GRATITUDE AS A WEAPON
As this Thanksgiving evening rolls into Friday morning, I reflect on the term gratitude, and how it it’s been manipulated by people who choose to silence accountability. Gratitude is powerful—when it is authentic, when it is internal, when it flows from a person’s own sense of lived experience and inner truth.
But gratitude becomes poisonous when someone else tries to force it onto you.
It becomes a muzzle.
It becomes a strategy.
It becomes a weapon.
And in my life, it has been used repeatedly by people who do not want to confront their own guilt, their own behavior, or the consequences of their actions.
This article is not about complaining. It is not about rejecting positivity. It is about reclaiming the truth from a tactic that has been used to silence me, minimize my suffering, and distort the narrative around my abuse.
And Thanksgiving is the perfect day to address this—because while people are sitting around tables pretending to be grateful for things they don’t respect, don’t nurture, and don’t even authentically value, I’m over here fighting for the bare minimum: safety, truth, justice, and the right to not be dehumanized.
People have weaponized Thanksgiving against me for years—using the holiday as an excuse to project their opinions about what I “should” be grateful for. They make it sound like I must perform some socially acceptable level of appreciation simply to make them more comfortable, while I am simultaneously navigating things they would not survive for a single week.
Let’s be very clear:
If I didn’t have gratitude, I would not still be alive.
I would not still be fighting.
I would not still be pursuing justice.
Gratitude is not the issue here.
Manipulation is.
THE MANIPULATION TACTIC: “BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU HAVE”
This phrase sounds innocent to people who have not lived through real sabotage, real targeting, real interference, real gaslighting, or real institutional betrayal.
But to a person fighting for safety, sanity, and the right to live without harassment, this phrase becomes one of the most insidious forms of psychological abuse.
It’s the same tactic used on battered spouses, on silenced employees, on mistreated students, on oppressed communities:
“Be grateful, because others have it worse.”
But here’s what people don’t admit when they use that line:
They are saying it to protect themselves, not you.
They are saying it to avoid accountability.
They are saying it to minimize what they did or what they supported.
They are saying it to twist morality in their own favor.
They are saying it because they know what they allowed, ignored, or benefited from is wrong.
And the people who said it to me the most are the same people who stole from me—financially, socially, emotionally, or materially.
They are the same people who tampered with my food, interfered with my medical autonomy, sabotaged my relationships, misrepresented my character, and weaponized institutions to harm me.
These people profited in multiple ways—socially, emotionally, or financially—from my suffering.
And yet they think they can lecture me about being “grateful” for the scraps I fought to hold onto.
THE SECRET GARDEN ANALOGY: WHY PEOPLE GET IT WRONG
Picture this:
A bedridden child from The Secret Garden—wealthy, surrounded by comfort, yet physically confined and unable to experience life.
Now imagine a poor visitor walking in and telling the child to “be grateful” because he has money while the visitor has nothing.
Both statements are technically true, but one situation is fixable and the other is not.
The child’s wealth cannot restore his mobility.
The visitor’s poverty can be improved with opportunity.
The point?
Suffering cannot be compared or dismissed simply because someone owns things.
And in my situation, the comparison is even more absurd because the same people telling me to be grateful are the ones who contributed to, supported, or ignored the abuse.
I cannot “be grateful” that my food is tampered with.
I cannot “be grateful” while people wait for me to sleep to break in.
I cannot “be grateful” while my cat is in danger.
I cannot “be grateful” when medical staff gaslight my symptoms of poisoning.
I cannot “be grateful” when my property is sabotaged.
I cannot “be grateful” while both racists and certain Black individuals exploit me.
I cannot “be grateful” while local institutions work against me.
I cannot “be grateful” when everything I eat becomes a health threat.
To demand gratitude in the middle of a crisis is not wisdom.
It is cruelty dressed as moral superiority.
HOW PEOPLE PROJECT THEIR OWN EMPTINESS ONTO ME
These individuals are miserable. Let’s call it what it is.
They wake up in beds with partners they don’t love.
They work jobs they despise.
They sit in homes that feel like prisons.
They spend holidays with people they cannot stand.
They scroll through their phones to avoid facing their own lives.
They cosplay being stable—but internally they are falling apart.
So what do they do?
They latch onto me.
They stalk, observe, nitpick, obsess, compare, monitor, envy, and imitate.
I am their distraction.
I am their entertainment.
I am their blueprint.
I am their target.
I am the emotional prosthetic limb they attach themselves to because they cannot stand alone.
And when I don’t break—when I don’t fold, when I don’t play small, when I don’t collapse the way they predicted—they get angry.
So angry they start inventing narratives about how I “lack gratitude.”
But here is the truth, unfiltered and simple:
I don’t lack gratitude.
They lack integrity.
They lack accountability.
They lack a spine.
They lack the courage to look at their own reflection without using me as the buffer.
THE REAL REASON THEY WANT ME QUIET
They don’t want me grateful.
They want me manageable.
Gratitude, in their hands, becomes a leash.
They want me:
Small
Muted
Distracted
Burdened
Complacent
Trapped
Exhausted
Easily scolded
Easily redirected
Easily blamed
Easily manipulated
They want me to look down at material objects instead of looking up at my future.
They want me to clutch the “toys” they think should pacify me—my possessions, my home, my achievements—because they know what happens when I look forward instead of down:
I demand everything I rightfully deserve.
I expose what really happened.
I hold people accountable.
I take up space.
I take back my narrative.
And they lose control.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MY BELONGINGS: I EARNED THEM. THEY STOLE.
Here is the biggest insult of all:
People who stole from me in one form or another are the same people lecturing me about gratitude.
Everything I have, I earned—
Through my work ethic.
Through my consistency.
Through my strength.
Through my sacrifices.
Through my persistence.
But they?
They profited off my pain.
They lived off my name.
They copied my identity.
They sabotaged my opportunities.
They tampered with my property.
They interfered in my education.
They slandered me.
They stalked me.
They filed false narratives.
They tried to control my living conditions.
They tried to break me down.
And then—
With stolen blessings hanging off their shoulders like stolen jewelry—
They have the nerve to tell me what I should be grateful for.
It’s like someone stealing your entire paycheck and then saying:
“Be grateful you still have a dollar left.”
The entitlement is delusional.
The hypocrisy is nauseating.
The manipulation is transparent.
I am not buying it.
Not today.
Not on Thanksgiving.
Not ever again.
THIS IS NOT BURNOUT — THIS IS ABUSE
People love to hide behind soft language.
“Oh, maybe she’s burnt out.”
“She just needs rest.”
“She should try to focus on the positive.”
No.
This is not burnout.
This is the physical and psychological toll of sustained, targeted abuse.
This is what happens when:
your food is tampered with
your body swells with edema
your devices are hacked
your camera footage is interfered with
your home is entered without permission
your cat is targeted
your safety is compromised
your medical concerns are dismissed
your name is slandered
your privacy is violated
your livelihood is sabotaged
and both racists and jealous, insecure individuals weaponize your existence
This isn’t burnout.
This is survival.
And I am surviving—
Loudly.
Publicly.
Deliberately.
And unapologetically.
THE CONCLUSION: GRATITUDE IS NOT A LEASH
Gratitude belongs to me—not to the people who abused, manipulated, stalked, or tried to silence me.
I will not apologize for my tone.
I will not shrink to make others comfortable.
I will not “be grateful” for crumbs while people steal loaves.
I will not play along with manipulation disguised as wisdom.
Everything I have, I worked for.
Everything I lost, they stole.
Everything they fear, I am becoming.
I am not here to play the role they assigned me.
I am here to tell the truth.
And the truth is simple:
Gratitude is not silence.
Gratitude is not submission.
Gratitude is not a weapon.
Gratitude is mine, and mine alone.