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An Observation and Personal Account of Neurodivergence and the complex links with deviance within a broken system.

 

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Anaïs Nin

 

‘It’s like I don’t even know you,’ someone said. ‘You’re behaving like someone else,’ said someone else. These things are also things I’ve said. It’s odd how over time, people have assumed that any detected change would be troublesome. People have assumed that if they weren’t privy to an aspect of my personality, then it must not have ever existed rather than believe the actual truth of never knowing me quite enough because they hadn’t taken the time or held enough space to do so. More recently, people began to conclude that I suffered from multiple personality disorder, believing that there were different selves of me in play and in charge, when really what it came down to seemed to be little more than outrage and disbelief that my personality had dimension. Fancy that, a person, a woman no less, of colour(!) and an immigrant (HER of all people!) with a personality so complex it can scarcely be understood. If women (or any of us) lived in a world where we weren’t ostracised, shamed, challenged at every turn, demonised, belittled, or scared, maybe more of us would understand that it’s more normal than abnormal, more typical than atypical, to feel and think some of the things we do, and without the stigma and judgement, we would have space for understanding. 

 

We don’t live in an ideal world though, do we? So, we learn how to hide the pieces of ourselves people deem unworthy or unacceptable. We sometimes become an actual projection of what another person wants. When we do this for everyone we make a connection with, we lock away some of the deeper hurts right along with what could be the best pieces of ourselves. We play roles for the people in our lives and we wake up one day realising that we can’t perform anymore. We feel blank and empty but full to bursting point all at the same time, full of everything we’ve locked away beneath all of the things others have used for a cage. Our negative emotions, our stances, those ‘bits’ we borrowed, practised, and rehearsed are an outpouring of not just what filled the cage leaving no space for our real selves but the cage itself. What lay within, beneath—in a sad little heap of ashes—was everything we were never allowed to say or be. 

 

‘Be bubbly’, ‘be fun’, ‘don’t take yourself so seriously’, ‘shape up’, ‘get real’, ‘be sensible’—‘be yourself’: a contradiction. 

 

‘Don’t bring us down now’. ‘Have another drink’. ‘Tell us a joke’. 

 

Be a joke. It’s all the same to us, they may as well say.

 

Let it go. Don’t dwell. Don’t take it to heart —

 

Some of us don’t take it to heart. Some of us give it back. Some of us refuse to lock it away and some of us maintain that boundary all our lives. Some of us can’t.

 

I tried. Only, I’m a woman who grew up surrounded by those who projected, out of fear, a distorted ideal of what that meant: a woman, just half a ladder rung up from a girl, a good girl, at that. Be a good girl, say the village, then ‘be a good girl’ say the men, later, where good meant bad and dirty, submissive at the very least, keeping house, keeping quiet, keeping them entertained, keeping yourself one shelf down from ‘top priorities’. One more role to play: don’t say too much, act your part—here, put this in your mouth and shut up. And you do, smiling through red-painted lips and you think, you believe, that you like it because for a while, a long time ago, you were liked, and now, you’re accustomed to pleasing, hoping somewhere along the way, someone might consider you. 

 

Let it go. Don’t dwell. Don’t take it to heart —

 

Some of us take it to our soul. I did. Locked in my partially self-made cage, weak as I was to the pursuit of those around me, who in turn were weaker still to face up to their issues, thus rendering us all victims; we, once the ‘smaller’, the submissive, the fairer, the fragile, sit in our cages, seemingly complacent and outwardly content, coming to terms with in secrecy, our existence, our roles, our boundaries—the door of the cage prising open a little at a time, kept open at intervals with the things of innocence and authenticity: holding hands with a best friend, singing at the top of our voices, art, and writing, and love, and motherhood, nature, belly laughs, shared vulnerabilities, simple honesty—things that hold something together and simultaneously keep ourselves apart from that which tore through the innocence of youth and the perceived sanctity of spirit. 

 

Spirit is easily broken. People claim it isn’t, but it can be whittled down like wood if we have not yet begun to realise how to fill up who we are with WHO WE ARE more like a vessel filled with ethereal energy than a fixed state of self prone to erosion. For those of us (and that seems to be most of us) who are still caught in trauma, we resonate more with the whittled wood. We change who we are externally to right what seems wrong, and inside, our spirit takes another notch. We begin to mirror what is projected, to then project what has been normalised, and if there are more than a few sets of normalised behaviour, too many broken boundaries, discrimination and stigma, pathological intent, and/or overzealous communities, we begin to split, to divide, to fragment.

 

These aspects of ourselves become fragmented more severely by trauma and with repeatedly traumatic or dramatic responses of those around us, and if in an environment that feels unsafe, our feedback is increasingly negative. People have some knowledge of a split personality; those who know might understand it or they might mistake it for the abstract portrayals in media. There is also the fairly commonly advised practice of relating to ‘the dominant personality’. I’ve seen variations of this strewn across media and maybe the related advice works for some people. What I’ve found is that it doesn’t appreciate the holistic experience of the person; it highlights just one aspect and fails to acknowledge the actuality. People’s fear of what they can’t understand leads to damaging behaviour from them, exacerbating the situation for the person suffering with this trauma-related difficulty and perpetuating shitty behaviour from those who don’t understand. When relating only to one aspect of a person and dismissing the rest, it creates hangups which wouldn’t otherwise occur. It creates more of a division of personality because this can often be taken (as it was for me) as a rejection of other aspects of self, whether these were actual personality traits, memories, simple mannerisms (authentic or mimicked, or simply borrowed in the way a person might do an impression for fun or ease), or traumatic memories (often presenting as roleplay or flashbacks which has the unfortunate and inconvenient drawback of presenting as crazy because of the displacement of time and space). Fear or lack of acknowledgement of these things or worse: ridicule and mockery and an overbearing sense of ‘snap out of it’ or indeed, a yell of ‘what’s fucking wrong with you’ can lead to withdrawal; in other words, suppression or repression (because of oppression) of these aspects without ever having the space, mentally or externally, to make sense of it, taking along chunks of associated memory and other aspects of the self, making these partially inaccessible due to new traumatic responses from others over time… thus… rendering a person more limited to what is an acceptable presentation of self, leading others to believe that this person is not really altogether ‘there’—because they’re not allowed to be. 

 

These patterns, repeated over time, send a message to ourselves: we’re not good enough, we can’t be ourselves, we have to control ourselves more, we are not safe, and further along, it tells us when we’ve exhausted all possible options of figuring ourselves out and finding that actually we’re as nice and kind and decent and accommodating as we can possibly be, we then start to feel generally unsafe in the world, about the world, and that feeling of not being able to let out what is essentially an older (though inwardly younger) version of ourselves becomes externalised and for me, this manifested as being too afraid to step outside; we find ourselves unable to leave whatever small space we’ve found to house us in some semblance of safety while we trudge our way through states of regression and progression. 

