hai
How are u doing bby



brief introduction about moi.
I'm a white young woman, from a loving family of 4 kids. One older brother, two younger sisters. Dad's a busdriver, mom's a specialized pelvic physiotherapist. Sounds complex, I know. (and no it pays shit). We grew up with not much to spend, since my parents had to feed 4 children. But when it comes down to education they've always made sure that we had every possibility. Even if that meant that they had to cut off other spendings.
I grew up in a tiny village, Kruisland, close to the Belgian border. Kruisland never felt like home to me, even though I have loving memories of it. See, most of my youth went pretty smooth. I always had friends, never been popular but was also never bullied, did ok/good at school (98% white btw), money issues weren't big enough for me to notice, had a loving home and family. Never had any 'serious' worries.
But then I got to high school. yay. The first two years were alright. Went to HAVO, on quite a white school. But I didn't have the diagnose of ADD yet, so imagine that my concentration had always been a big issue. Halfway in the 2nd year I got the diagnose, first tried psychological guidance which didn't work at all. In the meantime I was fucking up almost every class besides art and music. This caused that I 'had to drop to a lower level', to VMBO, as what was said back then. Now I also had medication for my ADD so al of the sudden I was getting high grades. tada. This was also a much more diverse school and I felt out of place since I wasn't used to this. Never found my place there, and never really had a good time during those years. Mostly because of the way my environment had thought me how to think and look at people. To have a slight fear and judgement for POC, mostly Turkish or Moroccan. But also because of my insecurities, but we'll get to that later :)))

The rest of my family is also pretty huge. My dad grew up in a household of 6 children, who also got kiddos themselves, so if you do a bit of counting I think we're with around 30 people.
Now, family is really important to me. I've grown up with my entire family around me. We all had a place on the same camping in Drenthe, where we all went to for at least 3 months a year. So I've spend my entire youth with literally ALL my cousins, aunts, uncles and 2 grandma's.

My family is getting close to the definition of 'Dutch'. Much like the rest of my environment, old friends, hometown, family in law, workspace. We think we are super openminded. Which is true for some. But, as Jeroen said, most don't always behave that way. Especially when they are in a situation where it's needed. But when it's in a context where it's not directly related to themselves, the openminded mindset appears. So racism isn't very rare, mostly unconscious and hidden in humor. Sometimes there is a bit of sexism, also always within jokes.
Guess that's a thing.
I do struggle with this very thing. It's hard to be almost the only person in an environment who digs deeper into those subjects, and being almost the only person who ditched the general opinion of that community to form her own. It causes a lot of friction, frustration, sadness and anger, from both sides.

Maybe it helps you to understand my personality a bit better, because I'm an insanely awkward person. Got social anxiety and ADD. Don't know if you see what that combination means, but I'm impulsive and an overthinker at the same time, my thoughts go extremely fast and in every direction, also when I'm having anxiety thoughts. So you get my struggle nah.
The meds help tho.
So.
lets get uncomfortably personal shall we.
Even though I know people hate this statement, my anxiety and ADD define who I am. It's intertwined with my behaviour, reactions, emotions and most of all: my decisions. And I think you can state that the fact that I'm opening up now on such a uncomfortable level is also a impulsive reaction caused by the fact that I feel the need to get out of my comfortzone. So fuck it.
And mostly my anxiety has a quite important role in my research.
Now lets crack this nut open. :)
Take a seat, buckle ur seatbelts and mentally prepare yourself for a quick therapy session.

For me, not you.

Alrighty.
When I was 15, my nudes leaked. (yes i dropped the bomb). I've been dealing with a twisted self image and huge insecurities from a very young age, around 10 years old. Which resulted in what was leaked.
Now sadly this isn't some high school harassment drama. No. This is a 'nudes leaked trough the entire country' drama. It basically came down to 2 years of daily harassment, street intimidation, online harassment, verbal abuse.* This shit got so extreme that I completely isolated myself as far as I could, simply to not be confronted with the commotion and sensation I had caused. Finally after those 2 traumatic years it became less, and I had to pull my shit back together. That's when I noticed I was now led by anxiety. Sadly, I'm now uncomfortable in almost every social occasion. I'm terrified for groups, because people can be pretty nasty when they aren't on their own. I also loved to go to parties, but since people aren't exactly kind when they're drunk, and I'm more emotional when I'm drunk, going out turned into an unbearable situation. It became a lot better after years of pushing myself out of my comfortzone, but due to circumstances I made quite a mental health drop lately, so I decided that it's time to activate the helpline now.

But

When I started at WDKA, I slowly learned about feminism. I started to understand why everything happened a bit more, what caused the reactions. I learned that it wasn't just my fault, that I and only I did this and brought this reputation upon myself. No. It's institutional behaviour, passed on trough generation to generation. It's traumatic behaviour that has never been questioned before, because as a female you should never step out of the narrow standards of femininity and sexuality set out for us, or you will be punished accordingly.

Feminism thought me to give my traumatic sexual history a place.

It even learned me to embrace it.






* for the curious fuckers: Some examples, strangers taking pictures of me where ever I went, people shouting and screaming insults at me at any moment, guys in cars following me for kilometers while cycling home, getting drugged at a party once, u get the memo

that was fun wasn't it :)