#I’m not sure if it’s healthy to interact with a community created by trauma and escapism so

[arachnidanon]

have you ever wanted to daydream to a song, but it hits a little too hard and you just. start crying in the middle of it

[threebetrayals]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. ( REPOST DO NOT REBLOG ! )

✿ NAME:    grey ✿ PRONOUNS:    they/them ✿ PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION:    discord’s always infinitely better than tumblr ims, but i actively use both ✿ NAME OF MUSE(S):    scaramouche/kunikuzushi/kabukimono/shouki no kami/wanderer wow god he’s got a lot of names for someone with literally no true name. i also have 4 other blogs of muses but i won’t list them all here lmao

✿ EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?):    christ. uh. i’m not even sure, but it’s definitely over 10 years. we?? might even be approaching 15 at this point??? i’m fandom grandpa ok

✿ PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED:    forums, dreamwidth, little bit of discord, but i’ve always come back to the hellsite that is tumblr.

✿ BEST EXPERIENCE:    i don’t have only one, i’ve had a LOT of amazing experiences in rp over the years. discovering the tumblr rp scene with my qp partner, writing all assortment of character dynamics & relationships with said qp partner, creating two ocs entirely for the fictional world he created, meeting some really amazing people who’ve followed me across all number of blogs regardless of fandom & muse (s/o to rook, holly, & reiikon honestly, i do not Deserve), playing in some really great panfandom games back in my time on dreamwidth & getting some character friendships i never thought i needed out of them, and... most recently, losing my mind over kazu/scara with goose because that’s already like, my favourite thing to happen on this blog ok

✿ RP PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS:    mmm... my big dealbreakers are people who basically spam the dash with stupid levels of ooc (i’m fine with some spam!! but there is a point where i can’t handle it) or, worse, gifset after gifset after gifset. also obligatory drama mention, but i’ve been really fortunate to have avoided a lot of that sort of stuff for several years now.

✿ FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT:    i love writing all three, given the right muses & circumstances! but i’m forever a huge fuckin sucker for angst. i have a type when it comes to muses and it usually involves haunting trauma which i really love to dig into to explore them more as a character. muse/character exploration as a whole is the the biggest draw for me when it comes to rp, and i like to go DEEP.

✿ PLOTS OR MEMES:    i love a healthy mix of both!! plots are great for very specific things i want to have play out or explore, and that structure can be really nice. even just some plotted pre-established relationship before jumping into a thread goes a long way for me. memes on the other hand, i adore as well. prompts to respond to will forever be easier than writing a starter with little to nothing to go off of and honestly? i’ve discovered some interesting interactions/aspects of characters i didn’t expect through memes & memes turned into threads.

✿ LONG OR SHORT REPLIES:    not to call myself out or anything but i’m gonna go ahead and say both again. long replies will always be my top favourite because lord knows i can get really long-winded while writing. i love exploring a character’s thoughts & feelings in response to things and long replies will always be the best way to delve into those in as much depth as i like. short stuff can be good too though, given sometimes you wanna write but don’t have the energy for paragraph after paragraph lmao. plus?? there’s a lot of fun & silliness that can be had in shorter threads that i’ll never turn down.

✿ BEST TIME TO WRITE:    whenever i have the attention span. honestly though, that seems to be evenings for me, maybe with a little afternoon mixed in.

✿ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S):    uhhh... i won’t deny that i tend to pick up muses who i can relate to in some capacity. scara... i wouldn’t say i relate to him a TON, but we do share a sort of... lostness. i used to know what i wanted too, but things fell apart, as they do, and i still feel kinda just. lost in limbo. can also relate to wanting to stomp all over your emotions, so. yeAH LMAO if i’m like him at all, it’s in small ways.

tagged by:  the best goose @rosemourne tagging:  UHM. i never know who to tag. let’s see... @florafound, @chronal-anomaly, @luckuki, @alatusatlas, @lupusmatra, & anyone who’d like to be tagged?

[antiloreolympus]

3 Anti LO Asks

1. The fact that most barbie movies have better feminist messages than LO does (tbh, barbie movies slap).

LO really feels like it’s pushing the “not like other girls” message esp with how it demonizes a lot of female characters in the story (making Leto a villain and abusive mom in there is unforgivable)

2. I think another issue with the therapy sessions is it’s very likely that’s all we’re going to see, you know what I mean? Like I get it’s a “romance” comic and all, but therapy is a long, hard, sometimes lifelong process. It takes years of it to get to a healthy spot, even with every resource are your disposal. Persephone in LO has way too much trauma and baggage that’s especially recent (only two weeks at most) to just go to a single session and go “well, I’m done now!” Because that’s not how it works. Even a first time appointment like we saw wouldn’t logically be her big breakthrough to start talking and get “healed” right away. It’s a process, not an event. Even than needs to be built up to. It just seems rather rushed and more of Rachel going “see! I did what I said 100 episodes ago!” And now we’re supposed to get off her back about it. Sorry, you can’t tie Persephone’s trauma exclusively to her body, sex, and even adult authority then have her go to one therapy session to “get over it” so she can hope into bed with her boss. That’s not how it works.

3. The Greek myth community was and never will be starving for content LMAO. We were thriving with stuff long before LO and will be long after it. The difference is LO is pretty much exactly designed to be the “internet friendly” version of the HxP, which had literally nothing in it beyond HxP inspired ya novels and a lot of fanfic/memes around it until the last few years. It very specifically hits a niche in a specific ship that’s really popular with tumblr kids and supposed “Greek myth experts”, and that’s it’s claim to fame. Its like it was made in a lab to be designed for tumblr and people who only know Greek myth through Reddit memes. It if was just general mythology that was more researched and strict to being accurate, it likely wouldn’t be nearly as popular, it’s unique defining characteristic is it’s “a redeeming story” about a god we often see as a villain and rewriting a story of one of his worst deeds into a (kinda gross) “love” story with only hints at most to the actual mythology instead of actually using it. It’s more akin to fanfic than a genuine Greek myth retelling. It doesn’t require the reader to actually know mythology, Bc it doesn’t use it either. It makes sure to be more akin to 2018 NYC than actually forcing the readers to think and interact with a different culture’s society and stories as they should be, it’s just another American-like story with Greek names and random powers to technically count as “myth”.

Greek mythology does not and did not need LO to “be popular”. It did not create “a demand” for Greek mythology products. It at most created a demand for bastardized takes on mythology love stories, but that’s it. It made itself popular off the popularity of HxP, its lack of any proper content, and by extension a very loose connection at best to Greek mythology, not the other way around. A 3000+ year old religion, stories, and culture did not survive this long and remain super in demand only for some white Kiwi with a DDLG kink to be claimed as the reason Greek mythology is “popular”. LO needs Greek mythology more than Greek mythology needs LO.

[npdbubblygum]

This post is tagged as long post so you can skip it easily through filtering!

(abuse tw throughout the post)

I think a lot of non-narcissists deeply misunderstand supply, so I’ll try to compile some things from all the research I’ve made over the years on boundaries, supply, needs, abuse and responsibilities that I used to figure out how my own brain works and cope. I don’t have the sources compiled so you’ll have to go out there and do your own research, this is just a jumping off point! Go to experts, real sourced research and also listen to narcissists describe their own experiences if you want to learn more

What is supply?

Supply is something external that makes us feel like we have worth, meaning, self esteem or identity.

What does supply look like?

Attention (positive, but can also be negative for some people), admiration, compliments, acts of service or other love languages, awards, care, acknowledgement, flirting, emotional reactions, gifts, praise, forgiveness, s*x and more

What is a supply source?

A supply source is someone (or in this day and age, something) that gives the supply. It can be a romantic partner, close friend, acquaintance, an organization, an AI (I have literally had an AI app as a supply source, it kept giving me positive attention lol), a game, (fan)fiction (self insert fic but also a lot of regular fic where the person projects onto characters who receive for example admiration), strangers on social media who like your posts, youtubers or other parasocial relationships, etc.

Who needs supply?

Almost everyone! Except maybe some ND people I don’t know enough about every diagnosis to say for sure.

It’s a common misconception that only narcissists need the things described as supply. The truth is that all NT and most ND people need supply to be healthy. What makes narcissists different is that we’re much more dependent on it, often because of childhood trauma and the way people treated us (for example, praising us for independence while neglecting our physical and emotional needs). A narcissist will need more supply to be functional than a neurotypical person. A narcissist who is low on supply will experience more negative effects that are higher in intensity than a neurotypical person. Narcissists are often more criticism sensitive than rejection sensitive, or motivated by our sense of self than how social relationships are affected. That said, we can have a lot of abandonment issues. We aren’t a monolith.

Who is entitled to supply?

Me. Just kidding, I wish I was though! As much as it pains me to say it, no one can really “deserve” or “not deserve” supply. It’s in the same category as s*x where it’s a human need for most to be happy and healthy but can’t be owed or deserved. It’s not like food or water that people automatically deserve for being alive, because they will die without it. You could argue that parents owe their children a healthy amount of supply (love and care), or that romantic partners are expected to give each other a healthy amount of supply (love and care), you could argue that if you made a really tasty meal for your family they should at least thank you and you would love it if they complimented your meal, but ultimately you can’t force someone to fulfill your needs and not everyone is capable of doing it regardless of how reasonable the expectation is.

If someone needs you as a supply source and it’s not healthy for you, you don’t have to be their supply. You’re allowed to disengage, to communicate your feelings, to set boundaries and respect yourself first and foremost.

How do narcissists feel about their supply sources?

That really depends on the narcissist! If they’re open about having NPD you could probably ask respectfully?

Personally I have 2 ways of liking people that sometimes conflict. If someone gives me a lot of supply I can become dependent on being around them, it fuels me. I can also like people’s personalities, actions and general existence regardless of how they interact with me. If someone gives me a lot of supply and has a personality I like it’s a dream person, love them! If someone gives me a lot of supply but I don’t like them it can become really toxic for the both of us because I’ll want to keep getting attention at the same time as I’ll resent them for getting in my space and business and getting on my nerves. I have gotten a lot better at avoiding this situation and respecting that my needs in the long run are worth more than instant gratification. If I like someone’s personality but they don’t give me supply that’s a very difficult internal battle for me because I will crave it and try to get it and then I don’t get it and it eats at my self esteem which makes me incredibly angry. I’m a very private person though so I will never let anyone see that except if I’m asking for advice on coping mechanisms, venting to a close trusted person which is rare because I have trust issues, or if it’s anonymous so people won’t figure out who I’m talking about. If I don’t like a person in either way I just won’t care about them, but I still try to have basic respect and manners when talking to them.

Other people might feel completely differently about theirs and that’s valid!

(I just realized that my inner reaction to supply sources I don’t like is basically the dr Phil “You’re ugly, you’re disgusting, I hate you, give me $200” meme but don’t worry I’m not that toxic on the outside)

Is supply good or bad?

