#earliest gaslighting experienced in my life

[casgod]

When a man tries to gaslight me I'm like boy... I've been a destiel shipper and a bi dean truther for years...

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

I advise you not seek this content out. There's a reason I'm not linking it. It's full of abelism and gaslighting. But I just want to show you what I'm about to rant about because this woman is claiming chronic illness doesn't exist and women specifically are faking to get a diagnosis for attention. And she's claiming this is a mental health issue.

As a disabled person, I need to rant.

The first time I got a migraine. I was 10 years old. They were near constant. I know exactly how old I was because when I went to the doctor, he said it was probably the braces shifting the bones in my skull. They were called just headaches.

If you've ever had a migraine, you would understand that if you were experiencing this much pain, and you were told there was a way to make it stop, you GRAB that shit. I had my braces removed before my jaw was finished straightening because I shouldn't have had braces in the first place and my baby teen started falling out (very late, I know).

And when my adult teeth came in, I BEGGED my doctor to not give me braces again. And remember what I said earlier. If you're experiencing migraine level symptoms and you were told there was a way to make it stop. You grab that chance. Yes, my teeth are still fucked up. Yes, this leads to me dealing with chronic jaw pain.

You don't get how much pain I was in just... all the fucking time. My parents had to carry large bottles of advil with them at all times. Some of my earliest memories is being at a restaurant and my mom being like "I know this is weird but do you have any advil? I forgot to refill the bottle and my daughter is in too much pain to eat". Just from the migraine.

I was taking adult doses of pain meds with my doctors telling me to alternate Advil and Tylenol every 2 hours at the age of 10 (most meds say not for children under 12). Because migraine was not a diagnosis that existed.

When I was in high school, I finally did get a diagnosis from my PCP of "migraine". Idk if it ever went on the record but a was prescribed migraine medication. Which was essentially prescription strength advil and imitrex. There weren't exactly a lot of options back then.

And I again have specific memories of being in school. The ring of the fire alarm during a fire drill triggers a migraine. First thing I had to do when we went back in was go to the nurse and nurse had to call my parents and they had to bring my meds (special school rules the nurse needed the prescription bottle which would make it hard to have any at home). And the nurse was like "when's it gonna work?" And my mom was like "idk. If it does work it'll be like 30 minutes" and the nurse was like "Yeah we can't keep her here 30 minutes on a maybe. This is no place for a kid with a migraine. Take her home."

Throughout all this? I didn't consider myself disabled. Because I could still function. I wasn't missing too much school to pass. I was still able to pass my classes.

In college though it got really bad. I was missing 3 or 4 days of classes at a time because I couldn't hold down anything but water. There's weeks I did go to class that I just blacked it the pain was so bad. I got hurt from the vertigo regularly. It got so bad u finally sought it a migraine community just to try to understand what the hell was wrong with me and just so I had a place where I could vent. It sucked so damn bad.

And this community helped me immensely. They had a list of headache specialists which helped me find my doctor. They gave me a ton of treatment options to discuss with my doctor and they suggested vitamin supplements that I could also discuss with my doctor. It took a few years because I don't react to most common migraine meds, but a year out of college, I finally got a treatment plan that fucking helped. I live a pretty normal life now the only exception being the couple of hours it takes my meds to kick in.

And even through all of that, I hesitated to call myself disabled. I was still functional enough to graduate college without the ADA (but honestly I'd have done better if I had accommodations for all the time I had to miss). My migraines weren't frequent enough to be considered "chronic".

The only reason why I'm able to comfortably call myself disabled now is because of the invisible illness and spoonie communities. They were like "Your health issues impacting most of your life even though there's no physical symptoms? You keep missing important events duev to your health issues? You limiting what you do so to not impact your health issues? You're disabled."

Because I was so afraid of taking something away from physically disabled people by using the label. I'm still going to heavy metal concerts (yes they land me in bed for days after with a migraine). I can hold down a job and still semi-function (I'm privileged that I can get a remote job so if I can't get out of bed I don't need to call in. And I work for small companies that are more forgiving of health issues.)

Listen. I 100% believe in the spoonie movement with all my heart. But what people don't realize is that invalidating the spoonie movement invalidates people like me. People that have had pain since childhood that almost no medication can touch that's coupled with other neurological issues that is detrimental to our health. I was exercising every day, but I had to stop because there were too many days I couldn't hold down food. I was eating very healthy, but I had to stop because there were too many days where calories were more important than vitamins because again I was lucky if I could hold down food. The pain was so bad that there was gaps in my memory and I hurt myself but I couldn't remember how between the vertigo and the memory issues.

And yeah. My migraines don't affect me like that now. I'm on treatment where I don't "look disabled". I can function with the best of the abled people. But it took years of meds and trial and error with my doctor to get here. I'm functioning with the exact balance of person meds and activity levels to keep me found for the things I enjoy doing.

And I need people to realize that's what invisible disability is. Paralyzed person can't walk? They get a wheelchair. I can't go outside without spending the rest of my day bedbound from the bright light and heat? I get meds that help sooth the nervous system (honestly I don't know how the fuck my meds work but this is the equivalent of my "wheelchair")

Yeah! We look functional. That's the point. That's the entire point. Because before this we lost friends and failed classes because we couldn't get our of bed our body's failed us so hard. The only reason why abled people think we don't exist is because we literally couldn't leave the house. And online communities have allowed us to be seen on those worse days when we're normally hidden behind closed doors.

I was able to interact with people online yesterday with my migraine, when previously you wouldn't have been able to see that because I literally couldn't leave the house.

-fae

[honey-lets-fucking-run]

A love letter to Ingrid Bergman.

