#written-while-stoned — Public Fediverse posts

“Like a Revolving Door of I Already Did That…” Life With Psychosis is…Interesting

******TRIGGER WARNING****** Before you read any further please note that this essay contains real stories of real abuse that may cause harm to your psyche. Please read with caution.

Even on this website, I’ve never really talked about what life feels like when you’re in the middle of a psychotic episode. I’ve talked around it, but very few people discuss what it feels like to be in it.

And honestly, I think that’s because we just often don’t have the words.

For some of us, psychotic episodes can be absolutely petrifying. We have no concept of who we are, what we want or need; we aren’t focused on mental health. We aren’t focused on healing.

If You Don’t Sacrifice For What You Want, What You Want Becomes The Sacrifice. – JessGalindo87

We are mostly focused on trying to function, trying to focus. Here’s the thing: when you are in the middle of a psychotic episode, you feel completely sane.

Often, for the first time in a long effing time. Often, it’s everyone else that is psychotic, while to your brain, you’re making perfect sense.

The day I realized that the man I was going to for help was also one of the same men who beat me the night I was gang abused at A.H’s house was the day I literally broke my mind.

A few months before this realization, I had gone to B.G. at Adrenaline Tattoo’s for a tattoo on my left hand. I had gone to tell him I’d been abused, but he was acting so weird. The reason I wanted to tell HIM, was because the night I was abused, they used his name.

They shoved a phone in my face with his picture on it, and asked me how I knew him. I laughed, “he’s my tattoo artist, you fucking idiot.” They didn’t believe me, and so they had a man rape me, and say it was BG doing the act.

Now here’s where it gets really fucked up. This particular tattoo artist has assaulted me by groping me and putting his hands down my pants and shirt twice.

The first time, when he inked my shoulder – I didn’t forget. I trusted him when he said he had sobered up and changed, and so I went back after I was raped to tell him there were men out there raping girls, using his name. And he did it again.

So the day I realized who my counsellor was connected to, I lost my shit, and I went to tell B to call 911, to tell him what was happening, because in that particular moment, I genuinely thought I was moments from death.

To my mind, abusers were everywhere, and the only person who knew my details, who had known me for years, that I could go to, was yet another abuser. It makes perfect sense that I lost my ever-loving fucking mind.

But I found it that same day. There was a cop there named Brian, at my request – I gave him as many details as I could and gave him permission to speak to whomever he needed to.

Nothing ever came of it, and the reason is because I had very little coping mechanisms back then, other than cannabis, so on that day I looked like a complete psychopath who had indeed lost their mind and I very much was.

But from the heart of the storm, I felt clear and relaxed for the first time in my life. On that particular day, Karma decided the truth was going to come up whether I wanted it to or not, and when it did I felt free.

For the first time in my life.

What the fuck do you mean I can finally say the words “I was raped” out loud? What the fuck do you mean I’m ALLOWED to say that it was wrong?

The fuck do you mean it’s against the law and that there are cops out there willing to believe me? Brian was, and to date is, the only cop to believe me, but I’ll take it.

I’ll take one out of the many because now I know I’m not alone. There are calculated risks to being willing to lose your mind.

Many people, after a single psychotic episode, don’t come back. Some people love the madness; I mean they cling to it, and they love the rush of it. I am not one of those people.

I loved it for a moment: I remember lying on the bed when they finally came to the waiting room for me. Someone, I don’t know who, said “You’re safe now,” and I remember pausing, just for what felt like the longest half-second of my life.

I R E M E M B E R feeling and K N O W I N G I was safe: And that’s when I let go. I screamed like there was no tomorrow; I screamed so loud I scared them enough that they had to strap me down and drug me out; I screamed until I was choking on my own tears.

I screamed until the darkness didn’t hurt anymore, and then I kept screaming.

When I woke up the next morning, I was different. For one night out of twenty-something years in my whole life, I was safe.

One night.

Just one. For the FIRST Time in my life, when they closed that door, I knew I could rest. I had been in fight or flight for so long that although I was completely unaware of my state, my nervous system was broken.

I went back to B several times – I wanted him to know. Even though he was an assaulter of mine, he hardly qualified as the worst experience I’d had with a man and yes I know how sad that was, but I needed him to know.

Only to find out he’d already been made aware, and decided to call me a victim in that way that really meant “I think you’re lying.”

So I left Vancouver, and honestly didn’t look back. I wrote the books, I told the story, I was wellness checked by cops, nurses, doctors, and deemed insane.

