Surviving yoga; embracing body

Okay, I'm back and fully alive again.  Or nearly fully alive.  Migraines tend to suck the life out of me for at least a day.  Add to that the fact that I haven't been to yoga in about a month...for the first half of the day, I'm pretty sure every muscle hurt, included the ones involved only in blinking.  Luckily, it's all largely worked out as the day has gone on.  I even ran out and danced in the rain a little bit.  You just have to do that every now and then, you know?  You just have to let yourself feel the rain and let remind it you that you're alive.

But anyway...hot yoga.  Whoever this Bikram dude was, he was insane.  I mean seriously, who thinks of stuff like this?  "Not only are we going to attempt to contort our bodies into postures that just don't make any logical sense," thought he, "but we're going to do each ridiculous exercise TWICE, over a span of 90 minutes, and we're going to do it IN THE HEAT!"  It's not just a little bit of heat.  A lot of heat.  Ridiculous heat.  It must be like 175 degrees.  Or 105, according to Wikipedia.  I wasn't too far off.

The class itself?  Is torture.  You think you're going to die.  Or slip off your mat and slide across the floor and into the mirror on the amount of sweat that is rolling off of you and everyone around you.  Yes, everybody has a mat, and yes, everybody has a towel, and yes, the floor is some type of super absorbent soak-up-the-sweat yoga floor, but there is just so much sweat.  It comes out of places 

This is not me.  I do not look like this.  Yet.  Or, perhaps, ever.

where you don't even have pores.  You will sweat just laying on the floor and not moving.  But no, just laying still isn't good enough.  You have to do things like stand on one leg, with one leg up in the air behind you, hold that leg up with one hand, and stretch the other arm in front of you, so you look like a bow and arrow.  As much as you want to, you don't get to just stretch it and then put your leg down.  Nope, you've got to hold it while the yoga instructor rambles on and on about how much good you're doing for some random part of your body, and how all you have to do is breathe.  I'll have to do some research as to whether there are stats on the murder rate of yoga teachers.   I think it's a good thing that yogi wannabes are generally a peaceful people.

Yoga, of course, is about you and no one else.  It's not about the gorgeous woman with the Ganesha tattoo who drips sweat like it's her job, but doesn't look fazed in the least.  It's not about the 60 year old man with leathery skin who looks like he could hold the one legged postures for days.  It's certainly not about the woman with the unruly braid in her pink sports bra who accidentally fell out of a posture, dropping her foot BEHIND her head, and so did a casual back flip as she started again.  And you know, it's a good thing it's not about them, because what I've found is that the regulars don't tend to be very friendly.  Given, I'm not very friendly after I've sweat out all the fluid in my body and my muscles are shaking when I'm sitting still...but still.  They're the opposite of friendly.  And if you try to be friendly, they WILL shut you down. 

For example, one poor girl tried to be friendly after class with someone who was clearly a regular.  "It was hot in there today," Friendly Girl said as they stood, waiting for the shower.  The Regular looked at her, wearily, and said nothing. 

"I thought it was hotter than normal.  Maybe it was just more humid.  I wanted to stick my head out the window.  I wasn't sure I was going to make it.  Do you think it was more humid?" Friendly Girl asked.

The Regular, with absolutely no expression, finally responded with "I think it was the normal temperature.  I did notice that my sweat was more watery than usual, but I've really been trying to

Also not me.  And yes, this does hurt your head.
 And it is hard to breathe.

increase my fluid intake, and I drank coconut water before class, so I think it was more related to that than to the temperature."  She then turned around, thus ending the conversation.

Friendly Girl looked hurt.  I wanted to jump in, but was so confused as to how sweat could possibly be "more watery," I didn't dare say anything at all. 

So why do I keep going back?  What is it about this torture that I enjoy? 

