Hard lessons I've had to learn:

* Stop waiting for apologies that might never come. Your growth - and ability to keep living and moving forward - cannot depend on their willingness or readiness to take accountability for what they've done to you and how they've hurt you.

* When you have the chance, say what you mean - kind words or harsh truths - instead of holding it in. You never know when someone might be gone, and you'll never have another chance. Or when you might be gone. Marginalized folks have already always known this.

* It's OK to be generous and give of your time, energy, money, or other resources with people in your life and community. It's also OK to set boundaries for yourself and limit what you give to others. If you give until you have nothing left, you'll never be able to give again.

* Don't form your identity or personality solely around a single interest, identity, cause, community, or movement. This will make you more vulnerable to manipulations, emotional and psychological abuse, cult dynamics, and toxic relationships to what you love and care about.

* Loss is loss. Grief is grief. No matter what kind, no matter of what or whom, no matter how. It's impossible to compare, and unnecessary. Every loss is enormous and painful. Every. Single. One.

* Visibility is not a substitute for care, friendship, or support. Visibility often leads to heightened abuse, harassment, and manipulations. Visibility often means a person is more isolated, alone, and lonely, even though they appear to be the exact opposite.

* You may genuinely believe you did nothing wrong. You may even be objectively correct that you did nothing wrong. You may still be the villain in someone else's story though. This does not lessen your worth or commitment to ethical life. You can't change what they think or feel.

* You may never know all the ways you've caused harm - all the ways you've harmed other people. Practice taking accountability, for small things and big things. Work with people who love you, whom you trust, to help you learn how to take accountability with support, in community.

* You also may never know all the ways you've gifted kindness and shown love for others. Know that you are appreciated. Keep doing your best to put good things out into the universe. It matters. It's worth it.

* You are worth more than your production. You are also worth more than your achievements. Your credentials. Your job. Your accolades. Your grades. You are not a collection of lines for a dating website profile or resume. Your self-worth cannot depend on arbitrary measurements.

* You don't need to compromise on or qualify your rightful rage or sorrow. If you are angry, there's a reason for that. If you are sad, there's a reason for that. We live in a profoundly violent, exploitative, extractive world. This is enraging and saddening. You are right.

* You deserve to have boundaries. You deserve to have privacy. Other people are not entitled to your story, your emotional energy, your labor, your presence. You do not owe it to them. Your time, energy, and space are gifts.

* You deserve individual respect and self-determination. You are your own person. No one should ever try to deny you that, and if they do, they are not to be trusted. Even - and especially - if they claim that it is for the sake of a movement or a cause. For nation. For faith.

* You are also part of many collectives and communities. You do not live your life alone or in isolation. Your life and decisions affect others constantly. You have a sacred responsibility to care for those around you and the world that we inhabit.

* Your trauma is an explanation. It is not an excuse. Surviving trauma does not mean you're responsible for it. But you are still always responsible for your choices, including how you choose to deal with your trauma and whether you replicate abusive and harmful patterns.

(I do not mean that if you are actively in an immediate state of being triggered or dissociated or panicked, that you must be able to exercise complete control over your thoughts and actions. I do mean that if people point out that you've harmed them, you need to own that.)

* It is not your job to solve all of other people's problems or heal their traumas. You literally cannot do this. It is impossible. Help, support, and provide care where and how you can, without destroying yourself on the way. Do not give your whole self to every person who asks.

* If you do not feel safe or comfortable around a friend, partner or relative - if you feel like you're always walking on eggshells or waiting for the next shoe to drop - it's because you aren't safe. You deserve better. You might not be able to leave yet, but know that you will.

* You don't have to understand someone's identity or experiences to be respectful. You don't have to be an expert or know the right words. This also applies to other people in your life. They don't have to understand how you are who you are, so long as they respect you as you.

* You don't have to be unique or special to deserve to live and experience pleasure, joy, and love. You don't have to be "successful" by capitalist, ableist, racist metrics to deserve to live and experience pleasure, joy, and love, either. You don't have to earn personhood.

* Other people have the right to dislike you. Even for silly, petty, or ridiculous reasons. (You are not entitled to people liking you or wanting to be your friend.) But they never have the right to disrespect or demean you. They never have the right to hurt you.

* It might not get better.

This does not mean you're a failure or a fuckup.

* When you die, the world will keep turning. Life will go on. Same when someone you love dies. It does not mean you did not matter. It does not mean that they did not either.

* If you know how you want your partner(s), friends, relatives to show you love and care, and they aren't yet doing it, tell them. Tell them what actions, words, or gifts would make you feel loved and cared for. Don't resent them for not giving you what you haven't asked for.

* You cannot be all things for all people. One person (especially a partner) also cannot be all things for you. Different people in your life offer you different things. You offer each of them different things. No one is replaceable. None of them are interchangeable.

* There are some things that are just so fucking awful there is no possible "silver lining" or "positive," except maybe that you're still alive. And even that comes only with the attendant trauma and mental health fuckery. It's OK not to think positive. You're not wrong or bad.

* Someone might be an amazing friend or partner to you, but would be the worst possible roommate/housemate to have. Being friends, or being in love, does not automatically erase incompatible lifestyles or access needs. It does not mean you're automatically compatible roommates.

* Someone being nice to you and a person you like hanging out with does not mean you should say yes by default if they ask you out. You deserve higher standards than "I'm available to be dated and this is the first seemingly nice person who asked."

* Two people can be mutually romantically interested in each other, and still be a bad fit for actually being in a relationship with each other.

* Emotional, psychological, and financial abuse are not "less bad" than physical or sexual abuse. Not being hit does not mean you were not abused. All forms of abuse are unacceptable, wrong, and bad. All forms of abuse leave long-lasting trauma.

* Naming that someone was abusive and toxic does not erase the ways in which they might have been kind, caring, fun, or offered you something good. The love (friendship, familial, romantic) was real, once. So was the abuse, toxicity, and harm. You still deserve better.