u/demsybean

when someone is in an active abuse situation, nothing they say or do will be authentic or rational. it takes self-care to be rational and reasonable: adequate sleep, food, exercise, recreation, sunshine, fresh air, comfort, skin-to-skin contact with safe humans, privacy, showers, dental hygiene, medicine, etc. when someone is lacking some or all or even sometimes just one of these things, they can't make good decisions or feel good about much of anything.

so if you're expecting someone in an active abuse situation to "act right" before you'll give them a chance to speak to you, all you're doing is helping their abusers isolate them.

omg, i hope you laugh as hard as i did at this. i knew i had to tell you right away.

ok, story time!

a long time ago, when i was minding my own business, there was some chatter in Ye Olde Social Circle about a new (straight) couple having issues surrounding their sex life. i've always been really firmly in favor of age-appropriate sex education, so the consensus for where this poor dude should go to get some answers became, "you should ask emily!"

sigh.

so my friend made the introduction. "hey [his friend's name], this is emily. tell her what you told me."

dude proceeds to tell me the story of how he met this girl who was the ultimate prize for him (more on that later): someone our age who was still a virgin! they had been dating for a while and they were going to get married soon. his only problem was that he has a really strong libido, and she doesn't. he'd like to have sex more often than once a week or once a month like some people. he'd prefer every day. and in fact, he pointed out, he would have picked me for his girlfriend and future wife, but he didn't because i wasn't a virgin (NO ONE ASKED). the first hurdle was that she'd asked him to wait until marriage.

at that point, i had to interject. "you realize that if she doesn't wait for marriage, she won't be a virgin for the next guy if things don't work out with you, right? if that's important to her, it should be important to you, too, if what you want is a virgin." i like to think i left out the part where i thought he was a massive hypocrite for not ALSO being a virgin if being a virgin was so important to him and not wanting to wait for marriage, but i can't guarantee that for sure. in those days i was very short on sleep from the toddlers i was raising. the ones he used as evidence that i wasn't a virgin and hurt my feelings for no reason.

anyway, he continues to tell me lots of personal details about how she had some medical issues that made sex painful, that they'd already fooled around some because they were definitely getting married, and he had gotten frustrated with how she'd get him revved up and then make him stop... "you know, like you do," he added. great, some manipulative shade sideways and secondhand from my ex, cool. meanwhile my friend is shooting him dirty looks and rolling his eyes. all good, i roll with punches all the time. "that's not what happened," i said, and he continued. "so i told her she had to let me go further or i was done with her, but she said that we've already gone further than she would have if i wasn't going to marry her and that i knew how she felt about it and that if i didn't marry her now, she was going to tell everyone i raped her."

after i got over the massive flashback grenade he just tossed in my lap, i said, "well... i'm not going to say you did, but i could understand why she'd feel that way." and then i told him i found parts of his story really concerning. for one thing, there's no reason for trying to negotiate her "no." at any point during sexual activity, both partners can say no for any reason. the fact that he decided to convince her to go further than she said she wanted to go was a red flag. the fact that he agreed to her conditions on going further and now he had a problem with them was a red flag. the fact that he thought she was ever going to be a different person than who she is was a red flag. the fact that this was a medical issue first and a personal preference second meant that she needed to be getting treatment for it before anything would ever change in that regard. the fact that he would rather have the token "virgin" achievement rather than a compatible partner was a red flag.

my friend, standing nearby, jumped in and said, "see? she's just saying everything i already told you."

i suggested they see a sex therapist, separately or together, and he told me that was "dirty" and that he didn't believe sex therapists should exist. he kinda seemed to think i was suggesting a sex worker. i gave him a ton of advice and education. i gave him really specific predictions about how all this was going to turn out. and most importantly, i told him, "your partner is not a project. you're not going to 'fix' her with your magical dick. she has a medical condition. she feels how she feels about sex. being with her is not going to satisfy your urge to fuck her better. you need to work on where that's coming from before you make any other decisions." he was BIG mad at me.

