#I doubt he was always an alcoholic and a user it’s scary and sad how ppl can change like that :(

[mymitochondriaforpresident]

Finally someone said it. Thank you.

Simon truly deserves the world, huh? And judging by the events in the S2 finale, Wilhelm would agree.

Speaking of the Wilmon, I think there’s more parallels with them as characters than people realize. One huge thing that stands out to me is that they’re both the “overlooked younger sibling,” which I think is part of why they are attracted to each other, even if they may not consciously realize it.

The Parentification of Simon Eriksson

Fair warning this is gonna be a sad post (it's my brand at this point lol), I'm sorry besties.

Parentification: the process of role reversal whereby a child or adolescent is obliged to act as parent to their own parent or sibling

The parentification of a child often occurs when the child's physical and/or emotional needs are not met because a parent has a physical or emotional impairment such as:

The parent has an alcohol or substance use disorder.

The parent or a sibling is disabled or has a serious medical condition

The parents are divorced or one parent has died.

The parents are immigrants and have difficulty integrating into society

These are not all of the ways parentification of a child occurs, but they are reasons why Simon's parentification happened. Micke abuses drugs and alcohol. Sara has ADHD and autism, and was bullied because of it. Linda got divorced from Micke (and not soon enough according to Sara). It's not confirmed that the Erikssons are immigrants, but they are Latinx living in a predominately white country, which is not easy. And from where we meet Simon in s1, it seems like he had to pick up the pieces of his family from all of these events and make them whole again.

There are two types of parentification: Instrumental and emotional.

Instrumental parentification happens when parents assign their child responsibilities that aren’t age appropriate. We can see this happen with Simon when he's the one finding ways to pay back his tutoring bill. Yes, Linda did question Simon how they were going to pay for it, but we never saw her act further in finding the money to pay Hillerska. We can also see this when Simon goes out to the store in e6 to buy milk, although Linda and Sara are home. An argument could be made that Simon insisted that he go out himself to get it, can't hide from the world forever, but I think that reasoning goes back to him feeling the need to be strong all the time.

Emotional parentification occurs when a child moves in to fulfill specific emotional needs of the parent. The child is expected to figure out the emotional needs of the parent, to respond to the need, and to provide support. I see this a lot in how Linda really leans on Simon to "deal with," for lack of a better word, Sara's attitude. I think this is most obvious in the big fight that Simon and Sara have in e6. It's Simon scolding Sara for her attitude and disrespect towards Linda, instead of Linda herself. And it's Simon who's consistently calling Sara out for the rude things she says. I do not remember a single time when Linda directly confronted Sara about her attitude and the way Sara speaks to her. My mom would never let me get away with talking to her in the way that Sara talks to Linda. It's like Simon is doing all of the scolding to somehow protect Linda from the hurtful things Sara says. Because he couldn't protect her from Micke (just theorizing)

There is also parent-focused parentification or sibling-focused parentification, meaning that a child becomes the primary caregiver for a sibling who is sick or disabled instead of acting like a caregiver to the parent(s).

I'd say that this is where we see parentification the most with Simon. He acts like Sara's older brother and protector, although he is the younger sibling. Yes, siblings should look out for one another, but I think the line between siblings and caregiver is blurry in this instance because of how Simon not only acts as her protector, but also as her critic or judge (for lack of a better word) with how he reprimands her.

Parentification can cause stress, anxiety, emotional detachment, disruptive behaviors and much more in a child.

I hope that in season 2 we see Linda step up as a parent, so that Simon has one thing less to worry about. As great of a mother as she is, always supporting her kids, physically being there for them, and taking cues from them, I think she can take on a more active role as a parent. I think she leans on Simon too much for certain things that she really should be dealing with instead of him.

I know we talk a lot about how Wille has the weight of the world on his shoulders in this fandom, and rightfully so baby's been through a lot, but I don't think we put enough focus on how much Simon has been through as well. They both carry the weight of their own worlds on their shoulders.

