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Date night

Oh my dears, 

I write this at 9:33am. This one had a lie in. A proper one. Finally.

It’s a weird one today. Not least because since my last blog post, I’ve discovered that the last guy I dated read my blog, which he mentioned when I saw him Wednesday night. 

Yeah. I went out with him Wednesday night. 

If you’re asking why, I’ll tell you.

Last Saturday I stopped outside one of my favourite charity shops to finish my cigarette (yes, sometimes, when I’m sad and stressed, I smoke) and the shop he works in is opposite. I saw him come out and immediately looked down. To be honest, I was scared. His behaviour has only been unpredictable so I genuinely thought he would be nasty to me. 

At one point I looked up and saw him gesturing for me to come over to him. I was quite shocked but also irritated. Like…why now?

I went over, threw my bag down and said “What?”. 

He said he was sorry. He said he felt “some remorse” about what had happened. He also said something along the lines of “But you must understand how I felt when you dropped over to my house”, and I said whilst I did understand and could see how my actions could be read as aggressive, they really were not in comparison to his actions previously. 

I don’t like silent treatment. I don’t like being stonewalled when I’m asking a question calmly. I don’t communicate like that. He said “I know”. 

Anyway. He told me some things that had changed a bit in his life. Most seemed positive. 

I told him I’d done a cover of “Walking In The Air” and I knew it was also a favourite song of his and I asked him to check it out and let me know what he thinks.

And a day later. He did.

It was actually the kindest message he’s ever sent me. So much so that I closed it with “That means an awful lot coming from you. Thanks” and left it there. I thought I could leave it there. Because that’s all the kindness I can get from him.

Tiny little shrapnels of kindness. Because Wednesday showed that for me, too much time around him shows of a side of him that I find painful to be around.

We met to sort my laptop out for recording and I wanted to show him some material I’ve worked on. I was actually excited to work on music with him. I love music. I love learning about it, I didn’t want to pass that up, even when the person in question makes me feel tense.

Truth be told, I’ve put myself through a lot worse to feel an ounce of joy. I’m older and wiser now. Kind of.

I’m aware he will probably read this so although I want to respect his privacy, I also want to tell my story accurately and honestly.

Our original plans to play pool are scuppered by a closure at the place. We settle in a pub instead. 

It’s really weird meeting someone after weeks of no contact and no clarity of what went down. It’s not the first time I’ve been in a situation like it but I’m always aware of the elephant in the room, even if the other person has just put it behind them. I just can’t do that. If you don’t talk about that elephant fully and in detail, it’s going to come smashing into both of your lives over and over again until you sort it. 

Like Japanese Knotweed. You’ve got to get to the root.

We do music for a bit. I’m beaming because I’m loving all the things I’m learning and it’s fun to do it with him. I don’t believe I’m a blindly bubbly person but when something makes me happy or excited, I’m not hiding that, no matter the kind of company I’m in. 

Then we got talking about it. It. That night, it. Us.

It was clear we both stepped into this connection really defensive and protective of ourselves, but not in the most healthy way.

Truth be told, I haven’t been so physically attracted to a person in a LONG time. Like, years. Physically, he ticks all my boxes. Tall, dark hair, high cheekbones, a sullen-looking mouth and blue eyes which he stares at you directly with. They look cold when he’s feeling defensive and they look warm and inviting when he’s loosening up. Lol, I am clearly projecting a romanticised view here but it works for me.

But then he speaks and the things he says aren’t kind, or loving and it completely distorts the physical experience for me.

He said he picked on his ex’s insecurities (as a joke, I don’t know) and I said “Is this what you do? Tell people what arsehole things you do so can keep treating people like shit?”. I don’t believe I got an answer from that.

There were many other things. He asked me to explain some texts I’d deleted in our previous chat. I explained.

Like, why did I delete a message I’d sent when we were meeting for the first time saying, “I’m giving you 10 minutes then I’m going home” in response to him saying he’s late – with no apology.

This is what I answered: “I was pissed that you didn’t apologise from the off that you were going to be late. My time is precious and I don’t want that to be treated like nothing. I sent that message because I was angry. A second after I sent it, I realised that I was sending it from a place of threat so I deleted it because I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt”.  I also spoke to him about it when he’d arrived that day anyway so I figured he knew. But obviously not.

I’ve never checked deleted messages because I just trust they’ve said something by mistake and just wanted to clarify better. 

I think my trust in him was higher than his was in me.

I also don’t like that saying sorry seems to be a foreign concept to him. 

Saying sorry isn’t just about words. It’s an overhaul of the behaviour that got you to the place where you HAD to say sorry in the first place. 

I know we teach children to say sorry and move on but that’s incorrect. Children, like adults, need to understand that their actions have consequences. If we teach a 4 year old boy to say sorry every time he smacks another child, he’ll learn as an adult to smack his partner and say sorry and expect everything to be ok. Then he does it again. And again. And again. 

It’s a f***ing cycle.

There’s this technique with children where you sit with them after they’ve smacked or hurt someone and you give them a minute to have quiet and then you ask them why they’re in timeout. They’ll say nothing usually and then you say “Why was ****(the hurt party) crying just now?”. They still won’t admit their part in being harmful. The children at this point usually look up and away from your eyes. Even two year olds do this because they can grasp the fact that they feel shame for their actions. 

Adults are no different. I then usually say, “You hit so-and-so, hitting hurts. We don’t hit”, in a really calm, low tone.

When I’ve asked students to apologise, they have to apologise for what they’ve done. Not just the word “sorry”. It has to be expanded: “I’m sorry I hit you”. 

By linking the apology with the action that caused harm, you’re taking responsibility for the behaviour that hurt the other party.

This guy doesn’t do that. 

It’s like he’s stays detached from it all. “I’m sorry it ended like that”, isn’t an apology for his behaviour. 

I’ve never dated anyone who’s taken full responsibility for their harmful actions and as I’ve explored my own boundaries and standards, I’ve gotten better at asking for what I require for safety and being willing to walk away if I don’t get it. 

When he mentioned that his friends had sent him my blog about him (hi friends!) I felt it was a tactic to try and shame me. When I asked him why he mentioned it, he said he wanted transparency which is ironic considering he has never been transparent about his feelings with me. Like, ever.

I think I’m beginning to understand, R****, that what you really want, is control. I think things have felt so out of control for you for so long that it’s now something you feel you need to be “safe”. To be honest, that’s a theory. I HAVE NO IDEA what you want. You won’t tell me. I wish you would.

There was only one bit I really enjoyed in that meeting. It’s when I slumped towards your chest and hugged you. I sank into your chest and tried to pretend that things were ok between us. I saw in the laptop reflection your hand lift to stroke my hair and rest your chin on my head and right there, that’s what I wanted. I wanted that tenderness forever. That’s what I fought through all your walls for. I got about 6 seconds of it and I didn’t ever want to move. I wanted to imagine we could always be like this. Cause that’s all I’ve ever wanted from you. Tenderness and kindness. 

But you can’t fall in love with potential, even when the potential looks fucking amazing.

I can’t really describe the feeling of wanting someone and knowing they’re not right for you because they don’t see you. 

I woke the next day really anxious and upset. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt clear so by the time he texted me two days later I had to be clear about what I wanted.

Here’s what I wrote:

I require transparency from people in order to feel safe with them. You have not been transparent with me about why you did what you did. You’ve not volunteered any information including why you shoved my book in my hands, why you deleted all those messages, why you stonewalled me. 

I would’ve liked answers to them.

I cannot be involved with someone who isn’t honest with me and isn’t transparent about their feelings 

Because this has been your consistent behaviour, I can’t see you anymore

To be honest, I fully expected him get nasty and in my face. I’m a woman in the world after all. I’ve had it all.

But no, he said he wouldn’t be hostile and it was all good. 

He didn’t explain any of his behaviour at all.

I mean, I wanted to ask him why he wouldn’t just tell me why he acted like he did, but I feel…..it’s just run it’s course. 

I can’t MAKE someone open up to me. I can’t make someone see me. I want to be seen. I want my feelings to be acknowledged and they weren’t with him. It’s painful and hurtful but that’s who he wants to be. I don’t want him to be that but that’s out of my control. 

He’s read my blog, he read the last text I sent in December. He’s seen me in the flesh. All the information from me is there. 

There’s nothing else I can do.

This makes me sad this Sunday morning. 

In life I want someone I can laugh with and fuck enthusiastically. I actually can’t believe it feels so hard to meet that in someone. 

Everyone’s hangups, paranoias, fears, trauma; it’s destroying everything we touch. Even I know my fears can overrun. Past trauma can raise it’s ugly head time and time again. But I’ll talk about it. I won’t hide from it. I won’t pretend it’s not there. I’m comfortable sitting in the darkest parts of myself. I know what I’m capable of, both good and bad.

I wish he had joined me on that. I think it would’ve been a wild and fun adventure.

Maybe the best is yet to come?

Yeah, the best is yet to come. The best is yet to come.

Circles

Oh my dears, 

I write this at 7:29am as dawn breaks.

I think I love dawn.

I love the quiet. I love the stillness. I love that no one is around. I love that my thoughts are quiet.

Not many people get that, I know.

I’ve been thinking about patterns. I’ve been thinking about my patterns. Why I do them. Why I’m pulled to them. Why it’s so hard to stop.

It’s been a month since my fallout with Sad Boy. I still walk down that street. I still do my best to blank his existence but recently it’s been hard.

See, I discovered a pattern. A pretty sad but key pattern.

I dated him knowing he wasn’t that friendly or warm. It was like a challenge, “Can I turn the moody, dark haired mystery into a loving human?”. Well, I can sure try.

But after our break and how he treated me I’m starting to see the pattern.

My family are like this. My siblings treated me like that. 

Most people have treated me like Sad Boy.

My siblings and my caregivers treated me with disdain growing up. I changed their bedsheets and cleaned their clothes (the whole household so five people in total) every Sunday. I took care of them all when they were sick and in bed. I swallowed my anger every time I was subjected to abuse because I knew it was the only way to survive my home and protect my youngest baby sibling. 

That was how I stayed alive in that house from birth to when I was kicked out at 17.

But even after that, the pattern of compliance and kindness was expected off of me. 

I lived with my grandparents where I was expected to pay more rent than my brother (I was told by my grandmother that boys needed to pay less money in rent to have more fun), I ironed my grandparents clothes every Sunday and cleaned their house. My brother did none of this. If I didn’t fulfil my roles, I was guilt tripped into doing them by my grandparents. My brother got to steal money from my room and I was expected to tolerate it because he had been through trauma at our parents house. I had too but I was the girl (?). 

I was expected to care for my grandparents because I was the girl.

Patterns are meant to be broken.

