Hunted.
Survival, Safety, And People You’d Rather Erase
The Isolation of Strength
“I need help.”
I don’t say those words often.
I learned early on that no one listens—not in the way I need them to.
I was programmed to shut up and take it like a man right from the start.
To figure things out for myself.
To anticipate everyone else’s needs before my own.
I did it well.
Too well.
Because when you prove you can carry the weight of the world, people never think to ask if you should.
As a baby, crying got me locked out on the balcony.
As a child, locking my bedroom door got it removed from the hinges.
As a teen, speaking my truth got me punched in the face.
I learned how to keep my tears to myself.
I waited for something to change. For someone to notice.
Nothing did.
So, I made my own way. I built resources—not just for myself, but also for others.
And for a while, I was safe enough.
In childhood, my parents provided food and shelter, though I had to endure inexplicable abuse.
In adulthood, I overcame that, became self-sufficient, and gave what I had to help others rise.
Then, I let go of everything.
I thought that by surrendering what I had built, I could keep giving. That I could survive on trust alone, as I always had. That the sweat equity I invested in goodwill would be enough for the next chapter.
And then—the world shut down.
Just like that, my access was severed.
The people I had helped vanished. The doors and the borders got closed. I was left without, and the ones I had once protected came back to devour me.
I was displaced, violated again by the same patterns I spent my life escaping and replaying. But eventually I refused to continue being taken.
I got myself a vehicle, built a home inside it, and told myself I would make it work. That I would create safety where there was none.
Then parking spaces disappeared. Laws changed. People like me—who had given everything to just be safe, who asked for nothing—were targeted and pushed further into the abyss.
And that’s when I realized something horrifying.
I wasn’t just surviving.
I was being hunted.
What Safety Is And What It’s Not
People who have never been without assume safety is something you earn.
If you work hard.
If you follow the rules.
If you make smart choices.
They believe safety is a reflection of virtue—and suffering is the result of failure.
But that’s not reality. That’s privilege masquerading as morality.
Safety is not something you earn. It is something you are given—or denied.
It is not just the absence of harm. It is the assurance that if harm comes to you, someone will help. That you can call for assistance, and someone will answer. That you can fall, and someone will catch you—not just watch.
Survival is what happens when that assurance is gone.
When you do not have the right to be protected.
When you do not have the right to exist peacefully.
When you are not just neglected, but hunted.
I have been hunted.
There’ve been numerous times I’ve been parked in public lots that I should have been safe to rest. Instead, the police or private people knocked on my window, asked their questions, and told me to move along.
After a while, I wasn’t so lucky.
One evening while resting at an empty park, I got the knock.
Someone called them, said I was a predator giving candy to children. A lie. A calculated weapon. But the truth didn’t matter. The accusation was enough.
They told me to step out of the vehicle with lights blinding me. They asked questions. I answered. They made me open everything up but would not let me back in. They forced me to go with them. Leaving my wallet, glasses, and cat alone in the vehicle to get impounded, then dropped me off at the hospital—forced to spend the night and released in the morning to the street.
Another time, another call. This time, someone said I had a rifle in my car. Another lie. Another set of cuffs. Another lesson in how quickly your freedom can be stolen when the wrong person decides to speak.
My mere existence has turned into a crime I didn’t commit.
I’ve had no way to fight it.
Forced into custody for not dying, burdened with proving my innocence and sanity, then released—without safety, without means, with additional bills I couldn’t afford, further traumatized, and days of my life I will never get back.
Property stolen from me, assaults done to me, dignity stripped from my name.
And this is what people don’t understand.
There are millions of people who will never know what it feels like to be seen as disposable.
Who will never have their freedom revoked by a stranger’s opinion.
Who will never have their innocence stolen by accusation alone.
Who will never wake up and realize that they do not have the right to simply exist.
The Privileged Make Themselves Victims. The Vulnerable Have No Choice.
This is the part no one wants to admit.
The people who create systems of oppression are the same ones who cry victimhood when they are even slightly inconvenienced.
They rage about freedoms being taken away when they are asked to share.
They scream about oppression when they are forced to acknowledge someone else’s suffering.
They turn every discomfort into a crisis—because they have never actually been without. They know not even what true crisis is, though they fascinate themselves with dramatizations in hour-long segments and consider themselves experts in the field.
Meanwhile, those who have been systemically abused, enslaved, discarded—the ones who truly have no options—we’re told it’s our fault.
We are told to pull ourselves up and get over it, when we were never even given a ground to stand on in the first place. Physically managed and threatened—tormented further more.
And when we do rise—when we do build something out of nothing—that’s when the system turns against us the hardest.
Because it was never about justice.
It has always been about control.
People Diagnose Others From Their Ignorance And Disease
When people see someone suffering, they don’t ask how they can help.
They tell them what they should have done differently.
They say, “You need help.”
Not from a place of care. From a place of disdain.
What they really mean is, You need to be different. You need to be more like me.
They tell you how you should think, what you should do, who you should be.
They project their own beliefs, their own fears, their own jealousies, and their own limitations onto you.
They exude hate, hidden by fancy clothes, makeup, and pleasantries.
But they never offer the help they claim you need.
They don’t extend a hand up.
They don’t open a door.
They don’t give you an opportunity to prove them wrong.
Because they don’t actually want to help.
They just want to feel better about looking down on you.
They just want to validate themselves.
The Mirror They Don’t Want to See
It’s not about who’s good or bad. Who’s deserving or undeserving. Subjective opinion is temporary at best.
It’s about who gets to struggle in private, and who is punished for it in public. Who gets to grieve, and who gets made into spectacle.
Some people get to be flawed. They get to make mistakes and still be seen as valuable. They get to fail without being thrown away.
Others don’t.
Others spend their entire lives proving they are worthy of the bare minimum—and still, it is denied.
And so, people like me become mirrors.
A reminder that your stability is not a virtue. That the person you judge today could be you tomorrow.
People don’t want to see that. So they try to make us disappear.
But we’re still here.
We are still here. And we refuse to disappear.