Manifestation...
I have an acquaintance who I met on Instagram. She is inspiring and literally "Pushes Through" everything :)! In fact, she even created a mantra about it and has gone world-wide with her message. It started out in her classroom. I even taught it to my students a couple of years. She did it for a GAP kids commercial, with the Philadelphia Eagles, and on the news once with Michael Strahan.
My proposal may not be accepted, but I wrote it anyway. I've held my "manifestation" attempt accountable. And if this one does not work out, I may submit to a real Ted Talk-after my story continues to grow and hopefully evolves.
With my parents being free-spirited, hippies: pro-legalization of marijuana, anti-war/violence, and freedom and respect for all (including a woman’s right to choose)-I was groomed naturally to be a feisty, social justice warrior. My mom told me all about her experiences growing up in Anniston, Alabama. Yes, the very same Anniston where the racists bombed the Freedom Rider’s bus. My grandfather likely had a friend who participated or was a participant himself. There was only one Black family my mom attended school with in the 50s and 60s. The boy was on the football team. One day, in an act of vile racial discrimination, the other football players-his supposed teammates-put a razor blade in his cleat-to slice his Achiles tendon. My mother taught me this was an atrocious act of white supremacy and I was never to tolerate this if I saw it or heard or saw someone else perpetrating anything remotely similar. On the way to her own mother’s house, my Grandma Ruby, I always was told the racist language she used was not ok. However, oddly, my mom did not correct it: generational trauma.
My parents always took me to visit my step-grandfather Walt, where he worked security at the Natural History Museum. I had to read every single plaque, sighing all the way. She wanted me to soak up all the knowledge of dinosaurs-science, hieroglyphics-ancient languages and diverse cultures, and about caves and natural healing tonics. At the museum and at Noccalula Falls State Park, I developed a deep respect for Indigenous populations, dancing with them, hearing puppet shows about their beliefs, listening to story-tellers regale us with vivid legends and folklore around a campfire.
Every year, I participated in the summer reading program, beating all the challenges. I was interested in reading grim subject matter: Vlad the Impaler, slavery, the Salem Witch Trials, the Donner Party, Sitting Bull, the Romanov Massacre/Rasputin Vampirism/Mysticism, the Titanic’s sinking, and the Holocaust. I often wrote creative stories about innocent animals who could talk. I was taught to articulate yourself, use correct grammar (my mom would correct you mid-sentence), be assertive-never let anyone, but especially not a man-disrespect you, or put their hands on you. She had been beaten so badly by my brother and sister’s father-she is deaf in one ear. My sister, Tobi, grandmother Ruby, and aunt Beverly all had horror stories of domestic turmoil at the hands of a man, often under the influence, resulting in truck chases, miscarriages, newspaper articles, and countless 911 calls. We never went on family vacations. I believe my mom could have or should have been a forensic scientist, with her obsession with true-crime-even down to studying the body-farms, like the one right here in Tennesse (Knoxville). However, I think her generational trauma truly physically manifested into mild agoraphobia.
My dad’s best friend Jay trained huskies to dog-sled and check the mail. Plus, we always had great love and respect for our cats and dogs; you could not even flush fish in our house-hold. Even my hamsters and hermit crab Herbert got a full funeral/burial in the Hanson Pet Cemetery. My dad wanted to be a park ranger or a radio DJ. He’d travelled the country, hiking down the Grand Canyon by donkey or to the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings with his band-mates, in a van. They owned Castle Rock Records, a production company out of Michigan. They tried to sign bands for big events that they saw perform at Aerosmith and Ted Nugent concerts, who were just then getting big.
My mom had escaped, literally, from volatile abuse in the 80s. I heard stories like my brother being thrown across a room by his dad simply for spilling milk. There had been multiple instances of sexual abuse perpetrated upon my brother and sister, due likely to stress from my mother's own trauma- perhaps making her not notice what was happening to her own children by 2 male relatives. The night she left, my siblings’ father (the abuser, who would never grant her a divorce) tried to chase her down, and due to driving away under the cover of darkness quickly-it destroyed some of their furniture.
When she met my dad, on this escape mission to Texas-she’d vowed to never marry again. She also would never let a man abuse her in any way, shape, or form. After he inevitably wooed her with his charm, and utter worship-like respect (gag-their love is the seemingly fake-it is so mushy kind), I came along! Their biggest fights would be over him forgetting to set all the VCRs to record shows when we’d be gone to dinner. He helped raise my brother and sister through their pivotal, yet tumultuous teenage years. It was to be expected how they behaved, due to their egregiously traumatizing childhoods. Smoking and skipping school, turned into sneaking boys in their windows, to dropping out of school, or sneaking off from college classes. The final results were fights, children out of “wed-lock,” (I’m from Southern hypocrisy capitol- Alabama) making and selling drugs, juvenile detention, and multiple rehab and jail stints. I was sheltered from all of it, to a point... But, helping to raise my niece and nephews and hearing tension arise came with the territory.