I genuinely believed for years that if I was good, if I made people happy, if I saw them and heard them, I’d be respected back. I’d get kindness back. If I was good to abusive people, they would STOP abusing me.

You don’t. You get abused. I was abused by multiple people for many, many years.

My life up until the last few years has been a Kae Tempest lyric:

“I go round in circles. Not graceful, not like dancers. Not neatly not like compass and pencil. More like a dog on a leash going mental”.

It’s true. 

And you know what truly fucking sucks? 

Not doing the pattern. NOT repeating the pattern. Recently, I indulged in this past behaviour.

For the first time I did the pattern yesterday with the Sad Boy. I looked over at the shop as I walked by. Like a default action. Like high school, “oh is he looking this way?” and he was, and it startled me.

Sad Boy shut me down outside his bedroom door with such threat based certainty a month ago that to see him looking back at me was a shock. I saw his body move forward towards me as if he had to make sure it was really me and I felt annoyed by it, by him, by all of it.

I don’t like games. I don’t want a stare. I want a fucking apology.

The most frustrating part of it is that I wanted to just walk over and say, “Sweetheart, life is hard enough. What exactly are you playing at?”. But why?

Why would I acknowledge someone who doesn’t see me?

My family didn’t see me. They just expected something off of me. I had a role I was pushed in, I didn’t want to hurt people so I stayed in that role. My siblings were angry people growing up. I didn’t want my youngest to grow up with angry, violent parents AND siblings, so I chose gentleness. I chose kindness as much as I could because you know, even I have limits to how much abuse I can take before I explode. Everybody does.

But look how they and this Sad Boy treated my openess and kindness? Look how they just trashed on it. They openly and plainly pissed on my kindness. 

So this year, I decided to stop giving it to people like that.

And it’s really really really difficult not to.

Kindness is how we connect. It’s how we thrive. It’s how we love and care and share joy. It’s how we survive hard things.

I want to spring into Sad Boy’s shop and play him this Christmas cover I’ve made and go “Omg, omg R****, you have to listen to this!”, and in my head his eyes will light up at the sight of me and he’ll smile as the song seeps into his ears, giving him the chills because its such a good cover (its SUCH a good cover I’ve done). I want to connect.

But that’s not going to happen. He has been consistently cruel to me. My family were consistently cruel to me. They are not going to change unless they and Sad Boy want to.

One thing I’m certain about is this: for people to treat you differently to how they did before, they have to acknowledge their part in your suffering but also acknowledge how they have suffered at the hands of others.

Realistically, WHO wants to do that?

Most people do not want to face up to what they’ve done to people. Nor do they want to acknowledge how they’ve been badly affected by their childhood in some way.

And since that’s the case WHY would these people both past and recently present see me?

The answer is: they don’t.

I see me so I can see the harm I caused MYSELF. This has been devastating for me but I’m seeing it. I see the patterns and the roles and the scripts lying about. Well-worn pages lying around my room. Scripts I was given from birth that over time began to feel like my own words. My own expectations. 

I’ve slowly been burning all of them. I won’t play any parts now.

And with that, I am seeing how few people SEE me. Really see me and it’s because they don’t even see themselves. They don’t want to know themselves so they’re NOT going to see me.

When I first made this connection a week ago, I felt really angry and sad and just that. I still feel angry and sad but now I feel something else. 

I FEEL like I can see myself clearly for the first time.

Like, if all these people, all these connections refuse to see me…then I want to see me.

I want to see all of me and I will validate it myself because I only care about the opinions and views of people who see themselves fully and therefore me, FULLY. 

I’m pushing all that kindness into me. I tried it and I made a brilliant Christmas cover out of it. I made beautiful things FOR MYSELF. I thrive when I take my kindness away from people who don’t respect me and put it into myself.

My best friend Charlie is the only person outside of myself who sees me and even then, he will never see all of me. But he is a person who will never stop trying to know himself and therefore me as well because we prioritise that kind of growth.

I will no longer go round in circles. I will no longer look towards a man who caused me hurt and will not apologise. I will not slip back into a role that proved 100% of the time that it was not bringing me joy. I will show that kindness to myself.

I have no evidence to show that being kind to people who are consistently cruel, keeping channels open with people who are dismissive of my feelings and tolerating shitty behaviour has made those people kinder and my life easier. 

The evidence does not exist.

We made a world that tolerates and normalises abusive and disrespectful behaviour.

I am and have been a very proud advocate against that shit for years now.

These last two weeks I have proven that putting my love, kindness, care and creativity into MYSELF has given me many rewards. LOTS of beautiful, joyful moments.

What are your patterns? Are you ready to face them? Are you ready to start healing?

I’m ready. I’m ready to face this head on. 

I feel like I’m walking in treacle when I fight against my pattern. I feel like life is in slow-mo, but I’m doing it. I’m doing it. I’M DOING IT.

Bring it on,

I’m ready…

The best is yet to come…

Love so far…

Oh my dears, 

The sun is still struggling to rise on this cold Sunday morning. 

I quite like the dark mornings. I think it’s because no one wants to be up. No one likes the dark mornings but for me, it’s probably because I missed so many growing up. 

Being in a home where I was up half the night from the screaming I kept hearing from mother and her partner and trying to soothe a baby through the night….that will destroy anyone’s sleep. But now, I wake early in the mornings. I like the fact no one else likes them. It means I have them to myself.

But I’m still bad at resting. Mother would lie in bed almost every day and it sends me into a panic to imagine myself staying in bed during daylight hours even now. But I’m learning to rest because I of all people, need rest.

I was planning to write about hate and why we love it so as people. I was planning to write about how we feed off of hate to spur us forward but I actually don’t want to. 

I want to write about love.

More specifically, I want to write about the kind of love I love. That I work for, wait for, live for.

Apparently when I was really small I used to climb into adults laps for hugs. I was the hug me baby. I always wanted to be hugged. It took a man touching me inappropriately at aged 5 to shut that part of me down almost immediately. I started to cover my body.

My neck, wrists, chest, waist, legs and ankles all had to be covered up at all times. I wouldn’t allow anyone to walk behind me in public or at people’s houses for fear of them grabbing my backside from behind and worst, ever so slightly brushing their fingertips over my bottom as they walked by.

I’m sad when I recount this. I don’t know why men decided to touch my body this way other than they wanted to. These men weren’t sick in the head. They’re not deranged because as I grew up, so many more men did it. Hundreds of men have and have attempted to assault my body that after a while I began to feel like a pole on the street that dogs occasionally peed on. I was nothing more than something to invade, impose on, dehumanise and destroy. Thousands more have done it this week via Facebook. More men are like this than there are men who don’t. That’s a fact. Men in their masses are happy to hate on women by treating them like disposable tissues. 

That’s the reality of hate. That’s the reality of misogyny from men.

Of course, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy into this dehumanising behaviour. Because I believe in love.

I’ve always believed in love. Love is what kept me alive as a child. Love is what keeps me alive as an adult. Believing in love is why I can read these sad, gross comments from men in the last two weeks on Facebook and think “Wow, I’m so thankful I’m not this broken”.

I even wrote a song “I Still Believe In Love (so fuck everyone)” because no matter what someone chooses to throw at me, they’re not taking me down. My love is too strong.

Loving my youngest brother kept me alive. I was 11 when he was born and I immediately assigned myself to stay home from school and raise him as his parents didn’t want to. I came home from school one day and his nappy hadn’t been changed and I was so angry at therm both that in my rage I refused to go to school and leave him. 

Yes, social services were called but all the family lied about it so my mother wouldn’t get into trouble and mother threatened to put us in foster homes if I told, “You’ll never see your brother again”, she hissed at me as the officials knocked on our front door.

He was only 2. I was scared of what would happen to him if he left my sight.

Loving my brother helped me survive the worst physical blows at home. Loving my brother helped me love myself a little more. I had to love myself to make sure I raised my brother as lovingly as a child could.

I spoke to a friend recently and she said loving and raising her two children helped her through the separation of their father. That loving her children was healing her through it. Knowing she was raising two wonderful children gave her the strength to pull through the divorce and I relate to that.

She also said something that I agree with too; “If you have children and you don’t raise them with love, WHAT are you good for?”. Agreed. Men and women are having babies they care so little for.

It was love that got me through the shittiest times of my life. Not because someone loved me but because I loved myself through it. No one has loved me through anything except my best friend and housemate, Charlie.

Charlie loves me through everything. I love him right back.

Loving myself is why I never succumbed to the atrocities that music industry tried to throw me through, despite being surrounded by people who ganged up against me to make me surrender. 

Love is why I have never stayed with a shitty partner. I’ve chosen people based on what they present to me and then I leave when they become disrespectful, abusive, rude and dismissive. 

That’s ACTUAL love. Staying in crappy friendships and relationships is not love. It’s self-flagellation. It’s punishing yourself.

Last night me and Charlie sat on the sofa and watched programmes, stopping to pause it to make some deeper comments about the characters behaviour. We love doing that. At one point we got on the subject of love and the guy I broke it off with and I said, “I just feel annoyed that it feels like I can’t have someone who’s sexy AND kind” and Charlie said, “Do you consider yourself sexy and kind?” And I said, “Of course I do!”, and he said, “Well, then…they exist out there for you”.

Then I just burst into tears. 

I don’t have a family. I don’t have any unit to fall back on. I am my unit. I am my only love and in some ways that makes me feel so proud and sure and other times its just terrifying.

I will not suffer for love because you’re not meant to suffer. No one gets a medal on their death bed for suffering the most. Why would I want to suffer for something that isn’t meant to hurt?

It makes me angry that this is seen as normal by so many stupid people.

I’ve just been really fucking angry. I’m still angry at the way that man I dated treated me. I’m mad he gets away with his blinkers intact so he can dehumanise another woman later on down the line. I’m angry that men in their droves have descended upon my Facebook page writing sexually gratuitous messages publicly on my wall as if they truly believe they hold any value to this world when in reality they should be walking off a cliff edge.

But that anger threatens to take my love and turn it into hate. It threatens to destroy the very fabric that keeps me here, loving and kind. It threatens to turn me into the very thing I don’t want to ever replicate.

Because I love love. I do. I used to think love was movie love. Sparks, physical attraction, sex etc but it’s not.

It’s deep conversations, it’s laughing, it’s messing up and apologising. It’s being accountable for your behaviour, It’s saying sorry and not repeating your mistake. It’s listening eagerly to someone. It’s looking at yourself in the mirror. It’s wearing your favourite outfit just to wear around the house. It’s feeding yourself food that makes you feel good. It’s paying attention to things and people around you. It’s seeing the sun rise. It’s walking away from people who only hurt you. It’s crying because your body wants to send you a signal telling you something’s not right. It’s anger rising in your chest because love tells you you deserve better than what you’re currently getting.

