🌸 @neon-rope - Tumblr Blog

People who are starved out of conversation will approach it as if it was sacred, people who are starved out of touch experience any touch given to them as the highest form of intimacy, people starved out of gentleness will react to it as if it’s an invasion, an attempt to break them down, and people starved out of a community will approach it as if it was a minefield.

furiousgoldfish

the amount of downplaying you have to do when answering 'how are you' and don't want a person to be horrified or badly concerned for your well being

furiousgoldfish

me trying to be in a friendship/relationship: i just don’t want to hurt them, I will go above and beyond just to avoid causing them any pain or discomfort, I’m ready to shrink my problems so they don’t affect or upset this person, I do not want to leave a scar on their life like a lot of people have left on mine

me, some time later, after some shit went down: OH. They don’t care if they hurt me.

furiousgoldfish

May you find someone who is gentle to you. May you get a person who sees you and figures you out, only to be consistently kind and understanding to you. Someone who finds it easy not to prod you where it hurts, and to respect that some things are uniquely painful to you. Someone who has the patience for all of your triggers, without trying to fix them. Someone who lets you take all of the steps in your recovery on your own, but cheers you on, on every step of the way.

furiousgoldfish

The memory loss as a feature of ptsd and dissociative disorder is rarely talked about. It’s not only ‘big holes in memories’ or ‘blank periods of time’, though of course that happens too. But you lose people from your memory too.

Relationships, friendships. People who once meant everything to you, you can’t recall their names anymore. People you only casually knew during a period of trauma can fade from your mind completely. You can’t remember what you said to someone, what conversations you had together, even the fights and the lows, it all becomes a blur, and then completely fades away.

Your life is sorted into periods of whatever trauma was going on at the moment, but you can’t recall what else took place. What you learned, what experiences you had, the normal things you did that later feel bizzare for a person in your situation to do, to be able to do. Or you don’t remember the trauma, and it’s difficult to put things into any kind of context.

And for your childhood, it’s impossible to make a timeline out of it. Events mesh together, there’s no before or after, to link an event to a year is almost impossible, for any event you can’t tell if you were 5 or 8 or 14, you try and make sense based on what else was going on in your life, except you can’t quite remember what it was. You lived one life at home, a whole another life in school or public space, another one online, and they don’t seem to be connected at any point, and to link it all in a timeline feels impossible.

The memories that don’t hold strong emotions fade first, but eventually, the ones with strong emotions fade too.

Your short term memory becomes difficult as well, it feels like an incredible strain to remember anything you did 2 weeks ago, or 2 days ago, or yesterday. If you’re reminded of something that went on a year ago, it’s a shock because you no longer remember it as something that happened at all. Your brain erases anything that ended as something that never happened, or isn’t worth recalling, or would only stress you out to think about, so you don’t, and it goes away.

Having a memory surge back is stressful, because you realize you never thought about this event, or this person, for years, and this meant something to you, it formed you and shaped your life, it made you feel something. But it was gone for so long, and probably, the second you forget it, it will be gone again. It’s hard to see who you are when you no longer know who you were. You don’t know how anyone perceives you because you don’t recall your experience together.

furiousgoldfish

Why boundaries don’t work with abusers

You’ll often hear that to combat abuse, all you need to do is set up some proper boundaries! Say no, tell them to stop, and then everything will get better. Here’s several reasons why this does not work.

You should not have to specifically set boundaries that are pre-assumed for every human being to have

Abuser has already done everything they could do to bypass your boundaries, possibly to even punish you for having any boundaries in the first place

This type of thinking minimizes abuse as ‘your boundaries not being visible enough’ instead of, the real problem – abuser never having any intention to respect your boundaries or see you as a human being

It shifts the responsibility of ending abuse on you, the victim, as if you not setting boundaries is the cause of the problem, and not someone’s repeated abusive behaviour.

Abuse is not a problem of poorly-set boundaries, even if it looks (on a very surface level) as if the victim is ‘letting’ it happen, the reality behind is that the victim’s choices were already taken away; it’s possible they faced violence in the past for ‘not letting it happen’, or they’ve been threatened, blackmailed, groomed, and stand to lose a lot if they attempt to oppose the abuser on any level.

Abusers don’t only cross the 'invisible boundaries’, the ones that are negotiable and differ with every human being, instead they go for the natural boundaries nobody could violate 'by accident’. Such as: touching you when you’re clearly uncomfortable with it, humiliating you in front of others, regarding you as their property/servant/toy, implying or directly stating you’re not good enough, disgusting, stupid, physically assaulting you, threatening, blackmailing you. Imagine if everyone had to explain to everyone that it’s crossing the line if they’re publicly humiliated, physically violated, insulted or belittled repeatedly; we don’t have to do that. Because these are pre-assumed boundaries everyone in society is obliged to respect by default. If abusers violate them, it’s not because they 'don’t understand this is wrong and harmful’, they do it because they know they can.

Abusers also do a great deal of sabotage to bypass your boundaries, such as enforcing terror if you fight back, isolating you from support, triangulation, grooming you to believe you’re bad if you have this boundary, pretending the boundary is hurting them, convincing you the boundary is hurting you, or brainwashing you to believe you have no right to boundaries at all. They’re also in position of power over you and can take things away from you if you insist on a boundary – putting you in position where you have to choose between a boundary and your home, food, job, transport, medical care, security. They will make sure it’s impossible for you to defend your boundary before they attack it.

