#but it felt bad to oversimplify as though that relationship wasn't present at the time

[monster-noises]

Alright sure fine

I'll link several emotions together in one post and leave it there hows that.

This is one of those times where I was very charged up earlier today but the moments kinda passed so now my thoughts and feelings aren't as fine-edged-sharp and crystal clear, but I still think I should try and get this out of my body for a bit..

So you'll have to pardon the fact that i'll be sifting through the muck and it may not be the smoothest most eloquent read. Not that you have to read this, I mostly just need to expunge my bile into the void where someone could theoretically see it. A little fun trick I like to play on my brain that actually usually works.

In case you were wondering why i post so bare faced about my emotions so often.....

Regardless I.. hm.

Well, perhaps it is best to just cut right to it. One of the its at least.

Something I've been dealing with, for a very long time, but extra... Pointedly of late, is this feeling that's been hard to express without most probably deeply insulting my friends.

But I think i've routed it out into a shape that.. covers the emotion and also Doesn't Do That.

And it's like.. I wish. Mm. I wish I knew How To Feel Cared About?

Because I don't. And not knowing what that's Supposed to feel like makes it really hard in this part of my life I'm in to tell if the problem is me not Receiving Love and Care properly when it is entirely present in my life, or if there really is problem and I am right to feel like my social needs are not being met even if I know Practically that my friends all Do love and care about me.

It was an easy feeling to calculate when i didn't really have friends, like obviously i don't feel cared for, i've got (almost*)no one caring about me! But I Have friends now, good friends, great friends, best friends!

And yet. I'm. As lonely and isolated as I've ever been. Constantly plagued by a hollow feeling of.. Missing Something, of simply being Empty and Cold

And is that me? Is that my fault? Am I just not Processing or feeling things correctly? Have I wiggled myself into a social role that says 'hey haha! You don't Have to think of me it's cool!'?? Is it on me for being too quiet? But if I speak up I'll be too much! I know I Also don't reach out much (which is the damn rub of the whole thing, I'll get there in a bit...) but I also feel so often... Unimportant, background, special but not special Enough for anyone to keep me abreast of what happens in their lives. And it's all my fault and I'm gross and cruel for feeling this way.

Which is why i feel safer posting about it on tumblr instead of speaking to my friends about it.

Because it's a Huge Problem but also it's not their problem it's my problem I couldn't possibly ask anything of them they do so much already, I mean they're my friends and I know they love me and Sometimes we hang out and that should be more than enough right????? RIGHT?????? shouldn't I feel good and satisfied from that????

Shouldn't that cover my social and emotional needs? Even if I go most days of the week without talking to anyone so any contact I eventually get feels like i'm desperately coming up for a few brief gasping seconds of air? Even though I spend an unreasonable amount of time paralyzed by the yawning ache in my heart for Contact Please Someone Come Sit With Me And Listen To Me And Care! Isn't that my own fault? Isn't that on me for ignorning how much my friend's Do care about me and show it, because I haven't said anything in all that time either right!? They're busy! We're all adults and it's hard to find time and energy to reach out and be social, everyone has a million things going on all the time so like really sometimes I should be the one reaching out but in that same vein; is that my place? I don't want to bother them.. to intrude when it's not my Alotted Time. Wouldn't it be more appropriate and respectful to their time and energy to not demand they spend it on You? To speak only when spoken to and be Chill and Cool And Needless even when you're Screaming Screaming Screaming for someone to hear you

Not even to vent, though my struggle to be vulnerable directly to people's faces continues to be a large impassable aspect of this issue, but just be seen and heard and taken an interest in. I'm always there to Hear, to listen to and offer insight toward, to witness and to be Audience but so rarely feel like I can Show or be Watched in turn. But is that even true? My friend's do Know what I like don't they? They'll listen, they have listened, I'm sure they have.. but I still feel like I have to hide it, protect it, patience for me is limited and I have to spend it wisely, like they don't need that they don't want to hear it. (Would it suprise you to know i've been told this directly more than once by different people?)

And what do I even Want? Then? If "my needs are not being met"? (We have gotten back to it) Because goodness knows i am also prey to the aforementioned limited time and energy, I already loose so much of my art to work and the daily maintenance of being Alive, do I want people coming in More Often to take that time now too? Even texts! Even texts can take so much of something so limited and precious to me.. what matters more being social or my lifes true passion? What a horrendous question to have to ask. To choose one core need but smother the other. What a curse, and I can see myself, still, choosing art far more often, against my my own more desperate needs. Even if I so very badly want to go out and absorb the world with my friends I need to be with my art instead, perhaps to me detriment.