Love is magic. Love is healing. Love is why we’re even alive.

We as people obsess about being the strongest. Survival of the fittest and all that bollocks when in reality it’s survival of the nurtured.

As a child we are useless. We can’t do shit without someone caring for us. We needed love and care to survive to an age where we can nurture and care for ourselves sufficiently enough to then go on and have our own babies to nurture and care.

We’ve got it all wrong. We need love. We need care. We need vulnerability and honesty and consistent curiosity.

Not aggression, mind games, abuse and disassociation. 

Some people will never ever realise this. Some people will stay locked in their defensive, cold shells until they die whilst dragging their nails across everyone else’s back, making everyone else pay for something they didn’t do. I refuse to be that. 

I refuse to to take the mess I was born in and carry it with me. I refuse to let hate win. I refuse. 

I refuse to let thousands of deplorable men make me feel anything other than more love for myself and more grateful that I am not that hateful. 

I’m grateful I CAN see people for who they are. I’m grateful I give people opportunities to be something other than destructive. I’m sad they choose to continue it, it breaks my heart when it happens but I’m happy I don’t feel obligated to keep destructive people around me – including family members.

There is no evidence to prove that being kind to people who are determined to be shitty has turned them into a kinder person.

The evidence doesn’t exist because it isn’t true. 

Oh yes, movies will tell you that the shitty guy ends up being a “nice guy” by the end of the movie but that’s not true.

People don’t do a 180 of their entire belief system, mindset and personality because of another person. They do that when they WANT to do it of their own volition,

And it’s hard to become less hateful and more loving. Like horses with their blinkers on, humans blindly stumble forward hating on anything and anyone who points out characteristics that aren’t all great about them.

I’m lucky because I chose love early on. I’m lucky because at least I can learn to ration who I present my love to. Being loving means you can learn to focus it on you. Being hateful is harder to switch off. Being defensive and cold is harder to stop. That tap runs freely because all of us enjoy making people hurt more than we enjoy making people happy. Your world not mine.

Everyone is in threat mode. Everyone is doing it wrong. They’re dating in threat mode, meeting partners in threat mode. Their expectations are harmful and limited. Their beliefs are harmful and limited.

And yet, if one can’t listen and learn to those closest to them…what hope do they have of really knowing love?

None.

One must be the most willing of students and kindest of teachers.

Love is magic. Love is healing and I know for me, the best is yet to come. 

Love is doing. Love is being and I won’t be anything other than that.

Emily xxx

Bad Luck Girl

Oh my dears, 

I write this at 6:20am on this cold morning.

It’s been a week. I’ve learned a lot. I’m cool like that.

“You are the unluckiest girl I know but you handle it so well”.

That’s a comment one of my housemates made at uni in the first few weeks of living there. She was referring to my childhood when she asked about it. I remember thinking at the time, “What a strange comment to make”, but I didn’t say anything at the time. University was overwhelming enough.

I think about “luck” a lot. What it actually means to me and what it means to everyone else. 

Personally, I think the version of luck people refer to is really fucking stupid.

Most people think luck is something that happens out the blue. A miracle of some kind. In some ways it can feel like that. Finding a tenner on the street. Being booked for a festival and actually being paid. Being spotted on the street and given more music work. Avoiding the speeding car as it tears though a red light. Escaping an abusive marriage. 

Luck. Lucky. You lucky thing.

But I think it’s harmful to think of all things in terms of good and bad luck. Actually, it’s pretty fucking ridiculous because the majority of “good and bad luck” is based on people’s choices.

People saying I’ve had bad luck by being abused as a child and as an adult is like saying that some force we can’t see made it happen. That “bad luck” just CHOSE to have me abused and neglected. That’s not true. My family chose to do that to me. 

Since my last article I’ve had a lot of men (of course) commenting about my taste in men. Why I “pick” them, that the problem must be me. That I’ve just had “bad luck” with men.

But what if it’s not bad luck and instead I’m just exposing how terrible men can be?

What if my experiences with men are sad, cruel and unloving because men in their masses are sad, cruel and unloving?

Because that’s the truth of my experience.

Think of my dating life as market research. Now I’m bringing home the data.

In music, I’m told that the experiences I’ve had – being exploited without pay, being sexually harassed, being threatened if I don’t comply with sexual demands by men, is all “bad luck”.

Ok, but why is it bad luck? Why are you labelling it as a force outside of human control, when it’s literally humans choosing to do this to me?

Why is it called “bad luck” when tons of women are abused in music and in life, every day?

In my experience, no man has been FORCED to be abusive, sad, cruel, unloving and intimidating. No man has been forced to coerce women into doing what they want. That’s their choice. 

I literally read a comment on my Facebook page before I started writing this by a man (of course) saying that it was, “just the way it is” when referring to how men think women are worse at music.

What a brilliantly stupid way to normalise his own shitty behaviour and attitude.

Here’s the truth of it: shitty things happen to me and to you because people choose to be shitty. That’s it. That’s your “bad luck”. 

Bad and good luck don’t exist. It’s humans making choices or in the case of things like childbirth and finding a tenner, that’s life being life.

It is not my fault when someone chooses to be a rude, insensitive, malicious and manipulative. It is theirs. 

But hey, they get a pass right? That’s the way it is, right? That’s who you WANT TO BE, RIGHT?

Because most of the time, “good luck” is issued out to people who fit the parameters people expect from them.

You are rewarded with good luck when you fall in line. When you’re exactly in the right place at the right time – for others.

You are punished with “bad luck” if you don’t do what you’re told.

That’s a pattern I’ve noticed. And it’s the perfect backdrop for people issuing out “good luck” to be abusive with it – which in my experience, men always are.

So if you truly believe bad and good luck exist….

How come no one says how lucky I am to have come from a childhood brimming with drugs, alcohol, physical and emotional abuse and still be here?

Why is it not considered lucky that me, a woman, in a sexist and misogynistic country (men have fought women down for every right we’ve clawed for – none of our rights have been willingly given to us in the UK) has managed to become a smart, intelligent, witty, fucking awesome human being?

Why I am not considered lucky that I just randomly picked up a guitar at 23 and started learning to play and within two years I was singing my own songs at gigs? 

Why I am not considered lucky that despite every disgusting man who’s tried their hardest to halt my music career and my own growth, I’ve responded by holding my own and standing up for myself – both privately and publicly.

Why am I not considered lucky that statistics revealed in New Scientist not too long ago, suggested that children who grow up in abusive homes go on to struggle to maintain “normal” living demands such as a job and have good relationships when I have always had a job since I was 16 and I have a phenomenal relationship with myself?

I am the “luckiest” fucking human I know.

Because I chose it. You didn’t choose it for me. Nobody did. Everybody around me chose to project their shit onto me instead and look how lucky I am to have not listened.

Because I didn’t take one shred of people’s bullshit on.

Truth is, luck isn’t a miracle. It isn’t random. It’s what you give yourself but we’ve designed a world that tells us luck isn’t something you can get for yourself and can only be issued out by others.

When your luck is given by others, it’s not luck. It’s just about whether you fit the bill for them and because you didn’t create it, you didn’t earn it, that “luck” doesn’t last. It’s like a firework or a shooting star: fucking exhilarating but impossible to create in the same way again. 

It won’t stay. It’ll slip away like holding water in your hands.

My luck grows. My luck expands. My luck is bigger than anyone else’s I know. Mine is like the moon – always there.

I’m lucky because I made it so. I’m lucky in ways people don’t care about.

I’m lucky because I worked hard to love myself to not stay around awful men and partners.

I’m lucky because I worked hard to make music I love and I don’t listen to embittered, jaded musicians.

I’m lucky because I worked hard to not take on people’s projections.

I’m lucky because I worked hard to do therapy and understand myself so much more and that has made me so much more self-aware and emotionally intelligent.

I’m lucky because music is a joy and I continue to see it as such despite my experiences in music from men (and some women) choosing to be so brutal, disgusting and dehumanising.

I’m lucky that I’ve worked hard to see those with harmful intent. Even when it’s painful to see it. 

I’m lucky that I’ve worked hard to make my shell like steel and keep my insides soft for the good people. I’m lucky I’ve worked hard to discern the difference between overall good and plain bad people.

I’m lucky I’ve worked my ASS off to be able to survive many terrible financial things. 

I’m lucky that I’ve worked so fucking hard on myself that no amount of shitty comments about my body, my brain and my music will harm me.

Once your parent tells you consistently growing up that she wishes she had aborted you, amongst doing many other dehumanising things, hearing random fucking morons on the internet say similar stuff kind of does nothing to you. 

I’ve had over 25 years of abusive training, babes.

You think what you say to me is going to make a dent after that?

I’m AWARE that people choose to be shitty. 

Are YOU aware of what you’re choosing?

And do you think I want to be anything like you? Why would I replicate that blueprint that tried to destroy me? That’s a backwards ideology there.

I am no “bad luck girl”, I am a superhero.

I’m a survivor, I’m thriving. I’m powerful because I own my power, not anybody else. I’m powerful because I don’t seek to find people to validate my power. I’m lucky that the best is yet to come and I have faith.

I’m taking over what luck is because all too many times it’s been used to shame me for shit I never asked for but was told, “that’s the way it is”. That is not luck. THAT IS SOMEONE’S CHOICE. 

People choose to be good or bad. That’s it.

People have to start accepting that the things I experienced and what you experience are not because of “bad luck” but because abuse and cruel behaviour is really really really really really common.

It’s more common that dog shit. It’s everywhere.

People who choose shitty behaviour are in your home, sitting at your dinner table, driving in your car, sitting on your local bus, working in your job, raising children, clearing your rubbish, working in the church, serving you at the supermarket, cutting your hair, making your coffee. 

They are everywhere. You know it. We make fucking films glorifying shitty behaviour. Do you really think any of us are exempt at recreating that in our homes, schools and workplaces?

No. We’re not. It’s too easy to let our behaviour slip by with statements like:

“Maybe you did something”

“It is what it is”

“That’s just what it’s like”

“You’re being oversensitive”

“Why do you keep picking them?”

“Well, maybe that’s what you’re attracting”

You are normalising “bad luck” and turning it into some impenetrable force when you speak this way. You are the problem, Dan. YOU are the bad luck.

You cannot attract shitty and abusive behaviour. That is a lie. People with shitty and abusive behaviour will suss out who they can get away with treating that way. That’s it. When they lose a victim, they move onto the next. That’s how abusive people work.

I’m lucky that all the abuse, all the events leading up to this writing, have not robbed me of the parts of myself that I love. I’ve fought hard to keep them because it never made sense to me to let people’s thoughts win.

Even in the midst of my childhood where my body was at risk, I just knew that this person outside of myself who was choosing to abuse me, didn’t know me.

