Society’s Brains Are Not Connected With Their Mouths.

Recently I have picked up a babysitting gig for a friend of mine. I come over a few times a week and make sure the house doesn’t burn down and her child sleeps while she runs errands. This has given me roughly four hours every week to sit and do absolutely nothing. (Pinterest and a limited amount of data only get you so far.) I have decided to start blogging again for these hours!

Today’s topic that I have chosen is a little touchy for me. Lately I have been seeing the word “rape” being used in ‘comical’ situations. You have all seen this picture:

 

 

And possibly seen comments on YouTube saying, “I just raped the like button because I love this video so much,” or similar sentences saying they ‘raped’ the like button because they pushed it so many times. Or people commenting that they just ‘raped a burrito because it was so delicious.’

What? WHAT.

First off, how does this even make sense? You love something so much that you are going to assault it in one of the most personal ways you can? That doesn’t sound super offensive at all! (Note the extreme sarcasm people.) This makes you sound like an inconsiderate and pathetic pig who doesn’t give a damn about anyone’s feelings. If you love something/someone, you should protect and respect them, not use force to have them comply to your selfish needs.

My blog partner, Kaeli, told me to put something in here about people who say, “Oh they are so (insert term here.) They deserve to be raped.” Um EXCUSE ME. I don’t care how terrible or scantily clothed or mean and disgusting or unintelligent they are (according to anyone else's perception), why would you ever, ever, EVER, wish that upon someone? If I ever catch someone saying this, they better be prepared on getting the biggest and darkest black eye that has ever occurred in their life. This is unacceptable. She has caught a couple people who have said this and she was so mad that she couldn’t even begin to express it. She's had to defend people she shouldn't have had to defend, because no one "deserves it." I’m shocked at what some people consider appropriate to say. The fact is, no one deserves to be raped. Let me just say that one more time. In case you missed it! No one deserves it. Understood?

Rape is not funny. It is not a joke. It is not something to be discussed lightly. It is a serious and disgusting crime that happens to 1 out of 6 women, 1 out of 33 men and 15% of children. And that is just the reported stuff.  I have seen so much sexual assault in my life that I am probably more biased than I should be for a twenty three year old but I cannot convey to you how horrible sexual assault is. I have known friends who were assaulted by their dads or uncles or grandfathers for nine years or kids who are still in grade school and don’t know that what is happening is even wrong! Sometimes it takes years and years of therapy to help cope with it and even then, sometimes there are still times of panic or trouble with getting intimate with their partners.

There are others like myself who were going on a walk or run and it randomly happened to us out of the blue. Your whole life changes. I don’t particularly think of myself as a rape victim just because I was worried about other things like saving my own life so my mom wouldn’t be devastated. I am the exception to the normal though. Again, so much therapy and so many trust issues. Depression, anxiety and feeling worthless and violated all comes with it.

When people don’t think before they use the term ‘rape’ I get upset. It has been very disturbing to me lately how often its used. It is a very serious issue that thousands have gone through. We live in the age where cyber bullying and ‘pushing the social envelope’ is normal and younger generations have a thing for wanting to be radical and extreme. These same people feel bigger and braver from behind a screen and don’t see people on the internet as real human beings sometimes. Stop using the term. Find something more intelligent and think before you type and try to comprehend that what you say affects other people.

And on my last note here, if you are currently or ever become a victim of sexual assault (although I pray you don’t,) PLEASE GET HELP. PLEASE CALL LAW ENFORCEMENT. I cannot express this enough. I don’t care if it is a family member or a significant other. Leave their sorry ass and hightail it out of there. You do not deserve that. You are a beautiful and wonderful person and you have the right to say what happens to you. Don’t worry about it being messy with the family for holidays and birthdays. It will all work out in the end. It will suck for a while. Trust me. What you need to focus on is keeping yourself (and any children you may have) safe. If it is a random stranger, get a good description. I know it will be/was hard to concentrate when adrenaline kicks in and your life is in danger but try your best. Don’t shower after. Go straight to the police. They will have resources to help you. It is not your fault.

Please report. I know it’s hard but if it doesn’t get reported, it could happen again to someone else. The more you speak up the less they get away with! We need to help each other out! We are all here together so we might as well try to make the world better.

Sorry the post was a little rant-y and very long but I just felt really passionate about it. I hope whoever needed to hear this did. I am a little nervous about the comments on this one. Others may choose to post personal stories and I don’t want comments that are mean or put people down. Also know that internet trolls will be deleted and reported.

 

Love, Mika.

Goodbye.

