The journey begins ... or continues ... articulating the rollercoaster that is my life

[mumstheword]

Cis meaning - lives as the gender assigned at birth.
I mean the issues that come from living as a woman with a vagina, the issues of sex based oppression, the gendered violence of rape and sexual assault of young girls and women and the particular fears we have, experiences of menstruating, endometriosis, giving birth and the general fear we live with -
Is not being discussed as it should be because everyone's arguing over what it means to be a woman. I love my trans sisters, but seriously, they're never gonna get what it's like to be a cis woman and those experiences. And women shouldn't be silenced about stuff that effects women because not all women experience those things. It's not exclusionary to talk about this shit, and I won't stand for the majority of women being silenced about their experiences out of some pretend-inclusive desire that just serves to shut cis women up, because enough of that happens already.
(and yes, I do get in trouble for this point of view but I never back down from an argument about it. It's kinda hard to argue that I'm anti-trans to shut me up because usually I'm arguing FOR the trans community, and my record speaks for itself. )

Yeah, when I did "Gender, Sex and Culture" at uni, we got totally overlooked. It's like "oh well, you guys are fine, nothing to see here, people." I did my major assignment on my very non binary neighbor, but it would have been great if the unit had covered issues relevant to my struggles as a straight woman. I'd just come out of long term DV and was still subject to the abuse via my children being still in the mental and physical grip of their father, my terrible economic situation and thus housing situation, and the very abusive parental alienation and marginalization and stigmatization perpetuated on me, but no, I'm not special enough to have any material pertinant to me, in the entire unit.
I took it all with good grace, but in hindsight, I feel a little ripped off.

 

[mumstheword]

So, my inner dude is Aspie. He's the part of me that strongly identifies with my Dad. My mother always said "You are so like your father", he's that part.

He looks like a cross between my dad as a much younger man, a youthful man, and the two brothers in The Perch Creek Family Jug Band.

He's an intellectual. My dad spoke to me about current affairs, politics, books, religion, the media, history, but nothing else, when I was growing up.

My inner dude is an underconfident, underempowered young man , who has a good heart, cares about humanity, but, and I hate to admit this, he's a bit misogynistic. That's right, he's not fond, or comfortable, with women, in general, doesn't trust them.

He's a very civil bloke, believes in reason, logic, sound arguments, rigorous intellectual debate and "good" science, he's also quite spiritually minded and very curious and loves to expand our mind.

He's caucasian. Tall, gangly, has a head of thick, curly brown hair, very awkward around most people, much of the time, and he's asexual.

Yes, his misogyny is a problem.

He's quite self righteous, lofty in his ideals, a bit of a zealot really, hates hypocrisy but is a bit of a hypocrite.

He's altruistic and not materialistic, believes in the power of the intellect and of having good heart and spirits.

He wants to solve problems with his mind but is not really grounded or embodied, he lives in a disembodied, heady sense of (not quite) reality.

Distrusts femininity in general, resents indirect, manipulative, emotionally driven primal, physically driven, unexamined power plays that aren't above board, fair, and coming from "the bigger picture".

He's a scholar, an eternal student, a fact finder and scientist and an egalitarian, a young idealist, an Aspie. He has always got me through by disconnecting from our body and emotions, retreating into books, other people's thoughts and wisdom, and solving mysteries and problems. I draw on him a lot. I am looked after by him but he's ambivalent about my femininity. And I am a very female female, for the most part.

Curious.

 

[mumstheword]

So, my "remission" was short-lived.

Disappointingly, I haven't gotten out of bed today and it's 2 in the afternoon.
Feeling distinctly, "crazy lady in the Attic"-ish.
Headache, dispirited, bone weary, apathetic, a bit miserable. Damn.

Maybe acknowledging my guy part is giving him the floor to actually feel stuff.

Miserable, shit stuff, dissociated stuff.

Not quite so "integrated" as I thought ...wishful thinking, I guess.

My head hurts, my inner guy, Junior D, I'm calling him, has overused my/his brain and now I'm feeling him, he's soooooo tired in the frontal lobes.

Poop, this is not fun.

I don't even.have an official diagnosis of any dissociative disorders, but, my experiences are very indicative of one.

 

[mumstheword]

I guess it's pretty unpleasant to realize that one part of you doesn't like or trust the rest of you, because of your gender.

Feels horrible.

