Wonder Grrrl

A continuation of my attempt to finish a book I started in December 2017. Posting chapters in an attempt to organize it all and finish.

I’m not sure if this will be the next chapter in the book, but it’s the chapter that wants to be written right now.

I didn’t fully appreciate until fairly recently the impacts resulting from a great proportion of my youngest years being spent in a constant state of fear. Relationally and religiously. I don’t think I received enough rest as a child. Or the ideal chance to relax and just be a kid. No, life was constantly about protecting myself. I later learned that the clinicians refer to what developed in me as a state of basically prolonged hypervigilance. Soldiers come back from war with the same heightened levels of this.

There were many years where my response to an environment I couldn’t escape was to freeze, fawn, or flight (within myself). Being almost completely isolated and unable to talk about things, I had very limited options for enduring everything.

Over the years, I would sometimes see comic books, cartoons, or movies with female superheroes. But I couldn’t relate to how they were pretty much all over-sexualized. So in high school, I made up my own superhero: Wonder Grrrl. Inspired by Tank Girl and the Riot Grrrl movement associated with some of the music I liked to listen to: Hole, Kittie, PJ Harvey, Bikini Kill, the Kill Rock Stars label, etc.

The logo I created for Wonder Grrrl was a star with the initials WG in the middle. I created a t-shirt with the logo and I tattooed the logo on my upper arm for my eighteenth birthday. My only tattoo.

Since I had no real-life superheroes to rescue me, I would save myself. Apropos I guess: both my middle and last names mean “warrior”. And I feel like I’ve been fighting my whole damn life.

But what about my first name, God? Sarah means “princess”. Will I ever get that experience?

When I was much younger, my counselor was trying to encourage me to finally return back to seeing a gynecologist. I’d rather jump off a bridge. For multiple reasons. Both personal and in “professional” settings.

Which is probably what gave her the idea to offer to write something up about me that a physician could read that would give them more insight than I then felt able to verbally communicate. In hopes that the physician would respond accordingly and the experience would be a more positive one than I was used to. And therefore I would stick with any treatments and return.

Well, this particular counselor is very intelligent and I thank God that she didn’t focus on labels when she talked with me. So I didn’t really take on any as an identity to the extent that bothers me in some others I see. I still remained pretty much the full me even as I worked through probably at least a few diagnoses.

But when she wrote up the note for the gynecologist to read, she gave me the option to see and review it. And the list of words used to describe what I was navigating in therapy was too much for me. I blanked almost immediately. And still to this day I don’t remember what was said. Except for one word because I had to ask her what it meant: anhedonia. Defined as the inability to feel pleasure.

Back then I could definitely see why she would associate that with me. But it never fully sat all the way well with me. I couldn’t wrap my head around it at the time, but now I am able to express why.

In my life, it has always been a given that if I let people know what was I wanted, what was important to me, and what I cared about – then that would be taken away. Used against me. So I learned very early on to shut down, shut up, and keep my cards close to my chest. I was an expert at “grey-rock” decades before I ever learned the term. In order to survive. And this wasn’t a conscious thing. It just happened because this beautifully created brain we’ve been given picked it as one of a handful of safe ways to traverse the mindfield of my life. It was easier that way because I didn’t yet have the ability to fight for myself.

I wouldn’t even realize until decades later that the people I was drawn to in media very much mirrored the same qualities. What did you want to be when you were a little girl? Who else besides me admired orphans selected to be trained as special operations overseas? Alone.

One of my favorite books was “My Side of the Mountain”. About a little kid who lives alone in the woods. Hiding from adults.

Another book I enjoyed was about Robinson Crusoe. Shipwrecked on an island. Do we see the theme yet?

Also Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes. People who saw things others didn’t see. Investigators. Researchers. Truth-seekers. Those were people I could relate to. Did I ever choose this life? Or did it choose me?

Even the sermons from the pulpit. It was obvious to me: there were many jealous unhappy people around. And if you shared your excitement then it could cost you your life. Or have you sold to the highest bidder and shipped off to years of slavery, servitude, and injustice.

If people feel threatened then they shut down. Or even attack.

When he was still a kid, my brother once told me: “Your problem is that you set the bar too high. I set it low so I get rewarded for doing anything.” He learned from watching me. And decided to do differently. They treated me like I couldn’t do anything right. They treated him like he couldn’t do anything wrong. He’s the one people invite to parties. I’m the one at home alone.

Not because I am unable to experience pleasure. Very much the opposite. Sometimes I find so much beauty in life that it is intensely painful not to be able to have others to equally enjoy it with.

You were that one. You got me on that level. Without words. You were intense just like me. No chill. Zero chill. And yet we laughed, you made me laugh, so often.

That’s how I knew we were good that last time. It started awkwardly, but by the end you were back. Your old self. Poking fun at my expense but with an audacity that could always break me free and make me smile.

One time we when we were first hanging out, we were driving north on Interstate 35 and you were not in a great mood. I tried something on you that I used to do with an ex of mine, Rosalinda. I sang the famous Rufus and Chaka Khan chorus line to you: “Tell me something good.” You responded very differently than she used to. You bit back earnestly with something like, “No! I hate all that happy feelings bullshit!”

I was taken aback. Me, the Never Give Up girl. Grrrl. I didn’t know how to respond. I felt like a deflated balloon. I was sad for you. I didn’t know what to do to fix you.

You used to tell me many times that you got to the point where you asked God not to show you anything else that was beautiful. Not another revelation or even another sunset. Because it was too much. Too painful to not have anyone to share it with.

I didn’t understand it back then. But now I do.

“He came riding fast like a phoenix out of fire flames
He came dressed in black with a cross bearing my name
He came bathed in light and the splendor and glory
I can’t believe what the lord has finally sent me

“He said dance for me, fanciulla gentile
He said laugh awhile, I can make your heart feel
He said fly with me, touch the face of the true God
And then cry with joy at the depth of my love

“‘Cause I’ve prayed days, I’ve prayed nights
For the lord just to send me home some sign
I’ve looked long, I’ve looked far
To bring peace to my black and empty heart

“My love will stay ’till the river bed run dry
And my love lasts long as the sunshine blue sky
I love him longer as each damn day goes
The man is gone and heaven only knows

“‘Cause I’ve cried days, I’ve cried nights
For the lord just to send me home some sign
Is he near ? is he far ?
Bring peace to my black and empty heart
So long day, so long night
Oh Lord, be near me tonight
Is he near? Is he far?
Bring peace to my black and empty heart.”