hey y’all,

i went to ireland for a week and had a life-changing experience.

and then i got a cold on the way home and have been down for the count for a week. in that time, i’ve been journaling a lot, and cultivating my spiritual practices. i’ve been exploring what belief systems work for me, and it’s been really cathartic and challenging.

in addition to my ancestral work and sikolohiyang pilipino, i’ve been immersing myself in tarot and taoist meditation. i did a reading today about why i find it so hard to express myself honestly. i did a 3-card pull: present, challenge, breakthrough.

it took my breath away, but i’m not quite ready to share the full reading. the abridged is this: i have things to say, i’m afraid of what people will think of me when i say them, and to overcome that i have to say them and see what happens.

so, in the spirit of that, i’m going to terrifyingly share an essay i wrote a few months ago about leaving my movement career. it is raw and messy and honest, and i didn’t want to show it to anyone. my vice is, and has always been, pride. my reputation is so important to me, but it’s deeper than that. at the root of it, i always want to maintain my agency and my dignity. i’m still learning how to be honest and dignified at the same time.

i grew up believing that dignity required absolute perfection. i’m starting to find my way toward a dignity that is rooted and embodied. i’m not ashamed of my story, but i worry that you might shame me. so i didn’t tell you. i think the true growth comes in refusing that shame, even if it is hefted upon me.

i’ve been trying to write this essay for over 6 months, and i keep churning and burning. how do i name the reality of the last 15 years of my life in a way that honors my dignity, the communities i served, and the harsh truths of trying to build a better world? how do i tell this story without opening myself up to more of the same harm that i’m trying to heal from?

i don’t know that it’s possible, but i want to tell this story.

i, like the vast majority of people who get into organizing, came to the work wounded. i, like so many great change-makers of the world, was rejected by my family the moment i came into consciousness, and desperately sought belonging outside of my home from just about anywhere.

as i grew, i found that there is a whole discipline dedicated to building a better future for everyone. it has many names — organizing; movement work; social justice; public policy; mutual aid, revolution, etc. etc. an entire body of work across all of humanity, iterated over generations, in pursuit of creating a world where every human being can live a life of dignity and safety.

it allegedly comes with a built-in community who affirms you and tells you that you belong exactly as you are. i thought, “ah, these are my people. i have arrived.”

i bent the knee over and over to those older, wiser, more experienced than me, all while wondering what the tension in my body was all about. i figured that this was just the work, rolling up your sleeves, getting into the muck, doing the hard shit, earning your place. then, as i climbed closer to the top, i bent the knee to those with less power than me. i tried to live my values and redistribute power back down. i worked hard to prove to them that everything i did was in service of our future. i tried to explain that the hierarchy was not designed by me, and that i was doing all i could to disrupt it.

i never stopped to ask what kind of community of belonging would require you to prove your worth. i never questioned how long it would take to be considered worthy. this cycle was so familiar that it just felt normal.

i think more people need to be honest with themselves about their “why”. i didn’t come to the work, really, to make the world a better place. i came to the work desperately hoping that it would fill the gaping wound of rejection inside of me. now, i didn’t know that consciously, because i am actually committed to liberation as a way of life. that’s the hardest part, is that instead of it being something i “do”, it is the way that i live. and living it makes people deeply uncomfortable. it requires them to confront all the ways that they claim they are “doing it”, and all the ways that they aren’t actually living it. it makes them see themselves, and it enrages them.

i have suffered immensely in my relationships, both personally and professionally. as a result of that suffering, all i want is to ensure that no one else has to feel what i felt. no one else has to experience rejection at that level. no one has to have their heart broken in irreparable ways. as a little sprout in my first grassroots scene, i was filled with conviction that the people building a new future alongside me felt the same way. that they intimately understood this kind of suffering and were equally committed to preventing it.

that was a long time ago, now, and i no longer have that conviction. i didn’t burn out of organizing. that framing requires me to take ownership over a failure that isn’t mine. it is true that i grew exhausted and disillusioned, but not because i “couldn’t hang” and not because i needed “thicker skin”. these containers claim to be in pursuit of liberation, when in reality they are extremely hostile, and often violent. i could only turn the cheek so many times before i had to get out of range. it is actually as simple as hurt people hurt people.

but at what point is it on us to address our wounds and stop hurting people? are we not accountable to the ways we move through the world simply because we have the “right politics” or hold marginalized identities? for whom are we building this future for, if not each other?

