My Favorite Teachers Through the Years: Miss Katie - 6 years old: I began taking a ballet and creative movement class at the YMCA in my hometown when I was six years old. We had a teacher we called Miss Katie; I remember her being an absolute sweetheart and a very engaging teacher. She combined teaching us the very beginnings of basic ballet technique with playing pretend games. I remember us using silk scarves to pretend we were pirates, playing freeze dance games where we got to dance like mad until the music stopped, and then we had to freeze and be absolutely still like statues. Miss Katie knew how to make classes fun and engaging, she was really skilled at including students with all different personalities, and she made the class feel like a time when we could explore movement and enjoy ourselves. Though I was really young when I was taking these classes, I remember my mom really liked Miss Katie as a teacher and I remember how much fun I had in the classes. Eventually Miss Katie had to move on from her teaching position at the YMCA, and though she was my teacher for a short time, I will always remember her classes because they were a really positive start to my journey as a dancer. Miss Anna - 6 years old until 19 years old: After Miss Katie left her teaching position at the YMCA, I wanted to keep dancing and start taking lessons in a studio. My mom helped me find a new studio that was not too far a drive from where we lived, and I was excited to start taking classes as soon as my mom got me registered. I started taking ballet and jazz classes at my new studio, and my favorite teacher during this time was called Miss Anna. Again, since I was about six years old when I was in Miss Anna’s classes, I don’t remember too many specifics about this time. However, I remember Miss Anna was a very kind and gentle teacher. Though this was over twenty years ago, I can remember Miss Anna encouraging each student in learning their technique, and if we didn’t understand something she would really take her time to demonstrate the movement and explain it in a way that allowed us to feel confident in what we were learning. In addition to being an amazing teacher and really loving each of her students, Miss Anna was an absolutely gorgeous performer. I remember watching her in the Christmas shows our studio put on which told the biblical nativity story, and thinking, I want to dance like her someday. Miss Anna was an early inspiration to me as someone who’s love for dance and joy for teaching permeated everything she did. Sarah - 6 years old until 19 years old: I stayed at the same dance studio from six years old until I graduated high school. While I was there, I had many teachers who positively influenced my perception of myself as a dancer, performer, and as an individual. They will always occupy an important place in my heart because of their unique characteristics as women in the arts and as teachers who really understood me and had a heart for seeing me succeed in all I did. One of these teachers was called Sarah, and she was an extremely important teacher to me for many reasons. Sarah brought all kinds of influences into her teaching, making our classes a time where I felt I was not only learning about dance, but also learning about how to be a person. Sarah would talk to us about history, she would use sign language while she was teaching us because she was fluent in it, she would talk about her past performance experience with a dance company she was in during her college years, she would share elements of her faith because it was a Christian dance studio, and tell us lots of interesting stories or funny anecdotes as the class went on. I always felt like her classes just flew by because she kept things so interesting. I also really connected with her style of movement. There was something about her choreography that felt so right in my own body and her movement style was hugely influential to me during that time. Dancing her pieces always felt easy because they became part of me in a way no other teacher’s choreography had before. One of the last pieces I performed by Sarah was one all about taking joy in life, wherever you can find it. This choreographic inspiration has stuck with me until this day, and a lot of my own choreographic work is related in some way to this idea that came from Sarah so many years ago. Susan - 21 until 23 years old: When I entered university level dance training, I felt so pleased and privileged to be there because I had dreamt of becoming a professional performer since I was a very young child. Though university training was certainly a whole new world of experiences from what I was used to in my studio growing up, it was so exciting. And I quickly connected with a teacher who reminded me a lot of my favorite teacher, Sarah, from my previous studio. Susan quickly became my favorite teacher, not only because she was absolutely hilarious and so sweet to work with, but she was also really skilled at bringing her interest in anatomy into our classes. She could explain an aspect of technique, alignment, or choreography in such precise ways because she was able to explain how the body works with such clarity that my understanding opened up in a brand new way. She would also bring new exercises and challenges into class every week that targeted our strength, flexibility, and creativity, and I always felt so capable under her tutelage. When I changed universities, I knew Susan would be one of those teachers that I would miss working with. She was a fascinating person to listen to, a caring teacher to engage with, and someone you could tell genuinely ate, slept, and breathed dance. Susan embodied a passion for seeing her students succeed that was really evident in her teaching, and her attitude as a teacher remains a goal of mine in my own teaching to this day. My Values as a Teacher: I have had the privilege of being taught by many people who have encouraged my growth as a mover and as an individual, who have helped me realize my own potential for growth, and given me a lifelong love for dancing and movement arts. These teachers live in my heart and have made a massive impact on me as a dancer. Whenever I teach, their examples form a huge part of my motivation and goals as a teacher. Whenever I am teaching, whether that comes in the form of teaching my friends choreography I’ve come up with or working with students in a primary school like I was privileged to do over the last couple of weeks, there are three things that are extremely important to me:
