So many of the problems I have and have had, have had to do with abusive techniques of enforcing misogyny that I didn’t recognize for what they were.
So many of the solutions I have had recommended to me were solutions designed for privileged,. mediocre white men.
[And the happiness industry depoliticizes completely, and decontextualizes completely. This is by design, as we are not to criticize capitalism or patriarchy. All problems are adjustment problems. If you feel unsettled, it is necessarily anxiety without cause, never fear or anger with cause. If you feel endangered, you are necessarily imagining it.]
Regarding my current job: a normal person walks in and does it. But I do not feel safe like that and it is for good reason. In addition, obstacles are thrown in my way. So it is like this:
- Galvanize, and make myself smaller so I don’t cause jealousy in my harassers, trigerring obstruction and harassment from them.
- Walk through a minefield to the office.
- Clear away multiple obstacles.
- Do work, but at diminished capacity because people are coming to harass and put the obstacles back.
How much of my life have I spent in structures where the people in power were terribly jealous of me, and I tried to diminish myself so as to appease them?
Ages 0-17, my mother; she had convinced me I was crazy / mean / impaired / AND that I needed her support, nobody else would forgive me these characteristics
Ages 34-, but particularly 34-37, that psychotherapy that told me my mother had been right
Ages 42-, this job (it has gotten better since 2020, but still)
So, most of my life. I must imagine and then enact walking fearlessly into the office. Trusting myself. Not being afraid. Recognizing mistreatment and rejecting it as soon as possible. Not just “remembering who I am,” but acting on it and also realizing that WHO I AM HAS LOST, I AM WITH THE DEFEATED.
A lot of people are always gone when classes aren’t in and always put themselves and their work first. I have never gotten to since my first task has always been to defend from attack, or withstand abuse and recover from it. I am always in survival mode. I’d like to imagine a gestalt where I feel like a full person. But it isn’t possible, I have to become one of those people who are always gone.
Why do I not feel like a full person? According to my detractors, 1. I owe a metaphysical debt I cannot pay; 2. I am impaired, even if I cannot see it; 3. My intelligence hurts people. It is very important that I stop believing such things. I am also ashamed because of having been shamed so much in this way, and it’s a terrible burden to carry.
It is hard to imagine freedom, being a free actor, but I have to do it and have the means to do it—or so I want to believe. And yet, once again, the problem is political. Part of the way I have wasted time is saying I am not the enemy, feeling hurt because I am seen as the enemy, and so on. But they see me as the enemy and they have defeated me. I should think about all of this differently.
Coda: the idea that not being comfortable with and as a target of white supremacist patriarchy, or navigating certain structures of capitalism, are psychological problems of mine, is so pernicious.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 