it's all about perspective (an intimate overshare of my childhood wounds)

i wrote an article for my organization's newsletter and reread it and i'm on this euphoric wave of pride, excitement, a bit of nerves because i shared it on my facebook where i know there are folks who follow me from my home synagogue, and exhilaration just to name a few. of course there are some other feelings that float along the outskirts like regret that i didn't face my fears sooner or start shouting my truth from the rooftops earlier but those are the average lil ghosties that i can ignore now if i so choose.

i haven't written here for a while, partially because i was having a lot of technical difficulties (my screen was glitch-city and then my keyboard took a staycation there as well), but since then i think i was trying to focus more on living than trying to document my living. it's a fine balance ~ being able to process and also experience fully…along with every other responsibility in between.

every time i start a post i try to remember what the last thing i updated about was, and i think that's my real stumbling block. i try to make each post, new reader friendly, when that's not the goal of me writing.

selfishly, or rather, self-lovingly, i curated this space. for me, by me, from me. it's a bit embarrassing to think about how often i forget, because of fear of hurting others, fear of offending, fear of…simply fear.

i'm not ashamed anymore, because this is a normal and understandable phenomenon for someone who was raised in a broken home, on top of my myriad of identities.

i like introducing myself each time, because it's never quite the same. depending on my mood, and current state of being, will dictate how i refer to myself, how i think about myself, how i exist at large.

today, on may 6th, 2022, i am jules duze and also respond to 黃陽靈 .

i am an artist of various mediums, a scholar, an activist, a sibling, and a friend.

i think this could go on and on if i let it, but i do have other things i'd like to exude from my cluttered, crowded, overflowing, in some areas outdated, mindscape.

it feels a little spoiled to say that life, especially lately, has been granting me more opportunities than i know how to keep up with, while also teaching me lessons both gently and the hard way.

i feel a bit foolish admitting both to myself and out loud to a broader hypothetical audience, that it took decades to finally name the unspeakable. the truths i locked away, not just about myself but about my origins and about the winding twisting road that led me here today. whenever i phrase it in such a way i feel like i'm being dramatic, but perhaps that's not bad and helps contribute to the story. to this narrative i am trying to paint for you.

in order to write my most authentically, i close my eyes and listen to my heart. nothing but the genuine, organic culminations of thought, feeling, intent and actions - fused together into the act of typing.

it's easier when i don't see it too, so i don't have to think too much, or worry about how it might come across in someone else's universe.

these are mine and i am doing yOU *points erratically at my screen* a favor by sharing.

i'm gonna whine about my childhood wounds fora while so feel free to skip on ahead or quit out.

i think for a long time i felt like a burden. like it'd be easier to not have needs, because so often growing up, my needs weren't met, or inconvenienced others, or i was taught to believe that my needs inconvenienced others. growing up in an interracial household, made up of two chinese children with two white jewish boomer parents (who had yet to grapple with their own inherited trauma and baggage), did not make for a harmonious household.

i could blame it on society, for conditioning my parents to be raised in the way they were. i could blame it on their parents, for inflicting the bouts of specific harm, for passing on their family inheritances of their ancestors insecurities. i could blame it on hitler for waging a war on those he felt inferior and causing a global wound that is still felt today. this list can go on and on and on.

what i chose to blame it on was myself for existing.

you see, my dad had trouble expressing himself.

being an older (born in 1954), maybe 4th gen american, working class, white jewish man in new york, whose father was physically and most probably verbally/emotionally abusive, he didn't have very many healthy, positive role models. he loved the beatles, and got back into playing music (he was part of a band when he was younger!) but didn't have much family. he was close to his mom, i believe he adored her honestly, but she had already passed before i came to exist. anyway, this was just to set the stage because my dad had already been through plenty of his own shit.

i don't mean this to excuse him for his transgressions, of those there were many, but moreso to provide context to the complexity of my own understanding of this man who was my primary provider.

he used to spank us as kids, and one of my vivid core memories was him slapping me across the face (because i had slapped my little sister). my mom had done that too, years before - because i had tossed a ball down the stairs and it hit her in the head.

i don't remember when he stopped hitting us (and honestly i forgot that this was a common occurrence till my little sib reminded me, and since then i've been very !! whenever something triggers that memory), but that was when he opted for verbal/emotional barbs.

he loved calling me spoiled, i think that was one of his favorite adjectives to describe me. he stumbled over the words 'pretty' or 'beautiful' but had no problem calling me a spoiled brat. these descriptors stopped hurting pretty early on, because he found better.

"i wish i never adopted you."

"adopting you was my biggest mistake."

"i regret adopting you."

"we'd all be better off if i never adopted you."

"you'd have been better off if you were adopted by someone else."

these were just a few of the iterations i was subjected to for over half a decade. it started when i was in 5th grade, and petered out sometime in high school.

i feel like a broken record, every time i repeat this particular anecdote, but i realize that i've been repeating it because i haven't let it go. i haven't put down this burden yet, and have been carrying the pain, been carrying the tears, been carrying how much it hurt me to hear those things said to me by someone i was supposed to love. by someone i was supposed to trust and respect. by someone who was supposed to guide me and teach me how to navigate this cruel and unforgiving world. i pride myself in only crying the first time he said it to me, a single tear escaping - and me being angry that it did. but anger comes from hurt comes from i will never forget my heart shattering in that moment and that memory becoming emblazoned.

where did those tears go? i just had a good short cry as i wrote that because i am finally letting myself feel what i didn't all those years ago.

i forgive myself for the hardened shell i build to protect me, and the scar tissue that has formed. i am grateful to myself for the coping techniques and defense mechanisms that i developed to keep me safe when i needed them and didn't know better. and i am proud of myself for making it as far as i have, despite all odds.

another, unforeseen or rather unconsidered side effect of repression is not realizing or remembering that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. my internalized reaction was feeling like i should exist, that things would be better off without me, the internalization of worthlessness, and having no value, the understanding or idea that i am a burden.

my dad would often tell us how lucky we were that we didn't have his father, otherwise we'd be black and blue. that i wouldn't survive having had his dad. what i didn't realize was the threatening way i received those statements. in return, i internalized this idea of me being lucky, of me being privileged, and spoiled for not having a physically abusive father, for not living with someone who'd kill me for disobeying them. he cemented this understanding of my self worth, from earlier than i even considered.

what really threw me off was that he felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy. he said i'd grow up and write a book about what a shitty father he was and i always wondered why he thought that of all things. i'd also always deny it, not wanting him to think i thought of him as a shitty father when in actuality i didn't do much thinking at all.

i spent a lot of time on auto-pilot, as an observer to my life, a commentator, a spectator. in part i am sure it had to do with my role as my mother's built in therapist (she would vent to me about my dad and my sister) - validating her feelings and in that, her personhood.

and now i am doing my best to make the most of the time i have. thanks to the support of my chosen family, which i have finally discovered, i am learning what love and family are. what home can feel like, and getting to know the person i always have been but never had the courage to be. this felt like a cheesy, rushed conclusion but it's like 3:30 and i need to eat before running some errands.

thanks for tuning in, hope this finds you well, and next one will probably continue the series of 'wow revelations and shifting perspective on my past so that i can move forward without carrying the burdens'

<3