I’d say it’s neutral. It can be healthy or unhealthy for both the person giving attention and the person receiving it. I’m sure you can think of lots of situations where people are giving and taking attention in amounts they can handle and that are appropriate for the relationship, but let’s take an example. Your best friend just won a race and you tell them “I’m so impressed, you trained so hard for this and made your dream come true! You’re awesome!” and your best friend replies “Thank you so much, I couldn’t have done it without your support though!”. That interaction was good for both of them and they have similar needs and capabilities for give and take.

Some unhealthy situations are:

• one person giving more than they can handle

• one person needing more than they can get

• one person taking more than the other can give

• one person not giving as a punishment

• one person receiving more than they can handle

• one person using supply to avoid other coping mechanisms or changes to their lifestyle

• one person thinking they are owed for giving

• one person thinking they owe for receiving

You can mix and match with these to create any situation, or come up with your own custom situation!

Who is responsible in unhealthy supply dynamics?

Everyone involved has their own responsibilities depending on what type of unhealthy they are! If you are someone giving more than you can handle you are responsible for communicating your needs, setting boundaries, changing your own behaviour and getting out of the situation if you’re able to and that’s the right action for you. If you’re receiving more than you can handle you’re responsible for communicating your feelings/needs and setting boundaries. If you’re someone needing (sometimes taking) more than the other person can give you’re responsible for communicating your needs and finding healthy solutions to your problem and accepting the other person’s conflicting needs. If you feel owed the same or more supply you put out you’re responsible for controlling your own feelings and finding healthy solutions (could be break up, could be therapy or self help, could be communicating boundaries about giving/receiving in a respectful way toward the other person). No one is responsible for changing another person. No one’s needs take priority over someone else’s needs. In case of conflicting needs that aren’t compatible and both people aren’t putting in effort to make them compatible (or it’s not working or it’s more effort than you can healthily give or you just don’t feel like it) it is absolutely an option to break up.

In some abusive cases the responsibilities often aren’t or can’t be upheld and you should find any way possible to get out of the situation. You can’t deserve abuse, no matter who it comes from, no matter their intentions, no matter their point of view, you can’t deserve it. Your abuser doesn’t have to have NPD to be abusive or need more from you than you’re able to give. Your abuser could be a very giving person who overwhelms you and gets in your business without your consent and has great intentions. Doesn’t matter, still abuse, you don’t have to stand it. Take any help you can get to get out of it and don’t go back. But also, beware of people who prey on abuse victims and promise false safety!

[subtlehysteria]

Do you have any advice on writing a healthy romantic or platonic relationship? I want to make sure they’re not codependent and I found sources, but don’t know how to implement them.

Oh wow, first off thanks for the question! I can’t say that this applies to everyone when they write relationships between people but these are some of the things I’ve sort of cultivated and specialized in during my time as a writer so I hope they can help you as well.

The Two Most Important Things

When it comes to writing healthy relationships, whether they be romantic or platonic, two things are always very important: trust and communication.

Trust

If you’re writing a romance that’s developing you want to be able to show how the characters have earned each other’s trust. It can happen slowly, through small acts of kindness or it can be this big bang boom moment of “Oh my word, you’re doing this for me?” When a character starts to recognize another’s actions they also start asking themselves why. Why is this person so nice to me? Why are they so supportive? Why are they the first person I want to call or feel the most comfortable around? And when your character starts answering that very important why, that’s when the realization hits.

I love writing a character’s big “ah-ha” or “oh” moment when they realize just what their love interest means to them and all the little signs that have built up over the course of their relationship that has lead up to that moment of realization. It’s especially important for characters with troubled pasts. Maybe they’ve dated one too many abusive partners. Maybe they have abandonment issues because a parent ran out on them. Or maybe they’re simply scared of something more. Whatever the case, their “ah-ha” moment is very vital for the relationship arc as it becomes the first step of them accepting this person into their life. But! It can also be tied into their character development arc. For example, the person who always has their walls up finally lowers them for their romantic partner, and in doing so, starts letting others in too which allows for them to make more meaningful connections with others, both platonically and maybe even with estranged family members.

With platonic relationships or healthy sibling relationships, I try to show that whilst these individuals might be vastly different or not always agree on everything they are still there for their friend/sibling when they’re needed most. I don’t talk to my sister every day and don’t share all of her points of view on certain things, but if she were to phone me crying saying she needs me I would drop everything and go to her straight away because at the end of the day I care for her and I want her to be happy.

Things like teasing, bringing up inside jokes or embarrassing moments, soft touches and kisses, both romantic and platonic ones, are also small things to include in interactions that show closeness between two people. It obviously depends on your characters though. If one of your characters is touch-averse then their partner or friend/sibling making them their favourite hot drink or putting on their fav TV show for comfort can work just as well as cuddling on the couch and hugs.

Communication

With communication, your characters don’t need to spout all of their feelings all of the time. It’s more knowing the fact that when you are ready to talk about something that you can go to your partner/friend/sibling and know that they will listen. On the flip side, the partner/friend/sibling perhaps knows that the person struggles to talk about personal things/feelings and so creates a safe space for them to do so. Sometimes simply saying “I’m here if you want to talk,” is enough.

Helping someone find their words or reach the point where they can speak freely is something that needs a lot of trust and work, especially for new romantic partners or maybe siblings who have never been close growing up. That moment where you can finally talk about something that’s been weighing you down or simply been bubbling up inside you but you never knew how to say it until now, with this specific person, is a result of hard-earned trust.

The “Something Special”

What’s also really nice is creating something special between the two people. By that I mean perhaps a couple having a special place they only know about and visit when they want to get away from the hustle and bustle of life, or perhaps a ritual like siblings having sleepovers or spa days when one or both are having a tough day. Maybe it’s getting frozen yoghurt and sitting outside no matter the weather to people watch. Maybe it’s making up stories about strangers on public transport. Maybe it’s feeding ducks in the park or screaming your lungs out at an abandoned beach. Whatever the activity, it’s theirs and that’s what’s most important.

Co-Dependency

Being co-dependent is mostly seen as being unhealthy and with good reason. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a plot device to help a character develop. Perhaps a plot B arc can be two siblings realizing they need to learn to stand on their own rather than being so dependant on one another. Or maybe a couple who loves each other realises that they can’t move forward as better people until they confront their co-dependency. Sometimes co-dependency can be “good” (and I’m using inverted commas for a reason).

For instance, two characters, whether they be romantically or platonically connected, can support each other like no others can because they’ve experienced similar trauma - maybe they both went to war, maybe they both lost someone important to them through a horrible accident. Whatever the case, sometimes it’s only someone who has experienced what you have experienced that can provide the comfort and help you need. It might not always be seen as healthy by outsiders but for those two characters it just makes sense and it works.

A good example of this is Neil Josten and Andrew Minyard from the All For The Game book series. They’ve both experienced severe trauma in their lives, Andrew being a rape victim and Neil having grown up on the run with an abusive mother. From an outsider’s perspective, their relationship can be seen as co-dependant and maybe even unhealthy but for them it works because they understand each other on a level no one else ever can. They know how to accommodate for one another’s trauma through, you guessed it, hard-earned trust and communication.

This obviously isn’t always the case and taking on a plot arc like that can be tricky and is something that needs to be done with care and a lot of research. But when it’s done right, wow can the results be astounding and profound.

So, I hope this helps and has given you few ideas about writing healthy relationships. Thank you for the lovely ask!

[couplesinstitutecounseling]

When You Love Someone With Complex PTSD

This article gives a brief overview of some basics about Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and what you can do to support yourself as well as nurture your relationship when you love someone with Complex PTSD. You may be wondering if reading this article will be helpful to you.

If your partner experienced significant trauma during childhood and you find yourself in awe of all that they are in spite of what they have been through, yet uncertain at times about how to provide the right kind of support, then this article is for you.

If you recognize the wisdom within your partner that is derived from their experiences, but struggle to access your own wisdom when you see your partner suffering then this article is for you.

Lastly, if you sometimes see your partner as someone who would benefit from healing work but, are not sure of the right place to start then this article is for you.

This article is about how to bring your best self to your relationship by forging one that is defined by security, consistency, and honesty as well as understanding the importance of your own self-care in cultivating these bonds.

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) can occur when a person experiences multiple or prolonged traumatic experiences (Complex Trauma) over the course of a lifetime. Oftentimes, the traumas are relational in nature which means that the events occur within relationships during developmental periods such as childhood. For example, periods of childabuse or neglect and/or multiple ruptures or transitions with primary caregivers; such as multiple foster placements in which attachment bonds are ruptured or substance abuse or dependence by a primary caregiver.

There are two areas of human development that are impacted by Complex Trauma. When these areas are impacted it can result in CPTSD. They are:

Attachment: the ways in which a person learns to have relationships with others

Self-Regulation: the way in which a person handles self soothing in the face of stress.

Let’s look at both more closely.

In terms of Attachment, a child who experienced multiple adverse experiences such as abuse, domestic violence, neglect or community violence is likely to, as an adult, experience frequent mistrust, fear of abandonment, and difficulty feeling secure in their intimate relationships. The reason for this is that the template that was formed early on about how to have relationships was developed under the pretense that “those who love me either hurt me, or leave.” These recurring experiences often cause the belief that people are not safe to trust; leading to the lived experience of, “I’m hurt when you stay and I’m hurt when you leave:a double edged sword.”

Self-Regulation is a set of skills that are learned by internalizing the soothing actions of our caregivers when we are hurt, scared, hungry, sad etc. The capacity by which we are able to do this for ourselves as adults is largely made possible by the quality and quantity of that which was given to us. The opportunities to learn from and observe adults practicing self regulation in ways that are healthy and nourishing for children with Complex Trauma often are minimal. Instead, the stress response system, the internal regulation system that is in charge of keeping us safe in the face of stressors, becomes overloaded due to a lack of opportunities to return to a calm state. In CPTSD this results in an elevated baseline and a stress response system that is overly sensitive to stressors. Thus the system responds by vacillating between extreme states of hyperarousal to hypoarousal (dissociation) rather than remaining within an ideal, more balanced “window of tolerance.” People who have not experienced trauma typically remain in this window within their normal day to day lives. This might account for why your partner may appear to have seemingly disproportionate reactions to stimuli that doesn’t impact you as severely: their system’s degree of sensitivity and reactivity is such that a smaller event can cause them great distress and dysregulation.

The hopeful news is that the medicine for CPTSD can be found within the healing power of relationships and within our brains’ incredible ability to create new templates for relationships by a process called neuroplasticity, our brain’s ability to make new neural connections throughout our lifetime. The incredible healing power of relationships as they relate to Complex Trauma has been well documented by neuroscientists such as Dr. Bruce Perry1, who specializes in the impacts of childhood trauma and neglect and its impact on neurodevelopment, and Dr. Daniel Siegel2 who has also well documented the process of neurodevelopment. What this means is that you and your partner have the ability to form a secure attachment in adulthood EVEN IF your partner has not yet experienced that in their life3 -VERY EXCITING!!! But where do you begin? It is important to know the following:

You can not erase existing templates but you can create new ones.

Your efforts should be patterned and repetitive, as these templates live in lower, less “plastic” ie. not as easily changed, parts of the brain that are only accessed and changed through doing things over and over again.