Because it’s soooo much easier to villify the victim then support her. I went to Victim’s Services, and was told by the Surrey Women’s Center team that in order to access their free counselling, I needed to be willing to press charges, and only if charges were approved, would I receive counselling.

I repeated my story several times to no avail. Because I’d reported abuse before, because it had a habit of finding me, they decided it would be easier to push me further over the edge by telling me, “It did not happen.”

So I sucked it up. For nine years, I have taken pills I don’t like taking that DO help calm some of the symptoms of dysfunction, but not enough that I can rush out and get a second job and am suddenly okay again.

For nine years I have repeatedly said “I don’t hear voices, I hear my own thoughts.” For nine years I’ve said “No, I am not paranoid, yes I believe there are people who want me dead, no I don’t think that means the world is out to get me.”

For nine years I’ve told the same story, allegedly looking for “attention,” that has never come, just to ruin the lives of what? Society’s youngest and finest…pedophiles? That’s who we’re protecting?

I am honestly surprised. I truly believed that I lived in a world that values children, because that’s what I was indoctrinated into believing. Waking up to the realization that kids don’t even rank on the list of things white supremacy cares about is soul-crushing.

I grew up surrounded by white supremacy without knowing how to acknowledge what I was seeing or experiencing. I didn’t have the language that I have today because my abuser’s protection depended on my vigilant inability to focus in class or in the world due to trauma.

It wasn’t until I met sex workers who were raped by “Johns” that I realized if what was happening to them was wrong, then what was done to me, was also wrong.

It was Sex Worker Rights Advocates like the amazing Dr. Kate Lister who started Whores of Yore to educate women about sexual habits of the ancestors, while creating a safe space to open dialogue about sexual intimacy across the spectrum of sexuality.

Because of women like Dr. Kate, women like me understand that we’re allowed to enjoy sexual pleasure after sexual assault.

It’s because of women who run BDSM sites, and sites that talk about sexuality and positive stories of exploring sex, that I fully believe my trauma isn’t the source of my power.

Going insane wasn’t a thing that I chose to do; it was, however, a complete and total necessity so that I could let it all go.

If I’d been able to go out into the middle of the desert and light a fucking bonfire like I’ve been dreaming about since I was eight years old, I’d be doing that. However, I had 1 chance to let it all out, and I had to, because if I didn’t, me, myself and I, wouldn’t be here today.

Make no mistake, if Officer Brian, whatever his name was with the green eyes from VPD, hadn’t been there, I would have gone home to Surrey and plotted diabolical things.

Instead, I came home, and I wrote about it, and I changed the path of what would have been a very dark future.

Now, this being all said, at the end of the day, not a single person – woman, man or inbetween – is welcome in my life if I knew you nine years ago, unless I DECIDE I want you here, and there ain’t many of you I want back.

This isn’t me being mean or cruel, this is me knowing that when push came to shove soooo many of you chose to believe the worst in me, so that the cops couldn’t investigate, that at the end of the day many of my rapists who are in prison, are there for drug crimes, not rape crimes.

And there may never be a day when I get to face them in the court of law, but at least for now I can sleep knowing that “I” did what “I” could to leave the space around me better off than when I got here.

I know that coming clean had to happen. I wish to all high Hell it had been anyone BUT me, but at the same time, think about all the Hell you’ve been through…who would you choose to suffer in your place…could you? For real?

No, you couldn’t because what kind of sociopath, wishes evil on children?

Unfortunately, there’s no getting around the fact that given the opportunity, people might choose evil. But that being said, when they finally reach the end of the tunnel of darkness, when they finally find the light, maybe you’ll be their “Officer Brian with the green eyes.”

XOXO

Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl

“Like a Revolving Door of I Already Did That…” Life With Psychosis is…Interesting

******TRIGGER WARNING****** Before you read any further please note that this essay contains real stories of real abuse that may cause harm to your psyche. Please read with caution.

Even on this website, I’ve never really talked about what life feels like when you’re in the middle of a psychotic episode. I’ve talked around it, but very few people discuss what it feels like to be in it.

And honestly, I think that’s because we just often don’t have the words.

For some of us, psychotic episodes can be absolutely petrifying. We have no concept of who we are, what we want or need; we aren’t focused on mental health. We aren’t focused on healing.

If You Don’t Sacrifice For What You Want, What You Want Becomes The Sacrifice. – JessGalindo87

We are mostly focused on trying to function, trying to focus. Here’s the thing: when you are in the middle of a psychotic episode, you feel completely sane.

Often, for the first time in a long effing time. Often, it’s everyone else that is psychotic, while to your brain, you’re making perfect sense.

