7:30 p.m. - 12/01/02
further ado.
dear people who want to be my parents,
the greatest thing I have is my recovery: my life, my identity, the essence of me and the strength of who I've learned to be. this is the greatest gift in my life, the most sustaining piece of my existence, and tonight I was so frantic in the pain of living here that I thought I wanted to throw it away. I had a plan, actually, for doing so. get sick again, go to the hospital... by the time I get out, I will be ready to be on my own (i.e. I'll be 18), and then I will never have to live inside your bullshit again. I was ok overlooking the idea that I might not be able to pull out of this again, that we have no money for the hospital, and that I could die before I manage to get back to where I am. I was ok throwing the best part of my life away because I hate it here so much. and that scares me.
you know what? you don't deserve this. you don't deserve the power to take away who I am and how far I've come. you don't deserve to decide how I feel or how much I love myself. you don't deserve to live with me when you never learned how to love me properly, when you refuse to take care of yourselves. I am sorry for everything you've been through. I'm sorry that my grandparents were no fun to live with either, that you got married too young and feel trapped, that you don't know who you are or feel fulfilled or know how to negotiate a marital relationship. I understand that you're human, and your lives suck, but I'm tired of having to be a part of that. I'm tired of feeling guilty for making you put up with my illness, when I developed it largely in response to being here. I love you, and you know that, even though you act like I don't prove it enough, but I am tired of this. I have tried so hard to be myself in spite of you, thinking that if I can maintain my identity here, I will always be able to do so. But there's no reason to test that. I can maintain my identity anyway, and I will never again have to live with people who hurt me the way that you do. I will never again have to put up with a home this toxic. So why am I learning how to do it?
you know what? I'm really angry. I mean really, honestly angry. and I don't like that you expect me to get over that so quickly, or that you minimize what I'm feeling into something stupid like I'm struggling with food. I don't like that you frustrate me to tears, and then I don't eat dinner because I can't stand to be in the room. you don't deserve to steal this away from me, this best thing that I've ever had. the only way I can survive being brought up by you is to hang onto what I've gained in spite of it. I can't let you take that away.
I said once at Rogers that as crazy as you are there is one thing I will always be grateful to you for: you sent me there. You. It was your suggestion, your choice, and your gas money. I chose Rogers but you chose residential. And I will always be grateful for that gift. Maybe that's all I'll be grateful for, but it's something. It's a huge something; it's what's given me the life I'm afraid of losing now. The life you don't deserve to ruin with your power. I love you, but I'm not owned by you. I deserve better support, better friends, better guides, better loves, better home. I deserve better than all of this, and I don't have to throw away my life (again) to get it. I don't, I won't, I can't.
so what are we going to do? because I'm not putting up with it any longer. I'm not putting up with you not knowing how to be with me or waiting for you to discover yourselves enough to feel safe relating. I'm done. I'm done with being a Lastname. I'm done with all that you taught me to think. I have a long way to go in releasing it, but I'm done learning anything new. I'm done believing it. I have a lot of work to do before I don't believe, but I refuse to actively participate in your world anymore. I'm going to the Round World, like Stacy said I would. I realize now that the Flat World is largely your creation; I embellished the world whose roots you set...and I don't want a part of it anymore.
I want: friends, who touch me gently and with love, who stay with me when things are rough, but only so long as I ask them to, who don't attempt to manipulate my feelings, who support my life within and beyond our friendship, who know who they are and feel secure in their own process, who are able to resolve conflict without becoming 2-yr-olds, who allow me to be all these things to them. I want it, without any more waiting. Without any more daydreaming. I'm sick of wanting; I want to make it real.
these days, I do so little because I expect that so much will change when I have a home to do my evolving in. I need to be home so I can see what's left to do. I need to be home because I need to learn how to do that. I know I don't want this. I know I can survive it another year. I know I can keep eating, keep feeling, keep hating the circumstance. but is that really the best I can have right now? survival and the ability to maintain myself in spite of them? I'm so sick of fantasies. of thinking I'll run away, or I'll go stay with so-and-so, or I'll be adopted by a kindly acquaintance with gentle eyes. I've spent so many years waiting to be saved, and this time all I want is help in saving myself. this time all I want is a legitimate plan. something that says this is how we make it out of here. I want a schedule, and a promise, and something to believe in.
I almost threw away the only good thing I have ever had, the best I've ever felt about myself, fledgling as it is. and I just don't want to have reason to consider that ever again. I know I can survive it. I'm sick of having to.
~Mary Brave
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