This morning started off like any other - off I went to the subway, as I do every day. When I saw on the monitor that my train was eight minutes away, I figured I would get out my book and read until the train arrived. When my train arrived, it was very crowded; I had to walk as if through a maze to find a spot where I could stand with my book. I was standing, holding a pole, alongside two other women.
As we all stood there uncomfortably, the man kept inching his way closer to the other two women, who kept inching away from him. They were both younger and smaller than me, and much smaller than him. He was using his size and his gender to intimidate us all, to remind us that we couldn't take up as much space as he could. The women looked at me and I looked at them - we all looked at each other with recognition. We knew we would protect each other, if necessary, but were still afraid in the moment. It was a tense ride and thankfully he got off about three stops later, after bumping into one of the smaller women on his way off.
This man may have been mentally ill; he may have been socially awkward; we may have been overreacting; I guess I'll never know. What I DO know is that while I was standing there, feeling a threat in the atmosphere, I was suddenly thrown back to the time I was groped on the subway. I was suddenly thrown back to the time I was assaulted in college. In both of those moments, I was silent, because I was too afraid to make sound. On the subway, something I do every day, I was filled with terror, all because a man thought he had the right to intimidate me in an enclosed space. And then I was filled with rage at the fact that I LET him intimidate me. I LET him fat shame me. I chose to be afraid and put a book away because I didn't want to add any fuel to his fire. I did that.
How am I supposed to fight my rage, especially when what all the supporters do is use my hate to justify theirs? False equivalencies are driving me insane. Nearly every day, I find myself screaming in my head at something else someone in government said and I think, "What the f*ck is wrong with you?!?!?!?!" That's all I keep screaming, over and over, but I'm screaming it inside. My migraines, long held at bay, are back. I started grinding my teeth after my surgeries in 2011 and it's now worsening. I keep starting my therapy sessions with "I'm so MAD." But so is my therapist. She says it's becoming harder and harder to talk about anything else in most of her sessions with clients, because the anger and fear is everywhere. And it's hard to figure out how to fight the fear, or channel the anger and put it to good use. I've been contributing money to worthy causes left and right, but that can't last.
Like most everyone else, I have my demons. With the opening of the Pandora's Box that happened in November, I deeply resent that my demons have been unleashed as well. Things I thought I had lived through, dealt with, and moved away from are now terrorizing me on a near-daily basis. I deeply resent that I am frequently afraid, while also recognizing my privilege - my terror is mostly in my mind, but my friends' and fellow human beings' terror is right in front of them. It's like living in a daily f*cking Kafka novel.
I've been reveling in the safe space that is the theater lately, but even there, I find myself retreating inside myself instead of giving in to the wonderful feeling of community. The readings I've been attending lately are evenings filled with joy, yet I've remained outside of it. It's been much easier to smile, wave, run out and email my praise later. I hate myself when I do that. I guess in the interest of self-care, we all do what we can to put one foot in front of the other. But when I scream to myself "What the f*ck is wrong with you?!?!", I know the answer and still don't know which way to turn.
