orphan.

i remember the first time i seriously considered that my abandonment had left me with me some sort of emotional scars.

it was just a couple of years ago. before The Ex and i split, but right towards the end. i was at a poetry performance in the Cat in the Cream. i don’t remember the poet’s name, but i remember she was there as part of Latin@ heritage month. she was talking to an ex-lover, saying something about how when you say you need air and leave the room i see my father leaving. and it made me think about how it felt when people left my life, or threatened to. the panic that set in. the way i approached all of my relationships, always giving too much too soon just to keep people around.

it didn’t help that The Ex preyed on that. would push me just far enough so i would do whatever he wanted, just to keep him from leaving. but that was a pattern long before he came around. i could never trust my surroundings, or feel secure in anyone’s favor. always had to push harder, try harder, do more, give more, be more.

today, i want to be so far from those days. but when something feels good, i just wait for it to end. i just wait for that person to have enough of me. to give up on me. i don’t want to say that i don’t believe i deserve love or happiness or anything, that sounds too cheezy, simple. it’s more that i think i am just too much for people to handle or want to deal with. i’ve always been too much. i’m too much drama. too much damage. too much crazy. people either try to manipulate that and use me, or eventually they tire of dealing with me, realize i have nothing to offer them they couldn’t get easier elsewhere. and they leave.

so i push. i push and push and push. i don’t know what my hope is. maybe that the person will show their true colors and abandon me, like everyone else, and it will happen sooner rather than later. before i’m too attached. before i need them too much. maybe i’m pushing and pushing hoping that when someone doesn’t leave me i can trust that they care. but, that’s probably too pretty a thought. i think i push to make myself so pitiful or sad or pathetic that someone can’t leave me in a clear conscience. something about being needed. something about being disposable.

i think to say i have “abandonment” issues doesn’t really cut it. in this, i think like an orphan. and yes, this has been exploited in the past, all of that adds up, it doesn’t make it any easier. but i’m still an orphan.

and today, these days, sitting in the house of my childhood, the house that witnessed my near destruction hundreds of times, this house, this place, these people…it only aggravates these wounds. i’m so out of context, so far away from all those things that i call comfort. how could i not be lost to uncertainty after so many days, so much trauma implicit in this space.

and what would otherwise be healing splits open again…all the pain of history let loose to cut and burn and pull apart this place that i have found, the level earth, the laughter and love and desires that mean everything to me because they feel good and safe for the first time in a quarter century of living.

bad blogger.

i suspect that some people are just not cut out for this blogging thing.

i suspect that i am one of them.

i often have things to say. but linguistic brevity is not one of my strong suits. i have a hard time settling on a point. doesn’t make for the best in web commentary, i suppose.

but i’m going to try again! i think i’ve grown more articulate of late, at least in terms of expressing the personal-as-political. i’m curious to see where my particular blend of thought can go, if i force it onto the page from time to time.

often, i’m thinking but not ready to write a poem. so i think that this is where i will house those in-between passages – scrolls of sorting, brainstorming, processing.

yes. a process blog. trying again.

awkward.

being over here, thrust into a foreign world (literally and figuratively) has forced me to take a good long look at my social skills.

it doesn’t look good.

i’ve been saying for years that oberlin has made me more awkward. and certainly, that is true. but i also have to consider how isolated i was in teh years between highschool and re-entering college. as all the people from my past faded away, there was no one new to keep me interacting. the ex isolated me – the few people i did spend time with back then, he always had an opinion about it…and he also kept me believing in my own hopelessness and worthlessness…which itself was a deterrent for social interaction.

around new people i talk so much about oberlin, my housemates, my nephews, my cat. it’s a pretty narrow world but it’s the first world i’ve known that doesn’t hurt. i must sound stupid, or pathetic, or like i’ve lived under a rock my whole life. but that’s not the case. it’s just that so much has changed, and so suddenly. everything that came before this last year is dark, and complicated, and i don’t know how to think about it. how to talk about it. how to treat it. i’m in the midst of processing it all…and there’s just no way to think about it that isn’t convoluted and dizzying and alienating.

