Brigid

So, I'm drawing inspiration from Tori Amos by researching beings in mythology and seeing how they connect with different characters of mine.

At first, I thought my character Mel was kind of attributed to Apollo (despite the gender difference), then I saw bits of similarities with her and Apollo's sister Artemis.

Of course, I also attributed Mel to Persephone at first. You see, Mel was raped when she was 18, an event that's kinda stuck with her for a long time, and she didn't really get around to dealing with it until she fell in love with someone, who (years and years later, like almost ten years later) turns out to be her husband. She isn't like how she used to be, which is a good thing, but it is also the reason why I don't assosiate her with Persephone. Maybe I would with the Mel of the past, but currently, she's different.

I decided to step out of Greek mythology and I looked into Ireland, and dabbled a bit... suddenly, I discovered Brigid. After reading a description of her and what she stands for, I looked up a bit more on her, and found that this particular being seems to be what Mel channels these days.

Now, there is a weird parallel thing going on with Mel and I... everytime something big happens in her life, it seems to go along with whatever is going on in my life, in a weird way. There are major differences though... I was never raped, nor married, nor am I currently carrying a child.

Emotionally though, there are parallels. With Mel's experience of being vicitmized, I was also going through some tough issues that were traumatic.. once such event was sexual harassment, but the big thing is dealing with how messed up I am due to my middle school years. I was going through dark stuff, and so was Mel.

Eventually, she started to heal, and she fell in love, and at this time, I was in a relationship.. my first real one. Funnily enough, her husband is that particular person's character, though we broke up in 2005. We are still very excellent friends though. But anyway, Mel was in love, and yet terrified because even at that time, she was dealing with the rape. She had put it off for years. However, with the help of her significant other, she started crawling forward, and eventually walking.

These days, it's a full sprint. I am happy with life and I am taking charge and resposibility for what's happened to me in the past as well as preparing for my future. In this story, Mel is expecting her first child which is due in November, and this kid is practically the final stepping stone from victimhood to being a survivor. It's helping her realize that there are bigger things in this world and that she's allowed to explore them, and she's allowed to be normal and happy again. She doesn't need to be ashamed.

Now, I've delt with shame as well. I've been ashamed to have sexual feelings because it was making me feel like a whore (despite the fact that I haven't really done something completely sexual with another person before... it's that WANT to do something that sometimes makes me feel ashamed), and I don't quite know why I feel this way.. I can't use the harassment as a scapegoat because that is an almost different experience than what I'm feeling... it wasn't a shaming experience. It was just more like "Oh fuck, I am terrified of this guy."

He never made me feel ashamed, so why feel like this? Hm.

Along with that, which is only sometimes, I am often incredibly ashamed of myself when I can't really... do anything in school. I become sort of paralyzed, and I think that it's sort of like traumatic stress... I had that from the harassment, but I've gotten over that. The thing is, I endured three years of grief for my sister along side emotional abuse from my teachers in the midst of that mourning, and now there is a gap between me, the student, and them.. the teachers. When they call me to their desk, I get terrified. When progress reports come out, I feel a panic attack forming.

When I miss assignments, I feel like a failure. That's basically what they, the middle school teachers, called me.. not in exact words, but they would keep shoving those Fs in my face while telling me that I shouldn't blame it on being in grief.

I was aged eleven-fourteen.

Now, I am getting closer to the age in which my sister had died at, but I know WHY I respond to school the way I do, and so now I can make the attempt to recover. I'm not going to be a fucking victim anymore, and neither is Mel.

Drew, the rapist, kept entering her life now and then after her first encounter with him.. the very first time that he came back was nine years after the first experience, and he attacked a girl, then kept coming after her and Mel.. he was finally kinda defeated. That was in 1998. Throughout 2004-2006, there were occurences.. the biggest one was when Mel was attacked by him and she had to fight for her life. He was torturing her throughout the night with beatings, stabbings, and taunting.. I wouldn't be suprised if he talked about raping her again (he seems like the type to describe what he would do in great detail to fuck with her mind), or at least attempted, but that part of the story is still sketchy. Drew isn't my character, so I need to talk with the friend whom he belongs to. :B

She managed to make it out alive, though, but it left her in a numb state for a while, and she was in a great deal of pain (obviously).

So, thanks to Drew, Mel has PTSD from everything.. that is what brings her back to those dark moments.. triggers and the like. However, she is making it out of the trauma even more now because she is not just living for herself-she's living for another life, and that is what is most important now. It's like the kid is really healing her.

Hm.. I wonder if they'd name her (the child) Hope.

Anyway... she's gone through a lot more than I have, but emotionally... we are connected at different points. The eerie thing is that each time I thought of these ideas to add to her back story, they matched what I was going through.. it wasn't intentional, but it works?

Uh, tl;dr... I'll end this for now.