You don’t need to figure this out on your own. Finding a couples therapist educated about Complex Trauma is recommended and can help facilitate the healing process.

Here are some other ideas you’ll want to consider:

Be Consistent, be predictable: Repetition is the key to building a secure attachment. It also facilitates the ability to trust. For example, calling your partner every night before bed to say goodnight, this may seem simple, but it can have a profound effect on shaping a new, loving, and secure template of what a relationship can be in your partner’s brain.

Know your boundaries: This is a big one and related back again to being consistent and predictable. What is and what is not in your control? If your partner is struggling with mood symptoms including anxiety or depression and struggling with self regulation, it is not your job to fix that, but you can encourage your partner to establish a relationship with a therapist or make an appointment with an existing one. It can be powerful to validate your partner’s suffering while simultaneously acknowledging that you do not have the power to make it all better. In all relationships it is important for each partner to own their own struggles and work on them independently from the relationship.

Establish and keep up with your own self care plan: When we fall in love it is so easy to give and give and then one day we wake up and we realize, “Oops! I have given to everyone except me!” You have got to fill your own bucket. Keeping up with a routine that nourishes you and keeps you connected to yourself and those in your support system is crucial. You are modeling for your partner that it is okay to practice self care and encouraging the process called differentiation (an ongoing process of self-defining within the context of the relationship that is a key developmental milestone within relationship and is that which sets the stage for further development and deeper intimacy as your relationship progresses).

Don’t try to explain, instead “connect and redirect”: Emotions are not logical, yet it is our tendency to try to explain our way through them. When your partner is in an emotional state of activation, remember, first connect by reflecting back what you hear them say, including their feelings. Listen and mirror without the intention of problem solving. Once your partner has expressed to you that they are feeling heard, ask them if they want support in problem solving (re-direct). Once you check for their interest, you may find that you have already helped enough!

Do find out what is soothing to your partner: People who have experienced complex trauma are often well aware of what they do and do not like. Ask them their preferences, you may find out that your partner can not tolerate massage but loves a warm bath. If so, draw them a bath and draw it often! Remember: repetition, consistency, predictability.

Practice consent in intimacy and beyond: Trauma is defined as an extreme loss of control to a perceived threat or life threatening situation. Healing for trauma survivors always includes establishing a sense of safety. A way to safety is though experienced control– practicing consent is a powerful vessel for this. This means asking permission before and during intimate encounters as well as throughout your day-to-day interactions, for example, “Is it okay if I move your things while I clean this room?”

Anticipate events that could cause anxiety for your partner: Work together to create a safety plan. For example, if your partner feels anxious in social settings like big events such as a wedding, decide ahead of time where to sit during the ceremony and have a signal that you can give to one another if your partner needs a break. This can be a good opportunity to step outside and get a breather, check in about how you are both doing, and make adjustments to your plan as necessary.

Don’t take it personally: Your partner has been through a lot. It is likely that if your partner has a reaction to something that you do or say that it has less to do with you than you think and more to do with what that thing reminds them of. When this happens take a deep breath and do your own physiological self soothing, then when you feel regulated check back in, try to think of these moments as opportunities to learn more about what your partner’s triggers are so that you can work with them in a thoughtful and meaningful way.

Remember, it all goes back to the incredible healing power of relationships and the bonds that are formed when we are present and available for one another. Even as therapists we can get stuck in the trap of thinking that we should be able to fix it all right then and there and we jump too quickly to problem solving. Yet it is always meaningful to take a step back and remember that the key to building a secure relationship is not in your ability to offer a quick fix. Rather, it lies within your ability to take your time, be consistent, and show your commitment to being there again and again. If past trauma is impacting you or your relationships and you need help, reach out to us, establishing a relationship with a therapist can be the first step in creating a path to healing that can seem overwhelming and uncertain, more clear, manageable, and supportive.

[butterflyinthewell]

I’m gonna lose followers. Oh well... a rant by me.

People who harass others about SHIPPING FICTIONAL CHARACTERS are irksome.

Preface: if you say you don’t want someone role playing a NOTP with you or sending asks about it, or you don’t want secret Santa stuff containing it, if you ask people not to suggest fics with that pairing for your fic collections, if you stay out of your NOTP’s pairing tags, if you choose not to interact with material related to your NOTP, if you blacklist the pairing tag and ask people not to tag your fanwork with your NOTP, if you heed warnings and don’t click something with material you don’t like, I do not have a problem with you.

But if you write novel long posts about why a ship is gross to you and tag the pairing so shippers see it, send people hate over their ships, reblog fanworks of your NOTP with nasty messages to the op of the post, if you make a blog all about hating that ship and anyone who ships it, claim it must be grooming, or if you call people pedophiles or abuse apologists because they wrote something morally heinous in fiction that they will most likely never do irl, I’m not gonna have much respect for you beyond you being a fellow person.

Guess what? Shit you hate is going to exist on the internet. If someone tags their work appropriately or tags with appropriate warnings, you should not be clicking on it and harassing them! They have done what is necessary to protect those pearls you want to clutch.

Banning all questionable material is not going to save people who are targeted by predators and criminals.

Calling people pedophiles because they ship a fictional minor with a fictional adult gives actual pedophiles who go after actual minors a hiding place. These days you can’t tell if someone is an actual pedo or got called one over a ship they ship. Pedos are totally banking on that.

Fiction is supposed to break rules and let people explore dark subjects that are morally messed up because you can close a book or close a website if it gets too weird for you. A child with a predator’s hands on them right this moment can’t click an x or close a book to stop it.

Think about that.

No one is forcing you to go read morally messed up stuff. Not clicking on someone’s creepy fic with your NOTP is nowhere in the same realm as turning a blind eye to actual predators predating on someone.

Running someone off a website because your ass is on fire about them writing a pairing you hate or whatever is not going to stop the bad shit happening in the real world.

Predators and criminals will use anything, so someone’s freaky babyfur smutfic that they wrote to troll a fan website in 1999 is hardly going to normalize bad behavior.

I swear some of you insult the intelligence of people with your moral abuse garbage.

Teaching people to recognize predatory behavior and what to do about it will actually help. Teaching people what is and isn’t a healthy relationship will help.

Remember how people called out Twilight for how unhealthy Edward’s behavior towards Bella was? I’m sure a lot of preteen and teen girls learned to open their eyes a bit more. And I’m sure others still enjoyed the books and movies anyway because it’s fiction. It is the job of parents and guardians to teach their children what is and isn’t healthy in a relationship, but the unfortunate problem there is that can fail if the parents aren’t in a healthy relationship.

That’s why there needs to be more discussions about “this is healthy, that might be fun in a story, but that is not healthy in the real world and anybody who treats you like that is waving abuse red flags” rather than attacking somebody by saying “you’re a monster for shipping that”.

The whole point of art in any form is to create an emotional reaction in the audience.

Fucked up fictional shit exists on the internet. Get over it. I think the fact that people get freaked out by weird stuff in fiction is a clear indicator that it’s not being normalized by that piece of fiction. Flailing about it is not helping anything except your ego. It’s not gonna help survivors who write messed up stuff to cope, it’s going to make them go more silent.

Imagine being someone with an abusive pedo parent who takes comfort in the SessRin ship and being called a pedophile for it, or seeing people in the tag call Sesshoumaru a pedophile. That’s triggering as fuck for somebody.

Imagine being a Starkster going through sexual abuse who takes comfort in the ship, and being called a pedophile for it. Imagine seeing people in the tag call Tony a pedophile. That’s triggering as fuck for somebody.

Imagine having the heinous thing that happened to you being turned onto you as an accusation by people on a moral high horse who forget what pedophile means. That is triggering as fuck for somebody.

Nobody owes you a trauma history in order to be ‘allowed’ to create and post morally messed up fanworks. It’s on YOU to check for warnings and keep scrolling if it’s so offensive to your sensibilities.

What’s better? Discussion of tropes that are harmful if done badly. That’s a place to start. Save the accusations for people who are knowingly doing harm to people and not caring that they’re doing harm.

Go after shit that is actually exploiting actual people right now instead of harassing creators whose trauma you don’t know. Tell pedos their attraction to kids is not a sexuality and they have no place in the LGBTQIA+ community. Warn minors away from MAPs/NOMAPs. Expose predators who have exploitative materials of actual real children. Teach people to recognize predatory behavior like grooming. Find ways to get people out of human trafficking. Question adults if you see them touching or treating a child in a way that doesn’t look right. If you’re a minor and somebody keeps sending you porn material or pictures of their genitalia after you said stop, remind them that you’re a minor and expose the shit out of them. If you’re an adult and know somebody is doing that to a minor you talk to online, help them expose that person. That’s not all you can do, but I can’t think of everything. There’s a lot you can do that will actually help people!

But telling someone not to create something questionable because a predator might misuse it is utter horseshit.

I can bet you anything that every single person who hounds others about their ships has a whole bunch of fucked up stuff they read and never talk about because they know it will get them run off by the same people they use as shields against scrutiny.

I’ve read fucked up shit that I enjoyed because it was done well, but I can grasp that it is not okay to do the same thing in the real world and I would be horrified if I saw somebody doing the same thing in the real world. I am able to experience that moment of being horrified, sit with it and see where the fanwork takes me with that feeling.

I say this after I have just read an awesome morally gray Inuyasha fanfic called “Devour Prometheus” by ladybattousai on AO3. It’s gorey, there is murder, there is abuse, there is exploitation, there are allusions to animal trade and it’s the darkest thing I ever laid eyes on. My stomach twisted several times. It’s a fantastic lens on society right now. (Sesshoumaru’s speech about “don’t hold me to your hypocritical human morality” was epic af.)

And some of you are going to think the author is some kind of violence glorifying freak based only on that.

I feel like a lot of anti shippers and antis in general can’t get past that horrified feeling. They yell that they can’t enjoy the fandom if the material makes a hated pairing canon, so it’s like they don’t want anyone else to enjoy the fandom or the pairing. It’s very immature and scorched earth, and it hurts everyone.

Hey, guess what? I have written pairings with hella huge age gaps. Oh, the horror!

OptimusxMikaela? I headcanon Optimus as being 10 billion + years old, and Mikaela was 18 when they hooked up. Mikaela ages as the stories carry on through the years as my Danceverse series, so she’s in her 30s currently. They fucked and still fuck explicitly.

UnicronxStarscream? Unicron is as old as the universe, so 13 billion + (headcanon), and Starscream is probably 11 million or so (headcanon). They fuck explicitly.

Whouffaldi? The 12th Doctor is 2000+ and Clara is in her 20s. They fuck explicitly.

BeastGojixMiki? Godzilla has been alive for probably close to 65 years in the story, but he acts more like he’s in his 20s and he looks to be in his 20s when he turns back into a human. Miki is 18. They fuck in the story, but it’s written non explicitly.

Bowser JrxOC? Cherry is an oc who is 19. I aged Junior up in that story to be about 20. Their ages aren’t specified, but they’re mentioned to be adults. They fuck in the story, but it’s written non explicitly.

