Tag: truth

Unbound: The Story of #MeToo

Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too Movement by Tarana Burke

A Five-Star Book

Tarana Burke is an activist and the founder of the Me Too Movement that opened the door for thousands of women to finally raise their voices and share their stories of sexual abuse, violence, and harassment. Ms. Burke is a powerhouse, a woman who stands for so many BIPOC, for so many women and girls who do not have the words or the voices to speak up. She empowers us all to speak up and calls for the end of the horrors of sexual assault.

Ms. Burke begins her memoir by sharing the morning when her words, Me Too, became a viral hashtag that finally gave a voice to the silent suffering. But her memoir is much more than a recounting of how Me Too began. It is a vulnerable, painfully real story of truth that began when she was sexually assaulted as a child. With her truth, Ms. Burke shines a light on the meaning of #metoo, demonstrating that it’s not just a hashtag but a highly nuanced movement to hold others accountable for sexual violence.

As a Black woman, Ms. Burke explains how Black culture addresses sexual violence under a lens of not just taking care of others but with caution because of the countless Black men who have been violently accused and condemned and murdered by whites. This feels so wrong yet so relevant to what has happened in the U.S. for centuries. Her explanation was both vivid and heartbreaking.

Much of Unbound is about Ms. Burke’s realization that others have experienced the same type of pain and suffering. Their stories helped her to find her voice, and she returns that gift to others. This book is raw, honest, and brutal. But it is hopeful as well, as she encourages us to speak out and give others our voices.

I am thankful for Ms. Burke’s activism, her voice, and her courage to share her story. I do not yet have all the words for what violence and scars I carry in my past, but one day I will share my #metoo story. I hope it gives others’ strength to do the same.

Owning My Title

I have a doctorate, but I rarely use the title “Dr.” I’ve had bosses who told me to ‘own that title’ and bosses who said my education level doesn’t matter. I’ve been told to add my title to presentations and told to remove it, mostly when others may be “Dr” as well, and there’s a fear of missing them. I’ve been embarrassed in groups when bosses highlight my degree, and I’ve felt left out when they’ve forgotten.

But you know what? I worked for that title. I started my EdD when I was at a loss for my future. A job was ending. I was a divorced, single mom with an 18-month-old. I was virtually alone in a town that I didn’t choose to inhabit but was tied to because of my ex-husband. I chose to go back to school with no real plan because I knew school was what I was good at, what I could control, what I could succeed in.

Five and a half years later, I successfully defended my dissertation. I’d wept over my studies, pushed them aside when life got too hard, given up family time on the weekend so that I could add those letters to my name. So now, why should I diminish that part of myself?

I could name a lot of reasons: I’m not good enough; I’m an impostor because I got my degree online; I didn’t conducted two years’ of rigorous quantitative research. But you know what I did? I worked hard; I pushed my boundaries when I was afraid. I made a huge financial investment in myself. I proved that I am capable.

So, I’m going to own that “Dr.” It’s part of my identity. I don’t need to make myself smaller to compensate for others’ insecurities about their own academic backgrounds. I am still the same person: deeply empathetic, deeply introverted, deeply ambitious.

But I am a Dr. I will own that sh*t. I will not make myself smaller.

My Bookish Body

I’m at a loss with my body. I want this new installment here will be a way for me to chronicle these challenges and to find some kind of accountability to make changes. This is the first time I’ve publicly documented the scale’s reports, the embarrassment and self-hatred of feeling out of control. This is my unapologetic truth. Be kind, readers.

I spend a large portion of my life focused on my body: hating it, condemning it, shaming it. This has been a constant in my life since childhood.

I am not a waif, I am not petite, and I am not delicate. I’ve wanted to be those bodies since I was 7 years old, the first time that I remember starting to compare my body type to my friends and family. My family’s obsession with health, my continued struggles with asthma, and my general sense of being other deeply impacted me then and continues to be a part of my internal narrative.

When I look back at my teenage years and think about that ugly voice inside my head, I realize I wasn’t as fat as I thought I was. Yes, I was bigger than my classmates, but I balanced out at a size 14 and had the boobs to carry it. I dressed well because my mom knew how to help me camouflage my problem areas and because we had the money to buy clothes that were stylish but fit well. I remained at a solid 162 pounds for most of my high school years, and at 5’7″ I was still well-proportioned.

College is when I started to pack on the pounds. After a bad breakup, I gained about 15 pounds, suddenly losing that high-end-of-average weight. And, did you know that bulimia really doesn’t help you lose weight? It’s an eating disorder for a reason. When you’re stuffing an entire large Papa John’s pizza down your throat and then vomiting it all back up on a nightly basis, your body recognizes that it’s not healthy and grabs every spare calorie it can.

Then next two decades were filled with yo-yo diets, extensive measures to limit my size, and failures. At 28 and pregnant, I gained nearly 100 pounds and then lost 60 after giving birth to my daughter. At 29 I packed on another 20 during and after my divorce, and then the scale went even further to the right. For the first time in years I could sneak eat without the fear of someone finding me in the kitchen late at night, stuffing peanut butter into my mouth. Spoon to jar, spoon to jar, spoon to jar. A repetitive motion of comfort eating while I faced loneliness, stress, and despair. I climbed closer to 270 pounds and compensated with plus-size clothing I purchased on credit cards. My climbing weight was one more example of failure.

Getting married again inspired me to lose weight the healthy way, but then that motivation disappeared after I wore my wedding dress. I finally lost weight at 38, but I didn’t do it in a healthy manner. Now, almost 4 years later, my weight continues to increase month-over-month. I’m working from home, so I no longer have a commute that keeps me walking. I binge eat regularly at night, searching for any high-fat, high-calorie morsel that will bring on the glazed eyes, distended belly, and blank mind that only food seems to create for me.

I’m desperate for the real motivation to make changes. As I’m now firmly set in my mid-life years, I know that taking care of myself is paramount if I want to have a healthy remainder of time left on this planet. But, the motivation is fleeting, and that continues the cycle of failure in my mind and body.

Does anyone else feel this way? Why am I like this? How do I get help?