Tag: #Twitter

Breaking Radio Silence – Three Healing Steps

Being a cycle breaker is realizing you’re not getting an apology for the hurt done to you, & instead of passing on that hurt, you heal it. It’s giving voice to the parts of you who have been forced into silence. It’s no longer apologizing for your desire to be set free.– Nate Postlewait (@nate_postlethwt) on Twitter, March 13, 2023

This tweet today really got to me today and I want to break down each of the three sentences as to why:

First, all my life my father used to say, “Sorry doesn’t get it done.” It was something he got from his father, my grandfather, and frankly for the longest time I thought they were both just being a couple of major hard-asses. But I’ve thought that statement through and my take on it is this: an apology doesn’t erase the wound being apologized for. An apology doesn’t put something firmly in the past and keep it from coming up ever again. An apology is an admission of wrongdoing and for me, it’s been a way of confirming I hadn’t done something wrong. So, I’m not asking for an apology though I will accept one if freely given.

Second: “& instead of passing on that hurt, you heal.” We all make mistakes but for the longest time, I thought I’d made so many because of the shit I got for doing the right thing. It’s taken me a long time to realize people who heaped shit on me when I wasn’t doing anything wrong were just projecting their own bullshit onto me without thinking it through it first, and it was NOT my responsibility to figure that out for them nor excuse it or minimize it. Once I realized I’m not responsible for pulling someone’s head out of their ass is when I began to heal. I began to heal because I focused on myself and not someone else and I didn’t put other people’s opinions or cruel and insensitive words above my own truth.

Third, “It’s giving voice to the parts of you who have been forced into silence.” Breaking your silence does two things: it breaks the hold fear and pain have over you, and it is knowledge that can’t be taken from you. Putting fear and pain into words helps you understand cause and effect and in turn, how to repair the damage. This is why I believe there is still a huge bias and stigma around mental and emotional therapy because therapy breaks the hold and changes you for the better.

Fourth, “It’s no longer apologizing for your desire to be set free.” Years ago, during the darkest time of my self-help/therapy journey, there was a time when I wanted to go outside and scream at the top of my lungs, “I apologize for my entire fucking existence!” I came to that moment because I was beginning to realize I had apologized way too many times for things I didn’t need to apologize for. I did that in a horribly misguided attempt at appeasing people and getting them off my ass. The only reason they got off my ass was I beat the shit out myself and saved them the effort though that wasn’t their goal at all. This primal scream of pain began to ease when I realized people that shit on me never really thought it through and probably forgot what they’d done five minutes after walking away from me. So, I don’t owe them an apology, especially for wanting to be free of their bullshit.

This blog entry today took several attempts to get down because I kept hitting a brick wall that sent a thought through my mind, “I’m not ready to reveal this or talk about it just yet.” I’ve said that to myself so many times and today I asked myself in return, “When will I be ready? Now? Or never?”

There is NO absolutely perfect time to say something, reveal something, or do something. There is NO guarantee that something will work out perfectly. There is always potential for shit to happen as my late father would probably say in response to this. It’s not being pessimistic or negative, just being realistic because there’s always a possibility someone somewhere isn’t going to like what you’re going to say or do. This is something I’ve had to battle against as it’s a huge thing that’s held me back. Finding the strength to stand up to that and move forward is a challenge, some days more than others.

By the way, this is NOT an explanation to any critic or in response as to why I haven’t done something until now. I don’t owe that kind of explanation to anyone because asking someone why they haven’t done something until now comes off like that person should have known better to begin with. It was my response to that ‘should have known better’ shit almost eight years ago that put me on my self-help/journey: Everyone is just as full of shit as I am sometimes but that doesn’t make me a bad person.

I’ve said a lot of this before in other ways but the human mind learns by repetition and imprinting. And this is for myself, and for anyone else on a self-help/healing journey like I’m still on, and will be for the rest of my life. There are steps to healing and today I got yet another reminder of them, and that I’ve taken them and will continue to take them despite what anyone might think of me.

Healing is possible.

Online Communities

I’ve been online since the mid-1990’s and back then, the term ‘social media’ wasn’t even a neuron firing off in someone’s head. Back then I got online and met people through chat boards, such as eHarlequin.com. I’ve been with that group from there since then through two other platforms (Yahoo! Groups and now Facebook) and on Facebook I’ve found friends with similar interests and also reconnected with some old friends from my pre-internet days.

In private groups I’ve been able to vent to like-minded people, and those times gave me a feeling that I wasn’t all alone in the world. In those groups, I was never judged and found lacking. In those groups, I never felt like I was never good enough no matter what I did or didn’t do in my life. I wasn’t judged or given obnoxious amounts of ‘feedback’ (a word I now consider a synonym for ‘bullshit’). Also, these groups were a way of escaping my shitty life and talking about things that were fun and goofy.

Yet time and time again some asshole (or two or three or more) comes along and shits all over this sense of community. From Facebook letting their site being overrun by racist bots and Russian trolls (and fuck Mark and Sheryl Zuckerberg all to Hell for letting that happen despite knowing what was being done), to Twitter being bought out by a billionaire who wants to suck Vladimir Putin’s dick and kiss the asses of the Chinese government- it’s like each time something gets good someone has to come along and shit all over it.

When Elon-the-Shithead bought Twitter I knew it was going to go downhill fast. I think he’ll go bankrupt as the site turns into a cesspool of hate and shit-bag trolls. And that made me have this thought:

Maybe we ought to burn the motherfucker down and be done with it.