They couldn’t get inside my head. Not truly. Not really. Yes, a lot of their narratives took up space for a while but not so much that it drowned that parts of me that kept me alive, like singing and loving the person I am.

I’m so lucky that I work hard every day to treat everybody with the kindness I give myself. I’m so lucky I work every day hard to choose openness when so many people with my background choose to shut themselves away permanently.

Even that guy I was dating recently. He was sharp and prickly and at times emotionally explosive and I still stepped forward with kindness because that’s who I’ve chosen to be. 

I also KNOW that everyone has that kindness in them too and I know people desire to be loved and seen. But they need to choose to want to give it back, which he did not.

So then I chose to be kind to MYSELF by stepping away from him when it became clear that he wasn’t going to let go of that anger and aggression. 

He chose unkindness. I chose kindness.

I won’t shut down when I know love is possible. I won’t close the shutters just because someone didn’t appreciate my shine.

I will walk away when it’s clear that love isn’t being served. I buck every fucking bit of conditioning I was subjected by walking away.

How fucking awesome is it that I went through so much hurt over the years and know that the answer is more love for me? More openness? More self-kindness? I feel like I’ve cracked a code in myself.

That’s “lucky” to me. That’s a choice I made that only breeds even more goodness in my life. More goodness, more luck.

Make your own luck. Look at your own choices and behaviour. Observe everyone else’s. 

I’m delirious that the best is yet to come. 

It is unfamiliar still. I’m wobbly on the steps, but I’m walking on because it feels good.

See you soon x

Sad Boys

Oh my dears, 

I write this at 5:36 this morning.

If you followed my stories on social media in the last 24 hours, you’d see that someone I was seeing turned out to be…not appropriate for me. At all. In fact, they seemed altogether really messed up, which isn’t a term I’d usually use but honestly…I don’t know what else to call it.

Since I’ve known men, dated men, worked with men, it has become ever more obvious that men are so used to not explaining their behaviour. I don’t know what it feels like to be a man but to witness and experience men who can casually act in a cruel, aggressive and dismissive manner and never explain it and stay miserable and yet privileged is a wild thing to observe.

This man wasn’t old enough to be that jaded but the fact he was of similar age to my ex and retained that “sad boy”, down-trodden, bitter mindset that the truly fearful possess made me realise that straight men have a serious problem.

And they’re trying to make women clean it up for them.

I’m not going to go into the in’s and out’s of why it came to this. I can see why. I understand why, but why he acted the way he did isn’t important. 

But the way I responded is.

I’m a romantic, I love relationships. Me and this person had a spark and wow, was it intense. It’s been years since I felt that way. That leap of excitement deep in my stomach when we made eye-contact was enough to want more.

But right from the off he was rude and dismissive. Right from the off he was defensive and guarded. He would apologise later on when I called him on it and say he was defensive and guarded, “naturally” and that’s why he spoke to me like that over text (and to my face) but a part of me just KNEW he was being this way because he was hiding some dark stuff.

I’ve got to admit. I like the people who have a transparent dark side. Whenever I’ve taught children I’m always drawn to the child who’s verbally loud or violent, or storming out of the classroom because I don’t see a problem child (there are no problem children), I see a child who’s been desperately hurt and wants to be seen and heard. I was that child.

But this man wasn’t a child. He was a fully grown adult. He made some really bad, cruel, immature choices with me and now we’re done. And I couldn’t be prouder of myself.

As a woman, I was taught to suffer for love. I was taught to see that scraps from the table of “love” was better than sitting by myself and that being by myself could only mean that I was starving for love from a man constantly.

Well, as the late Nina Simone said “You’ve got to get up from the table when love is no longer being served”.

Plus, I can feed my own damn self.

I know this man was enamoured by me. I know he was charmed by me. I know he was terrified of falling for me hard. I know I kind of blew his mind by listening to him and holding space for his traumas and childhood stories. He’d never had anyone want to know him. He’d never had someone ask about his upbringing or his mental health or his dark side. I know he fancied the absolute pants off of me too. Yeah, I was a ray of sunshine for him. 

That’s the beauty of me paying close attention to body language and vocal tone and facial expressions and words; people give out so much information by me simply watching them.

They become transparent and easy to read.

But instead of meeting in the middle, instead of being curious back, instead of lovingly connecting with me in return, he ate up my kindness and compassion with the same recklessness and selfishness that all men have done with me.

All men. All men I’ve ever dated. All.

But here’s what played out differently. I let him go. And I am NOT sad about it as much as I am relived and happy.

He had ignored my message asking for clarification about some things his behaviour had made me feel and this was the second time he’d done it. Last time he got very defensive over text (Jesus Christ people, stop having arguments over text and when YOU’RE the one getting shitty, call people or ask to come back to it tomorrow) and he stonewalled me for a whole day. He later apologised but….clearly he hadn’t changed anything.

I hate that. Ignoring people who are trying to get answers for your behaviour is abusive. The silent treatment is abusive. Men need to grow up and stop that immediately. Life is hard enough.

So I decided to drop into his workplace for answers. He’d confirmed before that I could drop by any time as it’s a very chill shop. So I did. He straight up walked over with my producing book I’d lent him and handed it to me. I reached up and held his hand and asked him what was going on. Why was he ignoring me? Why had he deleted several messages he’d sent to me. Why wasn’t he talking to me? He said it wasn’t a good time and he’d talk tomorrow (Sunday). He then walked away from me but not before I reached over and put my hand on one of his folded arms and said “Please don’t shut me out”. Because I liked him and his stony appearance was worrying to me.

Where was the man who held my hand and smiled at me on our walk? Where was the man who bent his head towards me at the bus stop and when I looked up he said, “You’re very beautiful”?, and smiled a beautiful smile back?

Hot and cold attitudes annoy the fuck out of me and they make me feel very unsafe.

So I went home and had a cry. I wasn’t confused about his behaviour. I KNEW why he was acting this way. He didn’t want to explain his harmful behaviour so he was punishing me for calling him forward on it – which I did with compassion and grace by the way. 

The silent treatment, the non replies, the coldness when I went to see him and offered to meet him after work. It was all to punish me, to wrench “control” from me. He wanted to make me feel bad. He had my book at work because in his mind he’d rather throw away a connection with me than just explain who the fuck he is. He didn’t know I was coming but he had my book regardless because he was ending things. I knew this and as I sat at home I thought, “why wait?”.

This guy wanted to draw it out. He wanted to torture me. He wanted to make me feel terrible for a whole ass day before telling me he was done. I was like “Ummm, I’ve literally done nothing wrong and I don’t deserve that”.

That evening I collected the books I’d borrowed from him and drove to his house. Nine minutes away, blasting, “There Will Be Blood” by Kim Petras in my car to give me the courage to get there.

I parked outside his house and knocked. His housemate arrived and invited me in. I said I could stay outside but she said, “No, no come in” so I did.

Well, when he came out of his room he looked like he was about to spontaneously combust.

Checkmate.

The element of surprise is how one can gauge what kind of person someone is in conflict and blimey, he was stone cold. He claimed I invaded his home uninvited which I reiterated that his housemate invited me in and he had ignored my messages and I didn’t think it was fair to make me wait until he’s ready when he had been the one that had been harmful. He asked me, “How do you think I’m feeling?” and I said, “I don’t know *****, you don’t tell me how you’re feeling even when I ask”. And he didn’t answer ANY of my questions by the way.

I mean, I get it. He wanted me to look like I’d fucked this whole relationship up because I came over unannounced and didn’t listen to him by staying quiet until he was ready to talk on Sunday. And he could avoid answering my questions by blaming me turning up unannounced. 

Yeah…I’m really not good at tolerating disrespectful behaviour. Something this man clearly didn’t fucking hear the FIRST time he was rude, aggressive and dismissive to me. You can’t con people like into thinking I’m at fault when I’m not. I’m too self-aware for that shit.

And I can’t stand people who don’t learn to be less shit immediately after realising they’re being shit.

Then my body did the strangest thing. It went into shock. My vision narrowed and blurred, I got hot and cold, I thought I was going to vomit and my hearing disappeared. I thought I was going to throw up at his feet.

He stood there blocking the doorway, defensive and defiant and I knew I couldn’t tell him. That I was face to face with a dead person, the walking dead. That no amount of opening up from me would shake this cold, dead mountain of a man in front of me into caring about me or my feelings and I knew I had to leave and never talk to him again.

After staring at the floor for roughly 10 seconds I managed to turn my head to his, lock eyes and say in a voice that I heard from underwater, “*****, I haven’t done anything wrong”, and stumbled to the front door, out into the dark, shakily walked to my car, got in and closed the door and breathed deeply.

My body saved me. My body sent out warning signs. I wasn’t in physical danger, but I was being told that this man, this person I was trying to get to open up was lost to the sea. At the ripe old age of 27, this man was destined to stay cold, unresponsive, unaccountable and cruel for the remainder of his days and I had to get as fucking far away from him as possible. 

He had several opportunities with me and he pissed on every single one of them.

Regardless of this experience, I still believe in love. I will always believe in love. I came back to my car and loved myself back to life. My hearing returned. I felt myself back in my body. I purposefully revved my car into his driveway blasting the same song and I drove into the night, opening the windows so the wind could keep my face cool and whip away every trace of that sad, lost, broken man from my mind.

Because he is broken. He is damaged. I don’t believe anyone is damaged beyond repair but he’s pretty close if he doesn’t try with someone like me. I give more grace, more space, more opportunity, a more loving connection than anyone I know. I think it’s vital for people to experience that. I think it’s vital to give that.

But I will be damned if I tolerate such brutal animosity back. I will be damned before I tolerate being stonewalled because I’ve asked someone to explain the behaviour they’ve CHOSEN.

I’m not a sad, lonely woman desperate for love. I’m a single woman who really fucking loves herself. I love myself too much to put up with that. I’ve worked too hard to love who I am to endure that kind of shit again.

My last ex said we should split-up because I asked him what this relationship meant to him and why he behaved in the harmful way he did. 

And that, my friends, is the pattern I’ve had.

Men don’t explain their behaviour, they simply try and turn it on you and blame you for the connection ending. Men are not direct. Men are not kind. Men are not thoughtful. Men are not rational. Men are not self-aware.

In my experience, they are fearful, cowardly, broken, irresponsible, cruel, immature and downright sad.

Men are sad. They are howling tears inside the self-hate castle they’ve built for themselves.

I wanted to reach into this man and grab his younger self by the hand. I wanted him to walk with me and there were glimpses of that, and oh, how I LOVED THOSE moments, but he chose fear. He chose ego. He chose misery.

Another one bites the dust, my friends, and I am yet again, the one who rises.

Never have I felt more thrilled by this realisation that I don’t deserve this treatment. Never have I felt more close to myself, loved myself, cared for myself harder.