And lastly, you are not responsible for the abuse regardless of whether you set any boundaries or not. The problem was never in you 'not fighting back enough’; it’s in the abusive behaviour of a person who repeatedly hurt you. Good people will not abuse you regardless of boundaries; they will not violate your consent without paying attention what it does to you, they will not isolate, humiliate or threaten you. They will not try to exploit your vulnerability or use any lack of boundaries against you; instead, they’ll ask if it’s alright, they’ll check if it’s okay, if you’re hurt. Good people will not use your reluctance to set boundaries as a 'gotcha! Now I can do whatever I want to you’. They will care about not abusing you.

Telling someone to 'just set boundaries’ in a situation of abuse is the wrong thing to say. Shifting responsibility on the victim, and minimizing abuse as 'boundary setting issue’ is the exact opposite you want to do. Nobody gets abused due to lack of boundaries, responsibility for the abuse lies 100% in abusers targeting vulnerable people they can trap and traumatize. If vulnerable people had a simple trick to not be vulnerable anymore, they would have done it a long time ago. You will do much better to acknowledge this reality, get outraged at the abuser’s despicable and cruel actions, acknowledging the victim didn’t do anything to deserve or cause this, and staying consistently on their side.

furiousgoldfish

Recognizing a covert narcissist

They might come off as lonely, insecure, introverted, depressed, sensitive, needy, and will aim at your empathy, signal that nobody ever gave them a proper chance and will lure you in with how much they need you to understand, to empathize, to not abandon them ‘like everyone else did’

There’s going to be an intense connection at the start; you will consider them a wonderful, important and a special person. They will idealize you and bond with you as fast as possible; they will progress the relationship quickly and give you a lot of positive feedback in order for you to get lenient with boundaries, this is the love-bombing phase

Your gut will tell you that something is a little bit off, it might be that they react to something in a way you’d never expect from them, or just seem like something doesn’t add up in their behavior

You will experience cognitive dissonance because they will be feeding you a story about who they are, but their actions will not resonate with who they say they are, there is a difference between what they say and what they do, by the time you realize it might be later in the relationship and you will want to believe their words over actions

They will have an intense need to win, even petty and silly arguments, they will argue even if you have facts and proof on your side, they will twist it around to make themselves look right

If they ever apologize to you, they will still repeat the behaviour they apologized for and pretend as if this is normal and you should have expected it, or, ‘they just can’t help themselves’

They will be an expert at justifying their bad behaviour; they might confess to you they did something awful in the past, but they always point out they had a Good Reason, and if you often feel like 'I wouldn’t have done that’, when they’re telling you a story, it’s a red flag. They make it seem like they had no choice but to make a morally corrupt decision.

You start feeling insecure in the relationship/friendship, you will go from being idealized to being devalued by them, they will start to pick you apart and using your flaws as a justification to hurt you, it will hurt worse because this person once thought the world of you

They might explode in anger when you don’t expect it, get set off by unexpected details and their anger is not proportionate to whatever is going on

They will gaslight you, accuse you of overreacting, being crazy, even if you’re 100% right about what you’re telling them

They will very harshly criticize you and others, but they will always be a victim; the world is against them, they’re stopped from being great by the other people who are 'stupid’ and 'don’t recognize how great they are’, they will bring up hardships and trauma to make you feel guilty and sorry for them, however your issues won’t matter and you will be subjected to very harsh standards of whats expected of you

They will try to make you feel bad about socializing with other people; you will have to listen about their jealousy, insecurity, or they’ll blatantly guilt trip you with 'Why am I not enough for you?’

They will drain your energy with their complaints and expect you to change and modify your behaviour immensely to accommodate their sensitivity, even if you’re celebrating a happy event, they will center their own jealousy or how badly it affected them and you will have to shut up and feel sorry for them instead

It will become apparent at one point that they’re completely lacking in empathy, when they start feeling like they can get away with it, they will openly stop pretending to care about your or anyone’s pain

They will view you in a black and white manner; if you’re fighting they will show open hatred and go way overboard to hurt and defeat you, if you apologize and make peace, they suddenly love you and act as if blatant surge of hatred didn’t just happen or you deserved it

This person seems to forget you exist if you’re not currently around them/talking to them, they’re likely to only remember you if you’re right there or they need you, if you’re away for a longer time they might break up or forget you, they’re likely to cheat even if in relationship with you, but will not admit it, except if they’re using it to hurt you

Source: Link

nono-del-reystuff

Better an open army than a false friend

emotional-landmines

I don’t trust words or feelings. I trust actions and patterns. If I can prove you’ve done me foul a numerous amount of times..then you should know you’re in the wrong and it is up to you to make things right. If you couldn’t feel yourself wilding out then I don’t know what to tell you.. Consideration can’t be taught. Reason with truth. Be a better person. Be pure hearted. Have good intentions. Move with love. Act with care. Stop justifying being a shitty person. Ain’t no excuse for moving foul, especially on someone who cares deeply about you & wants to work things out with you.. Do better. Be better. Simple. Reason with truth.

featherless-falling

Is anyone else at that point where isolation has become the safest option? Because people have always left and disappointed you with their ugly colors, and you can’t be hated and blamed if you’re all alone. That’s what you tell yourself at least.

yeesiine

Expecting the same energy & effort you give will always leave you disappointed.

screaming--agony

Dear Diary,

There are more words and phrases to tell someone I’m insignificant without saying insignificant. Words linger long after being said out loud. Don’t be surprised when I stop talking.