[therapy filter] Kat of the Road
Feb. 12th, 2024 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressI am reading Tess of the Road, and it's quite good, but as I commented to SamSam, if I'd read this book in 2009 it would've _destroyed_ me.
(The rest of this entrymightis gonna get pretty dark pretty fast. Content Warnings for sexual/emotional abuse, and spoiler warnings for Tess of the Road. Also it's written almost entirely for me and no one else, so it's probably at least half indecipherable.)
Onwards, with infinite limbs1
In fact, I think it's an incredible credit to the endless effort of turning wounds into scars that I can read this book and feel beautiful terrible things. That I can _feel_ them, and not just get immediately overwhelmed by the strength of What Happened To Me and my parallels to Tess.
The darkest fact to know about me is that I believe there's an alternative timeline where I stayed with kSatyr, where I bore him the children he wanted, and where I am dead. Maybe for the kids' sakes I am only dead inside, dissociated so hard and so long that anything real about me has stopped existing entirely. Maybe.
But like...watching Tess grapple with the memory of a man who treated her as nothing more than a means to an end, and then seeing her try to find people who will connect her back into herself, including men who believe in her own joy and worth...oh boy.
Oh boy.
It's not exactly as simple as partners who will give me orgasms, because it's very very easy to give me orgasms, and I can still dissociate during sex if I need to. I think it's the fact that I still cry during sex sometimes, but it's been a very long time since I've been able to do that without my partner noticing. The fact that the people I date now recognize my personhood? And appreciate me for who and what I am, not merely the status I give them?
And like...not all the parallels are the same. My sex education was so much better than Tess's, and that also makes me weep, repeatedly, because she deserves to know about herself and her body. Meanwhile, her boy was reprehensible but he wasn't broken and demanding that the only possible fix was her love, his manipulations feel so much more basic and easy.
I don't know if I ever met a whore with a heart of gold who taught me about myself (to the jeers of my friends who I have been pretending I am a boy around and gods I love this trope so much, I only have two instances so if you know more, do share2) but I do dearly appreciate the gentle sluts in my life of all genders who shared that sex is fun and pleasure is good for you and made it feel possible for me to live a life where I just do and enjoy a lot of that. And it's consensual and rich and rewarding.
(I then passed out very hard on the couch, so this is all you get, sorry.)
***
Okay, it's the next day and there's more to read and react to, so let's just make this the least comprehensible DW post I've made in four years3 and fuckin' goooo!
Because here's the direct quote of note:
I don't actually have the inclination to go and chase up me saying more or less exactly that, but oh gods. Please don't be angry for me. Please don't make your feelings about my trauma into my problem. Please don't make me have to comfort you that I was raped. And mostly, I haven't had to, mostly people have been able to understand that this is a pain for me to endure and shape, not them. It helps that I have been adamant since before I even knew the word to describe him that other people are _not_ allowed to be angry or threaten or attack my rapist, that you would _not_ be doing so with my consent or approval.
Hurting people on my behalf does nothing to help me scar.
The revenge I have taken against kSatyr is living a life wider and richer and more amazing than he ever could've dreamed, and leaving him out of it entirely. Every single time I have joyous sex without thinking of him, it counts as another success. Every venom he flung against me that I have since turned into flowers is a credit to the work I have done and an acknowledgement of the work it takes.
And coming back to the novel, I don't think I've read someone else so clearly paralleling my work in a _long_ time. I got this morning as far as Tess finally starting to tell her story and saying "he was behind me" and I was smart enough right then and there to close the book and save it for later. I haven't shared kSatyr's bed in over sixteen years, and yet even within the last few months I have had to abruptly adjust positioning with a partner so they were no longer spooning me. The body remembers, even with cells twice replaced4.
It has been sixteen years since I have cried during sex without my partner knowing.
***
She has been walking her road. I have been living my life. We are both more than we once were.
And it's been beautiful to read this book and watch her growth spill out rapid, weeks condensed into pages, paragraphs, a sentence here or there. It's beautiful to see the parallels and remember how much it hurts to go through but how worth it it is to endure, to examine, to process, to build scar tissue and protection and an unshakable confidence in yourself that this was not your fault and this thrown-away life you feel tied to is not the one you have to live. That nothing is thrown away at all, except those who would treat you like shit.
She has all my love, because, apparently, I love myself for the strides I have taken. Good.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Yes, this is the reference you think it is, I was raised well or at least weird
2: Actually maybe three, does Alanna learn from a whore? I'm pretty sure she learns about Girl Stuff from George's mom, how explicit is it that the mother of the king of thieves is a prostitute?
3: I'm not making a reference, this is an arbitrarily chosen number
4: There's that adage, that old wives tale, about skin cells fully replacing themselves every seven years? I made special note, the year it became true that my current body had never been raped.
