"explainer" transcription

with additional notes.

after a conversation with a friend, i felt compelled to share a mental course correction that highlights why context and using the right words matter. by legal definition, i’m not an “orphan” because both of my parents are alive. however, for myself and many others who have experienced parental abandonment, the term “functional orphan” resonates more deeply. defined as adults who lack a sense of security, stability, or a safety net from their parents, often feeling closer to those whose parents have passed away. i found myself taking pauses while reading dr. samantha rodman whiten’s post of examples on how these dynamics play out in real time. a little too relatable, dr. sam.

please give me grace on all the typos. i truly did not want to listen to nor read this again, but this is important. archival is important.

heads up: this is long [bookmarking is encouraged 🔖]. this also excludes my father’s response transcription [i have nothing more to about it].

so, i wrote a blog and it's created quite a stir. so, what's going to happen is i'm going to read what i wrote. and then i'm going to explain it line by line. and then i'm going to share the first reaction i received. and then i'm going to explain what's gonna happen for the next few weeks. so, let's get started.

a month away from 33, i have learned i am an orphan. both of my biological parents are alive and happy, stable relationships and are comfortable in life. both of these people have added no sense of safety or stability to my existence. knowing my battles, life-changing, life-ending battles, wars won by my hands and the community i've carefully cultivated. love, chosen family. neither have sought my side.

they've watched an amusement with their complicit partners in tow. weak, sad really. i have fought for the life i have, bloodied fingertips gripping onto the edges of life. they watched with not a hint of concern or care, not even pity. neither, none of these people care if i live or die. their lives go on, their happiness undisturbed. my parents are alive and do not seek my safety nor add to my stability in any sense. they are people in this world, same as i, but they are not parents. they are parents in title alone. why do i honor their existence when they can so casually ignore, denounce mine? why honor their lives when they have not added to preserving mine? i do not have parents, their lives will go on without me.

and as will mine. my heart breaks for all of us within.

i have not spoken to my mother in six years. we have not spoken because in our final conversation, which started because i found out she was married on instagram (via a hashtag), i asked her about it and it led to a screaming match back and forth. and at some point in that conversation, most points in that conversation, she brought up things that i said when i was 16 and accused me of not being accountable. and questioned why i turned to my father when i was in an abusive relationship and why i called him instead of calling her—and accused me of being a terrible daughter.

and so after that conversation, because i was at work when she decided to call me—which my mother never calls me and i knew it was gonna be a thing when she calls me—she called, i answered, it led to that. i said, “i'll call you back because i'm at work.” [my manager did not find it the least bit amusing that i not only took that call, but was dry-heave crying on the clock.] i didn't call her back. the next morning she sent me a very long text. i didn't read it, i never read it. [i skimmed it and i believe it started with, “i knew you weren’t going to call me back” and i basically check out after that.] i know it says, “something gaslight” and i don't know, just—it wasn't kind, i know that.

i just never responded. we didn't talk. then her husband, her second husband [we'll get to him], her second husband kept trying to call me and was like, “talk to your mother. call your mother.” and i said, “no, she can call me.” [he told me, “you know your mother, she doesn’t call anyone,” which i would respond, “i’m here daughter, not just someone.”] and she never did. and at some point, i think i just blocked them both and we’ve never spoken since. i blocked their phone numbers…that's important too.

since i was about 21/22, whenever i was a senior in college, i got reconnected with my father. he wasn't in the first half of my life, and i don't have too many words about it. i don't care. [as in, i’ve accepted the past for what it is, but i won’t ignore the facts of my lived experience and how they affect my current experiences to better my future and those around me.] so when i let him come back into my life, at that point, when i was in my early 20s, i was like, “don't need a dad, but as long as you're here, then okay, cool.” and i expected him to be a father. and so i've been treating him like a father.