No one’s going to care of me. No family, no one. I’ve created my own and it’s been the best way because…no one can take the love I have for me away. My love isn’t dependent on what mum and dad think of me. It isn’t negotiable on whether I can love me today or tomorrow. It’s solid and it’s the only unconditional love we can experience; the love we have for ourselves. I am the longest relationship I will ever have. I’m going to love me fiercely because of that.

I’m sad it didn’t work out. I’m sad he acted this way. Despite how cruel he was, I feel for him. I feel for him right now. I was treated cruelly by my caregivers. I understand where that cruelty comes from and why he’s doing it and why he did that to me. But there is a limit to what I am willing to endure. Cruelty has no place here, especially in the case of me and him. There was no reason for it. He had no evidence to be so harsh and cold to me.

I approached him with love, curiosity and a deep, deep desire to know him. I’m glad I did. I’m glad I gave him opportunities. I don’t think people are born bad, they make bad choices over and over again until it becomes their character and like I said to this man on one of our dates, “But people can change the course of their lives at ANY time”, so can you, *****.

I want reciprocity. I want some fucking respect and love and care and compassion and curiosity and some damn EFFORT from a potential partner.

We never kissed. We never had sex. Mostly at his insistence to take it slow. 

One thing that struck me this morning when I woke up was a moment after we had gone for a walk. This was before he snapped at me over text, before this whole drama where he’d upset me.

I said, “I can’t believe you’re not kissing me goodbye” and he replied, “You might end up hating me”.

Thinking about it, when someone tells you who they are, believe them. If they say they’re stupid, believe their weaponised incompetence. If they say you’ll end up hating them, they’re telling you that their behaviour is poor. If they consistently say bad things about themselves, it means they don’t like themselves so they’re certainly not going to like someone like me who’s learned to love themselves A LOT.

And why shouldn’t? Like everyone on this planet I deserve to be loved, I’ve recently realised that I can be loved by me first and foremost and it’s actually more valid than placing that validation in someone else’s hands. Especially in the hands of someone who appears determined to crash and burn. I know me better than anyone does. I deserve to love myself. 

Choosing someone to date and befriend is trial and error. So far, all trials and all errors but I know the best is yet to come.

As Salma El-Wardany says “The best is yet to come”.

Say it out loud with me “The best is yet to come”.

My connections with men are getting better in that I’m open quicker. I’m sure of what I want quicker. I can read all these men way quicker. I’m getting smarter and kinder but also, stronger in myself. Each and every time.

Stay open, pay attention, stay loving, stay curious and see you next time xxx

It’s Not Just A Slogan

It will never not be amazing to me how much people say when they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Being off social media has really opened up some things to me. Like how much more committed you are with people when you’re not relying on social media to update you compared to those glued to their phones. 

I was definitely getting addicted to doom scrolling and being off it means I don’t and the more I’m off it the less I have to say to anyone on there.

I’ve noticed that we’re really conditioned to project who we are onto others, or what we think etc. I’m all for “if it doesn’t serve you, move on” but I know for those that don’t want to get offline and smell the flowers, this is a ripe opportunity to project what they think onto you right back.

When I disclosed that I was depressed last month I got an awful lot of people responding about their own struggles. Literally not one person asked me if I was ok or if I needed anything and at first I felt really angry but honestly…that tracks.

No one online knows me. Nobody knows who I am. It’s a parasocial relationship that’s mostly fantasy. Combine that with the fact that we as humans are incredibly bad at sitting with our emotions and expressing ourselves so when I am disclosing real emotions in real time, it’s not being picked up. It’s not being registered. It’s a performance piece and not real life.

I think I’ve cracked as to why that is.

We’re not listening anymore. 

To be fair, did we ever? We don’t grow up learning how to actively listen to someone (let alone our own emotions). As children we listen long enough to be issued instructions about things, “That’s hot, don’t touch”, “you must hold my hand when we cross the road”, “this is how the formula goes”.

Our entire upbringing is about being given instructions.

Then we’re sent to school which is purely based on instructive learning. Not engaging and no equally reciprocal connections. Instruction only. 

Apparently, we’re meant to learn about listening, compassion and emotional intelligence in the playground where we’re bunched to gather with other random, emotionally underdeveloped humans to pick and hop our way through the interpersonal dramas and miscommunicated spats and somehow….build stable, loving connections with other humans with absolutely no guidance from home or school figures.

…ok.

Where oh, where do we learn how to listen actively?

Point is, we don’t. And I believe its why mental health in the UK is at an all-time low. It’s why teenagers are being diagnosed with depression at escalating speed. It’s why life generally feels really heavy and slow while at the same it’s already fucking October and how the fuck did that happen it was August last week right?

We’re no longer listening to each other and social media gives us the perfect platform to keep our ears shut.

Social media is really kind of clever because information is fired at you from all angles. We can be sprung onto with info about our interests and political discourse at any moment. We can even be sucked into a personal discourse between people on Facebook that we barely know. It’s like Eastenders but it’s Sherry that you knew back in Year 9 arguing about the affair her “hubby” had online for people to read about.

We get to be spectators in the cheapest seats for a good view and feel like we have absolutely no claim or responsibility in what we’re witnessing.

Brilliant. Plus, what’s amazing is that you can stand witness to polarising debates and feel like you’re not part of the problem because that problem only exists in your phone, right? You can think things privately, safe in the knowledge that you had no part in that harmful shit. Because you can put the phone down and it’s gone.

Sounds awesome.

Of course, then what happens is that you spend so much time online, so much time sitting there watching and observing that you start to form opinions on it. Some part of it is collating thoughts from watching online but 90% based on your learned bias’s which developed heavily before you even reached the aged of seven.

Then you start commenting. Boom.

I’ve spent years as a silent observer on the internet. Even after I started my music pages online I still only posted about my music and never commented much because honestly….what did I have to bring to the table? I don’t like to speak about things I know nothing about and I don’t assume that people think the same things as me. 

I know I do this because I have spent a lifetime witnessing people project that absolute rubbish onto me. I know a bad mistake when I see one and I’ve never been inclined to repeat the blueprint of a really stupid or insensitive person, as tempting as it may be sometimes to fight hurt back with more hurt.

But when I spoke about how I felt….my god….that felt way harder.

For one thing, it’s vulnerable to talk about something that’s hurting me or bothering me and I talk online about it. I have no idea what’s going to happen. All I know is that if it stays inside me, I feel like it’s going to kill me. Like a rapidly spreading disease that no one but myself can feel.

The massive issue with social media as well is that it IS a performance piece. People DO use their mental health issues to platform themselves for likes. I find it really really repulsive to see so many people do this. Brene Brown writes that vulnerability is showing up and not knowing what the outcome will be but vulnerability has now practically been monotenised so that anyone can share a diagnoses or an event about personal trauma and we see it as brave and good to share. Don’t get my wrong, it’s crucial to share mental health issues but…it’s stupid to expect that some systemic change will come off of the back of it.

We’re not going to take our own mental heath seriously when it’s used consistently for entertainment.

When I first shared about my mental health online it was in 2016 – the year I started therapy. I finally spoke online about how much I was struggling not only with my current mental health but how trauma from my past was affecting me deeply and it felt like it was pulling me back, like some invisible strings determined to drag me back to a place where I was defenceless and alone for real.

The response was not great. Back in 2016 no musicians talked about mental health openly. It was not a thing. It became a thing once a famous musician talked about it but if you’re just an independent artist, it means “nothing” to the general public.

This is why if I shared what I shared in 2016 NOW I’d be lauded and clapped on the back.

Progress isn’t pretty when it first strikes.

I’m aware that even though I’m on the pulse when it comes to things like this, I’m also aware that the average person will only think what I’m saying is “right” when someone far more famous than me or a collective of people more famous than me agree. Which is why I’ve learned to not care when people say I’m wrong or that my logic doesn’t make sense. It does make sense. I’ve just gone far deeper down the wound than you’re willing to go. I pay close attention to patterns. That’s why I know I’m right about the complexities of mental health and our response to it. 

And I will never shut up just because the majority of people refuse to catch up.

So yes, I spoke about it all publicly in 2016 and my boyfriend at the time said it was “embarrassing” for him. My manager at the time told me I may not be hired if I carried on doing that. Lovely stuff.

I could talk about how awful people were to me when I start speaking about it – there are literally tonnes of stories – but really I’m shocked and so proud that even when I was really unwell, even when I felt so lonely and sad, I didn’t keep my mouth shut. I didn’t stay silent about all the horrible things that were happening to me. I didn’t speak about it all at once at the time it was happening but I got to talk about it more and more and there is still so much more to disclose.

So if you’re someone from my past who was awful to me and I haven’t mentioned you yet, please don’t worry. Maybe I got mine, but you’ll all get yours, whether I speak about it or not #karma

I came offline because I could kind of see that people weren’t really engaging anymore. They were spectating. The pandemic sure has done a number on our ability to connect. We are now frighteningly bad at it as a mass, and yet connecting deeply is how we survive things so I’m not sure what the healing will be around that.

This week at therapy I told R that I felt lonelier than I’d ever been. Yes, I’d finally cleared out some absolute rubbish in my life but I was still frightened about my finances and frightened about my current friend-less state (bar Charlie). I said I missed seeing romantic sparks anywhere and that men, in general, appeared to be sad, joyless, uninteresting creatures so WHY am I attracted to them and was I broken and was I a nasty, horrible person if I didn’t have a community of people around me.

Truth is, anyone can have family and call it community, even if they’re not great as a family. Likewise, anyone can have “friends” they’ve known since school and call it a community. Let’s face it, we don’t make efforts to strengthen, grown and expand ourselves as individuals if we can help it and more often than not our “communities” don’t allow for that anyway.

No ex of mine had a healthy community of friends and family when I knew them. They all said pretty horrid things about their parents, their friends, their colleagues. I don’t know about you but if I had a community of family and friends and I actually liked them as people, I wouldn’t be filling my mouth to talk shit about them.

I love Charlie as my friend and I always talk about how lovely he is. We have spats like most friends do. Recently both of us have not been feeling good at all (mentally) and it’s been quite hard for us to hold space for ourselves and each other but guess what? We communicate all the time. It’s a relief to have someone in my life that actually wants to TALK things out and WANTS to listen to me. I would never speak poorly about Charlie because if I have a problem with him….I speak to him about it.

Radical, eh?

Talking is necessary. Actively listening is necessary.

My last ex said he found our conversations exhausting* and I was really hurt by that 

*and to be fair, if I was doing nothing about my mental health and dragging my bubbly gf down with the same shit I refused to address – yeah, I’d find conversations about my own behaviour exhausting too (please note the heavy sarcasm). 