(The rest of this entry
Onwards, with infinite limbs
In fact, I think it's an incredible credit to the endless effort of turning wounds into scars that I can read this book and feel beautiful terrible things. That I can _feel_ them, and not just get immediately overwhelmed by the strength of What Happened To Me and my parallels to Tess.
The darkest fact to know about me is that I believe there's an alternative timeline where I stayed with kSatyr, where I bore him the children he wanted, and where I am dead. Maybe for the kids' sakes I am only dead inside, dissociated so hard and so long that anything real about me has stopped existing entirely. Maybe.
But like...watching Tess grapple with the memory of a man who treated her as nothing more than a means to an end, and then seeing her try to find people who will connect her back into herself, including men who believe in her own joy and worth...oh boy.
Oh boy.
It's not exactly as simple as partners who will give me orgasms, because it's very very easy to give me orgasms, and I can still dissociate during sex if I need to. I think it's the fact that I still cry during sex sometimes, but it's been a very long time since I've been able to do that without my partner noticing. The fact that the people I date now recognize my personhood? And appreciate me for who and what I am, not merely the status I give them?
And like...not all the parallels are the same. My sex education was so much better than Tess's, and that also makes me weep, repeatedly, because she deserves to know about herself and her body. Meanwhile, her boy was reprehensible but he wasn't broken and demanding that the only possible fix was her love, his manipulations feel so much more basic and easy.
I don't know if I ever met a whore with a heart of gold who taught me about myself (to the jeers of my friends who I have been pretending I am a boy around and gods I love this trope so much, I only have two instances so if you know more, do share2) but I do dearly appreciate the gentle sluts in my life of all genders who shared that sex is fun and pleasure is good for you and made it feel possible for me to live a life where I just do and enjoy a lot of that. And it's consensual and rich and rewarding.
(I then passed out very hard on the couch, so this is all you get, sorry.)
***
Okay, it's the next day and there's more to read and react to, so let's just make this the least comprehensible DW post I've made in four years3 and fuckin' goooo!
Because here's the direct quote of note:
"If you'd told him not to," said Josquin darkly, "then it was--"
"Please don't say it," Tess interrupted. "Please. That's a terrible word, and even if it's true, then what? You'll weep for me, or get angry, and I'll feel like I have to comfort you, do you see? I can't even comfort myself."
I don't actually have the inclination to go and chase up me saying more or less exactly that, but oh gods. Please don't be angry for me. Please don't make your feelings about my trauma into my problem. Please don't make me have to comfort you that I was raped. And mostly, I haven't had to, mostly people have been able to understand that this is a pain for me to endure and shape, not them. It helps that I have been adamant since before I even knew the word to describe him that other people are _not_ allowed to be angry or threaten or attack my rapist, that you would _not_ be doing so with my consent or approval.
Hurting people on my behalf does nothing to help me scar.
The revenge I have taken against kSatyr is living a life wider and richer and more amazing than he ever could've dreamed, and leaving him out of it entirely. Every single time I have joyous sex without thinking of him, it counts as another success. Every venom he flung against me that I have since turned into flowers is a credit to the work I have done and an acknowledgement of the work it takes.
And coming back to the novel, I don't think I've read someone else so clearly paralleling my work in a _long_ time. I got this morning as far as Tess finally starting to tell her story and saying "he was behind me" and I was smart enough right then and there to close the book and save it for later. I haven't shared kSatyr's bed in over sixteen years, and yet even within the last few months I have had to abruptly adjust positioning with a partner so they were no longer spooning me. The body remembers, even with cells twice replaced4.
"...and learned to absent herself as he took his pleasure with her."
It has been sixteen years since I have cried during sex without my partner knowing.
***
She has been walking her road. I have been living my life. We are both more than we once were.
And it's been beautiful to read this book and watch her growth spill out rapid, weeks condensed into pages, paragraphs, a sentence here or there. It's beautiful to see the parallels and remember how much it hurts to go through but how worth it it is to endure, to examine, to process, to build scar tissue and protection and an unshakable confidence in yourself that this was not your fault and this thrown-away life you feel tied to is not the one you have to live. That nothing is thrown away at all, except those who would treat you like shit.
She has all my love, because, apparently, I love myself for the strides I have taken. Good.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Yes, this is the reference you think it is, I was raised well or at least weird
2: Actually maybe three, does Alanna learn from a whore? I'm pretty sure she learns about Girl Stuff from George's mom, how explicit is it that the mother of the king of thieves is a prostitute?
3: I'm not making a reference, this is an arbitrarily chosen number
4: There's that adage, that old wives tale, about skin cells fully replacing themselves every seven years? I made special note, the year it became true that my current body had never been raped.
no subject
on 2024-02-14 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
on 2024-02-14 06:15 am (UTC)I read the whole thing, and I hear you.