I do not photograph well

I don't know when I started smiling when stressed. I don't do it in private, when I am more given to open fretting. In public or performance, when anxious, I get a rush of adrenaline and start grinning. People mistake this as eagerness, though it is far from. I want this experience to stop. I would like to be home and alone, in the quiet, but I am unable to be. This is a self-defense.

When subbing in a class that was doing all they could to harass me , an erstwhile persecuting girl asked with genuine concern why I was smiling. I told her I wasn't sure. The smile as much a surprise to me as to her. The other students paused at this interaction and were immediately better behaved. I might have been a dangerous lunatic.

Recently, I had to receive my twice annual refresher in de-escalation and self-protection at work. I am not permitted to restrain the residents. My union will not back me if I do. But, the trainers needed someone for the guards to restrain and volunteered me as the lightest person in the room by fifty pounds. I could have been able to refuse this honor, but I didn't. Men who did not understand "pretending" and "colleague, not felonious youth" restrained and handcuffed me.

After twenty minutes of this, one of the trainers asked me in a whisper if I had been handcuffed before.

"I have in this training," I said, meaning previous iterations, so much so that my wrists were abraded and my biceps, sore.

"I mean outside of here."

I smirked. "Oh, we don't talk about that at work."

She dismissed me from handcuffing, though other guards needed to prove they knew how to do it. Half an hour later, the trainer clarified she was asking about cuffing in case I was traumatized, in case someone who handcuffed me had abused me. I was smiling through the process and she thought I dissociated. Maybe I did, but I didn't realize it.

I assured her I have no trauma related to handcuffs, at which point she cleared them to handcuff me for ten more minutes, until everyone who needed to had proven their skill.

I return home, telling Amber I need her to touch me softly to remind me someone can. I don't have to think to ask this. It is a request from deeper than my consciousness.

When Amber goes to class, I find myself staring at the wall, numb, unable to do anything else and wonder if I am not as free of trauma as I once though.

Once, I allowed a lover to handcuff me, trying to be adventurous for her. Within minutes, I was crouching in the corner, growling for her to stay the hell away from me and not touch me. She was too rough, or I didn't trust her when I was that kind of vulnerable. This was not the experience I was going for, to put it mildly. I postponed that romantic session until I could allow enough self-care to again be in the right mindset. We never again tried that.

I'm not suggesting I am discovering any deep-seated abuse remembered by my muscles and not my mind. I recall in kindergarten finding inexplicable delight when, amid playground battles (almost always gender segregated), the girls would capture me. There is nothing in my childhood that would account for this, no villainous relation with a penchant for ropes and threats. It is only the stress of being forced out of control and having nothing to do about it but grin and bear it.

The only time anyone restrained me in life and I fought without success to escape was in college. A girl liked me, and I was too addled by an ex to stop her from liking me, because I couldn't give reciprocity. We were barely friends at that point and, because of this, we never became closer. After she got her first kiss -- as in, her first ever kiss -- from me reluctantly, she broke down crying because this wasn't special, then tried to hit me for calling her by her given name and not one she made up for a fairy creature she drew. She ordered her larger male friend to hold me in place, arms behind my back, so she could kiss me. The guy commented that it wasn't his first three-way. I couldn't stop them, so I pretended I was okay with what had happened. I cannot imagine being copacetic with the situation if the genders were swapped. I felt disgusted with myself when I left her dorm room. I hung around with her a little while longer, letting her kiss me without coercion and enduring her friend's threats that I had better treat her right. I tried to justify what happened by wondering if I should date her before deciding I couldn't be around her.

For a few months after this, when someone tried to kiss me and I wasn't completely on board, I heaved. This did limit my romantic options.

Neither of them are bad people, then or now. They were indulging in what they thought was fun and didn't think I would object because I had flirted with the girl (I was in a period of my life when I would flirt with most anyone if I thought it was safe to do so). Aside from hating myself until I told her we were not going to date, I felt no trauma from it. It is an awkward anecdote, another row on the list of girls I have kissed.

Of course, I still have an animal body that, no matter how my mind assures it that it is all make-believe, and no one is going to lift me up and carry me from the room, believes I am under threat. I am usually so calm, even in the face of assaultive, loud children, and tend to carry this over into my life beyond work. Outside my mental health being off-balanced, few things bother me. I have considered that the only way I would hurt someone is if I thought I was in real danger I could not deescalate, or they were coming for a loved one. Aside from that, I keep cool and get out of there. But this experience after being restrained shows me a side of my responses that makes me uncomfortable.

Soon in Xenology: Social Justice Wiccans. Ken.

last watched: American Gods
reading: Aliens: The World's Leading Scientists on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
listening: Damien Rice