Hey, you! You who suspect you might have PTSD, DID or another trauma disorder, but you think you didn't experience trauma "bad enough" to have developed a mental disorder from it? Let me suggest looking at it differently:
"If there's smoke, there's fire"
Do you experience symptoms of PTSD, such as hypervigilance, trouble sleeping, flashbacks, memory problems, dissociation, ect? Then yes, it was "bad enough". Maybe you don't remember anything "really bad" happening or you don't "feel like" it affects you, but listen to your body. The body remembers and the body doesn't care if you think it is "stupid" or "weak" to have a panic attack when someone touches you or that you still have nightmares about that thing you saw when you were 4 years old
Trauma isn't what happened. Trauma is the reaction to what happened. So what I'm trying to say is that if the reason you think you can't have PTSD/DID/OSDD/ect is because you didn't go through anything horrific enough for that, then maybe forget about what happened to you for a moment and just look at the evidence your body and mind are showing. And then, most importantly, be compassionate with yourself. You're going through a lot and it's gonna be okay in the end. Take it easy, okay? <3
Idc; sometimes you gotta let yourself be very neurodivergent:
Never underestimate the power of a blorbo.
The clawed red hands represent C-PTSD, and the black 'blood' seeping out of my mouth represents grief. He and I face so much of the same stuff, and he got me to fully realize I am autistic, and it had started with something about him that reflected my inner child right back at me and left me astounded. A friend told me the other month that "he loves [me] so much", not just vice versa...and, along with Oh Geeez Not Again's latest song "Come Into The Light", which is about Eda's curse...the idea to make this comic was sparked.
I guess this is as vulnerable as it can get re: what he means to me. It's remarkable that I stumbled upon two posts about him over a few months' period from late 2022 to April 2023, and I then decided to fall down the TOH rabbit hole after Hollow Mind first aired. Half a year later, I started to feel pain in my left shoulder and left side of my back. Soon, when it felt there was no "me" left, he was what's left? It's still a mystery how that makes sense.
I got through my diagnosis (which was a month after For the Future first aired), surgeries, and treatment to be able to see Watching and Dreaming in April 2023. Writing detailed mental health metas about him after leaving the hospital and being able to sit at my laptop again, is what grounded me as I processed the ordeal I had just been through. It's really not great to be told you have the Big C soon after your 30th birthday. Also because I struggled and still struggle with enough other things long-term that it can at times be easier to just say I "am" plain bad luck. I have partial physical disability now and can't lift heavy objects nor safely doing certain things such as jogging anymore.
I'm still here, though. To have been able to see the miraculous news about the graphic novel coming this September. We get to see more of him growing up and healing.
I guess I still get to journey with him. We've come so far since my Flapjack plush was keeping me company beside my hospital bed (have you spotted that plush in this comic? :3). He used to be just 100% sonboi for me, but over time he's become a really close friend, younger brother, and sonboi rolled into one heartwarming tearjerker bean. And on top of the shared C-PTSD experience, we both battle a mad case of survivor's guilt; yup, I've had my own taste of the "bone pit" in my own way. In the form of an art exhibition when I visited NYC...it involved sculptures of body parts and organs. Not fun.
(Hunter is Dana Terrace's character as part of her show The Owl House, not my own creation)
i hope all abusive moms have a horrible day 🫶 shoutout to their awesome daughters, especially those who went no-contact! we should be proud of ourselves for not putting up with bullshit in a society that teaches us to take abuse and worship parental power.
