Queer Wounds; or, Failures in Accountability & How We Heal From Harm

An Excerpt From My Book "Touch Me, I'm Sick"

Hello dear ones,

A few weeks ago, I shared some writing from the final chapter of my book “Queer Wounds; or What We Owe Each Other.” Then I shared the second part, “Queer Wounds; or the Weaponization of Boundaries.” This is now the final section of that chapter from Touch Me, I’m Sick: A Memoir-in-Essays.

This writing still feels raw and scary to share. I worry that you’ll read this and think that I’m over-reacting. I’m also worried that someone who knows my ex will read this, and I’ll receive another email from them telling me that I’m crazy. So for those reasons, almost the entirety of this writing will remain behind a paywall.

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Before we jump in, I just wanna give you a quick reminder that the 20% sale on my website ends tonight at 11:59pm! You can use the code MOVING on anything and everything — including my zines, art, anchored: a deck for healing, webinars, and more! All of your purchases are helping fund my move, so thank you so much!!

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When I am wounded, there is a question that plagues me: Why? Why did they do this? Why did this happen? And tied to this question are others: What did I do to deserve this? How didn’t I see this coming? How can I prevent this from happening again?

I know that these questions come from a younger part of me. As an adolescent and even as a young adult, I couldn’t understand why I’d been hurt time after time by so many boys and men. Answering this question will enable younger me to feel safe, in control. As if, in knowing why, we can prevent this harm from happening again. 

There is another reason to ask this question. In her book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown writes:

“To transform the conditions of the ‘wrongdoing,’ we have to ask ourselves and each other ‘Why?’ Even–especially–when we are scared of the answer. It’s easy to decide that a person or group is shady, evil, psychopathic. The hard truth (hard because there’s no quick fix) is that long-term injustice creates most evil behavior.”

brown goes on to explain how

“in my mediations, ‘Why?’ is often the game-changing, possibility-opening question. That’s because the answers rehumanize those we feel are perpetrating against us. ‘Why?’ often leads us to grief, abuse, trauma, often undiagnosed mental illnesses like depression or bipolar disorder, difference, socialization, childhood, scarcity, loneliness. Also, ‘Why?’ makes it impossible to ignore that we might be capable of a similar transgression in similar circumstances. We don’t want to see that.”

Asking “Why?” in this case becomes a way of getting to the root cause of harm, of addressing the very conditions that enable harm to happen in the first place. We must ask ourselves this question.