A Place To Draw Blood Laughing

This entry is the first of several. It may be the first of many, how many I don’t know. There are multiple aspects to the situation which has currently taken over my life.

I’m coming back here from an odd place. It’s taken me several days, a lot of emotional turmoil, and more than one bout of crying on someone’s shoulder to get me to the keyboard and writing again.

I saw Barbara Carellas last Thursday, and asked for her advice on dealing with traumatic situations. “Write about it, honey,” she said. “Take your experience with the thing and share it.”

I want to talk about what happens when someone attacks your sexuality.

I’ve been struggling with the word I want to use to describe what happened. First I was saying “outed.” Then I was saying “attacked.” Then I thought that to say I was attacked would be too harsh. My family member didn’t mean to attack me.

Then I realized, as I have been learning, that the intentions behind our interactions with other people are meaningless if our audience disagrees with our version of the experience. I felt attacked. Therefore, at the time, I was.

Stage One is shock.

Saturday afternoon of the weekend after Thanksgiving I sat down with a family member. I prepared myself for an uncomfortable talk that I did not know the contents of. I was not expecting to talk about this blog, or about kink.

I was blindsided. I felt, at first, as though the world had just crumpled up like a paper flower. And then, as though there were words worming into my brain.

You’re sick. You’re addicted to power. You have no morals. You have no ethics. This isn’t really you, you allow yourself to be led into bad situations. Maybe you’re not sick, but you make horrible decisions.

I love you.

The conversation was one sided. At first I cried surprised and incredulous tears. Then I started breathing again. I did what I do when I can’t process the immediate situation; I disengaged. I sat in my chair and listened, tears pulsing very quietly, and processed the alternating emotions of shock, irony, and bitterness.

At the time I felt as though the world was empty. In retrospect, I can see that even then I was regrouping. I can see that I took a bleak, dismal comfort in the knowledge that at least, if nothing else, this attack was wrongful. Their opinion of me, as a person, was wrong.

After they had said everything there was to say, we sat in silence for a few minutes. Then I got up, and walked from the room. “Yea,” I said, “I’m done.”

All I could think was Oh god, I’ve got to get out of this house.

And then, I need to call May. I got my winter coat and put my phone in my pocket. I need to talk to someone who believes me.

I went out onto the dirt road and called him as I walked quickly. I don’t remember much of what I said. I was crying suddenly, and so hard I couldn’t breathe. “It has to come down,” I remember sobbing, “The blog, it has to come down, I need to take it down.”

One of my family drove by, stopped, and told me to wait. I told May I would call him back. She parked the car, walked back to me and hugged me tight and hard. For the first time in my life I had the weird experience of crying in the embrace of a family member.

“-thinks I’m perverted and sick and a bad person,” I sobbed into her shoulder.

“Ooohh,” she said softly. “No you’re not. It’s okay, you’re not.”

Eventually I stood back up and wiped my nose. “Sorry,” I said.

She shook her head at me. “That’s what family’s for.”

We took a walk in the woods, and talked. I tried to explain what had happened. At the time I was choosing my words carefully, guardedly. In retrospect, I see that I was already preparing my defense. I was already changing my language and reassessing my audience. But I was also grateful to simply walk in the woods.

When we came back I went to my old bedroom, shut the door, and stayed for several hours. I put the Heroes DVDs on my computer and began cleaning out my shelves. When the shelves were clean, I moved to my dresser. When the dresser was empty, I cleaned out my closet. I cried a bit as I worked, ruthlessly culling chunks of my possessions into white plastic trash bags. Two bags for the dump and Goodwill went in the hallway, then five, then another five.

I took my brain away. I piled distraction upon distraction, stopping to read chunks of old writing projects, to go through a bag of costume jewelry. Bits of the conversation would repeat in my ears unexpectedly.

This isn’t really you, you allow yourself to be led into bad situations.

I looked through each of the sketchbooks I’ve kept since middle school. Hundreds of pages. I stopped and stared each time I found a picture of a man kneeling.

I found a photo of Michelangelo’s Rebellious Slave. I saw the original when I was twelve. I remember insisting that I get a photo.

I decided to give my collection of weaponry away, since I rarely care for it and never use it. She came to check on me, brought me a glass of wine, and sat for a few minutes. She convinced me to keep the collection, for a little while. “Think about it,” she said.

In retrospect I know I was working the way I always work, allowing big ideas to simmer while keeping my immediate thoughts and actions diverted.

Several hours later I felt as though a mask had been painted over my face. I ate dinner with my family. The surface tension almost hummed, it was so strong.

I was still in the shock stages. It hadn’t really started to hurt yet. I hadn’t started to think on the surface yet.

That night, very late, late enough that I knew I’d be able to sleep without much trouble, I called May back. “I want to take my blog down,” I declared.

“Okay,” he said. “Why?”

If other people in our family read what you’ve written, they would react exactly as I have. It would destroy them.

I paused. “I can’t deal with the possibility of this happening again.” I suddenly felt very naked.

I was planning without knowing it. The shock was wearing off, and pain was coming in the cracks. I hadn’t managed rational thought yet. I hadn’t managed sadness yet, or anger.

My brain felt stuck in circles. I know that what I am is not wrong, so what is wrong? Where have we gone wrong?

It sounds so silly to say that I cried myself to sleep. I cried until I was too exhausted to cry any more, and then I stared at the ceiling. Then, eventually, I slept.

Stage Two is pain.

I would like to ask you, as you’re reading this, to be patient. Hold off on your advice for me, just for the moment. Hold off on your opinions of the other person. Much has happened in the past ten days, and this is only the beginning of it all. More will come, as I find the way to write it. - E