Monday, March 30, 2009

On Shame and Silence

I was reading this week's PostSecret and one of the postcards really struck me. As I read it, I realized that it was my secret, something that has been at the back of my mind, always lurking and nagging, for a very long time now.



I was molested once, when I was 12. I didn't tell anyone until I was a bit older -- just before turning 17 actually. By that point, it was too late. The person who should have believed me didn't. I've learned to live with what happened, and draw strength and wisdom from it. Maybe one day I'll feel strong enough to write about it in a public forum. For now, I want to discuss something else.

What the postcard got me thinking about was how I felt after he denied ever touching me. I felt humiliated. Just as I had felt after it happened. I felt ashamed, like I shouldn't have opened my mouth and talked about it. Because it made people uncomfortable.

I've talked about it with a handful of people. Only once did I truly feel empathy -- it was just after it had happened and I was talking with a school-friend who was being physically abused at home. I don't remember our conversation well and we were children, but I truly felt like she got it. She knew the hopelessness and the feeling that you just had to keep quiet. Every other time, I would stumble over my words and wish I'd never started talking, because of how visibly-uncomfortable the other person would become.

It has affected the way I deal with it. Sometimes, like after reading the postcard, all I want to do is talk about it. I want someone else to understand. To understand me. But I can't, because I feel like I should be ashamed and anything else would make people uncomfortable.

The thing is, inside of me, I don't feel ashamed. I feel strong and confident. I don't blame myself, I don't hate myself. I'm constantly on guard, but I'm slowly learning to relax. I'm not afraid anymore.

And yet, I just can't get it out. Can't get past the barrier.

People want survivors of sexual abuse and assault to be ashamed. It's expected. I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Sexual assault exposes the worst of patriarchal power relations. It is the dehumanization of one person by another. It's taking agency away from another person and turning them into an object of one's control and power. And talking about it makes people uncomfortable, because if they hear too many personal accounts of sexual assault, maybe they'll have to revise their beliefs that sexual violence can be blamed on the victim, that there is no patriarchy at work.

Now, it's pretty easy to shut up perpetrators of sexual assault. They have the law to worry about. They wouldn't get anything out of talking about it.

But survivors have a reason to talk. Whether it's to get justice, get the pain off their chests, or just gain some kind of closure or higher understanding, survivors can benefit from talking about it. But that would make people uncomfortable. It would make people think, and question, and reconceptualize. They might know the perpetrator. It's easier to pretend not to listen, or to put it out of mind, or deny it, but it's more effective to just shut up the survivors before they start talking at all.

So, there is a general, un-spoken dictum that tells us that survivors should be ashamed, and therefore shouldn't want to talk about it.

But why should we feel ashamed? Why should we feel as if something's wrong with us? We don't conceptualize perpetrators as ashamed, or at least not in the same way as we do survivors. Perpetrators have actually done something to be ashamed of.

And part of me feels like the stigma of being a survivor of sexual assault would begin to be lifted if survivors started rejecting the shame and speaking up about their experiences. It's easy to make sexual assault invisible when it's just a bunch of stats. Now, imagine rape apologists or deniers saying the things they say if they knew their neighbour had been raped. Or their mother. Or a friend.

And I know that in the current atmosphere, they would go on denying the reality of sexual assault and feel safe doing it, but imagine a world where survivors felt safe talking about their experiences. Where the stigma of sexual assault no longer fell on their shoulders.

That is why part of me just wants to tell the world exactly what happened to me. Every detail, exactly how it made me feel afterwards. I want to make people uncomfortable and force them out of their safety zones. Because that comfort is exactly what allows people to do nothing, or to deny the importance of sexual assault. And yet, another part of me is still too ashamed to do it.

Friday, March 27, 2009

A Guide to My Heart pt. 3

Food edition. (Incidentally, I'm writing this while watching CSI:NY.)

What is there to say about food, really? It's delicious and, some may argue, a precondition for living!

I have a bit of a complicated relationship with food. For starters, I can't cook it to save my life. I mean, I've cooked rice that required nothing but to be left covered on the stove to boil for several minutes, and I managed to mess that up. It's not necessarily that I don't enjoy cooking occasionally, but I tend to get impatient with the whole process. The fewer the steps, the better. Also, I tend to get confused if too many ingredients are involved.

At the same time, I love rich tastes, especially spicy and sweet. Salty's good too. It's why I'm so drawn to asian and south-asian cuisine. It's such an unfamiliar mix of flavours and spices. It's not that I don't enjoy traditional Bulgarian cuisine, which is generally light on spices (according to my tastes, at least), but it's a completely different feel. While Bulgarian food is comforting and familiar, foreign food is tantalising and new, something to be explored and experienced. It's like the difference between spending the summer in Sofia, visiting the extended family and refamiliarizing myself with the Homeland, and vacationing in a new spot, getting to know a culture and atmosphere completely unknown to me. They're both great, but the experience is completely different.

And god, don't get me started on the textures! Crispy, crunchy, soft, creamy, dry, buttery, noodly, liquid, juicy, thick, fluffy, flaky, melty, powdery, moist, crumbly, chewy, milky and all the combinations therein. Mmmmmm....

Of course, my issue has always been how picky I am with food. There are certain things that I simply will not eat. For example, cooked peppers. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat them when they're raw, but baked/fried/whatever peppers are a huge no-no. Same with tomatoes. I don't do oil and vinegar in my salad and I'm not too crazy about cabbage (unless it's in a salad). Bananas and eggs can only be consumed under a very narrow set of conditions. I could go on.

I'm also diabetic. Type 1, I've had it since I was five. It definitely makes it hard to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I need to follow a fairly rigid eating schedule. I've recently started using a new type of insulin that gives me more flexibility, but every once in a while, I'll end up with a hypoglycemia when I'm anything but hungry and I'll be forced to eat something, or I'll be starving, but without my insulin, so I'll have to choose between staying hungry, or facing the unfortunate side-effects of high blood-glucose levels. I also need to balance my insulin intake and my food consumption very carefully. Usually, it involves a lot of guess-work. How many units should I take if I want that sandwich and my current glucose level is 11.8, for example? This all adds a whole new layer of importance to eating for me. I can't just say "I'm not eating anything today," but I also can't just go around eating anything I want without at least a minimum amount of planning ahead of time.

Another problem I have is with my appetite. If I'm under stress (exams, essays, whatever), I might be starving, but at least 8 times out of 10 I'll feel sick at the thought of eating anything. Not only that, but I'll put eating off in order to get whatever I'm doing done as soon as possible. Then stress is over and appetite comes back. With a vengence. I'm just going through such a period right now. I'm constantly thinking of food, of what I'll eat next, even as I'm eating what I'm currently eating (no, miraculously I haven't been gaining weight). And what I'm finding most often is that it's not so much the hunger making me want to eat, as the appetite -- the desire to experience all those rich, unfamiliar, exciting flavours and textures of food. What I'm craving isn't light snacks, but rich, decadent, strongly-flavoured, foreign meals.

It's the newness and excitement of it all. I need thrill and movement in my life, whether it's in the form of work, people, or something else. The school-year is nearly over, so my workload has lightened and I'm not really meeting any new people. I'm not going anywhere until this summer. So, I'm exploring food for the time being. I try not to overdo it, of course. Not only can my wallet not handle constant eating, but I think overconsumption is a pretty shitty thing to do in a world where the majority of people can't feed themselves adequately. Plus, there are obviously better ways to get out of a rut. But I'm also not going to let myself be ashamed of the fact that I love eating. It's part of the human experience and I want in!