my family was very verbally abusive, so my mother has threatened to kill me literally more times than I can count. I’ve been disowned literally more times than I can count. I’ve had the cops called on me at least three times for things like talking.

And it’s because she only sometimes takes her medication and she has not ever stuck with any form of therapy. And I know a lot of this comes from, she had a mother who clearly had mental health issues.

There comes into a lot of cultural issues is that my mother, you know, is that I give you life, I can take it away and you know, threaten to kill someone in China is or South Korea or a lot of you know East Asian countries, isn’t an unusual threat to be made, but, you know, it’s part of sort of like a cultural thing.

And so I lived in a highly critical household, that regardless of how many. There’s actually, there’s, I mean, it’s becoming more and more common to see this, there’s an even an episode of the Simpson’s where I forget Marge’s sister adopts this little Asian girl Ling and she is doing spectacularly. She’s like, painting something and playing a flute and keeping plates spinning in the air and they’re like, Look at what a good girl Ling is. And she just like whispers to whoever’s in the room, Help me.

My stepdad was– He’s an abusive alcoholic like many. I’m not particularly fond of him.

He was angry, he was an alcoholic. I think he also had issues with depression. But it was just not a good environment for me to grow up in especially once when my mom sort of started playing along.

She’s kind of simultaneously a victim and an abuser in the scenario. She is definitely being abused at least psychologically by my stepdad, and again, occasionally physically. And she has, I think—she’s internalized and she’s enacted it and she hasn’t really been– She hasn’t done much in the way of, you know, preventing it or protecting me and my brother. She would often get drunk also. She’s also an alcoholic in my opinion. She’d get drunk with him a lot in those early years. And the two of them will get into screaming matches while me and my brother laid low and tried to ignore it.

I had the social awkwardness and the handicaps and everything that come with, with being a child in an abused home. On top of that, I was very bright, had trouble connecting with my peers and all that sort of thing. And this made me a target for bullies of course. Which in turn– because of how I saw conflict resolution played out in my home, I developed anger problems like really bad. I would I would get very upset when these kids would make fun of me in their various ways. And I would lash out of them but I was a scrawny little nerdy kid, so I didn’t do much before I got in trouble. And because I lashed out, I usually got in trouble way worse than the kids who were picking on me.

Then I got to Kindergarten and unfortunately I had a classmate who thought that it would be fun to repeatedly sexually assault me (sigh). Yeah, I had tried telling my parents once and they didn’t believe me. They were like, oh, this person isn’t messing with you, they figured I didn’t know what I was talking about because I was so young, but I was, you, you know, I had, I had that intellect and I was like this isn’t right, I need to tell someone. So I tried telling them and they basically said that I needed to tell the person to leave me alone and I’d been doing that but she, unfortunately, would not stop and that went on for an entire year and, I seemed to adjust to school otherwise pretty well because all of this depression stuff didn’t come up again for about ten years afterwards.

I went through most of middle school being, being picked on for speaking in, you know for speaking with such intellect. Again, the stigma in the black community is you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to use simple words, you’re supposed to just accept where you are, and usually that’s in a bad neighborhood, or a ghetto so to say. I, and I’d been raised to want better for myself. I’d been reading by the time I was 3 and I loved learning and education so I got poked at fun, I got poked fun at a lot for that. It started out as, oh you’re such an oreo, you, you wanna be white girl, don’t you know you’re black, and kids just went on from there and went from that to, oh she must be gay

Then I got to my sophomore year of high school and out, out of nowhere it was just like you know what, I don’t care anymore, I stopped doing my homework, I started letting things slide, I, I kind of tried to chase after a few boys and it didn’t work out

Suicide was crossing my mind and I was dabbling with cutting myself so I should have spoken out about that but, once again the stigma, the stigma it just I, the one time that I tried to talk to my parents I remember telling my mom when I was like 12, I was like, you know I’m kinda feeling suicidal, I’m kinda feeling like there’s no point in me being here and I remember she just gave me a big hug and was like, you’re not suicidal, you’re, no, yeah that’s not happening, so, but that’s kind of why I stopped just saying anything.

So it ended really badly, abuse. He’s taken things from my actual apartment when was, when I actually had the strength to get up and go look for a job after being depressed. And I went to a temp service which I didn’t want to do because then I would be around people, lots of people, but I had no choice and while I was at the interview he came and kind of took everything that you know that I worked for and that I had so, you know, so you know after that situation I was depressed, but looking at him maybe it’s different. But I kinda felt that I wasn’t as bad, but then also felt horrible because it was, it’s something in me that attracted this person, there’s something in me that allowed the relationship to go on so long. There’s something that I need to change. So it was an eye opener, but then again I’m back in my shell, because it’s just scary.

I have complex PTSD because I also endured a great amount of, not a great amount, but I also dealt with sexual abuse when I was younger and I have been in numerous sexually abusive situations since that time. And so I want to say that my abuse started when I was probably about 7 and continued on and off until I was like 9 or maybe 10

This sexual abuse took place between children and they were my god brothers who were also altar boys, so I was more or less molested by the Catholic Church. And then you proceed to be in this environment where there is just profound shame about, you know, being a woman and then that purity is your highest virtue and the virgin Mary and the virgin whore dynamic and all of that. And I think that’s a lot of what prompted me to becoming a feminist and also becoming very educated about sort of gender roles and sexual health issues in general

I learned very negative patterns of relating with people that have attracted very dangerous people in my life and I, there’s an incredible book called The Gift of Fear by, I don’t remember who it’s by, but it’s called The Gift of Fear that pointed out a lot of things. One of the things was sort of like, the victim interview, like how people sort of screen for people who have no emotional boundaries and who can be manipulated and I was just like, Oh, that totally happened to me before that incidence of abuse. And I was just like, Oh yeah, that’s, that’s totally what happened. Because at one point, I was abused by a stranger and that’s when I, and this was in my adult life and I was just like, Oh yeah, I have a giant you should abuse me sign’ on my forehead. I should probably deal with that. I should probably address whatever issues are there that do not allow me to keep myself safe and to avoid people and their predatory. Because I just ignore my gut feeling that I am uncomfortable or ignore my feeling that someone is doing something wrong, because that’s literally every moment of being with my family, is having your boundaries and your emotions just trampled over and then being told that it’s your fault that you’re upset.