I'm angry. I come back to anger whenever I try to think about the community. It was fear before - perhaps a lot of it still is, but anger feels more apt just now. I'm not really sure what's better.
Fear crippled me, made me hid from others, isolate myself. Its fear of what I am and fear that others will see what I am. Fear that I can't be myself, that I wont be accepted. I was recently given the term "rejection sensitive dysphoria" - to me basically meaning that I'm so crippled by the fear that I'll be rejected by people that I don't have the capacity to put myself out there at all.
Anger feels better. It feels more powerful. I know that sounds narcissistic and unhealthy, but I find it hard to see it that way. I'm angry because I feel wronged, not just because I am wrong. In anger at least I find some self worth. I can accept I did wrong and messed up, but also believe that I didn't deserve to be treated the way I have been. I'm allowed to be hurt. I'm allowed to dislike my suffering, and those I feel wronged me.
I know I have to work through anger the same as I would have to work through fear. I dont' want to stay in a state of anger, but at least it's better for me. I don't want to be here, but here is better than where I was.
People have wronged me, and my feelings towards them are my own. I don't want to make them anyone else’s problem, but I also don't see why I should force myself to overcome these feelings prematurely when no one did that for me.
The people who I'm angry with; at best they abandoned me during the hardest part of my life. At worst they took the parts of me that I was already ashamed of, was working on, and trusted them with in vulnerability and used those things against me, making my weaknesses and hurts public knowledge. My trust was betrayed by people who promised me fidelity and safety. I'm not really sure how to get past that.
Others chose to share their problems with me, things that I want to know so I can make amends and do better, with others before talking to me. It was "emotional labor" for them to express concerns to me, but to spread them around like social poison took no effort at all. And the other "friends" who heard their reports had no problem sharing them until a reputation is established. A reputation no one came to me to ask about.
It's odd because I do want to forgive some of them: those who said they were my friends, then vanished and pretended like I didn't exist when the parts of me I'm least proud of were made public. Hell, even the person who said they didn't hate me - though they withheld forgiveness for my mistakes against them, and chose to make public those mistakes - to an extent. Others who have uninvited me from events and added to the ostracization I feel, maybe.
Some of them, it feels better to hate: the "Community leader" who said they were my friend and reassured me that the community was a safe place, who then took the word of my blackmailer and abuser - who waited to reach out to me until they had already made up their mind that I needed to publicly suffer for my mistakes, approached me under the guise of being concerned for my mental health and took things I said in vulnerable confidence to them - as a "friend" - and made them public, out of context. Also the person who spread their opinion of me as a "fuckboy" as fact, even though I have never yet been to an event with them where they didn't have plans to beat, fuck, or even fist a new person. (I wonder how my fear filled bids for affection and connections are fuckboy behavior, but actively approaching every femme person in our community asking to do sexual play at the next event, even if that femme isn't sure is acceptable?)
Some I still fear: the people I said genuinely dumb, insensitive, or offensive things to - I see why they would hate me, and I don't hold their rejection against me. I expect that sort of rejection from everyone at this point, and they have .
Yet the path do dealing with any of these complicated feelings towards any of them is unclear to me. Do I just pretend that the negative feelings don't exist where I can? Do I hold onto the feelings? What is the path back? What is the path to being whole that doesn't involve constantly apologizing, not just for mistakes - I'm ok with apologizing for those - but for myself?
I feel thats what I have to do: apologize for myself - for existing as me, for not knowing what "me" is exactly, for having to grow, for not being enough. Fuck that. I don't have to apologize for being myself. I'll own up for what I've done wrong, and where I need to grow because I DO need to grow. I have been actively trying to better myself and had been before those I trusted decided to make the mistakes I was recovering from into everyone's business. But who I am doesn't need explaining, justifying, or forgiveness. Its just me.
I am still growing, still figuring out, and still recovering. Thats ok. Fuck everyone else if they can't respect that. I'm worth more. I deserve more. And I want to do the work necessary to get it.
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