Visceral Trauma is Real

So there's this guy who's locked in a shouting match with his dog. It's pretty awful to hear and even worse to observe. Dog is helpless in a tiny cage, man is leaning over slapping the cage and shouting threats and imprecations. 

I knew it was no harm to me, but my body didn't. I got so shook I trembled for some time after removing myself from the vicinity. I never really thought about this reaction before but the people around this man are not having a similar response. Marcus, for example, who needs a serene environment or his nerves shock him, finds the shouty man easy to ignore. Mind you, Marcus keeps trying to do this to MY dog. Leans over her telling her what for. Not asking me to correct something but straight at my dog. Which she naturally doesn't understand. But what she does get is he's being threatening and she gets more uncomfortable around him. So I take her home. Like I did with Dan, I step in and protect her from shouty men. I have shouted at her, but from a distance and am careful not to lean over her much less move to strike her. I will pinch her, or other unviolent attention getters. Grab a tail, pinch an ear, these do not threaten a dog the way leaning over and shouting commands and threats will do. 

I did pipe up, but got exactly the reaction I expected. Dude's tried "everything" but "it's the type of dog, nobody can handle a dog like this even as well as I do." Dog is in a cage. Last night it was attacking us. Uh huh, yep. Dude has no business owning anything harder than a neutered golden retriever and even then he'd ruin the poor thing. But I do not have the power to do much. I asked if I could make a suggestion. He allowed. I simply said that dogs get louder when you get louder, and quieter and when you get quieter. He insisted he tried quiet. I mean, the dude's so obviously lying and we all know it, right? He doesn't do quiet. Never has. No idea how and wouldn't like it if he had to. Or thinks he wouldn't. Which is the off-camera stuff on the Milan shows that they don't mention. You bet a guy like that is assigned a therapist to talk through and understand his trauma so he can open up a bit more. Definitely. But that's kept private, because it is, and it makes better content, right? 

So yeah, I'm no Cesar. No production company budget behind me. No dog psychology center, no celebrity presence, no entourage to lend me authority and presence. Etc . Plus I'm not that good with people, especially egotists.

Did I mention that I started volunteer theatre? They made me pay $20 which is insanely cheap for membership in a theatre. But then it is a stupid tiny theatre and it looks like they use my budget style, as close to free as possible. I got so excited about being in theatre again, I wrote a script!

Hehe. I'm sitting with it's awfulness adjusting my attitude. I knew it was a rough first draft yet somehow expected more out of it. I know what to do in order to advance what I have, so it's down to sitting down and doing the work. Some days get spent resting, though. Yesterday was one such. 

Tomorrow as back to the theatre but I am going to my first drop-in group at the queer support center for 55+ queers and I'm definitely going. It's an important step too. I can't expect the theatre to provide for my social needs. Those people are straight arrows and hobbyist artists plus a few very conventional fine art pros, I think. I mean, they're not building flats like pro theatre. They aren't painting like pro theatre. They are tolerating conditions pros gripe about. And they live in La La Land's La La coast, the happiest Canadians around. Straight, white, comfortable, single homes in grid suburbs with awesome views, almost no crime to worry about. I mean, dog shit is the worst problem they face as a neighborhood in some areas here. Well and muscle cars driving too loud and fast. While this is the kind of life I was raised in, it's not the life I've lived since and I cann't expect them to relate to me, just tolerate me, perhaps adopt me as a mascot, possibly respect my talents if they're any good. So it's a tender relationship I have there, and cannot fill my needs for community by itself. It gives me a creative outlet and an opportunity to contribute. That's incredible and my mental health needs it more than anything else. But I still need to be able to relate to someone. Nobody here does. There's two guys who wear dresses but they do not identify as queer. They just like the damn clothing. They wear it like a man would wear it. As clothing of the swirly airy sort with fun colors, not as a sexy effeminate garment.  

I need to connect with the queer community, finally, after all these years.

Oh I agree that I am an instrument in my lack of connection. The autism doesn't help, but certainly I came from such deeply bigoted "liberals by word only" people that I was utterly unaware of how much of it I carried. Whether we are speaking of racism or any of the queer phobias, it was planted in phrases and questions and misunderstandings as well as the hateful stuff I recognized. 

But honestly, the people of Saskatchewan are transphobic as a whole, and this included the queer community. Transwomen who didn't go all the way to drag queen had no more feeling of connection than transmen who didn't go butch lesbian. You had to fit the binary. You had to be playing. You had to be commited. You can't be a gay man playing drag because his body is female. It makes no sense. Or worse, then you claim you're bi and you like both yet you lived like cis het for 50 years? Well yeah, and many gay man raise children in cishet marriages and come out in middle age. Duh. Society's cruel. I did the best I could with what I had and when more became available, I acted on it. Now, I figure I will be granted my queer card and allowed membership, where before I was just considered a straight chick putting on airs for drama. The misogyny is real, people. I didn't chase my lovers, let's be clear. I was the passive receiver every damn time. If I did try to chase someone, it went bad fast and never worked. I just had to wait for someone to show interest and decide if I could enjoy them or not. Like I never ever got my ideal, I learned to like what I got. "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." To this day, even the loves I grieve are more about what wasn't there, than what was. not for all of us the deep one true love, but I had pretty sublime events in those love affairs nonetheless. We transcended time and space and joined our souls and minds and all that juicy kama sutra shit. I swear, it happened a lot. I only ever had two shitty lovers and those were both people who had a marriage license to me. The rest were all people willing to communicate and share pleasure and tune their activity. But not to stay with. Weird, eh? To be told by the world to be independant while not being given access to the tools to do so. 

It's certainly not logical. 

I really hate shouty people. Right at the bone-in level. I think it's because my parents only shouted when slapping. Shouting wasn't a prelude to violence but rather the sound track. It doesn't matter how limited the forms of violence, it was intended to hurt and frighten and overpoweer. 

You don't make someone strong by disempowering them. Whether it's a child or a dog.