 

These fragments, whatever state we find ourselves in, are still us, but we can become disjointed, convoluted, particularly under stress, like a story that isn’t told in linear fashion, like a series where the viewer has missed several episodes but the series goes on nonetheless—we’re still us, we’re still alive, and we have a right to be. Given the right to BE, we begin to put ourselves back together. It’s a long process, it’s difficult and who we are at the end of it or even midway through is going to prove challenging for those who knew us before, especially those with whom we’ve had difficult relationships.

 

I’ve found there has been an unwillingness of others to let go of what was, of who I was, or rather what I was often reduced to with them, the role they played with me because of a role I felt belaboured with and played inauthentically, often catering to them more than I should have. Stepping into who I actually am gives rise to conflict because although I am the same throughout, I no longer hide the aspects of myself certain others claimed to be ‘uncomfortable’ with, when in fact, it was primarily about dominance over me and predictability of me. I don’t lean into expectations as often as I once might have, and I don’t allow anyone to dictate my behaviour with prompts or body language, etc., at least not as often as I used to. I’m only human, and my body often responds out of habit, and social expectation allowances are limited, putting stress on my mind to discern the response, curb the behaviour, swallow the emotion, press pause, playback the moment to catch up on missed conversation, stall if necessary, and hope that my face is making the right expression, and my partially rehearsed bit of small talk (which I looooooaaaathe) is being used in the right context. Don’t get me wrong here, (unless you already did, in which case, it’s your own fucking fault for jumping the gun), this is NOT to say that I don’t pay attention, that I’m not emotionally attuned, that I don’t care, that I’m not capable… it’s more specific than that: if I care about you, I really care about you—but if you’re banging on about the weather or a paper cut, then I’m probably thinking about something else. And if you’re purposefully trying to set me on edge, then it’s going to set my body and the entire conversation from that point onward on fire. I’m okay with admitting that to the whole world now. Prior to being roasted, publicly shamed, ABUSED (that fact is waiting for your acceptance, bullies, and I wish you luck with your reckoning), only a handful of people understood me in this way. My dependency on approval of others, an equation within some relationships of love or tolerance (as opposed to care itself), is not at the centre of my behaviour, and it gives me room to breathe and simply be. Approval is so closely linked to what we believe about ourselves. For some of us, it might be easier to hold conviction in identity-forming beliefs. For those of us who have sought or still seek approval to a self-harming degree, these beliefs are more susceptible to being shaken. I’m moving away from this state into a less fragmented identity and life. I am not as tied to every emotion of those around me, I am not as affected by every nuance and change. And I swear, this time, it’s really NOT bravado (but I can still hear the electricity and ambulance sirens still (figuratively (duh)) slice me open. It helps to remind myself that I’m not IN the ambulance.) I am perhaps generally not as bothered as I (some would say ought to be) once was, and people who once took advantage of me have labelled me inconsiderate, and honestly, I’ve mostly made my peace with that. Here’s why: 

 

An early and enduring mistake of mine was accepting something even when it was wrong, even when a wrong was being done towards me, and changing myself to fit within it. I was being ‘flexible’. I’m not referring to a slight in a workplace (although these things shouldn’t be dismissed); I’m talking about (to give a clearer understanding of the breadth of this) being repeatedly coerced (and forced) into sexual intercourse and then receiving (and harbouring) shame about it, and more recently enduring harassment and further abuse in retaliation for speaking up about it. Over time, these things altered my reality and my view of myself, but even then, there is a deep inner resilience: a resolute belief in who I am that keeps me from fully accepting the projections and perceptions of who I am in the eyes of others, even as I messily break down. My own stubbornness has often created inner conflict, the kind that kept me true, never more so than within the turmoil created by someone else’s actions, their justification of their own behaviour, and refusal to accept what is right and what is wrong. My role within this or any similar dynamic now is to keep speaking up when needed, to protect and advocate, and of course, to generally maintain my personal responsibility because for a while, my stubbornness wavered, and for a while, beneath the haphazard judgement of the unknowing, I encountered more whittling, more blows against my spirit, and those who sought to override the truth of the matter found yet another opening, and of course, they fucking took it.

 

Reality stands. There are things I won’t accept and cannot accept. I cannot embrace their projected reality despite my best efforts to consider different points of view during those times of harassment, and despite their harassment to typically force my acceptance. I am resolute (at last). It’s not authentic, it distorts what is true, and it’s not for me to change; in this, the responsibility rests with someone else, and that change can only occur when they accept that it is wrong enough to do something about it. 

 

“Even as I’m repeatedly discredited, dismissed, I’m determined to get as much of that truth out, to finish what someone else insisted on starting, even as they repeat the process, the dissonance once creating more of a divide in me, attacks tailored, customised, roasty tidbits providing cutthroat ammo for those with readied weapons, restarting the trauma cycle, the trigger-happy process that drove me to and over the edge… ‘And still I rise.’ And they cannot fucking stand it. Their efforts backfire. Untruths have a tendency to do that… fall apart, differently than people; mostly I’ve found that I was torn apart and the spilling of truth has put out the fires, one by fucking one.” — from my journal (March 2025)

 

We, as people, find it hard to look at ourselves. I found it hardest when I took on false beliefs, when I took on the perception of others as my own and the opinions of others, dismissing my own, dismissing myself so completely that I couldn’t recognise myself because of it. I stared down demons, those within me and without, I stared down demons who belonged elsewhere, demons who came to play in my playground, gorging on my fears, haunting me and mine, never leaving much of a breadcrumb trail back to their own quarters. It’s difficult to see the paths these demons leave behind, but the scars are something else. The scars begin to look like they were made with the claws within. It’s important not to feed any demons within the examination of these scars, as you discern whose claws are responsible, and you learn to forgive all over again, this time in a way that doesn’t dismiss the harm someone else inflicted upon you. Self-blame has its limits. 

 

Acknowledge your pain.

 

Who decides how epically terrible something has to be to warrant the right kind of attention? At what point do we restart paying attention to the damage small things do? Are we so desensitised that we ridicule pain and continue finding entertainment in it? Are we so burnt out as a society that we can only spare sympathy for someone who is physically bleeding or broken? Are the empaths forever doomed to be lumped together with hippies and pansies as though both had no merit anyway? Are we destined to raise yet another generation of self-loathing or narcissistic humans, or are we allowed to find a way through the tide of voices that say ‘we ALL suffer, stop making a fuss’ to come to terms with our own pain long enough to heal?

