I’m wondering if i have the energy to blog tonight after a sleepless night following my confrontation with X yesterday re blogging. “Should i be blogging at all?”, i ask myself! But I’ve not had a good day today.
I went to my regular Monday morning Art and Craft class which is usually a really good place to chill out and try and put my problems and worries aside for a couple of hours. But today, NO! I was sitting opposite a man in his seventies who always speaks his mind, often ‘puts his foot in it’ and ought to know better! Today…he decided to put the world to rights. He went on and on about the newspapers and the news on television and radio, the ‘rubbish’ they put in magazines today etc, etc. Then he decided to air his views on women wearing short skirts and how, if we do, we shouldn’t complain if we get abused or raped!!! My first reaction was anger but before that could develop into anything tangible, i was triggered into my world of flashbacks and disassociation.
Suddenly, there i was. Back at age four, wearing a flimsy skirt that my mother had dressed me in that morning before she’d left to go shopping. I was left alone with my father who promptly sat me on his lap, lifted my skirt….I can’t go there right now and Chloe is screaming out at me, wanting to talk. I need to get away from here. I hastily made an excuse and left the class.
I can’t wear skirts, dresses or shorts. My legs are always well covered, night and day by jeans, leggings, pyjamas etc. Even tights are too exposing for me. I even sometimes put a blanket on my lap (making me look somewhat like an elderly lady, which i’m not) while i’m sitting in my wheelchair because i feel extra vulnerable, being unable to defend myself. Some people who don’t know my inner turmoil, make a joke of it, asking if i have any legs at all under there…ha ha (not).
Even before i became disabled, i would never wear skirts or dresses and would point-blank refuse (with some pathetic excuse), any invitations to cocktail parties, little black dress occasions and the like.
I can’t even bear to see little girls running about or playing in the park with their little dresses blowing in the wind. I want to scream out to their mothers, “can’t you see that you are putting your child at risk?” I look at the ‘dirty old man’ on the park bench, eyeing up the child and automatically assume the worse. (No offence to the majority of men). It makes me cringe; it triggers me back into my childhood; I’m losing touch with reality. Chloe is screaming louder no. I don’t want to be on my own…help!!
Somehow i got home but can remember nothing of my journey back from the class. An hour later, I am exhausted from crying and reliving my childhood experiences and the memories of the pain i endured. Nevertheless, i am now angry at this bloody, insensitive and ignorant man in the class.
No-one should have the right to dictate to women (or men) what they should or shouldn’t wear, and people who come out with crass comments, like “she was asking for it, dressed like that!”, need their tongues cut out and castrating. Maybe that it is oversensitivity on my part but it does make me angry. I’m now more exhausted than i was previously and need to sleep, hoping i will be undisturbed by terrifying nightmares and haunting memories infiltrating my sleep. It’s times like this when i’m too frightened to close my eyes.
Essentially Ellie 