Thank you, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, for freeing me. For years I've struggled to label my experience
-because it was with someone I knew both very well and not at all
-because I had felt safe with this person prior to the assault
-because I had felt safe with this person up until the moment of the assault
-because I had been strong enough to fight him off, so it was a short, interrupted assault which I feared did not qualify and would open myself to critique and public shaming.
-because he did not attempt again after I fought him off.
-because I had stayed with this person after the assault.
-because he had been contrite after the fact.
-because he begged me not to leave afterwards, and I didn't. I comforted my attacker simply by lying still as a board as he wrapped his body around mine and desperately whispered, "I'm sorry," and, "Please, please don't leave."
-because, even now, I recognize that something in me still wants to protect him, and protect his family, but that doesn't mean I didn't experience what I experienced.
-because I was afraid that the above bullet points would somehow invalidate my experience.
-because sexual assault comes with preconceived notions of dark alleys or drunken parties or roofies, and not holding and withstanding and surviving and comforting and nourishing someone you loved and trusted.
-because eventually, I left him, not because of the sexual assault, but because of the day in, day out emotional isolation and gaslighting and neglect that made me doubt the validity of my own feelings and my own reality.
-because for some people, being alone is worse than being with an abuser. Because the emotional abuse wasn't consistent--and that's the thing that no one understands about domestic violence or abuse from loved ones. It doesn't have to be consistent. In fact, the nature of its inconsistency is why some victims never leave--because you always hope the person you love with change. You always hope it will be over. You always hope you can move on. You always hope that that was really, truly, the last time.
I'm not saying this because I am seeking attention or want to out anyone. I'm not bandwagoning. I am writing because 1) You do not have to be penetrated to be sexually assaulted. This is what Dr. Blasey Ford taught me. This is what set me free. I will say it one more time: You do not have to be penetrated to be sexually assaulted. The biggest lie the rapists told you was that your victimhood did not qualify in comparison to others' victimhoods. 2) There is more than one side to a person--to both a survivor and to the perpetrator. The world is not black and white. People are not black and white. It is possible to be both a good person who did bad things, or a bad person who does good things. You can be a nice guy in all the other aspects of your life and still be a perpetrator of sexual assault. The sooner we can understand this, the sooner we can move beyond the doubt and character assassinations that comes with believing survivors. I do not doubt that Kavanaugh seems like a good guy to some people. People don't run around with neon signs on their foreheads flashing "I am an abuser!" Most people look like good people, and it can take years and years of living with someone before the other person emerges from within. I do not dispute that Kavanaugh may live a run of the mill, coffee, work, home, and occasional social gathering life like anyone else. I also do not doubt that in that person exists another person capable of doing the things he did to Dr. Ford. I do not doubt Dr. Ford. And 3) sexual assault survivors experience the fallout and continue living in a myriad of ways. Sometimes, survivors continue to maintain a relationship with their abuser. You do not get to judge them. I write this because I lived with several different types of abusers, and I -- to a different extent in each case -- loved them. It is a strange sensation to love, or want to love, or to feel like you should love the person who attacked you--but this dynamic exists and you do not deserve to be derided for coping with your situation in whatever way you must. There are people out there, walking around, existing with you, working with you, grocery shopping, and going about their lives who experience living with and continuing a relationship with their abuser. Yes, technically it is their choice--to not leave, to not report, to not out their perpetrator. You cannot--you should not judge these survivors. Unless you have lived their lives, you cannot understand why they made those choices. (Sometimes even they aren't aware of the logic Rube Goldberg that drives their instincts.) Unless you lived with abuse, and unless you were the object of abuse you do not understand abuse. You do not understand at all.
My name is Lydia Yeh, and I am a survivor of sexual assault, and domestic abuse.
Friday, September 28, 2018
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Jim and Bette
They think I am suffering because I am without God, and that I am suffering without realizing how much I am suffering. What they don't realize is, I am most free, and most happy without Him, and it's infuriating to have to keep insisting people stop trying to save you when you're not only perfectly happy, but also perfectly capable of saving yourself even if you're not.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
I Don't Know How (Living Without Hope)
I don't know how I survived cancer.
I absolutely expected to die.
I can't even explain why I bothered
with chemotherapy
(when I did not believe it would work).
I suppose I did it to comfort my mother.
Perhaps it was because I have had
a life of disappointment--
or rather, a life in which I had decided
no longer to acknowledge
the disappointment that was knit into my being
from conception.
My father married my mother
after his first wife abandoned my brothers
and ran away with a plumber,
after he had moved them all to America
with the hopes of opening a restaurant.
He never opened a restaurant.
He was the garbage and dish boy
at a restaurant for twenty years.
Disappointment.
