Insanity's Faithless Vixen

Being disabled is like waking up and someone being like; “Congratulations people are going to treat you very poorly for something you can’t control, and it’s going to be something that you’re going to have to deal with for the rest of your life. And if you don’t learn how to cope you’re thin-skinned, spineless, and you hate yourself. And on some days, you’re not going to be able to decide what is worse. People who treat you like you’re sub-human, or people who overreact to the fact that you’re still human.”

And most of the time you make an effort not to think about it all. To not put it into words. Because if you were to truly give name to all the fucked up shit that’s happened, if you gave voice to all the things you are unable to do. To all things you will miss and have missed out on…it’d just be the door to another sad place. And you’re trying to stop kissing depression on the mouth.

To have been mocked, ridiculed and made fun of for an entire lifetime, knowing that there is still a lifetime more to come, is like trying to swallow sand. To know that too often you are the elephant in the room, the cage, and the equality brigade all in one, sucks.

Being disabled is hot dog water. It’s dog shit. I wouldn’t beat someone down in a dark alley with it. But there’s a prevailing sense that you can’t be honest about it, at least not completely. You’re expected to put a positive spin on it, or else people might think you hate yourself. Or that you’re too negative, or that you’re ungrateful. Because, you guessed it, “it could always be worse.” But there’s a reason I don’t tell kids that there are starving kids in Africa when they refuse to eat their food, or when they throw it away without so much as the second thought. Because telling them there are starving kids in Africa is not only reductive of a continent, it won’t change the fact that if they don’t like it, they’re not going to eat it. Nor will it change the fact that if they’re not hungry, they often times won’t see the value in food being present. If you’ve never known a certain kind of struggling, you’re only ever going to be able to look it in the eye once it punches you in the throat. And that’s just how it is. There are things that you will never understand no matter how hard you try, unless you’ve been there.

I don’t say this to come off as arrogant. But I’ve noticed because I’m a fairly articular person that when I try to communicate with men, sometimes they accuse me of being condescending or lecturing them. And it’s like bro, I’m not trying to lecture you. I’m just trying to communicate with you. And I would put more stock in what you’re saying if a majority of people told me that they felt that way about my communication style. But they don’t. Every time I’ve heard this absolute garbage it’s come out of the mouth of a man. Because these men aren’t comfortable with confrontation.

I think it also comes from the fact that they feel intimidated by me, because even though they would never admit it, they know I’m smarter than them. So they try to make me feel lesser than by basically implying that I’m being a jerk. But the funny thing is that the men in my life, who actually respect me, have never baselessly accused me of condescension or lecturing. If I am being a little condescending or whatever, they can back it up with evidence as to why they feel that way. However, most of the men who accuse me of this behavior, when I ask them, “how am I doing that?” Their response is just a blanket statement of: “You just are.” and I’m just sitting there like, No. I’m not. If the conversation isn’t going the way that you want it to, or you’re uncomfortable with the subject matter, you just start gaslighting and exposing what a misogynist you are. In reality, the problem is that you don’t respect women. And if you feel that woman is smarter than you you immediately start beating her down, because you think all women should be beneath you.

The other day, I posted a photo of myself captioned, “Scream if you don’t want to go to work, but the bills aren’t gonna pay themselves.”

My friend commented something like, “Dressing as cutely as you do, why have not found someone to help you with that?”

I jokingly said, “Mannn. I don’t know. But when I do, you’ll be the first to know. I’ll even invite you to the wedding. Since you believed in me more than I believe in myself in this regard.” 

Then she goes, “It’s not about believing in you. I never thought that the reason you’re single is because you’re at a deficit in any way. I have always kind of figured it’s because you haven’t found the right person yet, and you’re not settling. And you shouldn’t settle. You should go for someone who meets your highest standard, and I hope they’re someone who actually exceeds your standards.”