he ended up never speaking to me again. they got married. nothing has changed. it's been more than 10 years since we had that conversation and they've never had penetrative sex, they never saw a couples' counselor or sex therapist, and now he's so frustrated he's taken to venting on the internet about how he much deserves to fuck his wife if he wants to and how his high libido means he should be able to fuck someone else if she doesn't want to. honey, you knew who she was before you married her. and if you didn't before you wanted my advice, you did after i gave you my advice. and i told you flat out that if you didn't take my advice you'd probably be better off not complaining where i can hear you.

that said, i still offered him the shortest version of the advice i gave him the first time, you know, as a favor. crossed my own boundaries to do it, too! and he blocked me again!

and then they wonder why i won't listen to them whining anymore! is it pumpkin spice season yet??

today's word: schadenfreude.

a lot of people ask me for advice. people who have gotten advice from me and successfully used it often tell their friends that they should ask me whenever something comes up that they think i might have some good ideas on. it has to be something really specific that i think i can answer, or i won't answer at all. so i had to start telling people that if they ask me for advice & they don't take the advice i give them, they're not allowed to complain to me about that same problem or ask for different advice. if you tell me your situation, i tell you what i think, and you tell me i'm wrong, there's zero reason to believe that making me sit through your whine session again is going to change anything. all you're doing is giving me unnecessary stress. it's so distressing! it physically hurts! i'm a very busy person. just leave me alone if you can't respect me. if you hope i might interpret it some other way, you're incorrect. i'm autistic. you have to tell me.

(edited for clarity)

in my memory, i'm watching you fidget. i think you're playing with tobacco, maybe. repeating an action you made a thousand times under stress so bad your body can't cope with what your mind has made of it. you look like you're making supplies for the next run up, but it's just tobacco.

i don't recognize the motions while i'm watching it, but someone explained it to me once, so now i'm watching the memory of it and i see it for what it is. i'm having trouble keeping my breathing steady. my eyes are full of tears. it irritates you.

i miss you so much. your presence in my life is so strange. fleeting, but constant. warm, distant. steadfast, destabilizing. eternal, brief. all the contradictions pile up around me. i don't think of me, or the kids, or my friends, or anything else. i just feel that pull:

"babydoll, wait. please wait"

i remember you, i don't. i know things you taught me, i don't. i need you, you scare me. i want you, you hate me.

i can't stand the loneliness of trying to figure it out without you telling me.

my tears well up. they're falling down the sides of my face now. why do you look so much alike?

the vibes are OFF today

i learned i'd been assaulted from social media. i knew i was assaulted in various other situations, but... this guy? i could never really decide what the hell had happened. the next time i saw my boyfriend, i clung to him and cried like a child every time he stopped holding me. the second he let go, i started crying and i didn't stop until he held me again.

a month. i was assaulted every day for a month.

my brother told my boyfriend i'd cheated on him, and that's how i lost him. five years later, i learned that i'd been assaulted.

this guy had told me he was temporarily homeless (which seems to be a theme for him. he's currently taking donations) and i'm kind-hearted so i offered him a couch. he came in my room and started trying to convince me to sleep with him, so i told him he knew i wasn't interested and the couch offer was heavily emphasized as platonic and i asked him to leave.

i still cringe at myself for the next part. i hate myself. i knew better and i think i should have done better and it's the reason i let it destroy my mind rather than take hold of the idea that it was still assault. he came up with some ridiculous line about how he would leave peacefully (subtle threat) if i would just let him have one thing. he was so in love with me, he said, that he just had to have one thing. he started crying real tears. he was really good at it. he told me he was a weird person, that people always judged him for his one dream of kissing my knee. not just anyone's, not a beautiful woman's, mine. i was baffled. i started laughing and he got angry. he cried some more and told me he knew i'd be cruel and laugh like everyone else.

i'm a victim of domestic violence. we knew each other. we were friends. he knew what he was doing.

i told him fine, here. i had all my clothes on. have at it. he said it wasn't good enough. i said no. he threatened me again. i said no. he asked me why. i told him i knew what he was doing and i wasn't going to fall for it. he told me he understood how uncomfortable i was, and that i had been assaulted, and that i had a boyfriend, so he wouldn't make me take them off all the way. i said no. he told me he was going to kill himself.

