Bermuda's Memories - Overflow Journal 1

[Bermuda]

I came across some terminology today that I had never seen before. It hit home at deep uncomfortable level. It was about social determinants of lifestyle bias, prejudice, and the effects of hypersexualisation on women within the justice system. I'm not good at paraphrasing.

Trigger warning: About my SA (The whole story is somewhere in my journal)

I'm a bit emotional at the moment. It made me think of... that. When it happened, I obviously didn't have this vocabularly to describe what had happened and to defend myself with, but it was a mutually understood concept.

The district manager pulled me into his office when he found out. He made me tell him what had happened. I didn't want to. He asked me if I would sue. I replied with, "Of course not. I'm not an idiot. I need this job." What I was actually thinking, which I knew he understood, was that if I had gone to the police, it would have caused me more harm than good. A stripper. I had been out with a manager that day, as friends, he wanted frozen yogurt. I don't even eat that, but I went along. He had brought me a gift, which I thought nothing of. It was odd, and nothing I would even like. Hindsight is 20/20. We worked that night, and I stayed after, he was my ride after all. We were drinking. I was a stripper, drinking, after hours with two managers, one had bought me a gift. I had been drinking. Clearly, I am not a reliable witness, lifestyle bias. No, of course I wouldn't sue. I don't need more humiliation. If I had been fired, I couldn't pay for the legal fees to contest that, and how would that help me? I trusted more in the district manager's sense to do a decent thing, than I did in the legal system to protect me. His position is to protect the company, and to do that he needs to at least clean up the scene, which he did. He wanted me quiet, and I didn't want to speak anyway. We were on the same team.

The camera footage went missing, which at the end of every night was dropped into the drop-safe where it would be shipped to corporate, odd. Only the district manager had access. The manager responsible never returned, well until months later when the district manager surely thought I had forgotten. I hadn't, but I had to be professional. I had to be the professional one. Anything else and I would be in the streets, again.

Social determinants of lifestyle bias, prejudice, and the effects of hypersexualisation on women within the justice system. That. I know a lot about that actually. I can list so many determinants.

If I ever disappeared in an unwilling way, only the bad people would search for me. I know this. I saw it. Anything that ever happened to me was my own fault.

...I remember telling the district manager the position of every camera in the building. I described the one at the top of the stairs, by the enterance to the office, and the other one on the bar that faced the mirrored backdrop, and the other on the emergency exit. I described that the footage should easily show the manager calling me up to the office, and me running down the stairs passed the bar, and out the emergency exit. That's when he replied that all the footage was missing. That was my first ever time in that building. He must have realised that I was aware enough to know that he was the only one with access to the footage. I didn't say that. I knew he destroyed it, just as I knew he knew I was being truthful. ...But we were working together to save ourselves.

He surely forgot about the incident, moved on. I did forget for a while, but it didn't go away. The footage still plays for me.

[Bermuda]

Just thinking about that post and how I never consider the perpetrator. I guess what that shows it that the violation is so much deeper than the act itself. What the perpetrator did, although terrible, is not unique or special. He wasn't clever. I do wonder the extent at which he planned it. It was normal for one manager to leave and run to get food, but he was gone a very long time, leaving me with the one who "did" that. It was absolutely planned, and probably between the two of them. They could have targetted anyone, but they chose me. It's probably for the best. I imagine if they had targetted someone more sexual, less inhibited, it would have worked. She may have had a sense of obligation even. The district manager had told me he had heard similar things from other people. This person was a serial rapist. He chose an environment that would protect him, to protect the company, where he could pray on those who are unprotected legally. I think that's the crux of it. CPTSD stems from the deeper messages. Not just the violation of my space and body, but my personhood.

...The repeated violation of my personhood.

[Armee]

The planning part and the deception are really hard. I'm so sorry that happened to you. You didn't ask for it you didn't deserve it.

[NarcKiddo]

Ugh. You're right about the violation of your personhood. The whole story is demeaning and upsetting on every level. You have every right to feel all sorts of emotions when remembering that, and I am very sorry you have the episode to remember.

[Bermuda]

I was so far away yesterday. I'm sorry to everyone in the call. I really do want to participate and say how I am, and be supportive too, but I just don't know.

