#yet i haven’t gotten even an ounce of that disrespect myself

[jaysen-vor-hee-hees]

*clears throat*

Trans women do not have it easier.

Trans women are not just a fetish.

Trans women can be asexual.

Trans women are not ‘begging for attention’.

Trans women are not ‘asking for it’.

Trans women are just as equal as trans men.

Trans women are just as equal as cis women.

Trans women are just as equal as literally anybody.

Trans women deserve respect.

Trans women deserve rights.

Trans women deserve to feel safe.

Trans women are women. If you cannot wrap your head around that; get off my fucking blog.

[confessions-official]

old news because mother’s day was months ago but i earnestly cannot fucking believe that my father admitted to my mother that he didn’t get her anything for mother’s day because he was afraid of how she would react without her coming to any sort of realization. i cannot believe that she initiates frequent (monthly? biweekly?) screaming fits at him where she slams doors and stomps and throws things without an ounce of introspection. in fact, it’s always my father who’s the one to apologize after the fact, to which she always tells him to fuck off because she’s still simmering. what does it take? should i have told her that i was also scared of how she would react when i texted her the morning of mother’s day? when am i next going to have the chance to tell her that i am afraid of her? when does she get to know the extent of which i am hyper vigilant of her moods? i wake up moments before arguments break out, no matter when in my sleep cycle i am or how little sleep i’ve gotten, and i can only assume it’s because my body preempts that there’s something worth being alert about. i’ve had recurring dreams where i’ve had to grovel for her forgiveness while she laughed at me or refused to look at me. she gave me the silent treatment for a week when i was sixteen years old because i dared to send her an article saying that misgendering your transgender child is a way of disrespecting them. i still remember that her immediate response was that i have no idea what disrespect is, and that she was too tired to deal with this. there were more cruel texts following; i don’t remember the contents.

we’re both adults. adults communicate. they should be able to, anyway. (she once told me that humans reply in words, not grunts, because she was unhappy with how quiet i was. this was couched in a long text paragraph about how awful i make her feel, which i woke up to after i told her i would prefer to clean my room myself instead of having her help, a statement she took as me banning her from my room. often i wonder how much less confrontational i could have phrased it.) i don’t think that she understands that she makes it an unsafe environment to communicate.

i can’t understand it. i would feel better if i could at least understand her psychology. my running theory is that she is overcompensating for having been blamed for everything in her youth and now she cannot accept when she is actually at fault (even if she claims that she can). but then the truly baffling things, like not eating all day and then getting angry with my father for her having not eaten… it’s not like there’s not food in the house, and it’s not like she’s not being offered anything, or that there’s no variety… and whatever she asks for, she’ll get. i really don’t understand.

one of their arguments i overheard at maybe one or two in the morning had her arguing “if you saw a person bleeding out in the road, would you ask them what they wanted/how to help them or would you just get help?” or something to that effect. but she acts like it’s obvious what she wants. or needs. yet she’s been asked, point blank, what she wants, but never do i hear a concrete response to that. i’m really wracking my brain for what it is that she thinks is so obvious. i just feel like i’m fundamentally missing something that would fix or explain whatever is happening.

and it’s not like the other parties involved are entirely without fault, myself included. but this can’t be the way it’s supposed to be…

am i coming at this from the wrong angle, trying to make logical sense of it? is this just an extended stress response? untreated mental illness? i know she used to be medicated; i don’t know what happened with that. she used to be in therapy; don’t know what happened with that either.

there has to be something i’m missing. but if i haven’t clocked it after years of this, what is it? am i blinded by spite? is it me who lacks empathy?

i just can’t wrap my mind around any of it. as an addendum, i always think that it’s not that bad and that all of this can hardly be counted as traumatic, but then i was triggered by the dinner scene in hereditary and the christmas episode of the bear (with jamie lee curtis), so… maybe that counts for something.