Cognitive Dissonance

[Trigger warning: Discussion of rape.]

I'm not a lot better about the MZB thing than I was yesterday. It's hitting me in waves. There are so many layers to really rip through on this, each one of them more painful or icky than the last.

It saddens me that her daughter worried that people would lash out at her when she came forward, especially her mother's fans. The thing is, they didn't. These people are being supportive and comforting to her. These are the kind of people who know not to blame victims. They know not to discredit victims. They know that often people will vilify those who speak out against people in positions of power or cultural renown.

Want to know the crazy part though? The person who first brought these kinds of ideas into the light for me was MZB. When I was in middle school, her books exposed me to the dark hell that people who have been raped can face. One character was so traumatized by it that she had her body surgically altered to remove all traces of the feminine. One teenaged boy was raped by an older man in a position of power. She tackled all of the issues around that. She didn't back away from it. She gave these people voices and let them discuss their pain. I just don't understand how someone could write with such comprehension about the pain people go through when this happens and still feel it was okay to do it to people in her own life.

My childhood didn't have a lot of great parts. It was mostly just pain and anger and disappointments. Sometimes books were the only thing that kept me going. I found MZB during Christmas break when I was in fourth grade. My step-father had bought four of her books for my mom. I picked the books up as a way to escape what was going on around me. Over the next several years, I would get as many of her books as I could. They would help me to move through the darker moments. Again, it's kind of crazy that a someone who was being a monster to children in her own life could write things that kept another kid functioning while people were being monsters to her.

Sometimes the world makes no sense to me.