u/demsybean

my mother i live with is texting harassment to me every day now. my entire scalp is inflamed and infected. my neck is swollen, my arm is numb, and the left side of my face is infected again. i'm anemic and exhausted. the tumor in my abdomen is making it difficult to eat. i feel ugly.

i don't have a car, so i walk or take public transportation, but my transit card melted in the wash and i can't afford to replace it. i've spent so long trying to keep up with doing all the chores for my parents and kids that i've barely had time to have a social life, so when my old friend group saw that i was back, they started their harassment up again. they didn't even know i'd already been experiencing in-person harassment for a year, so everything i tried to do made it worse.

i was so scared by the time my ex blocked me after being a special presence for so long that everything in my life fell apart. i never even knew it was him being so kind to me, or i would have calmed down a long time ago. i realized quite a while ago that someone had set us up to look like we were interacting, so i tried everyfhing to get through to him to let him know what was happening. when that didn't work i tried to focus on my own life. finally i caught up to some awful shit i missed in April and tried to contact another person i thought i knew because of references he appeared to be making to my childhood and he blocked me for a third time.

finally i decided i'd close this open door of harassment by declaring my undying love for an unsuitable faux love interest. when that offended people, i put my foot down and put up my best guess at who the hell walked into my life and walked out again without realizing he'd made us a whole family. i'm struggling with the much darker and much more important aspects of my past now and i am alone in it. i have had 20 years of therapy and despite appearances or writings taken out of context i am still, in some respects, a healed person, so the gaslighting that forces its way into my line of sight only makes it worse. but i needed to be unequivocally sure that the co-target of the harassment was aware of the issue and i had to piss him off to do it because i got doxxed. and i almost got killed because of it.

i'm so upset now to see all the things i said and how they affected people, so i'll try to prioritize making amends the best i can, but i have to finish packing and throwing away everything i can because i'm being forced by the financial control from my mother and brother to move into the basement, which is full of spiders and mice and mold and who the hell knows what else. and all of it because i have no idea what's going on in the world, who or where anyone is, if anyone is even really still okay, and whether anyone will ever talk to me again.

but i have hope. because once i'm finished moving i will be able to work on all the little projects i have saved up, like archiving my father's photography and knitting scarves and selling my old video games and such so that i can save up for a place to live. and then after that maybe think about starting a relationship with someone who accepts me for who i am and doesn't try too hard to make me the perfect ideal of what they want for themselves.

it's so wild to me that anyone believes that more than one person (me) is this upset over shit that happened when we were teenagers. that this is anything but a distraction.

it's disgusting that this is taking up so much of my time and that people think i'm part of it on purpose. it's vile to think people are stirring shit up on purpose just to keep me from getting the help that could make it possible for me to find peace.

i just wanted him to stop gaslighting him. i wanted him to stop abusing people into isolation. to stop furthering his nihilistic goals. his cult's altar built from the skulls of people he calls his friends.

i wanted him to stop claiming ownership of me. stop putting his (male) victim's face on his words. stop stealing what never belonged to him simply because he knows his position is so much more defensible than mine. his people enabling him because they close their ranks and lift him up.

i saw a vulnerable soul and loved him. and he was taken from me by force and used and ****ed and beaten and ground into dust. he fights me off because he's so twisted into knots he thinks he knows the truth. he thinks he knows my mind. but even leaving it be will never be enough until i am allowed to do what i need to do.

i loved him. i'll always love him. i shouldn't have to let him die to save myself.

edit: you don't want me? fine. stop trying to force me to be with the someone you took me from because i am better off without him.

my father is a hazy memory, a distant laugh. i see him sometimes out of the corner of my eye, in the sunshine when his hair shone red. sometimes in the cool, stark dimness of a living room long lost. its dark, shortpile carpet and mahogany bookcases giving it, somehow, the feel of being on the surface of a dusty old billiards table.

i see sometimes other men who look like him, sometimes him, sometimes with a camera, sometimes without. i hear him. mostly angry, a cranky kind of temper, as if the pain and the love had worn him to a sharpness few could understand.

my father loved my mother. he loved his country. he loved me, my brothers, my sisters, and his wives.

i laugh sometimes, when i see a familiar quirk of his eyebrow or the toss of my brothers' hands. i smile as i watch them, soak them in, already so sad at how much of my life is spent on other things.

i model myself after him, when i can. he wanted me to learn and learn and grow and become a force for change in the world. his heart broke when he began to believe that would never be the case. not for me. but i never forgot him, not really. i hope i make him proud. i wish i had done something worthwhile.

