Giving Up the Script
EVERY THOUGHT AND BELIEF.
That was my flippant, overwhelmed answer. It’s also the truth.
Here’s the question:
Working from the premise that “white culture” is normalized what is one assumption or belief that you had to examine and give up?
Untangling a lifetime of normalized “white culture” feels like trying to breathe different air. So I started with one thread: the belief that my worth was not inherent, but functional. That my role was to be the infrastructure for everyone else’s dreams.
The old scripts were laid down early. “Does not live up to her potential.” I was a neurodivergent, traumatized, poor European American kid. The system only saw my failure to perform, never the context. I learned the lesson well: I would never achieve much on their terms, so my value was in giving my energy to others so they could.
I became the “White Woman”—the curator of normalcy, the self-sacrificing facilitator in my family. I managed emotions, upheld the image, and made myself the supporting character in everyone else’s story. My dreams were a resource to be diverted.
Then my body called the lie. My fall down the stairs in 2022 was a physical and spiritual breaking point. The performance was over. And in the shattered silence, I didn’t have the words for what came next.
But my FYP became a lifeline. It connected me to the educators who didn’t just teach—they witnessed.
Crutches and Spice helped me dismantle communication and disability. They showed me that the way I was taught to communicate—to be palatable, to mask my pain—was itself an ableist structure. I learned that my new, post-fall body, with its dysregulation and limited capacity, wasn’t a problem to be solved. It was a truth-teller.
Te Ataarangi taught me fierce boundaries and connected me to how I want to show up. Their Lives, their unwavering presence, reminded me I was never truly alone. It was the feeling of being in a digital room with someone who refused to bend, and in their refusal, I found the strength to stand up straight in my own life.
Kokayi’s racial trauma centers made my body scream for a soft, brave space to heal. His work named a pain so ambient I could barely perceive it. He gave my nervous system a target—not other people, but the trauma itself—and the permission to finally seek softness.
Desiree B Stephens helped me understand neurodiversity and deconstruct my parenting. She showed me the most healing truth of all: that I can reparent myself. She taught me how to turn the care I was trained to pour outward, inward, and to nurture the parts of me that were shamed for “not living up.”
And Walt Way showed me the genealogy and DNA, the epigenetic connections to my slave-owning class. This wasn’t abstract history; it was a somatic truth. He helped me understand that the “white woman” script I was performing wasn’t just cultural, it was historical—written in the very blood and trauma that my ancestors both carried and caused. The role wasn’t just a choice; it was an inheritance.
These TikTok educators didn’t give me a certificate. They gave me a mirror and a crowbar. A mirror to see the cages, and a crowbar to pry myself out.
Giving up the belief is a daily practice. It’s some days I can’t shower. It’s unfiltered videos. It’s leaving the room when my nervous system says NO. It’s accepting that my system is cranky and that’s okay. I am learning to trust I won’t be abandoned for having a boundary.
This practice has led me to the most terrifying and liberating reclamation of all: my own dreaming.
There’s a calm now. The frantic energy of propping up everyone else’s world has quieted. I can finally see a connection to a dream and know my role isn’t necessarily to join. I can remind myself: not my lane. not my skill. not my part. And I can genuinely mean it, followed by a full-hearted, “YAY! Truly support the community!”
I am no longer the supporting character, the martyr, the infrastructure. I am learning, guided by this chorus of liberators on my phone screen, to be the protagonist of my own story. I am giving up the belief that I am only valuable for what I can do for others, and am learning, instead, how to simply be in the quiet, sovereign hum of my own nervous system.
And that is a belief worth building a life on. Its why im putting energy into building racial trauma centers with Kokayi and EAGER.
@formerlovepoet
@eager
Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/hands-sticking-out-from-plastic-wrap-3738213
/
 |
|