Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself...

Since I basically dropped off the planet for a year, I thought I should reintroduce myself. I cannot stick to a schedule, especially if I am the one to create it. My ADHD really hates consistency. I get bursts of energy and then a deep, long writers’ block. I used to be so hard on myself, then I went to therapy for years and I did a 180. Now I’m so easy on myself that I can’t hold myself to anything – especially if I am the one who set the rules. My biggest downfall with working on this blog the first time was that I set restrictions for myself.

I decided to post every other Friday and then post a story on the last Wednesday of the month. Easy right? No. Once I put the rules in place, I instantly do not want to do it anymore. I’ve been working on creating discipline and structure, but I am such a perfectionist with my writing that these things dry up the creative well. It’s frustrating and shows my feelings towards authority, but it wasn’t the only reason I stopped.

I published my novel, Past Futures, and fell into a depression. I had dreamed about publishing my novel for years, and once I did, it felt like there was nothing left. Like I achieved my dream and now what? I had no creativity left over, and I had to shift into a space where people perceived and judged my writing. For the first time, my work was no longer mine. Yes, I’ve published other things, but not as big or as dear to my heart as my novel. The fear of being judged and perceived kept me from coming here post-publication. All those thoughts about how I am not good enough came bubbling up, and for a while, I let them keep me from writing.

To be completely frank, another reason I dropped off was that my next blog post was going to be about how I was ignorant of my conditioned antisemitism, and it took traveling Europe with my Jewish friend for me to face it. The post was about how I ignorantly made oppressed groups educate me about my own white supremacy, and facing my mistakes head-on. Then the genocide started, and I just felt like my words would not have helped anyone. I wasn’t adding to the conversation, and I didn’t want to make the moment about me. I didn’t feel like it was my place to talk about decade-long occupations without extensive knowledge, so I shut up and started reading.

Back in 2020, I had to face a lot of shit about myself in relation to race. I guess I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. I was aware of the racial inequalities and always thought of myself as someone who wasn’t racist. It was a slap in the face when I realized that as a white person in America, I had a lot of work to do to become anti-racist. Maybe I wasn’t a bigot, but there were a lot of conditioned thoughts and actions that I had to wake up to. I learned not only how to speak up, but how to STFU. It’s not always my place to add to the conversation. Sometimes I, as a white person, need to listen and learn.

With Gaza, I felt the same way. I needed to STFU and read. I listened to Palestinians and Jewish people. I read about the history of Israel and the history of this conflict, which seemed too complex to fully understand. And once I did all of that, I formed an opinion.

I believe one of the hardest concepts for humans to understand, especially us raised in Western culture, is duality. The concept that two things can be true at the same time, and it is not black and white. Humanity is complex, but genocide isn’t – it’s definitive. Children and sick people should not be bombed. I’ve always had that opinion, whether it was America doing the bombing in Syria or Russia in Ukraine. Didn’t we all watch that scene in Mockingjay and collectively think: “President Snow is horrible for bombing that hospital”?

I’ve been afraid of posting my thoughts and words on the internet because of the state of this country. I’ve been afraid of speaking up because of the retaliation that may come into play, but I can’t stay silent. I have been political since my community college made me take a Social Issues class, and I know, from history, that fear is how we ended up here. I was that kid in History class learning about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and reading Anne Frank’s diary, saying that if I were alive, I would’ve done something. And in my social groups and family, I have been doing the work. I have the awkward conversations, and I correct people in public. Now it’s time for me to expand that work.

I originally wanted this blog to be about healing and to go along with my holistic business. I wanted to share my own journey to help others start their own. And I still want to do that. I believe that healing is a radical thing and that Capitalism wants us to sit within our trauma. If we’re all depressed, overwhelmed, and overworked… when will we have time to organize and fight back?

