#and having suffered less about the romantic spectrum side of things made my reactions less intense?

[terresdebrume]

I keep going back and forth on the topic of where I fall on the allo/aro spectrum, partially because I kind of like. Don't wanna be aro (I'm already trans, queer and autistic with depressive tendencies, I don't need to add another thing to the list)

But another part of it is that even if I am capable of romantic love I probably just wouldn't know, because I already don't really know what platonic love feels like? And I'm not saying I can't love anything or anything like that it's just. Like many other emotions, I kind of have to retroingeneer it, sort of

I know I love my cats, not because I feel a surge of Something when I look at them, but because it makes me smile when they do something cute—my face knows what I'm feeling in those moments, I'm not sure I do. I know I love them because when Pouet died I cried every day for a month and I still cry sometimes, when I think about her. I know I love my cats because my brain keeps lighting up with fear signals when they're sleeping and I don't immediately see their chest move as they breathe.

I know what anxiety feels like, I know what anger feels like (when it explodes), I know what depression feels like because I dealt with them for so long I learned to recognize their physical symptoms! If these emotions didn't leave specific signals in my body then I'm not sure I'd know what they are.

And the thing is... I don't really like. Know what love or affection feels like, I think. Yes I can feel myself smile when I speak to certain people, but I also habitually smile at everybody because it makes things easier socially. I know I like people because if they ask me if I want to do an activity I either say yes or I have regrets about saying no.

My point is: I feel like I don't know my emotions so much as I know the buttons they push in my body, so to speak, but the problem about platonic/romantic love is that I can't imagine they make that different a shame, so who's to say which one it is?

It's funny, in a way, that I don't know something like that at my age. It's also really inconvenient, tbh. There's not really a reason for me to think about this rn except sometimes if I meet a cool dude whom I know is gay I wonder for a minute or two what a relationship with him would be like (which I'm going to assume is not that weird a thing to do) and the last time that happened led to, well. Ponderings about romance I guess

Anyway, the tl;Dr is that it took me decades to figure out the emotions I can recognize now, and I've largely approached social interactions with the inner spirit of a wet Chihuahua for most of that time, so how the fuck do I know if I can't identify those because I'm shit at self understanding or because I don't feel them???

Idk, it's complicated

(Tho honestly it would also be a little bit hilarious if after all this shit I landed on nah just aro. Not my preferred option right now but eh xD)

[hoodlessmads]

I’m Caught Up With Bloom Into You

Gosh, where do I even begin with this series?

I watched the first episode, and by the end, honestly, I thought it was going to be pretty dumb. Cute! But dumb. And I do love me some dumb cute precious romance.

But W O W that’s not what Yagakimi is. It successfully pulls of an excellent bait-and-switch on the reader/viewer not just once but twice--the first is at the end of the first episode (the part where I assumed it was going to be kind of cheesy and dumb), and the second around halfway through the anime series. The first one is basically the premise of the story, so it doesn’t really count as a bait-and-switch unless you go in blind like I did. But the second one takes all of the reader/viewer’s expectations up to that point and turns it on its head. And even beyond that scene, the entire series is chock full of moments that demolish your expectations for what direction the story is taking and who the characters are. Every single chapter I felt like I was being thrown for a loop, and learning something unexpected and new about the characters. Even up to the most recent damn chapter I feel like I have no idea what Nakatani-sensei is going to throw at us. And all of this is me making a point that this manga is DEEP.

I could talk at length about how gorgeous the anime is, how well-directed certain scenes are, how incredible the Japanese voice acting was (didn’t see the dub, but if anyone can carry Touko’s emotional range it’s the fabulous Luci Christian so I’m sure it’s decent), or how much I stan Michiru Ooshima. It was a great adaptation and I sincerely can’t wait for Season 2. But I’m not going to talk much about that. Instead I just need to talk about the story (the manga).