normally when i meet new people i feel like i have to pour out my entire life story or else have it be  only a superficial acquaintance. but even though i want to trust, and i want to be known…i’m also learning the art of self-preservation. and so more often than not i clam up, for fear. most people don’t invite long-winded confessions and stories of life disaster like myself. and i guess, that makes me feel even more isolated. makes me turn even more to oberlin and the narrow but wonderful life that i have there. the life that began there. the life that makes sense and feels healthy. the life that sustains me and soothes me and just feels good, even when it’s bad or hurtful or stressful i manage with a calm i didn’t know was possible.

i get ahead of myself these days. i stumble. i do not succeed socially. and it can be frustrating. or disheartening. or just…awkward. but i have a feeling, i have a hope that there’s a learning curve…and someday i will overtake it. oberlin is certainly not the ideal locale to re-learn socialization. but it’s given me so much more…i’ll forgive that shortcoming.

once i graduate, move out, move on, new city…then i’ll be okay.

right?

poser.

it’s no secret that i’m bipolar. it’s no secret because there is no reason for shame. i embrace the diagnosis because it helps me make sense of my experiences, and it helps explain to others why sometimes i do and feel what i do. i take medication because it helps. but i also live my life with an understanding of what crip theory and disability studies have to say on the matter. i want to make that clear, because i know it’s controversial. but it’s true. if i am ill-equipped to live in the world it is not because of my own biological defect – it is a system failure. it is a society that only values limited ways of existence, and pathologizes those of us who lie outside that narrow construction of normal.

i’ve lived this, and i’ve lived it hard. i might be young but a third of my life has been in treatment, and practically everything else in struggle, in crisis. and i’ve encountered all sorts of responses because of it. there are the people who sold me out to wash their hands of any responsibility, the people who feel sorry for themselves for being sacked with a burden such as myself. there are those who find out and hurt me, dismissed me, fired me. there are those who told me how horrible i am, how much of a failure i am, how i’ll never amount to anything. those who have no qualms about enumerating in excruciating detail every single thing i’ve done to hurt them, people who always assume the worst in me, people who want to blame me for every single thing that goes wrong because that is all i am worth.

and then, there are those who used me to raise themselves up as tolerant and loving human beings. they tell the story of a bipolar life only by the amount of havoc wreaked on others. the bipolar individual, to them, is more a force of nature than an actual person. it’s really about them, how they survived, how they persevered, how they turned this trauma into something else. it’s as if the journey of a bipolar person runs an inevitably tragic and volatile course, only the bystanders have agency.

today i stumbled upon someone like that. one of those random things, something you somehow arrive at after three different links and it makes you so angry that you don’t know what to do. i don’t know this person. and it’s probably tacky and passive-aggressive to respond but to me, she is a threat to bipolar individuals. she’s the worst kind of poser. using her grandfather’s bipolar as a way to simultaneously be righteously indignant against someone else and get sympathy.

NEWSFLASH: self-congratulation because of how you were hurt by a bipolar relative or friend is (shockingly) not the same as empathy. an attitude of loving someone DESPITE being bipolar is, in fact, just as dehumanizing an attitude as outright hating a person because of being bipolar.

people like that are dangerous. at best they insert themselves into conversations about bipolar people, clamoring about how painful their story is, seeking approval and praise for tolerating a bipolar person. they talk about the pain inflicted on them, they talk about how they survived and how they were the only person in their family/circle of friends who didn’t think that the bipolar person was a total monster. but never for a moment do they talk about what the other person went through. how they struggled, suffered, their own turmoil, confusion, fears, sadness. for them, a bipolar acquaintance is just an accessory, a trophy, another addition to their menagerie of good liberal tolerance.

and that is why they are dangerous. at best they draw attention to themselves for no good reason, and proliferate sensationalized tales which only further stereotypical beliefs about what people with bipolar are like. that we’re homicidal, suicidal, unhinged, dangerous; that we pack up the whole family for impromptu vacations or chase the children around with knives or drive the car through downtown naked. but, when people like this insert themselves into the lives of bipolar people – ones who are in crisis or new to the diagnosis, those who believe that they are a burden to everyone around them – that is when they can inflict the most damage.

a person like that, a person who wants constant praise for tolerating a bipolar person, for surviving a bipolar person…a person like that convinces bipolar people that no one (except them) cares or understands. people like that force us to lower our standards because we shouldn’t expect anything better than hatred. but the truth is, we’re only of interest when it’s actually about them. when they get to be passively heroic. listening, helping, supporting are not part of the job description. it’s just watch you crash and burn and then claim some sort of glory for “being there” through it all.

