Missing posts

5150 is deleting posts again. If I recall correctly, the last one she removed involved the relationship between being a whore and dancing. It was a good post, well thought out and written. I suppose it was taken down because it contained an element of condemnation towards her job, and what seemed to be an undercurrent of self-directed anger.

I assume that putting up and taking down the post are the result of her ambivalence about how being a dancer defines her. The post told a story that she either decided she didn't want to tell us, or didn't want to tell herself.

5150 says that she's Manic Depressive I, and she calls herself "5150", a term that seems to be taken from a clause in a California law that allows a person to be forcibly institutionalized in a psychiatric unit. Sudden, overwhelming changes in emotions make the world, and particularly relationships, unpredictable and frightening. Our emotions tell us where we stand in a relationship, and unpredictable changes make formerly safe relationships seem menacing or dangerous.

This affects a writer's relationship with her readers. Making the post, admitting the internalized stigma of being a whore, took a certain amount of courage. Taking it down, fighting against the internal self image, also took some courage. There's no need to justify or defend either action. To live with this confusion, to struggle with the inner directed anger of whoredom, without knowing what else you might be or how else to exist, is an uncomfortable, unhappy thing. It's easy to say that you don't have to defend yourself, but in the midst of unhappiness, it's almost impossible not to try to defend yourself. Even so, unhappiness means that you're alive and aware, and can create something beautiful.

Even if it's just a small, momentary spark of courage.