”People saw me in Joan of Arc, and declared me a saint. I'm not. I'm just a woman, another human being.” - Ingrid Bergman.

You know, there are people in this universe who possess the incredible ability to bound you to themselves, to captivate you by their mere existence. Even if you're years, centuries apart from one another. Even if that person isn't aware of your existence, and yet, you can't help but feel that bond stretching between time and continents, like a long red ribbon. That feeling can't be dissected, taken apart piece by piece to be explained, because the beauty of that feeling lies exactly in its mystery, its impossibility and refusal to reveal the meaning behind the reason. You can't grasp it. It just lives in you, lurking within and igniting when you less expect it.

One of my earliest memories: I'm seven years old. I wander around my house aimlessly, thinking about what to occupy myself with, when I happen to stumble into the living room. There sits my grandmother, eyes glued to the old, grainy television screen. I turn around to the screen just in time to see a very beautiful woman sitting beside a piano, stroking the keys in deep contemplation, her head bent slightly downward. For some reason I felt that I literally have stopped breathing.

That movie was called ”Intermezzo”. And that woman's name was Ingrid - Ingrid Bergman, whom I'd later discover to be my grandmother's favorite actress.

Shortly after, my grandmother passed away from cancer. A year went by for the aforementioned scene to repeat itself, only they were showing ”Casablanca”, and it was my grandfather this time, watching the screen, unable to tear his eyes away. And every time Ingrid appeared on screen, he cried.

That was it. That moment in my life defined my love for the classic cinema and filmmaking, and of course, my deepest respect and appreciation for Ingrid Bergman, not only as an actress but also as a person.

Generally, I find myself preferring actors who are able to transcend their emotions to the viewer without using much words. I like when someone is able to be subtly transparent with silence as their only weapon to leave you absolutely breathless and gutted out. And eventually, when they do talk, they leave you shaken once more. To me, Ingrid Bergman was the first actress ever who made me experience that feeling of being gutted out. Utter despair of a woman who's being torn apart between two men in ”Casablanca”; gradual progression between love, seeming insanity, and vengeful rage in ”Gaslight”; the ethereal detachment combined with holy fire of a passion so believable that you just cannot help being overcome with it yourself, in ”Joan of Arc”... What had amazed me the most (and still does, even after all this time) is the difference. The absolute difference between characters and their emotions respectively. The ability to say so much with so little, and often, in a span of literal seconds. I can go on and on.

Bergman is timeless as an actress. But even more so as a human being.

What I find mesmerizing in Ingrid Bergman as a person is (I use the present tense on purpose here) is her refusal to yield to the circumstances. Her ability to face her fears, to make mistakes, but to own, and never give up, her life. Yes, she had experienced plenty of hindrances. Plenty. But she didn't crumble. She lived her life gracefully, and most importantly, she never lost her dignity. And that is what I admire the most.

Ingrid Bergman made me fall in love with cinema and the in the beauty of classical filmmaking. There simply aren't enough words to express my immense gratitude.

P.S. List of my favorite films in no particular order:

”Casablanca” (1942)

”Notorious” (1946)

”For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1943)

”Gaslight” (1944)

”Spellbound” (1945)

”Joan of Arc” (1948)

”Under Capricorn” (1949)

”Autumn Sonata” (1978)

P.P.S. This post will be soon followed by the work analysis of my another favorite Swedish actress. I'm giving you one try to guess who it will be:)

[imnotcrazyidontthink]

I am so grateful to have artist + mental health activist Kate Elizabeth share her story on the blog today. Her story has really touched me and I hope it can do the same for you - Leon Else

Hello, I’m Kate Elisabeth. I’m a non-binary pansexual, which is a fancy way of saying I’m hella queer. I’m also an illustrator who fancies cartoons, and I’m also a mental health activist!

My experience with mental health goes a little deeper than just receiving a diagnosis and treatment. 

When I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Hashimotos, where my immune system attacks my thyroid. I now need to take hormone replacements to make up for what my thyroid is lacking. After the diagnosis my parents assumed all of my apparent mental stress was a direct correlation to my autoimmune disease, rather than it being a separate Illness that needed its own attention. While it is true that Hashimotos can cause psychosis, the psychosis goes away once the thyroid is being treated. Mine stayed with me, like an unwanted roommate. 

I grew up in a dysfunctional household filled with marital issues and my parents having their own suppressed trauma and stress. My dad worked hard, and had worked hard his whole life. He depended on my mom to be able to take care of us when he was at work. She often did, and often did it quite well. But I think there were things she was unprepared to deal with, and she struggled to communicate this to her partner. 

My earliest memory of anxiety is when I was 6 years old, and I was unable to write a handful of thank you notes addressed to the students in my class. I remember feeling paralyzed by this sense of responsibility and I was so afraid of writing the wrong words. After all, I was 6 years old and didn’t have much experience writing anything at all. To be fair, my parents were unable to recognize this as anxiety because I don’t think they recognized their own for many, many years. Instead of asking me why I was stressed out, my mother criticized my inability to write the notes myself. She ended up doing it for me, and that was the first time I remember feeling like I had failed, and like I didn’t measure up. Moments like those throughout my childhood would have a direct correlation to the severe anxiety and depression that would develop later on.

 I remember I started hallucinating in fourth grade, and it would happen frequently when I was around 13. In fourth grade I remember visually hallucinating malformations on people’s faces or their body parts. I was probably 10 at this time and had no idea how to explain this to someone, so I went to the nurses office and told them I felt sick. I did that a lot during school, looking for reasons to go home sick so I could avoid seeing or hearing anything I didn’t want to see or hear.