Since 2020, I have had a newsletter, and I’ve used it to work through my thoughts on politics, gender, social structures, race, and my healing journey. I recently transitioned that newsletter to my holistic business, and after two essay-long emails, I promised I would shift that energy here. I never want my sporadic emails and thoughts to disrupt another person’s healing. Some people loved the emails, but I felt like they may have been doing damage to others’ nervous systems. It felt semi-toxic to pop in, yell into the ether, and leave them not knowing when to expect the next one.

With this blog, I will be sharing myself with all of you. I’ll be sharing my thoughts, my history, and my literature. It will not be consistent because that is how I ended up not writing. It will be sporadic and energetic. I have to flow with what my unmedicated ADHD will allow me to do, and I will be imperfect.

I would love for the internet to think I am a brilliant writer with perfect grammar and words that move people to become the best versions of themselves. The perfectionist in me needs to take the backseat, and I have to accept that I am imperfect. I am just a human trying to do her best. I’ve learned that living authentically is the best way to help others, and that’s all I really want to do.

So let me lay out who I am, so you can decide if you want to follow along. My name is Claudia, and I love to write. I have loved writing since I was in 2^nd grade, and I’ve rarely given myself the freedom to publish. I am not a person who likes to be perceived by the public, but I’ve wanted to keep a blog for a very long time. I am finally giving myself permission to do so. I am allowing myself to be messy with my words and publicly figure out how I feel about the world. I allow myself to make mistakes and be human.

I’ve always heard writers saying they wish they had never published their early work because it embarrasses them. That fear has held me back for too long. Past Futures is probably more personal than anything I can write here, so I’ve already exposed myself. Writing drafts and holding myself to this impossible standard helps no one.

Not only am I a writer, but I am a holistic girlie. Not one that will sell you supplements or tell you that you have to do XYZ or else you will be ugly and stupid. I am an Indigo Child, and I talk about the Universe all the time. Sometimes I hear myself speak and I am like, “What the fuck is she talking about??” Even writing that I am an Indigo Child makes me think, “WTF??” But! It is my truth, and that is what I am here to share. Finding this deep connection to myself through the Universe has saved me. It helped me with my explosive emotions, my self-hatred, and my suicidal thoughts, so yes, this connectiveness has LITERALLY kept me on this Earth.

I believe in a balance between Western and Eastern medicine. It takes a lot for me to take an Advil, but I am fully vaccinated and believe in science. I won’t tell you to get off your antidepressants, but I’ll be honest about how I have dealt with my own depression without medication.

I have dealt with an eating disorder, sexual assault, depression, anxiety, ADHD, and a learning disability. I still deal with all of these things on a daily basis, and I’m not always the best version of myself. I want to share my experiences with all of you because others have shared theirs with me, and it made me feel less alone.

I am also a queer white woman living in America and I feel responsible to educate other white people about this corrupt system that was built by us. I especially want to open white women’s eyes to the history behind not only our oppression, but also how we have actively oppressed other women. Every day I wake up to face my white privilege, and I think it’s time to start talking about it.

I struggle financially, like most people my age, and I have collected a good amount of credit card debt because I was financially illiterate. I probably still am, but I am working on it. I had a corporate job that literally destroyed my work ethic, self-esteem, and nervous system. It took the essential parts of who I am and tried to beat it out of me. When I finally left, I slept for a month, and it took a year to shift my nervous system out of survival mode. Now I can’t work more than 30 hours a week for another person without being triggered.

I know I threw a lot of the negative at you, but I think it’s important to know where I am coming from when I share my experience. Everything is through the filter of trauma and life experiences that have formed me into the human I am now. I won’t say I am grateful for that trauma or that it made me who I am today, but life is hard, and it hurts. If the people around me had taken the time to heal, maybe I would’ve been able to learn these things without being hurt, but I am a cycle breaker. Most of us millennials are cycle breakers. We were put here to end generational trauma and build a better world. It sucks to have so much on our shoulders, and I do find myself getting angry at the generations before us for this world we inherited, but within that anger is action.

So, if this sounds interesting and you want to face yourself with me, subscribe to my blog! Let’s move out of surviving into thriving together. Building community is the only way to move this world into the better future that we all deserve. And community is what I crave more than anything else.