[feminist-propaganda]

Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of  Queen’s Gambit - Episode 2

Episode 1, which I wrote about yesterday, was called Openings. It walks the viewer through Beth’s childhood trauma. The violent car crash she survives, and her entrance at an Orphanage where she discovers tranquilizers and the Chess Board.

In the first episode, Beth connects with her mother through fashion, which manifests in embroidery, that her young mind associates with the chessboard.

Yes, in the first episode, we see young Beth using tranquilizers to cope with the pain her mother’s passing has caused her. But Beth didn’t learn substance abuse from her mother. In fact, we never see her mother using mind altering substances through out the series. That is something Beth learns from mainstream society, symbolized by the orphanage, and later the Wheatley household.

Lesson 2 : Dissociate. Sometimes.

At the beginning of Episode 2, we watch as Beth gets adopted by the Wheatleys. The viewer is uneasy during the first couple of minutes. We observe nervously as Mr Wheatley stares at her in the mirror of the car. Afraid that he might try to sexually assault her once she is in his home. We relax as we watch the car park in front of a nice house in the suburbs of Lexington. For a glorious minute, we think that Beth is saved. She has a beautiful roof over her head, a mother and a father, a new high school.

The Wheatleys have the perfect house in the suburbs, a richly decorated interior, a piano. But quickly Beth comes to observe that Mr Wheatley detests being around his wife, that he disapears ever so frequently to other cities. And that most of all, he exercises a power over Alma that seems stronger than the laws of Nature.

We see that whenever Alma begins to discuss a topic he is not interested in, he clears his throat and she immediately turns to more unsignificant, meaningless chit chat. As he disapears into the black hole of his “business trips”, we understand that adopting Beth was merely an exit strategy for Mr Wheatley. He wants to give his wife a companion before checking out. He wants to leave her and can’t stand the marriage, but he doesn’t want to feel guilty about it. 

We discover that Alma has an addiction to alcohol and cigarettes. That her doctor prescribes the same tranquilizers that Beth used in the orphanage. And that she washes away her brain with these substances day in and day out. it is difficult to watch Alma stare at the television as she works through a six pack, or lay in bed all day with a terrible hangover, only to blame it on a “virus”.

In this episode, which might as well have been called the “Feminine Mystique” we explore the topic of women’s existential crisis in the 50s and the advent of second wave feminism. Alma discovers that adopting Beth does not solve all of her problems, that she still feels miserable. That “the problem with no name” as Betty Friedan called it, is still very much present in her life. So what is it? Why does she need to drink? What is she trying to numb?

It is no secret that during the Second War World, women were called upon by the Western governments to join the workforce. 

They worked in factories, offices, telephone centers and kept the economy going as their husbands, sons and brothers were sent to fight Hitler’s Germany. During this period; women proved that they could get the job done. And when their husbands came back from the front, a massive intellectual movement was launched. The purpose of this new mouvement was to send women back home. Betty Friedan, (who is clearly Beth’s namesake) theorized this in her 1963 best seller : the Feminine Mystique. 

She explains how College Professors, Journalists and General Practicians all flocked together to create a new narrative. In the 15 years between 1945 and 1960 the mouvement was so strong that American women were getting married at younger ages than in the third world. They were getting pregnant before high school graduation. And the few that went to college dropped out as soon as they could get a ring on their finger.

A smear campaign was launched to discredit the “feminists” that had “gone too far”. They were trying to “be men” and they had only managed to become bitter, ugly, spinsters. This message was repeated over and over again, in the magazines and TV shows. Women were caged in their homes, bored to death and miserable. They went to therapy where they were diagnosed with “penis envy” and sent home with tranquilizers. 

To paraphrase the great Nigerian feminist novelist Chimamanda Bgozi Adichie, women were being raised to aspire to marriage which is all fine and dandy until they realized that men were not being raised to aspire to marriage. Not at all. They were raised to pursue exciting adventures, to challenge their great minds, to adopt a hobby and become the best at it. They came home to depressed wives, that had little to contribute to the partnership. The men, like Mr Wheatley,  were uncomfortable, it was unbearable for them to be married to such souless creatures. 