 I began to isolate myself from family and friends as the years went on, and my parents attributed this to teen angst. I felt myself disconnecting from the world around me and I eventually lost my sense of self. By the time I was 16 I was on my third year of highschool and failing, while just doing the bare minimum to advance. I had no desire or will to live, and developed anorexia and other suicidal behaviors. 

When I was 17, I saw a psychiatrist and told him about my visual and auditory hallucinations, and he explained that I have schizophrenia, which is a grossly misunderstood form of psychosis. Unfortunately, his treatment methods got me nowhere, and I was briefly dependent on adderall. My parents stopped taking me to therapy, and I actually can’t say for sure what their reasons for that may have been, since there was always a persistent lack of communication.

 I graduated high school with mostly Ds, because my teachers all knew I was struggling and not receiving adequate treatment. It seemed like everyone besides my parents could realize that I needed intensive care and help.

During middle school, and into my junior year of high school, my main motivation for getting out of bed was artwork. I became known to everyone as the artist and that was the only facet of my identity. I would go to therapy for a few years on and off, but it was always me complaining about my parents, so no real progress on my mental health was made. I was under the impression that life was an illusion, and I had no way of being absolutely sure that the people around me were even real. Schizophrenia changes your perception of reality, and can cause delusional states of mind. It dulls your ability to feel strong emotions, and it can cause severe detachment from your sense of self. I legitimately felt like I was empty, and I couldn’t possibly imagine a brighter future.

 I became increasingly paranoid that people were lying to me about everything, and I had trust issues. I would spend weeks isolating myself in my room, accumulating piles of dirty dishes, trash, dirty clothes, etc. I was essentially living in my own misery. My mom often helped me clean my room, but became frustrated that I couldn’t keep it clean, There were times where she tried to not make me feel guilty, but I felt the guilt anyway. I remember always feeling like I had no control over anything.

When I was 18, I was raped repeatedly for two months by someone who I assumed I could trust. I was unable to leave my situation out of fear, denial, coercion, manipulation, and gaslighting. I started to smoke marijuana heavily during that time as a means of escapism. I was only able to leave that situation because he hit me over the head with a pair of drum sticks, and he was arrested and charged with domestic violence. 

I now have a restraining order against him. I also have a tattoo on my chest that he gave me without my consent, because I was under the influence of drugs. I remember standing in front of a mirror shirtless, then I remember being on a table getting tattooed. I don’t remember agreeing to getting anything tattooed. When it was over I tried to justify it and convince myself that I wanted this to happen. He treated me like a carnival prize that he had won, and he would objectify me to anyone who encountered us. He would tell me to take off my shirt and show people the tattoo that he gave me. I felt like a billboard for his own twisted personal brand of self aggrandizement. 

My mental health at the time was poor, even without the effects of drugs. I felt like what was happening to me was meant to happen as a means of punishment for not cleaning my room, not doing better in school, or whatever reason I could think of to explain cause of the abuse. I smoked weed every day for a year and a half to cope with everything. I’m 20 years old now, and I’ll be 21 on October 13th. It has taken me two and a half years to fully accept that it wasn’t my fault, and that blaming myself isn’t the answer. I couldn’t even talk about the sexual assault verbally without breaking down in tears until earlier this year.

That experience made me realize that life is not a delusion. Additionally, that I am in fact vulnerable to the same dangers as everyone else. I am not exempt from experiencing the impact of other people’s decisions.

This all made me reflect on my own life and the decisions I was making, as well as the people in my life. It has given me the motivation to take control over my college education, my career, and my art. I still suffer daily from all of my health issues, mental or otherwise, and the trauma of what I lived through. Although, what is different now is that I have a self awareness that could only have been gained from walking through Hell and coming out the other end alive. I also had to make a decision: I could either run away from my problems and ignore them, or I could actually get to know myself and figure out how to overcome these obstacles. 

This is a constant choice that I make every day. I can’t erase what happened to me, I can’t magically make my Hashimotos disappear, and I can’t cure my schizophrenia, but I can make the decision to try and live my best life despite it all. I strongly encourage all of you to do the same thing. I’m in school majoring in psychology now, and I am going to become a doctor in the field of psychiatry. I’m also still making art and I often enjoy it and find great pleasure in it. Having a creative outlet is so fundamental for your mental health. There’s an entire field of study for it, and it’s called art therapy.

If you’re depressed, have anxiety, OCD, or a broken leg, just know that positive things can and will happen when you make the conscious decision to help yourself. People will only understand that their depression or anxiety or mental illness can receive treatment if we educate and spread awareness. Suicide is an increasing epidemic because people are afraid to ask for help or talk about their feelings.

I encourage every one of you to understand the significance of mental health and why it’s morally ethical to assist those who need our help. If someone you know is suffering from depression or mental illness, or they’ve experienced a traumatic event, reach out to them and suggest they seek professional help and treatment.

There is hope, it gets better, and you are not alone.

