It doesn’t work. Punishing people into perfection. I did not have the misfortune of being abused by world-class abusers, men in the restaurant industry, the ballet stratosphere, or the film industry. My abusers were small-town people with big dreams and few skills. They could scream, bully, pinch, and hit. They could tell you were nothing unless you worked harder, submitted more devotedly, conformed to the ideal they imposed upon you but were so far from themselves.

Recovering from trauma, I use hatred not as a vehicle for hurting others, but as a vehicle for changing myself, for changing the world. Eventually, hatred will be displaced by joy and curiosity.

Invincibility. It doesn’t exist among humans, but I love invincibility as masquerade, as defensive strategy in cancer and trauma...