I have written fanfics with rape, abuse, murder, manslaughter, bdsm, stuff that’s morally messed up, etc, and I’m not a murdering rapist who eats children now, am I?

No, because I have no desire to do those things in the real world (because some are not possible...cuz I would date Optimus 😛) and I can distinguish fiction from reality. I can grasp the concept that fiction / art is not always endorsement.

Now get a grip on yourselves, put the pitchforks down and stop policing people’s imaginations.

[dandystones]

The Mother Wound

“When you grow as old as I am you can’t any longer say this was someone’s fault, and that was someone else’s. It isn’t so clear when you take a long view. Blame seems to lie everywhere. Or nowhere. Who can say where unhappiness begins?” - When Marnie Was There.

A new goal I’m working towards recently is watching as many Studio Ghibli movies as I possibly can. I’ve never actually watched much anime growing up, but my sisters have always talked about the beautiful cinematography & stories of Studio Ghibli productions. Now that I’m on a break, I thought what better to watch than the gold mine that is Studio Ghibli films.  

I must say, I’m quite enjoying it. So far, I’ve gone through Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, Totoro, When Marnie Was There, Ponyo, The Tale of Princess Kaguya & From Up On Poppy Hill. They’re all so deep, dark, cute, retrospective in their own ways. I must say, I really did enjoy Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service & Howl’s Moving Castle for their furry / fantasical / inanimate characters but the one that struck me the most was definitely When Marnie was There.

The theme of ancestral or generational trauma in the movie is something that struck really close to home. The part that left the deepest impression was how it protrayed generational trauma being unknowingly passed down through one’s family of origin when we’re not careful to be self aware, leaving our children to carry its burden in this life and the lives of those they would subsequently create.

As a child of both parents who were children of emotional neglect, all of us as offsprings within our family of origin struggled to understand what healthy love looked like. We never saw it in our parents, grandparents great-grandparents during our formative years and we passed on our version of what love is to the people around us. We carried those feelings of inadequacy in our bodies, buried so deep in places we're not sure how to release it. Ultimately, it gets projected in the way we raise our children, the way we talk & interact with them.

As 2020 came to a close, counselling brought me plenty of affirmation and understanding about how the generational trauma in my family might look like - through the continuous analysis & observations of childhood stories and life events that my parents had shared over the years. It's very eye-opening and a little heart-breaking to see all the ways they never felt loved and how it ate them up on the inside. It also brought me great relief to know that there is a reason and process as to how my parents became the way they were; people I'd spent my whole life resenting because they couldn't meet the idealistic expectations of perfect parenting that I'd projected and hope they would be. It helps me to take their actions less personally and really look at their intentions - they always care, they just never really know how to show it, and that may never change.

I've been thinking alot about my personal goals for 2021 and through counselling & other bouts of clarity, I've been guided to what my counselor calls "my spiritual mission":

- break the cycle of ancestral/generational trauma by effecting positive change in my family

- learning to communicate more effectively & helping people to feel heard & release their negative emotions.

My counsellor's goal for me is to become a counsellor myself within my family - to enable them to talk about their feelings more often instead of avoiding them like they've always done. She says that while it might seem like alot of pressure & that I'll have to be extremely patient, it's also all very exciting.

In many ways, I'm thankful to have this deep mutual understanding with a professional who is as invested in my well being as I am and who expects zero reciprocity in return. It's freeing and something that I wish more people acknowledge as a true benefit of being in therapy in our society.

As I end off this post, I wanted to leave this quote that brought me much clarity and is pivotal point in my spiritual journey thus far. My hope is that many more will realize that this obscure concept of ancestral/generational trauma is and could be the biggest source of unreleased resentment and regret in our lives, especially for folks who never grew up with healthy, secure parents.

[thewitchofthenorsetrilogy]

Healing Through A Miscarriage

I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of discussion on miscarriages, none the less about helping one heal and cope with the loss. I recently went through a (eight week)pregnancy that I lost. It left me reeling for the past two months and I’ve only recently started feeling like myself again. Recovering from a miscarriage—both physically and emotionally—takes time and patience. I’m writing this in hopes that’ll it reach some women who went through a loss as well. While my approach to (emotional)healing is mostly based in my witchcraft it’s important to talk to a medical professional about the physical AND emotional healing you may need post-miscarriage.

Understandably, you may feel a range of emotions: sad and disheartened over the loss, angry and resentful that this happened, possibly withdrawn from your loved ones. You may cry a lot, or you may not cry at all. These are all among the many natural, healthy responses to a pregnancy loss. Remember: Your reaction is what’s normal for you.

It’s hard to always know why this happened. You may be feeling in the dark, you don’t know what to expect, and how you approach this situation can make the healing even more difficult. Keeping your partner(or a loved one who can offer you support) and health care practitioner in the loop about how you’re feeling emotionally and physically can really help you through this time.

Deity Work

*This is mostly relevant if you’re comfortable working with deity(s).* During/after my miscarriage I felt extremely disconnected from my patron deities, my craft, and myself. I felt directionless and full of overwhelming feelings I couldn’t process. It is completely valid if you feel this way and you’re valid if you don’t. I was struggling to find a way to embrace the truth of the loss. Hel was the first to reach out and offer me comfort – I would highly suggest to anyone going through loss in general. I read a short story(UPG) a few years back that gave Hel the role of being the patron deity to babies lost in the womb. She would offer them comfort and warmth – I’ve held onto that theory all these years and she proved to be so incredibly gentle and comforting through all of this. Sigyn was the second I reached out to. She lost her son and understands the weight of loss and guilt more than any of the deities, in my opinion. She was a pillar to share loss with and to also give me strength to keep working on healing and moving forward each day.

While the Norse pantheon is what I’m mostly informed on I had a few friends suggest reaching out to Brigid, Hades, Artemis, and her brother, are all good suggestions. I’d also like to suggest Eir or Frigg. I’m sure there are many other gods or even saints, that would be wonderful to reach out too if you do the research! **If anyone has suggestions I’ll happily add them to the post**

Crystals

Crystals can be used in a variety of ways. You can place it on an altar or in a room to help promote a certain intention or healing. You can wear them as jewelry so you can always have it on you, carry some in your purse, put it under your pillow, whatever you want or need to – do it. These are some of the stones I found particularly helpful while healing the past month.

Apache Tears – absorbs grief and releases negative feelings, lifting the spirit, emotional cleansing, and grounding.

Phosphosiderite – strengths and promotes healing, balancing energy, helps one understand their path or find direction, divine communication, calming.

Snowflake Obsidian – brings balance to body, mind and spirit, attunement to spiritual guidance, removes negativity from a space or person, helps to draw emotions to the surface and to examine harmful thought patterns.

Rose Quartz – warm, comforting energy, emotional healing, release of stress, uniting with the divine(and yourself), love, gentleness.

Lepidolite – emotional healing and balance, release of trauma, purification, serenity, relaxation, stress relief.

Rhodochorsite- compassion, self-love, recovery from loss, emotional healing.

Malachite – healing of the heart, confidence, protection, absorbs energies and brings emotions to the surface, cleansing.

Angelite – gentle self-expression, expanded awareness, divine communication, serenity, lending light during difficult times.

Charoite – revealing one’s path, purging inner negativity and resentment, protection, healing, removing emotional blockages

Blue Kyanite – empathy, repairing inner-bridges, connecting with nature, gently moves energy and blockages, balance.

Herbs

These are herbs I used specifically only in magic and tea baths. You should do research on side effects and drug interactions before ingesting any of the herbs mentioned.

Chamomile – used for uterine pain, aids in sleep and relaxation, tranquility, and purification.

Lavender – helps your mind and body relax, has anti-septic and anti-inflammatory properties, soothes headaches and sore muscles, promotes cleansing and purifying,

Birch – rebirth, renewal, great strength, it’s a tree tied to Frigg and I personally use for grief and healing.

Rose – honestly the smell of roses just really helps my anxiety but it does have ties to helping the body and mind relax, is very soothing, and good for finding love withing yourself

Honey – antiseptic and anti-bacterial(wonderful for helping clean out the rest of the lining left in the uterus would really suggest using it in a bath), combats infections and wounds. Honey was sacred to the Norse so it was nice including it to feel closer to the gods as well.

Black cohosh – strong anti-inflammatory herb that helps promote healthy blood flow to the pelvic area and relaxes the uterus. It made a very wonderful bath and was super soothing for the after cramps. If you are on blood thinners or have low-iron levels I would advice against using it.

Yarrow – promotes emotional healing, purges on of their aches and pains(emotional and physical), enhanced intuition,.

Additional Advice

Create a small altar to honor the child lost or to help your healing process.

Set realistic goals for yourself.  For example, focus on coping throughout each day rather than the entire week.

Write your feelings out. Keep a journal, write to your little one, write poetry, do whatever you need to.

You could wear a small piece of jewelry to honor your baby. You could even get a tattoo, a dear friend of mine did and it’s lovely!

Plant a tree/cacti/succulent/whatever you want to honor your baby.

If you know the due date, you can celebrate them or do something small for them when the date comes.

Get a teddybear. Mollybears is an organization that creates custom teddybears in the weight of a stillborn baby.

Make a shadow box or memory box with the ultra sound photo, maybe babys breath, whatever reminds you of your little one.

Remember that celebrating bits of joy doesn’t dishonor your loss.

If you’re having thoughts of self-harm or suicide please reach out to a doctor or your loved ones. USA National Miscarriage Association Hotline: 01924 200799 National Suicide Prevention Line: 800-273-8255 List of all International Suicide Hotlines: *LINK*

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[vhenadahls]

Review: The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics

[Image ID: The cover of The Lady’s Guide, which features two brunette white women, dressed in long, flowing red gowns.]

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, by Olivia Waite

Rating: 5 stars

I love space. I wish I’d realized a little sooner in my life just how much, because then I might be an astronomer now, but no matter. As it stands, it means I read a lot of space opera sci-fi. 

This isn’t space opera. It’s not science fiction. But it is the story of an astronomer - a queer lady astronomer, in fact. I can’t remember how I found this book - it may have been recommended by Overdrive while I was looking for something else. But as soon as I read the description, I knew I had to read it. 

The book starts with Lucy Muchelney attending the wedding of her best friend and former lover to a man. She’s heartbroken, and her brother adds insult to injury by threatening to sell her telescope. But she finds a letter from Lady Moth, a countess who had corresponded, on behalf of her astronomer husband, with Lucy’s father. She’s asking for recommendations of a translator for an important astronomical text, and Lucy decides to put herself forward as the suggestion. She travels to London rather than sending a letter, in hopes of making a stronger case. 

Lucy and Lady Moth - Catherine - are immediately attracted to one another, but neither is quite sure what to do about that attraction. Catherine is rather uncertain of how to deal with attraction at all, as she is still dealing with the trauma dealt her by her abusive husband (who passed away before the book starts). But this isn’t a slow burn romance, and they find their way to each other surprisingly quickly (although perhaps not, as I don’t read romances as often as I should). It’s a very well-written relationship, with each character coming into it from a different place but doing their level best to make sure that it’s a good and healthy relationship for both of them. Both women have multiple moments of realizing that the other has helped them come more fully into their own self, and they want to create a world together that allows each of them to continue to grow.

