I hate to hear them tell me what I am, even or especially when what they think I am is kind or brilliant or beautiful. I hate when they insist that I have no faults, that my laziness or violence or cruelty simply don’t exist. When they speak this way I am even less in my body than usual, feeling the sickness of a stranger look me in the eye and describe what is not there. What I am feeling is their disregard for my reality. I am being made to wear whatever particular fantasy they wish to project.
