It feels just like starting over

People tell me I should write more: more poetry; more stories; more fantasy; more non-fiction; more political; more feminist; more education; more often. The fact is I was writing more of all of the above, until sometime in the summer of 2017. Anxiety attacks and a severe bout of anorexia began to plague me in November of 2016 (I will assume most of my readers can do that math). And I wrote. A lot. I drafted a novel; I blogged almost daily; I had pieces published all over the world.

And then the responses began: vile emails, private messages on Facebook and Twitter, dick pics—so many men are compensating! So many. I was bullied for speaking, for sharing horrific experiences from my past. Yes, #MeToo. The mansplaining of how rape effects a woman’s world was nauseating, demeaning, and terrifying. Those responses ranged from I had to have been asking for it to, clearly, I needed to be raped again, because I didn’t understand the power of male genitalia.

I once modeled for a man just like the man now residing in the White House… fill in the blanks. Every time I hear the man elected speak, I am brought back to moments—eternities—with the man I worked for. I was being bombarded, and my response was to stop. Stop putting myself out there, stop being traumatized and triggered. I abandoned my blog. I retreated to safer places—like chocolate.

As time passed, more and more I needed to write. I write satirical, political, slice of life, fantasy, feminist, gender equality, baseball, educational stories, essays, book and movie reviews, and poems. And men with compensation issues suffering from toxic masculinity silenced me. I allowed myself to be silenced.

Well, no more. No More. I have not returned to my Wordpress blog because of the ugliness I experienced there but instead began a new blog. With friends and family who write – so the posts will reflect a larger slice of life-based on the experiences of each writer. We don’t have a theme here but expect to see all of the aforementioned topics make appearances along with just about anything else. My previous blog had thousands of readers, and I hope to woo some of them back. I hope to reintroduce them to my writing, Ed’s, Jae’s, and Nick’s as well as new voices including JT, who will have regular posts.

This blog is new, a different sort of experience for everyone involved. We are a work in progress. As you can see parts of the blog are still under construction, bear with us, things have been happening in the world.

Welcome to Culture Salad 2.0.

Mel