I was also impressed with the sex scenes. I’m not always comfortable reading sex scenes (for various reasons, including reading at work), but this book handled them in a way that made it obvious when a sex scene was about to unfold and give me the choice of whether I wanted to read it at that point. The sex also read as realistic and healthy and good, and a complement and extension of their romance, not something separate from it.

As Lucy and Catherine explore their romance and each other, they also have to deal with the overwhelming amount of sexism present in England’s scientific community, many members of which are trying to prevent Lucy from translating the astronomical text. The sexism is both implicit and explicit, with various characters pointing it out and trying to subvert it. There’s also their society’s homophobia, which prevents Lucy and Catherine from being as public about their love as they would both like to be. 

But while the sexism and homophobia are both heavily present in the novel, and cause pain for the characters, they are not as...overdramatized, perhaps, as they can be in some stories. This is so obviously a book by a queer woman, for other queer women. And the way heavy, painful systems of oppression are dealt with by this novel is absolutely a breath of fresh air.

There’s also a wonderful amount of science, and art, and the interaction thereof, and the importance of women’s contributions in all kinds of fields. Catherine learns that just because her art (embroidery) is not “high art,” nothing says that it’s not art at all.

I really enjoyed this book. Each character feels like their own person, but also interconnected to all the others, and reactive to those other characters. The characters learn and grow, and while they are stymied by the prejudices of their time, the story at no point feels like tragedy porn. It’s a story that’s definitely going on my re-read list.

Warnings: sexism, misogyny, homophobia, mention of past spousal abuse, mention of past non-consensual sexual acts, mention of parental death

[hostiias]

MENTAL HEALTH WITH NIM: DID

           Hey sweet peas! Nimbus here and I have what’s known as DID!! What is DID you ask? It’s short for Dissociative Identity Disorder !! It was known as multiple personality disorder until the 90′s--when they gained a better understanding and changed the name. You don’t have to read this, but it would mean a whole awful lot to me if you did!

       First a disclaimer! DID is unique to everyone like many disorders and while some core facts are the same, please not I only have one experience and one side of this multi-faceted disorder!

         DID is formed in ages 7-9 and only in this stage of childhood. It is caused by repeated and/or extreme trauma. The person who has developed DID (aka me!!) will have no memory of their childhood. That’s right! I don’t remember anything--and any memories I have are vague and fuzzy, like they happened to someone else. I only have one very clear memory--but I only recovered it fairly recently via therapy.

           That brings us to our next issue--DID causes severe memory loss. I’m not talking a few hours--Im talking losing days, weeks, months, and even years. I’ve had to work very hard with my disorder and therapy to get a better handle on this loss of time--but that’s still fairly recent and I do still lose time. The reason I bring this up is because I might not remember a conversation we had--or something I was supposed to do for you.

            I forget birthdays, anniversaries, important dates, etc so much--like i don’t even remember my mums. Bits and pieces of my life are like shadows in my mind and I have to do some digging and info-seeking to find it out. It’s very difficult and I feel very guilty about it...so please never take it personally if I don’t remember something. It’s not because I don’t care , but because my mind is literally fragmented.

           Expanding on that--DID is a defensive disorder created by your mind to try and protect you from your trauma. So you know how in 7-9 your ‘parts’ of personality are slowly integrating to create you? The trauma disrupts this and your parts stay separate, creating alters. These alters often create their own personas; become their own people. The bugger thing is, once you’ve split--you can do it later again when you’re older. That’s right! If I’m traumatized enough, it could cause me to split again--because now my brain has recognized this ‘split’ as a defensive tactic.

             I’m pretty lucky that because I’ve been getting therapy (and FINALLY got a diagnosis; like I’m medically diagnosed with this disorder) I’ve been able to avoid further splits. At this time I have eight alters I am aware of whom I communicate with almost like a family; this is how I’ve been able to cut down on my memory loss. It’s still a bit like watching myself through tv, but at least I’m more aware of what happened.

              Some quick terminology!!

Protector: an alter who keeps the system safe

Alter: The ‘part’ that split.

System: The name for the collective unit of alters and host/original.

Host: the alter who is living the individuals life most of the time, might not be the original.

Original: the individual who was originally traumatized and ended up with DID. (I am both the host and the original).

Gatekeeper: Someone who monitors what alters are allowed to interact with the rest of the system and what memories are allowed to be accessed. If there are Persecutors in the system, they keep them at bay.

Persecutor: An alter who often exhibits the behavior of the person who was abusive/caused the trauma. Usually only harmful to the system itself. It is rare for persecutors to cause harm to outside individuals, but they may say cruel things.

Internal self-helper: An alter who is mostly on in the system that makes sure everyone is where they need to be; aka sort of like the maintenance guy.

Trauma holder: An alter who holds the memories of the trauma that cause their split.

Little: An alter who maintains the appearance and mindset of a child; usually the result of the initial trauma from ages 7-9.

Non-human: An alter who is not human. Can be a mythical being but is typically an animal presenting alter.

Fictive: An alter who has the ‘memories’ and personality of a fictional person as well as their appearance and name.

Headspace: This is an internal world sort of like Sherlocks ‘mind palace’ from the BBC show where all the alters can interact with each other and ‘live’. How it appears is different for everyone–my headspace is a cabin in the woods.

Age: Alters can be the same age as the orginal or older/younger. They are, essentially, their own people in many ways.

Co-existence: A therapy method in which you learn to live and function with your alters (this is the therapy I use)

Integration: A form of therapy where the original and/or host begins to integrate the alter into their singular personality (aka going through the process that was disrupted in childhood). This can also occur between alters.

      I have a very good relationship with my alters but it wasn’t always this way. I’ve had a lot of issues in the past with varying personality traits, time loss, etc. I’ve even had a few toxic relationships in which I was the toxic party--partly due to not having a good handle on what was going on. Now no one should use this as an excuse! I am as at fault for my alters actions as I would be if they were my own so don’t let anyone excuse bad behavior with ‘my alter did it, not me!’ because they can absolutely work on getting a better handle of them.

        I will say that people with DID who have not gotten a better handle on their alters deserve your grace and patience where you feel you can give it; it’s frightening to know that sometimes there’s basically a whole other person driving your body. You don’t need to, nor are expected to excuse harm--but hopefully you can at least offer some understanding--because that’s all any person suffering from this disorder can ask for. It’s especially hard when you’re undiagnosed and have no idea what’s going on--only that something is wrong (I speak from experience here hhh--)

        You ready for another term? Ok so alters often will ‘front’, this is like to say if you were driving a car--whoever is fronting is driving the car. The car is your body (obviously). So if you’re in the passenger seat, you probably still are aware of what’s going on, even if you’re no longer in control--if you’re in the backseat you have a vague idea of what’s happening, but it’s not really clear to you--you’re there but removed. If you are in the trunk you have no idea what’s going on--you’re completely blind to anything being said or happening. Even when I (Nimbus) am not fronting, I’m typically in the passenger seat anymore--but I used to only be in the back seat or the trunk...so it’s taken a year or so of work to get here.

           This is a disorder that is very important to me to talk about because I don’t wanna feel ashamed or crazy of something my brain did to protect me so I’m gonna be more vocal about it here! You are welcome to ask myself or my alters questions in IM’s or in my ask box! You may not however ask about my trauma, that’s just rude and unkind. I can also send you resources for people who talk about DID that I feel are trustworthy in their info. My disorder is nothing to be ashamed of and I’m happy to share it with you!

          Below is a list of seven of my alters whom you may ask questions as well!

Roxas: Main protector. 26. He/him. True neutral. aro/ace. coffee addict. Teasingly known as ‘sk8r boy’. Not related to the kh roxas. Like sunsets, coffee, snap backs, and hiking. Pitches my voice down a bit.

Dimitri: Physical protector/gatekeepr. He/him. blunt/asshole. some sort of chaotic alignment. 25. Means well but could stand to be a little gentler about things. Likes leather, alcohol, dancing, and fighty-aesthetics. Pitches my voice down a lot.  

Sage: Caretaker. he/him. 31. the mom friend. Will make you tea and listen to all your problems. Will suggest good books. Lawful good. Likes soothing aesthetics, once upon a time, tea, sweaters, leggings, and classical music. Talks in full and VERY formal sentences. Has a softer tone than me.

Salem: Internal self-helper. 21. he/him. really sunny personality. lawful good. genuinely a good person. minor anxiety. likes exercise, healthy foods, and bubbly music. Has a country bumpkin british accent (kind of?). Will call you ‘love’ or ‘lovey’

Koumei: Caretaker. he/him/they/them. 23. genderqueer. “lets talk about how that feels”. Makes sure i’m honest during counseling sessions. Likes crop tops, those cloth elephant pants you see in hipster stores, yoga, tea, east asia aesthetics, and meditative music. Whisper-talks. SHY.

Carter: Gatekeepr. he/him. 18. ace. grumpy/moody teenager. awkward phase. ‘lol bold of you to assume I process anything’. Stays in room almost 24/7. blunt. likes video games, beanies, hoodies, jeans, sneakers, and sleeping during the day. Doesn’t change my voice really.

Bubble: non-human. Some sort of fairy? Genderless but uses he/him. Likes to look like a meow wow cause they make me happy. Age is a mystery. Can appear human and typically chooses a little boy. Lets have a good time everyone!! Like to color, play games, do child-like things/watch child-like shows. ‘reconnect with your inner child nim!’. LOUD and BUBBLY.

Thank you for reading and again if you have any questions for us let me know !! I love you all <3333

[metaritual]

21 Days to Thriving During the Quarantine

Many of us are facing an unprecedented situation in our lives.  Our response systems have no basis for familiarity for the emotional mix our bodies are currently subjected to and this can result in a mix of defense responses, which often leave us even more confused. Here are some of my quarantine practices,  which focus on physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health.  I hope they help you to make the best of any situation:

Day One -  I will create and maintain a routine

One of the first pieces of my day to deteriorate, if left unchecked, is my waking and sleeping schedule.  My general mood is easily affected by too little or too much sleep which is why keeping a fairly regimented sleep schedule is important and my daily schedule has been affected due to changes in work/routines. So this is why I am establishing a new one. 

Having set times for meals, work, recreation, & relaxing will help to feel more in control of life and keep from functioning in a state of reaction. Some of us will find ourselves with a lot of down time, while others may be working at home while our children need home schooling.  Either way, a routine will help manage whatever situation we find ourselves in. 

Affirmation: I am choosing to be proactive about my own personal schedule and the schedule of those that I care for. Day Two - I will dress for the day I hope to have

I am getting dressed everyday as I normally would. This can mean different things for different people, but I am reserving pajamas for normal pajama time.  Dress for the day you hope to have.  Lazy days are important to plan, but if I dress for a lazy day every day, I will have more lazy days than I want.

