Happy things!

I'm back! I figured I would end my hiatus with something a little off-topic but nice. Another personal update, I suppose, while I'm still in my happy pink fuzzy slippers before I exchange them for my blog-writing black femmenazi boots.

So, things that make me happy:

I had a fantastic (albeit odd and completely non-traditional) first date this week with a wonderful guy I shall call D* until I come up with a better nickname. He's a gentleman and a sweetheart, and things are looking good. I might be off in cloud 9 for a little while.  :)

It's also just starting to sink in that I'm completely graduated. I even made it official on Facebook by changing my status to "alum." :P  Now to figure out plans for the next year or so...

Over the next two weeks I will be packing and moving into my new place. I'm sharing a house close by with two post-docs and a grad student, which will be a nice change from my frat house. It's within walking distance, so I'll still be able to visit, but I'm excited to live elsewhere.

So now the next stage of my life is really beginning...

Also also also

I'm done! Like completely, totally, finally done with my studies as an undergrad!

I'm all grown up now. :D

Book: The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind is a fantastic fantasy (hur hur, pun intended) novel by Patrick Rothfuss. It is the first of a trilogy, and I am *so* excited for the second book, whenever it manages to make its way out. Rothfuss has such a way with words, and manages to evoke the most powerful, wonderful descriptions of everything from music to PTSD.

I just wanted to type up a section that I found particularly profound:

Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying "time heals all wounds" is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.

In the interest of not spoiling this book for anyone who is interested in reading it in its fabulous entirety (you should!), I'm going to quote more of the book, but heavily ellipsed.

[After a trauma occured] I wandered deep into the forest and slept. My body demanded it, and my mind used the first door to dull the pain. The wound was covered until the proper time for healing could come. In self-defense, a good portion of my mind simply stopped working--went to sleep, if you will.

While my mind slept, many of the painful parts of the previous day were ushered through the second door. Not completely. I did not forget what had happened, but the memory was dulled, as if seen through thick gauze. If I wanted to, I could have brought to memory [details about the trauma]. But I did not want to remember. I pushed those thoughts away and let them gather dust in a seldom-used corner of my mind.

I dreamed, not of [bad things associated with the trauma], but of gentler things. And slowly the wound began to grow numb....

But enough of quotes-- I'm afraid of giving too much away of a story that should not be spoiled. But so much of this story spoke out to me, with the portrayal of numbness, the repulsion that happens when one tries--whether consciously or subconsciously--to remember things that are not ready to be thought about, triggers, and the general mental and physical changes that occur after one survives a trauma.

It's a beautiful book, and definitely worth reading. It's not entirely trauma-centric, but the portrayal of PTSD is one of the better ones I have encountered in fiction.

The Infamous Twilight Series

Sigh. Triggered. By a freaking parody of the Twilight series, no less. The parody claims there is "mouth rape" and "date rape" and pedophilia in it. I've only read Book 1, which was all right, but now I kind of want to see if the rest of them are really as awful as this "review" claims they are. I am slightly disturbed that these books are capturing the attention of pre-teen girls.

Also-- giant meh to dissociation.

Dealing with Privileged People

http://www.derailingfordummies.com/

This link was shared with me by a wonderful friend of mine in response to my last post. It educates the Privileged Person on how to derail any conversation with a Marginalised Person in the most arrogant, ignorant way possible. It includes tactical gems like:

You're Taking Things Too Personally

Similar to You’re Being Overemotional and yet with particular uses of its own. You see, when you say “you’re taking things too personally” you demonstrate your ignorance that these issues ARE personal for them!

That’s highly insulting and is sure to rub anyone up the wrong way. That you're already refusing to consider their reality is giving them a pretty good indication of how the conversation is going to degress, yet the natural human need for understanding will probably compel them to try and reason with you, or at least to point you in the direction of some educational resources that will help you gain insight into their experiences.

By denying the conversation is personal for them, you also reveal your own detachment: there’s really nothing at stake for you in getting into this argument, you’re just doing it for kicks. They will be all too aware of this, and it will begin to work on their emotions, preparing them nicely for the next steps you will take them through.


