Powerfully Vulnerable

Here to crush the "imposter syndrome" feeling that tells us we're less than other people: not as good, not as smart, not as worthy. These are messages that abuse and oppression drill into our heads, often without us even noticing. We can overcome them. We will rise up, together, and overthrow the effects of our abuse!

[powerfullyvulnerable-blog]

Come crush imposter syndrome! Or just win a cool book?

I’m autistic, I’m bi, I’m trans, I’m ace, I’m an abuse survivor... so as you can imagine, I’m real fucking tired of the message that my life doesn’t matter. That everything I am is less-than. That I’m inherently, somehow, not valuable to society -- or just to the people around me.

If you get treated that way enough, you internalize it. 

It seems like an awful lot of us walk around all day feeling like we’re not good enough. That our social skills, or our writing skills, or the work we do, aren’t really ever going to be good enough. That people are going to see through the façade, and realize that we’re the sort of person they think is trash. 

That’s imposter syndrome. 

I’m done living my life under its thumb. I’m done believing that I’m somehow ranked below the entire rest of humanity. I’m done always feeling anxious, second-guessing everything I say or do, and just being afraid of people in general.

And I’m co-creating a website, with my (amazing, autistic, intersex, intergender, freaking glitter-encrusted deity of a) partner, to help other people start crushing it too. 

And it’s finally ready to launch!!!!!!!! so we’re doing a giveaway to celebrate: 

You would think that you’d be able to click on this picture and enter. But no. Because Tumblr hates the internet and refuses to play nice with it. Instead, you can click here! 

Only 8 people have entered so far! (they each have a whole bunch of entries, so it looks like more) So the odds are pretty good right now. 

It’s also a great contest for Pride month, because Jeffrey Marsh -- author of the one on the far left, How To Be You -- is nonbinary trans, and Sonya Renee Taylor -- author of the one on the far right, The Body Is Not An Apology -- is a queer Black woman. 

We’ll talk to the winners to see which book they want, and see if we can get everyone something they love. 

And if you’re interested in the whole crushing-imposter-syndrome thing, you can sign up for our newsletter to get an invite to our free intro course when we finish it. It’s like a bonus prize! (Sign up for it through the contest if you want extra entries! Or just through our website if you’re not entering)

[Image description, for accessibility: two hands clasping, in support, one with golden brown skin and one with medium brown skin, against an aqua starburst background, with the headline "Enter to win a life-changing book! Brought to you by Powerfully Vulnerable." Three books are pictured as prizes: "How to Be You" by Jeffrey Marsh, "Design the Life You Love" by Ayse Birsel, and "The Body is Not an Apology" by Sonya Renee Taylor".]

[phoenixrising]

[thingstotellthem]

I spend every day wondering if I am faking being in a system because it’s like my life started when I was 8 years old. Am I the host? Or am I an alter? Am I who my parents say I am? I can’t tell anymore.

[powerfullyvulnerable-blog]

this is also super-relatable. 

if the host/alter model works for you (all of you) then good! but fwiw, if it doesn’t, there are other ways to look at it and other ways systems are set up that might match your experience better. 

my experience with the concept of host-vs-alter is that a lot of the time, if you’re “an alter” you don’t also get to be considered a person, or to think of yourself as a person. maybe (hopefully) this has changed over the years, but i got really sick of the idea that you’re either “the real person” or just a shred of a person/experience/self. 

i just want to validate that you are not faking it; you would know if you were faking it. Faking it is a conscious act that takes thought and planning, first of all. Second of all, if it’s like your life started when you were 8, that’s concrete evidence of dissociation, not evidence that you’re faking it. 