I don't really know.  I like the challenge, I guess.  I like the repetition.  I know it will be the same every time I go.  There's a ritual to it that is strangely comforting.  The change and progress I see is measurable.  Most of all, though, this class is the only thing I have found that can actually make my mind be quiet for 90 minutes.  For 90 whole minutes, I don't have to think about anything.  All I have to do is be in my body.  All I have to do is breathe.  The only thing I have to do for 90 minutes is survive it, one minute at a time.  Yoga class is the only thing I have found that forces me to inhabit my body so fully.  I start the class self-conscious.  I don't want to look at myself in the mirror.  I scrutinize and analyze and feel embarrassed...and by the end, that is gone.  I am there, in my body, making it through 90 minutes of sweat and heat and stretch and twist, and it makes me feel strong.  It makes me feel successful.  For that little bit of time, I get to feel completely comfortable in my skin, if only because I am too exhausted to do anything else.  I get to be conscious in the way I  inhabit my body, even if only because I can feel every muscle, tendon, and bone.  My body--THIS body --the one that I live in and argue with and have such a complicated relationship with every day of my life -- this body carried me through 90 minutes of intensity without any analysis or thought or deliberation.  It makes me feel alive and capable.  It makes my body feel whole, and trustworthy, and --yes--even beautiful. 

To be clear...this is also not me. 

In class yesterday, my teacher quoted Bikram as saying that "yoga is the only subject in which the subject is not the object."  Yoga is the subject, she clarified, but you are the object.  Your body is the object.  We do not go to yoga class to "do yoga."  We go to deepen and strengthen our relationship with our bodies.

90 minutes of body-living is worth it.  90 minutes where my brain gets a break, and the only thing it has to do is breathe --that's worth it.  90 minutes of intense focus on the present moment, with no thoughts of the past or the future is worth it.  Surviving yoga means embracing my body.  Therein lies the biggest challenge.

 

Day 6...

I am posting tonight ONLY because I made a commitment to post something every day, and because I am determined, come hell or high water, to make that happen.  However, I am currently only partially recovered from a migraine (meaning, I can mostly sit up without vomiting, but don't yet have the lights on and am squinting at the computer screen with my right eye closed).  TMI?  Sorry.  I'm convinced migraines are the level of Hell that Dante forgot.  Which makes me wonder if I jinxed myself with that saying.  The "come hell or high water" one.  If this is hell, I really don't want to see what the high water scenario looks like. 

In spite of the migraine, today was a good day.  It was a busy day in which I didn't do most of the things I should have done...but I did go to yoga today, and that's good.  When I can actually form thoughts and sentences without threatening to rupture my hippocampus or hypothalamus, I'm going to write about yoga.  But not tonight.

Instead, tonight I'll share someone else's gem.  Have you ever done Bikram yoga ("hot yoga")?  This practice is the embodiment of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  I'm serious.  Because if you survive the class (key word being "if"), you're a different person.  Literally.  All of the water has been drained out of your body and you get to start fresh.   You pull muscles that previously had not existed.  You move organs into spaces that were not previously empty.  I've been going on and off for several months, and I still don't understand why I like it. 

But I'm not going to write about it tonight.  I'll post this link, like a teaser, and let this guy explain it better than I can right now.  I'm going to get more ice, take more drugs, and lay back down in the dark to pray that my amygdale don't explode and my corpus callosum stays intact.  Because I had to study exactly what will happen to a person with no amygdale and without a corpus callosum...and frankly, neither option is too appealing.

 

 

Juice Boxes and Chips OR The Reasons for Tears

Some of you may recognize pieces of the writing below.  I have wanted to rework several essays I wrote into one, change it a bit, fix it up, and make it relevant for now.  I (finally) did so.  I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do after my postdoc ends (not until September 2014...but I have big dreams, people!).  If I'm honest, I know that one day, I want to start some sort of clinic/organization for low income families with children with developmental disabilities, and I have a particularly special place in my heart for parents with intellectual disabilities raising children with special needs.  This isn't work that people want to do, but there is something in my heart that just loves it.  I know, realistically, that I couldn't do it full time...but it's going to happen, one way or another.  People think I'm crazy for loving this, and a conversation I had recently prompted me to revisit these writings and add some new pieces.  If I get up the nerve, I'd like to share it with the person in question (a person who asked me whether I thought a job like that would be a "good use of my degree and intelligence").  As I often do when I am infuriated, I shut down and said nothing in the moment.  That's something I have to work on, no?

Juice Boxes and Chips OR The Reasons for Tears

When I was in 4^th grade, I completed a homeschooling curriculum on World History. I remember reading the chapter on the Roman Empire, and particularly the section on the city-state of Sparta and the culture of the Spartans. When I read about the Spartans leaving babies that seemed weak, and therefore unlikely to succeed as soldiers, on a hillside to die, I went to my mother, sobbing, so distraught that I was unable to explain what I had learned through my tears.