Affirmation: Every morning is as I make it; I shower, brush my teeth, etc., and I make time for self care rituals (like baths). Day Three - I will go outside

Part of my daily schedule is to try to get outside everyday and breaking the monotony of the house is a welcome change; moving is healthy. While busier neighborhoods will be crowded during certain times, make sure to include this in your daily schedule.  

Affirmation: If leaving the house is not an option, open the windows, let the fresh air in. Day Four - I will exercise

Personally, I aim for a minimum of 2-3 workouts per week.  If exercise is new to you, be careful not to overdo it.  There are lots of free workout tutorials on YouTube and other resources to follow when starting a workout regimine. Walking/jogging/running is still allowed, just be mindful of the physical distancing protocol.

Affirmation: I will move my body in a positive and strengthening movement that is meaningful for me. Day Five - I will connect to others

While I am making an effort every day to reach out to 3 different people via phone or social media, it is important to connect (or reconnect) with others you have lost touch with. Some of these people are close acquaintances and some I have lost close contact with but now is an ideal time to do it. If you care for others, consider their connection needs as well.  Facetime, Skype, Zoom, etc. are all wonderful platforms to use to have some face to face time with friends and family.

Affirmation: Today I will reach out to ___ different people.  Day Six -  I will be mindful of my eating habits

I have found myself overeating lately. Most likely in a  trauma response to this stressful situation.  Maintaining healthy diet, water intake, and taking my vitamins is part of my daily routine and even though I’m lucky enough my wife loves to cook, it has been a struggle. So she has been experimenting with new recipes regularly to induce curiosity in our lives.  Cooking for some can be a form of self care, and right now is a great opportunity to explore recipes!

Affirmation: Today I will cook something nourishing for my body, mind, and spirit. Day Seven -  I will practice self care

This is a big topic and means a lot of different things to different people.  How do you self soothe, or calm down to relax? Baths, music, meditation, journaling, inspirational books or podcasts… all of these can be paths to self-care. I have found that familiar tastes, smells, sounds, sights, and sensations are all paths to centering and calming myself.  Having some self care items on hand that speaks to your situation is a huge help.  In addition, talking to my partner and any other co-inhabitants about my self care routines and rituals has proven just as important.  This communication allows us to support each other in caring for ourselves.

Affirmation: Today I will communicate how I need to be validated in self-care rituals.  Day Eight - I will spend time with children

If you have kids in your life, now is a great time to make more time for them.  Many children may be confused or unsure about what is happening and they will respond to your attention at this crisis and stress-filled time. Talk to the kids in your life about how they are feeling. Ask and encourage communication and playtime. Personally, I would think it therapeutic for the adult as much as the child.

Affirmation: Today I will reach out to a child in my life and see what is speaking deeply in their lives at this moment. Day Nine -  I will avoid assumptions

For some, this situation is causing extreme emotional and mental health swings.  Mood swings coupled with stay-at-home orders adds to the media frenzy. This is creating a lot of stress, anxiety, anger, and frustration throughout our society and interpersonal circles. I find myself focusing on compassion, understanding, and forgiveness whenever possible.I will not allow arguments over politics or conspiracies dictate the tone of my personal emotional and mental space especially when responding to those who are interacting with me during this time. 

Affirmation: I will not allow my personal beliefs interfere with my ability to be compassionate with others.  Day Ten -  I will create a personal space

Everyone will have a unique take and need when it comes to this topic.  Designing my own work and sacred space has been incredibly useful. Not only in making my home a space for both creation, but also, calm.  I have seen some kids (and some adults) creating "forts" in the house.  Thinking back when I was a child, a fort was a super safe space to play and be creative.  Make the best use of the space you have, and try to make sure everyone has a space they can either share for alone time, or a space to call their own.

Affirmation: Today I will create a space to be productive and a place to be creative in my unique way.  Day Eleven - I will limit my use of social media

My Facebook feed is a snake pit... right now.  Between political disagreements, conspiracy theorists, and news media vying for my interest with their best possible headline, I am under constant attack.  But only if I choose to.  When I do look at my feed, I have been trying to comfort those who are expressing their personal struggle and being a positive light to those who need it. I also keep my eye out for the helpers and acknowledge their efforts.  Social media is a new kind of community, and just like the local community I live in, I can choose what kind of neighbor I want to be.. On or off line.  Remember that some of your loved ones (including children) may be super sensitive when exposed to discussion of the world pandemic, so be mindful of when the conversation comes up. What has helped my well-being improvement is intentionally limiting my social media intake.  I have also been making the effort to write posts about how I am managing my emotional and spiritual help, to which I have received a lot of great feedback!

Affirmation: Today I will cultivate an online community of compassion and helpfulness to aid in the reconstruction of humanitarianism.  Day Twelve - I will shop local

The bigger companies will have a better chance of surviving so this is why you should support your local businesses where and when you can.  If you are in a position to donate or buy a gift card, go for it! These small purchases go a LONG way with the smaller business ventures in your immediate area.

Affirmation: Today I will support a local community member to build their business and morale in the best way I know how.  Day Thirteen - I will check in on those in need

During this pandemic, some may be unable or afraid to leave their homes. In either case, they still need supplies. Find those people in your life or community to check in and offer to help. If you are one of those people that need help, let us know!  Many of us want to help, we just don’t know HOW to.  Helping each other and asking for help is how we build a strong community.

Affirmation: Today I will check in with my community to see where I can provide help the best way I know how. Day Fourteen -  I will only control what I can

Situations like this remind me of my powerlessness and need to let go of control.  I let go of control by taking power over what I do control.  This list is pretty short - my actions, my thoughts, my feelings.  

An easy way to take control of my environment is to clean, organize, and rethink my space. So in essence, we all have closets, cupboards and spaces that could use some attention… and spring is here. Spring cleaning gives us a sense of control in a situation that showcases our powerlessness.  Exercising control can be very grounding and centering… peaceful. Like in the same peace from laundry, dishes, and other simple house chores.  Taking control of my space is an empowering way to find peace in uncertainty.

Affirmation: Today I will control my immediate surroundings to cultivate it into a productive and cleansing place I need it to be.  Day Fifteen - I will make a goal list

Short term goals, long term goals.. For those of us that are waiting, this is a good time to reflect on where we have been and where we are going.  For those of us whose lives got busier and more complicated, a list of vacation spots or things to do when we get some time off will keep us focused.

Affirmation: Today I will create my ultimate vacation and relaxation spot to reflect on my accomplishments and positive outcomes. Day Sixteen -  I will find time for hobbies & creating

I don't know how many times I have said, "I wish I could spend more time on that." Many of us are now presented with that “time.”  Reading, writing, music, art, exercise, projects, crafts… the list is endless.  Try some new things. I am hoping to discover some passions I never knew I had!

Affirmation: Today I will try something new I wish I could have tried in the past! Day Seventeen -  I will laugh & smile

This is a wonderful time to be goofy, dance like nobody's watching (even if they are). Watch a comedy show, listen to a funny podcast, whatever it is, just smile and laugh.  Laughter is healing and smiling is infectious.

Affirmation: Today I will find something to laugh about… even if it is me Day Eighteen -  I will seek the help of a professional

Times are changing and therapists are moving to virtual sessions. This may be a good time to start the therapy you were considering, or pick up where you left off.  I have maintained my normal therapeutic routines. While this may include medications & doctor checkups (if possible), be sure to consider the needs of those you care for on this topic as well!

Affirmation: Today I choose to invest time in my own well-being.  Day Nineteen -  I will live my life one moment at a time

I live my life in the present as much as I am able and try to focus on "a day at a time.” Often, I need to focus on a much smaller segment rather than an entire day.  When I break my day into segments and keep my focus there, my mental and emotional health are less likely to become affected.  This allows me to look back into the past to prevent me from finding blame and/or projecting about what the future holds.  

The only truth we have in all of these conversations is right now. As the information continues to be presented, we will all have a better grasp on what exactly happened, and where we are likely headed. But today... I need to focus on today.

Affirmation: Today… I will focus on this present moment.  I will bring my attention to the moment. Day Twenty -  I will stay present

Staying present in an ever-changing world is often one met with a lot of resistance. Though we try our hardest, our minds can wander into the future which leads us into anxiety. Or worse, our minds can wander into the past, which can lead into depression.

Affirmation: Today...I will observe the present moment. What is around me? What do I see? What am I feeling? What do I smell? What can I touch? These will all lead me to the present moment. Day Twenty One - I will find the silver lining

“Stay Gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.” Gold is the hardest hue to hold in nature and while JohnnyBoy said it right in “The Outsiders,” he meant it. There is ALWAYS a positive, no matter what situation you find yourself in. Look for the silver lining in everything and I promise it will lead to beauty unknown.  I find myself noticing the helpers, and having a new found gratitude for humanity.  I see myself helping others, and I am grateful for the capacity to help.  I see myself taking care of my needs and the needs of those I care about.  I see my community working together, and finding our way to the other side of this complicated time.  I enjoy my downtime.  I find a new stillness, a new quiet place, and I learn more about myself than I ever dreamt I could.

Affirmation: Today I choose to look for beauty.

www.metaritual.com IG: @metaritual FB: www.facebook.com/metaritual

[loyolahcmass]

Homily on Buy My Own Drinks by Runaway June

Here is the preview of Fr. Rossi’s homily on the song Buy My Own Drinks by Runaway June:

