power-over Archives - Wholesome Badass: A Work in Progress

Two people sit apart on a couch. She imagines them steering a boat together. He imagines himself steering a boat labeled “MY PREFERENCE” along “THE FLOW,” dismissing her suggestion with, “Why can’t you just go with the flow?”

Expecting to Matter

October 17, 2026

In my family and marriage, my emotional and sensory sensitivities were treated as unreasonable burdens and acts of defiance. Rather than information worth considering, my preferences and limitations were interpreted as resistance. I struggled to navigate these relationships, which I experienced as structured around coercion and submission, where consideration wasn’t a shared value. Expressing individual needs was treated as not being a team player—a punishable offense. And when those needs were accommodated, they were logged as personal favors and evidence of fairness, further reinforcing the power imbalance. When a person can only tolerate having their way, even the possibility of not getting what they want can create considerable tension. Despite my best efforts, I found no way to remain under those rules of engagement. The only healthy option was to surrender the relationships rather than submit to unfavorable terms or keep fighting for better ones while being treated as though their proximity was a privilege, easily revoked. Fuck that. No, thank you.

Black-and-white cartoon of Wholesome Badass in a jujutsu stance, holding up a glowing shield against dark arrows and scribbles. A speech bubble says, “But here’s what also happened.”

The Power of an Incomplete Truth

September 27, 2026

In my tagline, I reveal myself as navigating the storm of neurodivergence, trauma, and toxic family systems. For the archetypes with whom I have navigated strife or rupture, I imagine this perspective may feel unwelcome because it adds context to a much simpler explanation: I was just bad. Difficult. Crazy. Selfish. Unreasonable. Context provides nuance that the simpler explanation leaves out. Whatever may have been said or done to diminish me was charged to me: I caused it, deserved it, exaggerated it, or imagined it. The tagline isn’t an attempt to excuse myself, but the closest language I have found for an experience I spent decades unable to articulate. Naming neurodivergence, trauma, and a dysfunctional family system does not make every choice I have ever made harmless, good, or right. It allows nuance into a story where my context was effectively disregarded. And I can’t help but ask, in all earnestness: if my “craziness” was the explanation for every instance of hardship for me, why wasn’t anyone’s response concern, curiosity, or support? What I am chasing is not agreement but a fuller record. More of what actually happened allowed into the room. Other people’s explanations have passed for the complete story, while mine were categorically rejected as inadmissible. If I asked questions, I was manufacturing chaos. If I offered context, I was making excuses. If I remembered something differently, I was rewriting history. I was seeking a clean signal—clarity, cohesion, some way to sew the pieces together for a story that makes sense, even if what emerged was painful or unflattering to me. Apparently, asking clarifying questions seems to threaten the prescribed narrative. Providing context is recieved as equally troublesome. So I am left trying to make sense of a story I was expected to accept, while relevant context was not allowed into consideration. Have you ever realized that what seemed like the only obvious conclusion was actually inaccurate and deeply unfair — once you had a more complete account of the story? One real-life example: I’m in a hurry and stuck behind a man in a posh new Jaguar, stopped in the road and holding up traffic for what I assume is no good reason—just entitled and inconsiderate. Then I SEE he has gotten out of his car to help a disabled elderly person with a heavy package cross the street. Nothing about the stopped car changed. The context did. I feel some of that same aha humbling energy when I think about people like Howard Stern, Monica Lewinsky, Stormy Daniels, Pamela Anderson, and others whom I experienced through a particular public narrative without bothering to question what might have been missing from it. Sometimes the framing was profitable. Sometimes powerful people had an enormous stake in which version prevailed. Either way, I accepted a conclusion before I had much interest in the fuller record. Just saaaaayin.

Black-and-white illustration of a girl facing a man whose right hand beckons her closer while his left hand signals stop.

The System with No Name

September 20, 2026

For most of my life, I could see the individual friction points but not the structure they shared. I experienced them as isolated interactions. A misunderstanding. A rupture. A person who was displeased with me (and seemingly intent on making me pay). A relationship I had somehow failed to navigate correctly. I explained. Apologized. Twisted myself. Worked harder. Questioned myself. Tried another approach (but still, tragically, as myself). There was the conviction that if I could just understand what I was missing, I could make myself fit. My life energy was wastefully consumed trying to navigate first my family of origin, then people and patterns that mimicked the dynamic where I was expected to want, feel, and need what I did not– and also agree to matter less. I realize nobody got handed the rules. For mainstream, untraumatized, neurotypical people, it seems to make sense and work. Expressing any version of no or ouch or confusion consistently resulted in friction. This was baffling to me, honestly. I seriously expected support or comfort, or maybe even some genuine interest. Now, after nearly six decades of swinging and missing by miles, I have begun to recognize patterns. Systems. Dynamics. Power imbalance. Coercion. All of it. I see now how easily familiarity masqueraded as normalcy. If a relational structure has been encoded deeply enough, it does not necessarily feel like a structure. It can simply feel like the way things, people, and relationships are—like water to a fish, not something experienced as a condition or even a variable, but simply the world as it is. And when the majority can function comfortably inside it, a person who cannot is what—a traitor, deviant, pariah? The person who does not go with THE FLOW is THE problem. Gosh—-That boxing-with-ghosts fucking energy- it was pure mind fuckery. I kept approaching each interaction as though there must be a successful response available to me. As though enough insight, enough humility, enough explanation, enough effort would eventually make the thing workable. It didn’t. What I am now able to do is name my experience of it—to take something that has remained amorphous and make it legible. Healing has helped me recognize systems that are damaging to me rather than inclusive or supportive, like FOR and not opposed to me. I can choose more carefully where I participate, what I adapt to, and what I no longer agree to organize myself around. Putting it into language demystifies it. Ideally, that helps someone else recognize the structure too—something that may have previously defied articulation andfelt like theirs alone. Like a shared truth. Are you also learning to recognize the systems and people who are for you—and those who are not?