I would catch myself drifting and pull myself together, and then two sentences later my mind would hear something, and go back to being in space. I didn't seem to have my mind under control. I don't feel anything overwhelming lately, so I don't have a burning issue, but obviously I have issues. 


The identity issues are very challenging right now. The owner of the Polish grocer has started speaking to me in Polish. I take it as a compliment to my purchases, but I don't know how long I can keep it up. I'm not Polish. I don't speak Polish. I realise other people would say something, but I will just continue to be Polish. I understand and react properly to her words. I am good at that. I am an imposter.

I have been feeling torn about my existence. I hold a lot contradictory thoughts. Right after our group ended yesterday, I quite impulsively made up a dinner party invite, and immediately got positive feedback. So, I have friends. Not only do I have friends, but the sort of people who enjoy my ridiculous ideas. Even if I can't see/feel it, I am integrated. I am real.

So the event is toward the end of January. I told them that I will be hosting high tea for elegant ladies. I wrote that spring is coming early this year, so florals, lace and pastels are le mode. That they should find the most outrageous secondhand gowns they can find and join me for a picnic on the green. Obviously, indoors. I told them that there would be activities suited to ladies of our class and status, as well as finger sandwiches, scones, petit fours, ors-d'œuvre, crumpets, and pâte à choux.

The activities I have in mind, after much research:
I will buy bags of secondhand plushies, and provide them with embroidery floss, needles, scissors, and hot glue, and we will enjoy the parlour art of taxidermy, by creating exotic unique animals of plush, to demonstrate our wealth and extravagant travels.

Next we will play the late queen's sport, pigeon racing, except ethical using our taxidermy creations. There will be pretend gambling involved.

Then indoor croquet, with wine.


...Not only do I have friends, but the type of people who will enjoy my ridiculous dinner party ideas, and come wearing the worst froufrou outfits they can find. I should feel whole.

[NarcKiddo]

That party sounds outrageously fun. I love the idea.

I totally get why it might feel easier to play along with the Polish grocer. But if it makes you feel like an imposter, and if that makes you feel bad, then maybe you could think about saying something? If I found myself in that situation I would probably make up a bit of a white lie. I would learn the Polish words to say something like "I can understand a bit of Polish but I do not speak it. Please could we converse in [language of choice]" She will likely ask why you understand some words but that is probably easiest explained away by having had a childhood friend from Poland. Of course that is my solution and yours may look very different, including continuing as you are. I'm just throwing my idea out in case it helps. There are very nice things to be bought in Polish grocers and I would not like to think of you eventually deciding to avoid that shop altogether because of this issue.

 

[Bermuda]

and I would not like to think of you eventually deciding to avoid that shop altogether because of this issue.

How do you already know me so well? Hah.

[Chaos rains]

Bermuda, you know you don't have to apologize to us, right? Struggling to be present is what we all do to some degree or other. We don't have to explain; we get it.

You are delightful wherever you are beaming in from!

[Armee]

Oh my goodness you are adorable and fun! I am quite jealous!

But also you "shouldn't" feel like you "should" feel whole because so many parts of yourself had to be cleaved off to make this version. One day we'll feel whole, I'm sure, and you are still so young. Sometimes I feel normal and whole and sometimes I am beside myself splintered. I think that makes sense.

[Bermuda]

Trigger warning: Food, behaviours, food insecurity,   (Religion too)

I feel quite odd, as everyone knows. I was thinking as I made Christmas dinner today how food makes things make sense. It tells a story about me, but leaves out all the bad stuff. My plate of food always tells a story.

Today I made some stuffed leek triangles, filled with spiced vegan mince, walnuts, shredded carrot and celeriac. I roasted that in a lingonberry sauce. I roasted some parsnips, black salsify and brussel sprouts, and I made a wild rice, toasted buckwheat, and bread stuffing. It was delicious. It's me. It doesn't make sense in one place, but neither do I. I thought about making vegan raclette, tamales, fondue, black eyed peas, vegan roast duck... I thought about lots of things. I feel sad when I think about these things, because I don't have an answer. What do *I* eat for Christmas? I don't know. I combine things that I have heard that other people do, but it still doesn't fit.

