A piece on rape culture on The Rumpus, outrage fatigue, a renovation and accessibility, and what to do when your brain lets you down

Today my piece “What Happens When Girls are Raped as Children” is up on The Rumpus as part of their Enough series on rape culture, along with some other terrific, gut-wrenching pieces:

http://therumpus.net/2018/02/enough-i-am-never-the-same-girl-again/

I’m a little tired today because since the beginning of the week we’ve torn out two 1980’s sticky sliding doors and replaced them with easy-opening French doors, as well as torn down part of the wall of our bedroom to make more space for an accessible closet. If you’ve ever wondered what an accessible closet looks like, I hope to post pictures soon, but it involves a larger opening (so I can get in if I’m in a wheelchair) and more shelving for easy access to clothes. I should never complain because 1. I have a house that was mostly already accessible and 2. I’m thankful to finally have some money (after eighteen months of living in the house) to do some more renovations, but I’m also super allergic to everything (paint, glue, insulation) involved in a renovation, so I’ve mostly been hiding out trying not to get sick and trying to get some writing done. I’ve written one poem and sent out one submission so far – nothing for the record books, but at least something during a week when I had a renovation plus five (that’s right) medical appointments going on already. One of the things I’m trying to do is not let “accessible” mean “ugly” and try to infuse some style in with the things I have to do to make my house usable with my motor skill and walking problems. I’ll post some pictures soon! We also painted a wall blue in the bedroom (something I’ve done in almost every house I’ve lived in – I love an accent wall!)

I spent an hour yesterday in an MS therapist’s office doing cognitive testing so they can track what’s going on in my brain. Yes, it is harder to concentrate than it used to be – it takes me much longer to write a book review or read a book or even a magazine. Yes, it’s harder to keep a phone number (or face) in my head for long. Is it harder to do math, to recognize symbols, to memorize certain lists? I don’t have the results yet, but it felt as stressful and difficult as those placement exams they give you in sixth grade. I came out exhausted and my house torn up and my cat hiding because she’s easily traumatized having people in the house. Sigh. I’m hoping the results and exercises they will lead to will help recover some of my memory problems. While I try to retrain my balance and walking abilities, I am also trying to retrain my brain so that it will function at least as well as it did up until last July.

If you’ve always relied on your brain, rather than your body, for a sense of self-worth and self-respect, and it lets you down, it’s disheartening. It’s frustrating. But one neurologist who specializes in recovering from different types of brain injury (including MS lesions) told me that we don’t really know what the brain can do when challenged, how plastic our memory and abilities. As a writer I’ve tried to continue to write through all the health challenges I’ve had, even when my fingers could barely type. The piece I wrote about the consequences of being raped when I was six (and pondering the long-term consequences for so may girls who have had these things happen to them) was written a few months ago when I was still practicing my motor skills and swallowing, and I hope it will be helpful to someone. Talking about rape isn’t super fun or upbeat, but until we start protecting people and standing up against a culture of “boys will be boys” and “it’s okay for girls to suffer in silence” and “well, it happens to everyone” I’m afraid that little girls will be in the same danger I was in in 1979. As I talked about in my last post, it’s important not to get so fatigued mentally, spiritually, physically that we stop fighting for what is right. I am trying.