leaving tumblr for a while (if not forever), to be accountable to others and to take care of myself.
(TW: emotional and verbal abuse, manipulation)
I am taking a step back from tumblr (and the internet/social media in general) due to lots of shit I need to deal with in my life. My five-month intimate relationship with Jenna ended due to lots of issues of how I interact with her as a partner as well as how I interact with other friends and people in my life. There have been patterns of emotional and verbal abuse that I have struggled with in my close relationships in the past, and they have become particulary apparent recently to myself and to my friends from my relationship with Jenna.
These issues have gone beyond just my intimate relationships, and I have also been pointed out many ways I interact with others in general that embody traits of social climbing, manipulation, and treating people as commodities, basing relationships off what I can get out of the person, rather than truly building a genuine emotional bond. I have also recognized having a strong sense of entitlement in my already-built relationships to their support, company, and anything else I feel like I need from them. These traits, attitudes, and ways of interacting are taught to us, and sometimes even encouraged, in the kyriarchal capitalist system – though as someone who tries to resist oppression, I embody these traits far too strongly.
What is truly scary is that many of these issues were unrecognizable to me up until very recently, and I struggle with being self-aware and even having empathy and compassion for those I care for most. Many of my behaviors are contradictory to my thoughts and beliefs, and I can feel really disconnected from my actions and thoughts sometimes.
I have begun an accountability process for the abusive aspects of me and Jenna’s relationship, as well as to address my other issues of social climbing, entitlement and manipulation. This statement is a requirement of the process, along with journaling, reading, meeting in a weekly support group, being transparent to all my friends and comrades and others I interact with regularly, as well as some formal essays reflecting on what I have done, how I can change, and a reflection essay once I have been fully accountable. Jenna and I are still on good terms, and we are trying to support one another through this process, with the help of several friends.
As well as the accountability process, I am going to start weekly counseling sessions to unpack different aspects of my life. I earnestly want to stop hurting my friends and loved ones, and am working my hardest to address core problems in my past and present to transform into a tender, compassionate, genuine person.
Tumblr and other social media perpetuates ideas and attitudes of social climbing and posturing or posing a persona. The internet is an addiction I have struggled with for a few years now, and I am trying to purge that addiction. It has prevented me from basic methods of self-care and deep introspection, and I plan on relearning how to do both.
If you have any questions at all, or any helpful insights or readings, please feel free to contact either Jenna or I.
Take care everyone (I know I’m going to try),
-Mack
I have known Mackenzie for over two years now. This is his third accountability process, the third time he has been formally called out for patriarchal/abusive behavior. In those 2+ years, I have supported him in “working on his shit”, I have coddled him, I have held his hand to try to walk him through this bullshit to become a better person.
And I’m done.
I genuinely thought Mack had changed his behavior for the better. I have vouched for him to friends, saying that people should be aware of his past but that I’d noticed a significant shift in his behavior, to the point where I felt safe and comfortable around him. I’m sorry I ever vouched for him, and I feel personally betrayed to hear that he has continued these same patterns of abuse and entitlement.
Mack is well-versed in the languages of anarchism, feminism, and accountability. The entire time I’ve know him, he has talked a big game about equality and anti-oppression, while failing to understand how he continually perpetuates inequality and oppression. Based on Mack’s abuse of Jenna, it is clear that he never actually changed his behavior - I think he just knew how to tell me what I wanted to hear. I am disappointed that I didn’t see through the act and that I didn’t pay more attention to clearer-headed friends who couldn’t understand why I was still friends with him.
I’m sick of abusers receiving accolades for simply complying with an accountability process. I’m not interested in “supporting” people who continually hurt my friends and other community members. I’m sick of abusers being given countless opportunities to change their behavior while they continue to wreak havoc in their communities. I’m sick of accountability processes* and supportive friends (myself certainly included) enabling people to continue shitty behavior, as though not resisting a call-out means you never caused harm in the first place.
I am dismayed by how many people have already responded to Mackenzie’s post by offering support or good luck or accolades. How many of you have contacted Jenna offering your support? How many of you have asked Jenna how she wants people to interact with Mack in order for him to be accountable?
“Working on your shit” doesn’t make you a good person. Completing the first requirement of a multi-faceted accountability process doesn’t mean you’ve been accountable. You don’t deserve any proverbial cookies from your friends for not actively resisting an accountability process.
Abusers need to learn that there are consequences for their actions. Mackenzie, our friendship is over. You don’t deserve my time, energy, support, or camaraderie.
*To be clear, I don’t think accountability processes as a form necessarily enable abusive behavior. However, there is often the mentality that if someone is undergoing an accountability process, they have already been accountable in the eyes of the community/scene.
i appreciate wombat’s commentary
and as someone who initially mistrusted mack, was in a band with him, called him out a million times on his oppressive and straight up abusive behavior & along with others had to kick him out of that band for not “working on his shit” when he repeatedly said he did and made bullshit excuses, and then felt uncomfortable EVERYWHERE in olympia when i saw his manipulative creepy face, i hope that people … take this seriously?
and for real, it kinda makes me want to vomit when i see random internet folks wishing him “good luck” and offering support. this shitbag gets off on praise, and being seen as a ~super radical~ person. you know who does need support? everyone he hurt and manipulated. i met mack about 2 and a half years ago and it is astounding how long it took people to recognize and name the patterns of his abusive behavior—we had lots of mutual friends whom i trusted and honestly i couldn’t believe what everyone saw in this person but i went along with it because i figured if my friends liked this person then he must not be too bad. not surprising in retrospect that one of those friends turned out to be manipulative and abusive as well. not surprising that i never met someone that mack had been friends with for more than a year.
anyway, to mack, if you read this: your post is bullshit, and transparently so. you know how i know? you are STILL NOT OWNING YOUR SHIT. you are still blaming it on the internet. “tumblr and other social media” does not perpetuate social climbing/posturing/internet personas. YOU DO. there are plenty of people who are able to access the internet and not do abusive and manipulative things with it. there are many people who are able to resist the *temptation* of sexually harassing people via the internet. there are so many people who use tumblr and other types of social networking to create online spaces that are honest, informative, inspiring, and frankly necessary. the internet is an amazing space for people to be introduced to ideas about oppression, privilege, and inequality because it is so easy to shut up, read, learn your shit, and not be defensive about it. but no, you had to make this about you. the same fucking cycle is continuing, where you post a message on your tumblr about how you’re trying to be “accountable” and everyone eats your shit like it’s cupcakes and thinks you’re so great for ~trying to change~. remember when like two fucking years ago you said you were going to delete your facebook, your okcupid, your tumblr, all the internet bullshit that you had been using to manipulate and harass people and exploit your coolness of being in a band and doing “radical” things… because they were unhealthy and contributing to your abusive behavior? what the fuck were you thinking when you made them again and did the same fucking thing?
i am so done with this. when i lived in olympia i tried to warn new folks moving to town about mack if i saw him talking to them because he had (has?) a tendency of being really creepy to folks he perceives as women who are young/punk/radical/anarchy/whatever. olympia has this way of supporting abusers because people are too afraid of the “drama” that will happen if you exclude people from events… which leads the new people who move to town, who don’t know the backstory, to think that a bunch of shitty people are Super Cool Anarchy because they see them organizing or at parties or playing in bands or hanging out with otherwise legit folks. though many people in olympia were definitely aware of mack’s past actions he was let into “safer spaces” because he was “working on his shit” or whatever. you know what, maybe some people don’t fucking change.