Kate Elizabeth xo

[a-w-k-o-h-a-w-n-o-h]

upon realising i was never meant to be here

i’ve kind of known all my life that something about my existence was always a little bit off. always feeling just slightly out of place in places where everybody “like” me felt they belonged the most, feeling like somewhat of an observer when family got together. i suppose that a little part of me is always sort of floating above me, observing what i should be feeling and doing instead of me actually experiencing and doing these things.

i’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. i think it’s played a bigger part in the past few years of my life than i ever realised. i don’t even remember when i found out, but while i’ve been in my early twenties, at some point, i learned that i am a child of an affair. half my life i’ve been a child of divorce, but i just learned to live with that. but a child of an affair feels like a totally different level of broken.

my parents got married a couple of years after they had me. lots of people have kids before they get married; i never thought of anything of it. but now i think, did they get married because they had me? did they feel they owed that to me? did they want to prove themselves somehow? is it vain of me to think that way? 

their marriage was deeply, deeply troubled. as an adult looking back on what i know, it’s obvious to me that my parents were doomed from the start, although i’ve never been able to fully pinpoint why i felt that way. maybe it came from seeing it end, seeing how they hated each other. i don’t have a single childhood memory where my parents seemed happy. that’s not to say they ever showed that to me directly as a little kid... their interactions with each other and their individual interactions with me were so, so different. i know they loved me, and they love me just as equally as they love my siblings. out of the four of us together, i know that only my eldest brother was planned. my mum has always told me that the other three of us were “surprises”. what if that’s not true, and i’m the “accident”?

i feel like an accident. my existence is clumsy. i stumbled my way through high school, and to be honest i think i fell before the finish line and never really had my victory run. the fact that i finished doesn’t mean shit to me. my last 3 or 4 years in formal education, i was completely consumed by my mental health. most of my memories of sixth form are overrun by hiding in bathroom stalls and having panic attacks sitting at computers, or crying in the corridor where everybody could fucking see me but i had nowhere to fucking go because i was frozen and i couldn’t make myself move no matter how god damn hard i tried. i came out with some pretty poor grades, and i know that my parents definitely think i’m not smart. i know i could have done better, way better, and i know it could have happened if my parents noticed how hard i was crashing onto thin fucking ice. 

i still trip up over myself a lot. i must have some sort of magnet that attracts absolute fucking idiots to me. i have a terrible habit of letting people walk all over me to the point it’s laughable, but never wanting to call them out on it because i worry too much about hurting people. which in turn leads to me hurting people anyway because i become resentful and irritable. it’s so clumsy and so irresponsible and i’m consumed by it. if a terrible person makes me feel terrible, who really wins when i inevitably end up terrible too? i don’t know what it is. maybe i’ll never know.

everything i do feels like i’m bringing down a wall of glass, even if my intentions feel like i’m decorating a windowsill with candles and flowers and fairylights, and other artsy fartsy bullshit that people seem to like to put in their windows on stupid websites like this one. i’ve never set out to hurt anybody, but i always end up doing it. and somewhere in my weird little kind-of-self-aware bubble, i let myself continue to dwell on it long after apologies enter the room, even though i stutter and stumble trying to maybe mention just how fucking hurt i am too. “don’t downplay it,” i tell myself, trying to find a gentle way to tell somebody i still have nightmares about how terrible they made me feel. how i accidentally gaslight myself after all the times they made me feel crazy and stupid. 

but that’s irrelevant.

i think i’m sort of an echo of my parents’ relationship. i don’t know if i have any weird metaphor for this. i think i’m incapable of being in love and i mean that wholeheartedly, without it becoming some stupid self pity party. woe is me, whatever the fuck. i think i’m broken and i don’t know how to fix it because i’m 22 and i still don’t know what the fuck my purpose is and to be honest i don’t think i have one because my existence was and is a complete accident.

one of my earliest memories is watching my parents screaming at each other in the kitchen. they were trying to push each other out of the back door, or at least it looked like it to me. or maybe it didn’t, but that’s how i look back on it now. they were screaming at each other so loudly that i couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was so aggressive and angry. i don’t know how old i was, but i think i was maybe 6 or 7. i remember my dad had somehow managed to get my mum mostly out of the door. she was pushing back at him, their hands were connected and they were just pushing each other. my dad is 6ft 3 and was a really big guy at the time, and she can’t be more than 5ft 4. but she was pushing back at him, she wasn’t out of the door yet. and i remember suddenly she was screaming at me. i didn’t know what she was saying, but somehow i knew she wasn’t shouting at me to be aggressive, she was trying to tell me something, or get me to do something, and i remember at 6 or 7 panicking because my mum needed me and i didn’t know what to do or what she could be screaming at me over my dad’s bellowing.  but then i had an idea! i’d get the house phone for her! i remember how somehow it still felt a tiny bit wrong to do that, because it felt like i was picking a side. i wish i could recall exactly how my head worked in that moment; all i really have are memories of it that progress and deepen as i get older. but i know i had the idea to get the phone, so i ran to get it in the other room, and i ran back to the kitchen to go give it to her... somehow. when i got back in there, though, dad had pushed her out of the door. i don’t remember if they were still arguing through it, but i know he locked it. he locked my mum out of the house that she had lived in before he came into the picture. i knew even that young, that that was wrong. and i remember really feeling like that was my fault. like i didn’t do something in time, like i took too long to get to her. i remember telling my mum through the door that i had gotten the phone for her, i remember crying. and i remember she said, gently, that that’s what she’d been asking me to do, and i remember feeling so fucking stupid that i didn’t hear her. wasn’t it obvious she’d needed the phone? how stupid of me to not hear her, to not go get the god damn phone in time before she got locked out of her house and now there was nothing i could do and nothing she could do and my dad was angry and i was scared. 

this isn’t my only memory of this kind of nature. i remember being a little bit older and they were trying to push each other out of the front door this time, but my big brother heard and ran to intervene just in time and he managed to push my dad out of the house before mum got locked out again. i remember that so clearly. i have so many memories like these.

the reason this has all come about again for me is because PVRIS released a song called “loveless”. i put off writing about this for a bit, and it went away for a while so i figured i didn’t need to. but i can’t seem to get away from that song.