I was still taught to be a feisty, assertive feminist, as long as I never spoke up to my mom-who had become an enabler and was more and more passive aggressive. I longed to escape, taking 19-21 hours of college credits, while always working two, plus jobs. I dated-usually safe guys from relatively respectful families. I started correcting my racist Grandma Ruby, though still respecting her trials and hard work, during the Depression era poverty and beyond she had survived. She later stopped using the N-word and voted for President Obama during his 2nd term. My best friends were Black and Latina, Shanelle and Lisie. I sought refuge in their homes, churches and strong familial heavy cultures.
It was known I would not stay in our small town. I left behind anyone who exhibited a lack of motivation, commitment, alcoholism, or any other addiction. Little did I know, all my standards of what I would not accept would wane. When you work for someone, naturally there is a dynamic of boss/employee civility and respect. My mom had always taught me to never date your boss. Always listen to your mothers. She also warned me to not date someone so much older than me. Again, listen... I took issue though, since my dad had been her boss and she is 5 years older than him. I was always trying to rebel, in any way I could-amidst all the sheltered rule following. Now I realize my self-consciousness has manifested into an unhealthy, unattainable attempt at perfectionism.
After almost 11 years dating him, I had lost my fire. My spirit was extinguished. My religious beliefs had been ridiculed. All aspects I had vulnerably shared about my family, had been thrown in my face. I had been called each and every derogatory name in existence: pig, fat, lazy, user, gold-digger, whore, cunt, bitch, and the list grows-almost daily. I was isolated from family and friends, physically and emotionally. I was told I was “whoring” if I went out with friends after teaching all week. My family and friends did not “love me” because they did not drive 7-8 hours round trip for a visit. I was told to attempt suicide: “Hang yourself...Run off the side of the road.” I was too “easy” and didn’t fight back enough, weak. I was not spontaneous enough. I was boring when I would fall asleep on the couch after working all day-when he had not worked but 3 years out of 11, together. I was not appealing sexually. When I attempted to create a compromise to split our home’s equity, he refused, stating I am entitled to less because he “kept me alive” for years with groceries-citing Kroger and Aldi receipts. Teaching, planning, and grading all day is exhausting, but when you want to escape your home life and feel you will be judged for anything “non work” related, you find other outlets. I founded a Girl Scouts Troop. I chaperoned Yearbook club. I became a grade level chair. I was nominated for a TLAC award. I won Teacher of the Year. I stayed at school after midnight almost every Friday night for a year “grading,” getting food, singing, with another teacher and student helpers-as another method to escape my reality. I became a teacher recruiter for our campus and even ran the school’s social media platforms. Nothing worked, including therapy, venting, and even an almost affair.
After Fall Break 2019, I never came back home. I moved in with a fellow teacher-friend. I had listened to my therapist and had a life-altering adventure in Costa Rica. I learned though, finally, my patterns of escape were futile. Until you are totally alone and heal your past traumas, you should not be with anyone else. I learned first-hand what jumping out of the frying pan into the fire-place meant (a family beloved phrase). Love-bombing from one narcissistic partner turned into being gas-lit through expert manipulation back into the home of my emotional and verbal abuser. I am still here. Please know, crying and emotions are normal. But please know praying to a God you feel has forsaken or is trying to teach you a “lesson” while crying into your pillow nightly, is not normal. Please know if you have lowered your boundaries and allowed toxic abuse into your life, you can and should seek help. Emotional, verbal, financial, religious, psychological, and sexual abuse are just as wrong as physical abuse-even if the court may not acknowledge it. Dealing with all of this trauma while being stuck in the house you own with your abuser during a global pandemic is a nightmare many face daily. I know, I am one of them.
I speak up for my former Black and brown K-12 special needs students, with a burning passion. I marched for women’s right to choose, and immigration-keeping families together. I advocate for Indigenous populations; I protested the Dakota Access Pipeline and almost went to work on an Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota. I vehemently speak out about police brutality in America. I believe Black Lives Matter and discuss topics like that and voting for all of our lives in November with my TSU students, daily. I even discuss mental health regularly and shared the A.O.C. speech regarding her standing up to the patriarchy. Cue up “Bitches get stuff done” inspirational vibes. While socially distancing myself from Covid with my abuser, who is also O.C.D. and I believe paranoid, I have been screamed at, intimidated, and been fearful it could switch with the blink of an eye to physicality: “There is a concern that the numbers experiencing intimate partner violence will dramatically rise...as a result of social distancing and quarantine during COVID-19" (samhsa.gov). He loves animals. We had hamsters. We have a gecko and fish. He helped me rescue our 5 cats. He has saved an injured owl and a baby bird in our yard or a neighbor’s. He loaned me money to pay off my student loans so I would not owe more money, through interest to the government. However, a man who can be so self-less also never told me he loved me for 11 years and showed me with every negative word and act of emotional neglect that he could enact psychological warfare upon my self-esteem and decision making. Since I left once, it has become easier and easier to insist boundaries, respect and even have stayed in totally separate rooms for 5 months, but my assertiveness ends there. I am a trapped, social justice warrior, with no voice for myself.
"Imagine who you will become once you become aware of who you are." - Jasmyn Wright
Her daily mantra is below....
Update: "Hi Ms. Hans[o]n,
ReplyDeleteYour proposal was accepted. So plan to participate on Tuesday, October 20, 2020... We will send the program lineup by Monday afternoon. Thank you again for your boldness and willingness to participate."