Tea and consent — and not as metaphor.
CW: abuse
Have you heard about the rape and tea metaphor?
If you haven’t, you may want to watch this video.
The thing is, this metaphor was my life for over 15 years. Yes.
I was woken up every morning, at about 5 AM and was forced to drink tea. Actual tea. And it was a really disgusting tea as well (with large amounts of honey and lemon). I thought it was normal. After all, this started when I was about 5 years old (maybe younger) and continued even when I was 20. Maybe older. Sometimes it was accompanied with orange juice.
I was left alone to sleep after forcing me to drink tea till it was time to wake up.
I tried to say no. To argue. But if I did, it would be my fault if any other family member would wake up because I was shouted at. I felt powerless.
It wasn’t considered abuse. I was a child. It was done for my own good because I was too skinny when I was 4 or 5, and the honey was good for me, and the tea was there to “clean up” my digestive system. I complied. I had no choice.
Maybe because I am autistic, when I just wake up, I am extremely sensitive to sounds. I have really hard time talking and moving in a way I haven’t planned before ir don’t have a really hard habit of. If I am still sleepy, I have really hard time understanding talking and words and I just hear a jumble of sounds. I will probably say yes to anything, if it will mean you will just leave me alone. So making me comply, even as an adult was quite easy. This continued even after I wasn’t hitted by the tea-forcer anymore because I hit them back once, at 18 or 19 years old.
I remember that around the time I was 21 years old, or maybe 19, I bought myself my favorite tea — jasmine green tea. It was amazing. I drank it without suger and I enjoyed the aroma very much. I saved it for special occasions.
Once, I became sick and I really wanted that tea. I went to the shelf there the tea was held and found that all my jasmine tea was gone. And when I asked where is it the answer was that I drank it all. I remembered drinking it less then a handful of times, so I wondered how can it be, almost in tears.
What I learned was that because the tea was my favourite I drank it every morning. Or, well, was given it to drink. At this point in my life I would just chug down the disgusting mix, go brush my teeth and go back to sleep, without fully waking up.
I had a meltdown. I was so angry. My favorite tea was taken away for me in the most distinguished way I could imagine.
I drank it, but it wasn’t for myself, and I even couldn’t remember drinking it. I was sick, but I want out and bought myself a box and hid it in my room so no one could take my favorite tea from me like that again.
I don’t live with the tea-forcer anymore, but I still find the tea metaphor to be somewhat upsetting, not because it is a bad metaphor or something, but because it was not clear to me that if I like a tea, this means it is wrong for someone to force me drink it despite me not wanting to.
Being forced and pressured to drink tea was my reality.
