today was the first day of workshops for gender odyssey. it was very very fun and good and the bigs got a lot out of the workshops. we went to one about trauma and health (though sadly a bit too DBT oriented for us) and with the other two sessions we went to a two-part one about dealing with our own racism – it was very very good.
then, instead of going to the friggin keynote speech, we had to come home, because we were trembling with exhaustion. and pain. but we are still glad we got to go to what we did. probably we realized we won’t be able to participate in this conference beyond the workshops. there is just only so much we can do.
but we are proud of ourselves for coming home.
since then we’ve just kind of been hanging out and being in pain and discomfort. we’re feeling lonely right now which i guess is why we’re writing. it is hard to make room for littles in grownup spaces. but we like the thoughts our head gets filled with.
recently beth and other bigs have been thinking about how we have felt called as a healer for a very long time. claire is embarrassed by language like this but matt is good about it. claire is still around a lot you know, it’s just inside. i think we already do stuff with co-facilitating the support group and stuff. but it’s also cool to think of other ways. like with touch or massage. we are very sharply intuitive actually and beth is even more so than the rest of us. ej thinks we give good massages and they don’t normally let people massage them. heck even our mom told us we have a good touch. (squick)
i’m a little writing about big things but you know what? they wouldn’t have. they never say event stuff like this. it never makes for good writing, at least not for them, because our writing style doesn’t really do well with describing things happening. it is better at speculation and exploration and emotions and stuff.
we really really liked the racism workshop, which was called “beyond shame” and was aimed at white people. the facilitator was absolutely amazing. there was such good discussion, and it was all about making mistakes and acknowledging, let’s face it, that we’ve learned and taken part in racism as part of the background of the messages we’ve gotten our whole lives.
we really loved the discussion and we were talking it over with edges afterwards and thinking how amazing it would be if there were an ongoing group type venue for mentally ill people to talk about oppression. just to engage and dialogue. the reason we go there is that i think being a survivor and being multiple affects how we act in the world so deeply. and we think that we don’t have a right to exist, and it’s not necessarily so easy as it is for others to challenge ourselves. we have to do it carefully and there has to be even more focus on self care. at the same time, we want to think and talk about and work on our part in some really privileged groups. we think of our *main* privilege, though certainly not the only, are being white and being educated. we would say middle class except we’re NOT, we’re mixed class. we grew up super poor, though we did always have food (not necessarily varied food, or the food we would most want, but there was always food) (except when we got locked in a closet! but that’s a whole separate thing!) but despite being poor, we had a lot of cultural and educational privilege. some of that is being white and is heavily affected by being white, particularly the cultural aspect, but it was also “class” based. if by class you mean education, having our version of english thought of as standard or better, and stuff like that.
would you believe i’m still little? well, 12 is little right? more or less.
ANYway, so we were just thinking about how much there could be to talk about on a regular basis. we read a lot of blogs online about this stuff but we don’t so much talk about it in real life except with a few close friends. sometimes we are frustrated that we can’t bring a challenging outlook to group – it just doesn’t work for a support group for people that are so broken down already. the focus needs to be on support, not challenge. whatever! we’re saying things wrong and making mistakes. but that’s the whole process.
part of why we wanted that too was like the facilitator was encouraging step up/step back which is like if you have been talking a lot, maybe let other people speak up, and if you haven’t been talking, speak up. and when we went around the room saying something we were afraid would happen when we made a mistake and acted racist, he said “remember, we’re taking risks.” which, absolutely, but i just think our risk level is totally different for different amounts. we gave that workshop our all and we still were one of the quiet ones. it would be so amazing to have a space where we could talk about that with that frame. compassion and self care. gentle acknowledgement and work on how to be more respectful next time. recognition of the limited number of spoons we all have. for example, we have social anxiety, right? so we’re not able to interact with people very much in the world. but the way we avoid also happens to be something that POC and visibly disabled people have to deal with all. the. time. i really hate to add to that. so we will push and push on ourselves to be friendly and normal with especially those two groups, because we just don’t want to be another person who seems scared of getting cooties. but if i do that too much, i think i’m probably taking away from my ability to be an ally and work on my racism in the long run. i think like instinctively you can always get further and like be more effective with self care. at the same time, people are going to have feelings if we avoid them, and those feelings are totally valid. and acting more actively scared of people is this to an even bigger degree – and almost always we’re not scared of the people, we’re just scared. period. and that shows in our body language and stuff. and it might hurt because it is just one more thing on top of the mountain.
we went on longer than we meant to! we weren’t able to write without cynthia or other kids being like out and using the language because the kids can be braver and we don’t care about good writing and stuff, but we were definitely talking to the bigs and they were feeding us some of the stuff to say (but we don’t mind) especially jo/e.
we MEANT to write mainly about how now we’re overwhelmed and little and scared because it has been such a long day and even good things can be stressful and we feel like we are in some kind of little bubble or cocoon and we’re going to be alone forever and no one is ever going to care and it is just, it feels like our vocal cords wouldn’t work if we tried to use them because the silence is so much bigger and heavier than we are. like a big blanket around everything. alone. let down. we are ok and have a fairly hopeful attitude, but we also have a lot of sad and scared and hurt emotions.
and it’s not fair that we don’t get to do as much stuff as other people! and it’s not fair that our body hurts it hurts so bad! and it’s not fair that this is a result of people being reckless with our body years and years ago – outside people i mean. we’re like disposable or whatever. and so 20 years later we have to deal with how it fucking HURTS because you just can’t DO that to a body without consequences. and it’s not fair that we have so much social anxiety. and we want to cry but we can’t. and we don’t even know if we want someone to be here or not. maybe there’s nothing we want, except we are so restless and it is so hard to have such a bad headache so it’s not easy to do ANYthing so like… we are bored.
ok that’s all! did we talk enough for you?