You're Arguing With Opinions Not Fact

If you really want to excel as a Privileged Person® you need to learn to value data, statistics, research studies and empirical evidence above all things, but especially above Lived Experience©. You can pretend you are oblivious to the fact most studies have been carried out by Privileged People® and therefore carry inherent biases, and insist that the Marginalised Person™ produce “Evidence” of what they‘re claiming.

Their Lived Experience© does not count as evidence, for it is subjective and therefore worthless.

This is very important because it works in two ways: 1) it communicates to the Marginalised Person™ that their personal testament is disbelieved and of no value, causing them great hurt; and 2) it once again reinforces your privilege.

You see, the very capacity to conduct studies, collect data and write detached “fact-based” reports on it, is an inherently privileged activity. The ability to widely access this material and research it exhaustively is also inherently privileged. Privileged People® find it easier to pursue these avenues than Marginalised People™ and so once again you are reminding them you possess this privilege and reinforcing that the world at large values a system of analysis that excludes them, and values it over what their actual personal experience has been.

The process of valuing “fact” over “opinion” is one very much rooted in preserving privilege. Through this methodology, the continued pain and othering of millions of people can be ignored because it’s supported by “opinion” (emotion) and not “fact” (rationality).

It is also important because it calls on the Marginalised Person™ to do something that is simply impossible, and that is summate the entirety of their group’s experiences into a definitive example. It is important that you establish this precedent for the next couple of steps.

Believe it or not, people--my peers, no less--actually do use these kinds of tactics whenever I bring up topics related to sexual assault and PTSD (that is, if they even deign to listen to me in the first place).

Way to go, Privileged People!

Ugh.

I just want to escape from everything right now. I'm dissociated, uncomfortable, exasperated, and stressed. I've been sleeping far too much in my effort to hide from the world. I don't know how to break out of this and find the motivation and happiness that lies just outside my grasp. I know it's there; I just don't know how to find it.

My fraternity is triggering me again. Last term we tried to run our own Crossing the Line-type of event. I thought it was poorly done, but in particular for me, it was a disaster. It brought back the acute frustration and pain of the aftermath last year. I thought the topics of sexual assault were poorly covered, and then when I tried to bring that up in the discussion afterwards, I was at first ignored, and then quite literally talked over by people joking around about other things. Is there any better way to tell someone you don't want to listen to that topic again and that you don't care? I left crying and triggered and was very much not okay for a good chunk of that night. I left because I could not stay.

They want to run Crossing the Line again this term, and this time they want to force people to not leave before the event is over. Needless to say, I will not be attending. I don't think we should be running our own event; as much as we don't like the College's, we do not have the necessary degree of separation or maturity to run this powerful an event ourselves. Sure, it works for most other people who don't have so much at stake, but that doesn't make it a good event. But now that I am being told that I cannot leave, no matter how triggered and desperately upset I am-- it's clear that no one understands what PTSD is like. I brought this up to everyone over email, and all the responses I got basically said "you can deal; you need to stay because it's disrespectful to us if you leave."

*insert all kinds of disbelieving laughter here*  Just that exchange of email was enough to send me spiraling down into a horrible episode. I'm currently sitting here tensed up and trying not to dig my fingernails into my palms or explode into full-blown anxiety or rage. My mind has shut down so this is the only thing I can think about. I want to scream or cry but I can't. It's freaking Thanksgiving break, which I should be spending doing work or at the very least relaxing, and instead I'm trying to keep myself from sliding into a full-blown PTSD episode.

God, I hate this place and some of the people in it. I can't wait to leave.

Hiatus

I've been feeling the old depression creeping back up on me lately. Last night was pretty awful. It's a combination of academic stress, anxiety about post-graduation stuff, memories regarding the aftermath and their associated intense emotions (as one of my friends and brothers is trying to bring it back up to the forefront in my fraternity again), extremely frustrating people-problems, and the jarring absence of daylight before 5pm. Not a good combination at all.

I may have to take a brief hiatus to sort out as much of the above as I can. (Not much I can do about the darkness, unfortunately.) I will probably write some short posts here and there, but I just don't have the emotional energy to tackle a major post right now. My immediate goal is to not burn out or have a mental breakdown before the end of the term.

December 7: the magic date when my last final is due. Between now and then, I have an exam, a major presentation, a problem set, and a paper, along with routine work for each day's class. *takes a deep breath*

See you in December!