I love giving people space to talk about what’s hurting them. I love letting them know that I care about them and by listening to them I am showing that. 

When did loving someone only become about what you bought them? 

My ex would buy me flowers and random things he found in charity shops that I liked but after one particular argument where he refused to meet me on time and I called him forward on it. I remember vividly sitting in my car with him on his road where he lived in Teddington and he handed me this miniature pot as a present and I accepted it and said “This is lovely but I don’t want presents from you. I want you to talk to me”, and he hung his head down like that was the last thing he wanted to do. THAT upset me. It was as if talking was a no-go but unless I speak, how do they know how I feel? If they don’t speak about who they are how can I love them or be interested in them? Don’t they want to know who the fuck I am?

Presents are not a substitute for open communication. 

Sidebar: People turn up for things that they value and will turn up for people they respect. Whether they have anxiety, ADHD or depression, they will do this. When they are not and should they have any of the issues above and are NOT doing anything to help themselves with their issues….it’s just a lack of respect ok?

I think listening is a great skill to grow. And it’s a skill, people. Most people are pure trash at it because we are not taught how to do it.

Listening requires you being interested in the person in the first place.

Boom. Got ya. 

You have to be interested in them. Listening is an active skill.

We are not really interested in that which does not serve us instantaneously.

This is why social media is so popular and the desire to connect with another human in real life is not. Scrolling is passive.

Trust me, this is painful to admit that my past relationships and friendships have been with people who were not interested in me as a person. That they have in fact, been passive and not at all active on their side. The only active person in these relationships was ME.

Nowadays, I’m a lot more restrictive and I pour most of it into me.

I don’t know what the solution is except maybe we should all be dealing with the loneliness of being off our phones. The pandemic made us feel connected through social media but not in real life. Maybe it’s just a habit like biting you nails; you’ve got to work at stopping it. Humans are weak little things, really. It takes a lot of strength (and isolation) to really know what you want for yourself and go for it.

I ripped down all of my communities. Pre and post pandemic. First my family, then friends, then more friends, and I ripped them down over and over again because what has been is not what I want as a community. I want commitment to authenticity, I want real laughter. I want real kindness. I want fucking brilliant sarcasm. I want some fucking curiosity about everything. I want extreme sadness so it can tell me what to do next. I want people who don’t take themselves seriously but take the issues around them seriously. I want reliability from my community.

I want from people, all the things I work hard daily to be for myself and those closest to me. No more of this half-in, half-out shite.

I thought I had to stay small. I thought I had to be as limited as those around me.

Wrong.

Life is long but it’s also short. It doesn’t have to be hidden or small, like an iPhone screen. It can be big and brilliant.

I can’t wait for another love affair. I can’t wait to have a crush on someone decent (I do have a crush on this one guy in a shop but my god, he is swimming in red flags) because learning to have a crush on someone and having a crush on someone decent are two very very different things. The smarter I get, the more limited my options are but good god, just imagine the calibre I’m gonna get…

I love that my enthusiasm is not dulled down by the past, That I can still hope.

In conclusion I’m going to share a story that happened at my work this week.

I was crossing the playground and I saw a former student from last year walking by. They were wearing a jumper that said “be brave, be kind, be courageous”. I walked alongside them, said hi and said I liked the words on their jumper. I then said, “What does being brave mean to you?” And the child said, “Umm, I don’t know”. I then said, “Well, what do you think being brave is?”, and the child thought about it and said, “Never giving up hope”. 

I said “That’s a really excellent thought…and I think you’re right. Have a lovely day”.

That nine year old understood courage better than most adults. It’s not just a slogan. It’s how to live fully.

I know courage is what got me here, Courage will keep me going.

Whilst friends, lovers, community….they are coming. 

Emily xxx

What’s Behind Your Front Door?

I’ve been trying to write about this subject for years but it’s never felt like the right time. But since the uprise of celebrities being called forward for atrocious behaviour has become the latest trend of public accountability, I feel that the time is now.

So after many years and many rumours, Russell Brand has been the latest celebrity to be called forward for sexual abuse. Now, abuse amongst the rich and famous is no surprise to me. As someone who has been physically, sexually, emotionally and mentally abused for a large proportion of my life by non famous people, someone famous doing this is expected. 

What I AM finding fascinating is the discourse from people around it. 

We have the die-hard fans rushing to Brand’s defence, believing this to be another ”witch-hunt” and we have those who are not in the least bit surprised about it.

But for me, I wonder how many of these people in both camps consider the abusive behaviour they do, see and enable every day. I wonder if it would be so easy to apply this logic to their own family members, friends and co-workers if such allegations came to light closer to home. Abuse and abusive behaviour is a choice, many people witness it or know it happens but make excuses to avoid confronting it due to their own discomfort. 

The worst thing about a celebrity or a well-known public figure being outed for sexually abusive behaviour is that we, as a public, tend to feel some sort of relief that it’s being called out, or huge defence of the person in question because they’ve been idolised so much. In some twisted way, we see that public person as a representative of us and I think we feel this way so we don’t have to tackle the blatant abuse we’re seeing in our own circles every day. We can just pin our hopes onto a situation outside of ourselves. It gives us the perfect excuse to enable our own shitty behaviour and turn the other way when it’s happening to people we know personally and…when it’s happening to us. 

We become emotionally invested in famous people because we’re told that THAT is success, that THAT is being a great person. So when we see a “great person” outed, we’re shocked and appalled because money and fame is happiness right? Money and fame means never having problems, right? We’re told that having money and fame is a rare gift given to people who are special and must be good or better than ‘ordinary’ people. This is why we hold them in such high regard.

That dangerous divide of what makes someone a “success” or not is exactly why abuse isn’t nipped in the bud at first sight. 

Celebrity circles are super small. There are only so many celebrity circles and they are even graded by letters. And in those groups, abuse will be rife because of how people have nurtured that business to be. Coercive control, threats and blackmail is what runs and maintains celebrity status. No actor or musician has gotten to the status they’ve gotten to by being a consistently “good person” because the culture is not designed to uplift “good” people. That’s not how the business was built to be. It’s money focused. It’s a numbers game and ordinary people are the pawns until they get lucky. And if you don’t comply, you’re booted out.

I’ve read enough books and interviews with musicians, actors, dancers and journalists for this to not be a true representation of the entertainment industry.

So, when a celebrity is outed for abusive behaviour you can bet that everyone around them either actively supports it or are complicit in it (this includes the act of looking the other way as that is still passively supporting the behaviour). Those two things. Nothing else.

Which is why I question people’s reactions to stories like this deeply.

By now it should be obvious to anyone that one person doing a bad thing or a series of bad things is not someone existing in a vacuum.

For example, Donald Trump did not become President of the United States because 20 people agreed with him. It was because he spoke in a way that spoke to millions of people who agreed with him. Him becoming president proved that. He is not one man. He is the accumulation of what millions of people believe in too. He was just the face of it.

Russell Brand does not just represent Russell Brand’s actions. He represents the hundreds of people who helped him, enabled him and threatened people for him. Who were they and why did they do that?

We don’t like these questions because it forces us to look at our own behaviour, at our own upbringing and possibly, at our own abuse from the hands of others. It also forces us to wonder how abuse can be so rampant…but we don’t “know” any abusers…?

In 2021 a study was conducted that asked 22,000 women whether they had been sexually abused in their lifetime. The participants were 18+. What came back was disturbing. I remember reading this after work in a street before going home to a shitty guardianship in west London. I sat on a curb and just read the whole article thinking this was the worst thing I’d read but also…that I was finally seeing evidence for what I’d experienced myself.

99.3% of women had been subjected to one or more acts of sexual violence since birth.

If that number shocks you, it should. It shocked me and I’ve only ever really known sexual assault or at least some sort of sexual agenda from men. I should have expected it but to be honest, I’ve been told it’s “normal” so many times, it becomes normal to be assaulted and abused and tolerate it because you’re told to. So, a study outing it in black and white as not normal was a massive shift for me to read. It finally made me see and acknowledge that what happened to me, what happens to millions of women, isn’t right and should never ever be normalised.

I personally believe the real percentage of this survey is 100% and I believe this because I also know women who would never admit what happened to them happened. I know way too many women who have been assaulted by men for it to not be 100%. I know way too many women who have told me their stories and said it wasn’t abuse when it was, in fact, abuse.

What is clear is that numbers this high prove that the amount of abusers are high too.

It isn’t the same 20 people going around and assaulting almost 22,000 women, is it? This means that for every act of assault happening to these women, there’s a person doing it. In all these acts in this study, the perpetrator was a man.

This doesn’t scare me because I’ve had and continue to be subjected to sexual abuse whether its online or in real life. It’s obvious to me that it’s this common. The pace hasn’t slowed down, in fact, since the arrival of well known stat omitting talkers like Tate and Peterson, their followers hateful vitriol has amped up. I’d say it’s gotten a lot worse.

Even the subject of consent has not been clearly examined. 

People are arguing that since the girl Russell had sex with was 16, she was of legal age and “knew what she was doing”. This kind of thinking completely negates how sexually coercive language and coercive control play a huge part in getting a young person to engage in a sexual act.

Think of it like an IV drip. Young girls especially are told, in tiny steps, that our appeal is our bodies and our worth is what our bodies can do. This is slowly fed to us either through positive or negative reinforcement. And when someone wants to coerce us, it’s done in tiny drips. These tiny drips accumulate to a lake we eventually find ourselves swimming in. A young person may agree to have sex with an adult, but how long was this young person manipulated in the lead up to this? 

A 2015 study showed that 40% of girls aged 13-18 have been spat on and choked during their first sexual experience. I imagine the numbers have risen by now. The girls believed this was “normal”. You can thank porn being watched by 27% of young children by the age of 11 for that.

I remember being coerced into sex at 16 by another boy and not being able to sit down for three days as the pain was so bad. When I told him I was in pain, he told me to spit on myself. And because I had no-one at home looking out for me and this was the first person I’d met who didn’t call me useless or fat or hit me, I did it. 

Was it consensual because I was 16 and of legal age? 

No, not if I’d expressed my discomfort and was told to do it anyway because THEY wanted sex. Doing the act of sex doesn’t mean it was consensual if you had to be pushed into it. Doing the act of sex isn’t consensual if you don’t want to do it and your boyfriend gets angry and turns their back on you in bed because he wants sex from you and because you’ve been told your whole life to please boys, please boys, please boys, please boys!!!!!!!!!!!!! no matter what, you do what they tell you.

Only eight years ago a video surfaced of an illustration about consent using tea. Now…there was outrage at this video and it’s basic plot was “don’t force your desire to have sex with someone onto them if they’re not into it”, but no one talks about the coercive language used to get consent. Its frustrating and really really ignorant to not include this with consent and the issues around it.

