are we running home or running free today? @redneckromancy - Tumblr Blog

Carl Johansson (Swedish, 1863‑1944), Avfärd i gryningen [Departure at Dawn], 1885. Oil on canvas, 50 x 83.5 cm.

I’m open for full color lineless comms for the first time in ages! The slots are pretty limited while I get used to them

Busts are $65, fullbodies are $100

You can claim a slot on my kofi!

eldritchbauble

Hard pill to swallow, maybe, but sometimes you are the problem. You may not have been initially, but people around you can only have so much endurance for understanding why you're "like that" and how you got to where you are now. Even if you were the one who was victimized, hurt, or abused to begin with, your behavior affects those around you. There's a point at which personal responsibility needs to kick in, or you will become toxic. You can become toxic even if you never become an abuser yourself. If other people are constantly having to help dig you out of the holes you made but you keep slapping their hands away, you cannot expect them to have an indefinite amount of patience and energy to keep trying. If you're not putting in the work to recover from what damaged you; if everyone else in your life is consistently the only one making a real effort to effect change for you--you're the problem.

eldritchbauble

People can give you love, but can't make you treat yourself like someone you care about.

People can offer you resources, but can't make you reach out and use them.

People can lay down stepping stones, but can't make you put the work in to make progress.

If you're expecting everyone around you to keep making the decisions and making things ok for you, you need to take a step back and some serious time for deep introspection. This doesn't mean that others shouldn't have compassion for you, but as difficult as things are and as tired as you are--others get tired too and can't be expected to carry it all.

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And if you blame everyone else in your life because they "gave up on you" when they reach a limit, you have a victim complex. Having been a victim does not mean you should accept perpetual victimhood.

People are allowed to say "I love you, and my love for you does not make me willing to sacrifice myself." There's a point at which people have to let go because they do not ultimately hold responsibility for whether you live, die, or thrive--only you do.

eldritchbauble

I mean, this describes my whole life from birth to mid-20s as well as many people I know.

You decide that you want better for yourself and others around you, that it's no longer acceptable, and you start chipping away at unpacking your trauma and changing how you do things.

It's obviously easier said than done, so I don't really appreciate the folks tagging this as "go to therapy," either. Yes go to therapy (if it's available to you, if you can find a decent provider in your area, if you have insurance or the money to pay out of pocket, if you can get around the dozen other roadblocks). Therapy isn't the only way to work on recovery though, and it's avoidant and irresponsible to act like not being able to access therapy means there's nothing you can do. Both of these concepts are true.

eldritchbauble

You have to be fed up. You have to be sick of your own problems and negative behaviors enough to not find them acceptable anymore. Then instead of feeling sorry for yourself you do something.

Ok, things I've done to work on myself that don't require seeing a therapist:

- Educating myself by extensively researching the problems and symptoms I live with to better understand how and why I do things.

- Reading about trauma.

The Body Keeps the Score

- Self-help workbooks.

The C-PTSD Workbook

The DBT Workbook

The Addiction Recovery Skills Workbook

- Seeking peer support by participating in Discord server(s) related to trauma and mental illness. I couldn't find one specific to my diagnoses that I was comfortable in, so I created one, and 3 years on it's grown and is going great overall.

- Learning to take feedback about my behavior from people I generally trust, and to not take feedback/constructive criticism as an attack, but as a tool.

- Working at communicating my feelings and needs as statements, not out of anger or as demands.

- Reminding myself that other people's experiences and feelings matter, and should be considered. Even people with the best intentions can be self-centered, especially under stress. You have to work at it.

- Learning to recognize my triggers, patterns, and reactivity, and to de-escalate myself. Treating emotions as visitors and not drowning in them; recognizing that nothing is permanent.

- Setting rules with myself as to how I handle things when I'm upset; for example, I will only raise my voice to others as a last resort, and I will not physically act out my anger in an uncontrolled way. Breaking dollar store dishes in a specified area is relatively safe, controlled, and thus non-harmful.

- Asking myself, literally, if I'm being the problem. Is my behavior the actual reason things suck right now. It's too easy to have a tendency to blame others or situations outside of your control so you have to ask. Sometimes it really is someone else's fault or nobody's, but you have to ask.

Obviously I'm not perfect at any of these skills, by any means. It's about consistently putting in the effort until you get better at them.