My Experience as a Teacher: Teaching four-to-six-year-olds during my dance company years: My first experience as a dance teacher was in the studio I grew up in. I was a member of the studio’s dance company and company members at the senior level were given the chance to assist in the creative movement classes for four- to six-year-olds. Our role as assistants was pretty simple, and quite honestly consisted mostly of crowd control. Children that young are very dreamy and creative, so there were a lot of times where the children needed gentle reminders to pay attention to what the teacher was demonstrating, so I would come alongside those children and demonstrate the moves to them, gently bringing them back into the task if they were starting to get distracted. Quite a bit of the class, however, involved a lot of free time to play. We would often start the class with coloring time where each child would get a printed out drawing to color in, then we would move on to a mini obstacle course or a free dance activity where the children could dance with props like ribbons. During this experience, there was one child in particular who I made a special connection with. She was what some might call shy, but I could tell that she really liked dancing and was a really sweet child. She reminded me a lot of myself when I was younger, and so I spent a bit of extra time with her each class whenever I could, dancing near her so she felt comfortable in doing the movement the teacher was showing and using positive feedback to acknowledge her participation in activities. She had the best attention of all the children in the class and I could tell, even though she was still really young, that she was very engaged with learning in the class. At the end of my time being an assistant with this class, this particular girl gave me one of the drawings she colored in at the start of class and she had written my name across the top of the page. The fact that my influence clearly meant something to her was such a huge moment for me, because at the time, I honestly thought I maybe was not very good with teaching children in general. I also felt like before having this teaching experience that I did not like teaching children, but this one girl really changed my perspective on my abilities as a teacher. I remember the connection I had with her to this day and I hope she is still dancing now. To be fair, there were times during this teaching experience that were challenging. As I mentioned, I went into it thinking that I really was not good at and did not particularly enjoy teaching children. The teachers I assisted were very pleased with my work, and they always thanked me for being there to help them with the funny predicament of crowd control during the classes, so it was not that my skills were actually lacking. I think what I needed was more exposure to teaching children, and as I got more experience, I got more comfortable with making connections with the children, as well as being firm when I needed the students to listen or pay attention. There were a couple of children that had consistent behavioral issues each week, and they required a bit more attention and care during the classes. I remember one girl in particular often did not finish the class and needed to be brought out to her parents. She was very funny, talkative, and energetic, but this also came along with a healthy dose of deciding to do something else rather than paying attention to the class activities and sometimes getting into little arguments with the other students. I had a lot of love in my heart for this girl, because I could tell she had a big personality, but it sometimes did make it difficult to keep the other children on task because she often diverted their attention. I would approach this student by coming next to her and asking her if she could come do the exercise with me if her attention was straying, or if she and another child were getting carried away, I would give them each a ribbon to dance with or ask them if they could show me some of their dance moves to get them back on task. It was sometimes really difficult to bring this particular student back into the group because she sometimes really did not want to participate with everyone else, but I found it to be a valuable learning opportunity for myself, so I would know what to do in the future when I encountered students of similar temperaments. I also really hope this particular student is still dancing and, I hope, doing drama or musical theater. She had quite a flare for such things even at that young age, and I feel like she would be a really successful performer if she still has the interest in it. Teaching choreography to my classmates: In the years between about 2016-2017 when I was a teacher to young ones in my old dance studio, I had not done much teaching in a formal class setting. However, I have had the chance to teach choreography to my fellow classmates throughout my time in both universities I’ve attended. During our second semester of third year last year, we had the chance to make choreographed performances with each other amongst our cohort and give an informal showing in the studio at the end of the semester. I created a piece called you cannot eat money, which centered around the idea that, though humans have participated in a contentious relationship with the planet during the last one hundred years in particular, there is still the possibility that we can heal our relationship with the planet and reconnect with nature. I am a hippie at heart, and I bring my love for nature into a lot of my work. I took a really collaborative approach to teaching my choreography to the two