Coercive language is designed to cut someone down until they give in to “consent”. Women and girls are coerced their entire lives by everyone around them. Family, friends, school, strangers. It’s no accident that there is a record high amount of teenage girls getting pregnant by ADULT men. No young girl wants to be coerced into sex. We deliberately keep young children ignorant about sex and bodily autonomy to keep them malleable for as long as possible. It’s misogyny designed to manipulate and control.

I would argue that almost all first sexual acts for girls are coercive and not fully consensual at all. When people say it was consensual, always ask “for who?”. Most men don’t even know what consent is. They’ve never bothered to ask women and girls what they want, in every day life and in regards tk sexual desires. Instead we’ve seen the way the majority of men tell women what they want online, in the media and in our own HOMES.

Do we really expect a grown cis-het man who grew up in this misogynistic society to understand what consent is?

The answer is no.

Abuse is rife. It’s everywhere. So why is it only being cracked down with celebrities and not us ordinary folk?

Well, I believe it’s because of our unwillingness to accept that we could do anything so sinister ourselves.

We enjoy celebrity “sex scandals” (which to be honest is code for rape) because it makes us feel like we’re really good people. Like, we’re not famous and rich but thank god we’re not perverts like these people. They might be rich but at least I would never do that.

I think it’s a way of asserting our ego over it, which chimes well with us who avoid accountability because we’re also trying to reconcile with the fact that we’ll never be as rich or as privileged as these celebrities. It’s like a consolidation prize.

Congratulations! You’re better than a rich person because you haven’t been publicly outed for abusive behaviour! Go you!

But like I said, it’s dangerous.

We then make out that that kind of behaviour would never be in our homes, or in our schools or in our workplace. Because only rich, privileged spoilt celebrities do that right?

WRONG.

The truth is, abuse IS in our homes, in our families, in our friendship circles and at work. That 2021 study proves that there are as many abusers as there are victims, so….where exactly are they?

I know I talk about how we normalise abusive behaviour all the time but…we really do normalise abusive behaviour.

Take my family history for example. When my aunt was 14 her step-dad (my grandmothers second husband) sexually assaulted her in his car when he took her home from school. My aunt did the right thing and told her mum. My nan did the wrong thing and called her a liar and kicked her out. 

Yes, you read that right. My nan kicked her daughter out for telling her about being assaulted. My mother was 12 at the time and remembers it all.

So when I was 14 and told my mum I didn’t like how this “friend of the family” was touching my bottom when no one was looking, walking into my room without knocking when I was changing and entering the bathroom while I showered so he could pee (I did not have long showers due to water bills) I was upset my mother didn’t believe me. In fact when I got out the shower after the first time he did it, I found my mum in the hallway outside the bathroom. She had unlocked the fucking bathroom door for him to use whilst I was showering (we had those stupid doors that could be unlocked from outside).

When told her right there and then that I wasn’t comfortable she told she to “stop being silly”…so he continued to do this to me.

Yep. Can you see the rather beautiful and terrible cycle of abuse happening, kids? Can you see it? Don’t look directly at it, now. It might scorch your retinas.

My mother was the one who told me about my aunt yet couldn’t see the correlation between her being abused and me being abused. Can you smell it? That strong stench of cognitive dissonance? Where one just doesn’t want to acknowledge the part they play in abuse? 

It’s rampant, it’s rife and it fucking reeks.

We see abuse all the time. We just don’t want to see it and accept it and then DO something about it*. 

*SIDEBAR: Really what can you do? If I come forward about an abuser now, even with evidence I can be legally sued for calling them out. That’s right, folks. Because of a stupid fucking misogynistic judicial system, if I was to be raped and I had evidence for it, I can still be sued for calling them out….yes. You are in fact reading that right.

Our judicial system is corrupted and always has been. A man called Sir William Hale decided in 1736 that men should be able to rape their wives because they are property.

That wasn’t eradicated in the UK until 1993. I was fucking 5 years old. And It wasn’t even added to the Sexual Offences Act until 2003!!

In fact, Hale was quoted by a congressman when they eradicated Roe VS Wade so please…don’t tell me things are improving. They are not.

What this means is that…we’ve spent an awful long time on this planet normalising really bad, BAD things. And right now, we’re having a hard time acknowledging that it’s not over. By far.

I get that calling horrible shit out is hard. I get it’s not easy to acknowledge that a family member or friend of the family has been insidious but it’s really REALLY common. Part of teaching young children is finding out just how common it is and its disturbing. But it’s more disturbing when people know and do nothing. Its disturbing when people claim that it can’t be true simply because they won’t admit they’ve done it or they won’t admit they’ve suspected it to be true.

Maybe I feel differently because the abuse I’ve had has been so frequent, so fast and furious and in so many different shades of shit that I just don’t NOT see it anymore. 

It’s not like I’m on high alert and thinking “Everyone’s a rapist, run for your lives!!” because I’ve been hoodwinked. I’ve believed people are good until they’ve touched me up. I’ve believed people are good until I’ve heard about their behaviour but have I disbelieved it straight away? Never.

I never will. Not because I want to believe they did this bad thing, but because I know how well people can hide. I’ve been forced to hide with my abusers for years before I left them.

I know that hiding looks exactly like living in plain sight.

That’s why Brand’s video of him admitting about his “lascivious” past doesn’t surprise me. Rather than admitting what he did, he does a spin and instead make out he’s being targeted by the media. He’s being subjected to a “witch hunt”, which by the way is a massive, massive insult to the 500,000 women and few men who died in just over 150 years during the witch trials simply because men didn’t want women working as healers or moving up in society. 

Yet here we are, pushing all our attention onto an innocuous man and not on ourselves. 

How convenient it is to look at someone in the public eye and not at ourselves.

You know celebrities are human too, right? They shit too. They’re flawed too. 

Maybe that’s the crux of it. That we can’t stand to see our own flaws, our own mistakes and learning curves, so we lean towards people in the public eye to be our guides. Since they’re rich, right? They have what we’re told to obtain.

This idea that we can only learn what success is through the lives of celebraties because we’re told we should be looking up to them for guidance stops us learning for ourselves. It’s passing our power to someone else. It’s omitting ourselves from our OWN life story. I don’t know about you but I’d rather be learning how to be a good person by seeing the bad things people do and wanting to NOT be like that. I mean…come on. 

Our frantic desire to cover up and look away from how we enable abuse is not serving us, our friends or our family. Everybody has flaws. Everybody has been trained to do abusive things whilst being trained to accept abusive treatment. 

We rarely question authoritative figures because they do essentially control everything. We don’t question or call out a boss’s behaviour because our livelihood is dependent on keeping that boss happy, no matter how abusive they are. I’ve been fired for calling out abusive behaviour in quite a few jobs. Did these people learn their lesson? No. I am an army of one. If I’m the only one doing it, these people continue. 

That’s why everyone’s responsible for this. Russell Brand’s behaviour is an accumulation of us all standing there and watching it happen or being part of it. We’ve allowed it in our homes, in our schools, in our work places. 

So, no. Its not shocking that another celebrity has been outed. 

What shocks me are people’s fearful reluctance to see how they’ve contributed to this culture of coercive control and abuse.

It’s time to join the dots. It’s time to examine our contribution to it.

I’m not interested in what happens to Russell Brand. I’m interested in what we do privately in our lives after this news. 

Cutting off the flower does not kill the root.

Instead of focusing on yet another celebrity being outed as being abusive, surely our energy could be spent improving our own environments?

Lets go diving…

Emily xxx

(Bound)ary to be good…

I’ve wanted to write an essay about boundaries for a long time. I see and hear the word thrown around social media and in my actual conversations with people so much and yet I’ve only ever seen professional body’s use the term correctly. 

Boundaries are essential for us to communicate, love, assert ourselves and generally live a healthy life. Without them we find ourselves in rather precarious and sometimes in all out dangerous situations. It’s worth mentioning that according to your gender, race and background, your boundaries will be harder to enforce and even harder to know what they are due to how we treat people. We are not treated equally because we don’t have equality and our boundaries are treated the same.

Let’s first use the standard Oxford Language meaning of the word “boundary”: a line which marks the limits of an area

Ok, cool and yet that speaks to a physical object we ourselves may or may not walk upon, right? And we may have bodies but we’re not objects, so what’s the meaning in regards to our personal state?

I think my favourite example of what personal boundaries are is: Boundaries are a bridge between me and you

A unhealthy boundary is an imbalance of your independence when it comes to a connection with someone (romantic or platonic). An unhealthy boundary is a lack of respect for one another and your values.

It sounds REALLY simple, right? We like being respected. Humans only basic need in this world is to be loved and love back so…how could understanding our boundaries, recognising what they are to us, enforcing them and staying true to them be so hard?

But it is hard. So monstrously hard. Because the boundaries that make us feel safe aren’t immediately accessible to everyone – especially if you are an oppressed and marginalised group (I.e not a white straight man but I would argue that straight white men do not have healthy boundaries either, it’s just that their behaviour is more acceptable in a misogynistic society)

Take myself for example. I had sex at 16 but I had no boundaries around the act of sex until I was 28. Why? Because I was essentially trained by family, friends, tv shows, movies and every day interactions to believe that my body was a tool. My only value was my body and it had to be used a certain way to keep others happy because THAT was my job: keeping others happy.

“Emily, you’re a woman. You’re a very pretty girl. One day you’ll make someone very happy. You’re so good with children, you’ll be a great mother. You’re so good at looking after people. Men must be lining up around the block for you”.

The startlingly thing I realised at 28 is when I started therapy I discovered that actually, so much of my sexual experiences had been rape and coercive control combined with a brainwashed-style auto pilot I’d submit my body to (whilst my mind wandered deep into another thought – far from the painful action happening to my body). 

Given the constant, CONSTANT programming from aged 5, when I started implementing boundaries as a fully grown adult, when I started listening to what my body and mind wanted together, that’s when people had a problem with me. I say people because I mean men and women. Men didn’t like my independent, respectful stance about my body and women didn’t like my new found love for doing what felt right to me. Women fall under the same programming and it varies with your background, race and religion. But the orders are the same: you’re a women, so fucking serve.

I still struggled with my boundaries around sex even up till now. It’s only by being deliberately single and speaking about the lack of boundaries and sharing my experiences with Charlie that I realised how much work I really needed to do. It’s ongoing and you can never really tell if the work you’re doing will actually work because you need to implement them on strangers to know if you can do it. How annoying, right?

Moving on from sex, I was thinking about the way other people use the word “boundary”. 

I don’t know about you but when I used to think of the word “boundary” I’d think of a gate or some really imposing border. Some impenetrable force that stopped all the bad things from happening. Which in theory sounds great! No bad things, yay! But in practice this doesn’t work. If you have boundaries that you use to solely block things out, you can’t allow any good in.

