Today I want to talk to you all about trauma. I was prompted to do this by the episode "Growing Pains" of Steven Universe Future, which sent me spiralling only half an hour before I wrote down this sentence. This episode needs a few content warnings so here they are: sexual harassment, sexual assault, child abuse. This episode is my confession as well as my letter of hope. Some people, people like me, have feet that are so full of thorns that they do not know what you mean when you ask them if it hurts, and they will react like panicked wild animals if you forcefully try to pull them out. I truly believe that nobody is unsalvageable but I am testament to how a burdened soul will leave the hands of saviours sliced through. I feel like this episode, much more than the others I am working on, is quite the reflection of my soul. I use a lot of absolutist words, betraying the black and white nature of my autistic mind, and I feel like it truly is just an immutable part of me. I’ve been criticised heavily for many things and that was very much one of them, but I never knew how to channel my need for the world to have rigidity, structure and a sense of what is True and what is False. Clearly, I found such black and whiteness in my rejection of authority and my embracing of indigenous cultures. If I can simply decry the methods and beliefs of my enemies, and lift others up and say “it is they who are correct and we need to listen to them”, then I do not have to worry so much about the many flaws of my personal reasoning. While I have a decent number of answers for how this world should actually be, I have so very many more criticisms of the way it is, and such a passion to burn it down and begin anew.