yesterday emily said to me
i will choose the movement over you
i am afraid 
my best friend "othered" me 
you've been fighting for so long you need to assess who you are fighting 
i've never heard you say "i" so much, you know the movement is about "we"

emily has been absent for weeks, half-present for months. has not done anything for REACH yet, has not even read a single word of anything about care response. has not supported me with NLG, was not even aware of what i had been doing for NLG. offered to dog sit over O22 weekend for me, then made everything more complicated for me because she wanted to hook up with someone over the weekend. has been using my car, has been heavily leaning on me emotionally, because of the stalker, someone she continues to monitor and occasionally interact with, someone she has always failed to hold healthy boundaries with and failed to react to consecutive red flags that increased with time. 

alone used to feel like a threat. oh people will leave me. people have left me. alone used to feel like abandoned. of all those who have abandoned me, i miss only a few. there are so many moments now when it feels like a promise, a treat, the only light left at the end of the tunnel. alone feels like not holding the bag for anyone else's life. alone is a privilege. alone is safe. alone is in control of my environment and my emotions. 

 Pulled through life by whatever has a grip on my throat, whatever has its fingertips hooked behind my vocal cords, I cannot allow my voice to go silent so I walk 

I am not fragile I just break very easily, magma that I am continually cooled on the crust but so quick on the draw, quick to rearrange, quick to tectonic reaction 

My favorite part of the body is the crook of the elbow where a flex provides no muscle or fat merely the crease of a vein and sometimes the visible thump of blood 

My bones are made of limestone, my breath is made of concrete, I cannot be beaten into submission, I am not grounded I am the dirt 

As prone to becoming particulate as anything else, as elemental and universal as the dust I did not wipe from your feet 

I could retch from the taste of momentum in my mouth but I allow fate, vengeance, the grudge I hold against god to remain sunk in my neck 

I have been told that time passing is a blessing. I disagree 

yesterday i ran my first MRHAC communtiy engagement subcommittee

last night i went to the CPC impact of policing on the black LGBTQ community, facilitated by bree. i was so proud of them. it was an amazing panel. i am mad on their behalf that the panel opened by Bree getting misgendered, and then the first question in the Q&A was why can't yall be more patient with people trying to learn pronouns. it was very heavy and i just kept seeing ray's face in my brain as they were talking about the way that every system fails trans people.

 Today I went to a community event and liked it 

Met Colette’s partner and saw Shaina and lique and Rachel dissell and angela and her husband and Phyllis was nice to me 

Did not struggle to park and met a stranger on the way in 

Smiled in photos 

Cynthia and I only interacted briefly and positively 

I felt good about who I was in that space 

I felt good about the connections I had in that space 

 I am a dragon 

Made this why by twists of health and history, a fate that made my ability to breathe fire the only predictor of my ability to live 

No one tells you that ptsd comes with physical symptoms, that the nightmares and insomnia and daydreams that cause panic attacks in grocery stores and church 

come with heartburn, cramps, a body awash with the complete inability to digest food, so that I learned 

to hate food, to subsist on my body’s own production of acid. After acid became my regular food and fuel 

the match that has been waiting in the back of my throat since the first time my mother slapped me was ready to do the rest. 

 if there was a god he would want us to burn bibles for warmth when we were cold

if there was a god he would want us to eat his church when we were hungry

i abide by no rules that determine me to be less deserving, less capable, less worthy, less possible, than some words from a 2000 year old telephone

if there was a god he would have his finger on the scale at least for the children, at least for babies to not die, not be kidnapped, not get raped

if there was a god he would show up in Food Not Bombs soups, he would show up in street outreach workers, maybe he does today but hiding behind the shoulders of those doing the work. if there was a god he would be witnessable

if there was a god i would invite him to my house to see what small damages, what small traumas exist in a single life, if there was a god i would try to fight him

if there was a god i would chain him up in my basement and abuse him as i was abused because i never give anyone more than they can handle and i would make him retch up blessing after blessing for people i have never met 

which would make me god 

always these two things:

the memory of walking around the property on the day ray walked to the first district police precinct, knowing he was gone, but hoping, walking around calling his name out, sobbing and hoping

recognizing that i forgot that memory for several months, that this memory had to be called forward again from wherever my brain had stored it, months later

it is good that i took a run at dorene, the eldest sister, dorene the peacemaker, dorene the teacher, dorene the gentle soul everyone is supposed to feel safe with. it is good for me to realize that the same response sets underly all of her choices as are clear on the surface of my mother's. 

no safe harbor in this family for anti-narcissism.

i said what i meant and i meant what i said: i choose myself above anyone else's comfort, always. and will, always, going forward. i am committed to that for myself. i am capable of nothing else. 

a whole essay reply about how i wasn't noticed, and the beginnings of her own defensive posture. not a single piece of recognition of myself in anything she wrote. 

each generation does better than the one before it, they say. i am happy to end the family tree with my own body. 

 I really don't understand you, and I don't understand this family. 

Why bother leaving guilt trippy voicemails at the end of last year if that's all you intended to do? Why bother reaching out at all? 

Why did you never do or say anything during my entire shit childhood as you watched my mother berate and belittle me? 

The first person who ever told me that she was an abuser was my high school best friend's mother. If it was visible to a stranger, it must have been visible. 

If it was not visible to you, then you should answer for yourself why that was the case. I am not interested in your answer to this. 

Debra is a narcissist. She was raised to be one by Margaret, who was such an incredible narcissist that some of my earliest memories are of the way she spoke to me. My actual earliest memory is of my mom hitting Claire in the kitchen of the house where we lived when I was a toddler. 

