I haven’t been writing because I felt like nothing I say matters.

*Trigger warning: contains talk about suicide and mental health*

I wanted to blog but a blog supporter David, who became a real life friend when he visited me in Kanab UT, killed himself some months ago. That hit me hard. You guys don’t even know how beautiful this guy was. He was more supportive of me than any person I ever grew up with and was always liking my shit and commenting even when he went back to the East Coast. I felt like such a shitty friend. I knew he’d had surgery and was dealing with physical issues on top of his mental ones but I was so self absorbed, I didn’t follow back up with him.

Analytically, I know what people do isn’t on me. But I also know I could’ve been better of a friend. I just wish living in survival mode for years on end wasn’t so consuming. I feel like I’m just doggie paddling and paddling and I’m getting tired, man. So tired. And it feels impossible to lend a hand to someone else drowning when you can barely stay afloat.

So, yeah, I haven’t been the greatest friend because of that. Trust me, I’m very well aware of that.

Aaron, Mani, Colton, Dominic, my dad, David, Raoul, Jenny and others have all passed. One thing in common with them is that they shared a lot of the same pain as me. They just all had the courage I don’t have to end things.

And with being shunned, all I experienced was more loss. Loss of my story (which was reduced to a reductive byline), my identity and family and “friends”.

And the losses seem to keep coming…

I came to the US to a Scientology “school” when I was 7 as an immigrant, not speaking a lick of English, and was essentially tortured by the other kids (think the show “Bad Girls Club” and the bullying they would make some girls they didn’t like endure – everything from not letting them sleep by blasting music and keeping lights on to straight up group shoving and punching sessions or throwing my mattress and belongings in the dumpster). To survive, I befriended these people so that they’d stop picking on me.

Since then, there’s always been bullshit with them. From gaslighting my experiences to gossiping about me to the others, etc. For so long, I tried (and succeeded) in keeping them in my life. But I’m realizing now that it’s all been simmering. And it’s all blowing up now and I’m in a spot mentally where I just want to block all of them in anticipation of them doing it to me at some point because it keeps happening and seems inevitable.

I’m no longer the sad little girl afraid of standing up to herself and now that I’m setting boundaries, I’m losing even more people. (One such boundary was that I’m not going to read sub-text and/or defend myself to a third person. If someone has an upset, they can come to me directly). I personally thought that was a more than reasonable request but I was “consciously uncoupled” with by someone I had thought was a good friend that I was just sort of distanced from atm.

At the end of the day, people will do what they want. The reason doesn’t truly matter and it’s their lives. It just feels really transactional to discount someone just because someone else talked shit and they’re not doing anything for you at the moment.

It’s impossible to be seen as who I really am because I’ve kept up such a people pleasing facade with these people, desperate for them to keep liking me.

I’m done masking. I’m done playing this game to be honest. I simply don’t have the mental capacity to do it if I’m being totally honest.

One thing I know is that us children of the PAC Canyon Oaks Ranch (aka PAC Ranch) in Scientology all have a trauma bond.I ask myself questions like: If it had been truly my choice, would any of these people actually even be my choice of friend? Do I even want friends that talk shit behind my back? That abandon you/talk shit when your parent dies or when you’re not doing so well? That dismiss your trauma?

I’m feeling more and more that I have been done since being raped (by a Scientologist and also a Rancher btw). I haven’t wanted to live and something died that day but I keep living for some fuckin reason even though it feels there’s not even one safe person in this world. It’s all fraught with peril and social cues I’m not understanding because they don’t make sense to me. By having continued to live, I’ve made things worse and lost even more people. I should’ve done what I knew needed to be done then.

I had some emergency therapy sessions and my therapist is amazing but it’s not fair to her to have her as my one & only safe space.

I’m tired. I can’t deal with any more losses. Being human is horrible. You’re forced to be some social creature but the only comfort I find is in solace. Because I understand where I’m coming from. The people I talk to don’t see me … they see whatever they’ve concocted me as, as dictated by their personal filters, past and preconceived notions.

When I’m playing a game and it sucks, I find another game. But I always just stop playing the shitty game first. So that’s what I need to do.

I’m supposed to sit with these waves of grief. That’s my homework from the therapist. But even a small wave can kill ya when you’re already struggling to stay afloat at all.

Just using this as a journal for now while I navigate my next steps. If you stumbled on this post and made it this far, thank you for taking the time. It’s heavy shit but I’m feeling mighty heavy atm.