The Blame Game, Round 427

Last night, a man touched me without asking first. It was fairly innocent in the grand scheme of things, and I took it in stride.

But the way that my "no" stuck in my throat stoked the coals on a fire I thought I'd put out.

I have had a few realizations as I've unpacked the thoughts and emotions that have come up.

First, despite all of the personal growth work I've done since the disastrous end of my most recent mistake relationship, it would be unfair to expect myself to have improved my boundary setting skills in the interim simply because improving at anything requires practice. Practicing setting boundaries requires having connects or relationships in which boundaries need to be set, and I've spent the last seven months or so tucked safely away from the world in my safe and solitary cave. I haven't had the opportunity to hone my skills. Only now as I am reemerging will I have the opportunity to stretch and strengthen those muscles.

Second, I realized that I've been misidentifying a really sly, nasty voice in my head.

It started when I thought to myself, literally word for word, "Well, I *was* wearing a really short miniskirt."

Which was immediately followed by the thought, "Wow, hello there internalized misogyny! You are quite the stubborn stain on my subconscious."

Which was later followed by the realization that the voice that suggested that I was responsible for this man touching me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable and that I didn't consent to because I was wearing something provocative sounded *an awful lot* like the voice that is constantly telling me that ALL of my experiences of abuse or consent violation are, for some reason or another, my fault.

No matter how many layers I peel back and no matter how many times I feel like I get to a good place in my recovery process, this is the voice that is always there in the back of my mind to whisper, "You can lie to *them* all you want..." (I'm not sure who "they" are... My friends? The general public? The other parts of my own mind?) "... but no matter how many of them you convince, I know the truth and so do you. It IS actually your fault. You ARE to blame, and deep down, you *know* it."

In some semiconscious way, I had believed that voice was the voice of an inner knowing that I had yet to be able to recognize and integrate. And while I believe in taking responsibility for my own emotions (clearly far beyond what would be healthy), I'm realizing that voice has nothing to do with the part of me that wants to be radically self-responsible. That voice is internalized misogyny, and while I don't imagine it will quiet down any time soon, I refuse to allow it to hide under the auspices of legitimacy or nobility.

I'm calling you out internalized misogyny. You're wrong and I'm not listening to you anymore.