but what i’ve realized that whenever i've been in survival mode and needed parents or family— because my mom stopped being a mom once i stopped coming around because i moved out because she chose the safety of the man that she decided to be with over my safety so i left, which she would say that i left without letting her know. she gave me an ultimatum [we'll get there]—since that, i've been taking care of myself. and when my father came back around from 23 to now [the years are always going to be so bit off and estimates because i am terrible at tracking years], i can count the times he's helped me. would you like to know the answer.

i am currently in a space of survival. i was laid off in january and i'm building my own multidisciplinary creative studio, so i'm in entrepreneurship, and i'm figuring out what it means to be a freelancer, and i'm figuring out all these things in the meantime while also still trying to find a job and just all these things.

my father has known this since it first happened. and then again, when i said, “i'm going to be a full-time artist,” because i kind of believe in me a little. i went all the way to jersey to tell him. since then, and since i was early 20s or whatever, my father has done nothing. he's a cool dude to hang out with. he's a cool dude to talk to. he's a cool dude to have a drink with. but i have never turned to my dad and been like, “my dad's gonna get me out of this” or “my dad's gonna hold me over. my dad's going to be on my side.” ever. i have been taking care of myself.

my mom is not gonna get a lot of smoke in all of this because i have accepted a lot of things over the past decade, and also especially since we stopped talking, but definitely over those years. but since i was 26, so 33, do the math, whatever. i'm talking my adulthood. my father and stepmother, we'll get to her, have done nothing of substance to make sure i was safe, make sure i was stable, make sure i was alive, make sure i was of sound mind. never.

and in the times that i did ask for things, when i was homeless and needed someone, i needed a guarantor for a room because i had the money but didn't have the credit because i'm a capricorn, i work, but i didn't know about credit, so i didn't have it. and i needed someone to sign off so i can find somewhere to live, my father said no. when i tried and got accepted to the savannah school of art and design, and i told my father the year beforehand i was gonna apply to the master's program. and because of the lack of experience, i didn't get to the master's program, but they accepted me into the bachelor's program and said if i do successfully for a semester, they will let me into the master's program. and i told my father that i needed a loan, which he already agreed to, i got accepted and he said no. when i was in an abusive relationship, he turned me away. my parents have given no sense of stability or safety in my adulthood. as far as i'm concerned, since i was 20/21, i haven't taken care of myself. and my father and stepmother have been consistently in my life, and they have not helped at all.

my mother's first husband was an abusive, violent alcoholic, and she stayed with him, procreated with him, supposedly. she was going through her own issues, which i'm sympathetic to, which we will get to when it's time in this conversation, but she stayed with him for years, years, years, years. to the point of eventually, eventually she left him, and we will talk about the summer of 2012. and within that summer, we discovered that she was also in relation for a very, very, very, very, very long time with his nephew, who is now her second husband.

when they told me, she tried to sell me the love story, “i've loved him since i was 16, aren't you happy for me?” this was the morning after the night that her first husband attacked me with a knife. and when the cops came for maybe like the third or fourth time that summer, her second husband at the time, boyfriend, mistress, whatever, he said, “well, it couldn't have hurt, right?” him attacking me, “it couldn't have hurt, right? because he was drunk, ha, ha, ha.”

from there, i went back to school, came back, and they were living in the same house. and i was basically like, this is weird, this feels weird. we don't wanna talk about it? everybody told me i should be happy for my mother that she was out of an abuse relationship.

she tried to tell me, “he treated you like his kids, and isn't it funny how much he looked at you as his kids?” because she's with him now. when i came back from that semester, and i was back at the new house, because they had moved again, which will be significant. i said, this is weird and she said, “he doesn't deserve to tiptoe around you in his own household and if you are uncomfortable, you can leave.” so i did. i left, and i figured things out after.

since my father has been back in my life, my stepmother has done nothing. i thought i was cultivating a relationship with her where i can confide in her and talk to her, and she would give some motherly substance where if my father was doing terribly as a father, as he has been, she would say something of importance.