The day I realized that the man I was going to for help was also one of the same men who beat me the night I was gang abused at A.H’s house was the day I literally broke my mind.

A few months before this realization, I had gone to B.G. at Adrenaline Tattoo’s for a tattoo on my left hand. I had gone to tell him I’d been abused, but he was acting so weird. The reason I wanted to tell HIM, was because the night I was abused, they used his name.

They shoved a phone in my face with his picture on it, and asked me how I knew him. I laughed, “he’s my tattoo artist, you fucking idiot.” They didn’t believe me, and so they had a man rape me, and say it was BG doing the act.

Now here’s where it gets really fucked up. This particular tattoo artist has assaulted me by groping me and putting his hands down my pants and shirt twice.

The first time, when he inked my shoulder – I didn’t forget. I trusted him when he said he had sobered up and changed, and so I went back after I was raped to tell him there were men out there raping girls, using his name. And he did it again.

So the day I realized who my counsellor was connected to, I lost my shit, and I went to tell B to call 911, to tell him what was happening, because in that particular moment, I genuinely thought I was moments from death.

To my mind, abusers were everywhere, and the only person who knew my details, who had known me for years, that I could go to, was yet another abuser. It makes perfect sense that I lost my ever-loving fucking mind.

But I found it that same day. There was a cop there named Brian, at my request – I gave him as many details as I could and gave him permission to speak to whomever he needed to.

Nothing ever came of it, and the reason is because I had very little coping mechanisms back then, other than cannabis, so on that day I looked like a complete psychopath who had indeed lost their mind and I very much was.

But from the heart of the storm, I felt clear and relaxed for the first time in my life. On that particular day, Karma decided the truth was going to come up whether I wanted it to or not, and when it did I felt free.

For the first time in my life.

What the fuck do you mean I can finally say the words “I was raped” out loud? What the fuck do you mean I’m ALLOWED to say that it was wrong?

The fuck do you mean it’s against the law and that there are cops out there willing to believe me? Brian was, and to date is, the only cop to believe me, but I’ll take it.

I’ll take one out of the many because now I know I’m not alone. There are calculated risks to being willing to lose your mind.

Many people, after a single psychotic episode, don’t come back. Some people love the madness; I mean they cling to it, and they love the rush of it. I am not one of those people.

I loved it for a moment: I remember lying on the bed when they finally came to the waiting room for me. Someone, I don’t know who, said “You’re safe now,” and I remember pausing, just for what felt like the longest half-second of my life.

I R E M E M B E R feeling and K N O W I N G I was safe: And that’s when I let go. I screamed like there was no tomorrow; I screamed so loud I scared them enough that they had to strap me down and drug me out; I screamed until I was choking on my own tears.

I screamed until the darkness didn’t hurt anymore, and then I kept screaming.

When I woke up the next morning, I was different. For one night out of twenty-something years in my whole life, I was safe.

One night.

Just one. For the FIRST Time in my life, when they closed that door, I knew I could rest. I had been in fight or flight for so long that although I was completely unaware of my state, my nervous system was broken.

I went back to B several times – I wanted him to know. Even though he was an assaulter of mine, he hardly qualified as the worst experience I’d had with a man and yes I know how sad that was, but I needed him to know.

Only to find out he’d already been made aware, and decided to call me a victim in that way that really meant “I think you’re lying.”

So I left Vancouver, and honestly didn’t look back. I wrote the books, I told the story, I was wellness checked by cops, nurses, doctors, and deemed insane.

Because it’s soooo much easier to villify the victim then support her. I went to Victim’s Services, and was told by the Surrey Women’s Center team that in order to access their free counselling, I needed to be willing to press charges, and only if charges were approved, would I receive counselling.

I repeated my story several times to no avail. Because I’d reported abuse before, because it had a habit of finding me, they decided it would be easier to push me further over the edge by telling me, “It did not happen.”

So I sucked it up. For nine years, I have taken pills I don’t like taking that DO help calm some of the symptoms of dysfunction, but not enough that I can rush out and get a second job and am suddenly okay again.

For nine years I have repeatedly said “I don’t hear voices, I hear my own thoughts.” For nine years I’ve said “No, I am not paranoid, yes I believe there are people who want me dead, no I don’t think that means the world is out to get me.”

For nine years I’ve told the same story, allegedly looking for “attention,” that has never come, just to ruin the lives of what? Society’s youngest and finest…pedophiles? That’s who we’re protecting?

