were trying to make it back to Illinois after an action packed weekend of fun at a family wedding. Our return flight had been cancelled yesterday but today we made it to our connecting flight so there was hope. She was anxious because she wanted to return to make it to her friend's birthday party. It was the first one she would be attending in middle school with both girl and boy guests.  She wanted to look special for the occasion so she had on the dress she wore to the wedding but not too special so she edged it up a bit with sneakers. 

Our flight had been delayed twice so I left her side at the airport briefly to grab us some lunch. I got her gut wrenching tearful phone call as I waited for her sub to be prepared. Our flight had been cancelled for a second time and now she was going to miss the party. To make matters worse, we are stuck in a random city for the night. 

She was hysterical on the phone. I could hear an older black woman asking her if she was OK in the background. I told her I was on my way and left her sub at the restaurant. I walked as fast as I could back to our gate as I tried to calm her down. She was inconsolable and at moments accused me of not helping matters. (Side bar: No matter how bad I felt about the situation, I was not having that kind guilt tripping and quickly checked her on that behavior). I'm her mother, not a punching bag! Still, I hung on the line until I reached her and then held her in my arms when I got to her. I was weary. I knew we needed to get to the ticket counter if there was any possibility of us getting to Chicago or a nearby airport today but she was a wreck. She didn't care who was watching or what needed to happen. She needed to fall out for a bit. So we sat, she cried and I held her. When I wasn't enough, she called her dad and cried to him. 

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, I told her we needed to get new tickets. We were pretty much the last ones to get into the ticket reissue line. She wiped tears the whole time we waited. I held my bladder and my emotions. I got our tickets and then she collapsed again as the full reality set in that we were not getting home until tomorrow. 

She kept asking me to fix it and saying she just wanted to go home and to see her dad who had been traveling for the past 10 days. I reminded her that I cannot simply fix things I have no control over. She swallowed that pill bitterly. 

She eventually calmed down and even began to smile and laugh bit. We settled into a hotel and had lunch and played a few rounds of checkers. She had another crying episode and I, at my wit's end, decided that she had shed enough tears on the matter of a "missed birthday party". I reminded her that this is a small bump in grander scheme of her life and there were girls her age that were dealing with real shit. Rape. Abuse. Homelessness. Poverty. War. Dangerous unaccompanied border crossings without their parents. Yes, I went there. Because the girl was working my nerves and seriously, it was just a damned party! 

She finally cried herself out and fell asleep. I am lying in the bed across from her looking at her beautiful perfection and shaking my head at the intensity of her emotional expressivity. Yes, it's going to be a long adolescence but I am happy to be on this journey with her. 

I remind myself that she is ONLY 11 and suddenly I am realizing that our 11th years are significantly different.  My daughter  is dealing with petty disappointments that are age appropriate. Not sexual assault as I did at her age. My daughter asks for her father when she is in pain and he comforts her and supports me.  My father was the primary source of my pain. I am listening to my daughter and assuring her that she is capable of surviving her pain. Although my mother did assist me with aborting my father's baby she did not respond to my terror or assure my protection because she stayed in relationship with him. My daughter is empowered and embraces her budding adolescent sexuality when she decides to wear a dress to the party but I had mine taken from me violently. My daughter is allowed to express her feelings openly and publicly yet I was silenced by fear for decades. At age 11, my daughter  is spending a night in a hotel with me because her flight was cancelled. At age 11, I spent a night in a hotel with my mother the night before a late term abortion that had to be performed out of my home state. As her parents, we are actively trying to keep her (and her brothers) safe. My parents provided for me and my siblings but we were not safe with them. 

This is 11.

As I lie here, listening to her heavy breathing as she sleeps, I also began thinking about the interactions my daughter had with my extended family members this past weekend. Everyone adored her. All weekend she heard "you look just like your mother" and "you spit her out". I think she felt bad for her dad and said to me "I have dad's nose and hair", which she does. But to the Wilkersons, she was "little Monique" and was hugged, kissed and squeezed to death! She was both tickled and overwhelmed by the unconditional love that came at her from every direction. She seldom gets to see our extended family but they loved her like she was my 11 year old clone. I was loved up, too but I truly enjoyed watching them love her up. It deepened my sense of feeling loved by them. They loved her because she was of me but they also loved her because she reminded them of me at her age. It was an out of body experience for me and for a moment, I did live through her. I was retroactively receiving the love that they didn't know I critically needed 32 years ago. 