So the business trip was invented! 

What is remarquable about Betty’s account of what it is to be an intellectual woman in the U.S.A. during this period; is that she explains that the previous generation was the exact opposite of this. The mothers of the Bettys were the Alices. Mathematicians. College educated women. They had fought in what is now dubbed the first wave of feminism. Obtained the right to go to school, to have a bank account, to vote. They were the sufragettes. They wore white and relayed each other on the picket fence. They had fought very hard to obtain the right to exit the home, to stop belonging to men, to own property. And now their own daughters were being brain washed to abandon all of these rights and cage themselves. It was devastating to witness such a thing. I believe Alice’s character is named after Alice Paul who obtained the right to vote in 1920.

The first time Beth sees Mr and Mrs Wheatley argue, she sees the way he humiliates his wife. They are seen arguing in the driveway. He is leaving, he holds his briefcase and is about to enter the vehicle. In a couple of sentences, he tells her she’s a terrible driver, that she needs exercise, and belittles her new companion. In his own words: “She doesn’t seem like she has a whole lot to say”. Once Mr Wheatley leaves, Mrs Wheatley takes to the piano and plays a melancholic song beautifully. Beth comes down the stairs and watches. Mrs Wheatley pretends like she isn’t sad her husband left, like she doesn’t sense that he is in fact leaving her. That she doesn’t know that the business trip is a lie. She tells Beth “Please stop gawking you’re making me nervous”. In this scene, when Mrs Wheatley sees Beth coming down from the stairs she says in a fake, sweet voice: “You’re up early, must be all of the excitement due to your first day of school”. 

When she does this, Mrs Whealtey  is actually engaging in something called “The prevention of real talk”. Marco Rogers, who goes by the handle @polotek on Twitter theorized this in a tweet in January 26th. 

He continues

Twitter user @SerenissimaLAz1 chimed in and confirmed that white women were tasked with the Prevention of Real Talk. We see Alma do this several times during the episode. Every time she senses that a conflict might occur, she changes the topic of the conversation; adopts a fake sweet voice and steers the energy away from the issue at stake.

Instead of being honest with Beth about the state of her marriage, her doubts, she makes up a little story in her head. Nothing is wrong. Beth is excited for school. Beth then asks her head on : Where is Mr Wheatley? And Mrs Wheatley tells her that he must travel once more. She makes a sentence that seems to say that she believes him. And adds a snark comment at the end “As he likes to remind me, he puts the roof over our head”.

Thus, Mrs Wheatley summarizes the second wave of feminism. Women in the 50s could not win a single argument with their partners and had to resign every fight because in the end they weren’t the breadwinners. The were “just” the homemakers. 

Beth then tells this new mother of hers that she plays the piano beautifully and Mrs Wheatley tells us that she always dreamed of joining the orchestra, but that she had stage fright. Then she got pregnant.

Beth looks out of the window at the end of the episode. She’s started menstruating. She is atracted to some of her opponents in the chess tournament. She has learned that women that live inside of suburban houses are miserable. As she looks out in the window, and into the quiet driveway, she sees Alice’s face. Alice tells her “Close your eyes”.

These were Alice’s last words before she crashed into the truck, as we have explained. But here, they take on a new meaning. What Alice is telling Beth, is that in life, she will sometimes have to learn to dissociate from the situations she finds herself in.

According to the Better Health Channel:

Dissociation is a mental process of disconnecting from one’s thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity.

The dissociative disorders that need professional treatment include dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, depersonalisation disorder and dissociative identity disorder.

Most mental health professionals believe that the underlying cause of dissociative disorders is chronic trauma in childhood.