colleagues I selected for this piece. I had chunks of choreographed work that I set before beginning working with them, and then left certain parts of the music free for them to create their own movement. I know their dance styles really well and wanted to incorporate their own unique voices into the piece. One of my dancers has experience in popping and street dance as well as her incredible skills as a contemporary dancer, and another of my dancers is really skilled in ballet and she brings her sense of extension and suspension into contemporary dance in really fascinating ways. I wanted to highlight their unique qualities and give them the freedom to create movement that put their own unique stamp on the piece. I started the rehearsal process by explaining the storyline of the piece to my dancers so they knew what the spirit and intention of the piece was. I also asked for their input on the music before I put the final mix together so they would be dancing to sounds that they really enjoyed. From the beginning, both of my dancers were really excited about the concept of the piece and they were eager to start the rehearsal process. Their attitude toward the work was so encouraging for me as a teacher, since this was one of the first times I was teaching an entire piece to my colleagues. I had some experience teaching sections of choreography to my fellow dance company members years before, but that was a short section of co-choreographed pieces where I was not the sole choreographer or teacher. I could feel from the beginning that this would be an amazing first experience as a choreographer and teacher of my own work. While I was teaching them my choreographed bits, I would demonstrate and rehearse the work phrase by phrase with them until they could perform it on their own. Since they both pick up choreography really quickly, they had the phrases down in no time, which allowed lots of creative time for them to develop their solo work and coordinate their movements with each other. The whole teaching process was really easy because we all knew how each other worked, and we were all on the same page about how the piece should look and feel. Throughout the process, the fact that I am really close friends with my dancers came into my teaching style quite a bit. We had a lot of fun working together and this fostered an atmosphere of co-creating and co-learning together. I really enjoy teaching in a way where my dancers or students have as much input as possible, and what is most important to me during rehearsals is that my dancers feel comfortable with each other, themselves, and with me in the midst of the work. This feeling of comfort and friendship really came across in the finished choreography, and I had such a sense of pride watching my friends perform my work with such grace, bodily intelligence, and sensitivity to each other. The following video is the recording of our studio showing of the piece, and I still get emotional watching it to this day: Teaching in primary schools:
My most recent experience teaching was just over the last couple of weeks in two primary schools. I had the opportunity to go into two schools with a group of my peers to show a short performance that involved body rhythms, rather than musical accompaniment, as well as teach the students in the schools short rhythmic phrases in smaller groups. I worked with two of my classmates to develop a lesson plan for about thirty minutes worth of teaching. Each one of us in my teaching group took on a section of the lesson plan, and we coordinated really well in getting to know the students, teaching the material, and making the class a fun and interactive time where the students could express themselves. Our lesson plan went as follows:
I enjoyed performing and teaching at both of these schools. After our time with the students, I felt like my mood was boosted. Sharing knowledge and getting creative with young students who may have never encountered dance in quite the way we were teaching them was such a positive experience. Getting to teach these students, have a positive impact on their day, and give them a space to move with each other was such a privilege. My Style as a Teacher: From my most recent experiences teaching in the two primary schools this week and from my choreographic work with my classmates last year, I can see that my teaching style falls into the realm of the practice style and inclusion style from Muska Mosston’s spectrum of teaching styles (Kiikka, 2021). I like to allow students and dancers I work with to use exploration as their main method of learning, and give space for students to adapt the learning to their own capabilities. I also enjoy seeing my students or dancers I am choreographing with getting creative and adding their own movement to what I am teaching. When I am teaching set material, I really enjoy practicing the material along with my students so that we’re experiencing moving together. This is especially helpful for students who are new to dance since there can be a certain amount of fear associated with doing movement on one’s own. Doing the set material with my students or dancers, and then taking the set material and playing with it a bit like we did in the primary schools, is a great way to create something together with my students and close the perceived gap between the student and teacher. As a teacher and choreographer, I feel like I am always growing and learning from each experience I have, including teaching my work or other set material to others. I feel like over the years, I’ve become more sure of my own teaching style and approaches as I’ve been a student in multiple contexts. I have seen many superb examples of what makes a great teacher - their joy, passion, and wealth of knowledge about dance - and I feel like I have so many tools available to me to bring their examples into my own teaching in the future. Sources: Kiikka, D. (2021) The spectrum of teaching styles: A summary of all styles, The Sports Edu. Available at: https://thesportsedu.com/the-spectrum-of-teaching-styles-summary/ (Accessed: 22 March 2024).