Bearing witness to them doting over her--grandmothers promising her sweets; uncles giving her all the change out of their pockets and letting her cut in the buffet line to get a 3rd helping of macaroni and cheese; aunts giving her peppermints, telling her she is beautiful and embarrassingly talking about her getting breasts. I too, received that extended family caring and praise as a girl. The early safe space created by my extended family has truly been a latent aspect of my survival that I had not given much weight until now. While I may have been facing hell in my household, they had already affirmed me and built me up.

It is important for me to also note that she is both privileged and blessed. In the midst of her tantrum it was my responsibility to remind her to put her life in perspective--missing a party is disappointing but it is not traumatic nor life altering. She should recognize her privilege is that this momentary upset was her greatest pain. 

But I do also appreciate that she is also a child--and children deserve to be heard, validated and loved. They also deserve the freedom to express their feelings of both joy and pain. She had prepared for joy today but she experienced pain. Yet, she is blessed to have both glowed and crumpled under the warm quilt of her immediate and extended family this weekend. 

This is her 11...

...and my 43 year old heart is swelled by the vast ocean that separates our life experiences. 

Homecoming: On finding a "good man"

Recently, I was exchanging a round of texts with one of my dearest friends. We were debating on the importance of men in our lives--in the realms of romantically/sexually and emotionally/psychologically. She felt that women represented feminine energy in a relationship and that a man complimented that feminine energy with masculine energy. She also felt that a father nurtures a child in a unique way, maybe a more masculine way. I feel that we all embody both masculine and feminine qualities and that we are whole without  another person. I see others as enriching our lives. Intimate connections with others affirm us but that we must gain affirmation of self independent of others. I also see the role/duties of a father as being indistinguishable from that of a mother. I know I will get a lot of push back on this but a nurturing parent is a nurturing parent. period. I have witnessed my son, 29 years younger than me, step between myself and my daughter when I was not parenting effectively. He essentially was the voice of reason and ultimately comforted my daughter and gave her what she needed in that moment. What she needed was nurturance and he provided that for her, regardless of his gender and/or age. There is nothing biological about my mothering. I am learning as I go and there is nothing about my gender identity as a woman, my predominantly feminine expression or my biological femaleness that aids me in this process. Children need caring adults in their lives. Whether those adults have penises, vaginas or some combination of both doesn't matter. Who does that parenting doesn't matter. Your birth parents or those in your community can stand in the gap. Yet, my friend raised a point that I’m still chewing on. Maybe once we have been abandoned or abused by our mothers and/or fathers, we have holes that we feel need to be filled and look to other adults who resemble these identities to heal us. 

I am not sure if I ever looked for a father figure to replace my father. I simply walked away. I did not see him as essential to my life journey. I never felt a deep loss. trauma, yes but I did not feel a deep loss of a father in my life. I DID feel a sense of abandonment from my mother and I spent about a decade of my young adulthood trying to attach myself to older black women. But they ultimately disappointed me. Not because they were bad people but because I had painted this idealized portrait of what I wanted out of my relationship with them. I wanted a “do over” mother but they were my grandmother, my mother in law, my supervisor, my dissertation chair, or my mentor. They were not my mother. I eventually learned that I had placed unrealistic expectations on these women, to heal me, to love me in the ways I felt I had not been loved. I learned to mother/nurture myself. I learned to redistribute the weight I had placed on certain romanticized relationships with older women. Why are parental relationships given more weight that peer relationships? Why were parents defined as the singular sources of our nurturance and not ourselves? These questions have helped me love myself when others did not. could not. should not. 

But is loving ourselves enough?

My father did not love me. He failed at his adult duties to keep me safe and not harm me. He failed. Most of my professors at Morgan State University were men. They were intelligent, progressive, kind and witty Black men. They were not my father nor his replacement but I suppose they did help me to heal. They were all respectful and did not make me squirm in discomfort when I was in the room alone with them.  They gave me an alternate perspective of relationships between adult men and younger women/girls. between those with power and those who were vulnerable under that power. 

I recall being in Dr. Daryll Tally's office in the social work department in my junior year. We were talking about graduate school. I was telling him how I wanted to go to grad school in Baltimore because my boyfriend at the time was from Baltimore. He quickly retorted, "Don't plan your life around a man! Baltimore will be here when you get back. Go to grad school.". Thank you, Dr. Tally.  I listened to him. My boyfriend at the time broke up with me our senior year and I went off to Ohio State University for my masters degree. Dr. Talley's words stay with me today, I try to place myself first in my life plans. I try not center my life around a man—even the one I am in love with. Dr. Tally was not a father figure but he did what wiser adults should do—give sound advice and challenge us to defy our self-made boundaries. You are a good (hu)man, Dr. Tally!

