Today’s blog post is just a little introduction and exposition to give some more context about myself, my work, and what you can expect from me.
My name is Robin, and I write under the name R.J. Tenace. My birthday is coming up later in the month of October, so I’ve decided to celebrate by making a post every day to share a little piece of what’s going on in my life. I guess through some sense of vanity, I hope that something of what I communicate to you can be molded into something useful.
I’ll spare you my life story and cut to the juicy parts, skipping through all the family drama and coming of age shit.
Ten years ago, I moved to Portland, Oregon, from a much smaller town in the same state. I was pursuing my Bachelor’s in Political Science at Portland State while being involved in student government, non-profit political legislative work, and community based organizing (as well as a few other extracurriculars).
In April 2016, I participated in a protest at Portland State University at a rally held by the ‘Portland State University Students for Donald Trump’. At the time, most people considered Trump a fringe candidate – including the 6 or so people who showed up in support of his presidential bid. I was among a large number of students protesting, but a few of us were doxed by a local ‘journalist’ and the video ended up on Alex Jones’s podcast or TV show or whatever. My social media got flooded with you-name-it, my address and contact information was leaked, and I had to drop everything and leave my living situation. After that, I did win student body president (by four votes, suck it!) and continue participating for a while with the intention of helping move the needle on social issues around colonization and police brutality. In particular, I got involved with the DisarmPSU campaign, which was founded and lead by people fighting long before I showed up; that campaign, however, became a core part of why I showed up every day.
In June 2018, Jason Washington was murdered by two campus safety officers with firearms at Portland State University.
I dropped out of Portland State University fall term classes and did not return.
I don’t have anything noble or brave to say that makes his death about me. I wish I could say the same bold-faced lie I used to, which is that I dropped out “in protest” of his death. I won’t, though.
Before Jason Washington’s murder, I lost a friend to suicide, and another to sudden heart failure. I was already in a low place, and the murder of this man – father, a veteran, a husband, a stranger to me – enshrined in me a sense of powerlessness that took years to process. Every day, I would think to myself irrational, obsessive thoughts:
‘What if I had said something at the right meeting, at the right time? Would that have caused a chain reaction to disarm the police, and save him?’
‘Did something I say make the administration less likely to disarm? Did my participation hurt more than help?’
‘Did my tuition dollars pay for firearms? Did they pay for bullets? Did they pay for salary, and administrative leave, and independent investigator fees? Did they pay the settlement for his family? Did my tuition dollars hurt, or help?’
‘Am I responsible for Jason Washington’s death?’
I had some form of mild Obsessive Compulsive Disorder prior to Washington’s murder; after, I lost all sense of reason about what it meant to be a morally good person. I felt like nothing could get my hands clean – I started seeing federal taxes on my checks and thinking about drones and fighter jets and dead civilians. I would close my eyes to sleep and spend hours just thinking about all of the ways I’d been a terrible person that deserved to suffer, and then impose my own sentence. I started arguments with loved ones that I still don’t even understand the point of, and isolated myself from everyone close to me as a result.
I became insufferable so that no one would see how badly I was suffering.
Even now, I feel the need to reiterate the point so you don’t mistake me: I am not even close to the real victim of this scenario. Perhaps, though, this will give you a sense of my madness, and what shapes it conspires to take. Though I have received extensive treatment for my OCD at this point, there are still many more days where I think of Jason Washington than not. He is not just a figment that represents some great wrong, or the struggle for civil rights. He was real, and some part of my fractured ego will always feel like I personally failed him.
So, between 2018 and 2020, my life was pretty exclusively work; I started a career in the labor movement, which lasted until earlier this year (I am now out on disability). I went through several major life transitions – two surgeries, the end of a long term relationship, and two more failed attempts at finishing my degree.
Now it’s 2026, I’m about to finish an intensive outpatient program, and I’m going to try taking another shot at human adulthood. I might even try to fight some old demons while I’m at it; I have plenty of new ones, but also more than enough experience now that I feel capable of weathering storms. I don’t know what America will look like in 5 years, and I’m afraid of the answer to that question, but I’m not going to sit here waiting to find out. I’m going to keep digging until I move the Earth to my satisfaction.
R. J.
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