i loved him, though i had not much time with him. i know he left life feeling unfinished, betrayed, defeated. as i feel now. i hope my sons and daughters grow to see me somehow as a model, an inspiration, a fighter.

most of my life, decisions have been made for me. often i have fought when i should have softened, or insisted when i should have allowed myself to bend. but for most of my life, my decisions have been made for me, and i just cannot bear to be so irrelevant to myself or my health or my wishes as to be invisible to the world. i cannot in good conscience betray my ideals, my boundaries, my consent.

i carry a burden no one understands and i will carry it until i am satisfied that i have acquitted my duty to it in a manner consistent with its importance to my feeling that i've done with it what is best for myself, my family, and the people of the world.

i am not a toy. i am not a tool to be used to betray anyone. i am not an audience of one or an admirer. i am not an accessory. i am not even sure at this point that i have done or said or felt anything worth doing or saying or feeling.

it has indeed been a long, solitary, exhausting life. it has been eerie and demoralizing. when so many others have laughter, games, employment, sidewalks, noisy public transportation, neighbors, camraderie — i have silence. haunted looks down dark roads. jumping at noises in the underbrush. hurriedly scurrying through my imagination while i move through the small corner i pretend is part of the world.

but the silence is nice, in a way. it's so much better than the roaring voice of abusive men, the violent alcoholic slamming of doors. the hand closed around my throat while my head slams into a wall, dismissed as sibling rivalry.

i only wish it hadn't cost so much. people all live such busy lives, assuming what they assume and judging what they don't understand.

if anyone had respected my wishes, i would have not been resuscitated in the first place. if i had been left to my own for a moments' peace before now, i might have not hurt so many people. if i had known what love felt like before i felt its absence, i could have saved reputation and feelings and lives. if i had been treated humanely, i would have treated myself more humanely, and felt more comfortable listening instead of being afraid.

i have now gone more years than i can count without a confidant, a partner, a friend. and the more i try to repair a rift i never meant to create, the more i am stripped bare of the important things. a touch on the face, my name spoken to catch my attention, a warning before walking into what seemed to be my ultimate end by violence and subterfuge. the hinting is unbearable. the fleeting catches of almost. the shaming of not having any idea of what i've done. the inability to tell whose actions have altered or mutated or misconstrued everything i've worked to do. the simplest of things have become impossible. if i'm not deprived by neglect, i am incapable of meeting my needs. if i am not alone and confused and wondering how to speak again to that one specific person or that other specific person or that one or the other, and so on, and so forth, i am raging at the tediousness of trying to decide whether it is safe to say, "hi! how are you?" and ending up again alone and locked in a room with nothing for company. and all throughout having had only the context of my barest contact of the real world to try to understand what the actual fuck is happening to my life and why, dear fucking god why can i not just have a fucking cup of coffee or take a walk or fucking anything not involving feelings.

i am so tired. i wanted this to finish. i didn't want anyone else to feel so powerless or lost or forced into a life they didn't want. i wanted friends and phone calls and someone to keep company with while i cleaned and organized my room.

i am tired. i am tired. i am alone. i am lonely. i am sad. i am sorry. i am confused. i am being disrespected as a human being. too much is expected of me. not enough is heard from me. not enough is said to me or asked of me.

and if all of that was not something i can ever hope for again, why couldn't i just do what i wanted? earn money? make new friends? take time to myself? get medical care or dental care or new eyeglasses?

i can't with this shit anymore. i'm done.

i had some quiet, private thinking to do. yesterday i made a choice out of what felt like obligation to something i don't even understand fully. and today i realized that my heart had never stopped being set on the one person i've known was my person since the end of April. i have been receiving endless harassment and been growing increasingly confused and isolated. so i decided today: fuck it. i love that man for everything and i always have. not just the kids, not the sex, not what he looks like. his kind and gentle manner, his anger, his ideals, all the things he taught me. how safe i feel when he's around.

i wish i hadn't been so emotionally-driven by half-remembered and confused flashbacks and everything else. i feel like i haven't been met even halfway, but that is probably because of how badly i miss him.

so i put up a post asking him to marry me because that's what i want. i wanted to be patient and see if he'd be willing to reach out, put me at ease, and start with a hello and a hug. but i can see that the more i overthink it, the worse i act.

making the hard choice first made me feel safe. it made me feel like nothing bad would happen to me anymore. but the choice i made today made me feel like i followed my heart to where i am.

