If Someone Is Trying Incredibly Hard To Please Me, I Know Something Is Wrong. That Kind Of Desire Doesn’t

trauma doesn’t often feel like trauma is ‘supposed’ to feel. it feels like indifferent detachment, watching from outside yourself because nothing can hurt you there. it feels normal, just how people interact, so why are you making a big deal about it?  it feels like a joke – just how kids play, just how adults tease, just how some relationships work.

you wake from nightmares five years later and still wonder if you made it all up.

trauma can look like bad behaviour. like the stubborn refusal to get better, to stop self-destructing. trauma is putting yourself in harm’s way because you don’t really mean it, or because it’s funny, or because you just want to feel something, or because you just want to stop feeling. it’s wanting to destroy and reassemble yourself into another person entirely, so your real life can begin. because this isn’t real. because really bad things don’t happen to people like you.

trauma is the constant feeling of being an impostor. it’s the drive to survive twinned with the impulse to make yourself more sick in more ways. to hurt yourself to prove how bad you feel, or to punish yourself for exaggerating. you want people to believe what you’ve been through, to tell you your feelings are real, that your memories really happened. but when people do take you seriously, you play it off as a joke, apologize for bringing the mood down.

you go on and on about how it wasn’t that bad. you seek permission to still love the ones who hurt you, because it’s the people closest to us who can hurt us most deeply.

you can feel like the people who hurt you are the only ones who really knew you. in low self esteem, you can mistake cruelty for honesty.

there will always be people who have been through worse. that doesn’t make what happened to you okay.

there will always be people who don’t believe you. that doesn’t mean you are lying.

at some point, you have to take yourself seriously. you have to make a life you can stand to live. it’s the only way to survive.

To live, and live safely.

My heart aches for our community and what we've all been facing lately. Please hang in there, everybody.

I'm a red-blooded corn-fed AMERICAN MAN and if I wanna get my tits chopped off that's my god-given right as a tax payer.

This dude is voting. Are you?

The Garbage:

Real simple. Here's what you do:

Go to vote.gov and check your registration, or register to vote if you haven't already. If you will be 18 by election day (Tuesday, November 5), you can register right now.

Even if you can vote by mail, know where your polling place, and your nearest ballot drop box are.

Make a plan to vote with at least two friends or family members to vote on or before November 5th. I'm not the boss of you, but voting as early as you can is always a good idea.

Save Democracy.

Happy pride! I know many horrible things are happening, but please remember that joy can be an act of rebellion. Shine your light, your colours. Show up as the authentic you whenever you feel safe to do so, and I hope one day that is everywhere at all times. You deserve to live a life that is authentic to you, and the thing is about authenticity is that it ripples out into the world and sometimes it reaches someone who needs it and makes them feel seen and understood, and maybe even makes them a little more brave and a little more hopeful. I wish you hope and I wish you joy! 🌸

“You tell me that it’s a cruel world and we’re all just running in circles. I know that. I’ve been on this earth just as many days as you. When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naïve. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything. I know you see yourself as a fighter. Well, I see myself as one too. This is how I fight.”

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) dir. Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

Shout-out to everyone who is trying right now…Trying to do the right thing. Trying to stay strong. Trying to hold on. Trying to let go. Trying to love themselves. Trying to find happiness. I see you. I'm there too. We're in this together.

Abusers don’t come with warning labels.  Abusers don’t hit you on the first date. They don’t write “I will humiliate and belittle you” on their Tinder profiles. They don’t wear “I break things to intimidate my partner” t-shirts. People don’t get trapped in damaging relationships because they saw an abuser coming from 20 yards away and decided “I’m going to date that person anyway”. That’s not how any of this works.  In the beginning, abusers can be some of the most thoughtful, attentive people you’ll ever meet. They’re obsessed with you; that’s what makes them so toxic and deadly as time goes on. Abusers buy you flowers. They remember your birthday. They remember to text you “good morning” and “good night”. They listen to your problems, confide in you and share silly inside jokes. They can keep that “loving, doting partner and best friend” mask in place for months or years if they have to.  So the first time they scream at you or hit you, you don’t see an abuser. You see your best friend, your confidante, the person who brought you soup when you were sick and always laughs at your stories about your nutty coworker. You tell yourself they just had a bad day. Maybe they were tired, sick, hungry, or under a lot of stress. You know them. You’ve made a life with them. And they’re so sorry and so ashamed of what they did. This isn’t who they are.  And so things go back to back to normal for a while. Wonderful, even. This is still one of the best relationships you’ve ever been in, even counting that one incident. You go back to date nights, cozy nights in and 5-hour-long conversations that feel effortless. And then it happens again.  And you still don’t see an abuser. You see the person who means the most to you in the whole world. You decide that maybe they’re just struggling. Maybe they have mental health issues. They’ve told you every horrible thing that’s ever happened to them as a child, and maybe it has something to do with that. But either way, they’re not an abuser. Not yet. They’re just a person who needs you more than ever.  Then things are good for a while. Then something bad happens. Then it’s good again. Then it’s bad. Good. Bad. Good. Bad. And every time it happens, it gets a little harder to get out. The time you’ve invested in the relationship goes up, and your self-esteem goes down. By the time you realize that, yes, the person you thought you knew is an Abuser with a capital A, you’re in deep. You’re a frog that stood in a pot of water so long it turned you into soup before you even noticed it was getting a little warm. But you didn’t ask for this. And you certainly didn’t know it was coming.  We have this image in our heads of what abusers must look like. We picture brawny men with low foreheads and stained white tank tops, screaming at their wives while they drink beer in front of the TV. We think they’re like wildlife, as if we could spot them with the help of a guidebook and know to stay far away from them. But they’re not. Abusers can be anyone. They can be female. They can be accomplished. They can be well-groomed. Queer. Politically far-left. Politically far-right. Artists. Athletic. Charitable. Intelligent. They can come from any walk of life, any spot on the gender spectrum, any religion, any background. It’s not the abused person’s fault for not spotting them - they can’t always be spotted. It’s the abuser’s fault for abusing. 

It's crazy that these strikes are happening given that all the writers and actors are asking for is less than 0.3% of the revenue these studios make.