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Below is a downloadable reflective journal of my findings while studying anatomy and movement analysis at the Irish World Academy. My main takeaway from this course is that knowledge on how nutrition and the body works is key, and self-knowledge is half the battle in anything to do with your movement practice. As long as you keep self-educating about health and how the body works, your dance practice will continue to be a source of rich self-expression and discovery.
This is a piece I wrote for the Dancewear Center blog. They are a small-business dance gear shop located in Kirkland, Washington with a heart for inclusive and diverse education in the dance world. Please support local and check out their website for gear and good reading, links below: Dancewear Center shop, blog, this post on the blog. During the last year, I’ve been on an intentional fitness journey, spurred along by the privilege of getting back into a dance studio to train consistently, even amid the ongoing pandemic. All through lockdown, I was in remote university courses for dance, yet I saw a significant decrease in my desire to maintain my fitness and nutrition goals. This was because I did not have a dancing community physically around me and had very little space at home to maintain a usual training rhythm. I feel excited and so thankful to be once again moving toward my goals in a way that feels challenging and freeing.
Yet, the time I spent away from the studio, and quite far away from my personal fitness goals, caused me to think a lot about how I can maintain my sense of body positivity and self-love in the midst of changing life circumstances. I would not trade what I learned during this time, because life will always throw unexpected circumstances at us, but our need for self-love and self-respect is unchanging and requires maintaining. In any case, during a pandemic or not, when dance spaces are made into goal-driven environments that focus overmuch on what the body looks like, a high level of self-criticism can develop and turn into a lifelong struggle if not kept in check. For example, I have struggled with issues of body dysmorphia and disordered eating, and have watched my dancer friends go through some of the same struggles. One can start to feel like they are not a true dancer if the goal post of self-acceptance is constantly moving and, unfortunately, there are aspects of the dance world that can make self-acceptance very difficult to achieve. Add on a global pandemic and the consequent stagnation/interruption in training goals, and that feeling of illegitimacy, at least for me, definitely increased. For this year, I know it has taken a lot of mindfulness and having the right people around me to heal, refocus, and keep my perspective on myself and my body positive. Self-acceptance, self-celebration even, is not easily fought for and won. In our dance journeys, there will be a lot of maintaining, unlearning, relearning, and self-connection that needs to happen if we have negative messaging from our past or have experienced a discouraging setback in our progress. Community is a huge piece of that relearning and healing, and I hope everyone reading this can connect with others through dance in some form. An uplifting dance community is invaluable and makes the load lighter while we’re moving toward a stronger relationship with the self. I cannot bang the drum about community enough. But, in addition to that, here are a couple of personal practices that have helped me so much this year and can be done with and without others: Gratitude-based movement. Often dancing requires a lot of mental concentration on learning form and content. Though being in class and learning new material is exhilarating, it’s akin to reading a textbook or working away at a craft until it’s honed. In my experience, the work of learning dance is very mentally taxing and requires the body to function more like a tool. This can cause a bit of a feeling of disconnection between the body and mind/heart. So, I believe that every dancer would benefit from some sort of moving mindfulness/gratitude practice outside rehearsal spaces that focuses on thanking the body and self for all the work being achieved. For me, I have been taking tai chi classes as part of my degree program and it has been so helpful in guiding me into feeling empowered, connected to myself, and grateful for the body I have. Right. Now. One of the focus phrases we use frequently is to always have an inner smile if something feels difficult or if the mind wanders; and at the end of every class, we think of something to be grateful for and bow in thanksgiving for the goodness in our lives. It’s a beautiful way to start the dance day and one that reminds me of how capable my body is and how grateful I am to exist as myself. Some other examples of moving gratitude practices that come to mind would be walking, meditation, yoga, pilates, and Feldenkrais. There are so many options available and anything that brings you into a state of gratitude for yourself and your life is well worth the time! Studying my body + personalizing nutrition. I find myself having a lot more respect and love for my body when I know how it functions and when I’m intentional about getting it the fuel it needs. Our bodies are unique, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to dancing our best. The most empowering thing I’ve done for my dancing journey is paying attention to the specific questions and feelings that come up for me during my training days and then pursuing answers for those questions. This personal focus was new to me until just recently and paying attention to my way of being a dancer revolutionized my practice. I have learned a lot about myself; some personal examples of discoveries I made would be…