Being raised by a narcissist is incredibly damaging, and I see in some of your choices and traits your own push against embodying narcissism. I cut you no slack for the burden this has represented to you, because I grew up in the same family a generation later, experiencing from Debra word-for-word the same abuse as Dana did from Margaret, and I made different choices. 

From my point of view, every adult in this family is either an abuser or an enabler. How many of you just watched as she lashed out at her kids? 

I imagine you all over the holidays just gently wringing your hands about my absence, if it was mentioned at all. 

I imagine you all thinking that your paltry gestures have been enough, even though those gestures are your stand-in for truth, honesty, principle, morality, and actually contending with your cultural and genetic heritage. 

I imagine how easily and instinctually my voice is brushed away from how any of you think about yourselves, even though I am the only one who consistently speaks truth in our entire family tree. 

Do not call me. Do not leave any other voicemails. None of you will ever be unblocked from my phone book. I am unable to leave quietly, from my family and from any other space that has ever deeply harmed me. I have contended with Christian Science, I have contended with the boundaries that I require in my adult life to be safe, I have contended with every single individual who has ever put their hands on me, and I cannot understand how my entire family failed so completely to keep me safe. 

i remember when ray was between hospitals toward the end, he noticed that i always had my back to the wall

and his comment about it was "i have noticed that you are doing this and it makes me mad and sad"

because the fault was mine, this was a comment about how my behavior made him feel

and not anything else

i am not happy and i am most angry because it is other people that have created my unhappiness

and there will never be an adjudication of my anger

there will never be a mea culpa, there will never be understanding

there will only ever be me, alone, attempting to address symptoms and outcomes, without a family, without a partner, without anyone who knows me from childhood, without any firm friendships, without any social structure that accepts me

and i AM NOT CRAZY

i am struggling to maintain right relationship to MYSELF

and that is my priority. my priority is myself. myself, and my safety. me. i matter most to me. 

when i am reactive, i am reacting to lessons learned in blood and time and trauma.

when i am angry, i am angry about real events that took place with people who should have made better choices, events where i held all the receipts, alone. 

i am still alone. 

other people are a fucking curse i cannot get away from, but my dedication to the struggle is in my own name. my dedication to the improvement of my community stems from my desire to better my own circumstances. this is not selfish. this is mammalian. i will not apologize. 

and i will protect myself from love, because the evidence is too wide and clear: love is weakness, love is danger. connection to me is opportunity for others. i will not apologize.

i would rather die alone, and truncate my legacy and ensure my name stops at my own feet, than risk anything for anyone else ever again. 

i am not happy

no one else knows what it's like to be me

this is universal

some of the things that make my experience very different are the ways i grew up, my affinity toward narcissism in my closest relationships, and the detritus of having chosen narcissists over and over and over

i feel touch starved very often

i feel lonely very often

i also do not seek any new friendships or partners or connections right now

i do not think that most people know how to see me, speak to me, or approach me

i have been very reactive to the idea of jared leaving me and i see now that i am more reactive to the idea of my freedom or agency being curtailed in any way

which makes sense for where i am in my healing

i would rather be alone than abused

i would rather be utterly, entirely, continually alone in a world full of people than offer anyone the opportunity to abuse me ever again

i am very mad at my family

i don't understand why claire isn't a sibling to me

i don't understand why my parents are so fucking blind and dumb

i don't want to be around anyone who  cannot see me or speak to me

my entire family falls into that category

i wonder what it would be like to receive support from my family

i wonder what it would be like if my mother loved me 

i wonder what it would be like if my father listened to me 

i wonder what it would be like if my sister had remained in relationship with me at all

i wonder what it would be like if any of my extended family members had been close to me or our family unit at all

i wonder what it would be like if i had never left ohio

i wonder what it would be like if i had never left maryland

i wonder what it would be like if men treated me as an equal

i wonder what it would be like if the medical system had offered me any real resources

i wonder what it would be like if i had not had to perpetually babysit my lawyer

i wonder what it would be like if sean had not been an alcoholic

i wonder what it would be like if jared had been single

i wonder what it would be like if sara had been dedicated to our friendship

i wonder what it would be like if libby had not been with kurt

i wonder what it would be like if i had stayed skinny

i wonder what it would be like if i had gotten and stayed pregnant ever

i do not know what is the point of anything any more

i'll pay a bill and another comes due

i'll dig out of a hole and fall into another one

i'll try having a friendship just to be bored, ignored or abandoned

i'll try fucking someone new just to experience ptsd and jared's anger

i'll fix behavioral health crisis response in the county and there will just be more underneath, probate warrants, pink slipping, it'll never end

i'll spend my whole political life in ohio swimming upstream against a tide that will always win

i am so tired. i told nancy if i wanted people, i'd have people. i still believe that is true. i am choosing alone > people, but the weight of alone feels heavier than the weight of with people. 

i don't think anyone has ever truly loved me. i think this because my family is shit, all my old friends are gone, none of my relationships succeed, and i am alone. i also think this because i will never again try to let someone genuinely KNOW me. and if you can't know me, you can't love me. 

it's not even about safety any more. i just truly feel set apart. 

two nights ago: sold the house in cleveland, moved to a third floor brick building apartment in the hood in brooklyn, bars on all the windows in the whole neighborhood, my mom refused to ever visit me again

last night: they lived in some huge suburban mansion with a perfect little japanese garden out front with perfect gravel trails and perfect plants, and my mom said something offensive and i chose to leave and walked aroudn the house packing stuff up without anyone batting an eyelash