attacked because I am trans, I was attacked because of what other people thought and concluded about that, commonly before and without my input. Our current society is built to comfort cis people over trans people. Me being discriminated was intensified moreso from knowing that there was a lack of societal support for when I would be vulnerable afterwards. The hardship of healing came alongside thinking about options. There are no laws protecting us nationwide from discrimination, when there is no real barrier stopping these from existing than decisions made from discrimination through an intentional lack of both action and depth of description. I couldn't go through this alone. I realized that I didn't have to go through this alone. Even without laws, there were always people, even if there seemed none in my current social reach. Stigma seemed consistent against me, because I would keep meeting it--I had to respond through solidarity, and I found that in the LGBTQIA+ community. I was still reeling from emotional abuse a month after until the present. I had to explore for my own safety, physically and mentally. I've noticed that hatred can come from lacking the capability to describe what is positive of what is discriminated or the concept being worked with. Shifting positions outside of comparison, I found answers in changing from a transactional perspective to one built on consideration. There is discriminatory anger, and there is righteous anger--the feeling of standing against harm, for your own protection, not necessarily escalating tension, but pushing for motivation—that something must be done. It takes a sense of personal competence to choose, through traumatic experiences, to be better and more ethical than the society you grow up in. It takes opportunities to heal from trauma, and opportunities commonly favor those with privilege; in the lack of opportunities, I've learned that they can be made: Inasmuch as I carried my stories in memory, I could also play the role as their writer, and carry them through my trauma. I can't move out. I can't distance myself from those who emotionally abuse me. I can work with my narrative in mind, and in the place of abuse, commit healing onto myself by accepting that I can be healed, and push outside this conceptual vacuum that only trauma can leave behind. This motivation helped me reach out to others--inasmuch as it took me 5+ years to find my first LGBT+ group in the Cordilleras, the years feel like distant yet distinct seconds when living the reality afterwards: Organizing and connecting with more than a handful of people who can understand very well how to comfort trauma because of facing similar feelings themselves; away from needless cultural barriers perpetuating ignorance of our truth. Friendships save lives. Friendships saved lives in epidemics and crises in the past, they’re saving lives in the pandemic at present. The LGBT+ community is inherently resilient-a sea of stories building upon each other--practicing collective-care in facing the lack of potential self-care, with a goal to return what is into collective memory, than what was prescribed and dictated by colonial memory. I've seen my abuse perpetuated as a result of collective forgetfulness--replaced by doubt through shallow depictions and beliefs. A lot of my connections in the community are scholars, motivated to being well-read on history and social issues. I never pictured myself writing stories at all because of trauma, much less sharing them for others, until I learned that stories are carried in life, and lived throughout. Stories help against trauma, because they are personal conversations.