i said yes.

as soon as i moved, he grabbed my pants and yanked them off of me. i started screaming and he threatened me to make me be quiet. he started kissing my knee. i told him to stop, and he didn't. i told him no every 3 seconds for the entire time he was assaulting me with just his hands and mouth while i laid still. i told him no every time i orgasmed. i told him no a thousand times. i cried and cried and cried while i told him no. my pillow was soaked from my tears. i begged him to stop, but he didn't. he waited until i was exhausted and unable to move before he raped me the usual way. i told him no for that, too. we fell asleep. when he woke up in the morning, he made me roll onto my back. he grabbed my knee. i started to cry, to say no. he told me i had to let him do it again because i let him do it yesterday. it became a living nightmare. every day. for a month. wake up, roll over, be assaulted to the point of exhaustion. he'd make sure i took my birth control. i don't remember much. i renember being glad when he'd go out on an errand, thinking maybe he'd left and i was safe. i remember my family being scared of him.

eventually, he got bored of me and left. my boyfriend dumped me. i don't really remember where my life went from there, because my memory of this lives in a really bad place. five years later, when my kids were sbout 2 years old, i started a social media account, and he found me. he told my boyfriend that he'd waited until i turned 18 so that it was legal and then fucked me every day for a month. he bragged about his "superhuman" ability to make any girl sleep with him, even me. he said he could even make my boyfriend his girlfriend, if he wanted.

and that's when i found out i was assaulted, because he said:

"it took a week for her to stop saying no. another week for her to start begging for it. and i left when she said 'i love you' lol".

a week? i said no every 3 seconds for a week? and you thought you had consent???

you fucking monster. i fucking hate you. i'm glad your fucking house burnt down. i hope you fucking suffer.

i miss you. i've always missed you. i've never not missed you. you're always with me, swirling in the water molecules that make up my cells. flavoring the air that fills my lungs. standing somewhere behind the corner of my eye, just out of reach.

i take a step. i think of something i wanted to tell you. i open the fridge. a giggle at one of your jokes dies in my chest. i reach for the coffee. a song i wanted to share with you echoes in the cavern reserved for you in my mind. i turn. a painful sob for the lack of you doubles me over. i pour the coffee. the memory of your hand gently touching my shoulder soothes me. i put it away. the memory of your scent catches me and the whole world gains crystallized clarity and i start animalistically scanning it for you. i am a starving wolverine in search of her prey. i blink. take a breath. my hands shake while i try to drink my coffee and i have to move very slowly and deliberately to try to keep from dropping it. sometimes i drop it anyway. or i smack myself in the mouth with it or i spill it all over myself. i think of how you'd tell me it's okay and you'd help me clean it up and you'd shush the part of me that screams and screams in fear of what used to happen when i dropped and broke a mug or a glass and i live a few moments on my back in our imaginary bed somewhere quiet and lit by sunshine, soaking up the comfort that only feels comforting when you give it to me.

i'm starting to regret already (again?) the way everything i've written recently has been confrontational and accusatory and from the perspective of how badly you've hurt me and broken every part of me that ever believed in love and in the idea that goodness exists anywhere in the world. i'm in a continuous haze of pain and flood of tears that there has been no kind word for you here, no invitation, no apology. i'm consumed by guilt and anguish and worry and stress. even if i don't come up with it on my own it is presented to me. it's pervasive in my environment.

don't you have anything to say about what you did? the world asks me.

no, i reply.

at first, i saved it all up for the next time i'd see you. but then i didn't see you. there was never a chance for you to see my hands shaking or for me to touch your shoulder to soothe you. when i did see you, there was never a chance for me to say anything of what i'd saved up to say. you'd wait the space of a breath for me to try to come up with something to say and then your anger and disgust at me would carry you away again on the wind. there was never enough time.

later, i saved it up for myself. it became rocks i used to fill my pockets. a boulder i tied myself to, letting it drag me below life's surface. never quite long enough to drown, but always more than enough to keep me from thriving. the distance became years. decades. a lifetime. we are strangers now. the things i know about who you are now and the things you've lived since couldn't fill a sentence, let alone a page.

