the healing journey as a site of resistance - billie rain
When I was 18, I was transformed by my experiences with a group of young feminists in the punk music scene called riot grrrl. In the summer of 1991 I helped inititate all-girl meetings at a local punk activist house in the DC area, where I grew up. At the meeting I met young women who were motivated and willing to connect on a deeper level and find ways to challenge and heal from the wounds inflicted on our lives by sexism. It was the first time I had met with any group that was willing to talk openly about sexual abuse. At that point, a floodgate opened in me. I began to consciously articulate the sexual abuse I had experienced from infancy. The other women in riot grrrl believed me, supported me, and were outraged at what I had experienced at the hands of my sadistic father. Through riot grrrl, I was able to write and tell my own story, or what I remembered of it at the time.
One point of this healing journey is not just personal, but to use my personal narrative to create a better world. I want my story to be a jumping off point to critically understand what oppression is and how it relates to child abuse. I want you to make a commitment, if you have not already, to take responsibility for the kind of society you really want to live in. Any understanding you come to as a result of my words must push us forward towards concretely and physically transforming society. "A people's revolution that engages the participation of every member of the community, including man, woman, and child, brings about a certain transformation in the participants as a result of this participation" (Guy-Sheftall, 154). I feel that my inner revolution that has manifested itself as healing from child abuse is inherently linked to larger global struggles against oppression.
-billie rain - the healing journey as a site of resistance
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healing. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
remember your dreams
healing, dreams, becoming human, writing
try and remember your dreams.
If you can't remember your dreams, keep a little notebook under your pillow or by your bed and a little mini flashlight, and write down anything, fragments or feelings, don't try to make sense of anything, just write faster than your brain can go.
Why? there are things inside that are strength giving things, healing things, love yourself things, and sometimes they are working in your sleep. they are creating messages and ways of fixing, and I know for me sometimes all I can remember is the bad dreams, but past that is the good ones. Sometimes even the good is hidden in the bad.
The best part of the dreams for me is when the truelove visits me. Once upon a time I thought the true love was something outside myself. something I could find out in the real world, and maybe there is. but this is a different love, it is part split off from the wholeness of me, and i think a lot of us have that. To survive in this world we have hidden away parts. we are full of self-hate and self-blame and guilt, and there are resources inside ourselves waiting to be recognized, waiting to be let back in.
At night, when I remember, I say, "come visit me dearone." and sometime it does. It takes a little to recognize. It is when I wake up and feel happy and a feeling of wholeness, and I feel back through the images to where that happiness comes from. The truelove comes in different forms. It has come as a highschool boy, troubled. It has come as a part human part cougar. it has come as baby twins. It has come as billiejoe from green day. it has come as a shadow, as a revolutionary fighter. Whatever form it visits in, I try and recognize it. thank it. lay there in the morning re-remembering that feeling of happiness, wholeness, peace.
And rememebering these feelings. letting them in. and in the day when things are rough I try and call them back to me. I give the images names. I call them back to me.
try and remember your dreams.
If you can't remember your dreams, keep a little notebook under your pillow or by your bed and a little mini flashlight, and write down anything, fragments or feelings, don't try to make sense of anything, just write faster than your brain can go.
Why? there are things inside that are strength giving things, healing things, love yourself things, and sometimes they are working in your sleep. they are creating messages and ways of fixing, and I know for me sometimes all I can remember is the bad dreams, but past that is the good ones. Sometimes even the good is hidden in the bad.
The best part of the dreams for me is when the truelove visits me. Once upon a time I thought the true love was something outside myself. something I could find out in the real world, and maybe there is. but this is a different love, it is part split off from the wholeness of me, and i think a lot of us have that. To survive in this world we have hidden away parts. we are full of self-hate and self-blame and guilt, and there are resources inside ourselves waiting to be recognized, waiting to be let back in.
At night, when I remember, I say, "come visit me dearone." and sometime it does. It takes a little to recognize. It is when I wake up and feel happy and a feeling of wholeness, and I feel back through the images to where that happiness comes from. The truelove comes in different forms. It has come as a highschool boy, troubled. It has come as a part human part cougar. it has come as baby twins. It has come as billiejoe from green day. it has come as a shadow, as a revolutionary fighter. Whatever form it visits in, I try and recognize it. thank it. lay there in the morning re-remembering that feeling of happiness, wholeness, peace.
And rememebering these feelings. letting them in. and in the day when things are rough I try and call them back to me. I give the images names. I call them back to me.
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