Despite the fact that my older brother and I grew up on my parent's house, we had very different experiences and realities mainly due to the fact that my father really didn't like women much and he didn't like women he didn't conform to his standards of what a woman should be, especially a Black woman. He preferred his son but proceeded to try and forcefully mold him into the version of what he felt a Black man should be through the same brutal, abusive, and manipulative tactics.

1/

Growing up I was very much alone in how I thought, believed, and saw the world around me. I never agreed, never backed down, never believed the lies. I argued, I questioned, I fought back and got abused more often and with more force than my brother who obeyed and learned to agree.

I was always alone in my perspective of what family should be and of what a sibling should be. I was always alone in thinking that things should be fair and that love shouldn't be about control and submission.

2/

As I got older and more separate from my family, I was even more alone in the way I recalled my childhood. Because I was writing and keeping a detailed journal from the time I was 11, I wasn't susceptible to all the lies and gaslighting my family members tried to push. But I was still alone in my opinion of my parents and how they raised us. My brother grew to worship my father and "forget" most of the abuse and I seemed to be the only one who remembered and tried to hold them accountable.

3/

As I continued throughout my life it became normal for me to be completely alone in how I saw people and the world I moved through. I was always on the opposite side of almost everyone I knew in terms of the things I believed, the values I held, and the focus I had on balance, mental health, physical health, and spiritual positivity. I was always looked down on, mocked, sometimes hated, often bullied, and generally mistreated by my peers and adults alike throughout my whole life ...

4/

All for the horrible sin of believing in a better, more positive, more healthy way of living and viewing the world.

All for valuing fairness, accountability, honesty, and authenticity in how I live and expecting the same in return from those who I allowed into my life.

All for choosing realism over delusion.

For all of those reasons I spent 50+ years of my life almost entirely alone aside from a literal handful of good people in my life.

5/

I am used to being WAY OFF from everyone around me. I am used to being on the outs with everyone. I am used to being hated, disliked, getting death threats, being bullied, being mistreated, being abused ... I am used to feeling like I am the last sane person on the planet.

This has been my normal state of being for as long as I can remember ... "the only one" ... "alone" ... "hated" ... "misunderstood" ...

These words were my reality.

The world now is the way it's always been for me.

6/

Since I was in middle school I felt everyone around me existed in some alternative hell dimension where they seemed perfectly comfortable whereas I spent most of my days terrified of everyone around me. I went through a period in 7th and 8th grade that was more or less a nervous breakdown ... a mental break ... where I almost ended up in a "facility". I couldn't function, I was scared all the time, and everyone around me seemed like a beast, a monster, a devil ...

7/

Eventually ... thanks to Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus and others I learned to understand that my reality and everyone else's were different. That we existed on the same Earth but in very different realms of being. I came to understand that EVERYONE resided in their own reality and that we could never hope to understand one another no matter how hard we tried ... not completely anyway.

I learned to accept these facts and find peace in being alone and sane and good.

8/

The fight for reality is not one that anyone can win. You will only lose yourself in doing so. You can only fight for yourself and the reality where you reside.

The fight for goodness and light cannot be won by brute force ... only by a slow accumulation of like-minded people who aren't driven by negativity (which dims light) but by positivity, honesty, and selfness.

Fighting however many MILLIONS of people who believe in darkness, selfishness, and evil is also a waste of energy.

9/

Survival, I learned growing up, is about resolve, patience, knowledge, staying healthy in mind, body, and spirit.

I survived 16+ years of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse with no way out except to wait ... to be patient ... to grow my mental strength, to recognize the weaknesses of those in power, and to slowly find my tribe for support.

I had no power to change my circumstances growing up, I could only change myself and when it finally came time to rise ... I rose.