 

Those who say things like: ‘You’re lucky to be in a position to rest and recover while some of us have to work full time’ or ‘I don’t have time to break down’ have genuinely not considered what this means: it means that they’re lucky enough to be in a position to have their life still intact, a job they still manage to go to, and to have never broken down so severely it derailed their existence; make no mistake, the breakdown doesn’t fucking care if you have time or not. And in a similar way, most people don’t truly care whether you are what and who you say you are; it’s often more about what aligns with their perception of you and their capacity to understand any of it.

 

When a person calls you weird, I suppose what they’re saying is ‘you’re different’. I’ve been called weird in a number of ways, never more so than during these retaliatory events. Taken out of context, it’s difficult to discern what someone is implying when they say something or someone is ‘weird’ because it’s subjective. Within context, it can be either a compliment or an insult; without, it’s ambiguous and most of us are not comfortable with ambiguity. I proclaim myself a weirdo; I wear my self-assigned label with as much pride as I can muster because I have spent most of my life feeling at odds with a lot of people, places, and things, and I reached a point where I wanted to encourage self-acceptance within myself. Having someone call me weird in an off-handed comment, my ego (albeit fragile and often self-pitying) naturally shudders but can usually manage shaking off the remark in the process. 

 

So, I’m a weirdo. Yes, I suppose I am a bit weird. Am I very weird? Am I weirder than the average weirdo? Hey, everybody, let’s poll. Who’s weird? What’s weird? What do we want and when do we want it? And how?

 

I’m introverted, anxious, depressed (that’s trauma-related), I’m sometimes loud and talkative — fast-talking, rambling on topics, but sometimes, I’m quiet, even mute, slow to speak, and shy to speak, and caught up on a backlog of processes. Is this weird? Or is this simply an inevitable result of life and a ‘typical if not acknowledged’ response to how I am received? I’m humorous and candid, but on most good days, I can read a room and read a person enough to withhold, often leading people to believe I have no sense of humour or am afraid to say what I think. Is that weird? Or is this simply applying empathy? I’m mostly neutral, mostly natural, but I’m impassioned about the things that matter to me, and my intensity can be alarming if the subject matter is not a welcome topic. Is this weird? Or is this simply applying empathy, difference in interests, and someone else’s fear of emotion and perceived taboo? I understand these things as ‘normal’ because I ask these same questions about everyone I interact with. Why are these things weird for some and not for others? Does it simply come down to bias, dislike, and discrimination? I’ve made my peace with the hurt of being subjected to those things so intensely, but these are patterns repeated across multiple cultures affecting those of us in vulnerable positions. It’s one thing to make a mistake, to be socially clumsy and awkward, to be overridden by emotions of our own; these things are inherently human. However, I’ve been alarmed by how ill-intentioned some people are, how determinedly deceitful and malicious some people can be. I’ve been alarmed by my inner defences against that. It’s a new experience to simply observe my own feelings without those feelings now holding me hostage. The thoughts are less fearful. The state of alarm is subsiding as the fear does. This has been my psyche slowly moving out of ‘inner child responses’ and leaving more room for more of my authentic self to be present. My neurodivergence is not simple nor easy, but I can simplify and condense my understanding of it down to capacity — my reserves are no longer so spent on fear and there is more energy to spare for reasoning; with a less fragmented psyche, having had fear holding chunks of me and my experiences hostage, my pool of knowledge is no longer in a temporary shallow state, and memory slowly begins to filter and function the way it once did, and perhaps better (organic senility (thankfully mild) aside).

 

I acknowledge the often hidden struggle, my own and of others. I acknowledge you if you’re still reading this. I see your struggle in a way it’s rarely been seen. I acknowledged it years ago when I found myself at the tip of the figurative brandished pitchfork, and still, I wouldn’t shut up. 

 

‘I’m not a cookie. Stop cutting me.’

 

Let me be.

 

For the times I couldn’t see the struggle of someone else, or couldn’t acknowledge it or respond the way I wanted to or should have, I’m sorry. Given how many of us are drawn to familiarity and similarity, we often pair with those who have experienced trauma. It becomes doubly difficult to navigate, and during the times I was unable to show compassion the way I usually would has been because I was caught up in my own trauma (often diminished as drama, which isn’t a helpful term even though I’ve used it). I’m sorry. I forgive myself for those times because I have forgiven others; the latter outweighs the first by far, I am trying to practice self-compassion, and with this truth and practice, I am able to find peace.

 

Not understanding that these things exist on a spectrum or how wide and varied that spectrum and the multitude of co-existing spectrums are, is all it took to have just about everything I’ve ever said taken out of context, taken personally, taken the absolute WRONG way, taken to bed, taken to extremes, and taken everywhere else but inward for reflection by most of those who still persist. Understand this: I persist, too.

 

Despite coming through this, time and time again, I kept finding myself back there because I was not able to find the time and space to express myself well enough, clearly enough, without interruption, from a host of people; I was unable to express myself on a level that felt comfortable to me but accessible and articulate to others, and this resulted in a loss of credibility and capability at a time when those things were needed more than ever. I hadn’t been able to live much less write without harassment (an obvious effort to keep me censored, I’m certain), to express without disdain, without disagreeability for the sake of it, without that projection from others of not wanting to be outdone by someone who has been through these things, endured their ridicule and abuse, and more, and finding themselves in a tight spot for having diminished those things about me, about themselves, and begrudging me for owning those things anyway, leaving them voluntarily alone in their still-secret hardship, still feeling unheard and unseen, resenting me for having a certain amount of stupidity and certain strength for telling the truth, and self-justifying more harmful deviance because they’ve refused to be understood. I understand and empathise with that stance because I’ve lived it, I understand it, and my own little superpower has been being brave enough to care-bear my way through most of life anyway, only to have that shoved back in my face when it mattered most of all for me to be present and kind… and it ‘thicks my blood’ that I couldn’t do it because of the cruelty of those who invalidated my experience. It came in waves, en masse, from those who monopolised suffering, had apparently formed an elite club to which I was too supported, too nice, too perceived to have been fed with a silver spoon to belong to… too ‘high-functioning’ but simultaneously stupid and weird, and still, those people seemed to hang on to the things I said because it made sense at least up until I said things that are yet too difficult, and their hurtful response is self-justified without any such reservation for another to make a similar mistake without retribution and punishment.

 

Those who denied the truth now have less intimidating stances. Fear and intimidation were an easy route for them, a difficult one for me, forced to relive my trauma under interrogation while at my most vulnerable points. Coercion was, I suppose, a little more effortful for them; maybe that’s me finally acknowledging my intelligence. What proved most difficult to navigate (and likely most rewarding for them) was the bluff. Duplicity is something I grew up knowing how to detect. I was raised to look for it. I can see it coming a mile off and I can even see the double bluff, but while in regression, I was reacting to the bluff, a slave to my emotions, and this is where their cruelty hit hardest: they began triggering with intent to keep me in that state of their preference to unravel, undo, unlearn—to protect their lie; while vulnerable, I was reacting to two-faced kindness, while open and honest, people were stomping around in wounds they insisted were not real, and their duplicity was only evident to me as I lay (figuratively? Emotionally) bleeding. This gave way to mockery of me, belittling of my character, a complete discrediting of my person and my experience, and with that, I began to lose functionality for longer periods of time—one more thing they insisted was being faked.

