Raining Ink

[prettypinkpansy]

The official sequel to that one post. It got very popular and I thought I would share the "answer" I found to my original "question".

The original comic is about growing up aneurotypical (specifically I have autism and ADHD among other things, e.g. being LGBT) in a world not made for that, and my profound feelings of alienation as a result.

Whether you share those specific problems or not, I am sincerely happy if it resonated with you and humbled that it meant something to so many people.

A popular addition to the post was "you will find your people". I think it is absolutely true that you can and will find people willing to support you and love you for who you are - I have, and their support made much of my growth possible (as well as therapy). I am grateful to the artist that made that addition and think it is important.

But I wanted to make this because to me, it was important to learn the message that you are allowed to exist as yourself, even if you were to never find a single other person who accepts you. You do not need the validation of others. Even if you feel like you were somehow made wrong, or will never fit in with anyone else, you have the right to exist.

Live authentically for yourself, and not for others. Pursue your passions.

It is intentional that the person in the comic never fully regains their color. I will never be the untraumatized child I once was. But that doesn't mean life is not worth living.

I love you, and I hope you try to live as you are.

[angelophelias]

FATHER'S DAUGHTER

[ichosefury]

sometimes, though not as often now, mom mentions how she still needs to pay back the money i gave her over the years before i moved out. i always tell her she doesn't owe me anything, i mean, raising me, any child, is incredibly costly. especially with a leech of everything.

but recently i had the thought that, maybe, she feels a need to pay me back because she feels guilty. since i had to give basically all the money i earned to help us keep the heating, maintain the house and property, help feed us and fulfil whatever whims it had, i could never save up enough to move out on my own.

i think she has paid me back well enough, if not many times over. maybe i can convince her of that someday.

[ichosefury]

Someone: You will see that moving out from your childhood home is really painful!!! Living by yourself is really scary!!!

Me, moved out, medicated, chill, far away from my abuser and finally making my own decisions: say what

[afanofmanyhats]

[theevenusianwitch]

a gentle reminder:

eat something. take your medicine. you are not a burden to others. your emotions are just as real as theirs and deserve to be listened to. relax your jaw and shoulders. it’s okay to take a break sometimes you deserve rest. it’s okay to be yourself. you’re not hard to love and anyone who opposes that does not deserve your time. you’re going to be okay.

[ichosefury]

it’s odd how being broke can affect your thoughts and feelings, like... logically speaking even though there’s less than 11 euros in my bank account right now ‘cause of yule and other sudden expenses, i have enough experience to figure out how to best budget what i have to last until i get paid, without asking for help. and i already have! i’d stocked up because mom visited, and she brought me protein and nut bars she got through her job (and sweets, but hey) and there’d been a couple of deals at the stores i’d taken advantage of, and quite a bit of dry stuff in my cupboards. i don’t actually need to go to shopping this year, i can wait until new year’s day, maybe the second even.

but there still was this sudden need/feeling/thought of ‘soon we will starve, better eat everything we have before its gone‘ which is silly but... that’s what growing poor and w/ an unpredictable abuser does to you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ichosefury]

mom’s visit went great, though it really was a shame she had both school and work for the rest of the year basically. it just felt like one night wasn’t enough, but then, i haven’t really socialised with anyone else, so... *shrug*

thankfully, even if i get selected into this vocational college course, it doesn’t start until february, so i can squeeze in one more visit to mom to celebrate her birthday. and watch the cat :)

[thingstotellthem]

my life has done nothing but improve with you gone and i hope you see that and it hurts you like you hurt me

[ichosefury]

when i lived with you and struggled with school and friends, you never cared.

when i lived with you and struggled to find work, you never cared.

when i moved out, you didn’t seem to care. you seemed relieved, actually.

in the last year i’ve been gone, you’ve called me only once, to ask if a had a working monitor to spare. no ‘happy birthdays’, no ‘hows college’, not even the usual complaining about things that are, in fact, your own fault.

you have never even pretended to care. about me, about mom. all you’ve cared about is yourself and what you want at any given moment. 

mom is finally filing for divorce and i’m disowning you, and you claim we’re ungrateful and unfaithful abandoners. but this is what you’ve always wanted, right? to be alone, to do what you want to do though you always did just that without ‘having to’ set us straight just because you can. 

so why are you suddenly so upset?

you’re the one who should be grateful to mom, since she’s willing to keep helping to pay for your living. personally, if i was her, i’d just drop you, cut you off and leave you to deal with it all by yourself. after all, the car is in your name, as are all the utility contracts. the house might be half yours and half hers, but let’s be real, even if that is the case, you wouldn’t have let her have the rest upon your death out of sheer spite.

the point is, she doesn’t have to keep paying. she doesn’t owe you anything, though you’ll probably keep deluding yourself that she does. she could just leave you to rot and deal with it all yourself. she honestly should, but she won’t. why? because unlike you, mother is a genuinely good person. and i will not let you hurt her, or me, ever again.

