EVERYTHING

[artemistics]

CRUEL SUMMER, Episode Nine: A Secret of My Own

[sageandbone]

[dickgecko]

thank you gods

[itsabouteverythingandeveryone]

Speculations?

What will happen with Asher and Michaela this season? Do you guys think they will get back together?

[thedarkperidot]

“If you love me you would/wouldn’t”, is actually a very manipulative and pyschologically abusive thing to say. You do not deserve to be guilted into doing something somebody wants you to do in order to ‘prove’ you love them. If the person in question has a problem with you doing/not doing something, there are ways to communicate that without being toxic and manipulative.

[thedarkperidot]

Shout out to:

The people who don’t have a best friend because their friends already have best friends

The people who want to make friends and don’t know how

The people who have lots of friends but always feel lonely

The people who get left behind in a group

The people who are alone and nobody notices

The people who put their soul into a friendship and watched it fall apart

The people who are introverted and mistaken for being anti social

[emotionallyabuseddaughter]

Also just now kinda realizing I essentially raised myself. Not literally, but if I hadn’t retrained my brain to undo all the damage my mom did, I would be one hell of a mess. She taught me that her emotions/well-being/wants are much more important than mine. She taught me to think that I’m always overreacting when I think she’s being cruel to me. She taught me that I’m never good enough and that I’m always doing something wrong. Sometimes these engrained ideologies peak through into my life but I actively work to shut them up. I created the wonderful woman I am today, by myself.

[kaerlighedsbrev-deactivated2020]

how about we stop the whole “abuse survivor found True Love and was Fixed and No Longer Affected” narrative because it’s honestly so harmful not only will survivors who did find love but weren’t magically “fixed” wonder what they did wrong and why the love didn’t actually get rid of all the negatives or think they are an absolute goner because it’s supposed to Work and if it didn’t it must be Their Fault for being a Bad Survivor but also will nonvictims, people who have never been abused, wonder why they can’t “love someone whole again” they will search the faults within the victim because they know they actually loved them and they will question them and their feelings and if they’re actually meant to be and once healthy relationships can turn incredibly toxic and even open the path for new abuse because their friend, or partner, or whoever, will hold the victim at fault and they will be frustrated when the victim doesn’t get better in the acceptable time span and they will take that out on the victim without seeing a fault because it was the victim who acted “wrongly” (read: deviating from the narrative) and they are in the right with the way they act and feeling self-righteous is often a big reason for abusers to abuse. the narrative of the survivor fixed by being loved hurts survivors more than it helps anyone, even if it’s “nice” for the story. it’s not how it works in real life

[furiousgoldfish]

Don’t expect children to heal your wounds.

Don’t expect children to make your lives easier.

Don’t expect children to give you a purpose.

Don’t expect children to make it up to you for everything you went through.

Don’t expect children to devote their life to you.

Don’t expect children to be your savers.

Children are their own people.

They deserve to have their own life and not to be addition to yours.

[minus-the-negative]

Your response should not be dictated on their reaction.

minusthenegative.com

[i-surviv3d-bitchh]

TW: childhood loneliness

The worst pain I have ever known has been the pain of childhood loneliness; the loneliness of the abused child who is ALL. ALONE. 

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it adequately described…but I can remember, in horrifying clarity, lying in my bed at 11 or 12 years old, body wracked with quiet sobs (so no one would hear me). I’m not sure if I was crying BECAUSE of the loneliness, but the pain would compound like that. It would go like this–not necessarily in word form, but feeling: “I hurt so much…I need help, I need comfort, who can I go to?” And I knew that my father, my mother, my mother’s boyfriend, my brothers–if I went to any of them, they would all tell me I was being ridiculous; calm down; what do you have to be upset about?; I’m busy/it’s late/stop being so selfish (for bothering me with your issues). 

And you’d realize there was no one, no one to go to. And the pain would erupt even further, because now you’re in pain because no one cares, but now no one cares that no one cares. And it could go on for hours like that: sob, anyone? No one! sob, sob, anyone…? No one! –and you’d wrack your brain for the millionth time, but no one new would appear: you’d thought of them all, and none were safe to go to.

It’s easy to say that there were probably teachers or guidance counselors who would have cared for me if I’d gone to them, but when you’ve been unloved and abandoned from birth, you don’t expect anything different from them–you’ve learned from your family that you would only be burdening this relative stranger with your inconsequential problems, and besides, the rejection would overwhelm you–all of the important adults in your life have cruelly hurt you when you were vulnerable; why would a teacher be any different?

