"you can't run away from trouble, there's no place that far.": a "cancellation" statement
For many years, I held myself and my career back. On purpose.
One of the things that I never wanted to deal with was strangers on the internet picking my past apart, putting it on trial for the court of public opinion. I don’t need or want strangers to decide whether or not I was truly abused. I don’t need or want someone wanting to recirculate rumours from a time period that were not true then, and are certainly not true now. You know, “EXPOSED!!!!!” (monetized) videos on YouTube or Pretty Ugly Little Liar threads. I want to do this now. I want to do this before other people who don’t have any idea what they’re talking about or people with ulterior motives try to control the narrative.
I want to be accountable for my own past behaviours. Not to parade my past in a “tortured,” “artistic,” not to appear to be “brave” for sharing; basically, not in a narcissistic opportunist way (cough). I want to be accountable for my past and I want to hold myself accountable for it. These are things that bother me, that I am ashamed of, and, have frankly held myself back over, feeling as though because I have done things that I might not be worthy of success. I know that there are people who have done worse who brag about it who continue to work and live their lives like nothing happened, but I am not that kind of person. Just because someone is worse doesn’t make something I have done NOT bad.
There are some things you should know about me. You can choose to stick around if you want to. These might not seem like a big deal to you, but they are to me, and they weigh heavily on my conscience. I am not one of those people who believes you can separate the art from the artist, and if you cannot separate certain things from me, that’s fine. I would feel the same way.
Here are the things you should know about me:
(All applicable content warnings henceforth not withstanding.)
--I have not always been an easy person to deal with. I have exhibited toxic traits in the past, which include severe issues with boundaries, manipulation (some accidental, some not), and saying and doing inappropriate things. It's one thing to understand that your disorder is literally controlling a lot of the way that you operate and interact and limits your ability to function, but it’s another thing to use it as a blanket to absolve yourself of responsibility. I fully acknowledge that for many people, I was an absolute nightmare to deal with, and I take responsibility for that. Despite so much of it literally being out of my control because I was at war with my brain and out of control emotions, neither of which could be properly regulated, it doesn’t absolve me of displaying traits that were both toxic and abusive.
It also doesn’t mean the behaviour exhibited from 2002-2005 or 2006 existed in a vacuum.
A lot of that has to do with being sexually abused, not understanding boundaries, and having a mental disorder that, in 2003-2005, could not, and would not, be treated properly. I had, and have, many of the classic symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, and I could not get appropriate treatment. It nearly killed me. A lot of it had to do with being (re)traumatized and being expected to just “deal with it,” having to go to school every day and deal with the humiliation and the trauma triggers--on top of not being able to get appropriate help. A lot of it was a response to lifelong experience of being socially ostracized, having been maliciously bullied, including physical and sexual harassment/ bullying for the last 12 years.
I would caution against unreliable narrators trying to make a quick buck off of the patently false (especially since their careers never took off).They’ll tell you I lashed out, but they won’t tell you about writing notes “to go kill [my]self” or dropping razor blades in my locker then telling school authorities I had “weapons.” They won’t tell you about being nice to my face, allowing me to think that I had apologized sufficiently, only to find out later that I was being torn apart online, by name. I fully acknowledge and understand that I wasn’t always a peach to deal with, but a lot of that behaviour didn’t manifest itself out of nowhere. There were a lot of lies that were told about me, that were absolutely untrue as they were unspeakable. They were proven to be lies during that same time frame, and they’re lies now. I know it seems absurd to bring this up now, but these were people who were jealous I won awards over them and tried to get me expelled from school by circulating potentially life-ruining rumours. I would not put it past them.
I am sorry to anyone who had to deal with this before I knew what was wrong with me and how to have it treated. I am sorry if you were caught in those crossfires of unmitigated mental illness. I fear a lot of what I exhibited, before it was caught in time, was even too late, and much of the reason those with BPD and C-PTSD are stigmatized. I am sorry to those who were mistakenly caught up, but to others who are diagnosed with the same conditions, perpetuating negative stereotypes that lead to stigma and misunderstanding of what we suffer from.
I am not, however, certain I want to commit to an apology to those who provoked and took advantage of my mental health issues, and then tried to pass themselves off as victims.
--I wrote pieces for my high school newspaper, and I actively regret unknowingly perpetuating certain things, like possible anti-Blackness or mental health stigma, by advocating for merits of learning moments from socialist themes in some older films. Some of those films included Song of the South and Don’t Bother to Knock. As much as I cared about the strange underlying messages of equality in these severely outdated pieces of media, that wasn’t my place or lane to try and give them a redemption arc. This is something that, as silly as it sounds talking about it now, has continued to bother me, over 15 years later, because I realized it wasn’t the right thing to do, and that maybe a high school newspaper wasn’t the greatest venue for this. Considering a lot of the writing and the work and the advocacy I do now, or, at least, try to do, it would be disingenuous for me to not acknowledge my trespasses, even if they were done when I was a child. It doesn’t matter if I was 16 and thinking I was doing the right thing, even if no one read these things, because they contributed to centuries of broader issues. Intent versus impact, even if the impact went unfelt. It’s worth saying that Brer Rabbit is a Native hero, too. He is ours, too, but not in this context. Nanabozho/ Mateguas may exist independently, with the same stories as our Black relatives, but the impact of context does not.