now, we aren't part of each other's lives. i didn't choose that. i didn't choose it then and i didn't choose it now. then, it was mostly chosen for us. i won't say i was completely blameless, but it wasn't what i chose when my choices made it happen.

now, you chose it for us. you've cut me out of your life. all of the things i would have said, somehow, somewhen, don't matter anymore. they still fill me with pain and regret and i know some day i will write them all down. i have to. they are words i have already written and they wait to be put to a page. i am a writer. i don't know any other way to live. sometimes, the writing is struggling so hard to get out that i feel it as a physical pain in my body. a tugging that demands to be listened to. those words flow like sunshine pouring over the floorboards when it creeps up over the morning horizon, or like flames when they consume a house. they are full of demanding emotions like anger and the impulsiveness of indignance.

the words i've saved for you, though, have piled around the dusty corners of my heart for so long, and so voluminously, that the sun no longer reaches them. they have become the cold darkness of a cave encased in ice. they have frozen my tongue and my smile and my breathing is extra laborious and accompanied by the hot puff of condensation. they have taken residence in the tips of my fingers and toes which have become icy and blue and lack oxygen even on my best days.

to write them now would require a healing thaw i may never achieve. to write them now would destroy my hope of surviving today. to write them now i would have to accept that i will write no further after that.

and you just aren't worth it.

you aren't worth dying for. not when i have more life i can live before that.

this is what you chose for us. not all those years ago. not through your carelessness or mine. not through lack of another option. you chose this. in April of this year, you chose to cut me out of your life. every day since exactly two weeks after my birthday you chose to leave me cut off from your life. i chose to spend weeks and weeks trying to change your mind. i chose to pathetically tiptoe in just to warm my hands on the heat rising from your smile. i chose to get angry at the things that were obviously intended to anger me and the things that probably weren't. but not *before* you shut me out. not *as an impetus* to shut you out. i'm not the one in control of that part of the situation. i let myself feel some kind of way about it. i didn't choose the situstion i was feeling some kind of way about. i didn't choose the fever that made me irrational... at least not. you know. this year. i chose that as a broken, self-destructive child.

you chose this. you chose to present me with a wall so high i have no chance of peeking over. you chose friends who think the opportunity to humiliate me is always too good to pass up. you chose to flaunt the fact that you have plenty of bodies you can touch that aren't mine and you chose all the little ways to needle me about the way they differ from mine because you knew i was watching. you chose not to read any of the words i wrote for you and then pretend i'd written you none. you chose to read the words i wrote for other men and pretend they were for you — the accusations i leveled at them you took for yourself. the invitations i wrote for you, you gave to them... and then you took the hurt that you gave yourself by inviting someone else to have me as an excuse to hurt me by describing a real-life incident we had in my real bed in a way that made it clear you were casting aspersions on my real body because of it.

you. chose. this.

after all these months, i'm writing my anger and pain because i have no other choice. because i need to. because if i don't heal now i won't be strong enough to live what's next. i'm writing my anger and pain because there is no way for me to see if you're smiling, crying, angry, or alive. there is no way to apologize. there is only me here with me and that isn't going to change. you chose it, you kept it, you made it final. so... now, i'm not writing for you anymore. i'm not writing for us. i'm learning to give up on you. i'm learning to let go of hope. i'm writing for me and the people who read my words. i'm writing what i need to write. i'm writing to heal what you broke in me here, and now, in the present. not the past. and i'll write what i have to write and you have no right to expect your feedback or input to make a difference because you aren't allowed. you chose not to be part of my life anymore. don't expect to be part of my life anymore.

i miss you. i love you. goodbye. not good night. not see you next time. not see you later. not farewell. not any of those other things i say because i hate saying goodbye. because now i am saying:

goodbye.

