Why I am not a nice girl

I am not your nice, Christian girl next door, as you might have noticed. And this is not a role I play for this blogging project, or to promote my writing and music. This is me, and I stick to it, even when it gets complicated, and believe me: It becomes an issue more often than it doesn’t. Women are expected to find a compromise, and I mostly won’t.

To discover the final reason why I am often so unexpectedly unbearable stubborn for a person who is read as feminine as me, I first of all have to announce an infamous trigger warning. This post will include details about abuse, rape, suicide and mental health, so beware. Skip to one of my poems, if you don’t feel like it. I don’t mind.

I have never understood the tendency of other uterus carriers to be ready for any compromise. Let’s stick together, let’s give up our individuality! At least we suffer together! What they tend to ignore is the fact that even together the suffering still is suffering …

When I was still living in a church community with my mother, I was trained as a classical musician. It looks as if I have to be thankful for the opportunities they granted me. Without them, I would never have learned to play the violin, the piano, and to sing. But it all became a struggle when I, at the age of 15, began to write my own songs. It did not even matter that I wrote my first one for the singing group. No lyrics, so no way to either praise or unpraise the god the I did not believe in, but still. It caused an outrage, and I was given a lesson in not overstepping my rights. I was not an artist, not a musician, and not an important individual. Do as you are told, and don’t ever think for yourself.

But what’s so bad about thinking for yourself? I thought as I ran away from them.

Recently, I worked for a boss who loved all her young employees like own children, and it became an issue, because I am not a good replacement daughter. I am hired to do a job, and I am quite qualified and competent. I can focus, and know how to do things. In the end, I was thanked a lot for my good work, and I knew that they meant it. Still, I was (lovingly) scolded for being so focused and opinionated, the exact traits needed to accomplish my goals.

What’s so bad about knowing how to do my job? I thought as I packed my things once my work was done.

When I was still attending family meetings, I had an uncle with a moustache, who liked to talk. He talked about his hate for the unemployed, the Muslims, the queer, the women with abortions, the teenagers with black clothes. He talked about his wish for capitalism to crush them all. “No more charity!” Capitalism for life, because it makes fascism look reasonable. When I told my mother about it, she had a simple response, as she told me to keep quiet.

And I wondered why I had to accept these human rights violations every Christmas …

These are rather specific examples of when the female tendency for compromises annoyed me, but honestly, there is a darker aspect to this pattern, and I want to share it with you.

Besides not being allowed to develop my love for music and art as a teen, I made much more intense and harmful experiences as a girl growing up in such a community. I was sexually abused at a very young age, and then again raped as a teenager. I began to self-harm, was considering suicide regularly throughout my life. And at this point, I cannot believe anymore that nobody knew. It was so obvious that something was up. But you know how it is. Girls gotta play nice. Girls gotta look for a compromise and do as they are told. Don’t you ever wonder. Don’t you ever think for yourself. Find your place in the hierarchy! And if your best friend, cousin, daughter, suddenly stops talking, cuts her wrists, stops eating, and runs away from home, it must be that they were always weird, not they cannot make it through another night in a home that is not safe. It’s not true that the wife always knows. But it’s true that she could know.

This is why I’m not a nice girl. But I’m a girl you can count on. I might be a pain in the ass to deal with, but I won’t ever shut up and look away.