I don’t mean literally burn something down for all the idiots reading this. I mean this metaphorically (look up the word ‘metaphor’ if you don’t understand what I’m talking about here). I mean, let it become a hollowed-out husk and then when all the shit-heads move on to the next piece of real-estate they want to shit on, rebuild what they left behind into something better.

Every single day, more and more people are saying ‘Enough’. Along with ‘’no’, and ‘fuck this shit’, and ‘fuck you’, too. They’re establishing boundaries to put it in a more polite way and that’s a good thing. From ‘quiet quitting’, to ‘working your wage’, or going independent, people are just saying ‘enough’. People are free to cut and run but you can’t do that forever. Sooner or later, you have to take a stand and fight.

My father was fond of an old saying: don’t let the bastards you get you down. He also used to say there was always an asshole in every crowd, and not to let the assholes of this world ruin things for you. He was right (as always) and this is why I’m standing and fighting. It’s why I let it rip here with all my colorful profanity and sayings that I learned how to formulate from my late father. I’m out of fucks to give and if it makes me a lonely old bitch with only a dog and cat for company, then so be it.

People have asked if the assholes on the internet are like that in real life: uptight, judgmental, racist, etc. And my answer: yes. Online interaction makes people think they can be assholes in private and hide that in real life though most people have removed those masks these days and put on red MAGA hats instead. That’s fine because at least we can see them clearly now. It’s these uptight judgmental pricks that bought into right-wing bots and Russian trolls and QAnon conspiracy theories hook, line, and sinker. Sadly, lives have been lost because of their shit-spewing and believing in lies over the truth.

So what do the rest of us do?

Stand and fight. Be the people we are, and always want to be. And don’t take shit for doing the right thing, believing in the good of this world, and not hating other people simply because they’re different from us.

To all my online friends over the years:

Thank you for all your kindness, generosity, and acceptance. Thank you for being the great people you all are. Please know I won’t leave our online community, nor will I ever forsake you. And know that I will stand up to uptight judgmental shitheads for you, too.

My online community is just like the real-life world I live in: it’s worth fighting for, and worth saving. And maybe it will burn down but like the Phoenix, we can rise from the ashes and start over.

Break the Silence

Yesterday billionaire-idiot Elon Musk officially closed the deal for him to take ownership of Twitter. Now to most people this wouldn’t be big news and it isn’t. For those of us on social media, it is. I’m not super-active on Twitter but I do like to make pithy comments and see what people are getting their knickers in a twist over. But I also want to say the following:

People who pack up and leave someplace just because some new idiot has taken over something are the wimps of this world, and one of the reasons shit-history keeps repeating itself.

People are free to do what they want of course, just like the rest of us are free to comment on their choices. I’m sure there are people in this world who would love to tell me how they feel about the choices I make and the things I say. And they’re free to comment to me in any way they choose as I’m free to respond in any way I choose. Because as my late father used to say, freedom is a slippery concept. It’s slippery as warm shit because freedom can go either way, good or bad. That’s the problem I think a lot of people have with it. But here’s another thing I want to put out here about this:

You can’t run forever. You can’t hide from your feelings, from your pain, or from all the awful shit in this world. Sooner or later you have got to face it. And as my late father used to tell me a lot, you don’t know what you can deal with until you’re faced with it. He also used to tell me: you are so much stronger than you will ever realize, too.

My father could be as eloquent and inspiring like no one else I’ve ever known. But he could also be rude and crude with the best of them, too. I learned at the feet of a master, and if my mother were alive and heard me mouth off like I’m doing now she’d tell me I’m my father’s daughter because if my mother swore, that meant she was about to go nuclear on your ass (and I only heard my mother swear maybe half a dozen times so each time was the start of a nuclear countdown).

All my life I’ve felt like if I stepped out of line in some way, usually when I stood up to someone’s bullying bullshit, I got told if I didn’t shut up no one would want to be around me and that I’d spent my entire life all alone. But I’ve been alone all my life as I have never truly felt like I was one-hundred percent a part of anything. And guess what? I’m still here, still alive and kicking. Maybe I’m meant to be alone, but that threat means nothing to me now.

For so long I’ve struggled to put my words out in the world. And though my voice is tiny, it is mine. I know sooner or later someone is going to come at me with some bullshit. But I’m not a scared kid anymore, or an adult staying silent and eating a ton of shit just to keep the peace. I know I’ve said this before, but things have to be repeated in order for them to be truly imprinted on the human brain.

I own this domain of mine here and this site and blog are all mine. And if I get kicked off other platforms (though I honestly don’t see that happening as Elon-the-Twit and the others really don’t know what they’re doing nor do their sycophants either) I’ll have this at least. But this is a larger space for me to let it rip and hopefully any followers I have will read this. And please feel free to tell me what you think good or bad.

As my father would say, it’s time to shit or get off the pot. The clock’s ticking and I know I can’t stay silent or run and hide forever. In this world, I don’t think there is a lot of peace to be had right now. Too many people are tired, scared, and hurt, or have taken all those things and turned them inside-out mean as my daddy would say, too. I won’t turn mean for anyone or for any reason so I’ll say this:

Ask yourself why you think and feel the way you do and keep asking until you find all the answers that you can. I will warn you that you might not like the answers you find, and sooner or later you will have to deal with them.

So to wind this up I want to say to all the right-wing assholes and left-wing cut-and-run wimps I will quote the immortal words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:

The fight is here.

So from now until doomsday, I’m taking half an hour (give or take) out of my day to do a daily rant or ramble here. It won’t be fancy, and it will be rough as hell at times. Read it and weep or read it and get pissed off. But know this:

I will not be silenced.

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