Recently, I've been going through some stuff and lately I have been missing my old self. You could call it, 'Pre brush with death Mika.' As you know, I struggle with my new face sometimes. And that is totally fine as long as I don't dwell on it but there are days where I feel like I have lost an old friend. One that was there all during my childhood and adolescent years and helped me shape myself. In a way, when I was murdered, she died too and left me to rediscover myself. Trials and hardships are difficult. Obviously. They test you in such a way that sometimes, you change yourself so you can adapt and survive. I feel like not only has my appearance changed, but my personality as well. Most days, I feel like a crotchety 80 year old woman who brandishes her cane at 'young hoodlums' and mutters, "I'm too old for this sh*t" and "Back in my day, we were spanked and not rewarded if we were being disobedient!" and definitely, "I've paid my dues!" I have seen so much in my tiny life that if I were to die tomorrow, I'd almost be relieved. Its a hard life man!

 

I do sit and wonder sometimes how life would have turned out if I hadn't walked down that river trail. What would I be doing? Who would I be? I don't usually mind the new Mika. She is a little more emotional than the old one and slightly more difficult but all in all she gets the job done and is overall a good person. It has been over four years and I'm still getting used to the change.

 

I'm not very sure about where I wanted to go with this post. I think this is more of a 'what Mika feels' post instead of a tutorial or a 'real life talk.' And it is my blog so I can totally do that. There is a very good chance that this post is just for me. Hopefully someone somewhere will find something that relates to them here.  Who knows, maybe I'm just insane. Either way, if you feel like this know that there is hope and things will get better. You will figure out how to love yourself again.

Build Your Puzzle, Love the Picture

Hello everyone! You may or may not remember me, I'm the mysterious Kaeli that disappeared from the blog for two years. But, I'm back and at least some what adjusted to life outside of the Arizona Tempe Mission. I must admit, I'm glad to have my skinny jeans and a car rather than my bike and skirts everyday. And the fact that I will probably NEVER see 122 degrees outside in Utah is also a relief. But I do miss the people, the sunsets and the fact that I spent all my time helping other people and not having to worry about myself. Mostly. I definitely haven't completely killed the selfish and pride bugs yet.

Anyways, coming home after 18 months was different than I expected it to be. Somewhat to my surprise, Cedar City is still the same little town it use to be, and yet as much as it felt like everything was the same, things are different too. I am different, my friends are different and even the Shaved Ice stands are different! ;) At first the excitement of being home and seeing everyone and everything again made things easy. But eventually reality hit and I knew I had to start moving on with my life. But how? I came home in the middle of the semester and so many of my friends were married or moved away or had kind of moved on with their lives. I found that I had come home a different shaped puzzle piece than I had left, and the other puzzle pieces had all changed too. But here I was trying to put myself back in the same place, kind of like when you try to force the wrong piece somewhere where it doesn't quite fit.

I found it a lot easier to try be around people I already knew, but I expected those relationships to be the same as they use to. But the fact is that they just couldn't be, because even though we're all the same people still, time and experiences had slowly brought about subtle differences that meant things would never really be the same. This wasn't a bad thing, but it scared me. I got a job, to keep myself busy but I wasn't getting enough hours, so I found a second job. Still, so much seemed to be missing from my life. So I sunk into a routine. I would work, hang out with one of my old friends and when I was alone I would text another old friend. After having had a constant companion for 18 months I got very bored with being alone.  Talking with these two friends felt like I was filling some of the void, but at the end of the day no matter what I did, or how packed my schedule was, I felt like I had accomplished nothing. My friends didn't understand what was upsetting me and rather than being understanding and supportive they started to tell me I was too different or that there was something wrong with me. And to some degree those things were true, I had changed and I was struggling with the adjustment in ways that even I didn't really understand. I just knew that I hated being alone and what I wanted more than anything was to pack up and go back to my mission, where I didn't have to worry about my own life.

What I eventually came to realize was that, I had tried to put myself back into situations that were comfortable, but I wasn't happy. Whether or not my friends were treating me well wasn't so much the issue as the fact that I wasn't progressing the way that I wanted to. It wasn't that my friends were bad people, or that we didn't like or care about each other anymore, but many of my goals and perspectives had changed or become more definite. I needed to be around people who shared those same goals and who could support me in reaching them. I've never been good at letting go of people in my life. But I finally realized it didn't mean that I didn't love them or want them in my life anymore, it just meant that things had changed, and if I wanted to move forward I needed to accept that. I couldn't be angry at myself or feel like a bad person for moving on, I just had to accept that it was time and it was best for everyone. It was hard. It still is. I miss those people, and I want them in my life but right now is time to start putting all the pieces together in a way that they fit again, after all the change. There will be new pieces and old pieces and moved pieces and maybe there will be a few pieces that have to be thrown away. But it's going to be okay, because eventually that beautiful picture will be visible.

My point in all this is that you build your puzzle, and if the pieces aren't fitting, you can't force them. It isn't a bad thing, it just means things are changing and there can be no progress without that change. Don't waste your time trying to force your piece back into relationships that don't fit, it only hurts. It doesn't mean you have to throw the pieces away, but maybe it's time to rearrange the puzzle. You will do the most good in the place where you fit, and where you can continue to build and grow. Love yourself, trust yourself and remember to step back and enjoy the beautiful picture you are making.
-Kaeli