CW: Child sexual abuse

I was triggered today. It’s not often that I get triggered. This is not because I’m awesome, or tough, or strong or any of that. It’s simply because I’ve been in therapy for a very long time and I’ve done a heap of work to not be triggered.

I wasn’t always like this. In my 20s (and my ex fiance can attest to this) I was a nightmare. Triggered by any and everything – in a time when no one knew one could be triggered. I would scream and cry and shout and hurt myself, all in an attempt to convey what I was feeling. And what I was feeling was “aaaaahhhhhhhh. AAAAAHHHHHHH!! GRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” Ineffectual communication? Yes. Did I have the tools to communicate in any other way? Probably, but you see, I was hurting. Constant, unrelenting mental pain was my every day state. Undiagnosed and untreated BPD and OCD will do that.

You see, BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) is a trauma based disorder. And in my case, so is OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I am not defined by these diagnoses, but how I live with them is relevant to who I am as a person. I experienced sexual abuse as a child. It happened a number of times, perpetrated by different people. I don’t fully remember every single incident, but I don’t feel I need to in order to continue healing. I’ve done a shit tonne of work around my sexuality and attitudes to sex in response to this childhood abuse and the subsequent sex work I engaged in, in order not be fucked up by those experiences. I’m actually quite proud of how I’ve recovered from all that and that I’m a fairly well-adjusted sexual person in spite of the sexual violence I’ve experienced in my lifetime.

So, today.

Shit, today.

I was at a rehearsal for a performed script reading I’m doing in two days. We were reading a script that was “edgy.” The playwright was apparently going for “offensive for offensive’s sake.” So far in the reading, it was skirting the line between unacceptable and downright insulting, but nothing too controversial. Just assholey.

Now, anyone who knows me will probably attest that I have a well-rounded sense of humour. This is because I’ve used humour as a coping mechanism for most of my life. Be funny or die, pretty much. I’m not easily offended by things. I’m more likely to think a joke is stupid (and the person stupid for making it, let’s be honest) than to clutch at my pearls and cry for someone to please think of the children.

But you know what’s not funny? Rape jokes. Even less funny? Child sexual abuse jokes. Why? Because those acts can ruin lives. They ruined mine. I mean, I’m doing fine, but in the scheme of things, I live with massive monsters under my bed and in my head because of sexual violence. It’s. Not. Funny.

So, today.

Fuck. Today.

We’re reading this script, and then suddenly, one of the actors has to read this horrendous line that is making a joke about a child psychologist sexually abusing her child client. It didn’t hit me straight away, it kind of snuck up on me, actually. It’s like when the anaesthetic wears off after you’ve had a tooth pulled out. This thing happened, you didn’t feel it straight away, but now it really acutely hurts and it’s not cool.

The other actors weren’t very impressed with this line, but they continued to read, and then all of a sudden, I had to say something.

“I’m sorry,” I said, doing that thing where I apologise when I shouldn’t really have to apologise. “I’m actually triggered by that.”

Everyone stopped. And then, to my horror, I started to cry.

I’m in a room with five other people, only two of whom I actually know, weeping over words that immediately took me back to a night I’d prefer to not recall. This combination of words in the context that they were uttered in placed me back in my 6 year old body, back in that bed, back with that perpetrator. It took a while to hit me because I was numb. I was numb then and I’m numb now. This is not what I was expecting to experience at 4.55 on a Sunday afternoon.

I have always fully believed that when I get triggered by something it’s because I have more work to do on that particular thing. And every time it’s happened in the past, it’s been entirely true. Today, when the director – a dear friend of mine – hugged me and apologised profusely, I said to her, “it’s not your fault. I clearly have to have another session with my therapist.” I said that because that’s what made sense to me. It’s what I believed to be true.

But after I left rehearsal and made my way home, and as I fed my cats and took in my laundry off the line, as I pottered around the house waiting for my friend to arrive for our usual horror movie night, I felt off. I still didn’t feel right. I was angry. Like, really angry. And unsettled, and I felt icky and upset, and the need to yell really loud and high was making my skin itch. Then it occurred to me:

I don’t need another session with my therapist over this. I have dealt with this. I had a reaction today because that joke in that script was entirely unnecessary.

It was unnecessary. Completely, utterly, incomprehensibly unnecessary. It served no purpose except to offend – and to emotionally trigger survivors like me. Un. Neces. Sary.

RAPE JOKES AREN’T FUNNY. You know, just in case you needed reminding, Mr Playwright, sir. Being an edgelord is only cool if there’s a point to it. Just being offensive is POINTLESS, you scabby plague sore, because the whole fucking world is offensive most of the time! I am not oversensitive. I am not a lefty hand wringer. I am not a fucking snowflake. I’m a goddam survivor of this appalling act and your puerile joke is UNNECESSARY.

There. I said it. These kinds of jokes are not funny. They’re just not. Trans jokes aren’t funny. Racist jokes aren’t funny. Any joke against any minority is not funny. That’s punching down. Jokes against rapists are funny. Jokes against racist transphobes are also funny because those people deserve to be joked about. They deserve to be mocked, quite frankly. Survivors like me do not. I didn’t go through that trauma and the subsequent years of work and healing to be disrespected and disavowed by a dull-witted, artless “provocateur.” Get a clue, dickhead.

I feel better now. My response wasn’t overwrought or over-emotional. It was appropriate. I had an appropriate response to an inappropriate sentence in an inappropriate script.

Next time, I won’t apologise for it.