Hello dear ones,
I wanted to let you into a little moment of my healing journey that took place over the last two weeks.
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Content note: this writing includes mentions of intimate partner violence, sexual, and physical assault — including choking and slapping.
I’ve spent the last two weeks in a heightened state of fear. I’d randomly opened Facebook messenger — an app that I rarely use — to see a message request from an ex: “Hey! Was that you at the corner of….” she wrote. I froze. This wasn’t the first time that this ex I dated from ages nineteen to twenty-one — I’m thirty-seven now — had popped back into my life. Two years ago, while back home visiting Toronto, I was swiping on Tinder when I saw the bright blue border of the super like. I noticed her face immediately. How could she send me a super like after she physically and sexually assaulted me, multiple times, in the course of our relationship?!? How does she not remember what she did to me??? I swiped left and tried to forget about it. Now, two years later, I deleted her message, blocked her, and tried to forget about it.
Less than a week later, my Facebook inbox was violated again. This time, it was an angry ex-follower from Instagram. I have strict boundaries around how people engage with me in the comments of my posts, and after this person violated them, and doubled down on why, I clicked on her profile, saw that she’d unfollowed me, and so I blocked her. Less than ten minutes later, a message request showed up: Is this how you engage with people who criticize you? the message began. This time, I chose to respond. I made it very clear that finding me on my personal social media was harassment, and I blocked her again. But this time I couldn’t just forget about it.
All day, my body remained so keyed up. The next day, sitting with the fear pulsating inside of me, I realized that my brain was applying the same amount of danger to this random IG follower’s message as it was to the message from my ex (our trauma brain just loves to find a pattern). My body was living back in the past. This makes so much sense to me, given that I’ve never truly processed what happened with my ex: her slapping my face during sex, choking me without my consent. Me telling her afterwards to not do that again. Her doing it again. And then, when my fear of her overwhelmed any remaining desire I had, I’d tell her that I wasn’t in the mood, and she’d withhold affection from me, get out of bed and leave me alone for hours, ignoring me.
I don’t remember how we got back to a place where we could have sex again. I don’t remember how much longer we stayed together after the violence. But I know we remained together for a while and that we ended on amicable terms.
The day after this message from the ex-IG follower, my partner came over. We hadn’t had a chance to really talk about what had happened, and as I took them through the story, and how it triggered past sexual trauma, I started to cry. “Can I come and sit behind you?” they asked, knowing how comforting I find it when they do. “Yes, please,” I responded. With their arms wrapped around me, I continued to cry, and cry, and cry. I cried for young adult me, who repressed this trauma deep down for so many years. Afterwards, I realized that my partner had created a little safe container for me.
In trauma work there's a lot of talk about the power of the "container": a space within ourselves where we can go to feel safe when we're triggered, a space that enables us to feel held. In her book The Politics of Trauma, Staci K. Haines explains how humans have three core needs: safety, belonging, and dignity. Trauma can be caused by any of these three needs being threatened or going unmet. Trauma can also make it challenging for us to feel a sense of safety, belonging, or dignity – often pitting these different core needs against one another (e.g. In order to be loved by my ex – which in turn gives me safety and belonging – I must disavow my needs and renounce my dignity).
In my own healing, restoring my dignity and sense of belonging has been challenging. Hardest of all though has been developing a felt sense of safety. Because the reality is that we live in an inherently unsafe world, and the more marginalized identities we inhabit, the more dangerous the world becomes. I recognize that I can’t control the world. But what I have learnt is that no matter what the world does to me, I can always return to a sense of internal safety by creating my own little container.
I love looking up the history of words in the dictionary: container: con (hold) + tain(together). What I see in this word's etymology is that we don't need to do this work alone. We can hold trauma together, a collective act of care that reminds us of how much we need and deserve connection. Container building is a kind of world building. a sacred practice of interconnectedness and care, in which we all work towards building a world big enough for us all to be cared for in the ways that we so deserve. This is exactly what my partner did with me that day.
Still, the terror persisted. I’d wake up from nightmares — not about the ex, but we know that dreams do not often work that way; they give us stand ins — but other horrifying scenarios in which I was trapped. I realize that in the past six months, I’ve had dreams set in my ex’s basement. In one dream, her mother was there, but she was absent. As is so often the case for me, my unconscious is trying to help me process my trauma through my haunted dreamscapes.
