1. My standards are as valid as those of others.
2. Feeling the intensity of chronic pain in its entirety; associating even the smallest of individually positive moments of life with something safe that allows a rush of good hormones; speaking a conviction aloud because it’s one of the few times where the inner child is allowed to decide [and grow]. That’s not crazy. That’s not wrong. That’s healing.
3. A delay in speech can mean many things: sometimes, we’re thinking. Sometimes, we’re frozen. Sometimes, we’re feeling shock with such intensity we are chilled and our speech comes slow with every difficult breath. Sometimes, we really ARE speechless.
4. If you’re more of a gingerbread man than a fox, no matter how friendly that fox is, it will probably doublecross you halfway across the river. The lesson is: be a fox. Or use a bridge.
5. ‘Be real,’ they say. I am real. Other people’s inability to accept my authenticity is not my problem.
6. ‘Seen and not heard’… Now at last, I speak again, but I’m invisible—unless I make a mistake. Mistakes are subjective.
7. People will make an example of you if you let them. First, you might lose heart. Maybe you’ll lose yourself. Look inside yourself. Rebuild. Grow. Fortify. Pay attention to what happens in the spotlight someone else places upon you. It highlights the biases of the director. Learn. Cry. Heal. Keep going.
8. Whether it’s incompetency or an intentional error, people will often lie about which it is. I admit most of my failings (and feelings). Most people don’t. Most people assume everyone lies as much [or as little] as they do. I assumed for a long time that people were more honest than they actually are. I was wrong.
9. People talk about showing consistency ‘while no one is watching’ as though this is the only measure of conviction. What about the courage it takes while being watched to act with conviction on principles that stand for important issues outside of the social norms? Not radicalised ideals, but reasonable and actionable goals sitting just outside of the border of what is ‘acceptable’—acceptable because society has, since the dawn of civilisation, been dictated by the privileged? When will this kind of courageous consistency be acknowledged: the audacity to exist in divergent and diverse ways. That’s something I’ve learned to do the hard way, because there is no other way.
10. Some people will always want you to help them heal their wounds but will find yours too messy, too much, even though they tear them open wider with self-centric behaviour. When we begin to mirror that, we’re called immature. We spend our time dodging funhouse images of ourselves and those around us and only when I looked at these versions of myself directly did I really find myself. We heal our own wounds, and offer only acceptance to ourselves, and it gets easier to live, to learn, to heal —without the burden of trying to heal everyone else.
11. People say: ‘let it go’, ‘laugh it off’, ‘smile, it may never happen’. If you spend your life laughing with those who laugh at you, letting go of things which bother you only because you don’t want to make a fuss, and smiling for the aesthetic when it’s at odds with what you feel, it sends a message that becomes a false belief. The false belief: I’m easy going. I’m low maintenance. I go with the flow. I can take anything. The reality: it suits someone else’s agenda. The truth that should be recognised: I have boundaries. Don’t break them.
12. We will often believe what is more believable for us regardless of what is being said. Explaining becomes a habit that is difficult to maintain but just as difficult to break. It isn’t worth the energy when most people have already made up their minds about what the truth is, and sometimes, it’s healthier (not easier) to say nothing and let it be. The truth finds its way to the surface. Those who dig for it unearth things most of us can barely handle, and these things complicate the truth because so few of us are willing to believe it, and because we’re human, and it fucking hurts. Flannery O’Connor said: ‘The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.’ Accepting the truth enables change. Change is required to grow and heal. My acceptance of truth doesn’t change my loyalties. It simply liberates.
13. It is not ‘being difficult’ to stand up for yourself or someone else. It is not ‘unkind’ to speak the truth when faced with a lie. It is not ‘gullible’ to extend trust after betrayal. It is not ‘odd’ to prefer peace and privacy over people while recovering from trauma. It is not ‘wrong’ to protect your boundaries. These are matters of principle. These are crucial to healing. Let yourself grow.
14. I’m ‘not shutting people out’. I’m ‘letting my real self in’.
15. I’m still learning my self-worth. I’m unlearning male authority. I have agency. It is female. It doesn’t yet have equal space and it never will if I don’t have the courage to take up space in the world. If I hunch instead of standing tall, if I cower instead of standing firm, if I’m censored instead of speaking up, if I’m made smaller than I am, if I’m shadowed instead of letting myself shine, if I’m secretive instead of open, ‘strong’ where I can be soft… I risk losing myself– again, and I can’t. I have worth, just as I am: a woman, flaws and all.
16. If there is no truth in the assumption of others, the assumptions of others are their problem.