For example, if your “boundary” is, “I don’t like dating people with blue eyes. No way. That’s a boundary”. That’s not a boundary. That’s a preference and all preferences are bias’s that came from somewhere…

That “boundary” was mine for YEARS by that way. I look back now and think how foolish I was to think this.

Considering 42% of people in the UK have blue eyes that’s quite a lot of people I’m wiping away the possibility of connecting with someone simply because they have an eye colour that previously scared me.

So where is my bias from?

Blue eyes freaked me out for years and I’d never dated anyone with blue eyes because it reminded me too much of my dad who scared the shit out of me as a child. 

My last ex had deep blue, warm eyes. He even had a pattern in his right eye that looked like a mountain (yes, I took a photograph) and despite us not working out and no longer talking, it helped me put aside my fear of blue eyes in men.

My attraction to men isn’t down to physical attributes as much anymore anyway. Quite frankly, talking to a man in the street nowadays makes me thankful to be single.

But see here, this is the difference between boundaries and preferences. Both are learned attributes of being human but they are exercised very differently to get what you require. Boundaries are designed to keep you and your sense of self safe with yourself and when dealing with other people “I need this to feel safe and if this isn’t possible I will leave”, whilst preferences are your own totally individual, conditioned or not, likings and dislikes, “I like sweet over savoury” for example.

It’s interesting that our boundaries, much like our preferences, expand and grow the deeper we question why we do what we’re currently doing in the first place.

But a preference isn’t a boundary even though that is just one of many ways the people use the word boundary wrong. It’s being used this way not to show expansion but to exercise control over others.

I’m going to use myself as an example because even though it would be easy to use some pop culture reference (like Jonah Hill, because it was a complete shit show example of boundaries and he was rightly called forward for that), I feel this constant desire to point the finger at issues outside ourselves rather than dismantle the issues we already have, is a way at hiding from our responsibilities as humans. Jonah Hill’s actions are not existing in a bubble. His actions are the accumulation of billions of actions the people around him did that he would’ve observed , swallowed, soaked up and spat out onto his ex girlfriend. We’re part of that accumulation whether we like it or not. 

Yes, sorry, you and I are like, totally responsible for it all. But unlike the rich and famous, we’re doing something about it from the ground up. And if you’re not, you should be.

I was dating a man during covid and it was around the time the word “boundary” was cropping up on the radio and social media. Loosely, my ex would basically say harmful things to me and when I would call him forward to explain his words and behaviour he would always reply, “I don’t want to talk about it. That’s a boundary”

Uhh, what?

This is an example of an order – NOT a boundary. Remember when I said a boundary is a bridge between me and you? By that I mean it’s establishing that there has to be some distance between us in order for us to be individual beings in our own right but if you actually like a person (and I’m assuming if you’re dating someone you do actually like them) you will ensure that the behaviour you’ve exhibited that has hurt them can and should be explained and hopefully never repeated. 

My ex was trying to exercise his control. He wasn’t interested in explaining his behaviour or trying to reassure me that he actually liked and cared for me.
No, no, Emily I’ve said what I’ve said and Im not explaining my behaviour. So take it, bitch.

FYI, not explaining your harmful behaviour erodes the trust between you both. There will always be an air of wariness and fear between you both if you don’t and sooner or later, that truth turns to dust. Facts. 

The recipient of this behaviour has every right to shut off contact and leave because being harmful is disrespectful behaviour.

Now, how do I, as the recipient of this behaviour handle it? Do I get angry? Storm off? I mean, I was essentially trapped with this man as he threatened to take the only job I had doing covid away from me (he had gotten me the job with his work as a handyperson who fixed up guardianships) when I asked him at another time to not speak so harshly in our house whatsapp group.

I mean, looking back the man was severely emotionally dysregulated and very very abusive but when you’re someone in a financial bind with no family and a fucking huge worldwide pandemic is happening, what choice did I have? Just to eat the bullshit and pray it wouldn’t kill me.

Basically, in a relatively “normal” scenario where a person cannot explain their behaviour and appears to refuse to, it would be up to the recipient to say “I don’t feel good about you not explaining why you said this to me. It was harmful and disrespectful. Until you’re able to explain why you did it and apologise, I will be having space from you”. 

Boom.

But instead of me being the responsible one, how could my ex have handled his “boundary” better? How could he have met me in the middle? Easy, really.

People say shit they don’t mean pretty much all the time (but I also think deep down.they love being cruel).

Especially men as a class. 

My theory is that more people than we’re willing to admit, really get off on being cruel. Abuse and shitty behaviour is a choice, not a birthright. And really nasty behaviour is so normalised in our day to day life. How can we really believe it’s not normalised? The only people on a grand scale who don’t see it are loads and loads of men. 

Too many men

The majority of men don’t think about what they’re saying even though they should because the majority of men I’ve spoken to in my life spout either utter bullocks or very harmful narratives to everyone. So unfortunately they do very harmful things a LOT of the time and they’re not aware of it that much or they’re choosing to be harmful. What’s also important to point out is that most men don’t see women as people. Only men are people to other men so even when a woman rightfully calls a man forward about his behaviour he WILL automatically dismiss her claims as false because as a woman she is not a real person and therefore her experiences are not real. She is a liar.

That is why at the start of this essay I said boundaries are received differently according to what you identify as in society. I started laying down boundaries in sex and men had a huge problem with it because it doesn’t subscribe to what men are told women are used for. It’s a false subscription and I’m confused as to why too many men want to keep this dehumanising view of women alive but hey, you’ll have to ask men why they insist on doing that. 

Too many men don’t use boundaries, they use orders. They choose this way and since too many men are slow to stop rubbing each other’s backs in allegiance, it’s up to everyone who doesn’t identify with these traits to question, discover and expand our boundaries. 

A far healthier, kinder and open ended response to being called forward for saying harmful would be to say “I’m sorry I have hurt you. I don’t know why I said this. I’m unable to explain this to you right now. I’d like to get back to you tomorrow and talk about why I did this”. 

Simple, right?

But in truth, I think personally if you can’t explain why you said/did something harmful straight away you are 

1. repressing some things that are bothering you and choosing to project it onto the one closest to you which makes you an asshole
2. You just enjoy hurting the one closest to you…which makes you an asshole
3. You have no self awareness, no sense of care for other people, no care for yourself and have never addressed that but decided to get close to someone knowing you were not in the best place to date or be close to someone, which makes you an asshole.

If they were a child I’d get it but these are grown adults I’m talking about. 

Point being, a boundary is a putting down what feels good for you and finding a middle ground with the other person

What’s this? Humans? Working together?! 

Yes, it really is that.

And that’s where respect comes in.

It’s all too obvious that people may partner up and remain friends with people but there is such lack of respect for one another I’m surprised we can function at all. 

Boundaries are about self respect and respect for another. 

It sounds really simple but in this new age, fast-food, immediate gratification because someone liked my new post, world, we’re forgetting the rather big details we need to function.

Everyone deserves basic respect and this is added or taken away according to how you treat people. Or so we’re taught. 

The truth is, you don’t need to be respected in order to gain power. There isn’t even a pecking order in terms of who gets respect. It’s just down to who has the most control. 

But wanting to respect someone entails caring about what they want and need to feel safe whilst also respecting your own desires and needs to feel safe and that’s…wow that’s a hard balance.

And it’s even harder if you consider where you went to school, how your family treated you, how strangers treated you, that trauma you’re holding onto etc. Combine that with the conditioning of society, and the fact that EVERYBODY’S upbringing was different, we’ve just created an impossible Rubik’s cube to somehow complete but marketed it as necessary to be “normal” with our friendships and relationships and we are a failure if we don’t at least put in the effort to do it for appearances.

But it’s possible. It’s about taking a step back from the noise of what we’ve been told to do. There was a great quote on Man Men when I watched it the other night “Is it what you want or what is expected off of you?

When I consider boundaries I think you have to be willing to hurt other people’s feelings in the process of answering to your most truthful self: a concept I don’t believe anyone is that comfortable with. Especially women or those who are treated like a woman.

I, as a woman, have been taught to please everyone but myself. As Carol Gilligan writes in “A Different Voice”, “Women often sensed that is was dangerous to say or even to know what they wanted or thought – upsetting to others and therefore carrying with it the threat of abandonment  or retaliation”.

Bang on, Carol. Our conditioning doesn’t automatically align with healthy boundaries and that’s why so many people are getting the term “boundary” wrong and why it is so so hard to know what a healthy boundary is. It also makes it hard to understand what real respect for ourselves and others feels like.

Everyone has their version of respect but I guess the questions you can ask yourself is: 

“Do I like this person?”

“Do I feel good being around and hearing from this person?”

“Am I fond of this person?”

“Do I want to know more about them?”

If there answers are yes, then I think a natural progression of mutual respect will occur but if you’re not sure and you carry on attaching yourself to them regardless, that’s on you. I know because I’ve done it. I’ve ignored it countless times and whadya know, I don’t talk to the peopleI did this with anymore. They weren’t kind to me and I only want kindness in my life.

I understand my boundaries around music really well compared to my personal life but that’s because music is mine. It’s my creation and my joy and I don’t let anyone stamp on my joy. Not on your nelly.

But I’m still working out my personal ones because I don’t know what joy feels like in my romantic life yet. The men and women I’ve dated have been too brutal. The expectations they’ve had of me have been nothing like who I actually am as a human and it’s been really shit and painful to walk through. I’ve been expected to have the same behaviour as a loyal pet and be treated as such and it’s just really really awful to have that as your experience when the promise of love and connection are so so different in my mind. 

With my friendships it’s different. I met Charlie and I met his openness with openness. That’s why we meld well as friends. We’d already done quite a lot of self work before we’d even met each other and it made our friendship better. That’s why everyone should work out what they want and who they are and what they’d like to be when they’re alone. It’s essential for real deep, loving connections with yourself right now and external ones in the future.

I think they’re meant to stretch and grow and change over time anyway. Like any bridge, boundaries need examining, maintaining and in some cases rebuilding but we must never forget what a boundary is for: to connect us to each other.

A boundary is a bridge between me and you. You may not like my bridge, it may not always fit with you but the bridge will always remain there so that we can meet in the middle. But you’ve got to talk to me. You’ve got to tell me the truth at all times. You can’t hide how you feel about our situation whether it’s work, friendship or romantic encounter. There’s got to be an actual desire for connection beyond material value, sex and company. There has to be a real desire to see the person and want to experience more of who they are and not because of how they make you feel but how it makes you feel about yourself.

So as you’re building your bridges, get clear about what you want and who you want around you. Get clear about what works for you. Get clear about what makes you smile against what makes you sad. This is again another call for us to look in rather than out for validation. 

Happy Boundaries…

Xxx