By Camille Broadus
If you’ve somehow been under a rock and haven’t heard already, Azriel Clary from #SurvivingRKelly has recently been reunited with her family. In the documentary, her parents spoke of her being held against her will by Kelly from her early teenage years into adulthood. During that time, Clary allegedly had little to no communication with her family and when asked, Azriel claimed to be safe and that she was willingly with Kelly and their mutual partner, Joycelyn Savage. Clary and Savage were later interviewed by (Auntie) Gayle.
Alice, Azriel and Angelo Clary Photo: AZRIEL CLARY/INSTAGRAM
The interview could lead others to say that Clary was doing the epitome of what is known as The Most. During the interview, Clary was highly defensive and emotional as she accused her family of “always knowing where she’s been” and that their concerns were rooted in the possibility of financial gain. Clary even went as far as calling her father a “manipulator”. I mean, if you saw it, you’d know that sis was hype. She and Kelly’s mutual partner, Joycelyn Savage, didn’t even need to speak considering Clary had enough mouth (and eventually tears) for the both of them.
Obviously, in the wake of her being reunited with her family, many have been left with a loud sip of shade and a side eye. The gravity of Clary’s story is nothing less than severe and should be taken seriously. However, there aren’t too many degrees of separation between her bout with a toxic relationship and the ones we see our friends go through time and time again. Even better, the toxic relationships we ourselves have experienced. Granted, one would hope that you haven’t been preyed on by an illiterate Trapped In The Closet pedophile and womanizing extraordinaire, but everyone’s played the role of stuck once or twice in their life - stuck going back to the same lie, stuck making excuses for poor behavior because “I luh him!”, and stuck overlooking the red flags in the name of rose colored shades. Guess what? The flags were still red, sis.
Photo: Google Images
The signs of it not being an ideal situation were obvious, yet you chose to be stuck there. When your homegirls tried to have an interfriendtion with you, you defended this connection at all cost, much like Clary with Kelly. Now there could be many reasons for this. Consider the fact that in Clary’s case, she had conditioned herself to accept toxicity as a means of survival. Perhaps during her captivity, she felt like she had reached what she had thought was life as she knew it - possibly experienced a bit of Stockholm Syndrome. Even worse, she may have even felt that she deserved to have ended up in that situation after all the years of her being there. Like most of us, she had to compartmentalize the reality of the situation to keep what was left of her true self in tact. Our minds tend to create safety within the insanity when it feels we aren’t fully equipped to face reality.
Life dishes so many blows that are out of our control, where we fight to maintain the little influence we do have. We fight to maintain that power at all costs if it means that there is some “reprieve” to the everyday madness. We also condition ourselves to be satisfied with what’s comfortable as opposed as to what is actually right. We settle into the notion that our current situation is as good as its going to get. We claim to have this amazing sense of self-worth but unconsciously believe that the toxic cyclical relationship with someone’s tired son is God’s best for us. Is this truly what you feel you deserve? It’s quite alarming to think that we have to create a space for ourselves to deal with chaos because there is an underlying feeling of inadequacy that feeds the lie we aren’t good enough for better, let alone the best.
So, before we drag Clary on her journey, please take a step back and remember that we’ve been that girl in one form or another. The next time you find yourself going back to anything that’s less than the best, love yourself harder than your circumstance and break free.
Alice and Azriel Clary Photo via Azriel Clary's Instagram
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