“if this is what love is, then i guess i’m loveless”.

it feels so pathetic to say this at only 22, but i really think that i might just be loveless and it kind of comes full circle to be my fault in a way because i’m the child of the affair here that troubled my parents so badly. i watched their marriage disintegrate, granted i never really knew it to be good in the first place, but i never knew just how deeply intertwined i was with that. i think it’s my fault they were so miserable; maybe not directly, but i think i’m definitely part of the root. 

maybe that’s why i’m so fucking clumsy in everything i do. i was never meant to be here in the first place, so it’s like i’m constantly crashing life events and friendships and experiences for other people, because everybody else’s lives are embedded in the ground and i’m kind of falling about all over the place without an anchor. that makes sense to me, but it’s past 2am, so maybe it won’t the next time i read this back. that seems to be another common theme in my life.

i’m trying to think of some sort of positive that could come from this. if everything is sort of embedded and i’m kind of just existing on top of things, then surely that means i can do and go where ever i want. right? i would hope so. i don’t know if i believe that, but i’m going to hold on to that because i have to, and because i don’t want to keep ending these silly ramblings with depressing shite. 

i was never meant to be here. how good is that?

[phoenixontheoak]

The Relationship Trauma

After ending my relationship with my Mr. X for the first time, plus problems at work, I was made aware by an online friend that I was experiencing all the symptoms of depression. It was because of her encouragement that I finally sought for therapy. After consulting with a local friend, I went to a psychologist who studied trauma. That was the first time I had told all the trauma I had.

When I first arrived, I came up with a cheerful face, saying casually that I seemed to be depressed. I was so calm. But as it once did, I will return to what I thought was the root of my problem, family. I began to relate the trauma I had and my therapist asked me to mention the traumatic events starting from the earliest I could remember.

My voice trembled as I told her one by one traumatic events that had ever happened to me. However, there was one trauma that is not actually, because I only realized now. Namely with the Mr. X. How he gaslighted me. How he made himself as a victim (perhaps he was in a another setting of his life) and everything was about him and his misery. He could sympathize (or was he?) with my problems, but now I doubt his intention. Until finally I could not stand it anymore and decided to stop dealing with him, just before the therapy began.

I remember that moment. I was like a victim of drug addiction. I was eager to interact with him again. I cried without stopping, my tears could not bear to not flow out. Despite of every traumatic event in my life happened, I was very strong. But, because of the cessation of my relationship with Mr. X, I seemed lost my way in this world. And it happened more than one week, more than the limit I was allowed myself to cry over him. I cried every day, feeling meaningless. I became codependent.

Until now, this trauma has not yet been fully processed. I still doubt my ability to be in another relationship again. I tend to be codependent towards my partner, of course it's because of childhood trauma that causes me to be someone else's lover. But I also become suspicious of the intentions of others, the intentions of myself. Am I able to undergo the next relationship?

[pretendpapi]

No Apologies for Queer White Tears

By Faith Cheltenham

Delivered as a keynote address to the 2016 BlaQOUT Conference at UC Riverside on April 9th, 2016.