but so far, my entire life, she has said, “i said something to him, and i go to bed for you kids, and i tell him what he's done wrong,” and that's it. nothing else. “i tell him when he says crazy things about y'all, i say something to him.” and as i told my sister: not enough, not enough.

the man you chose to spend your life with does nothing for either of his children. we're not gonna talk about yours. i'm gonna talk about me, maybe a little about my sister, but i'm definitely gonna talk about me. he has done nothing, and you either don't care or not intelligent enough to ask the proper questions of “how's your daughter? how's your children? have you helped them? i haven't heard from so-and-so. have you talked to them?” you haven't called me of your own outside of talk about maybe grey's anatomy, which is nice. but when i needed you, when i needed a woman of older, a older woman, when i needed a mother, cause that's the whole point of you being a stepmother [to be with this man where you're supposed to be a significance to the children that he parented] you have done nothing. you have done nothing of your own accord either to be like, “hey girl, are you good? i know you were with that dude and you called me hysterically crying that day. you okay?” or a few months ago, where i hysterically cried to you on a voice note and saying, “i know me and your daughter are going through so many things, but my relationship with you is more important. so i don't know if you agree with her, but i will wanna talk to you about it. because my relationship with you is important because i come to your house and sit in your living room every few months, every few weeks or so.” you never replied.

so i learned through my sister, cause you keep talking to her rather than calling me, i learned you learned what the word complicit means. amazing for you. i would also like you to learn the word model, i'm sorry, the phrase model minority. because as far as i'm concerned, and i'm sure a lot of people are, despite you ignoring it, you watched and decided to be with a man who made not one, but two Black women single [teen] mothers, but you decided to make him your person, the father, the stepfather of your three children. i have a lot of comments.

and i have been ignoring it out of the respect because you've been around for the past decade or because you've been with him for so long, but he doesn't respect my existence. and as far as i'm concerned, neither do you. so i understood that you're very confused of your role in this. don't worry, we'll get to it.

i haven't spoken to my mother in six years. and even before then, we kind of talked, but not really, but it wasn't a lot. and when we did speak, all she did was criticize my existence and i would have panic attacks and cry—sometimes cry to my dad, which he did nothing about, but my father, i haven't spoken to in maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of weeks. because even before then we were talking very often as normal, but i have been in a severe depression, which he knows i'm symptom too, because i talk often about it. i tell people what i'm going through and what i've been through. and for him and his wife specifically, they were around for a lot of things. and so we haven't spoken in weeks, but then his wife calls me and we talk about grey's anatomy, which is weird because she calls me after not talking to me for a while for no reason. i know why. and in the midst of her being like, talking about grey's and this show, whatever, she's like, “oh, your dad tell you about africa?” i was like, “no, i haven't spoken to him.” which i think is a weird question because don't you sleep next to him? would you not ask him if he spoke to his child or why would you not know? what that has taught me is my father can go a very long time without knowing if i'm living. so if something had happened to me within the past two weeks of us not talking, he wouldn't have known. when him and my sister weren't speaking, i asked him, “you talk to her,” regularly, i'm like, “you talk to her, you text her, you call her?” he goes, “nah, i wanna see how long she can go without speaking to me.” i said, “that's stupid, that's childish.” he was like, “nah, nah, nah, it's one of my little experiments.”

your life will go on whether i live or die, whether if your children live or die because as far as you're concerned, your life is fine and i'm gonna take care of myself because that's always the response anytime i'm going through something. it's always, “they'll figure it out” because i do. i always figure it out. i am the oldest daughter, oldest child. i always figure it out. but that is of no help of my mother or my father. my father has given me nothing, but a “you got it” and then when i get it, he's like, “proud of you.” no thanks to you.

