Acceptance: A Memoir

my past would be the price of my future, but only after it devastated me.

Adults viewed suicidal ideation as a pathology. But for me it was logic. Weighing the bad against the good, projecting forward to decide if life was worth sticking around for.

I recognized the emphasis on “grit” as a final throwing up of hands. Kids too young to speak would be held responsible for their own problems. It didn’t matter how they were wronged, or how preventable the harm; their job was to contain the damage, making the blast zone smaller by absorbing all the impact. When flagrant affronts drew the ire of society—like migrant children separated from their families and detained in tent cities, oil fields, and a converted Walmart—I found myself numb. Maybe it’s for the better, I thought. Maybe the adversity will make them stronger. The doctrine of “anything bad can be alchemized into something good” had been so drilled into me that it seemed to apply even in this extreme situation. I was horrified by the logic I’d internalized. The whole song and dance of resilience chipped away at my humanity. It required a profound lack of empathy. It erased any pain, no matter how great, as long as it resulted in productivity.

Everyone who dealt with disadvantaged kids, from therapists to college admissions officers, treated us as if we could overcome any abuse or neglect with sheer force of will.

Instead of making a life that would redeem the past—an impossible feat—I sought out a life that I could live with.

The whole song and dance of resilience chipped away at my humanity. It required a profound lack of empathy. It erased any pain, no matter how great, as long as it resulted in productivity.

There were so few acceptable ways to need help.

It seemed clear no one cared about my experience when I just said it. But if I could write well enough, I could trick a reader into caring.

Any exclusive system is a system of exclusion.

I took for granted that, no matter what happened in my life, I could escape into my ambitions; they would transport me to a future where the way I grew up couldn’t matter less.

had spent my young adulthood desperate for redemption, striving to make everything that happened “for the best.” It would only be a good story, I believed, if it had the happiest ending. I had to take tragedy and twist it into triumph. Otherwise, I would be pathetic, if not forever broken. But the man’s email revealed a third option: I was allowed to be affected. I was allowed to be changed.

For the first time, I saw that punishment was not the best, or only, way to compel change. The cheap way was to kick people out or exclude them in the first place and make them feel like they weren’t good enough. The hard way was to ensure their success.

That was the ploy of art: to trick people into listening to me when they’d otherwise disregard my perspective in favor of more convenient narratives.

My interrogators asked me about everything I left out, forcing me to account for all of my imperfections. It seemed deeply unjust that I could omit the ways I’d fucked up when others could not—I assumed the other applicants were completely forthcoming with their tribulations and mistakes. Otherwise, wouldn’t their parents tell on them? The idea of adults shielding kids from their mistakes seemed bizarre. On the contrary, I figured everyone else’s parents were busy airing grievances with their children, too.

For both of my parents, emotions created their own reality. It was up to me, as their child, to assimilate their points of view, even when they contradicted what I considered facts.