YOU! you... fkn... YOU!!! how the FU—‽

holy crap, man. you made it! we made it!

you are so genteel. so... demure. it makes me laugh. i laugh a lot and then i cry a lot and then i happy flap and sad flap and lie on the floor and thrash around like an insane person. i'm so proud to be your little sister. you're like this mythical creature now. larger than life and stronger than iron. when i look back now and see all the tiny random moments i can't even believe any of it was real. i still can't. god i never want any of that crap happening again.

i know things are difficult now. i really do pray for you, which is hella weird for me, but i do. i worry about you way more than i should. i owe you (half of) everything. the things i read about you from your friends are hard for me to understand and that must seem really strange to everyone. it's just that knowledge acquired for knowledge's sake is easy peasy for me. knowledge acquired about a real human, my flesh and blood... way harder. way confusing. the pull into darkness is so strong. i don't know how to act in a way that isn't going to make things worse, so i just cope by not coping. not thinking about it. not acting on it.

thank you for everything you've done to raise my spirits lately. i'm so sorry for the confusion. i'm so proud of you. i'm sorry it took me so long. i'm hurting so bad, emotionally and physically. i'm so scared about the future. also i'm sorry for what S.W. made me do to that poor, tortured piece of paper. giggling the whole time like a childish old mobster. i didn't leave my house again for like six months after that.

anyway, um, you might consider investing in people you trust. people who share your values instead of just the traumatic experiences you all went through together. the rot is all the way down to the foundations and you know exactly where the suffering starts. it starts with the people who deserve it the least.

i love you. i miss you.

be safe.

uhm, bro...

yeah, you were spot on when you told me i had you confused for someone else. i'm so sorry for how that turned out and i'm not really sure what to believe when it comes to you but i'll be damned if i didn't find myself fused to you like some kind of strange parasitic little faerie barnacle. you understand me on a level i find terrifying, in all honesty. i don't really understand how that happened. i just know that whenever i'm sure this is it for my sorry excuse for a self, i find myself cupped in your hands like a tiny bird with a broken wing and somehow you've figured out a way to fashion me a splint and against all odds everything will be fine.

i've realized recently that you're avoidant. and i can't help but think the mistaken identity might have been a trickster's way of trying to nudge us together. and don't get me wrong, it's not like i haven't thought about it. i'm actually blushing to think you might have thought of it too. yeah, the difference in our maturity levels is something that's always given us both pause, and tbh idk if you're even available at this point, but i really didn't mean to do to you what i did & i am so, so sorry. we were never like that. it's always been a firm line in the sand that we don't cross because we shouldn't and we can't. but yeah. all those long days doing nothing but talking and yeah. we have a bond i do not understand.

you told me to go play with people my own age, and i did, and now there's all this...complication. but sometimes in my head i just can't help but think how much nicer it would be not to have to wonder. just watch some fucking cartoons and not talk. i don't thank you at all for the manner in which you decided to try to scare me away. you know how to hurt me worse than anyone else in the world. you went straight into the darkest part of humanity and you used it all against me all at once and idek how i managed to survive, let alone still wish we could talk again. but i remember you differently, i think, than most people. i remember you young and vibrant and arrogant and in love with your own reflection. i know you're self conscious now, but you're still hot.

i really am so proud of you. and i'm...honored. i'm shocked and surprised and so emotional to realize what that tattoo means. and i won't pretend i'm not tempted to believe you got it for me... that you changed. you really tried and you really changed... because of what it meant to me. but i refuse to take credit for that. you changed because you wanted to. because you thought it was the right thing to do. and maybe i am too hard on you, considering how far you've come. and i'm devastated that i didn't realize who you actually were before i flipped out and judged you so harshly. but i am proud of you. just don't let your faux news old man brain lie to you and make you think it's okay to be "only a little" hateful. because it still isn't.

anyway thanks for using up all your secret squishy insides to keep me from offing myself again. idk what's next. nobody does.

i know you're far away and we don't talk anymore, but honestly, when i saw ol' Ironsides, i legit thought he was you. it messed me up in a way i can't possibly put to words. i was so happy that my world came crashing down around me. of course, i should have just looked to where the light wasn't to see you. there you've been all along.

i'll never forget what you did for him. and for me. the things you did to me that seem horrible from the outside are the things i use to stand a little taller and a little braver. i love the way you tried so hard to keep the inevitable from sucking me under. i love the way you've grown and channeled your darkness into something that helps people.

