what i would say to them if i could

i tried over and over to love you

i gave my time and my energy and my flexibility and my commitment and my patience over and over and over

if the childhood memories weren't enough, if the voice you programmed into my head wasn't enough, if the way you trained other family members to treat me wasn't enough, if having to live through all of your commentary without any opportunity to reply or be heard wasn't enough,

if the way your whole identity was propped on my shoulders wasn't enough

then i know nothing is enough. 

nothing will make you see me as equal, whole, valuable, capable

and i don't have to explain myself 

i don't owe you a letter, an email, a conversation, an opportunity, anything, i don't owe you anything, i have cleared my debt ten thousand times over 

i am not what you are. i am not what you taught me to be. and i am not what you believe i am. 

i am myself. 

you do not get to coast off my achievements if you are not proud of how i have achieved them.

you do not get bragging rights to my life if you do not support my life. 

you do not get access to my life if you do not reciprocate what is being freely given. 

the way that i couldn't even explain to kristin pepera why the memory of you praying over my bad sunburn is trauma. the way i didn't have words to explain what happened to me the first time i was sexually assaulted. the way i sought out intimate relationships with narcissists because that's what felt like home. the way my brain came pre-wired for self harm, substance use disorder, and a strong desire for self sabotage. 

a few years ago i said to myself, i hate myself. and that sentence didn't make me mad or sad because it felt like what i have always been seeking: truth. i hate myself. i understand how to hate myself. i feel comfortable in my self hate. hating myself feels normal and natural. i hate taking care of myself. i hate responding to my own needs. i hate my feelings. i hate my memories. i cannot celebrate myself or my achievements, i cannot even see myself, i do not believe there is anything worth seeing.

i see now. 

i see what i was taught, and its roots in what you believed to be true

about yourself, about family, about the world, about milestones and relationships and what has value,

i have wished for better for you

but i choose myself. i understand now that i must choose myself. i understand now that no one else will or should choose me. i understand that i must be my own confidant, advocate, friend, helper. 

and i choose me because i am worth choosing: i see my immense power, my extreme capacity for overcoming challenges, my ability to move people and projects and rooms into a new state of being, the love and truth and honor that is my actual code of morality.

i don't believe you have any morality. 

i know you would disagree with me. this fact bears no weight in the balance of my certainty. 

i have deserved support that is more than financial. i have deserved being listened to, and the ability to develop as an individual and in relationship with you. i have deserved your authenticity. 

i did not know how to ask for these things as a child

and i am done asking for them as an adult 

 i'm feeling very disrupted. i can't tell if it's new or if it's the million layers of disruption that have happened since 2020. 

i'm very grateful my parents can't find me. i'm very grateful no one sent me something shitty on my birthday. i'm very grateful no one can show up at my door.

i can't believe i am going to allow emily to spend the rest of her life believing that i ended our friendship because i was leaving ohio and feared how much leaving her would hurt. but i am. 

yesterday i felt a real twinge of irritation at loving jared. i love him very deeply. it is annoying to feel that tug every day, to feel pained at having left him every day. it is annoying to think of him first. it is annoying to spend $1500 visiting him. and it is the only thing i have to look forward to. and i am afraid of coming back already because i will be in limbo again of when the next time i could see him would be. i miss being loved very badly. i miss being someone's friend, and laughing with him, and smoking and feeling comfortable saying anything. i may never get to be with him in any real way. that is going to have to be okay. 

i canceled the appointment they made me make for a colposcopy. i don't care if i have cervical cancer. it would not change any of my decisions. and i am not willing to go through the experience of a colposcopy for any of the other million benign reasons why she might have ordered one. i am tired of having panic attacks. i am not going to walk myself into an appointment where one is guaranteed. 

i think about ray a lot. i thought about what it would be like if i had cancer and tried to return lawny to ray. i wonder what ray remembers. i wonder what ray thinks of me. i wonder what ray speaks on about me. i still can't believe what happened. the other day i was rereading the screenshots of the only real last conversation we got to have, and thinking about how whatshername lauren or katie or whoever was like, hey could you stop talking to ray, it's really hard to deal with ray when he's emotional. yeah. yeah it is. 

tammy at work just got her divorced finalized yesterday and she was glowing about it. i am so happy for her. she told me she had been disappointed in the way her mother in law handled it. all i can say is that i understand. ray's mom is just one more person with whom i will never experience honesty, equity, justice, or mutual understanding. it is a long list of people. 

i have tried to do so many self protective things. i am trying to teach myself to say and do affirming things for myself. i protect me. i love me. i care for me, tangibly, with actions. i am very grateful to be far away from so many people who hurt me. 

i keep thinking someday, something would be cathartic. someday, something would help everything that is pent up inside me get loose. someday, something would feel like truth or justice or change or appreciation. i do not believe that day, that thing will ever come. 

 At 36 I have maybe come full circle to a place my 16 year old self might have been able to envision, marooned, abandoned, alone — but powerful 

I think I have made it because I left work when I wanted / at a job I like where I also have power / in a city where no one wants to kill me / to go to a home I own where I am safe / with my dog who is beautiful and loves me / where I take prescription meds I get free thru my health insurance / and no one can find me if I don’t want them to 

 I have been in Portland since New Year’s Eve. 

Somehow I already have plans to go back in may to see mallory and Jared so I guess I must acknowledge that a piece of my heart still lives there. 

I recently posted on Fb more details of how the past few years have gone. That R Strategy won the community engagement money from ADAMHS for care response and how their tiny little fucked up community meetings will be all that is done until and unless we finish this second report. The way so many people abandoned me and that I stood alone. And then I deleted my whole past decade from Facebook. And my goal is to not be active on Facebook any more except for work. And I might not meet that goal but it is not going to be how it was. I will never get the recognition, the acknowledgement, the kind of apologies that I deserve from the people I deserve them from. Only partial understanding from people who weren’t there but see my pain. 

Yesterday Bree asked me for the log ins to the REACH social media and website for Emily. I’ll never give her access to the website. I gave her access to the social medias three months ago. I said “if she’s not even logged in on our shit after three months we should just fire her.”

It is going to have to be enough. I want to start asking the question of what comes next. 

I am amazed how much less angry I am here. The moments of full blaze fury stand out now because they are not constant. There are times when I am able to rest. I have been able to accept some compliments. 

Sometimes I can see coworkers in this behavioral health agency seeing some of my behaviors with clearer eyes than I want. I can see Diane seeing me beg for forgiveness for tiny things. I can see Katy seeing some of my shell and my bluster. It is so foreign to have the sensation of being seen. It is so foreign to have the sensation of being liked or appreciated. They do like me and appreciate me. They make it clear. I am so grateful. 

Working in behavioral health for a CEO who is in recovery is precious to my heart. 

I am trying to be patient and cognizant of building a friendship with Jenna who has been so kind and patient and a good listener and who fills in the gaps where my social skills give out. I am not taking any local connections or recommendations from Ohioans. I am not trying to make friends. I found Jenna on HER and deleted my profile because too many people (maybe seven) were talking to me. I continuously want to cancel plans on Jenna even though I usually feel content after having gone. I hosted Christina on a Thursday night and lived thru that with some happiness that surprised me. She asked if I was open to dating anyone and I said my heart is CLOSED.

Three days after I moved in I had that bleeding episode and went to the ER. Then I had to scream for two days straight to get wifi. Then Lawny got ill and I got in that fight with Banfield. 

I didn’t drink at all for the whole first month that I was here.