Ultimately, I guess, I want to feel like people are there. Even when they aren't. Human Object Permanence of some kind. And yeah, maybe getting more time with people, whether the cost of that time is solved or not I just want Contact, regular Contact two-way Contact. But is this all on me to start feeling what my friend's are already doing? Or should I reach out and ask for more? I don't know! I could not tell you!

Over and over and over these same two feelings in different skins smashing over me, crashing so loud I can't get my own words in; I Do Not Feel Cared About - Do You Know What Being Cared About Feels Like

And then god.. the further questions that spiral out and out and out from here.. is this vacuous hole I feel, this unfulfillment socially, the reason I hurt so much for romance? Because it feels so much like the most direct route to being Known and ensuring at least one person thinks of me as Immutably Important (would my friend's not already say I am that to them? Would they not be hurt by the implication that I think they don't feel this way? Why does the thought of that only make me feel worse, more guilt ridden, and not stronger in the feeling that they care? Why do I only have one reaction to Everything; to bury myself in guilt and shame) Should this idea deter me from seeking romance at all? Like sort this out before I go after that kind of relationship? Perhaps that would be wise.. but trying to put down that desire, to focus on being single and engaging exclusively in the intimately platonic, feel like a lie? Feel like a cover up? Like i've pulled out an organ and set it on the table and am trying to ignore like I didn't just pull it out of myself? I feel I have reached to feverish a pitch of being without a partner, I can't Not at least try and find someone. The yearning is simply too great, to loud, to hot. If I ignore it I risk being swallowed up in it completely.

But why? One person can't solve all my problems or meet all my needs and the needs I need met are all part of the earlier problems mentioned that do not specifically need to be met by a romantic partner to Be met?? So why bother going for romance at all??

Can I not just.. want it? Can that not be reason enough? I know I am comfortable engaging just as intimately as I would with a partner with a friend, but there is a tangible difference in Intent and I want That Difference. Even if there is no answer to the logic behind it. But still would it make a difference? Do you think having a specific kind of relationship will magically make you know what feeling cared for Feels Like? ....

I mean I used to not know what sexual atteaction felt like and then one video game man appeared and Boom suddenly I Did so like......... It's Possible.

Okay Perhaps, but like it's still not the most likely that it's just going to go away because now there's a Boy around to Kiss, in fact knowing me it may get Worse, even, so like what? Like what???? We also can't keep going on just Yearning like this. It hurts so much to feel this lonely.

(Valentines is in 3 days and I have the worst sinking feeling that it's going to be very tough this year)

Not that it really matters anyway because no one has expressed interest in me, everyone I've met on dating apps, and note; it's Not very many people, has either ghosted me, I've ghosted them (not usually on purpose) or we've miraculously stayed in contact but slipped right into just being Pals and Friends. No one has reached out with anything resembling explicit romantic interest, and it really doesn't feel like they're ever going to. And I know I should ditch the apps and go out and Participate, but When I ask you, same as before, what Time do I have? And where do I Go? i've tried to find events in my city that I would fit into, and they either don't exsist or exsist only at times and price ranges completely inaccessible to me. Not to mention events I Have gone to have ended in me passing through not talking to anyone because I'm just not good at introcutory conversations, rarely do I have anything to say, and I really only feel comfortable engaging when approached, It feels presumptuous and creepy to do the approaching.. which sounds, I imagine, an eerily familiar echo of earlier points. And so I'm stuck. I cannot win. I feel unable to act or take control and so I sit in silence and the hole inside me gets bigger and I feel less and less like a person everyday.

Fundamentally I'm at odds with myself.

I have all these wants and needs and desires that feel unfulfilled but do not believe I can or should need to ask for them (because they aren't 'unfulfilled', not because people should just ~know~ they are there). And so I cannot make myself believe they are even real, or at least that they are unfullfilled, and that it's simply me being obstinant and slefishly blind.

I understand I am not an Undesireable person per say, I am Niche and that's fine, but I feel undeniably that I am still not a person who Is/Can Be Desired, and that's a different thing entirely from being desireable.

There are no primary and secondary "characters" in real life, and while there are certain forms of 'social heirarchy' that are kinda real i am not Fundamentally and Automatically ""below"" everyone around me either by my being who i am or some kind of weird illogical ~noble choice~, but it still feels wrong of me to be forward, like I'm being cruel and controlling and dominating by speaking about myself in any capacity, or asking for things or speaking first, to dare to take on any roll that does not feel not... submissive but subjucative, as if Apologising for existing by exsisting as little as possible, by only exsisting when it is permissible for me to exsist, when I have been told it is okay, to never insert myself unannounced. (Which, as I shockingly have not mentioned yet, is completely counterproductive to my cause as it creates, from the outside, this image that I, maybe, don't care. Or at least I care but I do not Need that much. I imagine I'm read less as a loyal hound awaiting instruction, and more an aloof cat that needs to coaxed from his hiding place)

There is no point to close this off. No turn around epiphany of my hope for healing or what to do. There's maybe a quiet desperate cry for help and instruction, and a whispered hope that I haven't gravely insulted my friends who read through this. I know you all do love and care about me, and I'm sorry I struggle to receive that. I love and care about you too, and hope that you're able to recieve it in full.

