Fuck Surviving I Want LIBERATION.

a survivor against survival. this is a space to process and share experiences of madness, trauma, violence, accountability, care and liberation. there's a lot of lost community wisdom about transformative justice so i'm trying to share what i'm learning while learning it... and barely surviving.

[againstsurvival]

When you tell me a label of someone or a label of their behaviour or a label of their beliefs without providing me with any information as to what they did or said that led you to this conclusion, then I don't have enough information to form my own belief or opinion... and that's fine I take a lot with a grain of salt anyway. But if you're expecting me to take some sort of action, then I need more information so I can make an informed decision. I cannot be who I am in community if I'm supposed to think half the people in it are bad people who I should be avoiding because someone told me they're bad. If that upsets you, then please consider this, someone has told me that you're bad and that I should stay away from you too. And guess what, I assessed the information and then spoke to you directly and evaluated for myself that the other people's judgement of you was ignorant and uncalled for. I can't live by deferring to people's judgements of each other and unthinkly comply with the demands of every grieved party.

[mournfulroses]

María Casares, from a letter to Albert Camus, featured in Correspondance, 1944-1959

[againstsurvival]

We got couples counseling and family counseling, can we get a friends and community circle counselor too please?

[againstsurvival]

Another thing I learned:

I can actually tell the difference between someone hurting me or exerting some form of control as some misguided protective effort because they care about my wellbeing and someone doing the same thing but because of misguided perception that my best interest are competing with their interests.

[againstsurvival]

Mornings are the hardest. I wake up every day feeling like I just got up after a thorough beat down. I ache and groan and wail and replay the events in my head until I can muster a sliver of will to claw my way back to life. I spend the rest of the day stumbling around, two parts inside me fighting between the overwhelming desire to collapse into giving up and survival instincts desiring to live life... until a stalemate is reached. Then repeat the next day.

[againstsurvival]

I just remembered that I actually didn't like you very much when I first met you. Obviously inherent to your position but also because of your face. Your face seemed too me as expressionless, as if I was talking to a wall which obviously doesn't have emotions... or so it seemed. I didn't like that your face made you so unreadable. I began to crush on you as I began to witness the depth of your emotions. I began to fall in love with you as I started to fully see your face. I saw cracks in the wall that you've tried to cover up but couldn't. I saw your joy in particular wrinkles of your nose. I saw an endless capacity for love in the glints of your eyes. I saw anger in the pulsating veins on your forehead and in the clenching of your jaw. I saw pain in the quiver of your chin. I can't unsee that and I'm amazed that I ever thought your face was unreadable because now I can see the depth and full range of your emotions on your face like that wall had somehow turned into an ocean full of wonder and magic and beauty and sadness and rage and most of all love. I would never want to turn away from looking at your face. I can understand both the mercy of not seeing you in grief and the cruelty of being able to imagine what an ocean might look like if its molecules were suddenly deprived of hydrogen. I wish I could teleport directly to you with some hydrogen and tobacco leafs.

[againstsurvival]

The phrase "ACAB but..." needs to be retired for good. I swear to god if anyone else says it to me I will follow them around just to yell BLEEEEP every time they open their mouth. Gaaaahhhh!!!!

[againstsurvival]

"TJ (Transformative justice) requires that we stretch our capacity for love and dignity wider and wider, until we are able—individually and collectively—to include nothing less than all of life."

—Nathan Shara, Beyond Survival

[againstsurvival]

Things I'm proud of:

It killed me to see you in so much pain and crushing shame for what you did to me. A part of me wanted to pretend this never happened to release you from that pain and honestly to be with you again. But I fucking didn't and that's a win. It took a lot to not fall into the whole not fawning is cruel trap and I fucking stood my ground or pivoted when I faltered.

[againstsurvival]

"The response to a perceived lack of interest from other people should not be handled through the invocation of a supposed right, but by fitting one's attitude to the circumstance."

—Juan Carlos, Relationship Anarchy

[againstsurvival]

I hate how much I miss talking to you.

[againstsurvival]

They say it's important to do the right thing even if you lose. I'm starting to realize that you can't lose yourself in doing the right thing and when you don't, you may gain something but will always lose yourself. I wish I was more afraid of losing myself than losing someone else. Another thing you gain by owning up to your shit, is that you get to see people with masks off and see faulty relational foundations revealed. You may lose people, but you certainly get to get a good look at who exactly is walking away.

[againstsurvival]

There's a theory that all human communication is about negotiating reality. Fine. But when that negotiation becomes about the extent to which my body is mine or how human I am, then that's no longer a negotiation of reality. That's when it becomes a process of domination, power and authority that entrenches the status quo. I will no longer negotiate with that shit, I'm here to destroy power not bargain with it.

[againstsurvival]

Reminder to self: there are very few things that you could give me that I can't give to myself. And even those things that I can't give to myself are things that are actually collective endeavours that I can receive somewhere else, like literally anytime someone unlearns a violent behaviour I will get to receive and benefit and heal.

[no-borders-no-nations]

[againstsurvival]

Or even in your pea sized brain

[againstsurvival]

I repeatedly told you that I don't expect you to be perfectly accountable. I offered compassion and patience along with guidance on working up the accountability ladder. I never told you that your imperfect efforts don't impact me. I didn't pretend that they didn't gut me. I didn't pretend that I could handle this on my own. So how could you expect me to be a perfect survivor who manages through this whole process on their own without ever hurting you or making any mistakes? You of all people should know that those surviving harm are capable of harming and hurting others. If you expect and consume compassion for violating someone's body, you better be willing to offer them the same compassion, curiosity and unconditional value if they bite back. Otherwise what you're doing isn't accountability at all.

[againstsurvival]

If you're too afraid to fully recognize someone you love did something awful, then you're likely afraid to acknowledge the awful things you have done.

If your impulse to finding out someone you love or hold in high regard is to shield them from accountability, then you likely employ the same impulses and mechanisms to resist self accountability.