The episode presents the dissociative process that single mothers follow to cope with the realities of patriarchy. And how, when they do this, they make their chldren, espeacially their daughters, feel anxious. It is scary to think that the female adults are telling you to “close your eyes”. What is it that they don’t want you to see? And how long can they hide it from you? Mrs Wheatley tries to conceal her pain, use a sweet voice and stuff herself with tranquilizers. Alice is brutally honest, tragically self aware. Alice decides to live in a trailer, removed from society. She does not lie to her daughter. She lives in her own truth. But still, she says : Close your eyes. 

To win the tournament, her very first tournament, Beth uses the tranquilizers she stole from Mrs Wheatley. She can’t stand her own emotions, they are too painful. She is too afraid. She remembers the life lessons from Mrs Wheatley (Drink your pain away; be numb, pretend everything is fine, use a sweet voice) and Alice’s lessons (Close your eyes). One could even argue she uses the lessons she learned at the Orphanage, because we see Beth use a snarky comment when she beats Beltik about how he should’ve been on time. 

To beat Beltik, Beth blocked “it” out. In the terms of a psychiatrist : she dissociated. Pretended that she wasn’t under pressure, that no one was watching her, that she wasn’t losing. She ate the pill and mushed over her brain. Then she looked up at the ceiling and saw the pawns, and did what she learned to do at the orphanage. Visualize the board, move the pawns, envision every scenario, find the best move.

Beth rushed to the bathroom and takes the pill. She looks up at the ceiling and there is the chessboard. Finally she can focus on the board, and work her way out of the pickle she’s in. Win the tournament.

She comes back from the bathroom with a weird, relaxed look in her eyes. And she wins. 

Steady cold. And with the money from the tournament she buys more dresses.

[meridele473]

I have a confession

I dont post. Ever. The reason behind that is because I’m scared. I’m one of those users that just reblog and likes whatever comes up on my feed. I’ve always wanted to be one those users that makes a great post and it eventually goes viral. But I’ve come to accept that may never happen. I’m scared that if post something someone will get made, be offended, or just be plain mean. So I don’t. But a few weeks ago a good friend of mine posted a long message about her fears. And after whats happened tonight I need to relieve mine. 

So first things first Im 21 years old, mexican american, and a woman. I live in a college town where I’m studying to be a historian. Today was a good day. A really good day. First my teacher extends the due date for our big final project, then another teacher cancels class all next week, and finally another teacher gives us a really easy final essay to write instead of taking a test. I get home and my roommates have made cookies. I’m tired so I take a nap. Later after I’ve woken up I realize I don’t have much food wise so I decide to go get some dinner. Things are fine, Ive got my Spotify playlist on and I’m driving home. I’m scared of driving.

Driving has always been a fear of mine. Whats totally normal to you is terrifying to me. I first started driving at 18. I couldn't learn at 16 like most do because I was so busy with my college prep high school. I had been putting it off because I’m paranoid. I’m scared I’m gonna get in an accident. I’m scared I’m gonna kill someone. Anything can happen on the road. My parents forced me to learn because it was my freshman year of college and they didn’t have the time to ferry me back and forth between classes. I went to driving school. Every time I got behind that wheel my arms would tense, my back would tense, sweat would pore from my brow, and I’d feel like crying. Eventually I took my drivers test which I failed. It tore away at my self confidence. I put it off again for almost a year. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. If I wanted to go out then I need a ride. All my friends could drive. They didn’t have a problem with it. They were very supportive and understanding of me but I secretly envied them. They didn’t feel the fear that I did. And if they did then they did a much better job at hiding it. I remember finding a quote on pinterest. I don't remember exactly what it said but I do remember it was along the lines of if you want something go get it. I want to be free, I want to go where i want when i want. So I buckled down and passed my drivers test. Time passes and I eventually get more comfortable behind the wheel. Sure i have a few flops along the way but nothing earth shattering. It gets to a point where I’m not scared anymore. Then tonight happens. 