[ichosefury]

there’s not much to say about the last year or so. i got two temporary jobs, saved up, realised if i didn’t take the chance to move out in the fall i wouldn’t muster up the will and money for another year or two, and left. i still had a job back in the old county so i crashed at my mom’s place for a couple of months. i haven’t had a job since. mom moved out for school last january, and i breathed a little easier at the increased distence between her and him. despite a couple of sudden expenses, life seems to have been good to her.

objectively speaking, it’s been good to me too, but... i’m honestly pretty fucking lonely. there’s no family this far up north nor anyone i am/was friends with. early summer i could almost literally feel myself cracking from not having anyone to talk with face to face. it’s a little better now. i increased my trips to the library, i took part in the local pride and have gone to mingle in open markets. i’ve been able to meet with mom almost every month and she’s coming to visit me tomorrow.

and i haven’t felt like i want to die for over a year now. i’m still depressed, but i’m functional and enjoy things. i count this as a win.

[ichosefury]

it’s funny/odd and yet not really how much i immediately thought i’d have to do before anyone could come visit, let alone stay the night. i mean, i know exactly why i’m suddenly a stressed out perfectionist after months of being a hermit slob, but you know.

at least the apartment looks pretty good now. like a competent adult with a will to live... lives here. i just need to hoover tomorrow morning and clean one thing and that’s it.  

oh, and don’t get me wrong, the one visiting is mom and i’m delighted, it’s just been quite a while since anyone’s visited my place. a whole year in fact. and i guess it’s prudent to mention that i moved out (of the county even) last august and mom moved out too, though we went in opposite directions :p that’s why i’ve made a new tag, all i really need to do is change back to my birth name and i doubt he would ever find me again. i don’t think it would even cross his mind i could dare discard the name i got from him.

[typekast]

My friend’s little brother (non-verbal) used to hide people’s shoes if he liked the person, because it meant they had to stay longer. The more difficult it was to find your shoes, the more he liked you.

One day my cousin came over, and she was a bitch. When it was time to leave, my friend’s brother handed her shoes directly to her and she went on and on about how he must have a crush on her because he only “helped” her.

[rubykgrant]

[bunnysystem-deactivated20230801]

I'm sorry but saying you can't say narcissistic abuse is so invalidating. Like its a different kind of abuse than any other. That doesn't mean narcissistic people are bad or will be abusers. But you can't just erase tonnes of peoples trauma because you don't like a term.

[punkclowngod]

the thing is that narcissist abuse is just emotional abuse. there’s already a term for that kind of abuse and narcissist abuse is just the ableist version of that term. it’s not that we don’t like that term, it’s that it’s actively ableist and sanist and throws every narcissist under the bus for no actual reason other than people need a scapegoat and someone to pin every evil thing in the world on so they can dissociate themselves from it. the need to say narcissist abuse comes from the need to dehumanize and demonize a group of people so others can distance themselves from it (ie “i’m not a narc, i would never do that/think that”). it’s a way to create a boogeyman to blame for all the bad things that people do/say instead of acknowledging that everyone is capable of bad things no matter who they are/what diagnoses they have. the term is inherently oppressive against people who already struggle with being seen as human beings in the eyes of society. emotional abuse may have less of a attention grabbing effect, but it’s the correct term anyways. stop throwing narcs under the bus for the sake of your “validity”

[vanitybecomesme]

Anyone can be abusive as a result of their struggling mental health. We don't use terms like "depression abuse" despite the fact that someone with depression can be abusive as a result of their depression. Abuse from someone with npd is NOT unique. This is because the individual symptoms of npd aren't specific to npd.- Lack of empathy, grandiosity, entitlement issues, struggling with your self esteem, can all occur in other mental illnesses and even in people who aren't mentally ill.

[real-uwu-hours]

Also notice how other types of abuse describe the abuse.

Physical abuse - you abuse someone physically

Emotional abuse - you abuse someone verbally

Financial abuse - you abuse someone finacially

Narcissistic abuse - you abuse someone .. narcissistically?

It isn’t just ableist, it doesn’t make any sense lol

[eroticcannibal]

Its funny how every time this argument is made, no one is ever able to justify why narcissistic abuse should be its own thing. The closest I've seen to a definition is "its worse than other abuse" which... isn't enough to justify the term and is highly subjective.