i have been in a hospital for my depression and anxiety and other things. first, when i was in college. and the second time, a few years after college, i was 2016 or 17. and my mom came to the hospital the first time and she was just like, “what is wrong with you?” and she was sad and i was just like, “i don't know.” the second time i told my father and nothing, nothing. no come to my rescue, no hospital i'm in, no visitation. i was actually put in the wrong department of very, very high risk people, very dangerous. i was in a very dangerous section of that hospital. and the only reason that i got out was because i convinced a nurse that i was of sound mind. yeah, i tried to kill myself, but i was of sound mind. and i'm telling her this and i convinced her cause i was right, and the director of the department came down and said, “there's so many people calling for you. i don't know who you are, who are you? because they're telling me you're not supposed to be here.” [my boyfriend at the time and his family and friends were calling nonstop trying to get someones attention and they all kept getting dismissed. it was the nurse who finally got her attention i’m assuming.] they called her so many times it bothered her. and so i had to explain to her who i was, which is at the time, nobody, and i'm explaining to her, i'm just like, “i should not be here and i need to be out.” my parents knew. and i say parents as in my father and stepmother at the time. my mother, i don't think we had stopped talking yet because i know around that time she sent me a voicemail that was so nasty, so nasty that i let friends hear it and people, in same way as with this situation, people listened to it and they said, “that's your mom?” i said, “yeah.”

they have not helped. and so from that situation, cause i had to live in airbnbs and slept in a wework’s bathroom—and only because right before that in the same building, i was assaulted—i had to ask a friend to get me a greyhound to atlanta. and so i lived in atlanta for a few years. lived with the friend. she ended up kicking me out after a few months, come to find out ii was there longer than i really should have, my brain was not…i did not track time.

kicked me out. i've got my first apartment by myself. out of there, moved back to new york. room, room, apartment. by myself. when i got stuck in bali…we'll get there. my parents have given me no sense of safety or stability or built of safety net.

i am surrounded by love. i am surrounded by people who have incredibly loving family and parents and mothers and fathers and grandparents and cousins and godparents. and i just watch all the time and i kept thinking that everybody's a little weird. y'all are super close, little too close. and i thought that was weird. but as everybody's so encouraged me to talk to my sister, “that's your sister, talk to my sister” cause that girl did not come around. she did not come around y'all because y'all move weird. and so i was convinced that she was just some mean chick. and i told her, “i don't know you and i think you're weird and i think you're mean.” and i fixed things with her and sat with her and not only do i think she was righteous for not being around y'all, i think she still shouldn't actually because y'all have done nothing for her and done nothing for me. our father told her that she will be fine because “your mother will never let you go without.” that's really weird for a parent to say. and then when it came to me, he gave up. you gave up. and then when you had opportunities, multiple opportunities to help in any sense on a paternal, on a parental level, more than any of my friends have, of your $200 at any given time, you said no. and then i stopped asking because why would i keep asking someone, let alone a man, for something that's gonna say no? and which is even crazier because i think your response to yana, cause y'all have been talking to her and not me cause everybody's scared to call me. when you told her, you're like, “oh, yeah, i need to know what you did and how you fucked up and what are you doing with the money i give you.” that is disgusting for a father to hold their children to. that's different than saying, i give you the money and then maybe a few days or a week later, like, “what was that for, you okay?” that's not what you said. you want us to grovel at your feet and what you will learn and what you should have learned over the two years i've definitely been talking about myself a lot, a lot, a lot: i do not grovel for no man. and i beg for nothing cause i don't have to. and so i don't.

so when i say there are parents and parents alone, i mean that as my mother and my father are two people who just happened to smash 33 years ago, that's it. now my mother gets more credit because as much as i have criticism about my childhood, not her motherhood, i turned out really great. she set me up really great for when, after she decided to stop being a parent, really. she set me up really great. but after she quit righteously because she told me she was going to so fine. but, my father, tapped you in, coach tapped you in. you decided to come around last decade what have you done? don't think about what's happening now. think about what you've done for all of this time plus the past year past two, but definitely the past year while your child has been unemployed and trying to build a business. all you did was have sex.