That memory serves to remind me that, perhaps, I am hardwired to be the person I am. I work in a job now where my heart could—and sometimes does--break on a daily basis. I have worked to be able to handle the stories I hear because, just as I was born to cry about Spartan babies dying on hillsides, I was born to hear stories. I hear stories of children born to drug-addicted mothers who spent the first two weeks of their lives detoxing and now engage in almost constant, severe self-injury.  I hear the stories of a mother of a 5 year old with autism who brings her 17 year old daughter to the treatment session to help remember what I say.  We fight a losing battle together as the 17 year old dropped out of school in 9th grade, neither of them can read, neither are ready to remember or even hear what I say, and the 5 year old screams through the entire session. I hear stories of women living in homeless shelters with 3 year olds with Down syndrome, or women with 5 year olds with severe developmental delays living with them in residential drug treatment facilities.  I listen to their stories, and I try to work with them through the behavior problems: let's teach her to communicate for cheerios.  Praise him for being good.  Ignore the screaming.  Try this behavior chart.  Praise her for being good.  Let's try a visual schedule.  Let me show you how to teach her a more appropriate behavior.  More often, though, we spin our wheels in the basics: Praise her when she does something good.  When I say lock up all sharp objects, I mean lock up the knives AND the scissors.  Keep the window shut AND locked.  Praise him for being good.  Don't hit him - and yes, hitting with your hand still counts as hitting.  Praise her for being good.  Talk to him.  Ignore the tantrums. Don't lock her in the closet.  Praise him for being good. 

I say these things again...and again...and again, and after I say it again, sometimes I get responses like, “hey, the other lady we saw, she gave him chips AND a juice box. She always gave him juice AND chips, and she was always real good to him. They’re always real good to us here. You can give him chips AND a juice box, right Doctor?” Something in my chest tightens in frustration as I know she hasn't heard me, she will go home and attend to every problem behavior, forget to praise the good behavior, and she will hit him again.  But I summon all the patience in me to assure her both verbally and nonverbally: Yes.  Yes.  I can be good to you, too.

In those moments, I don’t know how I expect them to be consistent. I don’t know how I can expect them to think about 3-step guided compliance and proper time-out procedures when they can’t read the handouts I gave them. When they don’t have a consistent place to live. When they are worried about how they’re going to feed their kids. When they are worried about their child’s safety. When they have 6 kids under the age of 6 because their sister just moved in with them with her kids, and 6 kids in a 2 bedroom apartment is just too many.  I hide my disappointment in professional language as I write my progress note, and admit to no one that I feel disheartened that I can’t help them.

…but the next week they come back. And the week after that they come back.  As long as they keep coming back, I know I must be doing something right.  As long as they keep coming, we have another opportunity, and potentially, that's all we need: just a few more opportunities for me to scratch at the darkness and let in some light.  I swallow my frustration and sense of incompetence, and we try, and we try, and we try again.

The thing that gets me is that they do try. They are trying. They are giving this life their all, and it’s just too damn hard for any one person to navigate this life with the hand they’ve been dealt. So they try, and I try, and if we’re lucky, something will happen. I give their kids chips AND a juice box. I give them picture schedules and session notes in the simplest words I can manage. I praise them for trying. I give them bus tokens. I show them and tell them and practice with them, and have them show me, and tell me, and practice with me. 

As I climb up the hierarchy from pre-doc to post-doc to 2nd year post-doc, the people around me say, "don't you want to work at our other locations?  Don't you want to move out of the city and work with the families you can ACTUALLY make a difference with?  Don't you want to work with our families that have it more together so you can actually use your degree?"

And I tell them no.  We compromise, and I work only part time in the city, and something in my heart misses the chaos and the challenge of trying to establish trust, and love, and change with some of society's most vulnerable citizens.  This week, I told a young mother I will have to transfer her to a new therapist.  This mother has an intellectual disability, several children with behavior problems, and it took us 4 months for her to tell me something other than, "Hey doctor, I don't beat my kids.  I don't beat my kids, doc.  I don't.  I'm good to them, you know?  I know beating them is wrong."  After a year and a half of working together, she cried when I told her I was leaving, and cried harder when I told her how proud I am of her work and dedication.  This mother, who came to me angry, defensive, untrusting, and scared gave me a hug and a smile and said, "I just know things gonna get better.  I just gotta keep coming to my appointments, and praising him and, you know, telling him good job and talking to him and giving him toys to play with."  She cried again, and when I asked the reason for her tears, she told me it was because she was proud of herself.  There are so many reasons for tears. 

