Yesterday a neighbor asked me as I was walking through the front doors if she and I could talk. She was having a rough time but so was I. I had to stop her and tell her that right at that moment wasn’t a good time but I could talk later, and then I just walked away.

This morning we talked, and while I doubt I helped – it’s not a situation one can really “help” with when they aren’t in a relationship – I made a concentrated effort to listen and to just be in the moment with this woman who needed another woman to talk to, about man problems.

I don’t have those problems you see, which is precisely why at the first moment she asked, I wasn’t in the mood to hear her problems, I had my own. For my own reasons, I needed to set a boundary and tell her that I needed space. The fact that she respected that, and came with me this morning, giving me a second chance to be there for her as a friend, was huge…for me.

No one’s ever done that before.

In the past when I’ve tried to set boundaries with folks it’s always ended in the end of a friendship, or the experience was so toxic that I just decided to stay away forever. I’ve never been able to just say “I need a break today” but for the first time in 41 years I was able to do that and it felt amazing.

It felt good to say “I need this,” and although my neighbor was hurt by the rejection, the fact that we were able to talk today made a huge dent in what I used to think about this person that I haven’t very much taken the time to get to know.

I don’t know if I’ve made a new friend, but I know this year has been so confusing. It’s so different than my past years of trauma and toxicity. I’m trying to learn to trust the process because this change isn’t new but it’s been so massive.

It’s been almost a year since we moved into this apartment. This time last year I was still houseless moving from hotel to hotel and running out of funds. I am not as tired as I was last year, if anything I feel more energized, but I also feel that now that I have a space to just go and hide myself from the world, I do that a lot.

All of my friends do, we self-isolate when we’re in a state where we can’t be around people and the most amazing thing is folks don’t get angry at us for self-isolating, or taking a break from the friend group.

We come back together, smoke joints, and laugh like no time has passed while we catch up with what we’ve missed. I’m told our relationships are healthy, which is weird because it’s never felt like this before.

I don’t think folks understand that they are in unhealthy relationships until they find healthy ones and can compare the differences. I knew that my past relationships were unhealthy, but in the moment as they were happening I had no idea. I thought that’s exactly how men were supposed to treat women because that’s what I’d always known.

Turns out it’s actually not normal for guy friends to assume that it’s okay to grope and abuse you when you say “No.” Turns out that healthy men respect your boundaries without having to be told because they already know to keep their hands to themselves.

I am learning to be more comfortable being myself but sometimes I find I am still “Presenting”, not necessarily being myself but feeling like I don’t fit in so trying a little too hard. Cannabis helps with that, it’s given me relaxation when I am anxious and allows me to be more quiet and listen more than I speak.

I have friends I can share everything with and friends I can stay quiet with, I have friends I can laugh with and friends I can cry with and they aren’t always the same. It took a really long time to get here and I don’t want to mess things up, it’s a struggle trying to be yourself when you feel so broken.

I have all these pieces of myself that don’t fit together the way they used to because trauma broke them in ways that can’t just be “fixed” overnight.

When we’ve been traumatized – there is no “Degree” to how much we’ve been traumatized. Traumatized is traumatized it means you’ve been shaken to your core and you’re not coming back from that tomorrow. It’s going to take time, to work through why you were traumatized, how, and to learn how to deal with it.

Not many people understand that because they don’t have to do the work to overcome trauma, (lucky cunts,), but for those of us that do, we know that setting boundaries can be something that could go really well or end up with us in bruises because it’s happened before.

So we’re more tenacious about setting boundaries when we have to because we need to protect ourselves. It’s often not about the person that we’re setting boundaries with, but I know that I have and do trigger some of my friends with my stories. I don’t mean to, and I am working on it. I am doing my best, but again it’s not going to change overnight.

These women that I am surrounded by are teaching me to be a better me, and I am forever grateful for that, but it’s not their job to make me a better person. I have to be the one to decide that I am going to do better for myself today than I did yesterday.

I have friends.

That’s different than my life ever has been before. I’ve always had people around me, but I haven’t always had people I can share my deepest darkest secrets with, that won’t eventually take advantage of those secrets

One of the things I’ve learned to accept is that ADHD is a part of my life. For years I resented the diagnosis not because I didn’t believe it, but because I couldn’t believe it, because of how I was treated by people who knew that I had ADHD.

This weekend I hosted my neighbors daughter and I gotta say, I was pretty scared. What the fuck does an adult do with a 12 year old? Well, we watched Twilight until we couldn’t see straight, then we watched Underworld until she was ready to go home. We made pancakes and she did her makeup. So all in all it wasn’t so terrible, but it certainly was a learning experience for me.

I’ve never had a kid spend the night at my place with just me in charge and I wondered, “will the way mom’s friends treated me, affect how I treat other people’s kids?” Turns out yes.

Turns out when your friends treat your kids like crap, kids actually grow up to be decent human beings who treat kids with respect and respect their boundaries. Who knew?

It’s all about learning, growing, and realizing that sometimes you aren’t capable of being the friend other folks need, which is okay. If they love you the way they claim to love you, they will understand.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl

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