i feel like i and my trauma exist in this middle ground that no one understands. 

to our left: the experiences that ought to have come with a two parent household above the poverty line, access to education and food and clothes, a sibling, books... we have nothing in common here 

to our right: the experiences of people who have been trafficked, kidnapped, prostituted, whose loved ones have been murdered, who have lived in bone grinding poverty... i have so much in common 

to our left: whiteness, class, suburbia, stable family finances, social connections, good schools, good neighborhoods, summer camps, nature excursions

to our right: abandonment, neglect, loathing, disdain, ignorance, dogma, narcissism, selfishness, myopia, fear, unhealed generational pain

there is no adjudication. there is no belonging

I am no longer sure of my ability to participate in the economy 

I feel a strong push to retract my impact on the world, to be less impactful whether good or bad 

who am i going to be in 2026?

not dead somehow. stupidly. still not dead. somehow. jesus, send that lightning strike anytime you're ready. 

smitten but not smote. lol. 

in 2026 another year older another year less stupid. another year less inclined to share, to trust, to communicate. so much less on offer than there used to be, and the doorway continuing to shrink. i would not change this trajectory even if i could. 

some health insurance might be nice. 

i really would be doing sex work and only sex work if i could figure out the logistics of it. 

in my 20s i think i did what i knew how to do as a child-- pray, and grind, and grind, and grind, and grind, and grind, and pray. still a belief system in which there is little hope, regardless of what i wrote in those years. i worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and built and constructed and buttressed and held firm and then it all exploded anyway. i am done working. 

who will i be in my 40s? god help us all. i hope drunk. 

that writing is finally coming back after so many years silent. (how funny to call the loudest years of my life silent, but when you are screaming, you are not drafting.) i still hope to never publish again. 

i hope no one ever knows my address ever again. i hope no one who wants to find me ever can. i hope my parents continue to put no effort into interacting with me (this feels like a secure possibility). 

in 2026 who will i be? 

i hope drunk. 

i can't say that i have ever understood people as a whole. 

why conversations seem to be simple exchanges of opinions without reflection or feedback.

why opinions seem to be something a parent said in the 1980s and never revisited. 

why truth seems as absolute as opinions, neither to ever be changed. 

i can't say that i understand grace, or nostalgia, or hope, or honesty. 

i am not sure why so many people need a mirror, not reality, facing them in order to not feel alone.

it would never occur to me to use chatgpt or an ai personality in any kind of questioning.

i am not sure why so many people have so many questions that are easily input into a computer model. 

i don't know why people question each other's opinions but not the systems we exist inside of together.

i suppose i have seen the bleeding edges of the answer to why so few people change. 

i have witnessed the dependence of an ego, an identity, on a story, even a story that does not make sense.

i cannot say i understand it, i cannot imagine what it would be like in that person's shoes. 

i do not know why so many people reflect me back to me in a way that is untouchable, intimidating, aloof.

i am not sure why i have been set apart by so many; it is not a location of my choosing.

that i have returned because the lake, my perpetual suicide note, is my comfort and the only place i feel i can put my back 

that i chose my first suicide method when i was in middle school, and have known ever since what i would choose if i could choose 

that i have always looked to the natural world for death and probably always will, that the mechanics of interpersonal violence do not belong in me 

twenty years of being lectured about flexibility and giving and kindness and respect and love from stone cold narcissists, from people who were taught at their parents' knees, in their church, across their whole lives, how to deny love and respect and kindness and giving and flexibility to their children. 

there's no way out of the trauma i hold. it will also die with me. i suppose i am learning to see that as a blessing. if it ends in me, when i end, it ends. if it does not end in me, when i end, it ends. 

why do other people not feel so much active conflict in their bodies about being alive in 2025? i am so acclimated to fighting systems, so deeply sensitive to macro movement in all of these structures and how to save my wee micro life from these macro death sentences. ray could not have done anything but live when married to me. i'll die mad at myself because that's what my bones are built of. 

i'm not crazy. i am not well adjusted to a toxic, horrific, consumptive, destructive ecosystem. i will never be well adjusted here. i will always stand at fundamental odds with capitalism, with classism, with racism, with sexism. i will never not be wearing armor. i will never not have my weaponry with me. 

i do not believe there is a way out. i do not believe the only way out is through. i believe we are standing still, waiting. i have always felt myself to be a woman standing still, waiting. waiting for my period, waiting for the next pay check, waiting for the bruises to fade, waiting for that bill to hit collections. standing still in the desert of my body. standing still in the vast, bare baked sands of capitalism. alone. 