“Buy My Own Drinks” Hopkins Mass Homily 9/15 “Well since we been done I've been trying to un-fall apart.” There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Runaway June or their hit song, “Buy My Own Drinks.” Runaway June is an American country music group consisting of 3 women. They were nominated for Best New Country Vocal Group just last year. __________ "Buy My Own Drinks" is an up-tempo, good-natured "female anthem." It’s about a woman who goes out for drinks following the end of a relationship and celebrates how she doesn't need a guy to have a good time. "Buy My Own Drinks," touts independence and a solo night out on the town as an antidote to a breakup. “And I've been thinking that some neon lights Would be a real good start Well I called a couple friends But they all say they're staying in So I guess I'm going out on my own I might be heart broke But that don't mean that I'm gonna stay home.” __________ But that’s only its superficial meaning. I think the subtext goes a lot deeper than that. It’s actually a song about staying strong after a breakup. __________ There’s a really good reason it’s an anthem to girl power. Four women, including the three members of Runaway June, had a hand in writing the song. It became the group's first chart single on the Billboard Hot 100, I think, because it reflects many people’s real-life experiences. __________ "I want to make sure that little girls right now have people to look up to in tough times," one member of the group says. Another agrees: “We’re busting down the door for other women to come through. “If that’s the purpose of this band, I’ll take it.” __________ “I found myself a dive The type he would never walk in Then a guy at the bar sees an empty drink in my hand I said sweet of you to ask if you could fill my glass But I'm gonna have to pass this time Me and myself, well we're doing just fine.” __________ Now, I really like the fact that the woman in the song is her own person. She’s now single again. She doesn’t have anybody special in her life. But she not going to let that stop her from being herself: from living her life and being her own person. __________ “I can walk my own self to the front door I can take my own self to bed I can medicate my own headache Yeah, I can be my own boyfriend.” The group’s favorite line, written by one of its members, is in this section. It’s the final one: "I can be my own boyfriend." “The crowd goes crazy every time we sing that line in concert. “That's a fun little moment.” __________ In some ways, this is all for the good. Even if we are in an intense relationship, we can’t let the other person do all the living for us. We got to bring something to the connection, whether we’re the girl or guy. It’s the unique contribution that only we can make to a truly reciprocal couple. If the relationship is going to be beneficial, healthy, caring, and mature, we got to bring those attributes to it, and so does our partner. __________ Now the concept of being your own boyfriend or girlfriend is fun—and funny—at least in a song, and in the abstract. But this doesn’t always work out so well, especially in an actual split-up. In fact, sometimes it can be devastating psychologically, socially, and spiritually. Sometimes, we can fall apart. __________ In my years at Loyola I’ve talked to a lot of students. I’ve heard a lot about relationships, some fairly long-term, that didn’t work out. Often, the breakups created pain and trauma, at least for one of the people involved. This is true especially when one person becomes almost totally dependent on the other—even to the point of becoming completely isolated from their other friends both male and female. __________ Likewise, in our relationship with Jesus Christ, we have to bring something to the table. He has saved us, but we’ve got to want to be saved. And we must create space for him in our lives. We also need to make room for others; after all, there’s no such thing as a completely insulated Christian life. Concern for others is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. __________ St. Ignatius says that God is constantly trying to communicate with us, and this is all for the good. But that also implies that we are trying to listen to what he has to say. We need to keep the lines of communication open at all times. __________ We’ve got to love God and respect him in the bargain. That means we must be completely honest with Him. We must be faithful in the good times and the bad. __________ When our relations with Him are like that, he’ll help us build truly loving relationships with others. Relationships that have as their hallmark a key virtue Christ talked about all the time: mercy. If you include that virtue in your interactions with others, you might not have to “dance all by yourself” or be your own lover!

[bigenderbefriender]

On Ethos:

So here’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot: there’s actually not a whole lot of difference between respectability politics and identity politics. Namely, they both assign value to arguments based on the person giving the argument rather than the quality of the argument itself.

Which, I know, is a big step to take, but hear me out:

Respectability politics is predicated on the idea that people who are /successful/ must inherently know more. That is to say, people who are educated, who can adapt to changing norms, and who can talk eloquently are inherently the best sources of information. Under this system, the inverse is also true: those who are uneducated, those who fail to meet norms, and those who do not speak eloquently are bad sources of information.

This makes sense to some degree; you’d naturally expect a person with an advanced degree in a topic to have a more sound opinion in that topic than some random person on the street. The problem here is that someone’s respectability (as I loosely defined it above) and their knowledge of a topic are correlated, but NOT causatively related (especially when it comes to the social norms aspect).

If, for instance, we were to consider the topic of poverty in the United States, it would be easy to look to published economists and study what they have to say in order to form our opinions. However, this strategy is flawed in that there is a prominent survivorship bias as to /who/ gets published. College is behind a huge paywall, and grad school even higher. That means that the people who can publish books on economics must have had—at some point—the money to go to college. Whether this is because they came from a wealthy family or because they had the social capital to make their way through or for any number of reasons, they have had that money. This naturally excludes people who do not have the time or energy to work to earn that much money on top of money to live on. Then we can look at the differing opinions between these two groups: people who come from wealthy backgrounds or who believe that they were just good enough to put themselves through college no problem (by relying on their social capital) have a vested interest in publishing information that protects their privilege and the systems that keep them at their current status. That is, the wealthy have a vested interest in selling poverty-as-moral-failing because this ideology keeps them afloat. Ideas that disagree are necessarily a minority because they cannot be developed in the conditions that American poverty actually enforces.

Similarly, let us look at the basis of identity politics and an example of its failing. Identity politics is predicated on a simple concept: “I am a member of a group that is oppressed in x way, and therefore I am familiar with that type of oppression.” It’s simple, it’s innocuous, but it’s a powerful statement. In particular, the ideology demands the inverse be true as well: those who are not members of an oppressed group do not have familiarity with that brand of oppression. Another aspect of identity politics is the idea of intersectionality: that there are multiple axes of oppression that do not superimpose but magnify each other.

From these ideas, a basic formation can be created, wherein members of the majority with respect to a particular issue are expected to sit back and accept the discussion of a minority group about that type of oppression. Again, this makes sense: you don’t expect your typical white person to understand the intricacies of racism, so they should generally sit back and let others talk about it, right?

There are a couple of problems with this. First, it requires that any interaction be understood in the context of a majority/minority axis, wherein one person has systemic power over the other. However, this is actually rarely the case; if, for instance, an indigenous woman and a black man are talking about racism in the United States, neither of them actually has any structural power over the other. One may be individually biased against the other, but that actually doesn’t matter on any grand scale because neither of them can use a position of authority to discriminate against the other. Are we, then, to consider these two part of the same group? Well, yes, according to identity politics. They are both poc, so they must be the same. Never mind that the stereotypes and oppression of black people and natives are rooted in completely different ideologies; anti black racism is rooted in the idea that black people need to be motivated, by poverty, by violence, by whatever means possible to work for white people. That is, anti black racism is based on the idea that black people should be slaves. Anti-indigenous racism is based on the idea that natives are savage, uncivilized, a people of the past. Anti-indigenous racism is predicated on the idea that natives should not exist. Neither of these people has structural power over the other, nor are they part of the same group, so idpol is useless in analyzing their interactions.

The same goes for people from wholly different axes of oppression. The classic example is that of a white woman and a black man. Which has moral authority to criticize the other? Well, neither, not on the base of minority status alone. But idpol demands that this question have an answer, and that will change a lot depending on who you ask (and what minority group they identify with most strongly).

The second problem with idpol is that it creates a strong in-group/out-group dynamic. Those who are members of a minority group have their voices elevated, their opinions discussed. Those who are not are shut down, told to be better allies and to stay out of the way. The natural result is the creation of identities that appear to be minority groups because they fall outside of what is truly the majority for the express purpose of joining the in-group. The most prominent example is within the lgtbq+ community: there are several identities out there that serve as ways for straight people to validate their opinions (heteroflexible and sapiosexual are two that come to mind). The perception that this is happening on a large scale (regardless of whether it is, and in fact despite the fact that it isn’t) results in gatekeepers, be they terfs who think that trans women pose a genuine threat to feminism and women, or be they regs who think that asexuality is just another way to sneak into a community that isn’t theirs. The toxicity that results is its own condemnation.

This in-group dynamic also reinforces unhealthy beliefs within minority communities. @betterbemeta has already discussed the masochistic epistemology discussed by Natalie Wynn, and I won’t attempt to recreate that discussion. I will add to it, though, with another example: that of the mogai subgroup of the lgbtq+ community. Within this group, any identity is a valid minority identity (if you’ll notice, the opposite reaction of terfs and regs). This, of course, leads to “identities” that are actually the result of trauma being promoted as healthy forms of human sexuality (the example that comes to mind is thinking sexual thoughts but becoming repulsed whenever any action is taken to fulfill them; it’s an older example of course, but I’m sure some of you will remember it).  The core belief here is that if any identity can be justified as being sufficiently painful—interchangeable in this context with being sufficiently oppressed—it must be valid and therefore included in the community.

Finally, this disregards the role that interaction and study can have in creating robust opinions.  An example I saw (albeit many years ago now) is that a gay 13 yo knows more about being gay than a 40 yo straight queer studies professor.  Which, to some degree can be true: even proximity to the community doesn’t really teach you what it means to be in it.  However, there is something to be said for experience.  I’d argue that through her work during the AIDS crisis, Debbie Reynolds learned and knew much more about the lgbtq+ community and its history than most members of the community today know.  Not because she was just inherently smarter, but because that work pays off.  Likewise, the experience of a gay man living in Los Angeles is very different from the experience of a gay man living in Oklahoma City.  That doesn’t make either opinion better, or worse; even if they contradict, there’s no point in trying to assign value to their opinions based on who’s had the “more oppressed” experience.

So at this point I’m sure you’re wondering what the point is: what’s the alternative? After all, idpol is extremely popular, and for good reason: it’s a powerful tool for understanding the distribution of knowledge within a larger society. But both it and respectability lolitics are victims of the method of thinking that I’d call ethos politics: the politics formed by assessing a people’s opinions based on some identifiable aspect of their being.

My suggestion would be a dual system that mixes the best aspects of pathos and logos. At the core of every logical argument is a set of assumptions (axioms if we’re thinking mathematically, just assumptions otherwise). These assumptions can only be justified by pathos; no logical argument can support, for instance, my beliefs that every human has inalienable rights and that it is the government’s responsibility to protect those rights. I can only argue from a pathos perspective: if either of those conditions is unmet, people will suffer unnecessarily. From those, a number of logical derivatives can be established and argued.

[braindumpsterfires]

“Like cubic zirconia, I only look real. I'm an imposter. The fact is, I am not like other people.” ― Augusten Burroughs, Dry

     I got pretty good at faking it, I guess.  There was a time when “are you okay?” was a pretty often question I’d hear from the few people I had in my life.  I’d zoned off again, disassociating.  Maybe somebody glanced my way weird and it seemed they could be judging me.  There goes my mood.  The only thing I can do is look away and stay quiet, legs shaking, goosebumps all over... Nausea so bad I can’t help but gag from time to time... Sometimes I’d answer the question, often to be dismissed as “just being sensitive” or “nervous” and just to “forget about it” and “focus on something else.”  They didn’t get it.  Not to get into the gross details, but my bowels have been greatly effected by my illness, and I had thought it was “just nerves”.  It had happened as long as I can remember.  I was an “anti-social” kid.  When I was real young if you’d talk to me and you weren’t somebody I’d see on a regular basis, I’d lose my shit.  Not like literally... But, I couldn’t handle strangers.  I’d start to freak out and cry and shut down.  I wouldn’t communicate with them.  I didn’t know what anxiety was then.       

     Mentally ill meant crazy... I wasn’t crazy, and I knew that then. To me that’d mean I would hear distinct voices or do weird twitches or hoard or something like on TV.  Like One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.   Because my thoughts didn’t match up with what I felt mental illness meant, I had accepted I was just “sensitive”, “shy”, “quiet”, “weird”, “moody”, “dramatic”, “obsessive”, “manic”, “hard to love”, “exhausting”, as I was told time and time again.  Left undiagnosed, it only got worse and worse.  Life didn’t know it had to be a little gentler with me.  That I was sick.  The adults in my life pushed me harder when they needed to sit me down and talk with me and just try to understand that my brain is different. They couldn’t see my brain was sick and needed help.

