adulthood is realising no one cares about you and the show must go on

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@wheresyourheart
adulthood is realising no one cares about you and the show must go on
“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.”
— Maya Angelou
When I was 15/16 I was in an accident that left me with chronic pain and internal damage that meant pregnancy was highly unlikely for me. I’ve never wanted children. The reality of me probably being unable to have children never bothered me. It’s bothered everyone else though. People have cried more over my inability to have children than I have. No matter what I say no one will believe that I’m happy in my body regardless of its ability to produce children. They mourn my body like it belongs to them. As though my ability to have children has any affect on their life.
A few months ago I missed two periods in a row and took a pregnancy test that turned out to be a false positive. I went to Planned Parenthood to get a professional opinion and with the full intention of getting an abortion if it turned out that I was pregnant against all odds. There was no fear beyond the usual nervousness you experience at the prospect of a medical procedure. There was no emotional turmoil over my decision. I know what I want and it isn’t kids. The choice was an easy one for me.
When I finally opened up about my pregnancy scare to a few friends, all of them “good” feminist women, they were almost offended over how easy the decision was for me. “If you had been pregnant that may have been your only shot at a biological child. How could you just give that up without more thought?” One asked me. “So many women in your position would kill to be able to get pregnant and you were going to just throw it away?” Another one said to me.
I am not an incubator for other women’s hopes and dreams. If I ever do get pregnant I will not stay that way just because other people in my position would be grateful to have a chance at experiencing pregnancy/birth. I’m not interested in that. I never will be. I don’t want children.
If your idea of “my body my choice” only extends to certain people it’s bullshit. If you think certain women should be grateful for unwanted pregnancies just because any pregnancy for them was unlikely you’re disrespecting their choice. Stop treating women with fertility/reproductive health issues like we’re broken or should feel sad over our health when we tell you we don’t. Stop thinking we owe you “miracle babies” even when we don’t want children.
I am not an incubator for other women’s hopes and dreams
I am not an incubator for other women’s hopes and dreams
I am not an incubator for other women’s hopes and dreams
“Why do you flinch so hard?”
Maybe there was a time when someone wasn’t kidding when they swung at me.
yup. right up there with “why do you get so panicky when people raise their voice?”
This.
Or why are you such a prude? I barely even touched you? Maybe I didn’t have a choice the last time someone put their hands on me.
Confession: I used to belong to trump culture.
Not entirely willingly, mind. I was young, religious, and I made the naïve mistake in thinking that all Christians were like the ones I had encountered at my home church: warm, tolerant, kind. I fell in love, and we did what young, hormonal Christian teenagers did: rushed into a marriage.
I realized my mistake almost immediately, but it took far too long to get out.
Personally, I endured abuse at the hands of my new husband—mental, physical, sexual, economic, emotional. You name it, he did it. Brutal is an understatement. He systematically broke me down until I was a shell of a human being. I’m still dealing with the emotional fallout and physical side effects, and I probably will be for another decade at least.
That’s personally, but let’s talk his family. Because he was an extreme case, yes, but he was raised with the idea that women existed to keep their mouths shut and their legs open. I spit out two children faster than I could whip my head, because birth control wasn’t part of god’s grand plan for my life. I was fulfilling my purpose as a mother, and wasn’t that great? My husband didn’t want the first baby. He wanted me for himself, see? Abortion was unthinkable, but he fully expected to carry a baby—my baby—to term, then give it away.
Keeping him was my first rebellion. Keeping the next one was my second.
In the time I belonged to that family, I watched my mother-in-law endure the same, though less extreme mistreatment. I watched every young female family member be groped by the family patriarch. “That’s just how it is.” I was shamed for making a fuss about it. I watched an older cousin try to sexually assault my teenage sister-in-law and she was the one who felt ashamed. We women made family dinners while the men sat on their asses. My husband and I lived with his parents for a short time. She and I would go to work each morning—an hour each way—with our husbands sitting in their robes in the living room, playing video games. When we returned hours later, weary, exhausted, they hadn’t moved. The standard greeting? “What’s for dinner.”
That’s his family, and yes, some families are sexist, but let’s talk about church. That’s where all of this is validated, encouraged, taught. Imagine my shock, when I went to my new husbands’ family church and encountered muted xenophobia and racism, a heavy dose of homophobia, and some damned overt sexism (see above.)
Equal roles, but different. Sound familiar? This is still being taught to little girls today.
In church, I listened with quiet disgust as pastors preached about how awful my sister—one of the gays—was. I piped up and asked how that sexual sin was any different than the two young church kids who’d just been caught “in a bad way”, soon to expect their first baby. Sexual sin is sexual sin, isn’t it? I sure did get an earful for that one. We did church boycotts: Disney, Target. Every Sunday School class: Job, cookies, and lets pray God saves the moos-lims before they all come over and blow us up. We revered people with white savior complexes who went to be jesus’s hands and feet and save the poor, helpless Africans.
Hate and ignorance, wrapped up in the holy Scripture. Hallelujah.
