Connect me Over to the other side Your strange music Like lucid dreams

I've been wearing these child-size Mickey Mouse Crocs since last week because I hurt my back and can't reach down to fasten my clogs :( It's the little things to keep my afloat right now

In the US, we have a three day weekend coming up. I made a few reservations for the Walt Disney Family Museum and the SF Zoo for Sunday. I will also be dropping off my renewal for my membership whilst I am there.

But, if I can be perfectly honest, I am almost too scared to do anything. 

I am too scared to go anywhere.

I know that we "can't live in fear," but the news and the world say other things. These people also don't spend hours at a time alone and vulnerable on public transit.

I've also spent the vast majority of my life living in fear.

Trigger and content warnings in place before proceeding. 

I don't understand why so many people in my life are so shitty about this.

I can't believe so many people in my life continue to mock my very clear and obvious trauma responses of over-planning, list-making, and not wanting to loiter, even though exactly why I am like this.

My question is why are YOU like this? 

No, really, I am fucking serious--why are YOU like this? 

One of the things about Covid that I can never and will never fucking get over is how so much of it set off trauma responses in my brain about constantly feeling unsafe that really socked my to the depth of my core. No, I am not sympathetic towards and will not validate those who worked from home trying to lengthen themselves getting to stay home to those who were essential and frontline workers, and having it "just as hard."  The inconvenience at worst is in no way comparable to being constantly exposed to the virus, to long hours because transit isn't working, being stalked/followed/ attacked/ assaulted/ and flashed on the way to work every day for over a year. (I love my job, and this isn't about that--it's about how we were systemically failed.)

My family has never given a single fucking shit about my safety or my well-being, and all of those residual traumas came back up to the surface during Covid, when they showcased that they would rather not be inconvenienced rather than keep me safe. But my entire fucking life has always been like this.

 And I try to not make these tragedies about me, that's not what I am saying. If you have in any way, shape or form any kind of trauma related to safety or lack of safety, these are going to cause you to spiral. It's just what your brain does.

I am going to  tell you the following not so that you feel sorry for me. I am going to tell you the following so that you understand.

The first 18 years of my life, I was not safe. I was not safe for  99% of my existence. I was born into abject poverty and domestic violence, I was neglected, and when I wasn't neglected, I was being violently physically and sexually abused. When my parents divorced, I had to deal with constant break ins, and being stalked by my biofather at school. I was also viciously bullied and beat up by my classmates. My teachers and the school administration did nothing about this. One of the only places I felt remotely safe was school, but looking back on it, I didn't actually feel safe at school. My grandma was my school cook, so I guess my feelings of safety are connected to that and hanging out with her.

My middle school was right under where my biofather and his mother lived, so he would watch from the balcony and stalk me all day whilst I was at school. It wasn't until a couple of years ago when I learned people who could have done something about simply didn't. My safety would have been an inconvenience . I was also relentlessly stalked by my biofather in high school. I was unable to hang out with my friends, go to the grocery store, the library, the park--anywhere. I lived in constant fear of break ins, and I still do.

This is what I don't understand--people know all of this about me, and they still make fun of my trauma responses to things. Why they still make "jokes" about throwing my lists out of car windows. Why they still mock my having to pack for vacations weeks or even months in advance. Why still treat me not being able to deal with assault or violence in media, not being able to go anywhere without an escape plan, why I always have to have enough money for getting out of somewhere in an emergency, etc. as being "unreasonable" or being a "baby." 

What part is there not to understand? 

IDK,  apparently, everything about it is too fucking hard to understand. we never know how things are going to effect us or not, and I think we need to stop shaming people who have trauma responses elicited from things like losing theme park attractions or Harry Potter and start going after the folks who created them in the first place. But why get to the root of the problem, when you can just bully people with trauma?

My point is, these traumatic events that are so deeply connected to out ideas and our needs for safety being so unceremoniously shit on in ways that are one million percent the fuck preventable. For people who spent their entire lives feeling safe, I know this can be a shock, and I am not shaming anyone for it--but I am shaming your lack of empathy. And I mean real empathy, not virtue signalling.

Just get out there and be excellent to each other, my dudes, it does not have to be this way.