Trigger Warning

Hey everyone, how are you? I know that it seems as though everything in the world has gotten hectic. You can’t even walk outside or down the street without seeing someone spew some kind of xenophobic statement. Times are really chaotic right now, and if you thought this blog post was going to be about the virus then you have come to the wrong place. I just want to let you all know that this may trigger you, it may make you upset, it may make your skin crawl, and make your face cringe.

A couple of days ago before Washington, D.C. started closing all the restaurants, schools, and changed the hours of the metro there was an incident that happened to me on the train. This incident took me back to the times when I was in elementary, middle, and high school. It made me second guess my worth, and by doing so it made my blood boil. I almost felt everything that I worked hard for slip away. I know you guys are wondering what happened, but I am about to get to the story.

The day started out normal as usual, I was making my way to run some errands downtown. I had woken up late this day but wasn’t particularly mad about it, because it was my off day. Well… it was my off day until I decided to pick up a shift for my co-worker. Then my calm off day turned into me rushing, because I had to make sure I ran my errands before it was time for me to go into work. So, as you can see my calm off day got turned upside down because I picked up a shift.

After I got dressed, I left out the house pretty quickly, because the walk to the train station is about 10-15 minuets long depending on how fast you are walking. I had finally made it to the train station. Now this is just a background on the outfit that I was wearing that day. In my opinion it was one of my calmer outfits. It was a, oversized white button up shirt, a coreset, some navy-blue jeans, my black leather jacket, and to top it all off I wore my 6-inch purple platforms. Again, in my opinion this was one of my calmer outfits that put I together.

As I was patiently waiting for the train while listening to my music. This man of a short stature walked up to me and he was apparently talking to me. The thing is I had my music playing loudly, well one because that was my favorite song that was playing, and two I was trying to get in the zone. So, me trying to see the positive side of every situation I took my headphones off and said excuse me sir I didn’t hear what you were just saying. By this point he was already walking away, and as he turned around the first word that came out of his mouth was “Bitch.” Excuse my language but I cannot make this stuff up.

As he continued talking, he stated “you look crazy as hell…take your ass in the house…you got them weird boots on looking like a 1990’s ass spice girl.” Again, I cannot make this stuff up. If you follow me on my Instagram, then you have probably seen the video and if you haven’t that’s okay, I posted a reaction to it on my YouTube channel. This was just the beginning though, after he made those statements, he then followed me and tried to show me a picture of his private parts to try to prove his masculinity.

At that moment in time I had been triggered and I could start to feel my blood boil. I felt the old me coming back, because no matter how hard I tried to calm myself down, my anger just wanted to me to stomp on him with my 6-inch platforms. It was fate that the train came as soon as I felt my blood boil and my hand start to twitch. I was so baffled at the audacity that this man had when he approached me, that my attitude was affected for the rest of the day.

Then it didn’t make it any better that every 2 out of 3 people continuously said to me “don’t you think your tall enough without the platforms,” “damn she’s tall,” “damn how tall are you? 7 ft?” I could go on with the comments that I heard that day. I am not going to say that everyone I came across, stated something ignorant about my height. It just seemed as though this day everyone decided to trigger me. I can honestly say I haven’t felt that type of anger towards people in a very long time.

If you didn’t know, loving my height and my legs has always been a struggle for me. I continuously still suffer some days when my depression, and anxiety get the best of me. Even though I still have my days I have always found a way to pull myself out of that dark space. It just seemed as though this day I couldn’t bring myself to calm down. Then the fact that I didn’t get to finish running all of my errands made me even more livid on top of my triggers being pushed. This great off day turned into hell so quick I didn’t know how to flick the switch back.

I finally arrived to work after going through what seemed like an adventure around DC. Keep in mind I still haven’t gotten the chance to change into my work clothes, so I still have on my outfit. As soon as I walked through the door the first thing that came out of two of my coworkers’ mouth was something regarding my height and boots. By this time, I’ve had enough of people and their opinions of my height for the day. I let my anger slip out and threw it towards people who didn’t cause the problem. I automatically went into defense mode thinking that they would trigger me. I told them do not mention my height, my platforms, or how tall I look in my platforms. Having your height be the first thing people comment on as soon as they see you can become very annoying. If you can’t tell I was definitely irritated and over it that day.

I can tell you this that statement that I made did not sit well with my co-workers. They felt as though I was taking my anger out on them which was not the case. I just felt as though I was sticking up for myself and demanding a level of respect. Keep this in mind, I was about an hour early for work before I had to clock in, so I decided to go outside and go for a walk to try to calm my nerves.

That entire Friday I was taken back to a point that I thought I was past. I thought that I had grown to the point where I thought that things like this wouldn’t trigger me so much. It seems as though I was wrong, and those things will always seem to trigger me. The thing I am most proud of was the way I was able to handle my temper the entire day. The way I was able to walk away from situations where the past me would have caused a commotion. I have also gotten to the point where I am so confident within myself that I know my worth so people’s opinion of me won’t change my own.

The person I am today is a person I never thought or dreamed I would be. I thought I would always be controlled by my emotions and triggers. To see the growth from that makes me smile, because of how far I have come. It also makes me excited to see the woman I will become in the future.

This incident is just one of the many things that I go through as a tall woman on the daily basis. I’m sure that I am not the only person though. I am positive that there are, other tall woman in the world who face the same kind of discrimination, or dehumanization. I always found it odd how people treat tall woman, as if they are only of any use if they use their height as a tool. We are so much more than our height and my goal is to show the world just that. We can do so much more, being tall is just an added on plus.

“Tall Girl Magic” is real and don’t ever forget that.