But there's no big grand ending here with some optimistic bend. Just me alone in my bedroom at 2:17am, tangled up in knots, not really knowing what to do about anything at all.

[urupotter]

So while I've said before that I don't like the HP subreddit, I still frequent it because occasionally I read something insightful. This is one such case, where I read a reading of Lupin that I'd never seen before in response to a comment of mine analyzing the shrieking shack confrontation between Snape, Remus, Sirius and the golden trio, where I mentioned that Lupin was a gaslighter so I wanted to share. It was created by reddit user u/UsuallySiSometimesNo and is posted here with his permission. We had a little conversation in the comments. Read it under the cut

UsuallySiSometimesNo: That struck a cord with me, too. I didn't think about that on a conscious level before, but when I read it, it felt instantly true.

Honestly, I think the strongest examples of Lupin gaslighting are actually done to himself. The biggest, character-defining example, I think, is that after finding friendship with James, Sirius, and Peter, he becomes so desperate not to be ostracized from them (due to his issues of self-worth and his personal brand of impostor syndrome) that he deliberately and routinely feeds himself false narratives about their behavior until he can no longer tell fact from fiction, even as he's experiencing it.

Their relentless bullying of Snape? A childhood rivalry.

Their casual bullying of other students? Kids being young and stupid.

Their clear disinterest verging on contempt for Peter, someone less fortunate and vulnerable with whom they're supposed to be good friends? Just mates being mates.

Even actions taken against Lupin, himself, are revised in his memory to be 'no big deal', because he desperately needs that to be true. Let's pretend for a moment that Snape indisputably deserved to be slaughtered by a werewolf the night Sirius told him how to get past the Whomping Willow. Sirius did not send Snape to be killed by any old werewolf. What happened that night was that Sirius - one of Remus' best friends, if not his actual best friend - attempted to use Remus' curse/illness against someone (which is a big enough betrayal on it's own) without ever telling Remus that when he woke up in the morning (covered in blood and in the presence of a shredded corpse) it would be to find that he had committed the act he was most petrified he might one day commit. In setting Snape up to be killed by Lupin, Sirius, at the very least, risked Lupin's sanity, and, at the very most, risked Lupin being sentenced to death.

Now, I understand that Sirius wasn't thinking about all of that when he did what he did, and I, as a someone removed from the situation (and armed with the additional character/situational knowledge granted to a reader) can even understand why Sirius' own trauma led him to grant such a blind death sentence to Snape (which I think is related to a point you made elsewhere, u/Adventure_Time_Snail, about Sirius' "violence towards those who trigger his fundamental fear of wizard fascists" because of his abusive upbringing). But Lupin's perspective is not one of an unbiased observer. And once James found out what was happening and pulled Snape back before it was too late (which, I would think, was more to save Lupin than to save Snape) and once Remus awoke the next to day to discover everything that transpired the night before, I find it hard to believe there wasn't at least some conversation about the true gravity of the situation. And yet, even all these years later, Lupin doesn't bat an eye when Sirius not only doesn't display shame when the event is mentioned in POA, but offers something akin to regret, NOT at the fact that his actions could have gotten Lupin killed, but that that they DIDN'T get Snape killed: "It served him right...", he sneered. etc. etc.

I think the obvious question here, is 'Even disregarding what Sirius did to Snape - how can Lupin be okay with the knowledge that Sirius has no regret, at all, for what he did to him, even now that they're adults?' Well, we're not in Lupin's point of view in the books, which means we can't hear his internal monologue, but I think a satisfactory answer to the question is that he's done a substantial amount of internal gymnastics in order to get to a point where he doesn't see this as a big deal, or even as something that he has a right to be upset about.... just like a gaslighter does to their victim.

Again, because we're not in Lupin's POV, we can't point to the exact instances that such internal gaslighting took place, but, based on what we do observe from Harry's POV (and based on external knowledge of gaslighting as a true-to-life concept) I wouldn't be surprised if Lupin so desperately needs everything to be okay that he derides himself for feeling bad or betrayed, that he calls himself stupid for thinking terrible things that have happened to him are a big deal, that he wars with himself about how people who are his friends and who are so good to him and who are better friends than he thinks he deserves could possibly do something to harm him/others, and that he beats down whatever emotions and senses and gut feelings he has that tells him something his friends have done might be very wrong. What we see in the books is a man who makes excuses for his friends and harbors a warped perception of reality in much the same way victims of gaslighting do, and he seems to exploit his own insecurities in order to instill doubt in his own experiences in much the same way perpetrators of gaslighting do.