White tears is a term that has a startling effect on white folks. Developed over time to describe the phenomenon of white people being upset at the very act of discussing race, it’s evolved into a funny yet, extremely effective way to describe white people’s discomfort in discussing the very racism they perpetuate. One of the earliest articles available online about white tears written by a person of color is the 2007 College Student Affairs Journal article “When White Women Cry: How White Women’s Tears Oppress Women of Color” by Mamta Motwani Accapadi. In the article, Accapadi describes a case study of a white woman bursting into tears when being pressed by a woman of color about diversity resources at the college that employs them both. Instead of working on the issues affecting students, the case study states that the rest of the meeting was spent consoling the white woman about her white tears. So it’s white tears I immediately thought of last July, as I sat talking to Kathryn Snyder about white folks interrupting Black people to tell us about their own racism, when what do you know? A young Tearful White Woman (let’s call her TWW for short) interrupts us to ask, “Can we talk? Just talk as people? About race?” Her friends tried to pull her back and whisper in her ear but TWW was inebriated and loudly whispered back “No! I get to ask! I get to ask!” I told her, “You can ask, but I am not required to answer you.”See, I’d never met this particular TWW before, and neither had Kathryn Snyder, an amazing Black bi+ queer organizer everyone should know (that’s her on the right with the triangle earrings). We were all of us, tearful white people included, at the 2015 Netroots Nation convention in Phoenix, back in July where a whole bunch of Black folks experienced a whole bunch of racism. You know, like they do most months.The kind of racism where white liberals you’ve never met before are suddenly touching your face without asking in their best petting paternalism, or the kind where you repeatedly turn a corner to find a Black girl sobbing but surrounded in love by other Black people. #YouOKSis? It was the kind of space where Black people were openly targeted, in this case mostly by Bernie Sanders supporters who were reeling from recent reports that Sanders wasn’t scoring well with Black voters. Shit was going down, so it made sense that many white people would immediately turn to any Black person they could find to assuage their white guilt, express their privilege and stump for their candidate too. Like “Black voters” were a product to obtain, instead of listen to, and to harp on, instead of hear from.An older, respected white LGBT advocate invited a number of LGBT people of color to his suite party and made it clear that people of color were welcome. So me and Kathryn showed up, and with a bunch of other people proceeded to have a great time. At one point we went on an excursion looking for supplies, and the elevator was really slow. As we waited, the full elevators would open and we would pose in different forms, much like we used to do when I was a young’un at UCLA. Once when the door opened, I saw a few Black women I had seen before but not yet talked to. I called out, “Hey now, we’re up in Rm 512 if you want to hang with some queer people of color and some Black folks!” The women locked eyes on me, and that moment happened, the one where they were no longer surrounded by oppressive whiteness, discomfort, tone policing, and silencing. The moment when you’re not thinking at all about white tears?  You know, the moment when you’re free?#BlackLivesMatter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, Ferguson BLM activist Ashley Yates, and #NN15 QPOC Caucus co-organizers Faith Cheltenham, Eyad Alkurabi, Sommer Foster and Daniel Villarreal at Netroots Nation 2015. Photo Credit: Faith CheltenhamThe Black women in the elevator called back to us, “We’ll come back up” and we decided to skip going back downstairs.  We went back to the suite and chilled, and Kathryn and I started talking about our Netroots Nation experience so far, in particular the ability of white folks to interrupt her at every moment to “talk about race” or tell her what Bernie Sanders had done for Black folks (#BernieSoBlack has more details). I was just telling her some of the things that had unfolded for me when I got a tap on the shoulder from the aforementioned Tearful White Woman. Even after I expressed that it wasn’t my responsibility to educate this tearful white woman, she persisted. Kathryn raised an eyebrow at me and I decided that TWW did need to know something from me after all. As I finished a custom hand roll, I looked up from licking the paper and said, “Listen to me OK? This is really important.” TWW nodded bravely, visibly squaring herself for a barrage of statements she really needed to hear, but I only had one. “I want you to imagine that every time you walk up to Black folks and interrupt their conversation, you are interrupting a conversation about Black folks being interrupted by white people.” As she opened her mouth to reply, I held up my hand and went all “you shall not pass”. Stoic, I handed her my most recent hand roll. “Listen”, I said gently, “that’s all I got for right now, but you take this with my best wishes. Goodbye.” Her friends dragged her out my space and one stayed behind. Kathryn raised another eyebrow, and I sighed. TWW’s friend quickly said, “Listen, I am SO SORRY her white privilege got all over you when you were just hanging out. We were on the elevator just now and she became convinced you were talking to her and telling her to come to room 512. We told her you were talking to the other women of color and told her about the need for safe space in oppressive white spaces, but she’s really new to social justice.”I had tears of laughter in my eyes, at the ridiculousness of those white folks who ALWAYS insist that EVERYTHING in Black lives is REALLY all about them. And I had hope, simply because of the friend who had stuck behind to quickly explain, apologize, and make right. So I thanked TWW’s friend and wished them all a good night. As they walked away, Kathryn and I burst out into big ass belly laughs because sometimes racism IS good for a laugh. Faith Cheltenham in the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, age 9. Photo Credit: Faith CheltenhamWhite tears wasn’t a term I knew when I was in middle school and organized my first protest against my school’s “Jungle Fever” ball. See, I grew up in white town, white county, very white USA. My hometown of San Luis Obispo, California prided itself on its “slo-ness” in all things, from the ban on drive thru’s to its slow to evolve racial sensibilities. From a very early age, I withstood taunts of “Aunt Jemima”, pulls on my braids intended to show my “real hair”, and insults from students and teachers alike, with the favorite being “Buckwheat” due to my hair’s tendency to stand up so straight you’d think my follicles themselves were stressed. My daily school experience was of avoiding the kids who threw rocks at me only to come back from recess to fight with my teachers about their racist views. By the time I was in high school I was writing about my experiences of race, inspired by Nikki Giovanni, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. I won an honorable mention from a USA Today writing racial justice content as a high school freshman and kept writing, hoping to create an invisible ring of protection that would keep my hope (and self) alive. I battled race at school, but when I went home, I didn’t go home to a Black home that welcomed me, but to a biracial one ruled by a mentally unstable, racist, biphobic and homophobic white Pentecostal pastor. At home I faced abuse of a different kind, most of which I kept secret for many years until taking a hammer to my own wall of silence. And at home too, I protested. I protested and called the police. I protested and called CPS. I protested and called for help, and when I couldn’t get it, I called RAINN, a hotline that helped me find a teen homeless shelter to stay in until I could feel safe at home again. These are the experiences of so many Black people: the loss of safety at home and abroad in their everyday lives, all-the-while experiencing the colonization of our bodies, appropriations of our culture, and the fragility of white people who refuse to dismantle their own supremacy in a world where it’s far too difficult to tell the difference between the GOP and the KKK. My background led me to raise my voice consistently for those unheard, and those kept at the margins. I’ve done that with blogging, writing, slam poetry, reality show appearances, stand-up comedy, and Black and bisexual community organizing. Everywhere I go I’ve been standing up for oppressed people, because before I knew the words and the mechanism for my own oppression, I knew the feeling. I knew the feeling of crying alone, desperate to end my own life because I couldn’t take another adult yelling the N word at me at 9 years old. I knew the feeling of being patted down and frequently profiled by police because that’s what walking down the street in San Luis Obispo, CA any damn day entailed. I knew what it was like to be raped because a boy thought he knew what a big breasted Black ten year old girl like me wanted. I have always known what it is like to be treated as a second class citizen in comparison to my