--I was, in fact, sexually abused as a child, and additionally assaulted more than once as an adult. This is not up for debate. This is not for you to decide to be true or not. We as victims do not have to parade every single last explicit detail of the most horrifying and grotesque things that have ever happened to us to be heard, believed or validated. Even members of my own family have perpetuated the falsehood that I was not. I am not a convenient victim. As previously stated, there was a period, after decades of torment and being blamed for what had happened to me, where my peers decided that what had happened to me was a “lie” because their facts did not add up. Fascinating how the abuse I suffered that stigmatized me and ostracized me for my entire life suddenly became a “lie” because they decided it was. Yes, this continues to bother and haunt me, over a decade later, because I am sure someone I grew up with would want to drag this up again for attention.
I do not identify as a survivor, and that is my business. This is not for you to tell me how I should feel about this. This is not for you to tell me I am a survivor, as if I am incapable of realizing my own situation. I know that a lot of people do not like or agree with this, and it’s not for them to decide. It’s important that those of us who have these horrifying experiences are allowed to call them by their own personal truths. It’s important for others to understand that true, intersectional feminism means that you have to let go of the possessiveness you feel over my narrative for what is nothing short of a fetish for “survival” and “strong” and “overcoming obstacles. You do not get to tell me how I get to identify with my own experience for your “overcoming obstacles” “feel good” bullshit.
I've lived much of my life asking myself "what would Brer Rabbit/ Nanabozho/ Mateguas do?" and I am pretty sure this would be it. I do believe that people can grow and change. I do believe in redemption. I also know that most people won't take the time to go look for it, or work for it, or earn it. In the true spirit of Brer Rabbit/ Nanabozho/ Mateguas, I was little and without much strength, but my power had been in my survival abilities, by whatever means necessary.
A wise man once said, "you can't run away from trouble, there's no place that far." Well, I am not running away from it, but I'm also not holding myself back because of it anymore, either.
Redemption arcs are earned, not awarded.
One of the things that I never wanted to deal with was strangers on the internet picking my past apart, putting it on trial for the court of public opinion. I don’t need or want strangers to decide whether or not I was truly abused. I don’t need or want someone wanting to recirculate rumours from a time period that were not true then, and are certainly not true now. You know, “EXPOSED!!!!!” (monetized) videos on YouTube or Pretty Ugly Little Liar threads. I want to do this now. I want to do this before other people who don’t have any idea what they’re talking about or people with ulterior motives try to control the narrative.
I want to be accountable for my own past behaviours. Not to parade my past in a “tortured,” “artistic,” not to appear to be “brave” for sharing; basically, not in a narcissistic opportunist way (cough). I want to be accountable for my past and I want to hold myself accountable for it. These are things that bother me, that I am ashamed of, and, have frankly held myself back over, feeling as though because I have done things that I might not be worthy of success. I know that there are people who have done worse who brag about it who continue to work and live their lives like nothing happened, but I am not that kind of person. Just because someone is worse doesn’t make something I have done NOT bad.
There are some things you should know about me. You can choose to stick around if you want to. These might not seem like a big deal to you, but they are to me, and they weigh heavily on my conscience. I am not one of those people who believes you can separate the art from the artist, and if you cannot separate certain things from me, that’s fine. I would feel the same way.
Here are the things you should know about me:
(All applicable content warnings henceforth not withstanding.)
--I have not always been an easy person to deal with. I have exhibited toxic traits in the past, which include severe issues with boundaries, manipulation (some accidental, some not), and saying and doing inappropriate things. It's one thing to understand that your disorder is literally controlling a lot of the way that you operate and interact and limits your ability to function, but it’s another thing to use it as a blanket to absolve yourself of responsibility. I fully acknowledge that for many people, I was an absolute nightmare to deal with, and I take responsibility for that. Despite so much of it literally being out of my control because I was at war with my brain and out of control emotions, neither of which could be properly regulated, it doesn’t absolve me of displaying traits that were both toxic and abusive.
It also doesn’t mean the behaviour exhibited from 2002-2005 or 2006 existed in a vacuum.