people like that keep us down. people like that beat us down. it’s one thing to see people saying or doing fucked up things to be people with bipolar. you can hate that. you can be angry at that. but someone who claims to be so loving and sympathetic, someone who everyone outside looks at and thinks – what a good person to put up with all of that, how brave, how strong – hating on that only makes you look CRAZY. MEAN. EVIL. UNGRATEFUL.

that’s how you get trapped in others’ expectations. that’s how you grind to a halt, fall apart.

maybe it sounds like a leap. but trust me, it isn’t. i’ve lived this. i’ve lost myself a thousand times people of people like that. i’ve lost years because of people like that.

settling.

i’ve been working on my art project more lately, it’s finally got some momentum. i’ve done three interviews. i think i’m going to have four participants total, which should be plenty, really. the sound pieces will take a weekend…although i’m now thinking that i would like to add my own poetry into the mix…and i never really know when inspiration will come. when i write, it just spills out, and i might do revisions for a week, but i can’t force it. and the installations, well, that will depend on what materials i choose. if i’m comfortable with them, i can make short work…but as my woodcarving projects have proven, i’m not always good at finishing things i’m unskilled at.

i also have been trying to un-hermit myself, and get out to the sights. the heat can be discouraging, but i finally decided that i didn’t need to wear a cardigan over all of my sleeveless shirts. i’m self-conscious about my size here, since most of the girls my age could fit into one pantleg with room to spare…but i think i finally accepted that tossing a cardigan over my chubby arms isn’t going to hide that fact. i know when i first got here, i didn’t want to stand out…i enjoyed being able to blend. but, i’m sort of over it. i mean, i still love being surrounded by similar faces, but i’m also much more willing to accept the ways in which Korean culture *isn’t* my culture. and, faced with these temperatures in Oberlin, i wouldn’t think twice about walking around sleeveless. and really, it is too hot here to layer. running around in a tank top has been a major improvement.

it’s the little things, i guess. i’m not sure how i feel most of the time. i want to feel positive, but that isn’t always possible. but, i also accept that it’s not going to fit like a glove. it’s just a part of me, a part of the picture, and that i can get something out of being here even if it isn’t huge and dramatic and y’know, everything it’s supposed to be. the meaning of all of this is so hard to explain anyway…and doing the interviews has definitely helped me to really accept that fact.  the only right is what is right for me, and i don’t have to answer to anyone, least of which outsiders. and i know this, deep into my core…but here my sense of balance is shaky, and i seem to forget or get confused.

maybe that’s what i should tell people now when they ask about how it is here. “confusing.” although, really, most people don’t want the real answer. they just want to hear “great! i love it! it’s the time of my life!” and to them it’s just like any other college kid who goes to Asia for the summer. bah.

profound.

i’ve been avoiding posting. i see the wordpress  icon in my bookmarks bar and i shudder.

i feel a little frozen, because i don’t know what to say. i don’t know what i feel.

my mind wanders. i’ve been thinking about everything but korea lately, it seems. i had a couple weeks of hormonal insanity…got really creative but also really stressed out. i came up with a storyline and cast of characters for a graphic novel i’d like to write…but i also completely reversed my nights and days and ended up with bad TMJ.

i also felt totally alone. and not just because i’m in a city full of people who i can’t communicate with – but also because i am so deeply out of context. my friends at oberlin, they’re my life, really. i don’t have that kind of relationship with people outside of oberlin, really. i hardly speak to anyone from highschool, or camp, or any of those places that used to be my life. now it’s just oberlin, and i love that. i love that so much and it’s so comfortable that i feel like half a person without it.

my housemates, chosen queer family and best fuckin’ friends forever were traveling in europe for the past month, and communication became almost nonexistent. and it all sort of piled up, feeling like this huge part of me was just being silenced. it’s not that i’m not enjoying Seoul…or that this trip isn’t important to me. but, there are just things that are missing.

i spend my life thinking about race, gender, sexuality, ability…all these things that i don’t necessarily have an outlet to talk about here. so, when i’m watching some episode of “Bones” and there’s something fucked up, I have no one to complain to. or the way that women are portrayed throughout Korean media. or how the impaired man begging at Hoegi station just puts his face to the floor for hours, never looking at the people passing by. all these things happen…they’re little, i know. but normally, i get them out, i rant a little bit, talk about it, and the pressure doesn’t build.