i can only hope that he will consider it. and for now i'm sticking it where it is and not moving it. maybe another 30 years i'l consider taking it down. but every choice i made for the last 30 years was meant so that i could love him just exactly the same as i did the first time.

i feel awful and tired.

i did a few rows of knitting today, and proposed on twitter main to my person, who still has me blocked. all in all a good day.

kid,

i'm sorry. i fucked up. by time i was 5, there was a rumor in waahington about me being a full-fledged serial killer (ALSO NOT TRUE, ASSHOLES).

i didn't mean to freak you out. i was trying to get you to pay attention to how much our facial structure looks alike.

trust me when i say i'm not faking how fucking confused i am.

i wouldn't have told you anything more upsetting than the weather if i hadn't just recently had some creep walk up and pee on my bedroom window.

i'm glad you're in a quieter environment.

feel free to reach out if you need to.

your loving older sister

he showed up. 🥰

i wanted to sit and write a list of my flaws. i know there are many, and not the kind you shine up for a job interview. but then i remembered i'm not there yet. i'm still buried under Maslow's hierarchy of needs because of something that i did so long ago it was one of those hazy childhood memories that you're never quite sure are real.

until i got put on medications i've insisted for years i needed rather than the ones doctors and state medical boards and minor local agencies have insisted on forcing me to take, it was easy enough to dismiss it all as delusions or imagination games or dreams i thought i'd had. maybe some of it still is.

but now i'm connecting the dots, hearing a word here or seeing a face there. odd encounters, half-remembered events and conversations, and the reality of it makes every limb shake in the least fun way possible.

i'm softer now. more in touch with feelings so many armchair psychologists always swore i never had. i'm more myself than i've been in a long time, but older and wiser and much better at keeping track of it all. there's so much i've had to hold onto just to be sure to keep the parts that mattered to me. friends, lovers, Truth, values, ideals.

so much i had to let go of so i could be there when it mattered.

i feel like i failed that last one so hard. i never meant to be so confused and mean and lash out at everyone. but who does, really? does anyone intend to hurt people when it comes from such confusion and chaos and pain? i can think of people who have come into my life and battered me with their words until i thought i would die from it, and i shook in fear and pain and rage and held softness because i know it was never their fault. but when that wasn't ever reciprocated to me, i did decide to stand up a little. name and shame. hit back where it hurts, if only to prove it does hurt. even if i practiced not flinching so my friends could hit me for fun.

but then i began to consider the rest of the world again. it was never that i was selfish or overly self-centered or megalomaniacal. it's just that i've never really had the chance to just be myself. just be a kid who went outside and played... i'd have to run and find somewhere alone to sit and be sad and wonder what life would be like "someday".

turns out, it never really changed that much. not for me. but it really did for everyone else i've ever met. even my parents and siblings and kids. but not me. found somewhere quiet to sit, alone, and be sad, and wonder about "someday". because i had to. because i had no choice.

i had to turn down every hand that reached for me because i always remembered at the last possible moment why.

"someday" i'll figure out how to fix that, i hope. i don't want my last resort to be the final say in it. but at times i'm too scared now. stuck in the familiar cage and still not knowing who to trust. all those hands sick of being brushed away. all those people forced to doubt my word and ruminate and sit somewhere alone and sad.

so now that i'm on my own and building slowly instead of drowning under the weight of it all, i'm not going to take the time and excoriate myself or question my actions or prove that i have whole notebooks full of lists of my flaws already. a page here or there with my strengths, but i don't believe in those either. i'm not there yet.

food, shelter, safety. priorities.

i wish i had recognized you when i had seen you. maybe God had other plans for us. but now that i've had time to process, i even recognized that look you gave me as the same one you gave me the night you came over as moral support when i found out i was pregnant. seeing you two so happy together makes my heart warm.

i'm so glad you're okay.

i read yours. i looked for it again and didn't find it. i gave you a begruding like because i thought you deserved one for your efforts. the other letters. the nights when it's your voice telling me not to cry.

but i was kindof annoyed, because no one. no one talks about my man that way.

you want to call him foolish or childish or any other names, don't ever let me hear you do it again.

his refusal to turn you down for good. his distant but tenuous maintenance of your "friendship". all of it.

he was fawning for you because that's what traumatized people do with those who violate their boundaries, push them until they crack. charm them to do things they don't want to do. then he spiraled into shame and guilt, every time, and left me again because he didn't understand why he couldn't be who he thought he should be and he never wanted to tell me because he didn't want to hurt me.