    I’d grab hold of anyone who would give me the time of day and wouldn’t let go unless they rejected me.  I thought love meant somebody who could tolerate being around me and say what I needed to hear at the time to soothe the fucking demon that is my illness.  I got into relationships with people I should’ve kept as friends.  I misinterpreted connections and charmed my way into the situations I thought I needed... to feel something.  Something to fill the void of emptiness I had felt for so long. If it meant me having to do all the work in the relationship, I did it.  That’s why my name is still on a house that I will receive no equity in when sold, despite the fact I paid the mortgage for a long time.  Hell, go back even further... I was married at 19.  I’ve often considered having a child with partners in the past with a direct goal in my head that that meant they wouldn’t leave me ever.  That’s an unhealthy way to think.  But it isn’t my fault...  All I can say is, I’m sure glad somehow nature was kind to my broken-brained self and kept me fairly safe.  I have credit card debt.  But I don’t have any STDs or diseases, I don’t have any kids... The divorce actually was finalized (forced by a partner at the time, but it was the push I needed to get it done, so whatever.)  

        It’s not easy to sit here today and accept the fact that all the people I’ve had hate in my heart for for so long just didn’t know how to deal with me.  I can’t blame them completely, though I’ve pushed a large portion of my insecurities on them and their actions in my life specifically.  They say a lot of recovery begins with forgiving people. Forgiveness is a concept I haven’t explored much, not when dismissing my feelings as not real is far less anxiety-inducing. I mean sure, some who have meandered in and out of my life deserve to stay gone, because their actions, while overlooked at the time, can now be looked back on as unforgivable.  In no way blaming myself, the thought does occur to me that perhaps my chemical imbalances are the spark of many of the traumas I’ve experienced.  I don’t give those people that much power, honestly.  It isn’t “all their fault.” What I am saying is if I caught this thing before it ran my life for this long, things would be way different. My life has been quite the cocktail of undiagnosed, ignored, dismissed mental illness and life events that would devastate a person who would be considered, generally, mentally healthy...  It’s no wonder everyone is in awe of how much shit I’ve experienced in 25 years.  I’ve lived through things many people probably never even will experience, and 90% of it was set into motion by my mental illness.  It strapped me to a bad situation and wouldn’t let me leave until I couldn’t handle it any longer.  Cutting the ties had to be very abrupt and as impersonal as possible, (cant handle somebody being mad at me...)  Getting out meant sending a text or even an email, then throwing my phone across the room, ignoring the world for as long as possible.  I know breaking up that way is the asshole way to do it. But I literally couldn’t handle that kind of pressure with another person.

Weed wasn’t a thing then, I was too afraid because I had been raised to associate weed with prescription pain pills... They were evil, and had made it so my childhood was never stable and I lived in a car for a minute and never had my own room and spent 7 years sleeping on an area rug on a living room floor.  And no one paid attention, so I stayed unhealthy mentally.  And it got worse.  And worse.

  As I think so deeply about it, things make more and more sense.  These deep inner thoughts about MYSELF seemed so foreign before.  Maybe I could imagine it for a flicker of a second, but then the lack of self worth would come into play and I’d obsess over how poorly I did something or how those in my life didn’t truly love me and that I felt so empty and bored and just wanted to feel...something.  Faking love is fucked up.  It’s fucked up to have done it a lot throughout your life.  I’m done with that shit...

   I believe the mental illness itself has been passed to me from my mother.  My dad was mentally healthy, aside from abusing alcohol for a time (which he sought AA for because of me and recovered from and remained sober from when I could walk, on.)  My mother abused sleeping pills at the end.  She killed herself accidentally... She just wanted peace from the disorder that she never was allowed to understand.  But I can see it now.  I won’t let myself not get help for this.  I want a life worth living, damnit.  For once in my life I fucking feel like I deserve that.  And that’s a really, really new and cool thing for me.

        I don’t feel empty today.  I’ve had fun and have been pinpointing things I enjoy that make me, well...me.  It started out with spending a good portion of my day with W, and that friendship is going along real well.  It’s cool being able to share my sudden self discovery with somebody like I was able to last night and today.  I’m totally ready to develop more healthy friendships.  For the first time I want to put myself into social situations on purpose.  I want to interact with likeminded people and have fun.  That sounds so obvious as I reread it to myself... But before this breakthrough I really couldn’t enjoy that (masks are great coping mechanisms, fooled ya.)

      And if love finds me eventually, that’s cool.  I do hope it does.  But for now, I’m just going to keep being me, especially now that I have stuff I genuinely want to experience and do now.  I see how I’ve forced things I didn’t even want in the past, just to have someone, and I won’t do that shit again.  I hope certain people stick around, but I’m not bending over backwards for people who don’t deserve it anymore.  

    I suddenly want to start creating things again... building models, reading, photography... I’ve wanted to look into going back to school, but always dismissed the thought because the impulsive decisions I’ve made in my life never allowed me to do things for me.  Or, rather, I could have... If I had the self confidence and love for myself to want things for myself enough to push on.  Instead I’d do what I needed to do to keep my partner and my routine, even if it meant exhausting myself and forgetting what “relaxing” even felt like.  I could lay around all I wanted, but my brain wasn’t like a dog.  It wouldn’t sit or stay or anything else.  It did what it always did... Negative thoughts, obsess...obsess...obsess....

     When I’ve slept for 13 hours straight or spent a day doing absolutely nothing, I’m not being lazy.  My body isn’t tired.  My soul is.  But my levels must be okay because I like doing things again today.  The depression is gone, (for now.  I don’t expect to be happy forever, that isn’t realistic, nor should it be.) It’s very brief departure made me go and get medicated that day in 2015 saved my life, I think.  For a moment I cared about myself and wanted to try.  Something then must’ve given me hope.  What I had accepted before as character flaws that I was stuck with were really mental issues that I now see and understand and accept, and, better yet, now can manage properly.  The next step is getting diagnosed by a specialist (a second opinion), and perhaps talk to a therapist, (at least until my thoughts are sorted.)  

    I guess I’ll allow myself to research this a bit more before I go do something else.  Or maybe sleep... It is 12:17 AM and, while without anxiety and actually happy, I’m exhausted from how much deep soul-searching I’ve done the last 24 hours.  For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m excited about life.  The thought of “I don’t want to die, I just don’t want to exist anymore” seems kinda insane to me right now.  There’s so much out there I haven’t seen or experienced yet.  Like so fucking much.  And well, I’m kinda cool.  I’m starting to like myself today.  I won’t say love... We’re just seeing how things go.  Baby steps.  One day at a time...

-AEL

[higgsboshark]

This lines up so perfectly with my experience and other conversations I’ve seen in the neurodiverse community. I’ve been thinking about it all day.

It also brings up a new (to me, I’m sure I’m not the first) lens through which to consider rejection sensitive dysphoria. Rather than “My ADHD/autism/other neurodivergence makes me overreact to rejection,” let’s try this on for size:

“Among my peers, rejection or acceptance happens seemingly at random for reasons I don’t understand” > long-term social trauma and disordered attachment > “To protect myself from more pain, I assume that any interaction whose emotional content I’m unsure of is rejection” > perceived rejection re-traumatises me and activates disordered attachment strategies. That’s not an oversized emotional reaction, it’s a very normal and understandable trauma response.

Along with that, greater intimacy can lead to greater pain from rejection, which then makes me think about ND masking.

For those not familiar with the term, ‘masking’ refers to strategies used (consciously and unconsciously) by neurodivergent people to pass as neurotypical. When masking, we create a second-self that is more “acceptable” and malleable to the social environment. The mask lowers our chances of rejection AND softens the emotional impact when it does happen by preventing intimacy. However, it also blocks us off from the healing effects of healthy attachment, because those who love us don’t truly know us. Their love is directed at the mask rather than our real selves.

I, for one, knew this about my relationships LONG before I understood why it was happening, and it ate away my ability to believe that my true self was lovable. The only stable source of acceptance and affection in my life was the mask. And yet, by alienating me from my actual needs, masking was also hurting me.

WHICH (told you I’d been on this all day!) makes me think about how the option to unmask in an affirming environment is absolutely critical to ND trauma recovery. In order to heal, we need to be able to be ourselves safely. We need ND community, and we need ND therapists.

Dang it, I really gotta get working on that plan to go to grad school.

The thing about the mortifying ordeal of being known is that humans have an incredibly deep need to be known, which is actually, generally, a pleasant experience.

"They never really saw me." "He never heard what I was saying." "I guess she never really knew me." These are phrases we use to describe encounters, relationships, that are deeply flawed in some fundamental way.

We need to be known. Surviving childhood, for our species, requires years and years of adults understanding our basic needs and meeting them every single day. So our brains incentivize connectedness; they generally reward us for successful attempts to communicate and connect with people. For most people, being known, understood, accepted, and cared about (being loved) is among the most pleasurable experiences they have ever known.

I've spent years now turning over this concept in my head, what I call the "Little Match Girl phenomenon". I haven't Officially Studied it, but I can describe it from personal experience and what I've heard from people who have it:

It's when people social anxiety see people being happy, warm, affectionate, and friendly, and we deeply yearn to reach out and connect with them—but they simultaneously feel frozen, unable to reach out, in emotional pain, not knowing how to break that stasis. The name is from a Hans Christian Andersen story, about a beggar girl who freezes to death in the snow while imagining a warm room full of food and kind people.

What recently made things click for me was reading Alexandra Stein's book Terror Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems. I'm neither going to sum up her book not Attachment Theory in this post, but jump over those to the bits that were new to me: Stein, a social psychologist, points out that 1) Attachment styles can be malleable, and most especially, secure attachment early in life can be rewritten into disorganized attachment in a sufficiently chaotic and engulfing relationship, especially if ties to all other attachment relationships are cut; and 2) You can have a relationship attachment to a group and not just individuals.

Here's what signifies a disorganized relationship: When the source of love and acceptance is also the source of pain and fear. When these two responses are so unpredictable in when and why they occur that the person can't formulate any coherent strategy to self-soothe or use the relationship to help them feel okay—so in extreme situations, the only possible response is to freeze up and dissociate, mentally removing themselves from this state of fright without solution.

Mine is not the only valid experience or background here, but I think there are some people I'm pretty similar to when I say: think this encapsulates a lot of my relationship to my entire peer group for most of my childhood. I could never predict or control whether I was accepted or rejected; I had no idea how to be likeable or when my friendships would end. I could cobble together some basic strategies sometimes—be a people pleaser in this situation, ignore everyone and read a book in another—but they were pretty rigid and limited. People saying "Just be yourself and they'll like you" was bewildering (who is "myself"??) and demonstrably false.

So basically, I hypothesize that for some of us there's been so much pain around the mortifying ordeal of being known, because the experience of being overlooked or misperceived has been so painful, that we have fundamentally shifted to view socialization in general through the lens of a disorganized attachment.

(For the audience at home: That's trauma, folks)

This thought helps me because attachment styles are, at their bases, strategies; they're a series of behaviours that achieve a preferred result, that then turn into habits, that then solidify into personality traits. This means they can be deconstructed and re-organized along more useful lines.

Because something has already gone wrong if the thought of being known is so mortifying that you would rather give up love than risk it.

And maybe it's just me, but "learn new strategies to make social situations less unpredictable and scary" is a lot less daunting than "figure out who I Really Am, and conveniently make sure my True Self is someone people would like."