Oh For Fuck Sake
Women Chose The Bear And Now Men Are Playing The Game
If you or someone you know is in danger of being sexually assaulted, please reach out for help. Trigger Warning for Sexual abuse, rape abuse, and sex trafficking.
It’s bad enough that girls get sold like property every single day, but when they defend themselves they are then punished for how they react, as if after years — if not decades of abuse, they are in control of their actions when it comes to survival over death.
I understand what she went through. I was sold and raped for decades. I’ve talked about this before. I chose not to kill my abusers, although I came incredibly close to making that decision, and because I did, I went to the police.
At the very least I knew and understood if the cops gave me even the smallest pretense of investigating my case, I was then blocked, from physically going after my abusers. At least this way everyone — including but especially me — stayed safe.
However, all that being said, it was touch and go there for a few minutes. There were more than a few occasions when I didn’t think I would make it out of the emotional spiral I was experiencing.
I think the different thing was that for the majority of my breakdown, I was alone, except my mom, and you beautiful readers.
Yeah, I had you, but mostly I was alone in my house day after day, letting myself spiral into the public sphere while I learned how to understand what was done to me.
Chrystul didn’t have that option. She was never given the freedom to discover healthy ways to deal with what was being done to her.
No one gave her the chance to spread her wings, and now because she put to rest a dangerous, and let’s be quite honest here when we say evil, man, she will go to prison where she will face untold challenges that will alter her future forever.
If she makes it out, she’ll spend the rest of her life explaining why she killed a man, and very few people will understand the strength, power, and the fucking sheer will it takes, to find a way to fight back against a man who swears you don’t deserve more than he is giving you.
Those of us who have been sold, again like property, know the depths of pain and sorrow that comes from knowing that no one in the world is going to protect you, from knowing that if you want to survive, you’re going to have to do some terrible shit.
But we do it, because no one else is there to show us another way, but they sure as fuck are there to judge us when they find out about what we did to survive the abuse.
I am so tired of victims being played by the same system that says “we have laws against child sex trafficking, we have laws against rape and sexual abuse, we just don’t like punishing people for these crimes.”
Maybe if we started making rape something worth being afraid of, fewer men would think it’s perfectly acceptable to rape women and children.
In my hometown, there are still people — Bikers too — who think of me as a rat because I went to the cops instead of starting an unholy war over what was done to me.
But to my mind, having a bunch of people murdered — and it would have been a bunch — just to keep me safe, seemed a bit like over reacting, and I am very sure that many, many, many men would have died if I hadn’t gone to the police. So at this point if you think my going to the cops makes me a rat, then I have to think you’re okay with pedophiles staying hidden.
All Chrystul’s story tells us is that when girls finally reach the point of no return, when we say “No means no” our abuser's lives are more important than ours.
That’s the fucking lesson. There are millions of women and girls in prisons, jails, and institutions because of the way that the men in their lives have treated them. And the worst part is it doesn’t even have to be a man you know.
We chose the bear for a fucking reason, and now I’m starting to notice all these men on social media who are “experimenting” with the idea of being a good man when they never have before. They’re play-acting and trying to snake their way back into our DMs as if the whole “Bear vs Man” conversation never happened.
I’m recognizing red flags more and faster now than ever before, but that’s largely because I’m not too tired to look for them. In the past I was so exhausted with trauma I didn’t bother looking for red flags, so much as I looked for someone or something — usually alcohol — to make me forget.
All I wanted was to forget. I think if seven years ago when I started this writing journey, I had chosen alcohol the results would have been incredibly different.
I think the fact that I reached for cannabis changed my life for the better. It helped me process what I’d been through while allowing me the freedom to release my thoughts, feelings, and fears into the world. I think the threat of knowing I am keeping a lot about what was done to me back, as well as the fact that I set up a safety net is what protected me.
But I also think there’s not much difference between Chrystul and myself other than she’s American and I am Canadian.
She was sixteen when she met the man who would sell her. Seventeen when she killed him, and now she’s facing jail time because she defended herself in the only way she knew how.
I can imagine exactly the terror she went through, I know the pain, I know the fear, anxiety, depression, shame, regret, and self-blame that we go through. I can promise you, that no system, no “Act of Justice,” can ever punish a victim the way she, he, or they will punish themselves.
We relive our trauma every day for the rest of our lives. Some of us bathe in it because we don’t know what the fuck else to do with it.
If you wonder why you see so many houseless people living upside and down the streets in your community, ask yourself what you know about trauma, because those folks are living trauma survivors.
Each of us — as survivors — has to decide what we’re going to do to survive. I came very close to deciding to go the other way, and bad things would have happened. The only reason I didn’t was because I found writing, cannabis, and all of you.
Even with my seven years of sharing my story, I have people asking me the dumbest shit.
- Why didn’t you say something?
- Why didn’t you leave?
- What was it like?
- You’re so strong
- You’re so Brave
It’s not about bravery. I know that you mean well, but I didn’t do what I did because I was brave — and I cannot stress this enough. I told my story because I thought I would be murdered if I didn't, and I was right.
A few people tried and came very close, a few people threatened me, and a few people cut me off completely because they figured that my going to the cops was much worse than the fact that I’d been getting raped for decades by the same men, over and over again.
Meanwhile, if I had killed them all I’d be a hero.
Make it make sense for fuck sake.
Women are punished for existing. It’s perfectly fine for us to be raped and abused in the Western world, but the moment that we try to put a stop to that abuse we’re punished.
We’re either called crazy like I was, and hospitalized repeatedly until we shut up, or we’re put in prison because “Murder is wrong,” but sex trafficking? That’s perfectly acceptable.
And don’t you dare come into my comments telling me that I’m wrong when I’ve learned these lessons from personal experience.
If you want a more fair world, then you have to stop treating women like we’re the fucking enemy.
That’s the end of that.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl
