I’ve been reflecting on how, in my family—and unironically, in the family of the man I had children with—belonging was not rooted in mutual care, nuance, or individuality. It was rooted in alignment with the people who had decided, and been supported in believing, that they mattered more. Agreement equaled safety. Divergence tracked as threat.
There was no space for statements like, “I see it differently,” or “I’m hurt,” or “I need something else,” or even the simple, honest, “This doesn’t work for me.” For everyone but the person who positioned themselves at the center, those weren’t treated as communication but as defection.
And once a thing was regarded as defection, the goal was not understanding but eradicating the instability. Restoring an illusion of unity. That meant conforming, suppressing, or being cast as the problem itself.
There was no option to simply and safely be—without signaling allegiance. You were either reinforcing the prescribed doctrine or destabilizing it. In systems built on reverence for the ones who’ve assumed the right to define reality and whose comfort functions as law, there is no middle ground. You’re either with me or against me.
That system did not simply banish me. It smeared me, discarded me, and snatches at my children, insisting I “forfeited” them by being different crazy — which, in that arrangement, meant nothing more than refusing to agree to matter less. I cannot abide. I won’t.