but, the pressure did build. and when my elevated state brought on a rush of creativity, it all started to splinter. i spent days designing costumes and characters and origins and a universe for a graphic novel squad of racially diverse queer superheroes. and a concept for a robot that paints poetry. and clothing designs. and halloween costume plans. i finally bought some sewing supplies to make a felt stuffie…and i bought a couple of books to read. and i’ve watched the same ten episodes of assorted crime dramas that seem to be constantly being aired on Fox.

my mind has been everywhere but korea. and even now, i feel more balanced but i can’t be here all the time. i can’t be here every day. i need some space to think about all the other things that make up me. and i’ve accepted that a bulk of this experience won’t be realized until the plane takes off in a month.

so, here i am. i try to force myself back into something else, what i think i’m supposed to be feeling, doing, thinking, living.

so that’s why i’m avoiding this blog. silly me.

wandering.

it’s one of those perplexing things, when my mind wanders, wants to think of something other than what it means for me to be here. i stop it, most of the time. but then, i just think of nothing.

i wonder if perhaps this is one of those experiences that has to be reflected on later to be fully understood. right now, i’m in the river, i can’t see the water, i don’t know that i’m wet, i’m just in it. i feel things, but, i don’t know. there’s no real place to put them. nothing so immediate to put it all into context.

i was thinking today, counting white people on the metro and wondering what will it feel like to go back to a place where i am surrounded by white people? i feel so comfortable, so much safer in a crowd here. but, it cuts both ways, because smiling at the dykey-looking girl here does not get the same recognition as the giving the dyke nod back in other circles. and, although i don’t feel i present as obviously queer, and that given my size (and that’s a whole nother story)  i’m probably just skipped over completely when it comes to most scrutiny…i can’t help but feel a twinge of discomfort at how much i don’t belong.

but i think, it’s okay.

and there’s all this anxiety too, about how i have to create this project, and how will i do that under time constraint, what if i’m not inspired, i need to spend more time thinking on that…but it’s the kind of thing that can’t be forced, and it has no parameters, and it’s not like Shansi’s going to ask for their money back if it’s a little rough around the edges. like me, like most, this is a work in progress, and will continue to grow.

what am i thinking about?

an all-nighter in the porcelian jungle made me afraid to eat the local food…even just the kimchi and rice from the ajumma at my hasook. maybe once in a while, but those little shrimp bits every day do not feel good. but it’s the hidden meat products that scare me the most. and i feel like a loser, because i love korean food, and could eat it every day, and want to eat it every day. but then i add the caveat “as long as it doesn’t make me puke”. it’s not unreasonable to want to avoid physical illness, right? and there is local food i can get that is vegan. it’s not every day of course, as it does tend to be more expensive. but, i’m not one who generally eats out anyway. i’m just as happy to cook in my room, and now there is a refridgerator so my life has been made infinitely easier.

what else?

plotting a graphic novel starring a squad of queer youth turned x-men-esque superheroes. or something like that. making characters based off of friends, wild punk rock outfits (too much project runway?) and hoping to re-insert forensic science into the equation because i am just that kind of a geek. reliving my teenage years if only i had known who i was. ha! what a different life that would have been.

in other fronts, The Ex is on my mind. a lot. sometimes i’m plotting the perfect murder (his) but mostly it’s just directionless anger. perhaps i should make a foam cutout or ballistics gelatin dummy to scream at/pummel/impale. i hoe i never see him again, but if i do, i have a long list of things to say and lots of punches to throw. and i think of him, and all the shit he did to me, and it makes my stomach turn, it makes me want to never be with another person again, it makes me want to crawl out of my skin and under a rock. and i tell myself that i don’t want to get incolved before i deal with this, but at the same time know i won’t deal with it unless i have to, becasue it’s that ugly, that uncomfortable, that much something i just want to vanish from all recollection so that i can have a life without it looming overhead.

and i try to reclaim the little things, the songs, the movies, the TV shows, the foods, the gestures that used to define and us. make them mine again, dissolve the discomfort, the lump in my throat. and maybe i do, maybe i don’t. that’s the problem with having a good memory. some things you want to forget. i envy those who can forget the things they don’t want to have to think about. don’t people sometimes block out traumatic events? why can’t i do the same?

