and the pigs who work the pool 'cos they never went to school, they're fool enough to make fun of their little cake maker

 There has been something I have been thinking about a LOT lately.

(....also, is it a faux pas to quote your own song? It's an unreleased song, but still.)

This entry briefly references stalking, CSA, incompatible  psych meds, and toxic behaviours. If that's not for you, I will just see you next time!

The above photo is from a little later than when the story I will tell took place. I don't have very many photos from that time period. That period was behind me when this photo was taken. This photo is from 2011. The things I am about to talk about happened from roughly 2005 to 2010.

As previously stated on numerous other occasions, I have a history of being bad with boundaries. This, of course, is a hallmark of someone who had has their boundaries repeatedly exploited (in my case CSA, being stalked for almost 20 years, family with bad boundaries, normalized abuse, etc.). This is not an "excuse," it's context and explanation. I am not justifying it, but I am saying it did not exist in a vacuum. I was both bad at not setting my own boundaries, and being invasive of other people's boundaries. This is something I fully recognize, and have spent a lifetime working on. 

People don't have to like it. People don't have to forgive me. But it's something that happened and it can't be undone, and the best we can do as human beings is to acknowledge when we do bad things or hurt others and to not do it again. 

One of the other things that I think is very important is looking at a full picture, complete with inconvenient truths--even if that's uncomfortable.

I'll give a really embarrassing example.

It's around 2006 to 2007.

I had an incredibly mutually toxic friendship with someone for many years. I could not accept that the friendship was over, and I was worried about this person a lot because they engaged in multiple risky behaviours. It was a toxic and co-dependent friendship, and we needed to stay away from each other. I could not stay away from this person. We had many mutual friends, which also made the situation very difficult. It was sick, and toxic, and sad, and this was an issue for both of us. 

The person in question worked at a public place, and I would go in and visit them at their workplace--even after the friendship ended. I would wait for them there, bring them things once a week--even after the friendship long had ended. It eventually evolved into me bringing food and cake for the whole workplace once a week.

One week, one of the other employees pulled me aside and told me that everyone was making fun of me behind my back. Laughing about how I was "creepy," and "pathetic." How much they "felt sorry for [me]."---and all the while they stuffed their piggy faces with the spaghetti and cake I made them.

I thanked this person for telling me.

I took my dirty pan home, and I never went back.

They all asked about me.

They wondered why I stopped coming.

They wondered where their cake went.

I should have understood that the friendship was over. I should have understood that this person didn't want me to still come to see them at their work. I should have understood that they didn't want me to take classes with them. I should have understood a lot of things. But I didn't. It's not that I am not good at social cues, I am just not good at inauthentic or inconsistent social cues. I am not good at not understanding things that aren't clear--but are also blurred on purpose. 

Let me be perfectly clear: I have a history of being bad at boundaries, but I have also had those lines blurred and my inability to decipher them appropriately exploited for personal gain. I violated other people's boundaries unknowingly, because up until that point, none of my boundaries had ever been respected.

I don't think I am a blameless angel. I don't think that I am ever not at fault.  But I also don't think that's it's fair to categorize instances like the cake debacle as me just being some "creepy girl when I was directly being exploited. If you don't like something or someone or something that someone does, be the adult and use your fucking words. If you're going to tell 'the truth,' tell the whole truth.

(I know some idiot will read this and accuse me of admitting to [whatever] or calling it 'DARVO' or 'victim blaming' ---seriously, I hate the co-opting and misuse of therapy-speak, it needs to STOOOPPPP. We want people to be "unproblematic" without any work to get there. We want absolutes and zero nuance. Human beings are complicated and flawed--whether we want them to be or not.)