(spoilers up through Chapter 39)

You know what one of the many great things about Yagakimi is? In spite of the fact that it deals with same-gender relationships and queer issues, and while it does periodically address those issues, they’re actually not the primary focus of the characters or their struggles. From day one, Yuu is much less concerned about Touko being a girl than she is about her own inability to feel anything towards her (supposedly). And that’s not to say that those issues are ignored, like they are in some anime of this particular genre. The characters don’t live in a paradisiacal vacuum where being gay in Japan isn’t a problem and everyone around them is magically super accepting. Yuu’s sister is incredibly sweet and accepting (I love her), but her dad makes casual homophobic comments. Even after Touko initially confesses to Yuu, Yuu brushes it off as something she “probably doesn’t have to worry about” because they’re both girls, and it’s weird. Riko Hakazaki has to hide from her students, coworkers, and workplace, that she’s living with her girlfriend, because it could cause legitimate problems for her if they knew. During Sayaka’s first lesbian relationship, when she is still figuring herself out, her own girlfriend tells her that it’s “just a phase” and that she’s sorry that she “made her” that way. Even much later, when Yuu is conflicted about how she should confess her feelings to Touko, her sister Rei immediately assumes (understandably so) that she’s conflicted because of the whole gay thing. Rei starts worrying about how the family will react, if they will be accepting and supportive of her sister. Little does she know, being gay is the least of Yuu’s problems at that point.

But is being gay and the societal backlash that comes with it really that inconsequential to Yuu’s story? Yuu Koito struggles to develop romantic or sexual feelings for anyone. She exhibits clear signs of depression--intense apathy, emotional repression, struggles to find genuine joy in anything. A lot of people have posited even that she exhibits signs of sexual repression specifically. And this is one of the core conversations we can have about Yuu’s character. How much of her “inability to love” is because she is legitimately somewhere on the ace spectrum, perhaps demisexual (she develops feelings after getting to know someone, to put it simply)? And how much of it is her unconsciously repressing her own feelings (perhaps homosexual) for her entire life, resulting in a scenario where even she doesn’t know how to get them back? There isn’t a clear answer here. No one knows. Yuu doesn’t even know. And that’s the point!

The characters. Are so. Good. Yuu, Touko, and Sayaka are the obvious powerhouses here, all three of them multi-layered people that I can and will analyze at length. But Yagakimi doesn’t sleep on the minor characters either. Yuu and Touko don’t exist in a vacuum. From Yuu’s sister and her boyfriend to Maki, the juxtaposing aromantic and asexual friend and ally, to Yuu’s surprisingly likable best friends, to Hakozaki-sensei and her girlfriend Miyako, to even Dojima. Everyone matters. Everyone gets their own little storyline. I’m tempted to be reminded of Kimi ni Todoke and the brilliant way it handled its side characters here. Although Bloom Into You is much shorter than KnT, and therefore has a lot less time to develop those side characters and relationships, it still provides them with their own layers, their own problems, their own mini-spotlights. And it makes me care about every single one. Riko and Miyako’s cute ass and wholesome adult love story, Akari’s dumb doomed crush on basketball senpai, Koyomi’s dreams of becoming an author and her infatuation with a certain idol of hers, Maki’s experiences as a contented bystander. I adore and welcome it.

Let’s talk about Touko Nanami before this gets any longer than it needs to be. To be honest, I have a type when it comes to characters, and it’s the ones that are suicidal and hate themselves, probably because I relate to that stuff more than anything (though I also relate to Yuu’s apathetic brand of depression). This character. This character. One of the things I love most about her is how consistently the reader is lured into thinking they know her, and then consistently proven wrong. (I think we share this experience with Yuu.) It takes episodes, chapters, volumes to slowly chip away at the layers and layers of personality we’re given before we finally arrive at the truly heartbreaking core, which is a girl with a fractured identity and deep, deep self-loathing that defies all logic. And it’s because it defies all logic that it’s so scary. Because that kind of self-hatred doesn’t just go away. You can’t just fix it. It’s there to stay, and it’s not just your friendly neighborhood self-hatred--painful, but an otherwise harmless roommate. It’s actually dangerous, and it has the power to destroy Touko’s relationships with others and even destroy herself. (The scene in the anime where she stands in front of the railroad tracks and almost takes a step forward, thus nearly giving me a heart attack, comes to mind.) It defies logic, so there’s no logical way to beat it, either. And it’s not just the self-loathing that gets me and makes my heart hurt for her; it’s the loss of oneself, the lack of one’s identity as an individual. The loss of on’s own sense of self, especially at such a young and vulnerable age, is debilitating. Touko is really good at wearing that super serene smile, but when the chips are down, nothing is going to stand in the way of her and what essentially amounts to obliterating herself from existence. Not even Yuu. And then we come to her crippling fear of being loved by anyone, which is an aspect of self-hatred that probably doesn’t get enough acknowledgment. She hates herself to the point that the thought of someone loving her, which should make her happy, actually hurts. How fucked is that.

But I never gave Touko enough credit. To be honest, in chapter 34 when Yuu (finally) confesses, I was expecting her reaction to be really bad. Like, really bad. I was expecting a shitshow, a blowout of their relationship (temporarily of course). I was expecting basically what Yuu thinks that she got. And for that one page, I swear I felt my heart forcibly ripped from my chest. But then I read the next page and was surprised to see just how much she’s changed over the course of the series, how unexpectedly maturely she took the confession and examined her own feelings afterwards, how quickly (and once again, maturely) she deduced that she’d been making Yuu suffer. It makes me appreciate their relationship even more than I did before, and it makes me want to root for them. (Not that I wasn’t already.) The chapters just keep getting better and better from here on, I swear.

Sayaka deserves her own post, but the queen has her own novel series at least. Sayaka could SO EASILY have been that bitch. Nakatani could have created this rival love interest who treated Yuu like shit and was a possessive asshole and just stopped there. But instead, we got Sayaka, who ends up being one of the best and most well-developed characters. And in the many many times where I was calling Yuu and Touko “you dumb bitch,” Sayaka was there, the smartest and most honest of the three by far, which was refreshing. Her backstory is utterly heartbreaking, her love for Touko touching as hell, and her rise from the ashes, so to speak, is inspiring. Fuck that senpai. Sayaka isn’t even that mean to Yuu, on top of it all. I mean, she can be kind of snippy. And understandably so. But they actually end up surprisingly getting along? I am shook to my core. Sayaka’s growth is one of the greatest sights to behold in this series. Her friendship with Touko isn’t sidelined in favor of Touko’s relationship with Yuu--far from it. Sayaka provides her own unique support and sparks Touko’s development in a way that Yuu never could. Their friendship is crucial. By the time Sayaka FINALLY confesses, I was so god damn proud of her and her bravery, I swear I could have cried. While Yuu was busy being in practiced denial for 40 chapters, Sayaka was OUT THERE learning to be completely up front and honest with herself and others about her feelings. (Not to knock on Yuu, because she has her own arc to go through to get there.) That whole fucking scene where they’re both just sobbing about shit afterwards Got Me.

Ugh. It’s been an emotional few days. I’m really glad I decided to start watching that first episode, because this entire series has been a series of pleasant surprises. This is a good anime, ya’ll. It’s a good character study. It’s a good love story. It’s a good gay love story. It’s all of those things. You could literally talk forever about all the nuances of this story and characters and all the things that make it as good as it is. This long ass post just brushes the surface. For now, I’m anxiously (ANXIOUSLY) awaiting chapter 40. If you know, you know.

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

11 Things I Learned About Narcissists And Sociopaths By Age 27 – That I Wish Everyone Knew

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11 Things I Learned About Narcissists And Sociopaths By Age 27 – That I Wish Everyone Knew

Quote Catalog

“How can you be so young and know so much about narcissism and psychopathy?” I’ve been met with this question frequently as an author in my twenties who writes about psychological abuse and covert emotional predators. The answer is, on the surface, simple: the child of a narcissistic parent becomes primed to meet more predators in adulthood. We tend to have porous boundaries, a high degree of empathy, resilience and intuition that gets used against us by toxic people. So we often go through a lifetime’s worth of experiences early on that give us hard-won wisdom and insights about toxic people at every point on the spectrum.

I’ve met toxic people across various contexts – from romantic to platonic to professional. From the familial to the foe. From the garden-variety narcissist to the eerie psychopath or sociopath (colloquial terms for those with antisocial traits and a lack of conscience).

I took my findings from childhood and supplemented my real-life experiences with an educational background in psychology and sociology in adulthood. I spent years communicating with and surveying survivors of covert emotional abuse about their experiences.

As a result, I learned not only to identify predators, but to study them, to find ways to counter their manipulative tactics and help other survivors like myself detach and heal.

Here are eleven things I learned about sociopaths, narcissists and toxic people by the age of twenty-seven – that I think everyone should know:

1. There is a spectrum of toxicity, but those who are on the high end of that spectrum, like malignant narcissists, are unlikely to change.

You couldn’t change them no matter how hard you tried – so don’t blame yourself for their behavior or waste energy trying. While there are some people with toxic traits that can change their behavior and are willing to do so, the ones who are disordered will continue in their toxic behavior regardless of how much you try to point out their wrongdoings and transgressions.

2. Contrary to popular belief, not every toxic person is toxic because of a tragic past. Nor do they all suffer from low self-esteem.

Some are born toxic, continue to be character disordered and have no conscience or remorse for their actions. Their brains are inherently different, revealing deficits in areas of the brain related to empathy and compassion. They may know right from wrong but they simply do not care. Many grandiose narcissists on the high level of the spectrum deem themselves superior and feel entitled to anything and everything. That’s why they deliberately destroy lives and sabotage people – because they can and they are rewarded by it. The highly disordered do not always destroy others because they are “suffering in pain.” They do so because they know they can get away with it.

3. You can’t rationalize a sociopath’s behavior and feel pity for someone who actively tries to destroy you time and time again – it will only keep you stuck in the cycle of abuse.

When you’re led to feel guilty about setting boundaries with them or cutting off contact, that makes it all the more difficult to detach from them and realize you don’t deserve their treatment. Feeling pity for them in place of healthy boundaries is usually a waste of energy you could be feeling for their actual victims or showing compassion for yourself.

4. Empathy deficiency is on the rise, so we need to stop assuming that everyone has our best interest at heart.

Researchers like Martha Stout estimate that 1 in 25 Americans are sociopathic, meaning they have no conscience. Narcissism is on the rise too among the younger generation. With the prevalence of toxicity among us, education and awareness about psychopathy and narcissism is needed more than ever. Pretending that everyone has a conscience or the ability to empathize will only lead to continued rationalization of destructive behavior – at the expense of your own basic needs and rights.

5. The only way to “win” with a toxic person is to not to play their game – or at least, refusing to play on their level.

Otherwise, you risk losing your own humanity in the process if you’re continually consumed by one-upping them. It’s very difficult to “battle” someone with no remorse or empathy. Cutting off all contact and communication – what we call “No Contact,” is the ideal way to deal with highly toxic people. It’s not always possible, but it’s the ideal. Once you start to breathe fresher air, you’re less likely to tolerate toxicity in the future.

6. When No Contact isn’t possible, Low Contact is the next best step.

This means keeping only the minimum amount of contact with the toxic person (only when necessary) while setting firm boundaries and becoming emotionally unreactive to the narcissist’s mind games. Remember, your emotional reactions are their fuel.

7. Self-validation is key when you’re moving forward.

You have to be able to say to yourself every day, “I did the right thing by leaving. I didn’t deserve their abuse.” When you’re addicted to gaining the approval and validation of a toxic sociopath or narcissist, you’re still ensnared in their sick and twisted manipulation.

8. There are people who won’t believe you and unfortunately, you won’t convince them.

Sociopathic predators are very skilled at fooling and duping others. They can be very likeable and charming. They can provoke their victims into reacting after months or years of covert abuse, only to use those reactions as proof that their victims are unstable. The malignant narcissists who walk among you are probably people you know and like – and if you haven’t personally been victimized by them, you’re none the wiser to who they truly are behind closed doors.

9. Enablers of narcissists and sociopaths can be toxic too.

When manipulators use others to carry out their dirty work for them, their actions can be just as destructive and toxic as those of the original perpetrators. Enablers exist on a spectrum, just like toxic people – all the way from the confused, blissfully ignorant bystanders to the malicious fellow con artists. Some people truly believe that the manipulators in question are “good” and since predators have a great deal of social proof that others like and approve of them, they are able to continue on their façade with alarming ease with the support of people who stand by their side.

10. You’ll know you’re in the presence of someone toxic just by the way you feel. So don’t discount your instincts.

If you don’t always feel this way with others but with them you feel off balance, hurt, confused, constantly mistreated and devalued – you’re in the presence of an emotional predator. Empathic people know when they’ve made mistakes and own up to them. They don’t avoid accountability for their actions, even if they inadvertently hurt people. Sociopaths do – and they do not care who they hurt. They do not care about your feelings. They do not care about your needs. So always remember that if you’re consistently not feeling good – or you’re feeling “love-bombed” one second and terrorized the next, this is not someone who is emotionally safe.

11. The truth does eventually come out, even if you’re not there to witness it.

When victims of covert malignant narcissists finally move forward, enablers are left in the dust as well – though they don’t know it yet. Narcissists and sociopaths only treat their enablers well so long as they serve them. So, eventually, they turn on the people who helped them carry out their dirty work too when they are no longer useful. All those who supported the perpetrators will one day remember the day their victims tried to get them to see the truth. Unfortunately, by that time, it’ll be too late.