 

People denied my experience, and in essence, my existence. It forced change that was inauthentic, erasing pieces of me I’d worked hard to build. Figuratively, I was being shoved back into a cage, this time a cage that refilled daily with lies, abuse, and the turmoil of my struggle to overcome it. I changed again despite the odds, against the odds. Imagine feeling swallowed by yourself from the inside… eventually, that space fills with so much of you and inevitably, you break. Anger is usually the first emotion to break free as you do—it was for me but I suppressed it, as I was taught. Conditioning I thought I’d long outgrown returned, aided by those who thought they knew ‘best’. The process was repeated until eventually, anger got the ‘best’ of me.

 

DARVO (Freyd, 1999) is a term I’ve come across as recently as December 2025. The acronym stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. This tactic sums up what happened to me over the course of events between 2019–present date relating to: a) those who sexually abused me, b) those who violated their position and invaded my privacy, publicising my life, c) those who targeted me because of upsetting (but true) comments I made about my home island in what would previously have been privacy, d) harassment of me by those who (still) fail to see how their violation creates a cycle of behaviour, and finally, e) my partner and the complex abusive behaviour between us prior to an escalation into violence that began with me, a woman who had had enough mistreatment, and enough of that mistreatment being mislabelled and diminished, a woman who had used every arsenal at her disposal and when all was said and done, behaved like a man, but was subsequently punished like a woman. (Yes, Patriarchy, I am acknowledging and challenging you.)

 

Abuse towards me hardened me into ways of dominance and cruelty for a while, and this process is in no way unique. My deviation occurred primarily because of peer pressure, pressure to strengthen in ways which felt like they belonged to outgrown versions of myself because I was presenting as ‘too weak’, as ‘giving in’ and ‘giving up’, but regressing to old behaviours and borrowed behaviours caused more pain, my own and for others, and it didn’t align with who I had been becoming and who I wanted to become. 

 

My beliefs matter. I matter. We all matter, and so many of us are too keen to prove that we do. There are those who believe some of us will always be affected by them, manipulated by them, and that we have to ‘wear our pants’ so secretly because blatant ‘wearing of the pants’ results in a change in respect: untethered folk offer more respect, the tethered withdraw. Some people expect this change to mark a shift in control; I’ve found that it leaves an opening which too many will try to fill, instead of letting it shift to the self the way it should, and those with historical ties will try to maintain those early tethers, sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of egotistical purpose. I did not respond well to having my self-control hijacked the way it was. I think I’m more human for my fight. To give up that fight, to let myself be controlled any longer than I did, would have been a half-life, a less human experience; that would have been ‘giving in’ and ‘giving up’. I no longer carry shame for fighting for my right to exist, for having the audacity to exist even against allies. I can’t be everything everyone needs me to be all of the time. That’s the reality. I accept it. Others refuse this fact, for me, for themselves, even when care and consideration are made in the roles committed to. It seems difficult to understand and accept that we can now be equally committed to ourselves.

 

This feels uneasy, yet right. 

 

The part that feels uneasy: that’s the part that has a built-in echo of things past generations hold, the part that required rewiring, the part that says ‘I should put myself last because everyone matters more’, the part that says ‘I’m okay’ when we’re not, the part that keeps us feeling small by comparison, the part so many of us are trying to make peace with or let go, a part that refuses to be let go of, a part that cannot be let go of completely without losing a significant foundation block, a defiant strength, and yet to keep building upon it without painfully acknowledging what’s wrong within this kind of strength is to be at odds with ourselves for more years to come; this strength was borne out of necessity, out of survival, passed along the generations, thriving through hardships while creating more of the same. I want to do more than simply survive, and I want to live in a way I can be at peace with, even if in doing so does for a while cause everyone who shares this similar aspect to continue to retaliate in the (inevitable) way that they have towards me. I have to endure, I have to keep choosing my own path, so I am no longer becoming more like them but becoming more like myself. 

 

I can no longer allow myself to morph into anything other than myself. Projected realities and ideals tested that for too long. People I once trusted have rendered the whole world untrustworthy and I still can barely step outside my door without leashing the misplaced anxiety that I am too much for the world, when in fact, the world has been too much for me. I leash it now with a quietly fierce knowledge that being forced to swallow my light invited more shadows.

 

It is unmasking. It is daring to shine. It is, in the face of the world telling us who to be and how to be, taking off the persona we’ve donned to fit in, and daring to stand out, changing ourselves by choice as we move through the world, through our pain, through any adversity. When in doubt, when confused about who we are and who we’re told to be, what determines the lesser of what might seem like two evils in the thick of things, is whether or not something feels authentically right. Masking—overdone politeness, cover-ups and withholding of opinions, agreeability to the extent of yes-manning our way through life to keep the peace, over-consideration of everyone else and dismissal of the self, adopting roles and accepting dynamics at the say-so of the dominant figures within a social group when it goes against our principles and morals—it’s one more spadeful of dirt on an early grave of who we are at our core.

 

***

 

We are all so very alike or at least, we have the potential to be. We, of course, have different interests, and these vary based on more fundamental aspects. Motives are different. Values are different. Cultural habits can be different and of course, circumstances and environment vary drastically. Outlook can therefore differ and these differences often overshadow our similarities to the extent of feeling ‘other’, ‘foreign’, ‘alien’. Humans look for familiarity. We find comfort and safety in this. For those of us who find so little comfort and safety, so little likeness with who we are deep inside, we form an enduring false belief about ourselves: our differences are bad.

 

There is a sense of wrongness all the way through that probably lends itself to sociopathic behaviour, stemming as far back as a child who had to accept something which did not make sense, or which hurt them, which went against what their body told them was safe and kind, which set up a lifetime of crossed wires that are reinforced by those who continue to exploit and ridicule and go on to create a sense of ‘fuck off and leave me alone’ so vast that life is lonely even in a crowd and help seems to be just another way for someone to fuck you over… it goes hand-in-hand with that initial false belief. I get that; so few understood that I understood that, can empathise with that, were unwilling to accept that this was a fact, impure and complex, for #metoo.