And it made me feel better. When you’re a woman, especially when you’re in your 30s, people are just so hard on you about everything. If you don’t have this, it’s your fault. If you don’t have that, it’s your fault. And for someone to just come in and say, “it’s not your fault.” It feels nice. it feels nice to have someone tell you, “it’s okay to be single because you’re not settling for less than you deserve. And I support you in that. Because I also don’t want you to settle.” It kind of reminds me of when I watched that comedy special on Netflix, and the comedian said something to the effect of, “There are roughly 6 billion people in this world, and you owe it to yourself to find someone who loves you 1000%.”

I don’t go to funerals; I’ve only been to half funerals of all the people I’ve ever known that have died. I don’t go to graduations. I have 3 degrees, and I’ve never been to a single graduation, unless I was invited to someone else’s. And I feel really indifferent towards weddings for the most part. If I ever have a wedding, I will probably leave before anyone ever realizes that I’m gone. I just don’t like things with too many people and too many feelings. There’s just too much going on. I feel like I can feel everything, even feelings that aren’t mine. I’m always in the back making myself scarce, eating the food and mentally slipping into the void. And it’s not that I’m not happy for them, or sad in the case of funerals. It’s just really hard for me to process things when there are so many people around, and so many sounds. I focus on the most minute things that generally wouldn’t bother me. The scraping of forks against plates. The too many footsteps. The busy colors. And how too many people talking at same time just amasses into a clamorous, unified sound of, “this is too much to handle.” I don’t think I’m built for things with too many people. I just kind of go into the room by myself. Room of grief. Room of a immense happiness. Room of startling indifference. And like an atom I just sit there and absorb energy until one day, BOOM. All the walls dissolve. And the funny thing is, I still can’t tell you whether I’m free, or if I’m just different now. 

I’m trying to be kinder to myself and talk to myself like I would a friend.

You’re not an idiot just because you took someone at their word and tried trusting and believing in them. Even if they strung you along and mistreated you, you’re not an idiot for wanting to believe in the good they showed you. They’re an idiot for treating you this way and they need to work on themselves. You did nothing wrong by attempting to have a relationship with someone who said that’s also what they wanted to have with you. Someone else mistreating you and essentially lying to you and manipulating you doesn’t make you an idiot. It makes them a bad person who can’t communicate and isn’t honest.

You’re fine. You did fine and you have no reason to feel bad about yourself.

I love it when guys think they can emotionally manipulate me into having sex with them or something. So they just start simping. And then, when I intentionally don’t give them the response they’re looking for, sometimes they simp even harder. They think they’re really doing something. But it’s been 4D chess from the beginning and I have all the pieces. (also if they just acted like a normal human beings instead of sleezy poopbags they would’ve gotten them farther) like telling me I’m cute 20 times in less than an hour isn’t doing what you think it’s doing. Bro. I know. Plz.

I thought I could be like that. Like the cords in your favorite mellow acoustic guitar song. Striking like a pendulum that is always dragged back just before it hits the wall. Existing to vibrate profoundly within the basin of the wood. Scarce but undeniably present. I thought that I too could be sunshine…but if I had that kind of opulence, I would give it all away before I ever really knew what to use it for. The night is better. There’s a way to be unseen and empty once it comes. The way it wraps its arms around you. Quiet. Every-pressing. An all-consuming façade of warmth.

My mother used to tell me that, “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” But I keep hoping that if I leave the honey out the bees will come back instead.  Maybe if I bring them the sun they’ll think my brain is paradise, and I’ll finally have answers for all the racket in my head. Maybe I’m so used it that I don’t even see it for what it is anymore.

I watch Icarus weep in the swaying armchair. The same one that held my mother’s bones when she couldn’t bear to sit up anymore…and I see the flesh decay into the fabric again and again, vibrant with grotesque color.  I hold myself close to the heat, huddling next to the fire not for warmth—but for color. If I practice becoming in the dark, I won’t end the same way all things have. It will be different this time. It has to be.

I just got a rejection letter from a job I’ve been waiting on to hear back for months.

And I think about how I wish I was a story. How I wish I could just wrap myself up and put myself inside a story. The very things that always made me feel better. I’m sad. Tell me a story. I’m happy tell me a story. I’m indifferent…Inspire me by telling me a story.

