Why You Will Absolutely See Me With A Safety Pin

I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is to say, I have experienced sum. shit. and it blew my mind, quite literally, in that it physically altered my brain. Anyone who has read just about anything I have ever written knows that I poke fun of it; I embrace it to the point I consider my hypervigilance one of my superpowers.

A person experiencing this symptom of PTSD will be motivated to maintain an increased awareness of their surrounding environment, sometimes even frequently scanning their settings to identify potential sources of threat. What Is the Definition of Hypervigilance?

 I let "Beastie" out to play, burn off some energy, sometimes in the form of slightly over the top humor inside my own truth. She wears me out otherwise, and she's capable of provoking laughter anyway, while on a leash, of course. It's a sort of multifaceted advantage. I do it because at one point and a few others, I knew I was going to make peace with Beastie, or Beastie was going to take me out-- one way or another. Out.

So, how does that relate to me and that safety pin? Because, yes.

-- via Snopes.com

Sometimes, I wonder if the people who cannot wrap their heads around the idea of the safety pin are the same people who just do not understand the danger of hate, not because they are stupid, but because they haven't experienced it. They don't know it. Maybe it is just some removed concept on the periphery, if that close. I don't know.

One night, I realized I had forgotten to pick something up while at the store. Ugh! It was around midnight, and rather than have to drag my then little ones out first thing in the morning, I left them asleep, with my friend there, while I made a quick trip to the store. As I was walking toward the entrance, a man I had already spotted took a couple of steps toward me and made a grotesque sexual comment. I was just about to release a firm "fuck off," straight into his eyes and keep walking, but then I saw it. This man, a complete stranger, was looking at me as if I had just killed his father. That is no exaggeration. He hated me, and for no other reason than I existed; a woman.

Just like a flipped light switch, Beastie was on, and if she didn't save my life that night, she saved me from serious harm. That started the first half of the love/hate relationship between Beastie and me. She's an asshole, but she keeps me warm.

You might or might not believe the number of people who would read that and their go-to response would be, "You shouldn't have been out so late at night." For real. I suppose it is comforting for those people to believe they are safe-- they have avoided harm so far, or will never face harm again-- because they follow the "right" steps. It's naive. I don't have PTSD because of what happened to me in the dark. Beastie was created and has been nourished in broad daylight.

Meanwhile, those of us who have come face to face with that hate-- we know it is out there, always somewhere, and we know we might just be the person to incite it, simply by being. Or, the person at the table next to us, or the human being who just came through the door. One could say we are walking targets; we just never know when there is an archer around, and especially right now. So, I carry my sign:

I'm watching, too, Love. I'm watching, too.