I find it hard to feel sexually aroused by my partner — something that we’ve never struggled with. One part of me is turned on by their touch — but there’s another part, which is louder, telling me to run. We negotiate new terms for sexual intimacy. I talk about how my body isn’t feeling safe with receiving touch. But I feel present and turned on when I’m topping. We decide that I’ll be the one to initiate for the time being. I am so beyond grateful for a partner who collaborates with me, who lets there be space for my fear, my autonomy, and my protection. And, I find myself angry that this trauma from the past is casting a shadow on the most amazing, life-affirming sex I’ve ever had.
Last Tuesday, I saw my therapist — ever grateful that the month-long break we’d taken while she was away teaching had ended. I knew that I needed to process the trauma of this violence with her. After I told her about what had happened to trigger me, I place my hands in front of me, fingers outstretched, and I tell her that I want to push my ex away. “Okay, how about we do that slower? Why don’t you start by placing your feet on the ground, and then slowly you can start to lift your hands up in front of your body?”
When I opened my eyes, I saw my hands in front of me, fingers spread out like links in a fence, my long stiletto shaped nails like little daggers of warning: keep out! I’m reminded of a collage I made for my deck of cards. I tell my therapist how, in the card, there’s crow standing in the middle of a nest they’ve made. In front of them are five nail illustrations that I cut out from an old book on house repairs. Above the crow is the word “protect.” “It’s like I’m embodying that card.”
Some of the writing in this newsletter comes directly from the guidebook for anchored: a deck for healing, which is available for pre-order until the end of June.
This practice comes from the guidebook for anchored. Each of the 75 cards you pull comes with a write up and an individual anchoring practice.
You can do this on your couch or in your bed or on the floor. Wherever feels most supportive for you. You’ll want to gather all of your pillows, blankets, and other soft objects of comfort. You can start to place your pillows and blankets around your body in whatever configuration feels good for you. I find it helpful to have a backing, so if you’re sitting on the floor, I’d suggest placing your back against the wall – then you’ll essentially have four walls for your container.
If I’m sitting, I like to have pillows under my arms, my weighted blanket over my lap, a pillow on top of my blanket, and pillows behind my back and neck. I also find so much soothing from placing my hands over my heart and closing my eyes. If your heart feels too activating, you can pick any other spot on your body that feels neutral, or place them on top of your pillows and blanket.
When I’m lying down, I like to use my body pillow to spoon with. I then place a weighted blanket over my body, and line up pillows along my back. If I’m lucky, one of my cats will come and join me and I’ll attune to their breathing and the vibration of their purring. You can sit and do this practice for as long as you’d like. I just trust my intuition to let me know when I’m ready to open my eyes and start moving my body again. But if you’d like some added support, you can put on a guided meditation, or a long song that you find soothing – and, when it ends, you can return back to the room.
Today in the US is Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the end of chattel slavery. It’s important for us all to acknowledge that slavery never truly ended: it evolved into the mass incarceration of Black people, and the free labor they are forced to do while in prison. One of the ways that we, as non-Black folks, can address this history and the ways in which white folks have benefited from racial capitalism is to redistribute our wealth and make reparations.
While we should be making reparations on a regular basis, I especially encourage folks who’ve received a paid holiday to put their day of pay towards this GFM: a Black and non-binary owned mobile bookstore!
Image reads: Introducing: Archivist Books. Hi Everyone :) My name is Taylor Ellis and I am the owner of The Secondhand Librarian. I’ve been selling books since 2020, and have managed to secure a beautiful community in Rochester through our love of reading. After three long years of planning, saving, and dreaming, I have decided to finally take the leap and open up a mobile bus bookstore called Archivist Books. It will be the first mobile, Black and non-binary-owned bookstore in Rochester. I hope to have a used section for the accessibility and sustainability feature of my motto but I also plan on having a very curated selection of new books as well. I want this space to foster a community for all types of people with varied interests and incomes. It is terrifying to put this dream out here, but I’m finally ready! Donations will go towards: Buying a mobile space for Archivist Books; Start-up costs such as inventory and renovating; Insurance costs for operation; Supporting the dream of queer black, book nerd :)
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