This month I moved to San Antonio, Texas. The third San I’ve lived in the past year. The sixth state in six years… and for six months I have had increasing psychosis.
Sān is three in Mandarin and considered a lucky number alongside six—quite comical considering a triple six in Western culture is considered Satanic due to the bible implicating it as so. The memory of my 2023 Spring semester at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) has prodded my psyche with unforgettable connections that have instilled another layer of understanding within our reality. My Mandarin professor during the end of our class, would generally focus on a brief cultural lesson, and in one instance where we learned of the lucky numbers she told of a relative of hers who was lucky enough to receive a license plate with 666 on it! He was thrilled until he learned it was considered offensive to Americans and quickly replaced it with something more palatable to the culture here. Oh, assimilation… why must you take away such diverse individualities?
I pursued all sorts of different languages after nearly losing my life in a state on the opposite end of the country from where I had been born. Desperate to rid myself of the psychotic mental state that was brought on by domestic violence and meth withdrawal, I had set myself up with a rigid routine that I adhered to as though it were compulsory. My favorite component of that routine was my avid language studies—Latin, Russian, Spanish, German, French… even more that I have failed to list. I fell in love with Russian for its lack of articles, and German for its straightforward nature that manifested in me this dream of pursuing medical school in Germany. Spanish has always been one I struggled with, my utter distaste for its grammar and the way it dances around ideas that do not meld nicely with my “abnormal” brain that has a preference for directness. I studied it avidly for months at one point with a man I thought loved me, then I dropped it rather quickly when he assaulted me and I cowardly had the grace to keep that out of discussion publicly (though he did not grace me anywhere near as similarly!)
While I fell so passionately in love with German & the way it made half of my family make more sense, why could I not do the same with Spanish as I carry the last name Oaxaca? I suppose it is easy to forget the genocide committed by the Spanish after the English took over North America and forced assimilated peoples to assimilate once again, especially when the discussions of it revolve around how allegedly the deaths occurred primarily by the filthiness of these Europeans who brought catastrophic diseases to these beautiful continents.
—okay, now why am I ragging on dirty Europeans while I am partially a dirty European? Well, the point is, I adored studying Mandarin. It made so much sense and I was heartbroken when I moved to San José and the school there did not offer a class on it. I loved learning the stroke order of the traditional characters and it felt like they each told a story with an underlying meaning, I suppose it is natural that I felt a connection to it considering those from the Americas are related to migrating Asians ~15,000 years ago. It came as no surprise when I learned that Zapotec is a tonal language that is also pictographic and that aspect of it seemingly has little information or even enough comprehensible input for it to be translated.
It almost felt like a bite to the throat when I only heard of this language from a Professor I had at CCSF, who loved my last name and often made strong eye contact with me during the lectures. It is sincerely heartwarming to know the language is still alive and has partially merged with Spanish due to their conquest that began in 1521. In a few months, I will be 27 years old, and I know minimally about where my ancestors’ blood soaked into the Earth’s soil. Not much emphasis was placed upon culture in my home growing up, why must this have been so?
No, I am not new blood. Both sides of my family have been here for well over 100 years, and all of my grandparents have been dead for a while. My parents are assimilated, thus, I am assimilated—it is a new day and age, so why must this continue to be so? As children die unnecessarily around the world stemming from the greed and insecurity of wealthy adults, it is clear genocide is incredibly profitable as it makes the world more conveniently marketable. Without culture, we become customers. As American media grows more popular, the desire to be stripped of one’s own culture in exchange for a devoid one leads to consensual assimilation. As languages go extinct, culture is lost, and souls may no longer rest.
What does this all have to do with my move to San Antonio? Or my pervasive psychosis? Well, the latter pertains to alcohol withdrawal, alongside the deep myofascial release of tension from my temporalis and cervical vertebrae caused by methamphetamine abuse. It was a couple of years ago now, countless beatings and being thrown out in the snow with minimal clothing (that may have saved my life considering that meth causes hyperthermia). San Antonio, however, was for love. I have known this man for years and did not immediately realize it because his former partner had conducted such an intensive smear campaign on him that I hadn’t a clue he was even back on Tumblr. This same woman also utilized me to say negative things about Mexican men, since I know how toxic they could be first-hand (something I should not have to elaborate upon; if you know, you know).
