Tell Your Fucking Story…We’re Waiting!!!
Your Story of Survival Is Needed So Someone Else Knows They Can Too
When I introduced myself to this publication, it was as a political writer, but the truth is that I am much more comfortable writing about mental health.
The reason that so much of my work revolves around race is purely because racism affects so much of my mental health and is a daily struggle I deal with in my life.
Every single day, I have to deal with microaggressions from people who genuinely do not know better, because they haven’t been taught better, and also by people who do know better, and genuinely do not care about how their behavior affects me.
Mental health is a struggle I’ve been dealing with for eight years. Prior to that, I worked at a church and had in my mind, hidden thousands of memories of me being drugged, raped, beaten, and abused, without my conscious knowledge.
I “woke up” to my memories eight years ago, when after finding a new counselor on Google search in my local area, I realized the reason this man had felt so familiar, was because he was actually there the night I was gang raped for the last fucking time.
And it was the last fucking time folks, I’ve been gang raped repeatedly throughout my life, more than once, less than ten times, but by the same men over and over again for decades.
Men who stalked and abused me as a child grew up into older men who stalked and abused me as an adult.
So yeah, I fully understand the currents and struggle of mental health, when it comes to being raped.
The difference is that for me, few people chose to believe me, and cops chose to close the case without bothering to actually investigate what was done to me and by who. Instead of investigating, they had me hospitalized, the doctors and nurses gave me pills to “Help with your thoughts,” they said, and sent me on my way.
For eight years I’ve wondered if my abusers are going to come back. If the same white supremacist cult and gang leaders who abused me as a child will continue the cycle.
This my friends, is why I don’t date. I don’t trust any man in my local area because of the sheer volume of men who raped me.
This is why I don’t have children. I do not want to bring any more Black children into a world I cannot safely protect them from.
This is why I struggle with my body image, and why I constantly feel like I’m being touched even when no one is around me. Being raped so much, being raped at all, being raped at such a young age, changed me on a fundamental level, and now that I know what happened, I can’t go back.
This is why I am alone. This is why although I have a very tight and close circle of real-life friends who know, and are willing to carry some of my trauma, I spend so much time alone, being introspective.
It’s not just that I am afraid though, it’s also that right now I am healing and I can’t do that if I have to focus on someone else’s shit. I need to focus on my shit right now, I need to focus on healing my heart, and when I am ready if the time comes, I can look for love then.
I look back on my younger self with so much pride. Maybe she didn’t achieve something great yet, maybe she didn’t go to college like she wanted, and Rome to study the ancient texts after that, but she will.
She will make her dreams come true because I know what she survived to create me, and I know that wherever we go, we’ll get there together. Me, myself, and I.
I also know that the dreams that we share, my younger self, my current self, and my future self, are dreams worthy of making come true.
I didn’t have anyone when I was growing up to tell me I could be “Anything you want to be,” I had Reading Rainbow though, and through that show, I was able to learn that anyone can create a world, anyone can create stories that change lives.
That changed my life. It made me realize that I can do anything and that no one can stop me. Oh sure they can try, but as we’ve seen in the past, the men who tried to kill me failed miserably. If I can survive that, I can survive almost anything, right?
That’s what the doctors, the lawyers, the cops, friends, fans, allies, and followers all want me to believe, but there’s a big difference in being told you can survive anything, and actually being able to survive it.
Some folks experience so much trauma they can’t hold on to anything substantial. A job, friends, family members, a family of their own, everything falls away because the trauma is so great they genuinely can’t overcome.
For other folks, yeah let’s be honest, they’re so fucking overwhelmed they don’t know what to do or where to start.
This is precisely why I wrote “Uncomfortable II: Fundamental Foundations for Mental Health Content Creators.” Not to toot my own horn too much, but this book has everything you need to help you build a platform, on your own voice.
On your story, on your mental health journey, by helping you to have experiences you would never in a million years have otherwise, this book really did change my life.
The funniest thing is I didn’t think I was writing a book when I started writing it, I thought I was working on a series of activity goals for myself so I could do exactly what I said: build a platform on the idea that mental health matters.
The reason I wrote this book is because I wanted to encourage other Mental Health Patients to come forward and share their stories, I want to hear from more people who have Bipolar 1 and 2, I want to hear from folks who have all kinds of mental health ailments.
And the reason for that is because I think we really need more stories about what it feels like to live in the mental health spectrum, I think we need to educate doctors especially, about the patient's experience, from the patient’s voice.
I encourage everyone regardless of race, creed, nationality, size, orientation, color, or ability scale, to step up and share your stories because at the end of the day, you never know who needs to know they aren’t alone.
Mental health is a spectrum, and for some people, it’s easy to deal with, but for other people, it can be soul-crushing just trying to get out of fucking bed.
It all depends on what you have going on, who you are, and how you’ve been taught to deal with the bullshit that life throws at you.
I remember dreaming once that I was literally swimming in a river of shit, and the shit itself represented all the “Stuff” I was dealing with: Being raped, being abused, being stuck in the church and not able to leave, being stuck by gangsters and not able to escape, not being able to talk about it, and all the secrets I was hiding were killing me; all of it.
I remember when I finally climbed out, I was on a hill filled with houses, I knocked on a door and it was my then-best friend telling me she couldn’t help me. In those words.
I knew then eight years ago I would be journeying through my mental health pathways alone, but what I didn’t know is that eight years in I’d have some of the best friends, family members, and supporters around the world.
I am literally the luckiest person on the planet, not because I am privileged enough to be loved, but because the people who love me, know my trauma and choose to love me anyway.
They don’t see me as unworthy, as less than, they don’t see me and think to themselves “I wonder what I can get from her,” they actually think to themselves, “I wonder what I can do for Devon this week,” and then they do the nicest shit.
A few weeks ago one of my friends gave me an Elephant statue, just because she didn’t want it and she thought I’d love it. As Elephants are one of my spirit animals, yes, it absolutely did make me feel loved.
The following week I lost my wallet so she gave me one of her old ones — a beautiful fancy one — and made sure to leave a dime in it. I started to cry because she remembered to put money in it, I didn’t care how much, it was the fact that she knew, you don’t give an empty wallet. That meant so much to me.
Another friend helped me try mushrooms for the first time and stayed with me throughout my trip so I didn’t feel alone and freak out.
My friends, fans, followers, the people in my audience who reach out to me, genuinely show me love, because they are genuine people who know what it feels like to be unloved and to be made unworthy and unwanted.
They are some of the best people in the world, and I only found them because I decided to be vulnerable enough to tell my whole fucking story, so…you know, something to think about.
If you want love, don’t just give it, ask for it baby, it’s just there waiting for you to open the fucking door.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl
