#49 The Annual Purge is Happening Daily!

I am so grateful.

“This is not a test.

This is Your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the Annual Purge sanctioned by…”

Not so ironically, for this entry I will focus on events from the Halloween festival.

A fitting backdrop, I’d say. I briefly recall them below.

• Shattered glass on the office door. Not surprising. Their frequencies have been shifting lately – sharper, more erratic, more desperate. Sound is physical. The glass made it visible. 
• Christian. Fully consumed by a “coach-ing” delusion. (I wonder if he could guess the difference between this and leadership.) He was running around screaming and performing militant energy the whole day. He has Frank Dagg’s energy but his head is lowered. Hollow. 
• The post-festival preemptive party. Anxiety provoking. ‘This is just what it turns into’. Yuck. The pornstar radio station thing revealed that the rumors about my sexuality aren’t random “red trailer” whispers or group text anymore. [Shout out to Cartez for his mindset.] I noticed. I said nothing. I left before the “party” got started.
• The disrespectful kids and their disrespectful parents “letting” them be disrespectful. Not base instinct. Not ‘kids being kids.’ Psychopathy has a warm-up period. This was it. Training. The parents weren’t embarrassed so all judgement. They were watching. Same expression as the kids. You don’t accidentally raise something like that. You cultivate it. 
• Greg. Is still obnoxious and obscene. Also, relentless. I ended up bringing him candy. WTF?. A pacification. An old reflex. The desperate puppy dog eyes, the half-cocked mirroring of my face, the puckered lips misreading my expression entirely – isn’t new. 
• Arin’s friends were exhausting. They sensed being seen and weaponized it immediately. Unfortunately, the autism excuse is a particular brand of sham that really bugs me. For some it’s really just sociopathic behavior wearing a diagnosis like a costume to demand proximity and tolerance. Fortunately, I am learning that forced empathy work in these situations. It’s sickening. And, adjusting to their ‘social normative behavior’ should induce illness. It presents the challenge of being copied, overpowered and then blamed for both. All dressed up as inclusion.
• Ju had a complete mental break. Started joking about hiding drugs from police – referencing the concessions. Horrific. Not surprising though – Christian had been using him as a whipping boy for weeks. Maybe Ju started targeting me because he could sense but not name what was happening to him. He couldn’t identify Christian as the source. Too afraid to confront him either. So he aimed sideways. I guess it’s always easier to target the victim than the perpetrator when you’re afraid of the perpetrator. Ju is afraid of Christian. I am afraid of Christian. Arin is Afraid of Christian. Harper is afraid of Christian. Bethany looked as though her eyes were closed the entire time she was around him. Classic trait of a cult-leader-personality?
• Josh is still making hateful and violent comments. Hiding behind plausible deniability and the ‘you’re too sensitive’ deflection. Classic. Harper operates identically. Same calculated violence dressed as casual conversation.
• Harper’s roommate refused to look at me. Also classic. Harper went distant-that weird glacier look in her eyes. She was also angry later in the day. Dropped the whole breathless voice she’d been practicing for months. I found that interesting. 
• Valerie clouted herself. Is that acceptable?-I am not sure how clout is supposed to work. It was like she was performing “importance” she needed me specifically to witness. Maybe so that Heather could witness her doing it. She later pivoted to performing/projecting gossip with Heather. Strange doesn’t cover it and they are too old for this. This is the ‘acting hip’ phenomenon I have been documenting. It’s like they suddenly “become” cool. Calm. Collected. But remained genuinely Confused. It could in-deed be activated by my presence.
• Heather’s volunteer friends were also rude in this way. A mixture of fear – or something related to IT. Their energy is hard to articulate. In general, it looks like: They are afraid to look at me and when they do, generating positive cognition is difficult. They can’t even fake warmth unless they’re ‘acting black.’ Whatever it is underneath, it’s overwritten with practiced authority. On a more positive note: I hadn’t fully taken in what Heather openly admitted – that she rehearsed a voice of authority and practiced faking positivity while serving for years. I think this is a blessing.

Curses and blessings aside, what I am witnessing – the coordinated reputational assault, the borrowed aggression, the hollow imitation – isn’t random. It’s a purge. I think my unwillingness to fully face this is probably what sustains it. Because what these experiences are actually revealing isn’t how dangerous they are.

It’s how expanding I am. The festival goer is grown up.

And, no, this is not a test. It is a blessing.