You can’t learn from remembering. You can’t learn from guessing. You can learn only from moving forward at the rate you are moved, as brightness into brightness.
—Sarah Manguso, The Two Kinds of Decay
Boundaries are so damn hard. I didn’t know one until like… two years ago and it’s only really been activated in the last year and a half. The one thing I’m grateful for during these pandemic times: the space and perspective to look at how things are and aren’t serving me in my life. I’ve been experiencing shifts in my health, my relationships with others, and my future. There’s something about having to make decisions about what’s next that makes you hyperaware of what is and isn’t working in the present; the movement needed to get to where you want to be.
By this point in my life, I’ve been a public person on the internet longer than I haven’t been on it which is shocking to be quite honest. Livejournal and MySpace were my early stomping grounds but it’s just exploded into so many different services, some kept and some abandoned, over the years. The internet and social media became places to not just connect but to perform in a sense; I had never really known anything else.
I was raised by someone with trauma around not being seen and heard so I was told that I had to perform, that I had to get attention to feel whole and validated; this is what the recording in my head blared for years. The thing is, that validation is fleeting and unstable—it also puts you on display in a way that feels unsafe for my brain chemistry. What actually helps me feel ok is being in relationship with others but I always tend to isolate myself instead of letting anyone help me because the message of my childhood was “you can’t trust anyone, no one is ever going to help you, you need to do everything alone and get all your praise alone”.
And what I’m telling you is: it doesn’t really work no matter how many people give you likes and comments.
It’s a big thing that I’m tackling and have made progress on, but when it hits me now and then, I feel so unmoored and almost as if I don’t want to be on this planet. It’s fucked feeling like I can’t emotionally handle social media anymore while also wanting attention instead of filling my own cup. It’s a really toxic cycle. I think the problem is that I have trouble letting myself entirely trust that the people closest to me won’t get tired of me and so I settle for the parasocial scraps online in order to feel validated. It’s pretty fucked but also doesn’t feel uncommon based on what other people have told me.
There’s support to be had here on the internet but there’s also a way to gorge yourself on the feedback people give you, the noise of it, without getting any real connection or sustenance. I don’t know. The last year has made me reevaluate how I do things, especially the internet and social media—something has to change.
I think having private social media accounts is a start. Being able to recognize that the likes and voices I want loudest in my life are the more trusted ones. I’ve spent a long time more concerned about the quantity as opposed to the quality of love and care I’m receiving and the switch has finally flipped. Like all of us, I’m going to come out of this pandemic a different person than the one who went into it. I don’t know that I want just anyone having access to me and my work and all the parts of myself that go into my art. My perception of myself as a person and writer has shifted and this space will as well.
What does this mean?
You’ve Escaped will be going permanently behind a paywall. This is to limit access to trolls and people I don’t really want to have access to me and my life. If they really want to pay for that privilege, go nuts but it’s not going to just be there. In the classic way of putting it (just to those people who are the worst): fuck you, pay me.
I’m already paying! Is everything the same for me?
Yep, if you’re paying either monthly or annually, you will continue having access to the full archive when logged in and you’ll still get You’ve Escaped in your inbox every Wednesday.
I have a comped or gifted subscription. What’s happening with this?
Just like those who are paying for their subscription, if you’re already comped or gifted, you’re good to go and will have the same access to the archives and weekly emails in your inbox that you’ve been receiving.
I’m a free subscriber but I want to keep reading You’ve Escaped. What’s pricing like?
$5/month or $40/year (annual subscription includes access to the You’ve Escaped Slack community and book club). There is also now a Pay What You Want option in case you can’t afford the suggested annual rate or you want to contribute more than the suggested annual rate. Give more, give less, it’s all good.
I’m a free subscriber but I really can’t afford even a Pay What You Want option. Help!
As always, please get at me by replying to this email or emailing me here and I’ll get you sorted. I always want You’ve Escaped to be as accessible as possible. This offer is especially extended towards BIPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, etc folks.
What if one of the emails really resonates and I want to share it with a nonsubscriber?
Forward that email! Go wild. They won’t be able to access it on the actual Buttondown page since it’ll be for subscribers only but spread the word and share what speaks to you via email.
I understand that this means that I may lose free subscribers but it feels good and right to be setting a boundary about what I’m sharing with the wider world. If you unsubscribe, that’s ok! Truly, no hard feelings. If you stick around, I’m looking forward to all the You’ve Escaped still to come. I hope you are too. See you next week for a new installment of C.R.E.A.M.!
Much love,
Anaïs