peers. Still, racism can always find new ways to surprise you.Photo of #TheBlackPanel at #LGBTMEDIA16 handouts with a love note from ForHarriet.com’s Ashleigh Shackelford. Photo Credit: Faith CheltenhamRecently, I re-experienced the phenomenon of gaslighting racism which Black LGBT YA author Craig Gidney defines as a situation "where (mostly) (some) white people will twist themselves into logic pretzels to deny racism, even when it is obvious."We were about to begin #TheBlackPanel at #LGBTMedia16, an annual gathering of LGBTQ journalists, bloggers and media professionals. Our panel featured a rising star in discussions of race, New York Times columnist Charles Blow, alongside NBCNews.com contributor Danielle Moodie-Mills, and Vox.com’s Race and Identities editor Michelle Garcia. The panel was developed by myself, Sharif Durhams of the WashingtonPost.com and Matt Foreman of the Haas Foundation with the support of Bil Browning, founder of bilerico.com. We were the 2nd panel to go and as we gathered to get everyone settled, I turned around to find a wonderfully styled white woman invading my personal space to whisper to me how beautiful Charles Blow was and how much she loved him and could she have her picture right now, before everyone else because she was such a fan. Since we literally were about to start the panel, I asked her to wait and sit down so we could get started, which she did. As we began the panel and started having a really good and profound conversation, from the podium I noticed a rise in concerning behavior from the wonderfully styled white woman (we can call her WSWW for short). After the panel had begun, she got up and walked over to the panel table and put her phone down to tape. After a few minutes, she began to look concerned for her phone and she began to quietly crawl forward. The whole time I’m watching her, like WTF, are you literally crawling slowly forward towards our panel? And she kept crawling closer and closer. I admit it, at that point all I saw was WHITE PEOPLE. I was furious with the general lack of respect and disregard for the panelists and for myself as a moderator. When, from the moderator’s podium, I asked her to take her seat because I found it distracting, instead of nodding and moving back to her seat she began to argue with me about why it wasn’t a big deal for her to be there, and why I should just let it go and why it’s OK to tape things because “look, we have a celebrity”. In those statements, I felt a disregard for my own work and a general slight to my own experience as a journalist and a person who’s worked with high profile institutions like the White House or Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, a woman I’m proud to call a mentor. While it seemed like such a small thing, coupled with her previous invasion of personal space and her comments on her love for beautiful Black men, it just read racist and real racist at that. However, it won’t surprise you that the only support I felt in that room for my desire to stay on topic was from my fellow Black girl queers. As I struggled to “keep my eyebrows on”, I thought about  Black writer and The Nightly Show contributor’s Franchesca Ramsey’s run in with white queer women at The Sundance Film Festival and I took strength from looking Ashleigh Shackelford right in the face as she raised her eyebrows at Charles Blow for his apologies to the white woman of behalf of me, the Black woman who invited him to speak on the panel. In those moments of racial microaggressions, and in the moment when white tears threaten the ability for Black people to even discuss race, we all lose. All the LGBT people of color in attendance at #LGBTMedia16. Photo Credit: Cathy Renna/TargetCueI believe I pulled it together, and we were able to continue a meaningful conversation that multiple people later remarked being deeply impressed by during the public feedback session. As we ended the convening, I tapped WSWW on the shoulder and asked if we could speak. We went off to the side and had a difficult conversation, certainly for both of us. She, like myself, is bisexual and had been deeply influenced by Charles Blow’s discussions of sexual fluidity. She told me others had apologized to her for my “crazy” response to her being a fan girl, and she said she was worried for me since I had humiliated myself by bullying her.  Image of crying Peter Parker with caption, “White Boy Tears / I’m Offended Your Offended At that, a smile broke across my face, and I will never forget telling her “That’s OK, because you’re going to your grave having told a Black woman that she humiliated herself when she responded to your racism.” WSWW blanched at that, and swallowed hard when I followed up with a tearfully stated, “I call you racist to your face, and name your actions as racist”. As she teared up, she asked me how it could be racist just to bring her phone up to the panel. And I took her through the sequence of events from my perspective, and I asked her if she realized she had touched me, or if she realized she was in my space, attempting to lean across my body to reach Charles Blow, when we’d never even met before. Her eyes went WIDE, and she said, “Oh, my gosh. I totally invaded your space and I didn’t even think about it.” We talked about her “Black friends” in Oklahoma, and I told her that having Black friends doesn’t mean you’re actually invested in the movement for Black lives. We talked about her “love of Black people” and how that can be misconstrued into fetishization if one isn’t careful, especially when you begin crawling towards them with puppy dog eyes during a panel about race in America. We began to laugh with each other and I realized I really liked her even though I didn’t think she’d ever had the opportunity to learn how to respect a Black person like me, and culturally exchange with them instead of culturally appropriate from them. Image from Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for LGBT People of Color report by the Movement Advancement Project.That’s a responsibility, I feel should be left squarely at the feet of a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community that’s doggedly refused to dialogue about race in favor of reinventing racism in new flavors. I had to wonder if WSWW had been influenced at all by the #LGBTMEDIA16 keynote address the night before that found gay legend and filmmaker John Waters telling jokes about Freddie Gray’s broken back alongside Bill Cosby rape stories. In a rare move, the convening had asked the attendees to refrain from taking photos or video of John Water’s “address”, which was probably for the best, as I feel like someone could have lost their job just for listening to the atrocities that dropped from Waters’ mouth like little white nuggets of gay racism. Experiencing that, even briefly since I walked out early, was a form of racial trauma visited upon the people of color in the space, and for what? Since you’re gay and white, you’ve been hurt and can hurt people too? Since you’re a white gay man, you know what it’s like to fear police so Freddie Gray’s broken vertebrae is a good punchline when you’re feeling salty? Since you’re a white LGBTQ person, you have no problem stepping into photos where people of color are already posed together, with nary a thought as to whether they want you in the photo too? Since you’re a white lesbian, you’re a “sister” to Black women? Since you’re queer, you can culturally appropriate Black culture with a “SLAY!” or “YASSSSS QUEEN!” or “GIRL, GET IT!”? The six openly LGBT U.S. ambassadors, all white, all gay and all cis. Photo Credit: WashingtonPost.com/ (Blake Bergen/GLIFAA) Oh no, I think not!!! I call that racist too, and long past time for an end. It’s time for all people of color to see some basic levels of respect in the LGBTQIA community for who they are. So that means no more “Namaste!”, and it means dropping the “No Blacks, No Asians” from your dating profile. It means fighting just as hard for clean water for Native people as it does for the residents of Flint, MI, and shouting #Not1More to amplify the fight of Latinx immigrants. It means fighting #pinkwashing in all it's forms and it ABSOLUTELY means acknowledging the existence of dozens of cultural experiences and peoples still fighting to be heard. It also means that LGBT orgs should quit touting the numbers of people of color on staff, until the management reflects those colors too. When all the coordinators, service providers, and facility people are of color and all the management is white, it still looks like a plantation in my book! #GayMediaSoWhite that LGBT publishers shouldn't bother counting the magazine covers with people of color on them, if they aren't also counting the number of people of color on staff writing and editing in them. Until the day comes that the rainbow really reflects all of us, I will stand up against racism in LGBTQIA communities with whatever tools I have at my disposal. I will keep telling myself, and telling you too, that it is OK to cry, and BE MAD. We should be mad that our community does not support us! It is OK to protest white LGBT people, in fact one might argue it is our duty as their fellow queer, bi+ and trans* community members. We must do what needs to be done to find some respect for our voices and our bodies, and make clear that the LGBTQIA community is one that supports freedom for everyone, and not just for some.