As I’m driving home not a care in the world. I come to a four way stop just before I reach my apartment. Apparently I didn’t stop all the way and a cop saw me. He pulls me over. I completely forgot the procedure for when you get pulled over so I just pull over to the side of the road, turn my music off, roll down my window, and get my license out. The cop comes over. His flashlight is blinding. He asks for my license and insurance registration. He's an older guy. I give him my license but I don’t have a paper copy of my insurance only a pdf on my phone. I ask the cop if the pdf will do. He says yes. I pull it up but as it turns out its an older copy that is expired. So I find the new copy. I had my car checked a few weeks ago so the registration sticker is brand new on my windshield. He tells me that the insurance papers are for my moms car not mine. It doesn’t have my make and model on it. I can feel my hands shaking. The boulder in my chest is getting heavier. I try my hardest not to cry. I don't have any drugs, alcohol, weapons, or any other illegal substances in my car but I’m still scared. I see news footage of people of color getting killed by cops all the time. Will this be me? I think of that part in humiliation just before he dies (spoiler alert hamilton dies at the end). What will happen to me? What will happen to my family? I’m so scared I just want to curl up into a ball and hide. And he tells me that the address on my license is my home address from my hometown not my dorm address. Yes I’ve been living here for over a year but it never occurred to me to have it changed. It’s not like I’m gonna stay in this town forever. Then he tells me he could give me 4 tickets that would accrue 1,200$ total. The cop asks me if I’m going to school. I say yes. The cop asks for my major. I’m so confused. So I tell him history with teaching certification. He says “you need to be alive in order to make history.” Will a verbal warning do? My shoulders slump. I’m so relieved. Yes sir it will. Then in true dad fashion he taps me head with my license and tells me to have a good night. 

I could cry right now. But I can't. I have to get home. I drive home, park, go up the elevator, walk down the hall, and open the door to my apartment. One of my roommates is in the kitchen. She asks me if I’m alright. I joke around about being pulled dover because I don’t want her to worry. She’s a nursing major, she’s got more important things to worry about. I go to my room, lock the door, go to my bathroom, lock that door and proceed to have an anxiety attack. The boulder in my chest is not a boulder but a crow. A crow that is clawing to get out and screech as loud as it can. I’m fine I tell myself. I’m fine. I’m alive. I didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t hurt me. I don't have to pay 1,200$. I don’t have to do anything. This is bound to happen to all drivers at some point. I don't know how long the attack lasts but I hear my roommates congregate in the living room. I go outside and tell them what happened. They reassure me that this is normal and that my feelings are normal. I am not alone. They’ve been pulled over too. We laugh and joke for hours. We need this. We’ve all been stressed. Fast forward to my room. I’m debating on whether or not I should tell my parents. My dad will be mad. He’ll get angry. He’ll yell. I don’t know what to do. The crow is coming back. Before I know what I’m doing I type out a text to my mom. She’ll understand. She always does. So does my dad. He’s not the scary monster in my head. He’s not. I’m just scared. I send the text. I know she’ll read it in the morning. Both of them have had to calm me down during anxiety attacks before and they've always understood. Hell my dad gets anxiety attacks too. Everything will be fine I tell myself. But . . .

My rent is due tomorrow. I need to get a money order. I need to get groceries. I need to get gas. I need to drive. But I don’t know if I can. My hands are still shaking. All my hard work. 3 years of hard work, all gone in one night. I don’t know what to do. I’m still scared. I need to pay rent. I need food. I need gas. I need to drive. I need this. I need to be free. i can’t be trapped again. I can’t. For the first time in forever I’m letting my walls down. Not completely. I doubt my walls will ever be completely down. I’ve let in so much love and acceptance but I’ve also let in fear. I’ve ben more vulnerable these past few months than I’ve been in a long time. I’m enjoying my life. i don’t want to be sad again. Not again. I’m going to get my money order. My rent needs to get paid. I’m going to get my groceries. I need to eat. I need to get gas. Gas is the only way I can get around. I’m not a coward. I’m not. Not anymore. And I won’t be again. 

 @sebastianshoe