Out of the Belly of the Misogynist Beast

(Back story: TW:  The author survived a robbery in 1980. By never dealing with the emotional scars this left, the oversight has compounded until, over three decades later, she was flooded with anxiety, in almost constant pain or discomfort. Compensating for blood vessel damage, there is a drum in her head that accompanies her every waking minute igniting episodes that she experiences on TOP of daily anxiety attacks that mimic heart attacks, weakness spells, joint stiffness, body dysmorphia, varying levels of capacity in a day, fogmindedness and depression. Before the C-PTSD diagnosis, you can imagine this could cause quite a smokescreen to have to function within to be able to have any kind of normal life.

Prior to discovering there was a name for all she experienced that put obstacles endlessly in her path, she raised children to adults, acquired a women's studies and indigenous studies degree, married and divorced. The exit from the betrayed marriage destroyed what was left of her safety, and a year of homelessness became a downward spiral of pain, panic, disaster, suicidal thought and  hopelessness. Amazingly, she pulled herself out of that tailspin, found a physician who could diagnose what had been wrong with her all along, and she could get on with educating herself, and emerging into a new life, blinders and obstacles removed, she could start to share her stories to shed light on issues for those who like her, had been voiceless.
 
Free at Last

The astonishing revelations with a counselor couched in PTSD and my world finally feels like it's turned around. The information I have gleaned about my physiology has given me the missing puzzle pieces for many things.

I have been looking at how my past relationships began and how they existed. I have turned the lens on how it might have been different, had I known what I know now about my fragility, about my responses to threats to my safety, about my decision to have children even...

The discovery that I experienced when I began university was one of the saving graces when I was in my blindness about the syndrome that I function within. Because of my finding out that in spite of my internal dialogue constantly running a vicious commentary behind the scenes, behind my eyes, of putting me down and making me feel less than, I could now see with my own two eyes that I was high functioning with a capacity for intellect that astonished me. I discovered that there was a body of work, a feminist sociological body of work, that addressed this beast that was my world, the patriarchal culture I was at the mercy of, and that information became a pool I swam in, voluntarily, on a daily basis... and when I wasn't ingesting the philosophies of feminist minds, I was applying the analysis of what I'd read and learned to the world around me.

Little did I know, I was drowning myself in triggers.

I mentioned to N (my therapist) that I was having a difficult time reading without getting nauseous. Other than what I read on my laptop, which oddly, doesn't make me react, every time I pick up something and attempt to focus on the topic it's portraying, my stomach responded with flipflops and a tightening of my throat.

She asked me, 'What are you reading?'

That gave me pause. Why would she ask that? I had been thinking that I needed my eyes checked, never associating it to the big elephant that lives in my room 24/7. I thought about it. I read autobiographies, murder mysteries, feminist discourse and the interwebz. All but the latter have lately made me so ill that I have been putting the book down within minutes of picking it up.

N said 'You have been in the belly of the misogynist beast and now you're out. Why would you immerse yourself in triggers about the beast in your recovery?'

Then she explained that the flood of fight or flight endorphins make my gut go acidic and that causes the immediate nausea as my stomach counters the input of gastric acids. It's not just 'in my head'. Imagine that.

What a way to close a session, huh?

I went home and couldn't get that phrase out of my mind. The belly of the misogynist beast.

I looked at what I do with my beautiful feminist Sistahoodz phenomena, with the bevy of smaller pages that she umbrellas over, and realized that I had missed something in my attempt to create space for the relevant discourses of the healing wise woman and her allies... I realized that what I was missing was a place for the triggering information that is still important, when it is couched in respectful and non-diminishing non-violent language, but it doesn't need to be mixed up with all the empowering and beautiful information that comprises the day to day context of Sistahoodz' page.

I thought about 'The Belly of The Misogynist Beast' as a title for a page to put all the dark that was still valid in and then I looked at what an acronym that created... B.O.M.B. Not a particularily attractive option, considering this coincidentially turned out to be the day that the Boston Marathon was blown to bits... And so... out of the  darkness, Bmb was born...

The feminist Facebook pages that I personally  currently follow who have the word 'feminism' in their names constantly deal with strange, angry male commentors who challenge and bait. I didn't want that to happen to my pages. I had learned how to repel this mentality of miscreant over the years of teaching alternative menstruation so I applied that to avoid attracting that element. By using simple initials, and then informing the Sistahoodz followers that the page was there for them, was good enough for me. Word of mouth will do the rest, letting conscious people share with other good conscious people, and leaving the problem children of the misogynist beastie to their own devices.

Bmb - The belly of the misogynist beast... Truth to Power Over

Starhawk's writings about Power-over of the current western industrial model speak of a Power - with, that is in keeping with permacultural, sustainable, healing, affirmative living that can counter that imposing, wasteful influence. Wherever 'Power Over' information comes my way that is reflective of patriarchy, misogyny or its assorted associations, those postings will find themselves relegated to the Bmb, it's where they belong, a safe space where the karma and vibes are inured and rendered useless, a kryptonite-proof, lead-lined chamber where we can don our gloves, smudge ourselves, get grounded and then enter, to pick up and look at these unfairnesses, inequities and random horrors that comprise the world where women are required to prove their worth and men assume their privilege without having earned it. To turn a feminist lens on the darkness and bring it into light so that those of us who are living in the flood of our constant anxiousness can gain a better understanding on the root of this phenomena of PTSD, especially in relation to how we are women in such a distorted reality.

Feminist PTSD Analysis - Shedding Light on Domestic PTSD

This page brings light to conversations that are solution oriented and relevant to people who are not first responders or military vets yet who have had life traumas enough to qualify for being at the mercy of this life challenging disorder.

For the past 30 years, I have been living in a constant FLOOD of countering fear in my gut. Dread follows me like a bad debt.

Through the years of raising my five kids, I thought that it was just my debts and mother instinct that caused me to experience the sensation of constant trepidation. Now I am learning that I have a physiological response to the sum of all the abuses I have suffered in my life and its taken its toll on me.

Thank heavens, I am out of the belly of the misogynist beast at last.

I have been instructed to read books that don't contain triggers, to identify what triggers me and then to seek to remove that from my world. I should watch movies that don't contribute to the trigger response. Do you know how hard that is? TV is triggering me within 30 seconds of turning it on because of its hard line on murder as normality.

I am realizing that there needs to be a feminist PTSD discourse. We need to couch the language of the beast in our own terms.

But, right now, I am not going to be the one to initiate this. I've been told to step away from that belly for now. I am free. Let others pick up that gauntlet as it is spring in my world. There is a garden to plant and sunny skies to walk under and I am getting the help I need.

No jangling phones, no angry men, no diminishment, nada. Stay out of the trigger zone, my sistas. I got out. When I must deal with authorities who seek to belittle, I will do it with my army of support and not take it personally, putting someone grounded between the affront and my tender, fragile psyche.

I am going to do yoga, meditate, get massage, investigate other modalities that help me centre and ground and counter 33 years of living unaware that I was being an amazingly resilient survivor who didn't have to be coping alone.

The Bmb Facebook page will continue to showcase the hard-to-swallow issues that are relevant, but I don't have to discern their analysis... I'll leave that to the sistas who are not triggered.

I'm out of the belly of the misogynist beast.