 

***

 

Afterwards, what I discovered was this: the will to be a decent human could only be reached by choice, with rest, recovery, and resilience. I can now say I’ve not been kind, I’ve not been forgiving, I’ve not been friendly, I’ve not smiled when I wanted to cry. It was harder to say these things before this point because it was harder to do (unless alcohol was involved), and odd as it might seem, I’m a better person for these undesirable things because it’s meant that I’ve stood my ground against those who didn’t only wish harm but inflicted it. Too often we’re shunned for these behaviours, reprimanded for defending ourselves, and we learn too early that we don’t matter enough to stand up for ourselves. When we finally do, if we do, we unleash years’ worth of torment and pent-up emotion, a frenzied flurry of defiance in which our boundaries go up with shattering clarity and we lash out if people get too close. People have mistakenly assumed that these lashes came about with little justification, when in fact, attempts to tear down my boundaries time and time again justified my maintenance.

 

Too often, our behaviour is or becomes hinged on circumstances and the organic development of those circumstances and varying degrees of exposure to undesirable behaviour of others and the things we consume, adopt, or mirror, whether it’s a display of something unacceptable or an expectation or projection, whether our position is particularly vulnerable by comparison, whether of a discriminatory nature or otherwise; and within this, there are difficulties so few of us are capable of admitting: sensory processing issues, hypersensitivity, hyper-vigilance, blind spots, conditioning, and that’s just how our brains interpret information, that’s not to mention the multitude of mental health struggles which can usually accompany it, most seemingly to stem in some way from trauma, passed along through trauma, creating trauma, received and distorted by trauma, and dismissed as though trauma doesn’t matter… and on we go: a domino contagion of emotion and behaviour, some of us blind and pointing, and some of us too blinded by the light we’ve seen or been forced to dim, so we sit in darkness until we can stand it again.

 

This cycle of deviant (or too often, so-called deviant) behaviour conflicts inwardly with a sense of self and autonomy, often resulting in masking rather than a genuine correction of the behaviour borne out of understanding. This compliance is often due to the overwhelming need (or not) for approval and societal acceptance (borne out of early parent-child relations) leading to subsequent submission or rebellion, but often, a repeated deviant behaviour within emotional dysregulation is exacerbated by harmful environments even within rehabilitation, and an inability to trust or lack of trust can create antisocial tendencies and mental health complications, further impacting social perception and thusly, a lack of societal acceptance, leading to increasingly deviant behaviour and further punishment within the system which, even on a small scale, has a devastating and often invisible impact.

 

Humans seem to deviate from the norm because of discrepancies within the environment. Removal from the environment and placement into another does not fix the issues… it contributes to them. That’s true on many a level. Yet, sometimes, the change in environment is enough to allow development in some areas, but it halts development in others, and negates the positives prior to change. It comes back to acceptance and approval of the self within the environment while undergoing inner change. This extends outward. It’s clear to me that those who cannot extend it might not so much be incapable of inner change but might be undergoing too strict a regimen of projected intention, which decreases autonomy, in much the same way that a child will not respond well to requests if dysregulated or if feeling too oppressed… That’s not to reduce any individual to a child, but rather to point out that our brains can only develop at the pace allowed and if we have not had ample time and space to do so, it doesn’t mean we have a ‘child’s brain’ (that remark is derogatory and diminishing and serves no purpose in a healing space) but rather that we have to treat ourselves with the patience we would treat a child, if indeed we are capable of that. The differences between the capacity to treat a child well and NOT being able to treat a child well is a marker not just of emotional state, intelligence, and ability to reason but being able to employ these things in a way which overrides learned or mimicked behaviour even in dysregulation.  Noting these things becomes increasingly important as regressive states resurface for the individual in trauma recovery who is struggling with meeting their needs, completing a task, and managing the sensory input from the environment, other individuals, or direct and intentional interference as a result of stigma, ignorance, and discrimination.

 

Deviance is seen everywhere in the world, but when the majority of the community accepts these behaviours as normality, it can perpetuate the problem or—it can offset a problem. There is deviance in the unchaperoned co-mingling of adults and children in settings where too much alcohol and weed are consumed, where too much exposure to overtly sexual behaviour and use of inappropriate language (I don’t mean swearing—that pales in comparison) impacts development; in social grooming of the kind I was exposed to as a child (a teenager, particularly) paving the way for exploitation—it strips vulnerability down to diminished capacity within close relationships. There is deviance in coerciveness and aggression and violence to varying degrees, and these tactics are used to gain compliance and obedience resulting in a submissive stance and complacency on the other end. There is deviance from the norm in [insert list of AuDHD crap here and have at it, world (for instance, I am generally quite facetious and I’ll likely chuckle when faced with a sudden dramatic event if I’m already overwhelmed because that’s the kind of ‘socially inappropriate’ response my brain might default to in certain settings under certain conditions, and physiologically, it calms my nervous system and helps me tackle the situation.)] and subsequent self-isolation. There is deviance in the way people with struggles are often treated, one way or the other, and depending on which, it can determine how a person might respond to life, and given too polarised a response from society on any scale, might influence everything, from the root: brain hardwiring and personality to the potentially fruitful ability to make a simple decision without having a meltdown. That is the power the society majority holds and abuses while demanding more freedom, and claiming the freedom of those with less.

 

It is important to note the difference between deviant behaviour which is harmful to others versus self-harming deviant behaviour versus benign deviant behaviour, and it is interesting to note that the latter two types are borne out of inflicted societal pressure, often through deviancy of the first type of varying scale. What I’ve observed (outwardly and within myself) is that being subjected to harmful deviancy creates more harmful behaviour that would otherwise not exist.

 

How many more of us are willing to raise children who go against their natural sense of who we are as humans out of obedience and a shared distortion of responsibility to upholding what looks good for our neighbours—or indeed, tourism? Is it harmful to say as much? Is it? Or is it more harmful to turn the other cheek to harmful deviance while punishing the benign because it makes a person slightly more awkward than is comfortable for traditional societal expectation?

 