My mother lost faith
when a married Christian mentor--
a deacon, an elder,
who she admired
asked her to run away with him.
He promised to betray his oath
to a God she believed in--
that she thought he believed in.
And then (she never said this, but I suspect)
it is likely he assaulted her
in a moment if obsessed desperation.
To see him tumble off his pedestal--
to see that no man could be as godly
as God--
Disappointment.
My parents married each other,
for twenty-one years--
with no love
no affection.
Only resentment, suspicion,
longsuffering, disgust.
I remember the day I said to my mother,
Mom, I wouldn't be here if you
and dad didn't get married,
but, it wasn't worth it.
I look at you, and I see all of this
wasted life.
If I could trade my life
for you to have a second chance--
for you to have had a marriage
full of love and joy,
even if it meant I would never exist,
I would make that trade.
Disappointment.
I was born into a marriage built upon disgust
into a home embroiled in debt.
A house in total disrepair,
infested, molded, leaking,
In a neighborhood fraught with violence
and poverty and squalor,
and a simmering fury at injustice
over the sweaty stench of desperation.
Parents raising children in a world without hope--
with an understanding that
they were inheriting a life
where they would work to eat, and eat to work.
Living a life where practicality superseded dreams
and survival superseded purpose,
and vacations were imaginary things
that you heard tell
but you'd never been on.
You worked because you woke that day
and you slept because you must work tomorrow.
Sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat, work;
a world without flavor
a life without hope.
My entire life has been a practice
of living without living.
But I am alive;
I just don't know how
or why.
I absolutely expected to die.
I can't even explain why I bothered
with chemotherapy
(when I did not believe it would work).
I suppose I did it to comfort my mother.
Perhaps it was because I have had
a life of disappointment--
or rather, a life in which I had decided
no longer to acknowledge
the disappointment that was knit into my being
from conception.
My father married my mother
after his first wife abandoned my brothers
and ran away with a plumber,
after he had moved them all to America
with the hopes of opening a restaurant.
He never opened a restaurant.
He was the garbage and dish boy
at a restaurant for twenty years.
Disappointment.
My mother lost faith
when a married Christian mentor--
a deacon, an elder,
who she admired
asked her to run away with him.
He promised to betray his oath
to a God she believed in--
that she thought he believed in.
And then (she never said this, but I suspect)
it is likely he assaulted her
in a moment if obsessed desperation.
To see him tumble off his pedestal--
to see that no man could be as godly
as God--
Disappointment.
My parents married each other,
for twenty-one years--
with no love
no affection.
Only resentment, suspicion,
longsuffering, disgust.
I remember the day I said to my mother,
Mom, I wouldn't be here if you
and dad didn't get married,
but, it wasn't worth it.
I look at you, and I see all of this
wasted life.
If I could trade my life
for you to have a second chance--
for you to have had a marriage
full of love and joy,
even if it meant I would never exist,
I would make that trade.
Disappointment.
I was born into a marriage built upon disgust
into a home embroiled in debt.
A house in total disrepair,
infested, molded, leaking,
In a neighborhood fraught with violence
and poverty and squalor,
and a simmering fury at injustice
over the sweaty stench of desperation.
Parents raising children in a world without hope--
with an understanding that
they were inheriting a life
where they would work to eat, and eat to work.
Living a life where practicality superseded dreams
and survival superseded purpose,
and vacations were imaginary things
that you heard tell
but you'd never been on.
You worked because you woke that day
and you slept because you must work tomorrow.
Sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat, work;
a world without flavor
a life without hope.
My entire life has been a practice
of living without living.
But I am alive;
I just don't know how
or why.
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Xiao-bai
To this day, I don't think I have forgiven my parents for not telling me my dog was sick and dying. There is a special bond between an only child and her dog; a debt that a woman could never repay to the furry soul that taught her how to be a good and decent human. I don't think I will ever stop being furious that she was taken by a stranger to the vet to be put down, alone, scared, in pain. She should have gone in the arms of someone who loved her. She should have been kissed into eternal sleep. I would have left school. I would have come home for her if I had known. It was a cowardly thing for my parents to keep it from me. It was dishonorable to think that such a faithful friend did not receive the dignity to die with the person who loved her the most. I never even got to say goodbye. It is strange to think, that of all the things I have lived through, the death of a dog would be the thing that still hurts the most in my 31 years of existence. My friends who are parents--never do this to your children. Let me disabuse you of the idea that you are sparing them any pain by keeping them from a dying loved one. All you are doing is stealing from them their chance for closure.
Monday, July 16, 2018
So Quickly It Fades
So Quickly It Fades
So quickly it fades--
the memories of pain, gnawing at the empty spaces
in the matrices of your bones,
fear sloshing through the caverns
of calcium,
tainted with nausea.