if i could cut him out of me, like a tumor, like an abscess, i’d do it with my own bare hands, without anesthetic, just to revel in the catharsis of being rid of him once and for all. but that is not an option. and some day i’ll have to face it all down and figure out how to move forward. but what does that even look like? how do you move on? how do you grow? i won’t forgive him. if i have to carry this anger around forever i will, because is the kind of thing that is unforgivable. and if i could not show myself enough respect to stop it then, let me respect myself enough to never let it be.

there has to be somewhere to go with all of this. i’ve been grinding my teeth in my sleep again. i can feel it in my jaw, my macitor muscle getting all inflamed again. under pressure, my body betrays me.

avoidance.

sometimes it seems that people think the best way to live life is to avoid consequences. avoid pain. maybe, maybe that works for some. but not everyone. not me.

as i think about wanting to coduct a birth family search, i feel like i have to defend it in every direction, even if only in my head. so much is hidden from adoptees, ostensibly for our protection. and i’m sure that for some people, that’s okay. but for me, it’s all wrong.

the fact is, the way that i experience family and parents in particular is NEVER going to be what biological families experience. i can’t look at my adoptive family and feel like i really belong – nor could i ever face my birth family without decades and miles and really, both our lives getting in the way. i know that. there’s nothing neat and tidy and happy at the end of the rainbow, and i accept that.

i gave up that ghost a long time ago. because no matter what i do, there isn’t a neat and tidy and happy ending waiting. people say it will be painful, difficult. but really, what about my life hasn’t been?

for a long time, i didn’t want to think about being adopted. i thought that i could will myself to be someone else entirely. that if i just ignored it, enough time would pass that it wouldn’t mean anything. and that attitude got me nowhere but rock bottom. and then, i held out for a cure, waiting to get “better”. but self-imposed limbo only froze me in place…a bad place, mind you, for years. i had to own up to my own limitations, and learn to make the best of them. whatever vision i or others had for how i was going to function and achieve was no longer applicable. and i don’t mean to say i “settled” or lowered my expectations. it’s not a linear thing. there’s no right or wrong. i’m just different, and it follows that how i live my life is going to be different as well.

i’ve known friends descended from slaves who have spent a lot of time piecing together their genealogy. finding stories of their ancestors, even if it meant trolling through archives so full of bigotry and violence that at points it became too much to bear. but in the end, it’s all important. for one, perspective lets them know the what and the why of history. and two, seeing all that their ancestors had to endure, yet knowing they are the living, breathing product of a conscious choice to survive, well, that means something. that means a lot.

and while it is certainly different for me, i like to think of it in a similar way. it’s the process, the choice, the ability to face down what might be the biggest risk in my life and come out having grown in some way. and while it won’t fill that gigantic hole in my heart, knowledge still means something. regardless of what i learn about my past – reunion or not, happy or sad – it’s hard to explain but i think it’s more about what the act itself tells me about myself. it’s part defiance, part independence, part taking control, part looking within, always consciously moving in my own direction.

there isn’t a mandated script, at least not one i can believe in. there are bits and pieces to be found, scattered, like adoptees, like stars.

reconnecting.

i have been offline since my last post – only intermittent wireless was available at my new residence. but, now i’m hooked up and ready to go.

to be honest, i think i’ve been cutting myself off emotionally. i’m not sure how it happened, but for at least the past week i’ve been in full retreat. i’m homesick, or, peoplesick. i think about how much fun it would be to have my friends around me. i know it would feel different. i’d feel…safe.

i had a conversation with someone here the other day, another adoptee. and she was saying how as adoptees, we learn how to be alone. and i’ve been thinking about my own life, the way that i do tend to sequester myself, find reasons not to trust people, or even get to know them. and that, yes, being alone feels safer. but that doesn’t mean it feels good. or healthy. or even better, really. it’s just familiar. it’s the devil-you-do. everything else is upredictable. and can go so wrong. so much more wrong than being alone.

but, it isn’t always going to be worse. i understand why it feels safer, but i also know that it isn’t really helpful. it doesn’t give me what i need.

it’s something to think about. it’s almost the kind of thing i can only work on here…in a context totally separate from the familiar. i have such a good thing in oberlin…and i certainly wouldn’t trade the queerfam for anything – but, i also know that i avoid having to establish any sort of connection with outside people because i feel that i don’t “need” it or the accompanying grief that will undoutably ensue. i think, i have them, they get me, i don’t need anyone else. but here, i quite literally need other people, if not for emotional support than at least as activity partners. sometimes i want to explore the city alone, but other times, friends make it worthwhile.

