“Being a rape victim just sucked, for a while. Sometimes, though, without meaning to be, I was proud: I have suffered, and that entitled me to something, but I didn’t know what. Everyone seemed to be reaching deep into the crevices of their souls to find oozing gobs of pain, and if that pain was parented by some distant generation that spent brutal winters chasing diminishing herds after its own numbers had dwindled from the settler’s diseases and brute force, it seems ever more potent, wrapped around our DNA double-helixes. A pain so old begins to feel like predestination, locking every generation into more, whether that’s the truth or something I tell myself because I like the pain. Even more, I savor the twisted prestige of inheriting old hurts most people only read about in history books.” PainColonialismVictimhood Author:Elissa Washuta
“Being a rape victim just sucked, for a while. Sometimes, though, without meaning to be, I was proud: I have suffered, and that entitled me to something, but I didn’t know what. Everyone seemed to be reaching deep into the crevices of their souls to find oozing gobs of pain, and if that pain was parented by some distant generation that spent brutal winters chasing diminishing herds after its own numbers had dwindled from the settler’s diseases and brute force, it seems ever more potent, wrapped around our DNA double-helixes. A pain so old begins to feel like predestination, locking every generation into more, whether that’s the truth or something I tell myself because I like the pain Even more, I savor the twisted prestige of inheriting old hurts most people only read about in history books. ~ 93-94” PainColonialismVictimhood Book:My Body Is a Book of Rules Source: My Body Is a Book of Rules
“Once I started seeing the college clinic psychiatrist, he pulled out my blood and showed me what was really in it, glanced at each trace mineral in the lab results, each lurking marker, but his eyes were focused on the good stuff, the chemicals he'd put there. I don't know if I believe in "Indian blood," but at times, I have wished I could test positive for it when the phlebotomist pulled my blood every month, checking to make sure my lithium levels aren't high enough to pickle my kidneys. Instead, the doctor only ever reads off results that sound like the bottom of a deep quarry, as though my body collects stones.” BipolarBloodlinesLithium Book:My Body Is a Book of Rules Source: My Body Is a Book of Rules
“Sometimes I think I'm near the end of my energy for living. I plot to travel to another world because this one seems too decimated by the white men who wanted money and skin, too dangerous to navigate because of the sentinels still roaming, raping, and gouging out the earth to maintain power.” MisogynyExhaustedPatriarchyWhite Men Book:White Magic Source: White Magic