Meanwhile, I endured this abuse. This abuse, and every door slammed in my face as my husband hit me, tortured me. “Stay true to your vows,” the pastor would say. “You have communication issues,” our sister-in-law would tell us. My mother-in-law: “Linds, you just have to accept it. Love is a choice.”
“But what about the part where it says that husbands are to love their wives like Christ loves the church?” I asked.
My brother in law, joking: “This is why women aren’t supposed to speak in church.”
This America is alive and kicking, kids. It’s never gone away; it’s just been lurking, behind closed doors. “Pass the casual racism and meat loaf, would you? And get me a glass of water while you’re up. Ketchup, too.” What I’m scared about, truly, is that I know this. And these ideas are now validated. Now mainstream. Almost 50% of our population believes this is a good idea.
“It’s our time to take America back.”
What in the hell, if they’ve been saying these things behind closed doors, and if they believe them In The Name Of God—what in the hell are they going to say in the open, now? What in the hell are they going to do?
The 50s are revered as the aspirational yester-year, days gone by. Progress, as we call it, is godlessness to them. We, the godless libs, took Jesus out of schools. We’ve gone wrong ever since.
This is the America people want back, and that’s my first fear.
The second is this:
I got out. And I’m terrified that this, my success story, won’t happen anymore.
I’m the rare statistic. I un-brainwashed and educated myself. I got counseling (against every Christian advice) to treat severe post-partum depression. In the process of becoming a healthier person, I realized what a goddamn mess I was.
It took three tries and a pastor-pseudo-therapist legitimately telling me, “You know if he hits you again, Linds, I’m going to have to tell you to leave.”
All regretful, like it was bad news.
“Why should I stick around and wait for it to happen again?” I asked.
He didn’t have an answer. I left the next week.
It took a few boldfaced lies (it’s temporary, it’s just a separation), and a few miracles, and a large support system of family and friends who all but plucked me out of that hell.
For leaving? My price was excommunication. From his family, our friends, our church. I am the heathen who Divorced my Husband and broke our home. In that entire city, only three people talk to me now.
(No loss, but it took a long time to recognize that.)
I never, ever would have made it on my own. I had two small children, a new job that barely paid a living wage, and I was, as I’ve said, a shell of a human being. I left him and went straight to the human services office. Without subsidized childcare, healthcare, and food supplements, we would have starved or been homeless. It never would have been possible.
These are the services that will probably be cut first.
How will anyone in my situation ever be able to leave? They won’t. Not to mention federal funding for shelters, crisis counseling for families, healthcare for abused women, and legal services for domestic violence victims. Throw in a court system that doesn’t value women, and a cultural mentality that believes what happens behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors… What hope do abused, trapped women have? None in hell.
If this is what makes America great again, I want out. I’ve been there, done that, and I’m never, ever doing it again.
You’ll take it back over my cold, lifeless body.
This is the dark, dirty secret of Amerika: Women are not free.
Signal boost the hell out of this!
You mean Amerikkka.
Just another reason that the KKK is part of the true terrorists… but they’ll never be prosecuted (unlike what happened to a truly beneficial and helpful organization that was the Black Panthers, which were designated a high-level threat by the FBI and CIA just for daring to help the black people, especially black women, when those racists AF white-man-dominated government-backed organizations wanted them all quietly dead.)
The KKK will never be prosecuted in today’s climate… because our climate supports and validates them. Emboldens them enough to march without hoods and make the Nazi salute. To suggest concentration camps and lynch mobs. To strip EVERYBODY but cishet neurotypical able-bodied rich white Christian men of their human rights, and to give all wealth and property ownership to the aforementioned category alone.
All in the name of “making America great again.”
I’ve no doubt they want to bring back a “version of America” that existed before the Civil War. That, more than any 50’s era white male America, sounds like their ultimate game plan.
And we gotta stop this NOW. Now before it gets worse and continues to get worse. Because all our lives are on the line.
Especially the most vulnerable: queer disabled neurodivergent transgender poor women of color who are non-Christian. The closer you get to that most marginalized of all intersecting lacks of privilege in this society… the worse off your position and life expectancy. :(
Never forget this and stand together!
“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
—
Benjamin Mee
things to never forget
(via astound)
me @ very talkative cats: i love you so much. please continue your story. tell me about your day. i love you
I don’t even procrastinate anymore I just straight up neglect 100% of my responsibilities
honestly life’s too short to not cry about stupid shit like sometimes you just gotta fling yourself onto your bed and burst into tears, cleanse ur little heavy heart
a relationship isn’t always 50/50. some days a person will struggle. you suck it up and pick up that 80/20 cus they need you. that’s love.
True this —- but keep in mind that there’s a difference between someone who is occasionally the 20% to your 80 because they’re having a rough time, and someone who only ever puts in 20% to your 80%.
Keep the former, help them through their rough patch. Suck it up and be the 80%, because they need you. But the latter? The people who are only ever 20% while you’re giving your all? Ditch them. Ditch them and find someone who will be the 80% to your 20 on your bad days.
via weheartit
i love people who get excited about stars
I hate being so sensitive. I hate being able to detect the slightest change in the way people message me, or talk to me, or look at me. I hate overthinking about it for the whole night. I hate when I can feel someone is slowly losing interest in me.