From the years of about 2014-2016, I think I raised a little over 5 million dollars for various charitable causes. I used to have a really popular Twitter account— not as popular as one of the Neo-Nazis that ruined the platform, but my high-water mark was, I think, 22 million views in one month, and I had a tweet that went past any of dril’s. 52,000 retweets, over a quarter of a million likes.

Using my account, I fundraised for people’s GoFundMe’s. I got some goofy shit, like a guy asking me to raise $8,000,000 for his kid’s cancer treatment. I actually found out that that guy owned a house that was worth nearly as much: I told him, screw you. Go fucking sell your goddamned house. Of course he didn’t have a kid. He was just a greedy fucking asshole.

I remember everyone I fundraised for. I don’t talk to any of them anymore, and I didn’t even really talk to most of them to begin with. You see, where I’m from, when you help someone, that makes you instant friends. Not these people.

I regret fundraising for 99.97% of the people that I did.

Because they didn’t deserve anything.

You might say, oh, Margaret, why would you say such a thing? Because it’s true. I got fucked. I didn’t do it because I wanted anything, but the entire thing left me in a poorer state than I had been before. I went out on a limb for a lot of people, and, most of the time, they either just ghosted me when they got the money, or, they tried to actively get me killed. That was fun.

There are organizations and people who I don’t regret fundraising for. I won’t mention those, as I won’t mention by name anyone whom I’m talking about. Because, fuck it. I don’t need more problems.

But the fact of the matter is, I regret almost everything I did. For one reason.

My mother.

Sepsis

I don’t particularly recall what day it was that my mother got Sepsis. I tend to not put dates on things because I would rather not have the date roll by again and be reminded of some terror. In point of fact, I’m not directly aware of the day my father died. Oh, sure, I could tell you; but it’s held so deep in my cerebrum, because I don’t want to know.

It was the turn-over hours of August 17th and August 18th, 2024. My mother had just gotten Zometa, and, as far as I can tell, the sudden lack of Vitamin D in her system mimicked the onset of Sepsis. Whether or not she actually got sepsis— no one ever found out anything, and that was the end of that.

My mother was and is fine.

But that was the night that I just . . . realized, that I didn’t even really like a lot of my ‘friend’ group.

I had a ‘friend’ who, despite my trying to alter the ‘relationship’, just wouldn’t stop sending me porn. Porn I didn’t like, and didn’t want to look at. I couldn’t talk to them about anything that I really liked, because they would just pervert it.

And then, on that day, I sent them a message.

And they responded the exact worst way that they could have.

. . . and I realized that I had never felt so alone.

Yeah, RIP

At the time, I don’t really think that Iwas fully an ‘adult’. I have kids— grown, adult kids. You’ll never know about those. But I went through parenting, and I did a halfway decent job.

Nothing really fucking makes you grow up like realizing that your mom’s gonna die.

Nothing really makes you grow up like seeing your dad die.

And through it all— through my father’s death— suddenly, the Internet didn’t seem so ‘fun’ anymore. The people who I had palled around wif, I already knew that the vast majority of them were fuckheads with nothing in their skulls, and I knew that the vast majority of them were trying to use me for their own purposes. I continued to look for new friends. Real friends.

But the Internet is no place to make friends. It’s a kind of Hellscape, where the human psyche is allowed to fester. And you can’t look at each others’ faces very easily, and you can’t hear the tone of each others’ voices very easily.

There are people who livestream at one another, and they still somehow don’t recognize each others’ own humanity.

On the night that I thought my mother was going to die, I realized that, despite trying to get to know her, trying to talk to her, trying to feel some sort of connection to and with her, I had failed. I had failed, and, now, there were going to be no more second chances. Just like with my father’s failures, she would just be gone. No re-do’s. No continues.

No more second chances.

And I realized. . . one day, my mother was going to die.

And the day that she did, I wanted to be in a much better place than I was on that day.

What’s happened in the past 5 months

Serendipitously, it has been exactly 200 days since the night my mother went into the hospital. And, across those many days, which feel as though they have come and gone in the blink of an eye, I have placed myself in a much better position, mentally, physically, and financially. I am not ready for my mother to go. And she will not be gone for many more decades.

But I can see a world where I can stay alive without killing myself when she inevitably goes.

And I couldn’t see that before. I couldn’t see that, in a world where I just passively allowed someone to send me disgusting porn, and I never really confronted them on it. I couldn’t see that in a world where I was constantly afraid of people online— of what they could do; of what they may be capable of.

The old world is dying. The new one will not be born. There were always monsters, here. But they are not immune to the chaos and poverty that destroys everyone else.

I like the idea of making friends online. Human beings, however, are ultimately some of the most-disgusting creatures I’ve ever come in contact with.

You don’t beat the space wasps, honestly. But God in Heaven, if anyone did, the whole planet would have to be glassed ten times over, just to fuckin’ make sure.

An ending

I regret helping people. My mother was right: pearls before swine. Human beings, though, deserve food, water, shelter, medical care, and to feel safe. But I don’t want to ever interact with them, ever again.

On the day that I get to fuck off and leave, oh, I’m sure I’ll be back to help you. And I’ll give you free food, and water, and whatever.

But I know what you are.

I’ve seent it.

You cannot convince me that I haven’t.

Not anymore.