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Abusers are really good at is making you feel like your anger is worse than their abuse.

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i may not know how to process my feelings or emotions

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Here’s an update.  We broke up, in 2019. She left because essentially there was “too much wrong with me”. It was too much for her. It stung but I guess I can understand that. But in the past year I’ve been with a wonderful man who took one of my alters grocery shopping just yesterday. He was so gentle and caring and sensitive to my alter, Cross, who is generally an anxiety-ridden mess 24/7. I’ve been with him for a year. I showed him numerous media covering DID and he’s been so accepting. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions, only “What should I do in the event ___ happens? How would you like me to deal with it?” And... isn’t that all that’s needed, really? He’s just accepting. He put in the effort to understand it, to the best of his ability, but he doesn’t pry about it because he doesn’t see it as some huge event- which is so oddly relieving. He likes to hear about my alters, things they’re saying. He likes learning about them, but he doesn’t prompt me. He lets me bring it up whenever it feels.. natural to. So maybe my ex wasn’t as cut out for me as I had imagined. But I found someone who is and proved it to me for an entire year. I think the difference for me was her overwhelming interest and note-taking and intensive focus on it made me feel seen, but what I suppose I actually needed was for someone to just accept it and not make such a huge fuss about it. This is so much more comforting, easy. Even his husband is incredibly kind to me and considerate. Things feel as they ought to. Polyamory and DID can happen. Monogamy and DID can happen. Happiness and DID can happen.  My last “suggestion” stands- if you shit on polyamory I’ll take your fucking kneecaps. Let people love. Let people be happy. 

LET ME tell You GuYS– something. 

My boyfriend, the man I’m going to marry. This lovely wonderful man I’ve been with for four years. I love him with all my heart. All my ass, because my ass is bigger than my heart you see.

Now see also I’ve come into a relationship with two other women, of whom I care for very deeply. Listen now- listen carefully. I am new to all of this. I’ll try my best to word this in such a way it does justice.

But one of those women has sat herself down. While I explained mine and my boyfriend’s DID to her. She had just followed our Tumblr’s and I became a bit concerned that I hadn’t told her yet. I knew it’d come up eventually and that it was something I considered to be very important. I sat and explained DID to her (she’d never heard of it before). After a wall of text and some silence later SHE TELLS ME “SORRY I WAS TAKING NOTES”.

SHE WAS. Taking. Notes.  She was making sure she had all the key points down so she’d be able to remember things. Because she saw it as important. I don’t know about you guys but usually when you tell a singlet something about your DID/ OSDD-1… well there’s horror stories abound. But she THANKED ME for telling her about it. And listen–

listen here

I will be a lot more adamant in my advocacy for polyamory. I’ve never had a poly relationship before this and my DID was a big worry. But I am surrounded by three people who stop at nothing to go out of their way to understand and love me, and love each other. I couldn’t be happier. It’s not playing favorites, not because I was bored– no, this is special. This is lovely. I’ve just become lucky enough to know these lovely people. My boyfriend kept me alive, taught me and built me up to grow into the person I am now, and without him I’d never have been able to accept my polyamory. I’m so grateful for all of them. I’m so grateful that I didn’t miss out on this opportunity to be so genuinely loved and thought of. So considered. 

If you shit on polyamory I’ll take your fucking kneecaps. Let people love. Let people be happy. 

Thank you. 

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You know, Max really aggravated me too- more than often. How he handled Tara’s art show was probably the worst of it for me because he tried to make an issue of her using her maiden name as the signature on her artwork (which loads of artists do?? so that was weird) and the cheating with PAMMY of all people was uncalled for.  It seemed like every time she was enjoying herself, he felt like it was unfair. I think this is because people who self-appoint themselves as “caretakers” for their mentally ill friends or relatives feel like they’re doing a lot of emotional work among other things and don’t get to have fun often themselves. It’s still selfish of him, but I think that might be where it comes from? Because he isn’t her therapist, he’s just a landscaper. So it’s, in his mind, a “full-time job with no pay and high stress”- as it normally is when you self-appoint as a caregiver to someone with a severe or significant illness.  But I think sometimes we need to understand that Max, while completely needing to work on how he handled his emotions, was under so much stress. He wasn’t some complete asshole McGee deadset on ruining his wife’s fun. He lived with her for years, loved her for years, and DID is messy. He knew how bad things could get. Sugarcoating it isn’t cute, so we won’t do that. DID is messy sometimes. And Max’s feelings, while he didn’t express them well at all, are still valid. He’s allowed to be stressed out about being terrified for his wife’s wellbeing- and I think a lot of his tantrums (because you’re right, they were indeed tantrums) were just miscommunications of “I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.” That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but I just wanted to add a bit to this. Because throughout the show, as much as I wanted to be pissed at him the whole time, all he wanted was for his family and Tara to be okay and safe. And I sympathize with that, yknow? I just feel like he was a shitty communicator.  On another note- Seriously though. He kept demanding she get help (which of course she was trying to) but he blatantly refused to get his own help. He clearly needed it. That turducken didn’t deserve to be chucked at the wall :/ My biggest problem with Max is that he didn’t seek his own professional help. He was a sweetheart but FUCK if he wasn’t stubborn. 

Max from United States of Tara makes me so fucking mad.

Every time Tara tries to find some sort of comfort in a hobby or anything outside of him, or that he thinks is taking focus away from her “recovery from” DID, he freaks out and throws a tantrum and says she’s being selfish.

Tara’s therapist decides to transfer her to another doctor (something Tara can’t control): Max basically threatens her into finding a new therapist right away (which is really hard) and gets mad at her when she does literally anything else.

Tara decides to make art for an art show: Max says Tara is being selfish and sleeps with another woman to get back at her.

Tara decides to go back to school: Max says Tara is being selfish and literally throws a tantrum by tossing all of her books out onto the lawn, all while whining about how much HE is sacrificing for the family (like Tara isn’t?).

And then Max has the audacity to always basically say that he is the hero of the family, and then get mad when Tara agrees with him or calls him out on it.

It just pisses me off that mentally ill people are expected to focus on nothing but “getting better” and at the same time are expected to behave as if they are not mentally ill at all. I understand that being with and caring about a mentally ill person can be difficult, and I’m not taking that away from Max. However, being emotionally manipulative to someone who is already vulnerable just because they aren’t acting exactly the way you want them to is really fucked up.

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“Mean”

I haven’t been posting a lot. I’ve been really busy. But in the meantime I’ve changed a little. I’m still getting used to this newer skin. It’s uncomfortable coming to grips with the fact that I’m not actually a people-pleaser by nature, and that most of my social mannerisms were products of abuse. It’s uncomfortable battling my knee-jerk inclinations to bend over backwards for people who otherwise wouldn’t do that for me, or for people I don’t even know.  People think I’m mean. And, I guess I am. To a degree. And it’s fucking liberating. But maybe I’m not mean, and people who were used to being able to suck me dry are upset that I’m not doing that anymore. My field of fucks now lies barren- but now there’s room for fourwheelers and bonfires? That’s a fun analogy. 

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“Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them along with this slice of humble pie, that comes direct from the oven of shame, set at gas mark ‘egg on your face’.”

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me ignoring my problems

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a

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@sapropel i spent 20 minutes on this, enjoy

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https://giphy.com/colinraff

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rah rah rasputin something something sour cream

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fuck. someone tell me what to carve in this pumpkin

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Breezeh aka Briscoe Park (American, b. Cary, NC, USA) - Photos I’ve recently taken at 3am, 2020, Photography