#Ambivalence

[ambivalentlyyours]

[kewpikayo]

I drew this a while ago but I don’t think I ever posted it.

This is how I see my OC/ Reader from my main fic Ambivalence, Page. (Please feel free to imagine her how you like)

I hope to start posting more art of her and Al soon. ^^

[mewsshiny]

Parece que mi única manera de perdonar es el olvido, parece que el olvido también es mi única forma de cobrar venganza.

Mi perdón y mi venganza son el olvido; Sí, y nada más que eso.

Lo peor de todo es que nunca de nada ni de nadie me olvido.

Esta es la jodida ambivalencia de tener tan buena memoria.

[zegalba]

Atsushi Tani: Ambivalence (2013)

[madelee]

How I like to imagine the ZaDr dynamic. How they sift from enemies to something more. And what I fucking love about ZaDr.

Some thoughts.

Zim and Dib, two emotionally neglected kids. Having little to no friends or any emotional support system… They became the primary attachment figures for each other: Based on them being enemies this relationship/development… it’s bound to be very complicated and messy.

There are various emotions mixed up in their dynamic. The initial hatred, frustration, and antagonism because they literally are enemies… but also the feelings of bonding, caring, appreciation, respect, and understanding. Then when getting older, also attraction, passion, and all those fuzzy feelings get mixed in.

But essentially, all the positive emotions that one develops and gets to experience with a close person like love, adoration, connection, tenderness, compassion, or simply joy… all those also get mixed up with the ‘negative’ ones.

The brain quite literally connects feelings of affection and connection with violence, aggression, cruelty, abuse, and brutality. This is trauma bonding, reward-based learning, and positive conditioning.

Them being obsessive and excessive as a fundamental part of their core personality only adds as a multiplier.

When this happens in a critical life phase (being young and in adolescence), having nearly no other positive influences in life and being neglected (emotionally especially), this connection the brain made will get so deeply internalized and won’t ever truly go away.

It could also connect to your sexuality and all that.

(There are real-life equivalencies)

What I’m getting at is, all this makes just so much sense!

This dynamic and their relationship is super complex and nuanced because of this.

Their relationship is incredibly intense and yes totally toxic but also compassionate.

Them fluctuating between high psychological distress/tension (hating, fighting, obsessing, loving, being in denial about your existence, generally trauma responses e.g., through neglect, loneliness, abandonment) and then them experiencing the sweet release through the aspects of their dynamic (connection, closeness, intimacy) as mentioned.

This stuff becomes quite simply addictive to someone.

This is why they can get crazy shit feral/hardcore with each other and also feel pleasure while doing so.

Like cutting each other up (or open), taunting, fighting, beating each other...

But because I’m a sucker for ambivalence and stark contrast, I like to imagine them being very, very cute with each other as well (occasionally even without showing the bad stuff while being cute), still toxic, still abusing and batshit crazy but absolutely meaning everything to each other and deeply caring.

Fluffy but in an obsessive and excessive way.

They will always somewhat be mean to each other and never shy to argue, even if just in a teasing and more lighthearted manner.

This is their love language after all.

This is how they show they care, and it’s what they know.

Also, this is just how they are personality-wise: thick-headed, intense people with strong opinions and even stronger egos.

And let’s not forget about stupidness, dorkyness, and comedy sprinkled in.

ZaDr is a fantastic way to deep dive into complex inner psychological human workings and I love exploring this.

(I love love love intense emotions.)

It’s even comforting in a way, if you ask me.

Hate and love are so close for a reason.

It’s the most intense we can feel.

And I mean, I guess we all (or many of us) can somehow relate to not liking or even hating a close one (even if only sometimes). But when a real deep bond is established with someone and when affection is also part of your connection (even if only sometimes), this stuff just doesn’t go away. Toxic relationships are messy and certainly not easy nor black and white. You just understand this emotion… of how complicated you can feel about someone, and what complexity this can bring with it.

Note that, this is how I like to imagine it. One can have a totally different perspective on it and this is valid as well!

Also this is romanticized, fiction and reality operate differently. Cognitive dissonance baby.

[staruponwine]

[SawariNeko / Curse Cat]

– Nekomonogatari: Kuro (episode 03)

/Oshino Meme to Araragi Koyomi on Hanekawa Tsubasa's situation/

[gothicseverance]

However the end comes, the period leading up to it in Gothic narrative is always chaotic as transgression tends toward tragedy.

—Gothic Things

[schizoidvision]

#3 🔤 Schizoid Words: A Guide to Understanding Ambivalence...

Definition: Ambivalence refers to the coexistence of contradictory thoughts or emotions towards the same object, person, or action. In psychology, ambivalence often involves conflicting feelings or attitudes, leading to uncertainty or indecision.

The Schizoid Experience...

Conflicted Feelings About Relationships: Ambivalence in schizoids arises from conflicting desires for intimacy and fear of emotional overwhelm or loss of autonomy.

Longing for Closeness vs. Fear of it: Schizoids simultaneously crave intimacy and connection while feeling terrified of being overwhelmed or consumed by them.

Withdrawal as a Defense Mechanism: Ambivalence leads to withdrawal into fantasy or indifference as a defense against perceived threats posed by close relationships.

Emotional Suppression: Schizoids may suppress their feelings to maintain control or detachment, resulting in a life that feels flat or empty.

Self-Sufficiency: Emotional distancing can make schizoids appear indifferent or aloof, hiding vulnerability behind a façade of self-sufficiency.