i think the truth for most people in organizing is that they are doing the work in hopes of having their own needs met. and when the work demands compromise or, god forbid, sacrifice, it is suddenly anti-__, -ism, toxic, abusive, gaslighting, pick your jargon of the week. this manifestation of unhealed inner children leads to a cycle of systemic abuse, typically of those most affected by oppression. it degrades the meaning of systemic -isms, desensitizing not only the public to structural violence, but our own communities.

and when someone comes along and questions these containers, asking them to practice the values that they claim to hold, they are forced out or broken down to the point that they quietly fizzle and disappear. or worse, they are radicalized toward violence and oppression, where they actually do find belonging among people who wish for punishment and suffering. the idea of retribution is very alluring to a deeply hurt person.

or, worse yet, they opt out of life completely, as i almost have countless times. there were days when i wondered what kept me here for so long if no one on earth wanted to love me exactly the way that i am. there were days when i really believed that, despite its absurdity. i had to fundamentally change so many things about myself, just to be spoken to with an airy neutrality by premier “social justice advocates.” people who have built personal empires around their commitment to liberation, with nothing tangible to show for it. people with feverish followers salivating at the chance to hold someone “accountable.”

the work truly begins in your relationships with human beings, including yourself. every single interaction you have is the opportunity to live your values. to embody the humanity you want to see around you. i have been in dozens of “radical” communities in cities all over the world, and a universal problem remains — the priority is self-protection over connection, over and over again.

i disagree with your approach to the community program we’re building together? abuse.

i was hurt by a comment you made in a meeting? tone-policing.

i lost that relationship because you missed a deadline and i want to have a conversation with you about the impact this had? ableism.

these concepts begin to lose their meaning and instead act as shields against friction. i know this is taboo to address because it can fuel divisive infighting, which ultimately benefits our oppressor.

but we have to talk about it out loud so that we can heal it, because it is happening. fighting a system built on death and exploitation is fucking hard. there are no 100% right answers. you will do stupid shit sometimes. you will hurt people sometimes. you will make mistakes.

it is iterative. it requires collaboration, trial, error, failure. sometimes catastrophic failure. there is no version of this that exists without tension, especially amongst each other. you cannot do this work if you cannot hold tension with your comrades. you also cannot do this work if you cannot hold your comrades in a loving and steadfast embrace when things feel insurmountable.

what ends up happening is the people who are living a liberatory life carry true accountability on our backs like sisyphus. we are reparenting ourselves, and also everyone around us. we are modeling the action we hope to see, then we go home and scream where no one can hear us so we aren’t accused of “centering ourselves”. we speak about love and acceptance, and we really mean it.

sometimes i get so angry at the injustice and trauma i’ve endured that i bawl to the point of vomit. it isn’t fair that i have to work so hard to achieve relative normalcy. it isn’t fair that it takes twice as much effort and energy for me to achieve anything at all. i am chronically disabled from continuous psychological abuse, from family, classmates, educators, partners, and comrades. there are times when i have to climb out of a hole in the ground before the sun is even up. i would never, ever want anyone to go through what i’ve been through.

that’s what cycle-breaking is. seeing the injustice you’ve suffered, knowing you deserve restitution, knowing you cannot have it, and choosing to give yourself the closure so that you can go on loving people the way you really want to.

i truly, and unconditionally, love every single living thing on this earth. not because god told me to, and not because i have to. i just do. that doesn’t mean that i would let them all into my home, that i share their values, or that i even like them. it certainly doesn’t mean that i have an endless well of patience and understanding in the face of continuous and blatant abuse.

what it means is that i want you to have your needs met. i want you to have clean water, fresh air, and full bellies. i want you to feel safe in your own life and body. i want you to have good relationships with your inner circle and feel supported by those around you. i want you to have unbridled access to the things that bring you the greatest joy. i want you to be able to be exactly who you are, without fear of abandonment. i don’t need to know you, agree with you, or even like you for that to be true.

i know i can’t be alone in this, despite how lonely i feel. that’s why i keep talking and writing about it. why i keep showing up, seeking connection, trying again, climbing out of the hole. it is so much easier just to lay down in the hole and wallow. and some days i do, but i still always poke my head out. i shield my eyes from the sun and gaze out into the horizon, hoping i’ll see another pair of eyes already looking for me.

thank you for witnessing me. i should mention that i’m doing much better now. i’m a few months removed from the old career, and feeling deliriously hopeful for the future. you can read about that in my feature on Femme Futures. while you’re there, i highly recommend reading their back catalogue. it’s good shit.

xoxo,

kuya von