I am honestly surprised. I truly believed that I lived in a world that values children, because that’s what I was indoctrinated into believing. Waking up to the realization that kids don’t even rank on the list of things white supremacy cares about is soul-crushing.

I grew up surrounded by white supremacy without knowing how to acknowledge what I was seeing or experiencing. I didn’t have the language that I have today because my abuser’s protection depended on my vigilant inability to focus in class or in the world due to trauma.

It wasn’t until I met sex workers who were raped by “Johns” that I realized if what was happening to them was wrong, then what was done to me, was also wrong.

It was Sex Worker Rights Advocates like the amazing Dr. Kate Lister who started Whores of Yore to educate women about sexual habits of the ancestors, while creating a safe space to open dialogue about sexual intimacy across the spectrum of sexuality.

Because of women like Dr. Kate, women like me understand that we’re allowed to enjoy sexual pleasure after sexual assault.

It’s because of women who run BDSM sites, and sites that talk about sexuality and positive stories of exploring sex, that I fully believe my trauma isn’t the source of my power.

Going insane wasn’t a thing that I chose to do; it was, however, a complete and total necessity so that I could let it all go.

If I’d been able to go out into the middle of the desert and light a fucking bonfire like I’ve been dreaming about since I was eight years old, I’d be doing that. However, I had 1 chance to let it all out, and I had to, because if I didn’t, me, myself and I, wouldn’t be here today.

Make no mistake, if Officer Brian, whatever his name was with the green eyes from VPD, hadn’t been there, I would have gone home to Surrey and plotted diabolical things.

Instead, I came home, and I wrote about it, and I changed the path of what would have been a very dark future.

Now, this being all said, at the end of the day, not a single person – woman, man or inbetween – is welcome in my life if I knew you nine years ago, unless I DECIDE I want you here, and there ain’t many of you I want back.

This isn’t me being mean or cruel, this is me knowing that when push came to shove soooo many of you chose to believe the worst in me, so that the cops couldn’t investigate, that at the end of the day many of my rapists who are in prison, are there for drug crimes, not rape crimes.

And there may never be a day when I get to face them in the court of law, but at least for now I can sleep knowing that “I” did what “I” could to leave the space around me better off than when I got here.

I know that coming clean had to happen. I wish to all high Hell it had been anyone BUT me, but at the same time, think about all the Hell you’ve been through…who would you choose to suffer in your place…could you? For real?

No, you couldn’t because what kind of sociopath, wishes evil on children?

Unfortunately, there’s no getting around the fact that given the opportunity, people might choose evil. But that being said, when they finally reach the end of the tunnel of darkness, when they finally find the light, maybe you’ll be their “Officer Brian with the green eyes.”

XOXO

Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl

Believe Survivors You Cuck!

Trigger Warning
This Post Contains Conversations About Surviving Childhood Trauma, and Mental Health Issues With Survival Tips For Those Who Are Trying To Escape. If You Or Someone You Know Needs Help, Please Reach Out and We Will Connect You To Resources Anonymously.

Yeah, we’re stronger. Yes, we’re wiser, but no, we aren’t supposed to be these people. I do not believe that we are supposed to be people who understand trauma, abuse, and the horrific nature of human beings who can’t keep their hands to themselves.

Today, as I am writing this, the world is finding out that a rather famous actor, writer, investor, and model, has come forward with allegations of abuse.

I want to prepare you, the allegations are vivid. It’s difficult to hear, but it’s necessary.

As bad as you think as it was for you, for me, for those around us, it’s equally bad if not worse, for someone who is still stuck in the shame of silent shadows.

The ones who whisper “Me too,” so quietly you can barely hear it, but you can’t see who, are living in the kind of Hell I wish on no one.

The volume inside their heads is loud.

The pain of the abuse, the memories are graphic. The cycles we live in, when we are in the shadows are insanity inducing.

When we do come forward, unless we’re famous, few people will take us seriously. Few people will believe us, and even and ESPECIALLY when we’re famous, the ownus is on us to live through:

• The humiliation of others explaining why our accusations are either not valid, unimportant, or unworthy of beaing heard.
• Told we deserved it/wanted it/were made stronger by it (DO FUCK OFF with this narrative!)
• Somehow, someway, we must have invited it
• Being asked if we liked it by cops taking the report
• Told that we’re psychotic and that we made it up ala Alice in Wonderland (You should have your license revoked!)

On and on and on, there will always be Death By A Thousand Cuts, because if our abusers don’t cut us the negligence of our communities will.

BELIEVE SURVIVORS.