try as i might i cannot envision myself as part of the great whole. i sense the body of the great movement, i smell the sweat of the generations and continents of work toward a beautiful future. but i am not a cog in that wheel. i am not a joint in that skeleton. 

and not a standout in the way of messengers, heralds, jesters, performers or musicians. not a voice to be listened to, not a talent to be appreciated, not an offering of a moment of love or joy or community. i am none of these things. 

i stand alone heavy with knowledge. no one stands with me because i stand in quicksand, holding weight, climbing upwards, never falling, always sinking. sisyphus but even upwards has been taken away. there is no path, there are no eagles, there is no sky. 

empty bottles only. the clank of layers of glass in the bottom of the recycling bin, and another added on top. empty hearts only. there is no path, there is no sky, there is no family, there is no self. 

here: only mud, only silt, only the soft slow grub of grains against skin. always suffocating, but this also means always breathing. too hard to kill, too strong to assimilate. i insist upon my right to be ground slowly down into a compilation of molecules. i demand the opportunity to die slowly, at odds with everything around me. 

i was taught that finding yourself in opposition to the entire world was mental illness. i do not think that that is true in 2025. 

should i believe that capitalism is the system that works best? should i believe that wages are fair? should i believe that wage employment is a worthwhile use of my time? should i believe that i will be treated well in any workplace? should i believe that any workplace is capable of being moral under capitalism? 

(reader please note that ANY workplace includes nonprofits, NGOs, foundations, and churches)

what are nonprofits, service organizations, and churches except a structural way to slide resources down the chain without disrupting capitalism?

i would rather disrupt capitalism.

should i believe that all humans are capable of respecting all other humans? should i believe that i am safe when i am in public? should i believe that men don't desire coercion? should i believe that adults don't desire children?

(reader please note we could name micro and macro examples for every question cited)

what is social status except a structural way to enforce capitalistic valuation of human life?

i would rather disrupt capitalism. 

jude.

i'll learn your pronouns if it kills me.

it won't, because you're already dead. 

i wonder how your mother survives. 

it had not occurred to me that healing is only a relevant purpose for the living.

what do the dead wish for?

it had not occurred to me that the progress, the momentum, the forward motion of an individual is entirely lost at their death. 

what do the dead work for? 

jude. the songs, the singing, the karaoke, the voice, the voicelessness. baby i don't know why the world is so hard. i don't know why you had to be so wounded. i don't know why you had to contain so much and be received so little. i don't know why. but i saw you. for a bit. 

it had not occurred to me that seeing is only for the living, that the dead have no use for witnesses.

what do the dead dream for? 

 How many cycles of holding space for myself 

How many hours of crying alone 

How many hours of you have to process it you can’t heal it if you don’t feel it you have to open yourself up and feel it down to your bones 

No one else on the planet has any idea how many miles I have walked 

There is nowhere unopen to me 

There is nowhere I cannot journey, into you, into me, into anyone: there is no journey 

I do not intrinsically understand, no loss I have not charted in my own body and mind. 

I am not afraid of being alone. 

I am not afraid of you never loving me. 

I am not afraid of you never calling me. 

Whether or not you ever recognize your inability to see me does not pertain to the fact that I see me. 

Whether or not you ever recognize the receipts in your lap does not pertain to the fact that you are in debt to me. 

I don’t think many people know what it is like others to truly owe their physical existence to you. 

I have held your body and your mind and your soul in my hands and I have decided to preserve 

Your going out and your coming in, your mothers blessings, your brothers desperation. 

I have held your mind and your body and your soul in my hands and I have decided to preserve 

Your own sense of self, your ego, your pride, your wounding, the story of who you are.

You could not have done it alone. 

You are nothing alone. 

Growing into a presence that exists solo, a single pinprick of light in the vast expanse,

Requires cosmic combustion. Requires a ferocity of mass and burning and fuel and fire. 

Requires light. 

You can leave me and still I burn. You left me on fire and I am my own light now. 

 Dating profile 

Likes: cuffed sleeves, pretty ink, dimples, an easy humor, a gentle rapport 

Turn offs: getting impatient with customer service, crocs, ever calling the cops, organized religion of any kind, sexist jokes you think I’m gonna laugh at, ignoring babies or animals 

About me: absolutely batshit insane with a pussy that matches, daddy issues you can’t even imagine because you have never been in a cult, fire, anger, heat, churning, yearning, ferocious, fire, consumption, regret, disease, alcohol, utopia, praise, adoration 

Tastes like: salt and tears, cum and honey, chai and cinnamon, thyme and rosemary, old bay and white pepper,  basil and salt, salt and honey, cum and chai 

Listening to: your mother singing along to her Walkman in 1982 

more than the dream, i miss the dreaming: the dull grey expanse of illusion
created because reality would destroy me. more than the touch i miss
the grating, sandpaper surety of not touching, of silent enforcement,
how much language is packed into your sighs and the turn of your neck.

in the long green lakes of tennessee it is possible to swim for miles
toward nothing, no horizon, no destination, just forest and ferns 
and cattails and mud, green and black and brown. when allowed to swim
i ducked head and shoulders down immediately for the green silence. 

in abuse there is clarity of self. i cannot explain the world or other people
but i know my bone structure, i know where all the breaks are. i know
my bruise patterns, i know my blood. when finally i am allowed to dream
i duck head and shoulders down into the mud, the black ferment. 