Some of these issues of harmful deviance might have derived and are enduring because of a lack of agency, a sense of helplessness, a need to gain and prove autonomy, capability, and independence. In these ways, majority or minority, we are the same. Some of these things are rooted in and borne out of slavery mentality and generational trauma from exposure to colonial rule, missionary control, military occupation, and economic dependency at least for those from an island community I was born into. The inferiority complex from the perspective of a mixed-race individual seems to stem from the same, awash with the history of unacceptable behaviour thrust upon us and then surging among us, shadowed in the entitlement and privilege and authority of ‘the other side’ even as we pretend there are no sides—just as long as we remember which side we must stick to. These things are often transferred or perceived so when an individual from our community is presented with an opportunity, the perceived or real privileges rubbing against a scarcity mindset and standard envy of those ‘left behind’ even though there are those of us who wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else, and creating new challenges for those of us adjusting. Here, there, everywhere, conflict on the gaps between allowances, opportunities, social standing, education, etc. is amplified from the scale of family feuding to the collective—a further division, another instance of us versus them in regards to those on-/off-island, and a false sense of entitlement and boundary among those who view us as outsiders when the fact of the matter could be boiled down to a playground-level remark of ‘you started it’. These divisive dynamics breed unhealthy competitiveness, prolong scarcity mindsets, cause a sociopathic stance of tearing down others whether in attack or defence, and ultimately create resentment and anger among those who feel hard-done by as though those of us who achieve things don’t deserve it even if we’ve worked for it, or that those of us whose families have struggled to build what they have from the ground up don’t get to enjoy the rewards it brings, or that those of us who leave get to leave our problems on the island as though we’re not faced with brand-new problems, as though those of us who cannot work, cannot remove our struggles, escape our pasts do not deserve help when we do, as though our lives are fucking magically transformed by whatever support we may or may not have (and it should be no one else’s business what that entails), as though we now sit in castles and palaces and are being fed grapes by some clone of our former selves; as though… this resentment and envy and anger directed towards those of us who are genuinely trying as much as the rest of us whether you can conceive of it or not as though attacking one another will somehow fix the issues.

 

Let me ask you: which of us are actually insane?

 

How much more of this back and forth can we stand within society? Acknowledging blame is one thing; misdirecting it is another. I fit within a minority, even if within that minority, I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere, and yet within that position, I recognise that I am privileged in ways others aren’t. I also recognise that these privileges pale by comparison, but were I to compare and do nothing about changing my position where I am able to, or seeking support for and during the aspects and times I cannot change it, I would be at risk of creating more hardship for those who might be privileged and still struggling. Both these things can occur simultaneously, and lately, with minority movements, and historically too, the misconceptions give licence for dangerous deviations that harm. Yes, the minorities suffer, more so than the majority in some ways, but we all suffer: it’s part of the human condition, and to dismiss that fact so readily is to become self-entitled, adopting the role of the oppressor in an over-eagerness to right what is wrong in the wrong ways. Those who lie between the lines, and let’s consider that (don’t we all in one way or another) might find it difficult to decide which side deserves support, respect, acknowledgment, and my stance is this: stop looking at the ‘sides’ of it all, stop polarising the situation, and focus on the individual. What does the individual need? What does the individual struggle with? What does the individual suffer from, specifically, and what does the individual think about these things?

 

My early mistake in life was in assuming that the people around me were well-intentioned. Not all of them were. Without realising it, I sought out those same patterns. Those patterns have found their way back into my life. Sometimes, I’ve succumbed to the patterns myself, but given experience, it’s clear that the motives are different, the values are different. It’s because of family that I am different in that positive way, and I’m grateful for that. Whether it’s incompetence or an intentional error, people will often lie about which it is. (Is it masking?) I admit most of my failings and feelings. Most people don’t. Many people assume everyone lies as much as they do in whatever proportion this might be, and they are often complacent about this. I assumed for a long time that people were more honest than they actually are. I was wrong.

 

That being said, I think I understand the defensive position we take, and naturally, given generational history and trauma, the responses can be inevitable. The defensive position taken by smaller communities (further complicated by close connections, enmeshment, and an overzealous approach in defence) comes when we over-personalise. In more recent personal events in my life, several people took liberties with my privacy, violated my boundaries, made their remarks on my personal life in an invasive and unsolicited way while I was deep into the very early stages of trauma recovery. When my observations were taken on a deeply personal level by them because it didn’t only reflect my situation and my life but theirs too, even though my observations were more anthropological in nature, and even though these observations were made privately, the backlash received came en masse, unwarranted, viciously personal, and often using deviations of truth as a weapon. Given the tendencies of the community, the tendencies of hurt humans, the tendencies of who we are in a triggered state, who we are in defence mode, this was amplified by the need to start a wildfire in retaliation, a tendency I find foreign on account of being something of an outcast; I’ve never really had the ‘privilege’ of starting such an event because I’ve felt mismatched for most of life, and maybe, in hindsight, I’m grateful for that, for my inwardly isolated position. My unabashed exploration into why I’ve been shaped the way I have was taken as an inability to focus inwardly when my discoveries were an extension of exactly that… looking at the root cause of something and laying blame or fault where it belongs without renouncing my own. The truth has not and does not renounce personal responsibility (or as they put it “get you off the hook”); the idea that it does is just that: an idea in someone else’s mind, likely stemming from a default behaviour. 

 

So many members of that community felt so targeted by things I was merely observing that they took uncalled and undue action against my personal endeavour of growth and healing, action against me, and to say it caused setbacks is an injustice in itself of a diminishing nature. They badgered me with deflection and projected reflection, instructing me to accept responsibility all while taking offence to abandoned responsibility of their own. It was the most harmful kind of intervention. It was a roast. They started a wildfire like an angry mob (crowd amplification) and directed years of their own confusion my way because I had the audacity to observe a pattern throughout history and simply speak it aloud. Without context, some of the things I’ve said, some of the things that tangled themselves along the grapevine would naturally have caused offence if misunderstood, but more importantly, it should have raised concerns.

 

Had my privacy been respected, this could have been avoided. People have responded to what was, in its essence, a lingering private thought that was verbalised in the heat of their pursuit. Private thoughts are allowed to be messy, they’re allowed to hold the potential to offend, they’re allowed to be somewhat inconsiderate of reception because they’re private thoughts. Delving into the private thoughts of another person holds its own danger. Reacting to those thoughts without seeking context, without reflection of one’s own, without recognition that it might hold truth, without recognition that regardless of all these things, a violation is occurring against the person whose privacy is being invaded, gives the accountability these other persons are trying to force upon the first very little merit, and it showcases the deeply unsettling framework of the psyches of these persons.

 

Those who sought insight into my character led with bluffs and bullying. Those who adopted a group mentality against the remarks I made about our culture still seemed keen to honour my character in the ways they were able to. The proportions of this magnified as the intensity of my emotions led me to say many things I’d kept close, and it unleashed chaos for those involved, leading to more feuding, more duplicity, and a general sense of mistrust. This is not unheard of even in controlled studies of small communities. I have barely begun to peruse the available information on research carried out on island cultures, but what is clear is that historically, the damage outweighs the benefits. The events that unfolded in and around my life and beyond resonate with the fallout described in an overview of island research, fallout so great that equal measures have since been put in place to protect those who are being studied. There have been no such protective measures in place for the events that reduced me to a guinea pig or lab rat in someone else’s idea of a mutated intervention. 