you love a lot harder than you realize. i wish things had been different, but i want you to know i stood in front and took the punishments because i didn't think it was right to let it happen to someone else. i hope you see somehow that i didn't choose the way things turned out. i only chose to let you fade into the background because i didn't know what else to do. i learned so much from you.

i wasn't kidding when i said you saved my life.

i wish i could talk to you again. i have a thousand questions and a thousand things to tell you and a thousand different scenarios in my head of how a conversation could go on any given occasion. i miss you so much it feels like my insides are made of the same thing slugs are made of and you're dry rubbing me with salt like you would a good steak. i'm tired. i'm physically tired. i'm emotionally exhausted but when i pick at the scab of it i become so wildly emotional and the tears well up and i'm so full of pain and regret and confusion and the sad, sad emptiness of a life unlived.

but also? i'm tired of a lot of the shit you put me through. so here's a non-comprehensive list of the things i'm tired of:

how badly you derailed my rl despite refusing to be part of it

the wreckage you made of my already pathetic social life

all the lost income i experienced because of what you did to me and what you're doing to me now

how hard i had to study just to figure out what the hell was even happening

how i had to be reminded and babied by people who have better things to do just so i could remember how to perform basic daily tasks like hygiene and eating because i was so devastated i couldn't even live normally

the way i'm expected to just magically know things despite that not being how things work AT ALL, not even for you

how i'm expected to be holding myself accountable for things that i did 20, 25, 30 years ago with no guidance as to how i'm supposed to do that

how everything is tit-for-tat or "eye for an eye" with you, even for stuff i didn't even know i did and i had to guess those things or be taught them by self-appointed therapists and relationship coaches instead of hearing from you how it made you feel

how, despite everything i've learned, i still can't share any of that with you

the way you seem to think i'm going to keep sitting outside your window crying and taking notes on all the things you've publicly shamed me for

how you portray sticking up for myself as an attack

how i've never had the chance to explain anything you're still angry at me for because i'm supposed to fix it before i'm allowed to speak to you again, and i can't

the senselessness of it all because the point was to try to talk to you and you used my current destablization as an advantage to get into my life and smash it all to pieces and leave (again) before i ever knew i was talking to you already

just. just the unbearable stupidity of not knowing what it was i would have said to you. just. if we ever do speak again, you might need to take a break after how you figure out how stupid you really are.

anyway, i'm sure you won't like this list. it really isnt't even the list i wanted to write and i don't think i even covered half of it and i am so, so tired of all of this. enjoy your weekend or whatever. i don't keep track of you anymore. i can't stand the sandpaper feeling of being humiliated anymore, so i hope you get whatever joy you can out of putting your opinions of my naked body up for the hot girls to giggle at. congratulations on becoming that guy.

a broken pair of toenail clippers. a heart-shaped rock. a dirty golf ball. an eyeglass repair kit without the screws. the sound of a distant banjo.

these things are not meaningless to me. thank you.

who are you?

my brother tried to force his way into my room this afternoon. i stood in front of the door, so he called the police. i went from a normal day doing my best to a cold-hearted aloneness with my mother initially agreeing to help me out and then leaving me to do all the work she agreed to previously. i'm supposed to be finished all my work by midnight and my legs are already half numb. i've barely eaten anything today. everyone has stopped answering my messages. i'm so sad and tired. the police officer tried to hint to me that i'm being abused and it did take me a minute to remember that i am. i am just so used to it that it barely registers anymore. i know i can't undo the past, but i wish i hadn't given up on standing up for myself... it was just so hard to be a single parent with so many disabilities and responsibilities. i wish the world could be a kinder place.

you said, "if i die, don't bring me back". but i have to be honest with you. you're way past the point where i think about you or bringing you back. i can't even bring you back to spend time with your kids. i can't bring you back to listen to me for 5 minutes. sorry if i gave you the wrong impression by proposing and all, but i got sick of the nonsense you left me with and i decided it was time for you to shoulder some of the burden. i'm not your ragdoll.