I also recall being in Dr. Elmer P. Martin’s social work practice class. He required  us to write a paper on object loss and object constancy. The purpose of the assignment was to reflect on something that was tough/traumatic/distressing in our lives and what kept us whole during that same time period. I decided to write about my incest survival. I think I still have the paper. It was the first time I had put pen to paper on the issue. It was emotionally draining but I think it was the best paper I had written at Morgan. On the day the assignment was due he asked that we share our topics with the rest of the class. I was horrified. I tried to find the words but erupted into tears and buried my head in my desk for the remainder of the class. Too soon. Still too raw. It took me two weeks to return to class. Dr. Martin shared his own story in my absence. It was about his father molesting his sisters and his mother pressing charges against him. It was about surviving having a father who had been a sexual predator and being a child of an incarcerated parent. I missed Dr. Martin’s story in class but I gained so much from him for discussing his personal life with our class. Thank you, Dr. Martin. You taught me that it was OK to be vulnerable in front of others. I continue to try to live by your example. You were a good (hu)man, Dr. Martin. RIP

Mr. William Carson, Sr. and I crossed paths in 1992. I walked into his office saying I wanted to go to graduate school. Over the next year he would read my admission essay, drive me from Maryland to Ohio for black grad student visitation days at Ohio State, give me a bike to get around campus, attend my graduation from my MSW program and take pictures of the event. A couple of years after that he would drive my friends down to NC for my wedding and take pictures of yet another special day in my life. He never asked me for one red cent. Four years after that, he’d be there for me again for my and my husband’s graduation from our PhD programs. He and his camera captured our big day yet again. Words cannot express how his unassuming but constant presence in my life has meant to me. I’ve come to learn that I was not a special case, Mr. Carson treats everyone he knows kindly. I am so pleased that I was able to thank him publicly at his recent retirement party from Morgan State University. After 30 years he was finally “graduating" and moving on to indulge in his life’s joys—traveling, visiting his family and yes, taking pictures. At the dinner, I thanked his son for “sharing” his dad with us Morganites. Thank you, Mr. Carson for all that you have done for me professionally and personally. You taught me that sometimes we just have to be there for other folks not to seek praise but because it is the right thing to do. I try to channel your professionalism and dedication when I interact with my students although you have very big shoes to fill! You are a good (hu)man, Mr. Carson!!

I am probably a professor because of the positive influences of my undergraduate professors and administrators at Morgan. My fair Morgan...it was a safe haven for me that gave me the space to remember who I was outside of the abuse I had experienced in my family home. 

So where am I going with this? 

I’m not sure. I am thankful that I had other men to interact with who were not predatory. Yet, I never imagined that they were father figures nor held expectations that they were replacing my father when they helped me along the way. At the end of the day, it was not their gender that shined through, it was their humanity. their caring spirits. their sage advice. They were/are good humans. At the same time, I do acknowledge that they were indeed men and having positive experiences with men is something I cherish as well. 

But through it all, I am learning that we heal and flourish from having good people in our lives, starting with ourselves.

Welcome to "I Usta Be Monique's" New home!

It's been several months since we lost Karyn Washington, founder of the Dark Skin, Red Lips Project and For Brown Girls  but a day has not passed when I have not thought of  her and the countless other girls and women we have lost to violence and trauma since her passing. Karyn's passing was both shocking and triggering yet it was also transformative in my own journey in healing. In the face of her horrible and untimely death I was forced to realize that I am still here. We are still here. Still raging. Still hurting. Still dancing. Still demanding more from our world. Still clawing at life. At justice. At healing. Together.

I was inspired to begin this blog/open diary to share my own survival of child sexual trauma and depression as well as my politics of justice. It is space for my testimony, which I am finally ready to share with others but also a space that I hope that we can dialog and generate new imaginings of our collective healing. Ideally it will also become a space for action and justice.

As a newbie to blogging, I initially began on user friendly Tumblr, but have put on my big girl britches and have migrated my blog here in my permanent text friendly location. Thank you to those who read my very first vulnerable words there and for encouraging me to keep speaking my truth and sharing my perspective

. For those new to this space, feel free to read my early posts and join me on this lifelong and intertwined journey of joy and pain.

(Not a ) Mother's Day Post: Happy Our Lives Day!!