i need to let myself feel things, even the bad things, even the things i don’t want to feel. of course things are good and easy when i lose myself in shopping malls or american tv shows or just not doing anything…there’s a difference, y’know, when i’m busy, when i’m engaged with the world, i take the time to write. but, days will pass when i won’t do anything because i’m so distant from myself that sitting down to write how i feel requires more effort than finding time in a busy day.

and it’s not that a lot hasn’t been going on, going through my head. i have a lot of questions. a lot of conflicts. a lot of…stuff. but i’m alone.

and yes, i can deal with being alone. i can survive. but i’m not going to grow, i’m not going to learn, i’m not going to move in any direction.

food for thought.

stop it. now.

this can’t be happening.

my days in Seoul have been so wonderful. so beautiful. i’ve just fallen in love the city. i feel so much for this city. something about history…something about struggle…being in between past and future. i can relate to this city, i think. i love its physical beauty, the consciousness and care with which it was designed, the attention to harmony and balance. this is a city with scars. this is a city that grew up too fast. i can relate to that.

and when i walk around Seoul, despite my anxieties, my feelings of being too fat or too queer or not knowing the language or being disagreeable…but when i walk down the street, i don’t raise eyebrows. everywhere i go people talk to me in Hanguel, and it’s only once i look at them blankly or say something in English that they realize their mistake. i’m just another Korean here. my belonging is presumed. i have to out myself as foreign. it’s reverse of the norm…it’s rather nice. just, a calm feeling that i don’t have to worry about that today.

but here i am. i haven’t had good times at KoRoot, not really. i feel like i’ve been shunned by the other adoptees staying here. the guys just ignore me, one girl is outright mean, and another is friendly, makes conversation. but really, that’s about it. the people who run it Pastor and Mrs. Kim, are lovely. i think the best conversations i’ve had have been with Pastor Kim. and, y’know, that makes me feel so weird in a way. what’s so wrong with me that i’m the black sheep of adoptees?

but, tonight, tonight is a nightmare. there’s an adoptive mother staying here with her daughter. and she’s been bad so far…fairly typical…it’s their third trip to Korea and she’s running the show…she acts like it’s all about her. i just don’t know what to do with her. but now, for the past four hours i’ve been listening to her talking upstairs with the guests, and it’s just crazy. right now she’s telling adoptees her sob story about infertility. SERIOUSLY? boo hoo for her.

now she’s actually talking about why she didn’t adopt domestically – fear of fetal alcohol syndrome, drugs or a mother who wants her baby back. the adoption myth she was told didn’t live up to be true. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.

it’s taking every ounce of self-control that i have to not march up there and scream at her. or just, through objects. heavy objects.

i’ve heard her say the kind of things that adoptive mothers say but that they should NEVER say. for one thing, she’s talking about her daughter, who is sleeping in the next room, maybe even listening to this conversation because she’s being SO FREAKING LOUD. she’s talking about her school performance, her extraciriccular interets, whether or not she’s started dating…all as if this girl wasn’t ten feet away. she even managed to brag about her SAT scores yesterday to a 23-year old Norwegian who, i’m sure, could care less. and i mean, talk about not getting the point AT ALL. your daughters is searching for her birth mom. do you think that SAT scores matter squat?

but worse…she was talking to this adoptee guy, about his choice in women, and it just made me want to  vomit. the way she talked about how he needs to look for different kinds of women, and make a list of all the traits of his exes blah blah blah…it’s like, so judgemental and gross. i mean, there’s no sense of life experience, no sense of personal growth, no acknowledgment of how hard it is for adoptees to have meaningful personal relationships…what about that?

and, y’know, she’s in korea, and she talks about how she’s okay with this or how upset she is at what her two adopted children have had to go through, but it’s all for show. i mean, if she really got it, she wouldn’t talk to adoptes until 3am ABOUT HERSELF. she’s just basking in the self-congratualatory glory of getting to be a “good” adoptive mom. but she isn’t. she’s just as bad as all the rest. maybe worse.  go away, lady. this isn’t about you. this isn’t for you.

i don’t know whether or not to scream or cry or just spontaneously burst into flames.

i can’t believe i have to feel this way. here. of all places.