That’s the fucking mission. The very fact that you don’t see rape culture, is precisely what allows rape culture to persist. Men grow up raising daughters to be princesses instead of warriors, and sons as warriors instead of emotionally regulated human beings with empathy, which is precisely the opposite of raising princesses.

I chose not to have children because I was abused so badly that I was and am terrified of continuing the cycle. The cycle of domestic abuse, ends with me.

I will not allow men or children into my life, if I cannot ensure their safety, and as I work on myself, I begin to realize that I’m not the problem. I was the victim – chosen by men who had more than one or twelve screws loose.

Men who said shit like “The goddess chose me,” Bitch no, she didn’t. You were high on crack J. I remember distinctly, you fucking pedophile fuck.

And to every single person who watched people like me, girls and women, boys, men, trans, and non-binary and or a-sexual people come forward, to all of you who watched us came forward, stayed silent when you knew the truth and yet had the absolute unmitigated gawl, to judge us for coming forward? That’s the betrayal I am talking about.

I am coming on ten years of being domestic violence free, that’s not something I should have to celebrate, and yet it feels worthy of celebrating.

It feels like a birthday almost, like a re-birth of whom I might have been, had I had the space to grow. But the thing is, I will never be that person, because I AM the person who had their wings metaphorically ripped off, almost physically actually.

I AM the person who went through Hell to come here and say yup, it gets better, but the thing is…if you want it to get better, you have to fight for it.

I’m not the person who lived through life blissfully unaware that racism and sexism and white supremacy and colonialism go hand in hand.

I used to be, and then I got raped, again. By men who had been raping me as a child for as long as I can remember, and all I got in return was being told I was crazy.

I’m not huge on being bitter about this, but I am, because yes asshole, my saftey is at risk and no it’s not paranoid to think men who can do all this, and get away with it, couldn’t do worse.

But as many of you mental health patients understand, we’re not allowed to be honest about our fears, because if we are then we’re “Paranoid,” and that’s unhealthy.

Heavy dose of sarcasm. I don’t say all this just because I’m angry, I say this because I want you to understand that if the world were kinder to survivors and less kind to perpetrators, then we would have a lot less shit to heal from in this world.

I say this because if you’re going to come forward with your story, I have some tools to help you:

• Build yourself a network. Reach out to domestic violence shelters and put your name on every list you can, so that when you’re ready, you can escape as soon as possible. Most DV Shelters have a network, so they have ways of moving women and children who need to be moved with the aid and assistance of law enforcement.
• Save. Start a side hustle, knitting, sewing, laundry, whatever it might be, if you’re already working, start saving for escape time. Ask your boss/manager for a raise, explain you have tight times at home. DO NOT UNLESS YOU TRUST THEM IMPLICITY tell them why, they will be one of the first places your abuser goes looking.
• Go on a social media clense. Delete everything, and share with your trusted network, the next step.
• Create anonymous accounts, FROM A BURNER PHONE – or use a VPN You can trust (good luck with that, hello FBI) – tell your story as best you can and use this to DM/Privately message your network
• Get new credit cards and do NOT link them to your spouse. MAKE SURE AS YOU SIGN UP YOU DO THIS WITH A NEW EMAIL/ADDRESS ETC like don’t put your home addy on it, put the house three doors down, if you can.
• When it’s go time, leave everything you don’t absolutely need, or can’t grab in an emergency. Tell no one you’re leaving until the last possible moment, including your network, they’ll understand.

These are all steps I COULDN’T take when I came forward, all things that I didn’t have time to do after I was raped. My ONLY escape was telling my story, which was far worse, because I didn’t get to run away, like most survivors, I had to face it head on, one way or another.

Each of us is going to go through a different set of steps to escape when we need to, each of us is going to find something that works for them, and some things that don’t. The one thing I’ve learned however is that changing your weight and your hair color does wonders to confuse the fuck out of your abusers who will walk right by you without a second glance when you’re 100lbs heavier with purple hair.

I hope you come forward, because you deserve to live in the heat of validation. But I also hope, that’s safe for you to come out of the shadows, I know how cold it can be there, and I’ll do whatever I can to help keep you warm, but the thing that’s going to change your life the most is not accepting that which you can’t change.

It’s fighting back against the indoctrination of depression, and reminding yourself that you as an individual were not put here to suffer at the hands of weak minded individuals who are trying to turn you into something you were never meant to be.

You can come forward, and we’ll be here. You can hold onto it, and we’ll be here, just know whoever you are, wherever you are, we believe survivors.

XOXO

Devon J Hall

The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl