#Learning to Cope

[oak1985]

Whole Foods’ psyllium husk—a product used primarily for gluten free baking—has a note saying it may contain wheat. Of course I didn’t read this until after I’d opened the bag. Because WHYYYYYYYYY???? wtf wtf wtf

And the xanthum gum has a gluten free stamp but is processed in a facility that processes wheat.

People with allergies and intolerances, I am so sorry. I really never understand even a little bit of how hard it is to stay safe.

[cavalierious-whim]

She Hit Me With Words, Not Punches, But I Punched Back

CW: Content Warning: Mentions of alcoholism, health, and death

This can also be found posted on my blog, here.

I was born to a brilliant woman who found the end of her life in a bottle, and a family who did nothing to stop it.

She was an artist from the womb, I’m pretty sure. My grandmother would tell stories about her drawing pictures in her food which I know are nonsense, but enjoyed nonetheless. My mother was a creator, an artist with both her hands and mind, be it fingers curled around paint-stained brushes, or on the keyboard of a personal computer, laptop, phone—the devices changed over the decades, but the words always flowed.

My mother never became the artist that she wanted, she had children instead, conditioned by purity culture that this is what Good Wives(™) are to do. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want kids—she did—but she didn’t expect a child the first year of her marriage, or to find herself having to pick between Homemaker and Artmaker quite so immediately. 

The choice in the end is obvious. Instead of painting canvases and word documents with her thoughts, she collected them for others in a frame shop instead, working until her fingers were cracked and bleeding, living vicariously through those who did find the will to pen their dreams.

I was born seven years after my brother, and she was tired of many things. I didn’t know this, of course, not until she passed when I found an old half-empty journal that she started and lost the will to keep. It was a neat glimpse into her head and only confirmed the many things that I already knew about her.

(One of my Mother's paintings, circa earliy 1980's.)

By this time, the arthritis set in and she no longer painted pictures, but stories instead. She wrote—she always did, one of those pioneer women in the gilded Star Trek age that paved the way for fandom as we know it. But she had The Book, a testament to this grand story that she wanted to share which tackled God, the secrets of the universe, woven together in an epic fantasy.

She never finished The Book. 

I’ve only seen bits and pieces over the years, short blurbs and hastily scribbled notes. I couldn’t tell you the plot, only very specific things that she used to share with me. It was a fantasy, an allegory for the complexity of God, and how he mingles (or doesn’t) with those whom he created. 

There is an irony to her religiosity; she did not fear God, but rather met him face-to-face, demanding answers to the universe. Science-led and read, she’d often wonder why God made ‘such terrible decisions’ but still maintained that faith until she died. 

My sister came three years after me, and then one more, unexpected, when my mother was forty-two, and now we were a brood of four that constantly reminded her of her failures.

My mother used to tell me that she both wanted and did not want children. She wanted to have her tubes tied after me but in Standard American Faire she was immediately denied because as women we are expected to be broodmares. It’s a strange thought. I love my sisters but I wonder what would be different if my mother hadn’t been denied because having four children in total is what caused that deep, deep spiral toward the bottom, not the top.

It is strangely easy to overlook a problem if you are not looking for it. It is stranger yet, to know there is a problem, yet feel normal about doing nothing to mitigate it. 

When I was young, I never questioned the slurred words, or the bad driving and car accidents, or the agitated behavior slung in our direction. It was normal to be two hours late to things, or for my mother to forget to pick us up from school functions. 

I was sixteen when reality slapped me. It was before school. I was sitting in our Ford Excursion and my mother placed her coffee in the holder and said, “Wait I forgot something”. Not unusual. What was unusual was that her coffee wasn’t coffee, but whiskey. I’d taken a sip only to be rudely awakened by fire burning down my throat. 

And yet, I didn’t ask. I didn’t push. I said nothing even though it was not yet eight in the morning, and my mother already had a sideways gait about her.

My father tried. He worked hard and traveled a lot, and suddenly, that hallowed-out and sad expression he’d have at home made a lot more sense. Our family knew and no one spoke. I didn’t either, even though it got worse. 

She would hit me with words, not fists, but I always punched back, conditioned to defend myself even though I was often a problem. I was a good kid, but not great. I had many faults, and both my best and worst qualities come straight from my mother. 

Creativity and passionate drive; an argumentative nature. A desire to explore and study; the need to prove myself right. 

I was a senior in highschool when my oldest younger sister was a freshman. We called our mother to pick us up after an event and she said she’d be there, only to pass out in her armchair in a booze-induced haze instead. Our teacher stood there with us and waited. She knew us and knew our mother well, and was not surprised. She waited for two hours before she filed us into her car and drove us to our house. 

That night, I was given this teacher’s self phone number, and yet—

Nothing was said. 

Now, I love my mother. Deeply. I have never hated her, but anger and bitterness still bleed through my veins, and likely always will. My mother was good and bad to us, but the good days are the ones that I cling to because they are just that bright. Years of anime conventions and cosplay, of paying for my weird hobbies, of talking shop about writing and books, of binging tv shows and laughing hard enough that my father would come out of the bedroom to give us The Look.

Friends would think the stories exaggerated—even my best friend, until she saw my mother one night scream that I was ‘selfish and inhuman’. After that, sleepovers were at her house, and she had no trouble finding excuses to have daytrips hours away, at her expense of gas.  

Even my husband—when we were still fresh-faced and dating, and we visited my family for the first Christmas after I moved out, I warned him. “My mother and I fight,” I had said, “and I don’t mean silly arguments, I mean with teeth bared.” He laughed it off until my mother and I duked it out over a breakfast casserole in the kitchen on Christmas morning, as the rest of the family sat near the fire in the next room.

My crime? Doing what she’d asked me to do but her drunk-addled brain didn’t remember the request, which made it my fault. And my husband sat there on the couch, wide-eyed and reconsidering a future with me as the rest of the family just ignored it, going on about their chatter with everyone else. 

The thing that we all had learned was there is no fixing an alcoholic. You can ask them to stop but you cannot make them, nor expect them to start that change, especially when addiction is a disease that rewires your entire being. And so, we all said nothing, we just went with the flow, and we all took those punches because we thought we couldn’t do anything else.

Those punches were blaming us kids for ruining her career, her life, whatever semblance of happiness she could have possibly had. These were the things she’d say to us. I’d roll my eyes and yell back because I knew that it was only one-part true, most-parts the booze, and I’d rather love my mother than hate her, even if I was constantly getting stuck on her thorns. And, of course, the good bits were good, you know?

My mother quit drinking after an emergent trip to the hospital when they drained two liters of fluid from her body and diagnosed her with acute liver failure. I didn’t live back home at the time, I was off with my husband and making a name for myself (I wish). 

She, astoundingly, quit cold turkey, and I’m fairly certain that she never had a drink again. For all the things she did wrong, she did right by doing her biweekly bloodwork at the labs, and she never clocked in with alcohol in her veins that I’m aware of. 

My mother did not go to AA—she found it depressing. She did go to her liver clinic meetings, and her blood work, and she learned to cope with a shopping addiction, candy, and of course— The Book. The years of her recovery were still embittered, a battle of wills, both her and the family as everyone tried to adjust to a cantankerous, sober woman.

We learned that her personality was just that—her personality. As it turns out, she was always the way she was, combative and snarky, prone to argumentation. This is both warm in remembrance, but hot with annoyance. It’s harder to excuse this sort of behavior when there is nothing to blame.

She was sick, fevers and chills, other bodily issues that aren’t worth mentioning. “It’s just part of it,” she’d say, and it’d make sense because she was down a liver, and staring at the end of a transplant list because her rare blood type was fucking her in the end. 

My mother did not die of COVID, she went into septic shock after a preventable infection spread. My sister found her on the floor of their home, unresponsive. My father told me I didn’t need to come down because he is, in the best and worst way, an eternal optimist. My mother was moved to hospice that night and died while I was in the air, flying down at the last minute. 

He will always blame himself for not getting me there sooner. My brother was the one who called me on my layover in Colorado, and I remember sitting in the Denver airport crying the ugliest tears I’ve ever had while I listened to him say, “I’m glad you weren’t here. Of all the people in this family, you were the one who shouldn’t have been.”

And he’s right; my mother beat on everyone, but I was the largest target because looking at me was like looking into the mirror. I was good at my craft, I was a successful cosplayer, I had no children and a loving partner; I had the sort of happiness my mother strove for and never quite got. Even before all that, when I was a teenager, her bitterness was shaped by the fact that we were just too damn alike, and that’s where my anger came from too. Arguing with my mother was always like arguing with myself, and even now, I fear every day that I will become her.

If I’d been there in that room I’d have only yelled at her, terrible, nasty things that I never got to get off my chest, and she wouldn’t have been able to even speak for them. So yes, it’s a good thing I wasn’t there. My father doesn’t know this, but making me wait was a blessing. 

There was a nice lady at that airport who hugged me and bought me dinner, and we didn’t even exchange names which she didn’t question. She sat in that airport and held my hand, and on my flight too, because we were on the same leg, it seemed. 

It took a month to get things sorted out—just the basic things like cremation and stuff. With COVID in full swing, dealing with death was an absolute nightmare. 

My mother was a hoarder—the clean type, everything in plastic boxes, tucked away into spare bedrooms. I looked at grief in the face with anger, becoming very agitated. My brother was quiet; my sisters just cried. My father decided to go through all of my mother’s shit and toss most of it because he’s always been an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of man. 

This was the worst thing, going through it all. Forty years of random crap piled together. Boxes of papers, bills, old presents, things we’d thought gone missing. One box where the ashes of our family dogs had been tossed into and forgotten about. Another box full of dirty dishes because my mother was too tired to do them and told herself she would later. 

Hospital notices and letters from the liver clinic begging for her to come in—which we didn’t know. You see, my mother told us that they weren’t taking appointments, that they’d paused everything during the Pandemic. Instead, she’d willfully ignored them. She did her blood work but nothing else. 

Discharge notices saying to immediately go in if she spiked a fever. I sat there with these papers and thought back to the last few years, every utterance from her mouth that Fevers were just part of it. Prescription bottles filled but never taken, other medications she’d chosen to forgo.

I do not know what my mother wanted in the last few years of her life but it became clear as day that she was exhausted. It wasn’t forgetfulness, she just began to approach life with the mindset that she’d be gone anyway, so why bother? This is why I was angry—why I’m still angry, while I will always be angry because I was robbed of the satisfaction of patching our holes because she chose to not live.

I have since calmed down. I think of my mother with mostly fond memories and when I think of the worse ones, I hold them close to my breast because they remind me of that which I do not want to be like.

It was never a question of whether or not she was proud of us, of me; she was too proud of us, hopelessly supportive in our endeavors. I think she saw her own missed opportunities in us and even though jealous, instilled the importance of doing what you’re passionate about.

She used to buy the fanzines that I was in. She loved that I wrote fanfiction, and it didn’t matter the media, or the ship, smut or not, monsterfucking—she read it all with glee. After she died, I drowned myself in writing because it was a reprieve that both connected me to her, but also distracted me from that pain.

Now, I find comfort as my fingers fly over the keyboard. There is peace when I finish a story, and fondness when I read through something to edit.

There is a box that we found when going through her things. At first, it was just piles of papers and binders, but as I dug through and sifted, it turned out to be The Book. Every note, ever half-written chapter, every good and bad idea that she never quite penned down. It was piled into this box and shoved into the computer room closet. 

She never finished The Book, but writing brought her a joy that she didn’t find anywhere else. It was just her and her thoughts, her words, sharing her dreams and passions in fancy words and phrases. She might have lacked joy in other places, but at least when writing, she found happiness that kept her moving forward. 

When I quit writing in my early twenties it was because I was burned out and unhappy with my work, pressured by an illusion that maybe this can be a job. It brought me no joy, I would just stare at the computer screen and feel empty inside, and I would try to argue with my mother about it. She’d just shake her head and said I’d get it one day, and it was a rare fight we would have that she would never give into. 

I couldn’t bring the box with me, but I did bring The Book home, a massive D-Ring Binder full of barely legible nonsense, a parody of a book that I still haven’t been able to make sense of. But, reading through her words, you can feel the solace she found when weaving together this story. 

I am now in my thirties and I’m angry that she was right, that one day I would understand. I am not unhappy; I love my life, my friends, my husband, but I have found a joy in spinning tales that I cannot find anywhere else. There is something to be said about writing romance, or old people in love, or the gratuitous smut that might make others blush; these are the things that I write for myself to make myself feel better. 

Because I get both my best and worst qualities from her, I am conditioned to be admittedly argumentative and annoying in my need to be correct. But, in the same vein, I’ve also learned to hit people with words, not fists as I’ve grown older, an invaluable lesson forged in the flames of an alcoholic mother and a love for writing. 

People are complex. Diseases are complex. Alcoholism is this sort of beast that you cannot fight back against. You can beat at it but you will not win, and even when you think you have, it still looms over your back with lurking presence. Even when sober, my mother struggled. When going through her things, we found bottle after bottle tucked away—never opened, still sealed, but there nonetheless.

I will always love my mother and be forever angry with her, and I still maintain that punching back through the years was the right thing to do. It instilled a stubbornness within me that fuels my every fiber. I burn with that same passion for the hobby that I love.

My mother did not love herself, and it was born from this societal pressure of being a good, godly wife, making babies, and submitting to your husband. We miffed because I subverted all of those tropes, and as I got older, the bitterness eased into supportive respect because if she couldn’t be happy, at least her kids could.

I often stare at The Book. It sits in a cardboard box underneath my desk, and when I look at it, I remind myself to do better. I feel the joy of her work and the effort put into it, despite likely knowing that none others would ever see. It is not easy to love myself but if there’s one thing her death has taught me, it’s that I should, unapologetically do so, whilst being self-indulgent in my wants and needs.T

Nowadays, the punches that I now pull are put into words, and I like to think that if my Mom were still here, she’d hold The Book and find pride in the fact I have the happiness that she never got.

[nonebinary-leftbeef]

DEVASTATING the lyric you've been mishearing is better than the real one

[buildingmycottage]

I don’t think I can relax

no matter how hard I try I always feel like someone is watching

it always feels like someone will pop out of a corner and tell me “hah! Gotcha!”

I’m always on alert

when I try to relax I feel the weight of the world crashing upon me

the walls of the house crumbling

the ground shaking

me in the middle, hoping one day, that at the slightest shake, I can repair it

[eggdrawsthings]

“Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit. 'Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake

[jenanigans1207]

What I wanted so badly was for Mary to learn about her boys from Cas. Like that night where Cas finds her when she can’t sleep and she expresses that she just doesn’t know anything about her sons since she missed so much?? All I wanted was for Cas to sit down with her at the table and just start telling her about them. Basic stuff at first: their favorite foods, their sleeping habits, the stuff he’s just observed by being their passenger for years.

And then I want him to say something totally Cas, like “Dean always wears more layers but that’s because his body naturally runs two degrees colder than Sam’s. But that’s normal for him and not indicative of any illness, so it’s nothing to worry about.”

And as they talk, it starts to get a little deeper, and Cas tells her more. He tells her about what she missed, about all the horrible things that happened to her sons and how they coped; how it changed them. And he tells her about Sam, he does, but really it ends up being all about Dean.

He’ll tell her about how Dean clenches his fists when he’s upset, even as he tries to keep his face impassive. About how Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel when he’s anxious. He’ll tell her about Dean’s nightmares, about the ways he’s chosen to cope. He’ll tell her how to know when to approach Dean and when to give him space, how to gently acknowledge what he’s feeling without pushing him too far.

And with every word he says, Mary’s curious head tilt from when she’d seen them hug in reunion turns into a bone deep type of certainty. Because Cas is telling her things that only someone who paid special attention would notice. He’s telling her things that only someone very, very close to her son’s heart would know.

Cas will tell her the cliff notes of what they’ve been through; will tell her how the whole world looked to Dean and he rose to the occasion over and over again. He’ll tell her about Dean’s doubts in himself and then vehemently declare them as wrong and explain, at length, why. He will tell her about the people Dean has loved— the people who loved him like he was their own— and lost. He will tell her about Bobby, Ellen, Jody, Donna, and Charlie. He’ll tell her about Claire, too, and how Dean stepped up.

And the whole time, Mary will have this realization that oh, she may not have been around to guide and protect her sons, but there was always someone there to care for them and support them when they needed it. She will realize that she and John may have left them, but they were never alone.

But more than that, there was someone there for Dean. Someone picking Dean over and over again while Dean picked Sam, or the world, over himself. There was someone fighting for Dean when he wasn’t fighting for himself. There was someone who saw Dean, and loved him unconditionally.

Sitting across from her, at the asscrack of dawn, filling her in on all the things she missed was every mother’s dream: someone who loved her child with the kind of devotion that would break the world. And from the sounds of the stories she was being told, it did break the world. Someone whose love is entirely untainted and comes without any strings attached.

It’s so clear to her as she listens to Cas talk that Cas loves Dean with no expectations. That loving Dean is something he just does, like he doesn’t know how not to love Dean, like the possibility of not loving him never occurred to Cas. He loves Dean in a way that Mary knows can and will soothe Dean’s sharp edges and battered heart. He loves Dean in the kind of pure way that tells Mary that it will continue to endure and overcome everything without ever diminishing, even the littlest amount.

Mary, through tears, will tell Cas how she always told Dean that there were angels watching over him. And before Cas can make some comment about Dean being the Righteous Man and the interest of most of Heaven, she will place a hand over his and give him a motherly look that will convey all the things she’s not sure how to say— and the things she’s not sure Cas is ready to hear yet. And Cas will flush and look away, mumbling about how her son is very special to him.

And when she pulls him into a hug and murmurs thank yous into his shoulder, she will be comforted in the knowledge that her sons turned out to be wonderful men, and that they managed to stay together through everything. She will be comforted to know that no matter what happens, no matter her shortcomings as she tries to fill a role she never meant to leave, Sam will have Dean and Dean will have Cas.

And this time, when Cas tells her that she belongs here, she will believe him. And she will tell him that he belongs here, too.

And when Dean wakes up a few hours later and wanders in to find Mary and Cas still chatting over the table, he’ll be surprised— but pleased— to find Mary looking more at ease. He’ll be pleased when she gives him a warm hug and pats him on the cheek and tell him with all the sincerity that only a mother can muster that she’s glad that he met Castiel. And when Dean agrees, a little confused, Mary will just smile at him.

“I always said I’d like a third son.” She says, “so give him a reason to take our last name, won’t you?”

And Dean will splutter and turn fifteen shades of red as he steadfastly doesn’t look at Cas but mumbles something that suggests he’s not against the idea at all.

And Mary will laugh again and wink at an equally red Cas before heading towards the kitchen like “Cas said waffles are your favorite, so I hope you’re hungry!”

[whoichoosetobe]

Learning to Paint.

When one thinks of life in black and white and is suddenly thrust into the colors with every shade blinding them, then they have a hard time understanding the color. When there is no artist to tell them the name of the color they are forced to make their own names, to name each shade, to differentiate what might not be needed. An author naturally sees the world in shades of grey, black and white. But when given a pallet and told paint, they know not what to do. Their hands shake, they search for the muse of words to give them the ability to paint. They search and search in vain. The look through all of the things they know, they look to their old muses, their words turning to ash upon their tongue because they were given a pallet not a pen. Their hands shake, their body folds, their chest aches for the embrace of the poem, for the safety of words, for the ease of speech. But for their own sake they must learn to paint. So they start at the beginning, they reflect upon the mother who broke the paintbrushes, the father who never told them the colors, the people who told them that black and white were the only colors in existence, the disease that made the world blind. Finding color is hard, and finding it alone is harder. But I am beginning to see the reds in my past, the blues and greens in my present. and the crimson I have caused. I take the brush in hand and march onward toward a canvas stained in blood and tears, some of it my own, but I must, for my own sake, learn to paint.

[spaceacekid]

I remember coming out as ace for the first time around 2017/2018 when "ace discourse" was really bad and my coming out post was so apologetic, I was saying stuff like "I know this doesn't technically make me LGBTQ" and "it's not really a big deal" and looking back I just...should not have had to apologise like that. Please don't apologise for who you are. You are queer. Very much so.

[hootgrowlhootgrowl]

completely obsessed with the fact that ed and fang missed the entire cursed suit plot bc they were out fishing the whole day

[moonchildjelly]

Sometimes I just listen in my mind echoes from things that people told me during years... I'm learning to deal with that echoes and learning that they aren't facts or even my own thoughts so I just have to fight them...

Sure is harder when I'm tired or having a meltdown or panic/anxiety attack but thankfully I can find help and in the end I don't hurt myself like I did in the past...

Sure I learn just last year that even that I wasn't cutting myself, scratch myself was basically conquering the same thing so yes I still have to learn to stop doing as a coping method... My friends always congratulate me when I don't do it

I learned a lot with group therapy that I head last year... I think Im dealing a lot better with stress and anxiety... But just time will tell...

I still leading with some problems that I have with my body because of some physical illness I have that are chronical...

Is still so hard to me to deal with the basic be myself when my trauma always comes up... I wanna so much be myself... I wanna stop to mask but sometimes I feel like the biggest issue in the moment are my parents and I can't do anything because I still live with them and I can't find a stupid job for at least I can pay my college and in the way stop to feel so much pressure from them...

I feel so suffocated in general... That's why I probably love so much books and video games... I love even do basic walks but even that sometimes I can't do and I don't know why... I live in the countryside and I just need at least to tell my parents were I'm going but they don't let me...

I'm learning to deal with my loneliness in a way that I'm starting to feel confortable by myself but I still feel so recharged with some "human interaction" even that my social anxiety is stronger since 2020

I'm learning that I'm not shy or antisocial... I just are myself and a lot of things that I never understood about myself are starting to feel right since I found that I'm also autistic besides adhd... And about adhd I learned that wasn't anything that black on white like I was told in kid (I was diagnosed with adhd with 7)

I fight a lot of battles in my life that I still don't believe how I still alive and my news battles still are hard and with no end in sight...

Basically I'm writing this for venting as for myself as future reference in my mental health journey

[lotus-pear]

yeah sure therapy is nice but teen soukoku is faster and a lot cheaper

[littlestarryagere]

How to tackle chores when regressed :

Ello!! I’m here bc sometimes I find it sooo hard to check off my to-dos bc my liddol(s) out ૮꒰ྀི⊃⸝ ⸝ ⸝⊂꒱ྀིა

Here are some ideas for folks tht may be struggling getting up &&doing the tingz !!

♡ Print off a sticker chart !! Ik for me having external motivation aka cute lil stickers showing how good I’ve been can rly rly help !!

♡ Bring along your stuffie/favorite toy !! They’re your fren & wanna help u do the thing !!

♡ Play age-appropriate music & dance & sing along while u work !! This can make the thing feel less daunting & more silly & fun !!

♡ Have a kid-appropriate movie/tv show on in the background !! Just be sure to not get too distracted, little one !! ଘ(੭˃ᴗ˂)੭

♡ Ask your cg for a reward if u complete all da tingz !! Rewards can be things like regression time w them that night, sweets, etc !! If u don’t have a cg, thts totally ok !! U can also do these things solo !! ദ്ദി ( ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ )

♡ Make urself a snack/meal first !! Ik for me sometimes the energy boost is definitely needed !! Some age-appropriate foods can be apple slices w peanut butter/caramel, mac n cheese, milk in a baba, etc !! Just stay healthy little ones !!

♡ This one’s may be harder for some, but try calling another liddol fren/someone who supports your regression if you’ve got any !! I’m lucky enough to have this option, it’s ok if u don’t !! But sometimes talking to somebody helps me get up & at’em !!

♡ Play a regression podcast !! This one’s good for those of us tht may not have a cg/regression buddies to talk to !! When I’ve been cg-less these have rly rly helped me !! ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა

Feel free to add more, & have fun bein a good little kiddo !!

~ Starry ⋆⭒˚.⋆

[evangelina830]

Habits

//warning for anxiety and a bit of blood (there is comfort)

[detentiontrack]

A lot of people think my autism is “getting better” but I think a lot of it has to do with being an adult and being able to make my own decisions. I used to have frequent meltdowns and shutdowns and on the outside seemed more “obviously” autistic. But I’m 19 now, so I have a lot more say in my life. I only buy one brand of socks. I only own 2 types of shoes. All of my clothes are the exact same. I only eat what *I* want to eat and think feels safe. I can drive and can choose when to leave for appointments and obligations. If I were still a child and forced to wear socks with seams in the toes or clothes that fit me wrong or foods that trigger my sensory issues or have my routine thrown off by other people, I would have A LOT more issues. But since I’m an adult, I have control over most aspects of my life. I’m not “less autistic” now, I just have more free will and know myself well enough to avoid triggers.

[fairycosmos]

sometimes interactions with other people are just a little awkward. it doesn't inherently mean anyone has done anything wrong

[usefulquotes7]