These are just some of the personal discoveries that have helped me take more ownership over my dancing and my health, and have led me to feel more connected to and positive about my body. Problem-solving discoveries are a beautiful way to quickly move one from feeling discouraged and incapable to feeling proud and excited about our unique dance expression. If you have questions about yourself, take the leap and pursue those inquiries with teachers and your dance community. Study your body and find out what works for your personal journey. You’ll be so amazed at what you find out! (A bonus suggestion would be to keep track of your questions and discoveries in a notebook or voice memos so you can look back on your progress.) I wish you the best on continuing toward self-celebration, radical body positivity, and joy-filled dancing. This is a piece I penned for the Dancewear Center blog in July of this year. They are a local dance gear shop located in Kirkland, Washington with a heart for inclusive and diverse education in the dance world. Please support local and check out their website for gear and good reading, links below: The shop, the blog, and this post. Childhood body-negative studio experiences:
For all of my life, my body has been what most people would think is not a conventional “dancer body.” While there is no shade intended to be thrown to those who are of a different physique, I was never a naturally thin person and yet constantly felt like my life would be easier if I were, that the thin dancers at my childhood studio got the most attention and respect paid to their work. I knew there were certain roles I would not likely be considered for because of the aesthetic desired versus the one I represented. In another space, I was told that I am “the nerdy, girl-next-door type,” but “not the leading lady type,” and I felt that held true for how I was perceived in the dance space as well. Growing up in what I felt to be a body-negative/body-shaming dance space for me was almost like the old analogy of a frog being slowly boiled. You’re in the midst of the heat, yet being slowly desensitized to it until it’s too late to save yourself. From my personal experience, body negativity can be so ingrained in dance education spaces that it’s hard to even recognize it happening. Especially when body-negative messaging and practices are covert rather than overt. I became so used to feeling poorly about myself and receiving nonchalant messages about how my body was not quite acceptable, that I thought it was normal, even deserved. Throughout my young dancing years, I took hiatuses from dancing many times when the pressure and pain of not living up to expectations became too much. Then upon my return, I would see folks I was dancing with a couple years before were now a few levels ahead of me and being cast in principal roles in the dance company. So the vicious cycle would continue when I realized I was nowhere near as conditioned, technical, or artistically expressive as them, because time had gone by. My confidence would waiver again, the body image issues from my wee years would rise to the surface, and I would either severely cut back my class schedule or leave dancing for a season altogether. Yet, there was little time made for investing in the emotional wellbeing of dancers either in technique classes or in the member-exclusive company, and so there was no one there to notice that I and other dancers were slipping through the cracks. These turbulent years certainly contributed to the zeal I have for diversity in the dance world now, because I became exhausted with the old hat expectations of the dance world yester-years. For years, I dreamed of a more just and body-inclusive dance world… then I realized that it was up to me to make that world a reality, in whatever way I can. Choosing body positivity: Through mental health counseling, I have had an opportunity to explore how deeply negative thoughts about myself and my dancing have burrowed into my self-image as a result of the conditioning I’ve received since I was young. I’ve begun unpacking how those thought patterns have affected my life and thoughts, have led me to treat myself and my work with disrespect, and to self-harm through intense exercising and disordered eating. Yet, all the while, I know I just wanted to live in the simplicity of loving my art and self-expression. That is the evil at the root of body negativity; it robs everyone of self-love. I realized that the difference between body positivity and body negativity can be subtle yet pervasive. The difference between wanting to be strong or wanting