because of what YOU did. not to me. to him.

he wanted you as a real friend and all you saw was how pretty you both are and wouldn't it be a shame to waste all that potential? so let's get wasted!! ahaha

trust me when i say i held back on you, specifically, pulled all but one of my punches, because i know whose face hovered anxiously over me, helped me up, dusted off my heart. told me the truth.

so i thank you, truly, but i hope you find a way to break your cycle.

ciao

do you honestly believe anyone else here is writing anything meant for you specifically? for what? some half-forgotten (and mostly drunken) fun you had with them so many years ago none of you really remembers the facts? some weird promises you made when you were young and still had hope that your life was something you had control over? some bullshit they made up to make you feel special so they could take what they wanted and find someone less challenging to keep for themselves? pity?

or maybe you think the words you write actually mean something to them. maybe you think there really is someone there, noticing you. remembering you for the good things instead of the bad? believing in you the way you do and trusting you the way i do?

personally, i really doubt it. none of them has ever taken even a fraction of the time to get to know you as you do for them. they don't reach out like you do. they don't extend themselves past their comfort zone and tell you what's going on in their lives. half the time they don't even answer you. less than that they actually put thought into it or consider what you need.

they all have their lives, their families, their jobs, their people.

you and i are alone here. no one's coming to join us. no one's bringing a smile or a hug or a joke or a story.

it's too easy to use you for their own purposes. they broke you a long time ago and now you don't even know how to be yourself anymore.

you don't have friends. or lovers. or anything except the trash heap you call your home. so just stop. stop helping them. stop making room in your life for people who have no room in theirs for you.

put your head back down. get to work. and shut the **** up for once. it's making us look bad.

i know, i know.

but i need to call in that favor.

exactly one favor.

i know i don't deserve it.

the more you portray yourself in your own head as someone unworthy of being loved, the more love you deprive everyone else of. accept just a little love so that the people who love you don't wither and die

somethin not quite right with that man.

you know he's writing love letters to himself?

i wouldn't wish this on anyone. not anyone

if i had only known what was happening. what you're going through. what you've been through. who you were, in fact. i had no idea who you were. i remember you, sure. but i didn't know i was talking to you. i didn't even know how you felt about how quiet and soft and safe i get around you. how i'm loud and i laugh a lot for everybody else but when you show up and my eyes get all big and i freeze but then you have me and my body remembers. it's because of all the people who've told me that who i am when i'm not performing is just not pleasant to be around. bosses and old ladies and teachers and men. so many men. "smile more". "isn't there ANYTHING you can be happy about?". "you're scaring the customers." it's because of my ex-husband, Bob. Bob looks like you but he doesn't respect my boundaries. he scares me.

when we're online together but i ignore you because of how peaceful it is to just relax into you. how somebody always needs their ass handed to them because the world still isn't a kind and gentle place. how your presence makes it safe for me to be doing what i'm doing and i couldn't tell why that was until you were gone. i kept looking for you. patting empty air. checking my bra for hidden stashes of you.

how many times when i was younger i thought, "this is it! go! flee the path!" but my body wouldn't move. the fear of consequences. who knows.

the way your hands resting on my body or wandering across me is all i need. the way i don't have to worry about anything because i can be myself and you can be yourself because there's two of us and we fit like that and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. how quiet your voice is when your mouth is tucked into the curve of my neck but i still hear you.

i can't stop thinking about you. how warm your back is. the gentle way you help me turn my hips when you make love to me because you were there when the damage to my.spine and hips was fresh and you taught me how to get strong and i miss the way you pull me back into one cohesive piece. that time i cried and cried and cried when you did that and you were so upset... it hurt, but it felt better, and it doesn't ever hurt as bad as it did before you did that and i almost walk normal now.

how careful you are when you coax me to be brave with my body for you and your hands help me keep the rhythm when i'm on top. that time? i seemed so sad, right? it's because i was sure you were just looking for someone else inside me. for whoever was meant for you. i was sure she wasn't me.

i miss the way your sweat smells. it stinks. awful. i think of it all the time. sometimes i think about just leaving everything, even the kids, and finding you by smell.

your fingertips. the dexterity and strength of your fingers. how you know every inch of me.

it happens, sometimes, after a tragedy. people want to create another life, maybe, or at least the comfort found in enjoying a partner. i read that somewhere, remember? when aunt Becky died.

where did you go, baby? where have you been?

i didn't mean for things to end up like this. i told my dad not to send you away.