[letgolovemyself]

SW: What would you say to the person who hurt you the most?

Dear Dad, 

Sometimes people ask me why I don’t hate you or why I still talk to you. I could never stop loving you, I think I love you more than I love most people. Some of my earliest memories is sitting with you in the car, while you smoked outside, going to work with you. It was me and you until Sam was born. Then I guess like every older child, I got jealous of Sam. You started buying things for Sam and didn’t give me anything. You always compared me to Sam. Said I was stupid, I wasn’t as talented, Sam got all your good qualities and I got all your bad right? Jesus Christ this is a painful ass post that I have been avoiding forever. You hurt me when you chose to focus on your career or the church rather than go to my school things. When you chose to drink and sleep instead of be there for me. You hurt me when mom went to everything with me and you were never there. You hurt me when I tried to connect with you and I was met with silence or criticism. You hurt me when you believed what other parents said about me instead of me. You hurt me when you said I should have been aborted at my 16th birthday. You hurt me when you yelled at me while you were having a heart attack and I still went to see you at the hospital. You hurt me when you didn’t care that a boy years older than me was using my body. You hurt me every time you went away for weekends and I didn’t exist to you. Every time you called me dramatic, every time you hit me when you were drunk, when you tried to break into my room with a hammer and left a hole in my door. When I had to bail you out of jail and explain to the cops that that wasn’t your car. When you didn’t say anything to Brendan after he treated me so badly. You hurt me by not being the dad that I deserved. When you walked away when I tried to kill myself. You hurt me every time you yelled at me, stared at me blankly, let me cry myself to sleep because of your actions. And you hurt me when you wrote one letter to me and Sam instead of writing one to us individually. You hurt me when I tried to convince mom to leave but it became my fault that I did that. You hurt me because my uncles were more there for me than you were. You hurt me the most because you chose to look past all my cries for attention because it was too hard on you. It hurt me when you were cheating on mom and I had to tell her. It hurt me all the times I watched my mother cry and I tried to be strong for her when I was not supposed to be the strong one. You hurt me by isolating us from the rest of our family because you take out your anger with your pride again and again. You called me a whore, you comment on my weight every time I see you, you tell me that Brendan used me, and his family never loved me. You never once thanked me for being there for Sam, for going to his school when he was being bullied, for teaching him how to drive, for teaching him how to shave. You never thanked me for going to the hospital for mom when you didn’t. You didn’t thank me for taking care of mom and Sam when you should have been there. Now you wonder why I can’t take care of myself, why I date guys that don’t love me, why I seek validation from shitty friends, why I can’t keep a job, why I have a substance abuse problem... I wanted you so badly to love me. I wanted you to care about me so badly. I wanted you to be there. The only love I am used to from a man is being ignored, being name called, not being valued, being told I am not a good person, begging for someone’s love, staying no matter what. I know you say you love me and that you don’t love anyone else in the world as much as you love me. And maybe that’s true, suddenly you are a good father. But for probably 23 years of my life, you were not a good dad. Mom was my dad and my mom. But she had so many problems and burdens of her own, she could not always and didn’t always know how to take care of me. And I can’t take your love now, you were holding me and crying and telling me how you love me and can’t see me hurt, but I didn’t care because it doesn’t mean anything to me. I needed a father that was there, that cared, that didn’t call me names, that didn’t tell me I was a mistake. I’m trying so hard to love you and forgive you and I feel like sometimes I have, but writing this I have cried so many times because I just realized the reason I want to be loved so badly by a man and seek validation from everyone is because I wanted yours so badly. When I closed my eyes the other day and pictured the person who hurt me the most, it was you. It is you. You have hurt me more than every other person in my life. I thought the most painful thing I ever experienced was this abandonment and breakup with Brendan, but it is the ongoing pain I feel from years of neglect and abuse from you. And I have been wondering for almost two months now why I was so abusive and so toxic to Brendan and I realized I speak to him and treated him the way you treated me!!!! You yelled at me, belittled me when I was crying, said my feelings weren’t valid, borderline made fun of me for having emotions, you gaslighted me, you ignored me, you called me names... I am both letting someone treat me the way you treated me while also treating people the way you treated me!!! I can’t even believe that this is a breakthrough that I am experiencing. But as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult, I wondered why I was not deserving of your love, your presence, and your support. Now I know I do deserve love, I can’t just take the love that I am used to.