Look What You've Done Book Box representing class trauma, self-abandonment, and the black swan in a sea of white

'look what you've done' book box story

I grew up in a 400 square foot apartment with my mom and sister, in a wealthy suburb of New Jersey as one of the poorest kids in town. It sounds almost ironic when I say it now. Back then it felt like standing in the wrong costume on the wrong stage, every single day. When everyone around you seems polished and secure, you learn quickly how to scan. who has what... who wears what... who belongs.... Your nervous system keeps a tally long before you have any concepts of class or privilege. You just know you are different. and we all know being different that age does not feel interesting... it feels dangerous.

So I tried to become like everyone else.

I studied people the way you study a recipe when you cannot afford to waste ingredients. A little of this & that.. Adjust my tone. my posture, my laugh.. pretend i can relate to their problems.. "Identity" for me, was not something I discovered. It was something I tried on and returned over and over again.

Underneath that performance was a constant, elevated stress none of my friends could relate to... money... bills... rent... the possibility of losing our apartment... paying for repairs.. heat.... Adult worries sitting in a child's body.

Chronic stress settling into my muscles. Shortening my fuse. Making every social rejection feel like confirmation that you are, in fact, the problem. a fucking weirdo.

There was no strong adult buffering any of it.

when relationships turned sharp; I stayed. When people treated me poorly; I explained it away. I told myself I could help them. I believed that if I loved strong and big enough, I could be the proof that love was real. I thought I was being noble. I was actually abandoning myself.

People like to use the word "excuse" when they talk about painful behavior. I think "excuse" is a cruel word. It erases context and implies laziness. It suggests someone could have simply chosen better, as if better was sitting right there on the table.

But sometimes the only options in front of you are all bad.

When your nervous system has been shaped by instability, it does not choose the healthiest path. It chooses the one that feels least likely to end in immediate loss. That is not a character flaw. That is wiring.

A reason is not the same thing as an excuse.

A reason tells the truth about the conditions someone was living inside of. An excuse denies responsibility. I do not deny responsibility. I look at the landscape honestly and say, "...this is what I had to work with. so.. wtf.."

I felt like the black swan in a sea of white. visible.. and somehow still constantly misplaced. Slightly wrong no matter how hard I tried. I never found my place there. I kept believing that if I could just be better, smaller, kinder, more understanding, I would finally earn it.

Instead, I was abandoned.

By friends, family, partners, people I tried to save. And in the process, by myself.