When I was a little girl, I was instructed on how a lady is supposed to act. A lady crosses her legs. A lady fixes herself in the bathroom. A lady should wear clothes that cover her skin. A lady doesn’t curse or speak out when someone is in the wrong. These traditional ways are what my mom taught me. She probably did so to protect me from what it’s like to be a woman. But what this really taught me, was for me to feel ashamed about my body. And this voice has been following me around lately. So for today’s tea talk, or coffee as I now prefer, will be about learning to be kinder to ourselves.
Middle school was a turning point for me. I noticed how I was looked at, in ways I did not quite understand yet. Even though we wore uniforms, I was still instructed on how my clothes shaped my body. Some of the clothes are provided by the school. These rules only got more enforced as I matured into high school. I was sent to detention more than once over how my body appeared in these clothes. My shoulder was out, it needed to be covered. My shorts- ones that I bought on the lacrosse website by the way- were “too short”. They made it about the clothes but it wasn’t. It was about how I was viewed wearing these clothes. I felt insecure and self-conscious about how I looked. I felt judged and as if I was made out to be something I wasn’t.
I could spend all day writing about how I think the dress code specifically targets girls and what that means for boys and girls. But it’s not just schools. It’s the “boys will be boys”. It’s hearing the woman I look up to feel they are too big- that they need a diet. I’m not trying to blame anyone but somehow it’s always the female’s fault. She gets asked why she wore that, why did she go there alone, she let him in the room, she’s just too attractive for resistance, and so on. If we say “no”, or speak up we’re seen as rude. Sometimes it just seems easier to watch it happen all around us because no matter what we do, we do it wrong. If you have seen the new Barbie movie I do sound like Gloria’s monologue.
*SA Trigger Warning*
So when I experienced unwanted contact, I heard these voices. The voices told me “Just move on, it’s not that big of a deal”. “It was your fault for letting this person in your room”. “You should have spoken up but because you didn’t how would they have known”. I wanted to make this post about feeling comfortable in your own skin, feeling good about your body. The truth is for a while I was faking it. I still have moments now where I struggle to like what I see looking back at me in the mirror. This made me notice how I was preprogrammed to think about what happened to me. I can now say that I know it was not my fault regardless of how it or didn’t happen. That you are allowed to remove consent at any given moment and that the other person should respect this boundary. That my body is not nasty- that I’m not gross. And that I’m not responsible for their inappropriate behavior.
If you could see this page, you would see how many times I have rewritten and added more unrelated topics to this post. But there is something so beautiful in the work of figuring out and processing all of this. As I am becoming a young woman I have realized how I have been shaped to fit into the box of what being a woman means. My mom tells me how a lady acts. My schools telling me how to dress. The voices guide me on how I’m supposed to be. I finally figured out that those voices don’t have to define me, that I can just be me and that’s who I am. Whatever happened or didn’t happen doesn’t have to put me in a category. I can be okay with solely listening to myself. If I want to go there, I go there. If I want to wear this, I wear this. If I want to do this, I do this. Essentially I’m learning to embrace my femininity, and not through a protective lens out of fear. But also allowing myself to feel scared, uncertain, and all of those harder emotions. Something easier said than done with the trauma I have experienced in my past but now I want to try to find my peace with it. I have been angry, felt ashamed, and confused. I have felt misheard and judged. These voices, flashbacks, and overwhelming emotions have put me in a trance for a long time. I was surviving- trying to at least. I have woken up, I’m healing, and I want to live for me.
And I get reminded of how my mom told me to “just deal with it” because she believed it’s best to keep your head down and move on. Thinking about it now honestly makes me sad for her. When I first heard her say it over the phone, I was fuming but now I understand. She was listening to her own voice, internal dialogue from her mother, from all of those other people in her life who didn’t validate her. Out of the love in her heart, she was trying to protect me from reality. I would like to think that’s what everyone was trying to do. They were trying to protect me from a scary world, a world they have lived longer in. But I want to stop listening to those worried voices and listen to my own. That’s the most important one.
*If you or anyone you know are struggling with sexual assault trauma I have listed a few of the following helpful websites to provide access to various resources:
https://www.nsvrc.org/find-help
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
I am also an available listener, easiest way to talk with me would be through this blog’s Instagram account: Todaysteatalk