to be a small leotard size. The difference between genuine happiness for someone else and toxic comparison. The difference between loving dance for itself and wanting to be admired. A subtle shift is enough to make what should be a joy into an obligation, or a mental prison. These patterns of pervasive self-harming thoughts and habits started shifting for me ever so slightly once I got to university. I could certainly feel myself holding onto the desire to meet superficial aesthetic standards for a while, even though I had hoped that at the university level such expectations would be a thing of the past. As I grew in confidence as a young adult navigating the world, I got tired of being evaluated on aesthetic standards alone. Since day one, I have worked hard in my university program and wanted to be evaluated primarily on my work ethic and attention to detail. For me, realizing that body positivity was the key to unlocking the rest of my dancing career came because of a breaking point. It came because I was exhausted with being counted out time and again, and seeing others struggle to stand out in the midst of a popularity contest. It came with growing up and realizing that dance can be (and has to be) many things to many people or it loses its joy. It came with a desire to help people of all body modalities to find the indescribable joy in dance that I found. It came with heartbreak but also hope: to be a cycle breaker, so that no other dancers will be made to feel less-than because of their body. Most of all, it came with solidifying my own philosophy. The way you show up on earth in your physical form is the most deeply personal and powerful thing we have available to us. I believe that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience, that our experience of being human is one and the same with our bodily experience. So, to me, devaluation of the body is devaluation of the spirit, a disregard for the core of humanness. Not everyone approaches it with that set of beliefs, but from a pragmatic standpoint, our identities are intrinsically tied to our physical bodies, while at the same time transcending the physical. We perceive each other physically, as well as emotionally and intellectually, simultaneously. There are levels to being human, and each one of them counts. I believe for that reason, there should be awe when encountering a human with a body; there should be respect and love. There should be joy and acceptance. This is especially critical in dance spaces. When I realized that some part of my dance career would include being a teacher, I recognized that I had to unpick my own body-negative thought patterns. I had to heal myself from my internalized self-reproach, I had to get healthy, or any teaching I do would be heavy with judgement toward myself, and most likely toward others as well. My aesthetic judgments toward myself and toward other dancers had been taken over by the body-negative language and practices I received as a child and young adult. The next generation of teachers need tools for making body positivity an inherent part of their curricula, and unteaching body negativity in the dance world has to be intentional for us to make any progress. Body positivity in the studio: On my journey of deconstructing my own body-negativity, I have had to employ curiosity and become very uncomfortable, and ask questions to form new patterns of thought. Some key questions I ask myself regularly are:
Asking myself these questions has already led to really positive results. I have found freedom in working with my body on a daily basis, wherever I find her at and without judgement. I find that I see the beauty in other dancers more readily because I am working to shut off voices of judgement about their work and mine, because I believe that setting yourself free also sets others free. I have found work by other dancers that is truly comforting, inspiring, and refreshing because it breaks down barriers and creates new possibilities. If I were to give a short list of suggestions to studios and universities about how to train with body-positive frameworks, it would be:
I offer these suggestions as one who has not yet been a dance educator, but has been a student for many years. I acknowledge that there are unique challenges to educators within different dance spaces, but since dance is a physical art, I believe it to be imperative that we work to get the body positivity issue right. I offer these suggestions as a student who knows what it feels like to have had a few very encouraging and life-giving teachers, and unfortunately, a few teachers who added to my pain in this area. I offer these suggestions with the hope that more dancers will receive from their teachers what I ultimately had to learn for myself. Self-love and body positivity in dance spaces must be intentional, and educators are the first line of offering dancers a healthier way to see themselves and a brighter way of looking at the world. So that dancers everywhere will know their body (and every body) is a dancing body. What's coming up is a repost from my personal Facebook page/Instagram that I threw up there a couple months ago. I wrote it after reflecting heavily on a particularly