[queerautism]

I fucking hate this term and i double hate anyone who has ever tried to convince me to call my childhood abuse "narcissistic abuse" based on them just deciding my mother has a specific personality disorder because she's abusive. Like that's literally all they fucking do and it's gross

[pepsiwatermelon]

They will also armchair diagnose their AND OTHER PEOPLE'S abusers with absolutely no evidence. My grandma for example is a monsterous abusive dickhead, who's self centric viewpoint lead her to abuse me so bad I became a poly fragmented DID system instead of a much much smaller simpler system after I was removed from the First Problem. She's a horrible abusive human being who will weaponize anything and everything to get what she wants. She DOESNT have NPD, or as far as I know any personality disorder. I've had people tell me that she "must have NPD" because "normal people don't do all that".

There is no "abusive person disorder". People make the active choice to be an abuser, not because theirs something wrong with their neurology, and it's so fucking ableist to insist otherwise. I know people with NPD, with BPD and ASPD... All wonderful people, who like any OTHER person make efforts to be a good person. Because guess what! EVERYONE has to make efforts to be a good person. You're not "better" than someone else inherently just because you don't have a PD or other disorder. No one is inherently a bad or good person. We're just people and our morality is based on our actions, not our brains functioning. And when you choose to throw people with NPD or other disorders under the bus to dehumanize or distance yourself from your abuser, you're being a bad person. But you can choose not to do that.

[queerautism]

Yeah for real, they want to believe "normal people dont do that" so bad. They want to believe abusers are some Big Evil Other instead of regular people with values and beliefs that affect their choice to abuse others.

[wetwareproblem]

I’d also like to point out another dimension: In the OP, @bunnysystem​ said:

But you can’t just erase tonnes of peoples trauma because you don’t like a term. 

Which is, in fact, a good and valid point - if it were just about “not liking the term,” you’d be absolutely right, OP. But here’s the part you’re missing: This is exactly what you’re doing every time you call it “narcissistic abuse.”

The single strongest predictor for NPD by far is severe childhood emotional abuse. Most narcissists I’ve encountered have deep and numerous childhood traumas, myself included.

There is literally nowhere that I can safely talk about, share, or get support for these things, without worrying about being told that  I deserved it, I’m the real abuser, I’m not really a person, I’m a demon, I have no soul, I exist to feed on the suffering of real humans, etc etc et fucking cetera. (All real examples, BTW.)

Why? Because the adaptations I needed to survive that trauma were narcissistic, and therefore everything I say is a lie and I must be abusing everyone around me. Because “narcissistic abuse.”

Every time you use that term, you are invalidating the trauma of millions of people and denying them space to process.

Every time you use it when “emotional abuse” is right there and you know it, you are engaging in an act of deliberate cruelty toward traumatized people. That should make you uncomfortable.

[physcomitrium]

i legally cannot let this sweet old woman down

[virgovirghoe]

why did this make me tear up 🥺 she reminds me of my play grandma rosie

[fushia1198]

I am actually sobbing wow, protect her 💜

[symphonicseauxl]

Man 🥺🥺🥺🥺

[cailunm]

@pearlmarley

[pearlmarley]

🥰

[homemadeknees]

[video ID/ transcript:

An older Black woman in a bonnet and glasses speaks,

“Hey sugars, I was just sitting here and something just came to my heart to say. And at my age, when stuff be coming on your heart, you better go ahead and be saying it. ‘Cause you know I got more days behind me than I got in front of me. And I was feeling like some of y’all out there, you got dreams. You got expectations for yourself, but you know, you’re feeling like you just don’t believe in yourself.

Well honeys, if you don’t believe in you, it’s gon be so hard for other folks to believe in you. So, do you know what I want you to do today? I want you to start practicing telling yourself that thing we used to say to you children all the time,

‘You can do anything you put your mind to!’

‘Cause I feel like some of you out there got some things— you got some books to write, you got some songs to sing. You’ve got some inventions to invent! Now you know, I want you to go out there and get started. Make that first step.

And you know what, I believe that it’s so much stuff out there you gon do, I might even stick around ‘til I’m a hundred and something just so I make sure I see it.

Alright, sugars, somebody loves you and somebody’s praying for you. Me! (joyous laughter). Go on out there and have yourself a good day. I believe in ya.

end ID].

[prettypinkpansy]

rare vent art from a few months ago

[hipster]

I prefer to distance myself whenever im mad because i turn into the most heartless person you’ll ever meet and you’re going hate me for that