 

These things broke me. These people broke me. During the course of it all, in moments of weakness, I stepped back from truths: things I know are true enough that they stand alone. My need for approval, my need to fit in, my need to please — those things previously impacted my ability to stand alone with my convictions, and people have been reacting one way or another to my reinforced stance, expecting perhaps submission, agreeability, and indeed, more remorse than is necessary, more humility than is worthy, more apologies where there should be one coming my way. My rediscovered independence lends me strength. To incur the wrath of a community I have always wanted to fit within, to incur the morbid curiosity and moral deviation of a community I once felt safely anonymous within, made sense once I had overcome the emotional fallout of being so severely and finally cast out by the majority. Yet, within that, it made clear something that had been taking place covertly all of my life. It solidifies within me the conviction I have held since childhood: that sense of wrongness and cover-ups, of lies and duplicity, and the brushing of important things under carpets that mustn’t be disturbed being exactly what I perceived it to be, and that in itself restored a faith in myself, a self-trust that came at a time I needed it most, on the brink of motherhood. So many have taken things I’ve said and turned it back onto my family out of spite and a sense of righteousness, one-upmanship, and lack of awareness, as if our family and I have made claims to be problem-free; some have suggested we are relatively problem-free, all while pointing the finger at problems, fictitious or otherwise. So many were so unknowingly willing to sully themselves out of a sense of togetherness, of misplaced community spirit, regardless of which community it was borne out of. If that spirit had not been misplaced, it would be well and good… but those things swept beneath rugs, buried in secrecy, are eventually unearthed and must be dealt with to avoid perpetuation through the generations. And these things are not prevalent in one culture above another; they are prevalent throughout society. Small communities simply create a Petri dish to place a well-aimed magnifier, and too often, those beneath it are burned.

 

These misdirected efforts serve only to vent and to tear down the efforts of those to whom they’re directed. It creates or rather prolongs the scarcity mindset, a mindset which doesn’t accept that proactivity can conquer some of the personal despair if not the overall problem. Focusing only on what others have or have done ensures only that a mindset never develops into one of growth, and this prolongs undesirable behaviour. Mindset alone does not fix an issue, and it does not make a task any easier to achieve, but it does keep a person determined to rise above idiotic harassment, bullying, and abuse. It took me a long time to do this. It’s more difficult to do in a close community, when you know the identity of the bully, when the bully might be a friend or a spouse or your grandmother’s cousin, or your boyfriend’s mother, or an otherwise upstanding citizen you might have been incapable of sinking to the low point of playground warfare (which can have devastating psychological effects despite ‘play’). Likewise, it’s difficult when there are racial and status elements involved, when discrimination is unconquerable because it is rooted in power and there is so little power allowed to those of us who are ‘different’. It’s more difficult to assert your own needs and opinions when faced with someone you respect(ed) or indeed, when it’s someone you love or are even loved by, or when it’s someone or something you fear. Difficult as these things are, left undone, we can find ourselves propelled by society, controlled by others, open to exploitation, vulnerable as the naked children we’re often reduced to, respecting those who have no respect for us or basic human decency. We all deserve respect. What we go through in life is hard, no matter who we are, and we cannot assume that a person has it better or worse than another unless they tell us so and even then, maybe they’re masking to take up less space, so let’s just be kind to the secret battles they may face. That is something I’ve held to for most of my life; it changed when the community offered no such refuge for me. It became impossible to show any kind of compassion inwardly or externally because their harassment of me and stigma towards and against me was the equivalent of being burned alive, some of them so malicious with intent of showing me ‘what bullying really is’, ‘what suffering really is’ as if I had not suffered enough, as if I had not been violated enough, as if my existence wasn’t proof enough. I no longer had the strength to respond in a characteristic way because of what I had endured. I was being re-punished for something that was already punishment enough. I was being re-parented by outsiders as though I hadn’t had my fill of it or as though I was incapable of doing the task myself. And in the midst of it, I was being bullied by those who (still) tuck away their inner conflict with more shame than I did, those who believed only they had suffered ‘enough’, who deemed my suffering pale, who suffer knowledge gaps that demand to be filled but could not be filled because their lack of trust is so consuming unless it is done in tandem with someone who has experienced a similar thing. This trauma bond, this similarity, is a glaring beacon that so few were willing to let me acknowledge in them because it also meant an acknowledgment of my pain, and their punishment of me for ‘not understanding’ would have lost its flimsy justification. That is an example of the psychotic and sociopathic behaviours I have endured from others.

 

I think my anger resides in a few places, one of which is the part where I have accepted my blame for my actions and others still refuse to. They fail to admit it and fail to acknowledge how their actions took everything down the path I then fell into because they invalidated me to begin with.

 

Why was there such duplicity? And why were there so few willing to find out more without breaking more boundaries or even stepping over those already torn down? Was status so important a value that hands could not be sullied with such trivialities as facts?

 

I don’t mean to shun the help that was offered, and it’s not that I am ungrateful for the help I’ve received. It’s that I am expected to smile politely and accept help which isn’t actually beneficial; it’s even more that the way in which help was offered was triggering on a level that put my nervous system in overdrive, and there were people who found entertainment within that. There were those who relished my discomfort, my upset, who drove it forward, purposefully causing harm, delaying recovery, and further (purposefully?) implicating me in the process. What kind of person does this? Under what circumstances does a person think it is okay to do that? 

 

These questions haunt me. These events haunt me. Nothing I’ve done warrants the level of retaliation I received. I checked. I rechecked. It doesn’t balance, and this disturbs me in a way I wish it didn’t. It comes back to one more violation. I’ve found myself on the receiving end of too many of them, and these questions plague me because I’m trying to make my peace with other humans, trying to trust enough to venture back into society, and I cannot bring myself to do so because I’m consistently reminded that people do these things without it being deserved. Someone simply, randomly, decides that they’ll dish out punishment for something that does not directly affect them, and the balance is further thrown off, adding to chaos which existed within the matter to begin with, not offsetting it, not preventing it, not fixing it, but exacerbating it, and that people around us found this to be a form of entertainment, to weigh in the way they did, harassment en masse. It highlights a deficit of emotional intelligence I cannot fathom, and with it comes a lingering resentment that me and mine have been incorrectly stuck with a devolution label. When this occurred, when I made this observation years ago, movements were made for ‘inclusivity’. I use speech marks in this instance because the inclusivity was not made for progressive or positive purposes. It was done to make a point. It became clear within those instances, following a series of events during which I broke down several times (not just in tears), that for those who treated me like a test subject on reality tv, it was less about cultural differences in this instance, and more closely related to trauma, and specifically, inability to display compassion even when witnessing vulnerability, finding highs within the suffering of others, entertainment even, as before, and general sociopathic tendencies. 