difficult time in my personal life that completely threw me off course, redefined my worldview, and shook my sense of self to the core. People I trusted with my creative output and considered friends pulled the rug from under me and it's taken awhile for me to process what's happened. What really gave me courage to post these thoughts was being able to confide my side of the story to a couple friends who already knew the outline of the events in question. To have my experience heard by some genuinely kind individuals with open ears gave me what I feared I didn't deserve: compassion and understanding... because months upon months of gaslighting will make you believe you never deserve to feel understood, let alone happy and safe. This post goes into no details about the actual events I experienced because at the time I was still in touch with a couple of the folks involved, but rather out of respect and a hope to encourage other people who've experienced similar circumstances, talks about my general experience of emotional abuse and gaslighting in a few scenarios throughout my life. I am posting these thoughts again here on the blog because this subject is very much in line with what I intend to cover in future posts anyway, and gives some personal context to whatever musings I will post here about abuse/gaslighting/manipulation, etc. I only ever intend what I offer about my personal experiences to be helpful. Talking about these things can sometimes be interpreted as looking for attention or wallowing in a victim mentality, but the truth is the truth and there is no point staying silent about narcissistic abuse and emotional manipulation. The only way we can recognize these situations and put a stop to them is knowing what they look like. That is all. Now, to the post: Over the last few months, one topic has dominated my thoughts and I wanted to talk about it just briefly because I know this is not unique to me: (just to be clear, this is not at all going to be a political rant.)
If you have ever had to deal with the fallout of harassment and mental or emotional manipulation from significant individuals in your life, you know that it affects every aspect of your walking around life. When you have been gas-lighted, manipulated, and made to feel unsafe by someone else on a consistent basis, it is hard to feel that anything will ever be okay again. It can be hard to enjoy life, think calmly, and feel normal when you're always ready for the same shite to happen again with other people you trust. In my late teens and early twenties so far, I have encountered several cases of personal and vocational harassment/gas-lighting in previous friendships and former work places. I've had to leave jobs, been forced out of friend groups, and have had huge setbacks in my mental health because of gas-lighting, manipulation, and harassment from people I thought were safe for me. And the more this happens, the easier it is to start to believe that you deserve such treatment, especially if there is never anyone there to advocate for you on your behalf. Experiencing such things on your own feels like drowning, yet I have always felt on some level that such treatment from other people was somehow warranted. And thinking you deserve it is really all just part of the head-f***ery the toxic relationship is putting you through. Because no one deserves that. No one deserves for their head and heart to be misused by another person, for their trust to be broken and to be unable to assess what's real in the relationship because the other person is capitalizing on your confusion and fear. And if you've ever experienced these things for yourself, I am so sorry, and I see you, and I believe what you've gone through. Our society tends to normalize toxicity and harassment in all arenas from the personal to the professional, and it makes it exhausting to stick up for yourself, especially if you harbor fear that no one will listen, care, or believe you. But as scary as it is, setting up boundaries to stop the toxic behavior and then telling the necessary people who can hep you about it is key in making sure it never happens again to you or to someone else. Asking for help and asserting yourself is frightening, but being trapped in manipulative situations is so much worse. I will be working through what I've experienced for a very long time and I certainly do not quite know what to do with the things I've gone through. It is not easy for me to put things in the past and leave them there, especially when I initially had hope for the relationship/connection that turned out to be inherently broken and toxic. But at the very least, I have gained a lot of empowerment from learning how to leave situations that were incredibly unhealthy, even though if I'd had my druthers, I would have never chosen to go through those things. Ultimately, though, I hope these things have shown me how to be a better friend, family member, and (someday) partner to other people. I hope I know more about how to love since I've experienced a lot of pain. But that's not to say that you necessarily have to learn anything from stuff like this... but I hope I have. Thank you for reading. |
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