I don’t care to feed narcissistic abusers, especially after I have had an active smear campaign on me since my childhood and I have had it done so many times by intimate partners and friends. I do not react to it unless I am actively an alcoholic, which the Devil loves just as much as He loves Methamphetamine. Frankly, I don’t have much else to say regarding this as I sincerely hope this woman abstains from substances and gets the psychological help she needs rather than wishing death upon us both. There is not a single soul I hate, despite what nonsense I might say when the Devil reaches into my spine to permeate throughout my body via the blood-brain barrier, to make me into the evil He desires everyone to be. No, I am away from such exhausting nonsense, and all I can do is love her like I love every human being, including those who have beaten me senselessly and/or exploited me.
Much nonsense in the world that I adore to ignore but exhausts me evermore. I could hardly stay calm during our road trip to retrieve my belongings from San José as psychosis made my brain shake and break. That city along with San Francisco sincerely was not for me, and I did not even truly allow myself to get close to anybody while living in San José—the Bay Area is a haunted place that wants us all to leave. With all that blood in the soil, you could hear the screams across time and space, it is a tangible aching that exists everywhere throughout the United States. That was a large reason for my desire to leave that area in particular, all the pain and exploitation was felt as I walked primarily and traveled extensively on public transportation. Quite tired of being solicited as a lone female walking the streets, having pictures taken of me—I already had a man sell and exploit every bit of what he stole of me when I mistakenly trusted him in Pennsylvania, why must I deal with it more? Why must this body that used to be incredibly disabled be a hot commodity?
666—Multiple individuals have told me they saw those three numbers more after having met me. No, I am not a Satanist. I humbly allow Lucifer to guide me when necessary and am thoroughly aware when it is Satan who is calling for me (the fear he creates reminds me of my humanity). After weeks of writing this piece in my head while patiently waiting to become no longer so psychotic, I’ve realized that this is all because of how I am a magnet for possessed individuals. After growing up in a dysfunctional household, I spent most of my life talking to people (primarily males) through text chat on the internet. No matter how utterly evil they were, I would take the time to get to know them and figure out their redeeming traits. Some I fell in love with, almost all of them I would let go of fairly quickly because I was an easily possessed and traumatized demon who did not understand what love was. I would like to think that I do now, I have made so very many spiritual family members around the world and they have been there for me more than my own blood. This has led to me being hopelessly misunderstood, as my experience with disability, trauma, betrayal, and substance abuse, is not within the realm of normality. After going through so many bouts of explaining myself to those with terminal narcissism, that mind-numbing repeat experience has become my greatest motivation to never take my life and continue to write.
I am not alone. I am not the only one who has been betrayed by their family members, nor am I the only one who is traumatized by the medical system. I am certainly not alone in my struggle with substance abuse, I have seen signs of it in every single place I have lived in my lifetime—and oh, how I have fucking lived! I am the universe, as is everyone else… I dream of a future, where experiencing discomfort towards reaching physical goals is favored over instant gratification that has utterly destroyed our planet. My entire teen years I spent a third to two-thirds of my day playing Oldschool Runescape, and I would never wish such a sad existence upon anyone else. It kept me alive as my body festered in pain from the manifestation of a toxic home environment—the world raised me, and I am obligated to take it in return. I met my son’s father on this silly game, and when I gave up custody of him due to another domestic violence situation riddled with addiction, I mourned him. There was hardly a day that he left my side since he first latched onto my breast at birth, my entire physiology reacted as though my child had died.
You cannot raise a child over the internet, or a phone call. Visits to where he lives are exceptionally expensive, and his father persists in painting me as a compulsive liar as a projection of his faults as a man who put his hands on me—he felt entitled to such reactivity after speaking to the woman who raised me and felt what she did to me was obligatory. The woman who testified against her daughter for a man she had never even met. Frankly, I feel sick sharing much about my son out of respect for his privacy, and I know deep down within my marrow, that he will be with me again. That is something I must fight for, and where I was before in some of the most expensive cities in the country was never going to get me there.
I have been allowed into so many families since I was 20. It is time to make one my own. This piece is only a small fraction of my pain, & I will continue to abstain from my regular social media use so I can continue prioritizing my well-being. My email is always open for questions and discussions because I do care. I love you all so very much.