I've got a pocketful of death threats

When I was threatened with death at a young age my instinct was to run. The “flight” part of my system was well used, well appreciated, and much to thank for my existence. My mother was frightening, but she wasn’t fast. She was overweight, out of shape, and although her fury often provided a superhuman amount of strength and stamina, it did not provide her the speed to catch up with a very active child hell-bent on survival.

I learned to run fast and run far and not look back or underestimate my enemy’s proximity. And when I couldn’t run any longer, I learned to hide.

Until the day that there was nowhere to run or hide.

My mother’s anger exploded on me between the third and fourth floor of our New York apartment building’s elevator. I was nearing thirteen years old, and just a hair under her height, though she had me beat by girth and a good hundred pounds. She pushed the emergency button, and the elevator stopped. As she ranted and raved, her red face inched closer and closer, drops of spittle landing on my cowering arms covering my head as I slid down into the corner of the elevator.

As her kicks and fists landed on me, I knew there was no way out. I believed her when she hissed that this time she got me, that I would never breathe another day.

Though her constant starvation made me scrawny, and my fear paralyzed me momentarily, a new feeling quietly took over. With nowhere to flee to, and the understanding that if I remained frozen, I would surely die, there was nothing left to do but fight.

I stood up that day and fought off the scariest attacker I’d had to date. I’d fought off schoolyard bullies before, and even competitors in the karate classes I’d attended a few years before every Thursday at the YMCA. But this was different. This fight was for survival. I honed every skill I’d ever learned, every tactic I’d used in the past, and tapped into my own rage at my life being threatened. And I won. For the first time I saw fear in her eyes when she realized her reign was over. My days of running and hiding were through. From that day on, I would always fight back.

Throughout the years I’ve received many more death threats. From more schoolyard bullies, from a cab driver set on abduction, and many shady men in a multitude of shady situations. And I managed to fight them all off too. Even the death threats I’ve faced for being Jewish, for being female, for my support of AIDS research, and LGBTQIA rights, I’ve fought with my voice, my advocacy, and my vote.

But none of these fights were the hardest.

When I was younger, I mistakenly believed that my mother would be the toughest enemy I ever faced. But I was so wrong. The BIGGEST enemy, the one I had to fight every single day wasn’t some external force, it was those internalized voices that did my abusers’ jobs for them, and the resulting depression and anxiety of having survived trauma with no map on how to grow past it.

But I get stronger all the time.

Every time I decide to fight for my own happiness, and my own determination to break these awful cycles and create a healthy family of my own, I win. Each time I silence the internal voices that hiss their own death threats and demise I grow a little bit fiercer. As I learn, and grow, and practice the tools to process trauma and move forward I conquer another enemy.

Fighting back is scary, I get it, believe me I get it. I don’t enjoy the shaky uncomfortable overwhelming anxiety that goes along with confrontation any more than the next person, but I hate the idea of dying more. And dying is more than just losing your battle with life, it’s losing the battle to live authentically and experience all the crazy ups and downs and still wake up and do it again.

Sometimes fighting back doesn’t feel like a choice, and sometimes it feels like the hardest choice in the world. Fighting for your right to live in this world, fighting the voices in your head, fighting the depression that can often lie to you saying that the world may be better off without you, or there’s no point forcing yourself through another day. Fighting the lies of anxiety and the ridiculousness of fear. Those are the toughest fights of all.

A fight can be as small as deciding to get out of bed, or as big as reaching out and asking for help. I’ve fought off enemies who held a gun to my head, but raising my hand during my first day at university was way way scarier.

There are still days when I want to run. There are still times when I freeze momentarily, forgetting about the skills I’ve worked so hard to possess. But those times decrease each passing year. The death threats haven’t stopped, in fact there are still individuals, groups of people, even nations that would gladly see me dead. But my courage has grown along with the power I’ve acknowledged.

I may have a pocketful of death threats, but I’ve got a fistful fuck you’s to offer right back at them.