Really, who among us doesn't live at times feeling angry, defensive, untrusting, and scared?  Who among us has the courage to push through that, even if just for one relationship with someone who exemplifies so many things we are not -- things, even, that we have learned to fear and distrust?  Perhaps this life is really only a process of trusting the world enough to re-engage.  It takes courage to wake up every day and walk out into this world ready to try it again.  This willingness to continue engaging and trusting and trying is a way of saying to the world "I'll give you one more shot," on those days when even the sun seems to have forsaken you.  On the days when my job seems hard, I remind myself that this is my way of engaging in an active, intimate, and interpersonal willingness to show my hope for humanity.  Even on the bad days, I know this is a gift.

Acts of courage and compassion and bravery leave battle wounds and scars that change our perceptions of the world.  I believe that bravery in life comes from admitting that you are living in spite of the wounds and scars, rather than from continuing to live life as though you are unshaken.  The courage that I live is simply the ability to hear it all, and to love the world again. The wounds I carry are sometimes physical, but more often and more substantially lie in the intimate knowledge I hold of the pain in others’ hearts. My eyes are battle scarred as the lenses with which I view the world become scratched with knowledge I sometimes feel I would rather not have.   And yet, I listen. I open my heart to the breaking and healing. And I continue to love the world.

Retail Therapy

Sometimes, I write poems that I don't understand. I'm pretty sure this is one of them. It is also odd...really odd...and really not my typical poem. But this is what I wrote today, and it was freaking hard to write and took me forever to feel like I had it "right" enough to be shared. I'm also sure this is going to be edited and changed in the near future...but here is its current incarnation.

Current working title is "Retail Therapy"

As I walk out of the department store dressing room,
the poreless, skinless mannequins mock me with their necks.
Their toothpick thighs and kneeless legs spring into cellulite-free life and kick,
adding injury to insult as their handless arms block my path:
this, I think, is my zombie apocalypse.

I leap away, too late,
as the mannequin modeling a polka-dotted bathing suit holds me still
and the paste-toned head-and-torso shirt model
rips open my chest
pulls out my feminist heart,
raises it to her toneless lips
and devours it before I can breathe.

In a second, it is gone,
the juicy crunch and slurp turn my stomach sour
as I watch my intellect drip,
blood-like,
from her perfect chin.

They stare with pupil-less, judging eyes,
watch me attempt to wash away the mess with overflowing shame
and return to their posts atop the poppy red, nectarine, and grayed jade displays
of playful summer prints.

The perky sales clerk walks by unfazed
acknowledges the bloody puddle of feminism, intellect, and humiliation,
stands a yellow cone in front of the mess,
calls Rhonda on the loudspeaker for a "clean up in women's"
pretends not to smell the shame seeping from my pores
and has the audacity to ask me, smiling, if there is something she can help me find.

I consider ordering, as if from a menu,
the self-esteem platter with an extra side of self worth,
a confidence biscuit, a self-love salad,
and whatever is the antidote for shame.
When the meal comes, I'll spread out shirts like picnic blankets,
dim the lights, light some candles,
sit between the racks of skinny jeans and bikinis
and invite the mannequins to join me,
ready to dine with the skeletons from my closet.

They arrive, angry, and hungry for answers,
silent, staring, waiting:
they want my flesh.
Want me to remember the memories they wear branded on their skin
want me to release them from my histories
wrap my arms around them
bow our heads in prayer
and find an absolution.
They want meetings with folding chairs in basements;
want tokens to earn for 1 day, 5 days, 30 days clean;
want me to introduce myself as someone with a first name only
who can't manage to love
the only body she's known.

We sit in silence, as stories soak into the humid summer air.
I fold up the shirts, turn on the lights,
the mannequins return to their posts and I leave,
holding nothing in my hands.

Ten Things I Should Have Learned By Now

Part 2 of the exercise discussed yesterday is to write a list of 10 things you should have learned by now.  Here is my list:

10 Things I Should Have Learned By Now

(1) Dishes never wash themselves.  Particularly if you don't have a dishwasher.

