Help!

I’m writing to all the different versions of myself for wisdom and guidance. I am not myself at the moment and feel terrified and lost so I’m returning to the source. The Alliance of Delightful Humans Doing life with me.

To Ntoetse circa 2019-2021: she is the bravest adult version of me. the girl who saved my life many times over, who proved to me that I am someone I can trust because she made hard decisions that proved to me that the love of my life lives in my very bones. In 2020 people thought I was standing up to a bully but I basically couldn’t comprehend the bullying because it was so illogical. I was just asking clarifying questions on a daily basis (I’m still baffled that it was even construed as brave, let alone combative). They said I stood up for myself but I don’t even remember it as fighting.
I’m asking for help from the 6 year little girl me who feared nothing, who stumbled across HIV/AIDS by reading news stories in grade 1 about Princess Diana and Nkosi Johnson. That little girl who vowed to save that little boy (who, in 1999 was older than me BTW) because Diana wasn’t around anymore to save him (child logic is weird but sooo pure). I always knew I loved children, even as a child. I intuitively understood that they needed protection and, for lack of a better word, saving; in a different way than the adult “saving” that happened to the damsels in the fairytales and romance novels (which I was also inappropriately consuming at age 6/7).

I’m calling on the 10 year old weirdo who wanted to be a girly girl so badly but who’s shoes came off at the drop of a hat and who fell in love with rugby at her little mountainside Laerskool in Magaliesburg (a mountain she enjoyed illegally exploring with her friends). The one who fought with her friends because she “read too much” (admittedly, I had been known to suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, plonk myself down in the middle of the playground with a good book or stay up at night after the hostel prefects had gone to sleep to read by perennial lights of the bathroom). That girl had convictions. That girl got black knees, bruised shins and inhaled books like it was an olympic sport (“books are also my friends” was a common retort).I looove her and 30 year to old me wishes she could’ve been there to protect her at all costs.

I’m writing to the friendly girl 17 year old Ntoetse, the epitome of the weird black girl. The oblivious girl who had no idea that people valued status more than relationships (see: teenagers) whose best friend once told her to her face “I didn’t mind being a deputy, I just never wanted to be YOURS” (for context: the question that provoked this acidic response was “you literally got what you you wanted, why don’t you seem happy for me?”). That girl used to be amused rather than offended by being persistently underestimated because she understood that being silly and weird in no way undermined her gifts. That girl didn’t understand that other people were actually unhappy being proven wrong (“surely no one loses sleep over anyone else’s life, that’s just silly” she thought).

I’ve never had an external locus of self. It makes me unusually uncompetitive (who am I competing with when we all have different gifts?). I’ve been blissfully oblivious about what happens in other people’s minds when they look at me because, respectfully, it didn’t really matter. I’m know I’m not malicious, I care about people, I value being kind and I have a strong sense of social justice. Whenever I do accidentally harm people I want to know AND I want to make it right. I have never recovered from the realisation that some humans are okay with knowing that they’re wrong or have hurt other people and don’t care (I literally cannot comprehend or process a lack of remorse and compassion).

Asking questions has always been my Modus Operandi. It’s an extension of the part of my brain that lights up when I learn something new. It’s an extension of my empathic apparatus, how I try to understand where other people are coming from and conceptualising how they see the world. In recent years, I have discovered that there are very few ways to do unspeakable damage to my psyche but taking away my ability to question is one of them. Nobody had ever tried to do that before.
I’m asking my past and future self for help because something is incredibly wrong: I’VE STOPPED ASKING QUESTIONS. The canary has stopped singing. Worse still: I am afraid. All the time. I’m afraid to be seen, I’m afraid to offend, I’m afraid of asking. Not because I’ll look stupid but because the last time I showed up fully in the work context, I think I must’ve accidentally hurt someone. So badly that they literally used all of their power and resources to try and personally obliterate me as both a human and as a colleague. It had me thinking something was wrong with me. I started literally muting myself, I could feel myself shrinking. I moved away from the situation slightly but the damage had been done. In my new environment people started asking me “why are you always apologising for asking questions?” that should’ve been my first warning sign. I only asked one question aloud for every 10 in my head. I stopped laughing freely with colleagues then. I actively work hard on a daily basis to keep my personality to myself (I slip and some goofy slips through sometimes but never on purpose). I think I’ve stopped believing what I used to about all humans which is that most people are fundamentally good with decent intentions until proven otherwise. I am paranoid about showing up fully, afraid that if I relax and am “myself” again, that someone else will be offended by my existence and, to my oblivion, use the combination of my vulnerability and their power try to destroy me (again).

I walked away and vowed to return one day to be part of the reason that nobody has to feel that way again. That is still the light at the end of the tunnel. But that guiding light is starting to look suspiciously like an oncoming freight train. And I’m paralysed.

Because now I’m back. And I don’t recognise myself (aside: causally breaking unspoken rules by starting sentences with “because” and “and”). I’ve been to therapy (still hoping to make time to continue), I’ve grown so much and have gotten clear on who I am, what I want and what I need. Unfortunately, the time to assess growth is not while the ship is moored at port, growth is assessed when you take your boat out and return to sea and face the old storms with your new skills and see how you fare (lol, that pun was a happy accident). How are you different when faced with the situation that hurt you? And, dear readers, I’m heartbroken to admit that I’m shrinking and sinking and it’s terrifying because I don’t recognise myself. I’ve hit a reef. Examples: I have never sat in a meeting without raising my hand at least once before in my whole entire life. Nobody who knows will believe this but it’s been almost 5 months and I haven’t said a word. I’m afraid to look up, I’m afraid to be seen, I’m afraid to ask anyone for anything, I’m afraid to trust, I’m just afraid all the time. Fear is not a companion I’m familiar with, now she’s always with me and it’s crippling. I keep joking that nobody needs to know me, that I just want to put my head down and get through this thing unscathed. But I am not designed to be mistrusting and quiet. It’s debilitating as someone who fiercely I believes in fostering community, in the the inherent goodness of people. Trying to do this without one because I’m constantly looking over my shoulder and striving to take up as little space as possible is killing me slowly. I actually feel something dying. And I don’t know what to do. Because I’ve been exhausted and sleep deprived before. This isn’t just that (although I’m sure good food and good sleep would help).

Therefore, I call upon all the women in my lineage who came before so I could be alive at this moment for such a time as this. Bakoena, Batebele, ba ha Ramoqopo, ha Letsie, ha Lerotholi le lona ba ha Matooane nthuseng hle! I’m calling on the wisdom of all the woman who have lived and will live inside of me: The fearless precocious 7 year old, the weird and confident 17 year old, the obscenely brave and oblivious 28 year old, the well-rested and restored 30 year old and even the versions of me that haven’t happened yet: If time is a construct, I coexist with the wisdom of the 40 and 50 year old versions of me who have already survived this.

To All the people who know and/or love me, who have lived in my skin, who came before me and walk beside me, I ask: how do I survive this?