 

Elaine Schleiffer <elaineschleiffer@gmail.com>	Mon, Feb 6, 2023, 2:42 PM
to Dorene

I don't understand why you think I would lean on any part of this family tree for support when I have been so completely abandoned by it my entire life. 

Dana and I have the exact same memories, word for word, from Margaret and Deb, one generation apart. Psychologists term this a cycle of abuse. In the conversation in which we realized that, I comforted Dana. 

i wanna cuss out my dad so badly just once. just once. just once keith. hey keith the women are talking. hey keith don't fucking interrupt. keith did you know that parenting requires more than just feeding and housing? hey keith did you know that you shouldn't let your partner abuse your kids?

and what happened to you? your mom is a soft, toothless story in our family, a woman defined by baltimore and the beehive hair and canned vegetables. a woman somehow undefined by the man she married, richard, a veteran, a veteran with PTSD, a veteran with untreated PTSD who came home from normandy and then went to work for motorola. i would like to think that i know how loud the house was. i would like to think that i understand when the dangerous silences would occur. 

but in those silences i see margaret, i see my mother's history of church cult, i see my grandmother's history of perfectionism, i see all the women architecting a single stalwart story of single family home two parents two kids white picket fence suburban success. i see my mother's chokehold on you, i see her demands, i see her volume, i see the way she takes up space, and she must have been taught that. i see the estranged sister in that generation, i see the story of abuse. i would like to think that i know how loud the house was. i would like to think that i understand when the dangerous silences would occur. 

family, if i could tell you anything, it would be that i myself am now a dangerous silence. there is no genetic or social or cultural history i did not consume and emulate and digest. there is no story of family abuse or violence or substance use or gaslighting or ignorance or hatred or racism or homophobia or sexism that i did not consume and emulate and digest. i have eaten it all. 

i have eaten it all and can boast the digestive diagnoses that offer proof. when the psychics tell me i am breaking a generational cycle all i can do is laugh. i know. i know, and if my grandma, if my great grandma, if my great great grandma, if any of my ancestors is here within earshot of my voice, if anyone genetically related to me has ever heard me or ever will.

fuck you for leaving me alone with this. yes, i am strong enough. strong enough to break it, strong enough to heal it, strong enough to never forgive you weak generations of weak humans with weak minds and weak willpower and weak hearts and no fucking love for family or community for what you bequeathed to me. i know my inheritance. i have eaten it all. 

i don't think our accepted business practices are normal

i don't think the way we are socialized to build and explore friendships is normal

i don't think the way we interact as genders, as races, as age groups, as neighborhoods, or as anything else is normal 

i don't think the way we build families is normal, i don't think the way we marry is normal, i don't think the way we parent is normal, i don't think what we "think" about kids is normal or grounded in any kind of fact or sense 

i don't think it is religion that makes people crazy 

i am not your mom friend, i am not your activist friend, i am not your girlfriend, i am not your queer family, i am not anything that you can label and categorize and sort easily

and that means no one knows how to easily interact with me 

and that means interacting with everyone is tiring and stupid and irritating

 i read the job listings and the job titles and think I DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT WORK 

communications manager public relations manager writer editor content manager digital marketing digital content curation I DO NOT WANT TO DO IT i do not want to. 

largely i do not want to do this work for for profit companies! i do not want to do anything that is not for the direct and mutual benefit of myself and my community. my time and my energy and my purpose is for myself and my community. not shareholder value. 

i like the phrase "leave me alone" because it suggests no action at all: that you should simply exit, and leave me, exactly where i have always been, alone. 

it is not enough twenty years later for the adults who were charged with loving me to realize they failed to do so. it is not enough for them to acknowledge that we have something to talk about, since they are not actually capable of speaking.

it is not enough.