(2) Trust your gut.  It doesn't have a reason to lie to you.  If other people don't trust your gut, trust it anyway.  If you're on the fence as to whether or not to trust it, trust it.  If you're not sure if you want to trust it, or you're not sure why it's telling you something, just go with it.  I don't know why, and I don't know how it works, but you've got to trust it.  End of story.

(3) When people show you who they truly are, believe them the first time around.

(4)  A few deep breaths can move you further than you think. 

(5) Perfectionism is too much work.

(6) From a book I use with my clients: worries are like tomatoes.  The more you tend to them, the more they grow. 

(7) Self care.  Learn it.  Live it.  Love it.

(8) Anxiety is just a big bully.  You can stand up to it, set limits with it, and teach it not to push you around.

(9) Weird things happen to me with statistically significant frequency.

(10) I am so much stronger than I believe.

                                                                           (This is #11)

What about you?  What should you have learned by now?

Ten Things I Know to be True

Last year, I wrote a post entitled "10 Things," which you can read here.  In this post (which you should go and read), I posted a TED talk by spoken word poet Sarah Kay in which she discusses an exercise where she has students write 2 lists.  The first list is "10 things I know to be true" and the second list is "10 things I should have learned by now." 

I like lists.  Lists and I...we're friends, on many levels.  I write lists for myself: to-do lists, to write lists, books to read lists, goals lists, topics to research lists, research to conduct lists, lists turned into poems...  I write lots of lists at work with clients: lists of problem behaviors, lists of goals, lists of fears, lists of alternative and appropriate behaviors, and recently, a list of all the reasons my teenage client hates coming to see me.  Some lists are more reinforcing than others.

Here, though is part 1 of my updated list.  I'll post part 2 tomorrow.

Ten Things I Know to be True

(1) Working with children with developmental disabilities is the most rewarding and fulfilling job I could possibly have.  My heart is touched, stretched, melted, torn apart, and squeezed on a daily basis.  Having the privilege of working with these children and their families is an honor.  The moment I stop seeing that is the day I need to find something new.

(2) Starting a practice of mindful, daily, gratitude is the best gift I could have given myself.  I have to make myself start again on a daily basis, and some days, I still come up empty.  Those days, however, are increasingly less frequent, and the smaller moments of gratitude have come to mean so much more.

(3) Fresh strawberries taste like god's laughter. 

(4) I am abnormally, deeply, strangely sensitive.  I feel nearly every aspect of life from the core of my body all the way out to my skin.  One day, I hope to be able to (a) harness it and (b) appreciate it.  This is a blessing and not a curse.  It is a strength and not a weakness.  One day, I hope to believe this.

(5) Living is complicated.

(6) Writing is the best way I know how to make sense of life.  I should be writing more often.

(7) All oppression is connected.

(8) We need other people.  We need trust.  We need connection.  We need love.  I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make that work.

(9) Anger can be beautiful.  It's scary, but done right, it's necessary and powerful and righteous.

(10) One day, I will remember that I am worthy of love, without reminders.

What about you?  What is something you know to be true?

 

                                                                 (This truth is # 11)

 

 

To the Ohio Lawmakers...

I wrote half of this post when I woke up at 6:15 this morning, purely because I was so immediately outraged that I had to do something about it.  Are you aware of this?

Are you ANGRY about this?  I'm angry.  I quite angry, actually.  I'm angry, and I'm hurt, and it literally makes me feel sick.  I'm tired of reading things like this.  Here's my list of why:

(1) Because it could have been me.  I could have been the woman who was raped, alone, and seeking an abortion.  Because the last thing I would have needed would have been a white, male legislator telling me what I can or can't do with my body.

(2) Because one day, I want to have a daughter, and I want to raise her such that she knows with unequivocal certainty that her glorious body belongs to her.  Always.  Every inch of it.  I want her to know that every single choice she makes regarding what she does with it, who she shares it with, what medical procedure she has done to it, is her own choice.  Always. 

(3) Because I want to raise a daughter in a culture that does not perpetuate rape.  If that isn't possible, I want to at least be able to teach her that if some asshole boyfriend, or husband, or date, or stranger violates her precious flesh, that the legislators of her state and her nation have her back.  I want her to know that, when she is feeling raw, and vulnerable, and violated, and like every inch of her soul has been stepped on and exposed...I want her to know that at the very least the lawmakers in our country respect her body, her integrity, her autonomy, and her right to choose. 

