I've got the power! (Dun, dun dun, dun)

Reaching a long term goal is strangely both anticlimactic and terrifying. It's as if you reached the top of the staircase to nowhere, stepped off and realized oh fuck, there's nothing but air.

But you don't fall, you just aimlessly float. 

I got a job. A real effing job. I'm ecstatic. I'm mostly relieved. And I'm scared. What is my next goal? I guess it's to not suck. What if I suck and all this reaching was for naught?

I've been thinking about how much power I give people. How often I show my cards without them showing me theirs. Even in my current awesome relationship, I often feel I've given too much of myself and that the power is uneven. I'm a naturally passive and submissive person, so I don't mind, but sometimes I wish I had kept a little but more of myself. Love isn't about giving all of yourself, but just the best parts of yourself. And I've gone and given the most fucked up and nettled pieces of me to someone who may use it to fuel doubts. Doubts about us, about me. Whether I'm a person worthy of having a long term relationship with. 

Obviously, my boyfriend does think that I am or else I wouldn't still be mentioning him. However, I would like to have some of my power back. I'd like to have the ability to say something mean when I'm angry just because I feel it's merited. I would like to say "I want _____" and nt feel bad about it. 

I want my power back from all the words. Fuck the words, I won't let them hurt me as dearly as they have done before. I won't let someone try to belittle me by speaking my fears and insecurities. Like, so what? The bad things will always be there but they will always be surrounded by good things. Two truths. 

I've been trying to erase trauma and fear instead of coming to terms with it and surrounding it with feelings of comfort and assurance. My whole life I've been told to suppress my feelings until now they spill over like a boiling pot, when really I should just have felt them and let them pass until I could feel good things. 

I have a lot of catching up to do. 

So if I look for compliments or assurance, let me. Don't judge me for it. I'm just immortalizing you into a good thing. 

-grace #adulting

So a psychiatrist, a dancer and the ultimate question walk into a bar...(EDITED)

The person I've always trusted least was myself.

Correction: I trust myself the least, but only after Nigerian spam emails. 

I've always been one to avoid confrontation. I know many people seem to think I'm a hard ass, or very combative, but I'm not. My boyfriend equates me to a jawbreaker: a hard shell with a very gooey center.  I don't even think I have that hard of a shell, but I guess I just don't like showing all my cards, because people use them to play against you. 

I filmed for Vermillion this weekend, and was talking to the girls about my recent and fully official, PTSD diagnosis and how I felt like I didn't deserve to have PTSD because nothing that bad has ever happened to me. I also spoke to them about my most recent sexual assault which I never reported despite me being too drunk to even legally say yes. I thought "he was sober but, he probably didn't realize he was doing something bad. We had been involved before, he probably assumed it was ok with me". He is the person I referenced in a former post with a picture of a text message. 

Niki the makeup artist called me out. I was making excuses for him and mostly for me. She said I had tried everything else possible to move on except for facing what happened and doing something about it. 

A month ago I spoke to a psychiatrist about this incident and a prior one. I have accepted the first incident being a "grey area" and so I never pursued charges. After speaking to him about both, he told me men can't fully comprehend a woman going home with them without wanting to have sex with them. He told me I needed to be more careful. He told me not to drink too much. 

I walked out of that office ashamed, and doubly afraid to tell anyone anything ever again. I was hurt. I was horrified. 

I was pissed. 

In light of all that has happened with Christy Mack, and War Machine, and the amount of slut shaming and victim blaming, I was disgusted with everything. And for those of you who post "Even if she is a porn star, she doesn't deserve it" are still perpetuating the idea that porn stars are beneath you. Porn stars have a job, and they do it for YOUR enjoyment.  No guy ever called me a slut while I was intimate with him, only afterwards. Why do you scorn people who bring you pleasure? Why do you scorn those who don't want to? Why must I be pure and yet sexy?

WHY?!?

This morning I went through all my previous texts with the man whom I shall refer to as "Dickbag", and I found proof (at least proof for me personally) that in no circumstances would I have allowed what happened to me if I had been coherent. I knew this. I had always known this. I have spent the last 25 years with myself, why the FUCK would I doubt it?

Someone I love once said something while angry that I will never know if they meant, but they said nothing bad had truly ever happened to me and that I had nothing to complain about. And I know people say things when they're angry that they don't mean, but that is what I keep hearing everytime I go see a therapist, or a doctor, or mention my PTSD. It's what keeps me quiet now, as I struggle with the ever constant question if I would want to risk a failure to prosecute, or just swallow it and move on. 

I'm so full, I don't know what more I can keep down. 

-grace #adulting