(This is a good example of imposter syndrome actually, which is the theme of this blog. It’s really hard, when you are something that society erases -- trans, bi, gay, ace, multiple, abused, etc. -- to feel secure in that identity, because the constant message of erasure is “this doesn’t exist, you don’t exist, you can’t possibly be valid.” Erasure makes most people feel, at some point, like they can never be whatever-it-is enough... that they’ll never count, and must be faking it. A lot of the time, in marginalized communities, we buy into this even after we feel “real enough,” too: we figure out that we’re not faking it, but we still believe that SOME people fake it. And so we turn around and treat people, in the same position we were just in, like total crap.) 

I want you to know that you are a valid person, in a position where it’s really, really hard to know yourself. And you can get there. I’ve been in that position. And doing things like keeping track of what each of us liked and disliked, what names and genders and interests and mannerisms and relationships fit each of us, was a huge, crucial part of healing. 

Getting to know and value ourselves and each other, in our system, was the only way out of the chaos of dissociation and abuse. It wasn’t the whole way out, but it was a really important part of it. 

You deserve that, and you can get there. I believe in you. 

[positive-mh-recovery]

[powerfullyvulnerable-blog]

this is so relatable, because this is exactly the opposite of what i was raised to believe. like a lot of autistic/adhd kids, adults treated me like i was Doing Things Wrong on purpose. like a lot of kids with perfectionist parents, the bar for what i was supposed to be doing was unreasonably high anyway. their attitude was, “we just want you to do your best, and we know your best is an A so you’d better get A’s.” 

I couldn’t do things any differently. (not without actually having help figuring out what was wrong, and what needed to be different, and how to do that.) So instead, what I learned from them was that I was a fuck-up. That I, inherently, couldn’t do things right, or well enough, or enough in general. That it was just who and what I was. 

And it’s not true. It was never true. It’s not true of anyone: that’s not a thing. Humans don’t come with an “only mess everything up” setting.  

And it’s a vicious cycle. If you’re taught that you mess everything up, then you learn to be terrified of both succeeding and failing. 

So you learn to sabotage yourself without even noticing. So you assume that it’s a part of you, to mess important things up. 

Which makes you even more afraid of failing (because that “proves it”) and of succeeding (because if you actually DON’T mess everything up, then you have to do things that currently seem impossible). Which makes it even harder not to self-sabotage. 

And it’s all a lie. It’s always been a lie. 

[positive-mh-recovery]

[resilientblog-deactivated202206]

Forgive yourself for not being where you thought you’d be by now. #forgive #forgiveness #forgivenessquote #quote #inspirationalquotes Designed by https://ift.tt/2pvppFs. Feel free to share with credit :)

[imsogayduuude-deactivated201812]

[danicastars]

This is the picture I look at when I need to calm the fuck down, stop shitting on myself, quit freaking out, et cetera. It is from some Al-Jazeera article on home births or maybe specifically water births. Just a little baby being gently cradled in the nice water, contemplating shit.

Basically, that baby is me, and the goddess is gently holding me in the water of the universe, supporting me.

It helps me get back to reality, which is that I am utterly loved by my higher power and many others, and utterly worthy of that love, and also have no real fucking idea how any of this adult life stuff works and do not need to be assuming any of it is bad or scary.

It’s also useful when fear and anger and other trauma from my past comes up, because I can use it to remind myself that the goddess was holding me then too, when I had those feelings then, and the fact that my abusers then or later had free will and used it in shitty ways does not negate her love and care, or my worth.

[justemotionalabusethings-deacti]

Go to paypal.me/justEAthings and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries. Getting one is fast and free.

hi friends! i had a ko-fi on here for a bit but i think paypal is easier. basically whats going on is i need money to be independent from my parents so if you would be willing to donate any amount of money i would really appreciate it! 

if you can’t donate please reblog this post!

[justemotionalabusethings-deacti]

if you can’t donate please reblog this post!

[starlightandtears]

To all the teenagers following me that don’t hear it from their parents: I’m proud of you.

[notdoingmywork]

To all of the adults following me that never heard it from their parents: I’m proud of you, too.

[dusterluster]

[the-sleepy-poet]

“you will never be good enough for everyone. luckily, all you have to be is good enough for you.”

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