Black-and-white line drawing of one person subtly tipping a bicyclist off balance while shrugging and thinking, “sheesh...always so dramatic.”

Rattle the Cage, Judge the Reaction

September 14, 2026

If I can rattle your cage and then stand beside your reaction looking calm and reasonable, I can create a defining contrast: you unstable; me credible. Your distress is excellent leverage. I get to have my way with you and come out looking better for it. Have you ever known someone with the kind of energy that would steal your wallet, watch you become rightfully upset, be the first to publicly comfort you and help search for it—and then somehow be the one to find it and hand it back? It is a hell of a trick to create friction, then step forward as the hero for managing the fallout. Have you ever experienced a situation where the focus immediately pivots from what happened to how you reacted—as if composure is evidence of innocence, reasonableness, or rightness?

Black-and-white line drawing of two stick figures in a leaking boat. One figure wears a life vest, holds a life preserver, and says, “You need to calm down,” while the other figure looks distressed and bails water out of the boat.

The Advantage of Appearing Unbothered

September 14, 2026

I am beginning to recognize and more effectively name and navigate familiar systems, patterns, and personalities. In power imbalances, the person with more status or authority can seem even more credible when appearing almost completely unaffected — mildly inconvenienced at most. Beneath a curated exterior — detached, unreadable, even smiling or measured — strategically executed impunity may pass for sovereignty, shielded from challenge by status/rank itself. By contrast, an emotional response to threat or injury can be marked as excessive: evidence of defect, weakness, and wrongness, rendering the account of what happened inadmissible. Once that logic is established, power-over can pass as reasonable and justified. This is where emotional violence can comfortably hide: in the latitude granted by role, status, or perceived legitimacy to diminish, exclude, intimidate, or overpower another person while the resulting distress is treated as further proof that the response was warranted.

Two speech bubbles on a light background. A green bubble says, “Are we okay?” and a red bubble says, “I. Am. Fine.”

I’m sorry I hurt you

September 13, 2026

In a system where acknowledging injury threatens the archetypal version of reality everyone is supposed to be organized around: The governing mythology seems to be that strong, healthy, rational people are unaffected. They do not feel disturbed, injured, angry, or overwhelmed. Those experiences belong exclusively to the other category of person—the difficult, unstable, dramatic, overly sensitive conflict-maker. So when I ask, “Are we okay?” or notice tension and inquire about it, my question can carry two almost outrageous assertions: You appear emotionally affected. And: I believe I might matter enough to have affected you. The response cannot be, “Yeah, that bothered me.” It is some version of: Nothing is wrong. I am fine.(door-slamming energy) The attempt at repair is treated as intrusion, neediness, conflict creation, or self-importance. The only issue is ME, my core-wrongness. There was another scenario in which the inquiry was weaponized. My sister could do something upsetting, mock or gossip about me, then circle back shortly after in what appeared to be a tender way and ask if something was wrong. I understood that as an invitation to connect. Looking back, it may have been closer to: Are you aware of what I have done? If I said, Yeah, X bothered me, that was the on-ramp to a debate over the wrongness of my perception, character, and personality. If emotional negative impact itself is associated with weakness, repair is unnecessary by definition. There shall be no repair for a thing the other person insists never happened. No amends for an injury dismissed as the injured person’s sensitivity. No space for either giving a meaningful apology or receiving one. I’m sorry I hurt you will not be said or well received. I find this as stunning as it is common. I have realized in this season of life that it is not safe for me to engage in non-optional relationships with people who cannot, in good faith, enter into challenging conversations aimed at resolution and repair. This is the dynamic and personality type I have spent much of my life trying to navigate. Whatever else may be true, this has been my experience, and it is a pattern I am intent on breaking.

Black-and-white illustration of a woman isolated behind a wall as family members reinforce the divide, symbolizing triangulation and parental alienation.

Your Enemy’s Enemy Is Your Friend

December 9, 2017

Being publicly told “you’re welcome to join” by people who openly disregard and disrespect me is hardly evidence of genuine inclusion. The invitation is presented as evidence of goodwill, while my condition of repair before returning is presented as proof that I’m choosing to separate myself from the family. No contact was a tragic last resort. There’s something particularly cruel about weaponizing my decision to protect myself from further harm. Years after a loveless, volatile marriage and unnecessarily contentious divorce, my estranged sister and ex-husband established an alliance of their own. I had married a man whose emotional patterns mirrored my sister’s, recreating the same relational dynamic. Given their shared, longstanding patterns of divisive behavior, their alliance was hardly surprising. They began gathering with my children while excluding me, despite my repeated requests that my sister stop. The resulting division extended beyond my relationships with either of them, affecting my children, our co-parenting relationship, and my already strained relationship with my mother. As my mother liked to say, “Your enemy’s enemy is your friend.” Whatever their intentions or explanations, their words and actions hurt our family. That harm was not mitigated by context or justification.