they took my phone. i wanted to call or text or write or anything but they took my phone.

i miss you. i want to tuck your hair behind your ear and sit in your lap and give you my best again and again. i want you to trust me again, just enough, just a little. i want to learn your body the way you learned mine.

i didn't know. no one told me. i'm so sorry for your loss. it wasn't your fault. you didn't do anything wrong.

i'm so sorry for being so selfish.

we might have time for more kids, if you want...? i'll do that for you if you want me to. or maybe just take a walk and visit a beach and get ice cream? there's a place near here that sells dairy free all the time. it's okay if you don't like me like that anymore. if you're thinking differently about how you feel about partners you like. i won't set any expectations on you.

i know the darker shadows behind the jokes you make. i feel them resonating in the darkness of our souls. we match. two half-people. it wasn't your fault. you didn't do anything wrong.

if only i knew how to ask. how to reach you. how to take the look on my face and turn it into words. how to transmit through fiber optic cables the feel of my hand on your stubbly sweet face. the feel of me kissing you. please stop blaming yourself.

i hesitate every time i think of you touching me now. i feel so ugly. i don't want you to see my body or how it looks when i'm not being creative about it.

i miss the way you taste. i don't really know what you thought i meant, but, i already got eaten perfect so i don't need anybody but you for that. i only willingly put one man in my mouth so i don't want to do that for anybody but you. the way you play with my hair when i do sets off fireworks, you know. right away, you're touching my hair, i'm listening to you softly telling me what you want, fireworks. i love it. all of it. our "first" time was together, with that smile. remember i kept asking you? i miss when you used to smile at me like that.

does anyone remember whose smile my son is wearing?

our daughter's feet stink just as bad as yours. she looked exactly the same at 8 years old as you did. except for the eyes — who knows whose color those eyes are. not mine.

i see you, you know. the way you answer certain things echoing the words i shared with you meaning you read every bit of it no matter how hard it was. i see you. i don't always know when it's you i see. sometimes later i sit and wonder. other times i'm almost sure. i fucked it up. again.

it's almost like i always feel one hand on my hip, guiding me. and then the wind picks up and blows you away like you're made of ash. like the leaves skittering across the porch while the wind blew across the desert. that night my head was full of colors, green and sickly, pink like the aurorae. the fever was terrible. you were 15 years in the past. i was days from IV antibiotics in a hospital. four months without a phone that time.

where are you? i guess i believe the story that you've at least visited Texas. where have you been? why aren't you here? i don't remember this part. is it something we need to carefully put back together, together?

i told him not to send you away. i told him it was none of his business. he asked me why you never came back, once. i just burst into tears right there in front of him and for the first fucking time in his usless wasted life he didn't ask why.

kinda weird how many times he walked in on us, all things considered. he can't do that anymore, you know. he's dead. i don't think it's weird neither of us ever felt anything but shame and confusion when he did, either. that's what they do. that's why it's abusive when he did that. remember how hard i laughed when you muttered?

"guess i forgot the chair."

the look on your face was panic. i'm so sorry you felt that way. like you saw me slipping away like sand in an hourglass. like you couldn't decide whether it was worth leaving your flank unprotected just to touch my face and ask me if i remember.

i remember you promising. you kissed me on the forehead. i remember you putting your hand on my belly. i remember you laying over me like i always wanted, my favorite.

"you don't even fight anymore. you know why? because you're mine."

you and i both know how those words made me feel. me from the inside, and you from the inside.

do it again, baby, please? i'm going crazy without you. please. i love you.

it was definitely my fault. you didn't deserve what i did that made you say what you said. you didn't deserve what i did when you said it.

i'm keeping this one short because i know you're just as tired as me. i'm sorry for letting you push me away. i'm sorry for making it permanent the way i did. i'm sorry for missing the quiet part so badly that i ignored your well-being.

i know you need to rest. i know you need a break.

i only wrote this, with your name on it, so you'd know why. it wasn't what you said to hurt me that made me agree to go away. it wasn't the push and pull or the remix of my words.

it was when you said, "you're not a healthy person for me".

it stung, sure. but. i didn't take it as a hurtful statement. i just took it as the truth.

i'm worried again, but about you. but i'm not going to exhaust anyone else doing what i did with you. it was selfish of me and i should have been more careful.

you said i'm not a healthy person for you and i accept that. i wish you well and i am sorry.

thanks for the way you showed up for me. hope i find a friend like you again some day. 🫶🏼😊

cat