"you can be flight or freeze or fawn if you want but i am a FIGHTER-- and i choose myself above your comfort, always."

is maybe the only true sentence i have ever written 

In the end it doesn’t matter how many people abandon me, only that I have abandoned myself 

I can no longer smile when I’m angry, flirt when I’m scared, smooth out someone else when I’m flatlining. I cannot. It is not a choice any more 

With Jared I am trying to react in defense of myself to the full extent needed, and whatever balance is left goes to preserve a relationship with the only man who I think loves me. He will never be with me 

old enough to see things coming full circle. the wounds of my childhood coming out of my mouth as an adult. i will not be shamed for my reactions to abuse. 

i genuinely do not know why other people don't choose painful growth over comfortable stagnation. i do not understand why others don't seem motivated to push harder or go farther. i have had to walk so far. i am still not anything like a human. i am still inclined to judge others for their inability to balance as much pain and stress and hate as i do. 

none of this even matters. it will all disappear off the face of the planet when i do. 

an abridged list of people who abandoned me 

my mom
my dad
my sister
dorene
dana
the lawyer i talked to about emancipation in high school
sara because i was too loud and smart
katie because i was too focused and smart 
meredith and the cousins because i was too liberal
sean because i refused to stagnate
andrea because i refused to stand still
rachel because i was not a priority
lydia because i was not sober 
nicole because i was too complicated 
libby because i refused to support her abuser
katy because i refused to stagnate 
olivia because i was too loud and smart
cynthia because i was community over corporate
emily because i refused to lie 
ray because i refused to lie
deb because i refused to lie
greg because i refused to lie

that he doesn't get upset until i say that i regret the feelings that i have 

that i need to prepare myself to live alone, always, until i am done 

that i need to accrue enough financial resources to be able to purchase assistance when i need it

that i am not currently mentally stable enough to hold a job down to earn that money 

that 98% of all women get to acquiesce to partnership, but i probably will not 

always on the outside, always looking in 

 Last night in Portland 

An unboxing video from a Gazan who finally got an aid box. A surgeon battling UHC for coverage on a surgery that was already pre approved. An explainer on how misandry is the rational response to misogyny. The world is dense. I regret social media. But I don’t regret that all these things make me cry 

I take care of myself okay. I could learn to be better. I am doing okay at meeting my physical needs tonight. I would like to be better at meeting my psychological and emotional needs. 

Talking about my inner child makes me feel like the most privileged juvenile immature overwrought human on the planet. It’s also really clear that little me is in there, screaming. And it’s clear that any adult will go haywire after enough consecutive screaming from a kid. 

Lawny has started to visibly age. I worry about cysts, I worry about her digestive system, I worry about her anxiety, I worry about her joints. When the cats went, I went cold. I wonder what it will be like when she dies. 

Bitchass upstairs neighbor who can’t wait for me to be gone. Every Karen always hates me. I am trying to be a bigger person, I don’t always succeed. I didn’t yell at anyone today even though things were tense and tight. 

 Dear mom,

I know you don’t love me, and I wish you could admit to yourself that you don’t love me. It would make everything easier. 

You didn’t have children so that you could love them. You had children so you could fill a void in your soul. But people can’t be souls for each other. You birthed me into a trap. 

I wish you could see me. In our final years of interactions, after your cancer, sometimes I thought you almost could. Remember when you made a joke at Christmas 2021 about how on day 3 of our visit you hadn’t asked me any questions yet. Sometimes you are so close to seeing it. 

But I know that you won’t see it, that you can’t. I understand that your ego and identity are grounded in a narrative that you can’t edit. I have always experienced you as brittle, inflexible, cold. You have had to be these things to yourself too. I believe you were parented by people with those traits. Still. You could have tried harder, and I’ll never forgive you for making me be the cycle breaker alone. 

I wish you could see the whole world, I wish you were willing to grapple with reality. There are good parts. There is horror. The way you raised me was to keep all of it at arms length, the joy and the horror both. I have had my fill of each now, the joy and the horror. I will never turn back for you. 

I wish you could see how little of me was allowed to exist until I left your house. I wish you could see the way that you tried to keep me small, silent; smaller, quieter; and finally, the way you tried to force a narrative in which my wins outweigh my losses. They don’t. There is no narrative in which that is true. 

I don’t understand why you chose Christian Science, I don’t understand why you tried to pass it along. I don’t understand why you cannot post-cancer understand why there is a debt in the childhoods of both of your children that you owe. I don’t understand why it isnt obvious to you that you owe us both an apology. 

Maybe I understand why you cannot apologize. The brittleness is also whiteness, is also classism, is also fear and stigma and status and pathology. Who could take that lump in both hands and still figure out how to apologize?

(Me, I am one of the ones who figured out how)

There is nothing you can say that would make me feel loved because all of your actions show that you do not love me. 

I don’t want you, I don’t like you, I don’t miss you, I don’t love you. 

Cori