 

[mumstheword]

My Junior D is pissed off that we know all about the misogyny.
That we are not down with it.
That we are on to him.
He's trying to sabotage my new housekeeping and mothering only agenda.
I don't hate him but he's so distrustful of letting us be truly feminine.

 

[mumstheword]

So, Junior D. I'm not my mum, I'm not my grandmothers, I'm not any other mean.or dishonest kind of female. So why treat me so crap?
So you're scared, being female has meant rape, violence, vulnerability, abuse, childbirth, poverty, and shame, too much shame and lack of agency and empowerment. It's frightening. But we're ok. We're safe. We like being female. We've survived and we are a decent woman of integrity. We've earned a self respecting sense of self.

 

[Swift]

Great work mums. Here with you.

 

[mumstheword]

Great work mums. Here with you.

Thanks @Swift :-) You've helped. More than I can say. Thank you.

 

[mumstheword]

My brain hurts
How will I repair and create myself anew?
How do I heal the hurt of harrowing hiatus past? My prior filled with horror, tortured brain with gaps in it, too many gaps and breaks and spaces, and voids and terrors and violence and trapped, trapped, trapped ... maps of my mind show splintered, fractured, tangled tributary, neural nasties, triangulation, my direction yielded up by biology, melody, my heart's enmeshed though procreation, my womb offered up purpose, and a snare, hope and a means of torture, my mind and body conquered, in submission, slaved and kept docile, pregnant, fugitive, in constant crisis for countless days, months, years, going on and on and on and on, relentlessly, until the grave called me and I shut the lid on my coffin, shut the door behind me and fled, leaving my heart in many scattered pieces, shattered, but alive, barely and fighting hard, while without home or sanctuary, broken, shaking and beside myself for too long, but alive, by a thread, I hung on, to collect those pieces of my heart and give them, whole, to whom I love. I stayed for you, you are the world to me, my heart longing to give you more.
Grace gave me a way, and I took it. When I finally go, I'll leave, knowing you know I love you.

 

[Freida]

Oh mums -- I'm so sorry you are in so much pain. It's almost like you are giving birth to Aspie and Junior D is the jealous older child. Maybe he was used to being the only guy? And bringing another one in is a threat?
Here with you.....

 

[mumstheword]

I hadn't thought of it like that.
Junior D "tells me" that he has every right to be upset and distrustful of our mum and our grandmothers, they really frightened us and demoralized us. I validated that. He's much happier now.

I hadn't thought about Aspie being different. But then Aspie isn't really emotional, at all, just dissociated, avoidant of people, hides in intellectual pursuits. I think I'm going with Aspie as non gendered now. It's my part that is too disembodied and "mindy" so gender is more neutral and "non binary". I told my son I identify as a non binary female, but I think that's Aspie talking. It feels better to dissociate from my Aspie part because I'm definitely not all Aspergersy.

I ran the concern that I might be on the spectrum to my pdoc and a mental health support coodinator and they are paying it no mind, my support coordinator reckons I have way to much empathy to be on the spectrum, but, I'm still, very much, my father's offspring. Like my guy says, my dad is "Aspie as f*ck".

 

[mumstheword]

My ex used to say "Which one am I talking too now?" I just thought it was his usual abusive "you're crazy" shit.

I wasn't allowed to go get treatment though.

I was so busy with my kiddies for so many years.

The other week, when we were cleaning up, getting ready for the inspection, I switched into, I say, 5 year old me. I was fully co conscious but powerless to snap out of it. I even managed to cook, but it was some simple, any-kid-could-do-it canned mixed bean with canned tomatoes, heated-up dish, not my usual high-skill kinda nosh.

I flipped that night, when my guy started talking about his ex's borderline behaviour (We were watching Crazy Ex Girlfriend), being 5, I associated dangerous, needy and selfish women with my mum, wrenching me from my Dad, interstate and over a big body of water. We moved to Tasmania when I was 5, my Dad worked at Monash Uni, in Melbourne, my birth city. Instead, though, it was my guy who was going to be taken away from me, and it was neighbor lady and his ex who were going to do it.

I haven't been that crazy since.

I was borderliney.

Honest and insightful, though, in the end.

I worked out what my bonkers brain was doing and broke the spell. My guy and I made up and he was relieved I worked out my own trigger and undid that brain knot.

I felt proper and appropriate shame for the way I treated him and some of the toxic shame was gone, just like that, poof!

I think.maybe I used to be DIDish, but now I'm probably DDNOSish. My parents are both very, chronically, dissociative people, too. It's one of the things about them that I find very triggery.