Schizoid Education Videos

[serenityquest]

[ambivalentlyyours]

Insides out

[nvr04mnd]

🙃

[zegalba]

Undercover: 'Ambivalence' A/W 1999-2000 Designed By: Jun Takahashi

[azukilynn]

ambivalence

how do you tell those few people who matter, who actually care, that you do not want to die but that you aren't very keen about living either

how do you iterate this going through the motions: clock-in, clock-out, eat, sleep, lather, rinse, repeat as nothing more than madness, sorrow, rage, silence, this endless, lonely fortitude

how do you sit on a fence without falling to either side, beauty here, decay there, both of them alluring, like the Sirens of Odysseus

how do you tell your best friend that you love her more than anything in this world, for calling you Sweet Sister

how do you straddle a conundrum, do you grip it with your upper thighs, as if it were a bucking horse, untamed, not yet broken, wild

how do you survive

azuki lynn

[gothicseverance]

Astonishment, suspense, uncertainty, ambivalence, play — such is the axis along which the gothic moves.

—A Philosophical View of the Gothic Novel

Gif by @linusbenjamin 🖤

[pink-slay]

nights like these could last forever or never come back, and both ways I'd be happy, both ways I'd be gutted. Listening to "writing our own ending" by Blegh and remembering when I was seventeen and how some things hurt for a long long time. I wish I could sit in these nights and feel peace, but all I feel is pain. It overwhelms me and so do limits and so does the concept that maybe this is all an elaborate hell.

I keep thinking about S. (for anonymity), a girl I knew so many years ago whose face I swore never to forget. A girl who, in the worst part of my life thus far, made me feel seen, known, cherished. She saw the tragedy and the severity of all I carried with me. And this week I saw someone with her face. It wasn't her; the age wasn't right, but it made me recall our conversations in the sun in that teal room that always felt like July. We wanted so much for each other and nothing for ourselves.

I sang "happy birthday Johnny" by St Vincent recently and can't quite seem to capture the tragedy Annie has in her voice... but I feel it. Deep within my soul, it all aches: physically, the most, emotionally, a close second. When I sing I find myself contorting into odd positions, trying to maintain lung volume while staving off gravity with a paralyzed set of core muscles, never quite able to hold myself up even with my lateral supports.

however when I listen to this song, "Writing our own ending" by Blegh, it gives me goosebumps because it makes me remember something, one of those cliche-to-my-writing 'can't quite see, can't quite touch' moments, something about this eternal ache.

I am leeching iron because my stomach doesn't function, and I may have to find a new doctor to get my pain under control, leaving this one behind due to her lack of understanding.

my powerchair stopped working this week leading me to depend on people to push me in an ill-fitting manual chair that I need to be strapped into. My doctor stopped fighting my insurance. My laptop screen gave up. Even the loaner powerchair they gave me stopped working, with no backup available.

my PT is always one step ahead of all my doctors and she has dreams of IV medications for me because the next option is surgery or more opioids and those are both much riskier. However, my doctor is focused on my refusal of one med because I don't want to have worse nightmares (a common side effect). My PTSD is already so horrible right now and I don't know why; why exacerbate it? She doesn't care about all the other side effects I've endured; it's seemingly a matter of principle.

I think back to that orange room I had my English class in when I was seventeen, only for that one semester, no use in taking a second semester of an advanced class as Sick as I was. The light overpowered it, always around 3 PM. It gave me headaches and made me question life, unconsciously realizing how caged in institutions I has been for too long.

I never quite knew why though, why the light always felt too bright. The class intrigued me, and I'd always listen to "the man with the axe" by lorde, the song of overcoming the oddest part of mental illness, feeling okay for the first time after having survived it all, the same place I had listened to Lorde's Solar Power album the day it came out, something so good, however briefly, before the storm.

I guess I say this all to say that I don't know why I feel like shit, why the memories are flooding back in or why my nerves decided to ache from all the problems with my spine. I don't know why I think of S. or why I'm alive still after so many close calls out of my control. I avoid going to bed to put off tomorrow but really to put off taking stronger pain meds, to put off sleep itself too, not just life.

I like to think I've grown a lot since I was seventeen. It's been almost four years since the birthday I listened to the non reprise version of "seventeen" from heathers for the first time from a playlist my brother made me, four years since I heard that harmony for the first time. However, I find so much of me has stayed the same. On nights like these, I'm reminded growth is evolution not replacement. We don't lose ourselves to become ourselves; we change our lives not to erase our tragedies, not to erase all remnants of ourselves, but to keep our flames ignited.

I am different, of course, yet I still seem to be just as destined for some tragedy far out of my control. However, that's why I listen to ambivalent songs that give me goosebumps about inevitable circumstances, those things we can never outrun. I fear worse lies ahead, but I am grateful for all that is: strawberry lemonades and loaner computers and friends to push my wheelchair and songs that evoke something in us.

one of the worst days of my life was preceded by an easy morning, the sun that same glaring way it was in my English class. Funny how it takes four years to make those connections. i don't know what is making it so horrible right now. I still search for more answers as my overworking coping mechanism falls futile in such a Sick body, a coping mechanism I intermittently deny because I think I am falsely trying to relate to fictional characters. However, the awareness always returns, the second it is least sustainable, most maddening.

in a never ending void I end with this: my mom perpetually has the wrong words and my body is deteriorating, progressing, wilting and I need to take the meds I need and I am allowed to avoid exacerbating my PTSD for a doctor who is trying to practice out of her scope with a case as complex as mine and I will go to bed soon enough and tomorrow I will get toilet paper and tortellinis and remember the way life can ache in this synesthetically green way but peace will become of this too. The sharpness just takes a bit of time to fade.