I keenly remember seeing a school video of myself in 6th grade wearing a green leotard top and thought that my breasts and stomach looked big. I was pregnant but had no recollection of having sex. I did have a recollection of my father coming into my bedroom at night fondling me in my sleep. I did recall waking up one night and being wet between my legs. I did recall waking up and seeing my father’s penis in front of my face. In hindsight, I’m thankful that I do not recall the details of my impregnation. The brain protects the spirit. The spirit protects the brain.

After several tests and an ultrasound it was revealed that I was pregnant. I then had to tell my mother about my father. She did what every women who feels the need to upholding an institution that judges women and demands them to stay “for better or for worse”. Obviously, she took this literally and protected my father over me. She never turned him in but instead coached me through a series of lies regarding how I got pregnant. My deepest apologies go out to the Latino men in my community who may have been wrongly harassed by the police as they searched for “3 Latino men who gang raped a 11 year old black girl”. In hindsight, I am not even sure the police cared enough about my innocence to actually investigate the “crime”.

My mother then asked me what I wanted to do. I could have the child and she would raise it or I could abort it. I was 11. 11!!!!!!!!!! But my spirit and brain joined forces again and helped me to get free. I chose an abortion. I had no desire to be a mother. I was 20 weeks pregnant so I had to travel out of the state of RI to NY for the late term abortion.

Here are my nuts and bolts of a late term abortion. The saline solution was inserted into my abdomen with a long needle. That induced contractions. The roomful was of other women and girls going through the same experience. The moans. The moans. All night long. Seeing the fetus. The painful removal of the placenta. My spirit was challenged that day. Even witnessing what I witnessed and experiencing what I experienced, I’d choose that abortion again and again and again. I had little power in the world at age 11. But that day that I chose to have an abortion was my assertion of power over my life and my body!!!!!

5 years later, when I was in 11th grade, I had unprotected sex with my then boyfriend. He convinced me that my bc pills were still “in my system”. Smooth move and clearly my brain was not fully engaged that day. But my spirit was intact and I knew that I did not want to become a mother in that moment. I made a uninformed decision (I did actually believe him and at the time I had not developed the highly political skill of telling a boy NO when it came to sex) but I had no desire to pay for it for the rest of my life. I shared that I was pregnant with my mother and told her I wanted an abortion. I had a 1st term abortion. She accompanied me and used her health insurance to pay for my procedure.

A year later, the summer before I headed to Morgan State University, the same boyfriend and I were having sex. He told me to climb off but I didn’t. I was just beginning to enjoy sex and it felt good in that moment. Sadly, my newfound moment of sexual pleasure landed me pregnant once again since I was doing so unprotected. In some ways I felt punished and betrayed by my body and my brain. How could I be so stupid!? I was finally making it out of my abusive household and I had fucked up. Some might argue that choosing an abortion as my reproductive decision at this point was selfish. But I disagree. I had power over little in the world but I knew I had power over my body and my future. Caring for the self is not selfish. So I walked right past the anti-abortion protesters with my head held high and I had another 1st term abortion. I moved into the freshman dorms at Morgan State still bleeding and recovering 7 days later. I didn’t share my decision with my mother this time. I no longer trusted her with my body nor my future. I was charting my own course and after 18 years in my bio family’s unsafe and abusive household, my spirit and brain were steering me towards my freedom. I did use our family’s healthcare insurance and while both of my parents worked for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the company had a confidentiality policy that protected my privacy even as a teen, even from my parents. The anti abortion PNA laws that require pregnant teens to notify their parents are both dangerous and restrict their reproductive freedom.

I share these reproductive experiences on Mother's Day to demonstrate the wide variety of reasons why girls and women (and trans men & non-binary people ) choose not to biologically reproduce/parent/mother. Sometimes it is because of rape/incest, sometimes it is because we don’t know how to (or can’t) say NO to our intimate partners, and yes, sometimes it’s because we may have engaged in risky behavior by having unprotected sex. Add 1000 other sometimes to my aforementioned 3. No matter the circumstance, we all deserve access to legal, affirming, safe, & confidential abortion care. I am so thankful I had these healthcare conditions for my 3 abortions. My abortion history is part of my trauma history. Yet my spiritual and intellectual assertion of power over my life, my body, and my future during these—at times horrific and uncertain moments— is also central to my history of joy! So this Mother’s Day, I chose to celebrate the moments when I/we choose life…MY LIFE/OUR LIVES over motherhood.

Most importantly, on this and every other Mother’s Day, I remain politically committed to demanding that the state continue to respect and protect our reproductive decisions and make reproductive healthcare (including abortion care) accessible to all.