Poetry: Dear Abusive System

An audio recitation (11.4.23) of my poem "Dear Abusive System", which I wrote on 21.1.22.
The poem addresses both the system of an abusive family, as well as the “badfare” state, jobcentre, council, “ill health” system, and capitalism/bureaucracy.
P.S.: The second part of Trauma Responses is up next.:)
Text:
I have rights,
even though you treat me like an object.
I have dignity,
even though you humiliate me.
I have pride,
even though I feel helpless.
I have value,
even though you abandon me.
I deserve support,
even though you’re letting me down.
I deserve love, even when I hate everyone.
I’m not a loser, I’m not a failure, I’m not shameful, I’m not disgraceful.
I am myself.
I am abused,
I am neglected,
but that’s not who I am.
I am not their cruelty,
I am not their carelessness,
I am not their shaming,
I am not theirs.
I am me and I belong to me.
I am an earth child, I am an artist, I am a poet,
I am a singer, I am a drummer, I am a dancer,
I am a vegan, I am a feminist, I am a rebel, I am a pacifist,
I am a scholar, I am a scientist.
I am a lover without a lover,
I am a friend without a friend,
I am a mother without a child,
I am a daughter without a mother.
I am a leader without followers,
I am a founder without campaigns,
I am a visionary without means.
My trauma is not any less real
just because you refuse to acknowledge
the existence of emotional health.
My needs are not any less valid
just because you fail to even imagine
that there might be someone who’s got it as bad as me.
My worth as a person is not any less
just because you believe
that people who don’t make any money are useless.
Abusers invented the system,
and the system invented abusers.
Yet somehow I’m still here.
And I’ll never be what you want me to be.
To contact me about collaborations, please use my blog (see link below).
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Welcome to DI without the disorder - dismantling our society’s pathologising mental health culture and informing about trauma one video at a time.:)
❤️‍🔥I’m Laura (she/her), and I have a Dissociative Identity and Complex Trauma, not DID/C-PTSD.
/ @diwithoutthedisorder
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