So quickly it fades--
the familiar desperation you feel
shielding the flickering flame,
straining to see into the voids,
following the ripples between stalagmites,
searching for a way out that
simply doesn't exist.
The only thing there is the one
other thing consuming the oxygen
you desperately need--
you need it to see
but the longer it burns
the less you can breathe--
as if there wasn't precious little enough
already.
So quickly it fades--
that deep, sinking feeling of realization
that up here in the air, where you breathe
where you have minutes of life left
(which is not much, but it's more than no minutes left)
is going to be your grave, and the only way
the only way
you might get out--might--
is to leave the air.
You put your face, your head
down
into the water,
when the burn of carbon dioxide makes you
heave, desperate to breathe,
desperate to inhale
you just grit your teeth--
sometimes you can't even do that so you
keep swimming with your mouth open
with the water pushing the air bubble
back into your mouth
and you tuck your chin
and keep the pressure just so--
and you keep, pulling yourself through
deeper and deeper through
the indignities.
Oh, God. The indignities.
So quickly it fades--
the memory of the indignities.
How to explain the indignity?
First, it's just a fever that comes and goes--
the weakness,
the sweating through your shirt and down your face
like someone opened a faucet in your hairline
and under your pits
and the dizziness and exhaustion so deep
and profound that a single breath more feels too taxing to perform.
They think you're faking. Attention seeking.
Hypochondriac. You can see it in their eyes
as they write down your symptoms between pen clicks.
Just a flu. Just a bug. Doxycycline
shot of steroids, some painkillers.
Been too stressed.
Get some sleep. You'll be fine.
Then, come the tests.
They call it poking and prodding,
but what they really mean
is 5 AM lights on
needles fishing around under your skin
and deep into your radial artery--
or at least in the vicinity of the radial artery
--or into the side of your neck
with the large bore needles
again and again and again
failure after failure after failure
until they throw up their hands and go
"fuck it, time to Edward Scissorhands this bitch."
Then when the test comes back positive
they need to check if the cancer
has infiltrated your bones
so they take a little peen hammer
and a large bore needle
pull down your pants
swab your hip
and hammer deep into you and tear your marrow out.
Then, on to the port insertion:
A slice, and a finger inserted into the wound
and wiggled around to loosen the skin
like one would to a Thanksgiving turkey
except instead of butter and thyme and salt
a tube and a port
then a few rough stitches and skin glue
because
"We're radiology not plastics."
Except I'm 28 and the only part of my body
that I like is my decolletage--
my boobs are my only redeeming asset
on an otherwise failure of a body.
But this seems like small beans.
The real indignity begins with the puking--
so much puking, so violently
until you're not sure that what's on your face
or in your eyes or up your nose
or in your mouth
is bile, or food chunks
or tears
or blood
or chyme
or splashes of toilet water
blown back up like a geyser in the wake
of the violence of your vomit and dripping
back down like light percussion.
But even that pales in comparison
to the indignity of the shits.
And the shits are so shitty.
You squirt. Yeah.
You can't even feel when you need to go
until you go
and sometimes you go when you sneeze
or stand up.
The shit just squirts
and the real winners are when
you vomit and the force of the
vomit causes the squirt.
And then the real winners are when
you get a little golden trickle in there, too.
All while your bald, pimply,
eyebrowless, eyelashless head hangs in the toilet
getting a fecal chaser.
So quickly it fades, these memories.
The vows to live life
are quickly consumed by the necessities to live
to eat, to house oneself,
to buy insurance (oh, the irony).
And school. And work.
And your identity grows
as your strength grows
as your hair grows
as your brain grows back--
and then--
and then...
The fevers and night sweats, and nausea
and exhaustion so deep and profound that taking
another breath seems beyond you
start up again
and,
every minutia of the absolute terror
that is the cancer
that is the indignity and fear
and regret and sadness
and fury at the unfairness of the world
slams you right onto your ass
and you are just--humbled
by your absolute powerlessness,
and it's like the hysterical coward that was within you
was never triumphed over at all.
So quickly it fades--
the memories of pain, gnawing at the empty spaces
in the matrices of your bones,
fear sloshing through the caverns
of calcium,
tainted with nausea.
So quickly it fades--
the familiar desperation you feel
shielding the flickering flame,
straining to see into the voids,
following the ripples between stalagmites,
searching for a way out that
simply doesn't exist.
The only thing there is the one
other thing consuming the oxygen
you desperately need--
you need it to see
but the longer it burns
the less you can breathe--
as if there wasn't precious little enough
already.
So quickly it fades--
that deep, sinking feeling of realization
that up here in the air, where you breathe
where you have minutes of life left
(which is not much, but it's more than no minutes left)
is going to be your grave, and the only way
the only way
you might get out--might--
is to leave the air.