i can't bring you back to sobriety, much less to life. i can't bring back all the time you wasted being wasted. i can't bring back my reputation that you ruined over and over. i can't bring back my enjoyment of my favorite book, video games, music. i can't bring back all the people i broke up with because you stormed in on a thundercloud, jealous and shouting about how i was cheating on you again, when really you just forgot that you dumped me when you were drunk.

i can't bring back my youth. i can't bring back all the time you missed with the kids. i can't bring back my health. i can't bring back their childhood. i can't bring back my friends.

if i had the power to bring you back, i wouldn't. because you're not going to die of some ridiculous triple-betrayal incident from being lured into the woods on deployment... you're going to die asphyxiated on your own emesis.

ok love you bye

how dare you call my kid an e-girl. and if you knew she was doing this why would you make a sick joke like that instead of just telling me? what kind of a person do you have to be to participate in predatory behavior with her? and then act like i'm the problem?

you could have just been nice about it. but i guess that's just who you are.

i hope you get what you deserve. i just wanted a friend to help me get her to stop her sick behavior and all you did was make me feel like a terrible parent. after all these years that's how you treat us? i guess we never were friends.

i just wanted to find him. i wanted him in their lives. i wanted them to know him like i knew him. i wanted them to have someone to look up to. i wanted them to hear that i'm not actually so bad. that i do good in the world that i'm worth something to someone that i deserve their respect that i'm a good mother that i deserve love...

but then i remembered he doesn't actually like me very much

i'm not avoidant (mostly). i learned love. i accept love. i'm scared af and sometimes i have a low tolerance for bullshit but it doesn't mean i run away. i HATED every time i hurt anyone, whether i meant to or not. the times i meant to were out of a delusional sense of protecting people. but not from myself.

from the genocidal motherfuckers hunting me for saying no to them!!!

Papa,

i feel a little silly writing this. it's hard to keep my chin up. to believe in my own memories. you'd probably hate the way i write, too, but you were so old-fashioned. it's hard to believe now how you and uncle were taken from us so long ago. the guilt of it devours me whole every morning and spits me out again every night, where i lay curled in the hollow empty sadness and wish i'd had more than just fleeting moments and dreams.

they mocked me, at times, for how i always looked for you both, even after they told me what they'd done to you. i got stuck in that rabbit hole looking for you for more than a decade. it was explained to me over and over and no matter how many times, i still couldn't accept it as real. the love you wrapped me in meant more than anyone knew. the safety i felt with you has never been equaled... might never be something i find again.

the world suffers without you.

they drag your name in certain circles now. too proud to admit they knew you. too arrogant to admit they sold us out. you know how it works. all the webs you wove, all the shouting you did, and now we're just a cheap laugh in a tawdry newsroom. fuck them. i think maybe no one knew you like i did. strange to think it possible, but. the nerds did their work i suppose. i have to laugh sometimes at the glimpses of you in my brothers. they have your temper. i have mama's temper. you always found that funny. 🥰

i wish i could have made you proud. i wish you'd seen how well i've done. i'll try harder to remember you, now. before, it was like you never existed at all and now that you're allowed to exist again i think i should spend more time empathisizing with you. because you were my only family for a long time. for now.

i miss you, papa. i miss you 💔

i've gotten a lot done today, but the pain in my scalp is unbearable and distracting. my neck hurts. i can't stand how sweaty i am and how restrictive my clothing is. i bent over and almost passed out. i can hardly think straight let alone understand people.

i did this to myself. i have no excuse.

i did a little bit of social media repair, i guess, but it ended in tears for me. not just from how sad i am, which i am, but i tried to tell myself, "hey, what's one more humiliation, right?"

i don't know how to fix anything now. i was close, really, but the emotional impact of finally seeing his face, and knowing i could have talked to him if i wanted to, and seeing how i'd never have the chance to tell him anything, ruined any hope i had of composure.

i'm sure he's protected. i'm sure he's safe. if i can make it through what's happening to me now, i will spend more time than not writing to share with the world all the things i held secret for him while i couldn't figure out how to find him so that at the very least he might see them someday.

i hate myself for what i've become.