this is specifically for my father and my stepmother because like i said, my father can go a very long time without speaking to me, then you never need to speak to me. he can go a very long time without knowing if i'm fine, if i have groceries, if somebody's whooping my ass, or if i'm safe, if i’ve offed myself. i told you multiple times and i’m depressed and i'm going through it and you have nothing to offer in that conversation.

why do i honor your parenting? you have done nothing for the person that i am. even if i ignore all of my childhood—my adulthood you've done nothing so far. and the problem with that is i do not keep people around who are not of community with me. and if you don't know what that means, i've heard you're a subscriber of my newsletter. are you a paid subscriber? no, i don't think so, but if you go to my newsletter, you will read what it means to be in community with me as a bare minimum person. so my father, the person who who helped bring me into his life [done nothing for me since though, i can count the things that you bought me. a tv, few pairs of sneakers. i have your switch: i'm not adding anything else to it and who knows if i'll ever use it again. but that was collecting dust in a box. you didn't buy it for me. that notebook from an artist you bought that so, anyway…] you do not care if i live or die because you have done nothing to preserve the existence of me since you've been reconnected with me and i tell you everything.

i've told you every relationship i've been in, terribly now that i think about it because we'll get there because i've heard you have comments about them—we can talk, which i've been doing but nobody listens to me. but i've been listening.

you've done nothing to help me come out of those situations, to find somewhere to live, pay for me to somewhere live. even when i got stuck out of the country accidentally because i took my first international trip and made a horrible mistake, you did not help with that $1,600 that me and my friends put together to get me out of bali. you gave me $200, which was nice for the journey back i guess the what, 16 hours.

you have done nothing to preserve my existence and as far as your partner she has done less. because you're a man, my father is a man so i already think less of you, but as a woman [woman of color], you have failed me in so many ways. and to this day, to this situation, you haven't hit my phone. my father called my phone once, and he thought he was blocked but if he would have called again, he would have realized he's just not on my favorites list anymore. [i literally convinced my sister to put him on her favorite’s list because him not being able to get through to her was hurting HIS feelings. i cared so much about a man’s feelings—a man who couldn’t even bother to tempt to call his daughter more than once.] but my stepmother didn't call at all.

and you're telling my sister “your dad said things but i told him ‘he was wrong for saying that’ and i told him ‘he shouldn't have said nothing,’” and that's it. from the woman who has known me since i was a child. i am 32. you are complicit in my suffering.

if i stopped talking to my father and stepmother today, it would not change my life and it would not change theirs. they'll be upset feelings hurt maybe, but it would not change their life. it would not make them crumble. i will also go on living. i pay all of my own bills. i pay my own rent no thanks to my father anything in this apartment i bought and put together. i put that bookshelf together. you see it? i did it. nothing. nothing. if i were to die today, if they were to die today, if we were just to stop talking, if i blocked him on everything–nothing would change about my life and nothing would change in theirs. the difference would be is my father would not be validated in his parenting because me coming around and my sister coming around and on my step-siblings coming around validates that y'all did something.

and i'm not gonna include my stepmother in that because she's a woman, she was always gonna take care of her kids, of course. she just gave up when she decided to choose a man to stay with, but both of them are complacent in their lives, and we can get to that too because we will. but when it comes to your one and two daughters from the two women that you didn't care to be with, or try to support, or try to help you, actually bitched about being on child support, right? i remember that. [if i remember correctly, that’s why we stopped talking the first time. i stood up for my mother when he tried to berate me about what she’s spending my child’s support on. was i 16 at that time? is that the reason why i’m 16 in his mind?] our lives will go on, and this will be fine. your feelings will be hurt, deeply and significantly, but your life will go on. you'll be fine.

for all of us within: everybody knows i go by they/them pronouns because there's a lot of us living in this. and if you read my my blog, and listen to my podcast, and read any essays i published, you would know this. and you would be scared of what comes next.