While I could easily journal and keep a lot of things to myself, I like to write, talk about, and share on topics that are often taboo to talk about. Experiences, feelings, people are often uncomfortable to share — that’s the shit I like.
And the reason why I like to tackle taboo and uncomfortable topics is because I realized that a lot of the stigma surrounding them is just trivial. I grew up religious and for me that meant my language was severely restricted, the topics I could ask questions about or learn about were censored, and hell I only in recent years got to catch up on all the hiphop most kids got to listen to in middle school. When I finally got out of the societal restrictions and rules that came from my religious upbringing, I took a look back and asked, “Why?” What was the purpose of all that?
So now, I express myself freely. I write EXACTLY how I talk. I curse, I put “lol”, and I say I’m a boss ass bitch. If I could have said, “I fucking love God,” when I was younger, I would’ve, because for me, “fucking” is just a undiluted, passionate exclamation of something. It’s a goddamn word, not a death sentence and I’m an expressive ass bitch. But instead, I cautiously said “frick” and carefully said, “oh my goodness” as if the difference between people that said hecka and hella was the difference between God and Satan.
I also was estranged from topics that I would have loved to learn about and be knowledgeable on like, for example, sex and sexuality. Growing up in a Christian private school meant our Health class was spent learning about how “100% of people in prison watched porn” thereby making porn sinful and a one way ticket to prison+hell (hopefully the majority of you can see the fallacies behind that statement cuz bitch 100% of people that drink water die, dumbass) or how if you have sex you are guaranteed to get pregnant (I never learned in school how ovulating works or how baby making even happens). Anyway, I never learned about the nitty gritty of sexual anatomy and sexual health and never felt anything positive around the topic of sex, only shame (sex positivity article coming soon).
AND I AM STILL SAD AND SALTY that when y’all hear music from early 2000’s that I only recently got to enjoy and say, “Oh I remember this from 7th grade dance!” I get to say, “Wow, that sounds so fun. I’ve never been to a dance because my school thought dancing with people was a sin.”
The basic core of what I’m trying to say is that when I was younger, many of the things people were already freely talking about were things I could never touch. When I finally got released from that, I didn’t want to just talk about things that everyone had been talking about, I wanted to talk about that + more. “Be the person you needed when you were younger” is a statement that means a lot to me. Being open like this and challenging things that make me uncomfortable is a person I needed to see when I was younger.
It is for that reason that I even shared my experience with suicidal thoughts. (here if anyone wants to read it: https://medium.com/@yearofthebold/on-wanting-to-die-a8cfd016c33e)
Because talking about death or wanting die or viewing life differently is taboo, unheard of, and makes people uncomfortable. And I needed to say that to me is the opposite of helpful. I am pretty sure, that everyone, at least once, thought to themselves, “I wonder what would happen if this plane crashed right now,” and then played out that scenario in their head.” But we keep these things to ourselves and people who do feel suicidal have no space to talk about anything because of fear of judgement.
You have no idea how many suicide posts or articles where I read the replies and they’re all the same: “I know you feel this way right now but suicide is not the answer, it always gets better.” If I personally received a comment like this on my last post, I would FUCKING laugh. Yes, I understand intention, people are very loving and sweet. BUT, it’s people that never mentioned about wanting to do it, it’s people just expressing that they feel this way, in my experience people just want to talk about it without feeling like they’re being preached at. Instead of shutting down any conversation around death and invalidating feelings, I think it’s more productive to ask questions and try to understand why the person feels such away, and open up a space for dialogue and discourse.
I really want to stress that I’m not trying to “downplay” or “trivialize” death. Rather, I am trying to make everything less fucking weird to talk about. Like I’m going to say I’m on my period if I’m on my period. I will walk around with a tampon openly in my hand. I’m going to say that I am very sex positive and confidently grab condoms without being shy (also side note but ps: LISTEN UP LADIES, if YO MAN, is too embarrassed buying GODDAMN condoms, they’re not mature enough to be having sex, k thx bye). And I’m going to say that it is 100% okay to talk about death… or suicidal thoughts… or anything for that matter. In fact, I think it is fine to speak ill of the dead. I don’t understand why when people die, we can never say they were a shitty person and they all of a sudden become immortalized as an angel. Honestly, at my funeral if someone said I was ugly, go you. I’m allowed to be ugly even if I’m dead!
So I want people to challenge topics that are awkward, weird, or uncomfortable to talk about
BECAUSE THERE IS NO REASON THEY SHOULD BE, EXCEPT FOR THE WEIRD TABOOS WE PLACE ON IT.
Let’s help everyone get LEARNED! Let’s be open to new ideas or questions and not be combative because our pre-existing beliefs and notions. Hear people out and focus on intent. Try to actively open up a space for people to freely talk and ask questions.
I challenge you, whoever is reading this, that for one small thing that makes you uncomfortable, think about why that makes you uncomfortable. Toss that idea around. Maybe even try doing it. (Ladies if you still be hiding tampons in the waist of your pants, think to yourself, “huh, why do I feel shame and embarrassment when a pad falls out of my bag?” Maybe you’ll think, “It’s a goddamn necessity not some contraband I stole from the mafia.”)
SO LET’S GET UNCOMFY MOTHERFUCKERS ❤
Love,
Bold Ellis