I love food. I love food so much, but we've had a difficult relationship. Like lots of my needs, I didn't really see it as a need. Eating was an inconvenience. I skipped meals a lot when I was young. I didn't eat at school at all, to save the little money I had. When I was homeless, and the period after that, food was scarce. I wasn't bothered just to eat once a day. I hear about people suffering with poverty, but I wasn't and didn't. I worried about my safety, and sometimes my health related to my diet, but never about food. Food has always been special to me. Whenever I would get a little bit of money, I would take my friends out to a very fancy restaurant and order everything. I had waiters refuse to serve us thinking we couldn't pay, really looking down on us. I once remember leaving a three figure tip afterward. Little did they know that I could afford it. The street kid could afford it. I could spend all my money there that day, and not worry about it afterward. I would be fine. I'm resourceful and food is not a necessity, it's luxury.

So, after that time, food has always been one of my greatest expenditures. I don't buy clothes. I don't like things. I like food. This Christmas I have been surrounded by evidence that I am living a different life now. We are *not* struggling. I have everything. I don't think twice about the cost of wild rice and chanterelles, not that I ever did, but I will also eat breakfast tomorrow, and then lunch, and then dinner. Every meal for me will be special.

So, my plate of food always tells a story, but it leaves out the sad bits. I make my potato bread differently now, but it's just as good as it was then. Food is special.

*Adding looking at a plate of food to my list of triggers.

P.S. Adding on to the Christmas thought. When I was a stripper, there was this group of women from a church who would come in every year around Christmas. I always hated it. They were horrible, would sit in the dressing room, talking to vulnerable young women and bringing them gifts, offering them salvation, and there were always girls completely destroyed in tears. Every year. I did not cry. I messed with them, egged them on, told them nonsense. I distracted them, tried to monopolise them. I comforted the other girls, told them they were doing what they had to do. This thought came to my mind because of how I reflect on starvation without suffering or sadness. People feed on sadness, on hopelessness. They will call you a sinner, and offer you a solution to the problem they created. They will tell you that you are suffering, when they have no idea the depth of the suffering that you have suffered, and just how much you are not suffering at all. They will feed on your sadness and offer you the support they think you need.

No, I don't want your food. I am fine. My food is great.

Christmas dinner.

[Armee]

 

Happy Christmas dinner. It sounds delicious and perfectly eclectic.

[NarcKiddo]

That sounds lovely. Especially the parsnips. I love parsnips.

 

[Bermuda]

I feel like I need an emergency therapy session, but that's not my reality. I don't do that... The wave I was coasting on crashed. It's my fault. I have to keep busy, keep to the routine, or things just crash. My husband says he is worried about me. I thought I was doing a good job of portraying holiday spirit. I guess not. My kids have been sick. Chicken pox, and a stomach virus, and a cough all at once over Christmas. So my daughter is nursing constantly, and I have calluses like she is a newborn again. I guess I have just been hiding nursing her, or just hiding in general.

None of my problems are real. I have lots of food. I am happy, and there is nothing wrong. I did get a letter that a medical appointment was booked for me, which caused me quite some panic. It's for a problem that I had a year and a half ago, and they know it doesn't go away, and it was in the system that I cancelled appointments and didn't go to my follow ups, so they rebooked me automatically a year later. I don't want to go. The answers aren't worth the questions. I am fine. I live with this body.

I am hoping maybe tomorrow or the next day I'll go swim in the sea, and maybe I will come out of the ice feeling better.

[Armee]

 

Don't forget how hard it is to care for 2 sick children and to have an increased nursing demand suddenly. Get lots of fluid and nutrition and be gentle. You'll feel better once your kids feel better and your body recoups from the increased energy needs. 

[NarcKiddo]

It's not your fault, Bermuda.

I agree with Armee that it is really tough to look after sick children. So try to take care of yourself. And once you have got this difficulty out of the way you can consider properly whether you are fine and don't need that medical appointment. It is impossible to do much except bat away unwanted intrusions when things are difficult, and maybe there is no need to keep the appointment they have made. I just think now is maybe not necessarily the time to make that decision.