I can't help but think that, by the time Lupin tells Harry that Snape harbors a particularly strong hatred for James because James was a better Quidditch player, Lupin has become so adept at gaslighting himself that he actually believes it.

tl;dr: One of Lupin's defining characteristics is that he gaslights himself out of a desperate need to be liked by others, since he has a difficult time liking himself and seems to believe all of his relationships are incredibly fragile.

Urupotter:

This is a fascinating reading on Lupin that I've never seen. I don't read him the same way, in that I think Lupin actually does know that what he's doing is wrong, he just doesn't have the moral courage to act on his conscience. (I view him as the anti Snape, great conscience, but abysmal moral courage, while Snape had unbelievable moral courage but a shitty conscience. Their arcs are about growing their moral courage and their conscience respectively) Realizing that his negligence almost got Harry killed is what triggers his arc, concluding when he goes back to Tonks and Teddy after running away, taking responsibility for his actions for the first time.

But this reading is so interesting that I'll have to reflect on it. Do you mind if I post it on my Harry Potter tumblr blog? I'll credit you of course, I would just like to discuss it with my followers. Of course if you don't want to I won't.

UsuallySiSometimesNo:

Honestly, I think the lack of in-depth conversation about Remus Lupin (at least compared to fan favorites Sirius Black and Severus Snape) is a missed opportunity and a shame. Don't get me wrong, I can discuss Sirius and Snape until blue in the face, but Lupin's arc is just as powerful in an understated (and often underestimated) way. The muddy, oversimplified truth is, without the fatal-flaw decision making of all four Marauders throughout their lives, the series of events proceeding the first chapter of the first book don't happen, and the story we all know and love never comes to be.

And speaking of sparking a discussion about Lupin...

I think Lupin actually does know that what he's doing is wrong, he just doesn't have the moral courage to act on his conscience.

You know what? I agree. And that's what makes him so interesting, I think. He is constantly and dependably full to bursting with internal conflict. When his friends are wrong/do something wrong/say something wrong, he can and does immediately identify the situation as wrong. When he does something wrong, or when he does nothing in the face of something wrong, in that moment I believe he knows the full weight of the situation. Like you said, he has a strong conscience, as well as a deeper, perhaps more nuanced understanding of right and wrong than do, for example, James and Sirius. Now, Lupin needs his friends. They're not just people to hang out with, they're a lifeline for him. He's not going to engage in conflict with them if there is even the slightest chance that he might lose them (for a variety of reasons, he lacks, as you said, the moral courage to do so). But he's also a generally decent human being, and with a strong conscience comes the capacity for sincere guilt and remorse. So, not only will he not confront his friends, he needs it to be okay that he doesn't confront them. And it's at that point that I think the self gaslighting is triggered.

But Lupin is intelligent and nobody's fool, so the gaslighting creates only a thin layer of ice over the problem. Just enough of a cover that he can live with the things he would otherwise deeply regret. I do think he believes the alternative reality he makes for himself to be accurate as long as it isn't really challenged. Crack the ice, though, and we see him express remorse and reveal an underlying awareness of past and present truths. But then the moment is over, and the war between the uncomfortably and full weight of the truth and his need for the companionship of his friends returns, and then the gaslighting begins again, allowing him an easier return to his closest friends (and eventually his closest friend, singular, after the others have been taken from him as was his fear all along) without conflict and with minimal strain on his conscience.

Once Sirius, the last of his original chosen family is gone - truly gone, as opposed to 'located elsewhere' as he was when in prison - following OOtP, suddenly Lupin's arc takes off at a greater speed than at any point prior. He's now literally lost all of the people he'd been terrified of figuratively losing. Although there are still people and things he cares about, he isn't as dependent on any of them as he was on those foundational friendships, and the finality of their absence allows him to finally grow beyond his stifling cycle of reality shifting, confront the truths of his reality and his circumstances, and, as you said, finally take responsibility by returning to Tonks and Teddy - a decision that, ultimately, triggers his death (I don't mean to imply that it was a bad decision or that it's the sole cause of his death, but Rowling has said that being 'out of practice' contributed to his loss at the Battle of Hogwarts, which makes for a fantastic tragedy).

I don't mean to overstate the importance of this theory or imply that it's always present when he's on-stage, and, as with anyone, many other elements, of course, factor into his actions/words/motives. But I think it's a fascinating potential component of his character all the same. If you have more thoughts on this, I love to hear them - and I look forward to reading the discussion on your blog!

So what do you think? Is this a valid reading of Lupin? I'd say it is, but I'm interested in reading my followers thoughts!