I want to feel. I want to feel something and nothing and everything at the same time. So I keep reading stories. I keep writing stories. I keep being a story.

And just hoping one day it helps someone feel better about how they feel.

I think I care so much because if I can do something that saves someone else the pain then I did something that mattered. Even if in the end all I can do is comfort them after the damage has been done. I’m using the words I wish someone would’ve said to me. I wish I wasn’t so often put in a position where I had to learn those words all by myself. I so often wish that I wasn’t the only person there to talk myself up.

I feel like I have scarce and fragmented memories of how someone who cares about you is supposed to treat you. The way love was modeled for me was sparse and chaotic at best. But at least I got something. I know so many people who never got anything…and the pain they go through. It’s not something I can imagine, even when I close my eyes. So I might not really know what love looks like, but I do know what it looks like when someone doesn’t give a shit about you. That’s been modeled quite well for me my whole life. It may be one of the only points of consistency that I’ve ever had. Be it from my family, or from people I used to consider some of my closest friends. It was always there. I know exactly how it feels when someone isn’t fair to you. How it feels to be so unimportant that you’re almost immediately discarded. I know how it feels when they don’t care, and it’s not even clear what happened. Someone once told me, “I saw the bridge that was our friendship on fire, and I didn’t do anything to stop it from burning.” And in that instance I realized to so many people I was just a bridge. Just a few unremarkable pieces of wood destined to asunder.

And even though it’s been years, every time I hear someone use a shitty metaphor about burning bridges I get a little mad. Maybe I’m still just a little angry at myself for always feeling lost in the loss of it all.

I’m glad I found my car keys.

Because I would much rather spend that money on a fancy dress than a set of keys no one will ever see but me. At least in a dress I’ll get compliments, and that will make me feel better about the fact that my life is decaying. And about the fact that I seem to lose things without even trying to. The dress will make me feel better. Better than if one morning I wake up and my car doesn’t start because I don’t have a key, and I am cursing from the drivers seat, but then I’ll run out of words to use. So I’ll borrow words from other languages to more accurately express how I feel…except for the fact that those borrowed words don’t make me feel any better. Because I don’t have any emotional attachment to them. It is never going to sound as good as “fuck” feels. That’s why your native tongue…your first language, always fits more comfortably in your mouth. Because you’ve attached all these growing memories to it. It’s been years now, and I still remember the first time my parents ever said they were disappointed in me without so much as raising their voices. I still remember when I was in high school and my senior English teacher was reading the first draft of an essay I had to turn in for credit. He looked at me after he set the paper on his desk and he said, “it’s good, but it comes off as sarcastic at times.” And I said, “Really? I don’t see it.” And then he said, “that’s because being sarcastic is such an innate part of your personality that you don’t always realize when you are doing it. It happens to the best of us.” Ever since then I’ve tried to be more aware of how I come off to people when I say certain things. Over the years I’ve realized that in the end I don’t care that much about car keys. I care about how the world is and what words mean because things hurt too often…even if it’s just a little. And if we could all just watch our mouths and cultivate some empathy we’d be better off. The car keys are utilitarian, the dress is armor. But if I look pretty I am not sure if people are more or less likely to hurt me.

I love that when I tried to open up and explain to you that I’m willing to meet people where they’re at, in that I understand what they can give me and what they’re willing to give me. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve more. It doesn’t mean I can’t find different people who are capable and willing to give more. That doesn’t mean that my expectations or my boundaries are ridiculous. It simply says, “I see who you are and what you can give me. So I keep you in my life because that’s not a bad thing. There still exist in intrinsic value in those things. But it’s not enough.” It’s not enough for me. So instead of pushing people and expecting them to give more, or expecting them to change, I simply would like to find additional people who are freely capable, and choose at their own will, to gift me their time and energy in that way. That doesn’t diminish the value of others who cannot. It just is what it is… but instead of understanding my perspective, you judged me. You got mad at me for being honest with you. And you yelled at me. That’s not okay. Like I said, I deserve more. All you did with your lack of compassion was prove my point, not make your own.