Resistance Is In Our Bones

It's not "Reactive Abuse," it's Fight Mode, From Personal to Collective

It’s time for the bough to break.

From the collective to the personal, I understand Resistance in my bones. It’s in all of us.

One late night, world’s apart, I listened to her story, in a shared-conversation, during a sober moment, ‘she’ admitted early on in their marriage, he had hit her.

Something clicked, it made sense...

Her own father and brothers got involved. Growing up, I never witnessed him hit her. What I did witness was how often he backed her into literal corners of a room. What I did witness was her hitting him (what’s called “reactive abuse” —more on that in a moment), and then me, if I tried to get in the middle. As a teenager, I experienced being cornered and slammed into walls by him in the name of “child discipline.”

I was coerced into seeing her as the sole problem. I was gaslit to believe psychological and emotional abuse — weren’t. It wouldn’t be until years later, through healing, in therapy, and understanding coercive control, I would come to understand the full story.

And I,

I went from one war to the next, a marriage where sex was used a weapon (and I fought back) against my body. And then there were the literal wars abroad. From militias to militaries, to the rush of escaping with my life and somehow, it always uncovered a layer and became more clear.

---

---

In the aftermath,

The rounds I went with glove covered hands, a buzzer, another round, were (and often are) the sweat of stench of what I have fought, past, present and remembrance.

Remembering the first time I pushed him off weeks after we eloped. Remembering the ways he tried to humiliate me and get off when I said no. Remembering when I pushed back on her violent words, or their false gossip. ‘

The rush of emotion, the grunt and growl are a battle cry.

“Fight back,” disparaged. Do it anyway.

It’s not to say, I wasn’t subdued to freeze and fawn but then I’d fight again, only to be shamed again. Round and round, like a Muay Thai ring, the buzzer, then another, jab, cross, jab jab, the bell, a slug of water, and another round.

I’ve trained on and off since I left the War Zones. It is one of a few methods of movement my body embraces to expend and exert the energy. The adrenaline pushes on my body gives me the roar of resistance, to defy death from the inside out.

And it goes beyond my personal practice.

Mm, Fight — Tis a holy expression. As the Body, so the Collective, yes?

---

He was not hiding underground. He was in fatigues, tending a wounded arm, fighting until his last breath, he even threw a stick a drone. And whatever your feelings about the militant Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, on his own land, fighting for freedom, and rooted in his Resistance.

He fought back against abusers (systemic oppression), he fought against the propaganda (gaslights), he fought for his body, for his people. Sure, he was deeply flawed, and not everyone of his own liked him, many did not.

And yet, and yet,