Note: I wrote this on April 15, 2017. Other than my boss’s boss, no one has ever seen it. It feels pertinent to me today to share it, especially in light of those in power and when you consider how much we are told that bullies go away after high school. They don’t. We are constantly fighting against them. Talking to the bully and asking for help didn’t work for me, so I wrote this letter and gave it to the boss’s boss.
Little yellow bastard outside my front door.
There are days I have thoughts in my head I want to write about, but can’t flesh them out into anything more meaningful than a sentence or two. Sometimes it’s because of the PTSD. Sometimes I can’t find the right words to express myself. Sometimes someone else said it better. Sometimes there isn’t anything more to say.
The wind picked up at the end of the No Kings protest, but it was still a good day and a good protest.
I’ve been to protests before, but it was always as a reporter. Today was the first time I attended a protest for myself.
Katie and Irene show off Gering and Scottsbluff from atop the Scotts Bluff National Monument. Photo by Katie Bradshaw.
I haven’t wanted to sit down and write anything since my mom passed away on April 2. Each time I get behind the keyboard, I get sad. Then, the words no longer come. Added to all this, my country has fallen into fascism. I am at a loss of what to do, where to go, and what direction I should be taking.
Throughout all of this, however, there has been the kindness of others who have reached out to me and I want to highlight that instead of the devastation that seems to be surrounding me.
A drawing of T-Rex by Wyatt and me. I drew the head and teeth. Wyatt didn’t like my horns and said they needed to be “more pointy.”
A notification popped up on my phone. It was from my friend, Jina. I rarely read emails on my phone, save for things that are emergencies, and this was no different. When I returned home a few hours later, I read my email, nodded my head and spoke to my monitor. Yeah, that’s right. Now you know why it takes me so long to reply to emails. I tend to talk right back at you and forget to actually type out the damned response.
I don’t think this is anything related to my trauma. It’s just how my brain works. It’s also why I have written about a dozen awesome posts in my head over the past month, but never actually typed them. Sometimes, I type them in dreams and forget to do it in the real world. Today, I’m going to start typing them out and share them here.
Mom and Gram, sometime in the early 1980s.
WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW
I stopped screaming when I was 9 or 10 years old. No one came to save when I was 3, 4, 5 years old. They still didn’t when I was 8, 9, 10 years old. So, I internalized my screams and pain and stopped asking for help. I have wailed once since then on the day I nearly lost my eye, but I did not scream. Monday was different.
Irene and I left home just before 8 a.m. We had a 9 a.m., appointment at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. She had signed up for a class to learn beadworking from HarmonyStar Straub, an Oglala Lakota artist from Crawford, Nebraska.
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