I have to talk about this.

Sometimes I am so scared that every "bad thing" I have ever done will be brought up to haunt me if I have even so much as a modicum of success. Not because I fear my livelihoods taken away. Because for me, I think about how I may have harmed others.  Even if it was unintentionally,  even if if it was a simple misreading a situation or not thinking before I speak, I still did it. As someone who is very mindful about their words and considers others first,  I always want to do the right thing. But I have made mistakes. I have not always done the right thing.

It's not just the things that I've said, intentional or not, it's the things people have said I did that I didn't do. I know that these projections are their problem,  and have nothing to do with me.

I have been haunted by the things that have been done to me, lies that were told about me, and lies that were told about things that were done to me. How it didn't happen,  how I lied about it, about how it was all just foe attention.  Ignoring,  of course, the boxes and boxes of court documents in the closet chronicling and substantiating everything I've talked about.  The medical records.  The school records. The court records.

I get scared about my past of mental illness being weaponized against me. You'd think the world would be beyond weaponizing the actions of a mentally ill child being forced medications against their will, but, you know. We aren't. 

I get scared in a world of dog piling and the intentional seeking misinterpretation and misunderstanding that someone will intentionally find something I said they don't like. Maybe it's my impatience with addicts, ignoring that other people's addictions ruined my life or that I was trafficked as a toddler to fuel someone else's addiction. Maybe it's my impatience with people who self-diagnose and invent symptoms of conditions making it harder for others to be heard. Maybe it's my essay I wrote in my high school news paper about the socialist screen writer of a certain Disney film. The people who want to misunderstand you will. They want to. People are committed to misunderstanding you because they want it to be true, and they think that if they say it enough that it will be.

Sometimes I am so scared that every "bad thing" I have ever done will be brought up to haunt me if I have even so much as a modicum of success because there have been people who have a demonstrated history of lying and jealousy over trivial things-- calculated lies as children could turn into more heinous lies as adults. Nothing makes my brain spiral like lies.

I saw a video on TikTok about how certain people get targeted their entire life because their light threatens others. I feel like for a lot of my life, this has what's happened. I do feel as though I've been a lot of folks' Bitch Eating Crackers for breathing wrong, foe daring to exist and fall outside of the Pity Friend or the Pity Peer paradigm. I absolutely think that's happened most of the time

But not all of the time. 

I care about all of these things because I care about the way that my actions effect other people.  I care about what kind of effect I leave on the world. I care how I move through the world.  I care about how I interact with others. I care about how things I do effect others. I don't care if other people do bad things,  worse or more evil things than me, on purpose,  no less. Just because they choose to do bad things unmitigated does not mean that I want or have to be that way.

I make hundreds of mistakes a day. I miscalculate my steps and trip,  I take the incorrect train instead of just waiting for the other one, I get too comfortable with people and accidentally trauma dump, I swear too much,  I have one sided antagonistic relationships with people I ride public transit with,  I can be mean for no reason, make secret judgements against people,  get mad first and then calm down but not before I said something stupid. It goes on and on and on. The difference between me and maybe someone else/ other people is I recognize those as mistakes I have to deal with.

I don't leave them for other people. They are not everyone else's problem.

I also recognize that a lot of my experiences--from over apologizing, to believing that everything I do is bad, "I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it," et. al. etc. from having it be thrust upon me my entire life. I am trying. Imperfectly, but trying. Trying to navigate what is actually my fault and what's not. Trying to navigate what people want me to take responsibility for that is not my fault and that I have nothing to do with. You know, being made out to be a monster for standing up for myself, etc.

I fear things I have no control over. I fear from previous experiences dealing with things being weaponized against me--things I had no control over, things that were made my fault that were not my fault, me steadfastly refusing to just take fucked up things that had happened to me lying down. I fear the unknown. I fear people who don't know me who want to believe the bad things grandstanding on them. I fear ways also in which I may have hurt others that I don't remember.

I fear so many things I can't foresee or can't control, but I also fear the vindictiveness of others with a demonstrated history of those who have shown how and who they can be if someone they don't think deserves to fall outside of the "pity" narrative experiences even so much as a modicum of success, let alone happiness.

And I know that there are people out there who have done "much worse" but that does not mean I don't have to talk about it or  hold myself accountable for it. If those people who don't want to don't want to, that's on them, not me. I am not them, nor do I wish to be like them.