You put your face, your head
down
into the water,
when the burn of carbon dioxide makes you
heave, desperate to breathe,
desperate to inhale
you just grit your teeth--
sometimes you can't even do that so you
keep swimming with your mouth open
with the water pushing the air bubble
back into your mouth
and you tuck your chin
and keep the pressure just so--
and you keep, pulling yourself through
deeper and deeper through
the indignities.
Oh, God. The indignities.
So quickly it fades--
the memory of the indignities.
How to explain the indignity?
First, it's just a fever that comes and goes--
the weakness,
the sweating through your shirt and down your face
like someone opened a faucet in your hairline
and under your pits
and the dizziness and exhaustion so deep
and profound that a single breath more feels too taxing to perform.
They think you're faking. Attention seeking.
Hypochondriac. You can see it in their eyes
as they write down your symptoms between pen clicks.
Just a flu. Just a bug. Doxycycline
shot of steroids, some painkillers.
Been too stressed.
Get some sleep. You'll be fine.
Then, come the tests.
They call it poking and prodding,
but what they really mean
is 5 AM lights on
needles fishing around under your skin
and deep into your radial artery--
or at least in the vicinity of the radial artery
--or into the side of your neck
with the large bore needles
again and again and again
failure after failure after failure
until they throw up their hands and go
"fuck it, time to Edward Scissorhands this bitch."
Then when the test comes back positive
they need to check if the cancer
has infiltrated your bones
so they take a little peen hammer
and a large bore needle
pull down your pants
swab your hip
and hammer deep into you and tear your marrow out.
Then, on to the port insertion:
A slice, and a finger inserted into the wound
and wiggled around to loosen the skin
like one would to a Thanksgiving turkey
except instead of butter and thyme and salt
a tube and a port
then a few rough stitches and skin glue
because
"We're radiology not plastics."
Except I'm 28 and the only part of my body
that I like is my decolletage--
my boobs are my only redeeming asset
on an otherwise failure of a body.
But this seems like small beans.
The real indignity begins with the puking--
so much puking, so violently
until you're not sure that what's on your face
or in your eyes or up your nose
or in your mouth
is bile, or food chunks
or tears
or blood
or chyme
or splashes of toilet water
blown back up like a geyser in the wake
of the violence of your vomit and dripping
back down like light percussion.
But even that pales in comparison
to the indignity of the shits.
And the shits are so shitty.
You squirt. Yeah.
You can't even feel when you need to go
until you go
and sometimes you go when you sneeze
or stand up.
The shit just squirts
and the real winners are when
you vomit and the force of the
vomit causes the squirt.
And then the real winners are when
you get a little golden trickle in there, too.
All while your bald, pimply,
eyebrowless, eyelashless head hangs in the toilet
getting a fecal chaser.
So quickly it fades, these memories.
The vows to live life
are quickly consumed by the necessities to live
to eat, to house oneself,
to buy insurance (oh, the irony).
And school. And work.
And your identity grows
as your strength grows
as your hair grows
as your brain grows back--
and then--
and then...
The fevers and night sweats, and nausea
and exhaustion so deep and profound that taking
another breath seems beyond you
start up again
and,
every minutia of the absolute terror
that is the cancer
that is the indignity and fear
and regret and sadness
and fury at the unfairness of the world
slams you right onto your ass
and you are just--humbled
by your absolute powerlessness,
and it's like the hysterical coward that was within you
was never triumphed over at all.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Priorities: A Reflection on Christianity
I delayed this post to avoid diverting attention from the memory of one of this country's most iconic (if not the most iconic) Civil Rights leaders, but this resonated so much with me that I had to write something. I literally got into a shouting match last Thursday, during which I called pious Christians who were praying for God's second coming as terrorists--as in, if your goal is to end life on earth, and if your goal is to cause the end of this world you are a terrorist. You're praying for millions of people to die due to circumstance, because they don't believe what you believe, or live the way you want them to live. If you believe that you are better, that you are chosen, that you are predestined by virtue of your birth, and that the rest of the world is rebellious and stubborn and unaccepting of your god's ways and therefore should burn and be ended you are a terrorist. Don't talk to me about the goodness of God until you preoccupy yourself with practically caring for those around you. Don't tell me about the value and necessity of believing in God and accepting him as your savior. I am not concerned with your threats. I do not need the threat of Gehenna or the reward of the New Jerusalem to live my life in a way that is kind and generous and honorable to my fellow humans. And if your god and your afterlife is actually real, but filled with sanctimonious shits, I'd rather go to hell and be with my people who are fighting day in and day out to bring social justice now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)