 

While there is karmic truth within the human condition and experience, there is an imbalance, and sociopathy is usually at the centre of it. Personally, I received extreme social punishment for a bout of sociopathic behaviour at the tail end of a lifetime of mostly niceness and decency, all things considered; there are those who go unpunished despite a track record of a lifetime of anti-social leanings. What I’ve noticed within this, while enduring extreme harassment and navigating through a problematic relationship, is that most of us who display sociopathic behaviour are the way we are because we’ve been treated in a similar way and/or pushed too far beyond capacity. When I initially had these thoughts in defence of my partner a long while ago, and then later myself, more people began to pressure me, many of them claiming I was trying to ‘get off the hook’ but also, I think some of them were approaching from a similar position, feeling perhaps on the hook themselves. When we think about the proverbial hook, the hook is attached to something, and very few people pay attention to what is on the other end of it because when faced with that kind of behaviour, it does come down to accepting personal responsibility, but so very often, the source of what causes that behaviour, or continued behaviour, where a person cannot correct the behaviour despite continued efforts to do so, is often because there is prolonged abuse or circumstances preventing them from doing so. This is not to enable sociopathic behaviour; this is within the interest of solving some of it and maybe shedding light on why a person deviates to begin with. A lot of the time, if there is a pattern, especially within a community as small as the one I was born into, there is clear insight that goes beyond coincidence. The conflicts that arise between generations as we learn more and more about ourselves, as we become less isolated, less remote, as we stop feeling the pressure from shame, and the sense of disloyalty that comes with individuation and dissent from tradition, as we find the courage to step into ourselves and step outside of the dynamics that bind us, we can better see what kept us on a hook, what keeps others on those same hooks, and little by little, I guess it is up to every single person to decide for themselves how they want to proceed.

 

I’m being careful not to use a big brush when I paint, and I’m careful not to cover in paint those who have purposefully taken steps away from that which is harmful, myself included. Those who persist and pursue me too closely as I try to work out my own issues, personal issues which should be given due privacy, issues which should be given respect, are those who end up getting splashed with the paint they so desperately want me to stop painting with… and yet, I have a right to self-express if I can do so safely. Those who are close enough to get splashed are likely those who take issue with these issues in a different way than I do and those are the people I once found myself in the same boat with, my ship temporarily abandoned. And yet, on re-captaining my own vessel, those same people have come aboard and declared mutiny because there is either: still an overwhelming sense of duty to the cover-up when my destination has been marked for truth; or there is an overwhelming need and self-justified duty for someone else to take charge and fix it, when ‘I am the captain of my vessel’. 

 

With every piece figured out: ‘that’s why this is the way it is!’, even with the onset of healing, I’m split wide open all over again with the anxiety of avoiding or repeating the cycle, and it is so painful I can barely stand it, I can barely stand myself, and it takes everything I have just to stay present. When others distract with things that are potentially triggering, this is an effect that is damaging without them really knowing how much damage they’re potentially unleashing simply by not letting it be or not trusting me to do what I have to do. And the thing is, at my age, after a lifetime of flailing and failing and quitting (for reasons they were too disinterested to really understand), they are inclined to not trust, and not trusting is exactly what has led to a lifetime of setbacks in the first place. Trust is key; before my child was born, I knew for certain there were two elements I would bring into my parenting of her on which I was resolute: giving her my trust—keeping her safe but letting her learn to trust herself, little by little. Trust and choice. Having neither, treading water and finally finding, then losing both—it has staggered me. It’s like being at sea and not being allowed to take the helm. 

 

Severing ties became a necessary measure of survival. Rebuilding and maintaining bonds, the same. A person might be able to survive without human connection, but if that were true at its centre, none of us would need anyone; society would crumble, and the human race would cease to exist. Isn’t that a cruel irony? We endure judgement from one another about our dependency and integration yet also about our individuation and isolation. We are judged on how we treat others, while others seem to treat us any way they choose. How long was I to go on being deprived of simple acts of kindness from others while being criticised for no longer displaying them? How long are any of us to go on sacrificing what feels natural for the sake of what appears to be just the right amount of everything according to the viewer—the right mix of politeness and firmness, of reserve and freedom, of conformity and independence? How much more dependency exists within the watchful gaze of those who violate the boundaries? Is that not a complete contradiction? Is there not a kind of codependency within the community itself as it assumes a role that should never be theirs, treating humans as pet projects to be fixed and honed to their liking, never agreeing on a perfect blend, fucking shit up, and then punishing the vessel of their sour cocktail? Isn’t that counterintuitive to the lesson society has attempted to impart? Is it not just a terrible bit of wing-clipping rather than an act of necessity? Isn’t it more about one group of humans trying to assert authority over another? One group trying to assume power and control, utilising superiority or privilege, weaponising it, feeding off not just lack of privilege but basic deficits borne out of trauma and exacerbated by yet more of it, deficits that would otherwise be filled or at least balanced within the right conditions. These conditions are not an environment taut with conflict, the blame for which is placed upon those within the eye of the storm, at the centre of harassment from those with a top-down position (privilege) without acknowledging the storm itself or the source of it, while the rest of us, especially those who value status, fight amongst ourselves to reach the top of a pyramid none of us should really want to fucking climb if it means stepping on the heads of those who find value elsewhere. Morbid as it is, this is where suicidal ideation occurs—I’d rather be buried beneath the damned pyramid than struggling to climb it at the expense of others like a fool. Those who seek to arrange such things are those who might find themselves at the top with a final view of the carnage, and only then will they see what the rest of us can see from the fucking ground.

 

***

 

Like a bonsai, never having the space and freedom to grow naturally makes me feel like my life isn’t my own, as though it isn’t worth living because I’m not allowed to live on my terms, even when those terms are acceptable. This website is the space I’ve chosen as my own. It offers freedom. It feels like a space where I can share an honest expression of who I am, what interests me, and what matters to me. The determination required to push past perception and reception is the cost of expression. It is liberty laced with dread and bolstered by this truth: that I’m decent and I have a right to exist and that truth is more radical than it should ever be. It should be a universal and tangible truth for all of us but it rarely ever is.

 

What do I grieve most right now? Time and love lost. My principles, thrown in a blender after almost giving up, convinced I was wrong, influenced to become less right. I grieve the person I became, the pain I caused others in the process. These things were temporary, but the pain doesn’t go away. Is that true for all of us? Only if we acknowledge it, I guess. This kind of pain is harder to come through. I find it easier to forgive another than I can forgive myself. I take comfort knowing that I still have those principles; beneath it all, they’re intact—as is my sanity—and the love I still have in my life is a stronger, more authentic love that I will be grateful for in whatever time remains. All of my life, when I’ve said ‘I can see the patterns’, I have never been able to articulate exactly what I meant by that; now it’s clear and now what was holding me back from speaking my truth is gone. I’m untethered, and the pain society inflicted was the double-edged sword that severed me from the guilt and shame that binds too many of us, casting me out yet further, but granting freedom.

 

 

 

 

 

Excerpts from this post also published on Substack and Medium

Feat. image by Mandy Naleli via Unsplash