So you just…lie in bed…you stay in your corner, your closet, wherever, alone, because alone is the only safe place to be. Aloneness, especially for a child, is a pit of misery; a pit of seemingly endless sorrow that just takes your breath away–and yet, it is STILL better than going to the monsters you know would hurt you when you’re most vulnerable. And you know that no one, NO ONE, cares, or will save you. 

And you grow up, and the pain is still there–no matter how many friends you make, you’re still alone. When the misery sets in, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known your friends, how strong your bond supposedly is. You’re alone. You grip yourself, thinking your insides will just rip apart; how could one body, one soul, experience and contain this level of suffering and survive? But you do…you do. For me, if I just stick it out, it just…goes away, after a while. I numb out. “Dissociate,” probably. And it’s gone from my awareness…until the next time.

To this day, I still isolate when I feel this way…I’m terrified of rejection and abandonment; I’m terrified that even friends I’ve known for years will be unempathetic, bothered, annoyed–the worst: they’ll realize who I “really” am. All these years, they’d known me, or they thought they knew me–now they see the REAL me. This part of me they’d never known was there…and everything else collapses, the whole relationship ends, because I made one mistake, or just “was” a way that they were disgusted by.

If you ever felt/still feel this way, please reblog. I’ve never seen this sort of thing accurately described…never really felt that someone writing of loneliness really…really grasped this level of sorrow…this level of absolute solitude that only someone who’s never had anyone from the start, who’s only had predators for caregivers, can comprehend and sympathize with. 

I understand. I know you feel alone; I definitely feel alone. But you’re not alone in your aloneness. I understand the sorrow you’re experiencing. I know what it’s like. I know that, somehow, with a lot of therapy, this will go away after a while. It has to…it has to. Hang on. Just hang on a little longer…you’re so strong. You might not have any idea how strong you are for still being here despite that. You did it all by yourself. You got yourself through it. And you’ll get yourself to better days, too. 

[furiousgoldfish]

it’s time to shut down the lie that children who don’t grow up being hit, humiliated, and scared into obedience will grow up into spoiled, entitled, selfish monsters. there is zero truth to that. children grown in a healthy and nurturing environment will get a chance to grow up healthy. children who are raised by monsters who try to pretend that abuse is for the child’s sake and that the child would become a monster if not abused will be stripped of their health and will be denied an actual start in life and will be forced to fight for survival. I’ve had enough of abusers pretending they’re helping the child while they’re just taking and taking more and more away from them and leaving them permanently traumatized and emotionally injured. Don’t let them get away with it.

[venus-star13]

TO QUEER PEOPLE WHO ARE ABUSED PHYSICALLY, EMOTIONALLY, VERBALLY, ETC, BY THEIR PARENTS.

It’s not your fault, you don’t deserve this sort of pain as for any discriminated queer person. Your parents are supposed to love and support you as they have since they day you came into this world. You are forever beautiful and protected by this community. There will always be people you can communicate with to give you advice on what to do, I’m sorry your parents treat you this way. You matter as much as anyone else, your health matters and your happiness. Your identity is forever valid. Take care of yourself.

(Please add anything if I missed something. I feel like this isn’t enough I’m saying.)

[zelle-da]

Sidenote: if you tell someone they hurt you and they turn it around on you and have you second guessing your feelings or apologizing, you are being manipulated.

[protectbrowngirls]

Protect brown girls from the idea that emotional (and sometimes physical) abuse is an inherent part of poc culture

If your parents belittle you, call you names, dismiss your passions and interests, prevent you from doing things that make you happy– 

If your parents don’t let you have age-appropriate independence, or if they never let you defend yourself, or if they passive-aggressively manipulate you into feeling guilty for disappointing them– 

If your parents slap you– 

If your parents say it’s just “tough love,” or that you’re too young and naive to understand right now, or that your parents are the only people who know what’s best for you– 

Your parents are wrong. This isn’t normal. This isn’t just “brown culture” or “poc culture.” This is emotional (and sometimes physical) abuse. You deserve better. Please never let your parents’ actions define your self-worth. You are so much more than just the flaws your parents are so fond of pointing out. You are bigger and better than the way they treat you. You are kindness and passion and determination and beauty. You deserve the world.

[emotionallyabuseddaughter]

This came from a Snapchat discover story, and how true it is.

[solavei]

abuse survivors don’t own their abusers a single thing. they don’t owe them a phone call, they don’t owe them a card, they don’t owe them a hug, or forgiveness, or any other thing. abuse survivors don’t have to invite abusive relatives to christmas. they don’t have to call someone who abused them for years just because it’s their abuser’s birthday. if you ever pressure a survivor into contacting their abuser, you absolutely suck.