(4) Because rape crisis centers are vital, and not just for the information they provide about access to abortion and women's right to choose.  When a person is raped -- whether it was yesterday or 20 years ago -- a rape crisis center can provide the absolutely vital therapy that is needed to deal with the crisis.  They provide support like hospital accompaniment and a friendly, supportive face when facing an abuser in court.  They provide education.  Most importantly, these services are free.  Can a survivor seek therapy and other supportive services elsewhere?  Sometimes.  But frankly, it's hard without insurance.  Even with insurance, or with the ability to pay, or with access to low-cost/sliding scale clinics, there is absolutely no assurance that the survivor will get what she needs.  As a savvy student without decent healthcare, I was able to find therapy services when I needed them...but it wasn't helpful.  It wasn't helpful because the therapist I saw, in spite of her website and supposed credentials, was NOT competent in working with young women dealing with trauma.  As a result?  I was further hurt, and traumatized, and I decided to stop going and not to seek help.  It wasn't until I attended therapy at a rape crisis center almost 2 years later that I received the support I so desperately needed.  The people there -- they get it.  There is no judgment, there is no shame, no surprise--just support, and assistance, and kindness.  And now, because a handful of old white men in suits have decided that they know what's best for people with vaginas in the state of Ohio, they want to cut funding.  Because a handful of old white men in suits have decided that they don't want women in crisis to receive education regarding their choices, they want to take that funding away.  I fully believe that one of the best things we can do for people who have been raped is provide them with 6 months of free therapy. 

(5) Because violence against women is perpetuated by the belief that my body is not my own.  If a group of men in an office can sign off on a bill telling me what I can and can't do with my body, then it isn't really such a far jump for the man I'm dating to tell me what I should do with it, is it?  If a bunch of men I will never meet can make a law taking away my right to choose, then is it really unreasonable to believe that my husband or boyfriend will never question my right to say yes, or no, or maybe later, or never do that again?  Is it really unbelievable that, if a group of men makes decisions on matters affecting only women, and regulates our ability to decide what is right and good and appropriate for OUR BODIES...is it REALLY unbelievable that a guy I have just met will not have the implicit sense that touching me when I say stop is wrong? 

(6) Also, Planned Parenthood.  Taking away Planned Parenthood so that women don't get abortions is like shutting down all fitness centers because you want people to be healthy.  It doesn't make any sense.  Build the gyms, people will exercise, people will be healthy (more frequently).  Fund Planned Parenthood, people have access to necessary services and health care, people won't need to seek abortions (as frequently).  Okay, so maybe that analogy isn't quite as smooth as I would like it to be, but you get my point.

(7) "But Autodidact," you say, "this is in Ohio.  You don't live in Ohio."  You're right.  But I used to live in Ohio.  I have friends that I love in Ohio.  And even if this was taking place in Oklahoma or Kansas or Montana, or someplace where neither you nor I have lived, it doesn't matter.  It shouldn't matter.  Violations of autonomy and choice that are occurring anywhere are violations for all of us.  Things won't change until we are ALL experiencing the right to choose and the right to safety, dignity, and autonomy.  Today it's Ohio.  Yesterday it was Texas, tomorrow it's somewhere else.  Unless we stop it.  I don't know how that happens.  The only thing I know how to do is write angry poems and ramble angrily on a blog nobody will read.  But dammit, if that's all I can do, that's what I will do. 

(8) Because people are able to distance themselves and think that things like this aren't personal.  But it is personal.  The more I talk to women about my own experience, the more I hear women say, "me too."  I'm tired of hearing "me too."  I'm tired of saying "me too."  I'm tired of news stories that tell me that things aren't changing.  I'm tired of knowing that I am one of 3 daughters, and I'm tired of trying to educate my sisters louder than society can undo my teaching.  I'm tired of wondering how I will ever be able to raise a daughter in this world.  I'm tired of wondering how we can teach our sons to be different when the position of the men in power doesn't change. 

(9) Because I even have to write this post.  Because I have to wrestle with these words and the ways to explain what is seething inside me, and because some people just won't get it. 

Luckily, there are awesome people like the poet Lauren Zuniga who do.  Her poem, "Personhood," is amazing:  Personhood

As is To The Oklahoma Lawmakers 

(These are both pretty intense poems.  Beautiful, and strong, and powerful, and true, but intense.  Just fair warning).

Also, you can read my friend's post about this issue here: Reticulated Writer