A lot of that has to do with being sexually abused, not understanding boundaries, and having a mental disorder that, in 2003-2005, could not, and would not, be treated properly. I had, and have, many of the classic symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, and I could not get appropriate treatment. It nearly killed me. A lot of it had to do with being (re)traumatized and being expected to just “deal with it,” having to go to school every day and deal with the humiliation and the trauma triggers--on top of not being able to get appropriate help. A lot of it was a response to lifelong experience of being socially ostracized, having been maliciously bullied, including physical and sexual harassment/ bullying for the last 12 years.
I would caution against unreliable narrators trying to make a quick buck off of the patently false (especially since their careers never took off).They’ll tell you I lashed out, but they won’t tell you about writing notes “to go kill [my]self” or dropping razor blades in my locker then telling school authorities I had “weapons.” They won’t tell you about being nice to my face, allowing me to think that I had apologized sufficiently, only to find out later that I was being torn apart online, by name. I fully acknowledge and understand that I wasn’t always a peach to deal with, but a lot of that behaviour didn’t manifest itself out of nowhere. There were a lot of lies that were told about me, that were absolutely untrue as they were unspeakable. They were proven to be lies during that same time frame, and they’re lies now. I know it seems absurd to bring this up now, but these were people who were jealous I won awards over them and tried to get me expelled from school by circulating potentially life-ruining rumours. I would not put it past them.
I am sorry to anyone who had to deal with this before I knew what was wrong with me and how to have it treated. I am sorry if you were caught in those crossfires of unmitigated mental illness. I fear a lot of what I exhibited, before it was caught in time, was even too late, and much of the reason those with BPD and C-PTSD are stigmatized. I am sorry to those who were mistakenly caught up, but to others who are diagnosed with the same conditions, perpetuating negative stereotypes that lead to stigma and misunderstanding of what we suffer from.
I am not, however, certain I want to commit to an apology to those who provoked and took advantage of my mental health issues, and then tried to pass themselves off as victims.
--I wrote pieces for my high school newspaper, and I actively regret unknowingly perpetuating certain things, like possible anti-Blackness or mental health stigma, by advocating for merits of learning moments from socialist themes in some older films. Some of those films included Song of the South and Don’t Bother to Knock. As much as I cared about the strange underlying messages of equality in these severely outdated pieces of media, that wasn’t my place or lane to try and give them a redemption arc. This is something that, as silly as it sounds talking about it now, has continued to bother me, over 15 years later, because I realized it wasn’t the right thing to do, and that maybe a high school newspaper wasn’t the greatest venue for this. Considering a lot of the writing and the work and the advocacy I do now, or, at least, try to do, it would be disingenuous for me to not acknowledge my trespasses, even if they were done when I was a child. It doesn’t matter if I was 16 and thinking I was doing the right thing, even if no one read these things, because they contributed to centuries of broader issues. Intent versus impact, even if the impact went unfelt. It’s worth saying that Brer Rabbit is a Native hero, too. He is ours, too, but not in this context. Nanabozho/ Mateguas may exist independently, with the same stories as our Black relatives, but the impact of context does not.
--I was, in fact, sexually abused as a child, and additionally assaulted more than once as an adult. This is not up for debate. This is not for you to decide to be true or not. We as victims do not have to parade every single last explicit detail of the most horrifying and grotesque things that have ever happened to us to be heard, believed or validated. Even members of my own family have perpetuated the falsehood that I was not. I am not a convenient victim. As previously stated, there was a period, after decades of torment and being blamed for what had happened to me, where my peers decided that what had happened to me was a “lie” because their facts did not add up. Fascinating how the abuse I suffered that stigmatized me and ostracized me for my entire life suddenly became a “lie” because they decided it was. Yes, this continues to bother and haunt me, over a decade later, because I am sure someone I grew up with would want to drag this up again for attention.
I do not identify as a survivor, and that is my business. This is not for you to tell me how I should feel about this. This is not for you to tell me I am a survivor, as if I am incapable of realizing my own situation. I know that a lot of people do not like or agree with this, and it’s not for them to decide. It’s important that those of us who have these horrifying experiences are allowed to call them by their own personal truths. It’s important for others to understand that true, intersectional feminism means that you have to let go of the possessiveness you feel over my narrative for what is nothing short of a fetish for “survival” and “strong” and “overcoming obstacles. You do not get to tell me how I get to identify with my own experience for your “overcoming obstacles” “feel good” bullshit.
I've lived much of my life asking myself "what would Brer Rabbit/ Nanabozho/ Mateguas do?" and I am pretty sure this would be it. I do believe that people can grow and change. I do believe in redemption. I also know that most people won't take the time to go look for it, or work for it, or earn it. In the true spirit of Brer Rabbit/ Nanabozho/ Mateguas, I was little and without much strength, but my power had been in my survival abilities, by whatever means necessary.
A wise man once said, "you can't run away from trouble, there's no place that far." Well, I am not running away from it, but I'm also not holding myself back because of it anymore, either.
Redemption arcs are earned, not awarded.