With Gentle Heart and Wild Mind, Let's Change the World
Content Warning: This post contains discussion about assault, survival, sexism, and predator behaviours.
Disclaimer: This is a personal story based on my lived experience. Identifying details have been changed to protect privacy. The views expressed are my own and do not represent any institution or organization.
A Nickname Born from Knowledge and Survival
Before I tell you why the first episode of the podcast is taking so long, I need to lay down some personal context. The story behind my one and only nickname might help you understand why I’ve become the kind of person who refuses to stay quiet.
I used to have a nickname — Cyclo.
On paper, it sounds kind of cool, maybe even endearing. But like most things in my life, the name carries layers. It was first given to me during Basic Training, but its roots go back much further. That name came from two places: one was curiosity and memory. The other was survival.
Let’s start with the easy part.
Growing up, I was the “encyclopedia.” I remembered everything — manuals, procedures, weird facts no one asked for. If I read it once, it was filed away in my brain. It didn’t matter if it was a cadet handbook or something from history class — I could recall it like a pop-up reference guide.
Sometimes it was helpful. Sometimes, it surprised people. During drill team training, I once told an arrogant staff cadet to “look it up” mid-argument — a gutsy move in a pre-smartphone world. When it turned out I was right, people were stunned. But even then, no one ever corrected the boys for challenging me. They were never wrong — just mistaken.
Girls, though? We were wrong by default. And the more we “messed up,” the less seriously anyone took us. We were all just teens trying to build reputations in a system that already discounted us — especially if we were girls.
That’s when they started calling me “Encyclopedia Ramsay” — like Encyclopedia Brown. But cute nicknames don’t last long in the military. They get compressed, hardened. “Cyclo” was born — short for both cyclopedia and eventually, cyclone. That second meaning didn’t take long to catch up with me.
Because as much as I was a memory bank, I was also a storm.
And memory feeds the storm.
After a while, I was transferred from my training platoon to PAR Platoon — a holding space for members awaiting release. And the meaning of “Cyclo” changed again. It took on an edge I didn’t see coming.
Before I ever put on a uniform, I had already survived something life-altering.
I was assaulted. And when I tried to hold the person accountable, most people turned away. One person — my mother — believed me. But institutions didn’t. Others close to me either ignored it, minimized it, or excused the perpetrator.
There was a moment I’ll never forget — someone I trusted, an adult man I saw as a mentor or father-figure, told me directly he “couldn’t do that to him.” Meaning — he couldn’t stand up for me, because doing so would hurt the man who hurt me. He had no problem doing it to me. This was a man with a daughter of his own, and yet he was the first to objectify me publicly — even in front of his son, whom I was dating at the time.
By the time I arrived at Basic, I had already internalized a painful truth:
I would not be believed.
So I stopped looking for validation. I pretended I was fine, because that’s what survival required. Especially as a young woman with undiagnosed autism and ADHD. But military culture isn’t built to accommodate difference. When you’re “different” in a system built on conformity and silence, it paints a target on your back.
And if you’re a woman? That target glows.
PAR Platoon wasn’t just bleak — it felt unsafe.
There was an unspoken rule among the women: don’t go anywhere alone. Watch for the ones who were angry, frustrated, looking to reassert control. We heard stories. Girls disappearing, being quietly sent to hospitals, exits expedited under questionable circumstances. The men would crack jokes right in front of us — things like, “I wonder who she had to sleep with to get released early.”
Back then, we mostly side-eyed each other, unsure of what was really going on. But now, with hindsight and a better cultural lens, I know what I was seeing: rape culture at work.
One day, I felt that shift — the subtle but chilling sense that I was being watched. The way certain men hovered. The smirks. The fake friendliness. My usual tricks — being quiet, polite, unremarkable — stopped working.
That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t safe.
We were assigned to the same work detail — me, and three walking red flags. The kind of men who smile to your face while slipping something into your drink.
So I did what women have always done when cornered: I got loud. I got weird. I got unpredictable.
I made a scene. I threw drinks in faces, hoping their own concoctions would burn their skin. I let myself become what they feared most: unmanageable.
I became a cyclone.
Not hysterical. Strategic.
I crafted a reputation. I leaned into chaos. I stopped trying to be likable or understood. I used my voice. My presence. My rage. I took up space — I man-spread before we had a word for it.
Why?
Because sometimes, “crazy” is the only thing that makes dangerous men back off.
I became memorable, so that if anything ever happened to me, someone would notice.
I found female friendships for the first time — the kind rooted in mutual protection. I wasn’t completely safe, but I was safer. And I began to worry about others, not just myself.
So yeah — they called me Cyclo. First, because I was a walking manual. Then, because I was a storm.
That name followed me. I never knew if it was a compliment or a curse.
But now I think it was both.
It reminds me that survival — especially for women like me — autistic, outspoken, unrelenting — is messy. It’s not graceful. It’s not thanked.
But it is powerful.
I believe in community, even when I feel rejected by it. I believe in fairness, in diplomacy, and in women’s capacity for change — especially when we act with intention and togetherness.
Imagine this:
A world where all the women walking around with storms inside, quietly holding a vision of something better — actually acted on it.
A world where mothers, partners, leaders, artists, and change-makers didn’t just cope, but created — with purpose.
A world where we weren’t distracted by consumerism or corporate chaos. Where the mothers of those lost to addiction and overdose held pharmaceutical companies accountable.
Because I can imagine it.
Can you?
That’s why I’m making this podcast.
It’s for the women who want to change the world and won’t back down.
For those who’ve been through hell and come back weirder — and wiser.
I want to share the skills I picked up the hard way — and I want to build something with other women like me.
In the rural north, time can feel like it’s standing still.
But we don’t have to.
Let’s build a community of progressive, protective, powerful women. Let’s re-analyze the stories we were given and tell our own. Let’s reclaim the matriarchy — not as nostalgia, but as future.
I don’t share certain parts of myself in public — like my spirituality or political organizing — because I can’t mask my neurodivergence when I’m speaking from the soul. And those are the exact parts of women that society works hardest to silence.
That’s why we need each other.
To create something real, and weird, and bold — together.
If you’re that kind of woman — curious, kind, a little wild — this podcast is for you.
I love you. Let’s change the world.
