#cw childhood abuse

[not-poignant]

so earlier this year a psychologist i'd never met before gave me an autism assessment, diagnosed me with level 2 autism (talking at length about how the levels are mostly just useful for accessing government support) and then strongly advised me to access a national disability insurance scheme (known as NDIS) in australia.

she sent me a 20 page document, detailing all the ways i needed support, and i kind of sat back and cried a little, because something she said really stuck with me, which was basically: 'pia, you would always have been diagnosed with ASD at any age, you were never 'atypical' in presentation, people knew before you were verbal and then went out of their way to make sure you never had the chance to get diagnosed, in case it reflected poorly on them, due to their own stigma.'

it's true. my dad was diagnosed with autism and hid it from me. from all of us. he was the most strongly opposed to any behaviour in me that was not neurotypical, or his version of it, which frankly was still pretty fucking autistic. i lived with his abuse until he left us.

but i look back and think, i should've had an education assistant in school and at university. i should've had people around me helping me all along, if i wanted as much access to equality as most neurotypical people have. and now in early october, i'll be meeting with a support service and we'll start talking about the support staff i'll likely need for the rest of my life.

a lifetime of chronic illness and constant burnout (both from illness and from autistic burnout) was recontextualised. a lot of things about the way i live my life made sense.

but it's scary to have these sorts of meetings when you've spent your entire life being threatened with severe consequences if you behave certain ways, or ask for help.

i write the stories i write for rather obvious reasons, basically, and life has been unafraid of making 2024 a rather challenging year.

not just for me, i know, but for many of us.

i'm wishing you all some comfort and kindness, and hoping i can find a bit more myself, in the next few months.

shit's been hard lol

[anglophile-alfred]

I posted my latest fanfiction!

The Hidden Spade

When Alfred finds he has the mark of the Queen of Spades, he knows he will be forced into royalty and the feminine role of Queen—dresses and all. There is no way Alfred can allow himself to be found out, not when his freedom and identity are on the line. The universe seems to have other plans for him, however. Can Alfred keep his secret? Or is fate too strong to allow a Queen to not take her throne? (UKUS, rating may change with future chapters)

I've only posted the prologue at the moment. I've always wished that Alfred was queen and Arthur was king, so I'm finally writing a Cardverse fanfiction but with the UKUS role switch we deserve. Content Warning for childhood abuse in the prologue! Rated T

[angel-armed]

Have you perchance read this analysis about vash suffering from child abuse? I think it’s really nuanced. And I personally find this evident (contrasted) with Vash’s love for humans in TriStamp VS the portrayal of humanity & Vash’s love for them in TriMax, is what makes me as someone who really enjoys the manga feels a bit frustrated with the writing decision. I wonder what is their angle for this, tbh. https://www.tumblr.com/ciaran/712003810796650496

Thank you for the link! I actually feel like this analysis is spot on, and while it is a different angle than the one in Trimax, I honestly feel like it adds more to Vash's depth in a lot of ways. It's one of several changes that I really couldn't complain about.

Vash and Knives are both victims of abuse and neglect. Like the analysis says, yeah no family is perfect-- but I always thought Rem seemed afraid of Knives, likely due to the nature of his power-- and therefore favored Vash. Vash got his own taste of this after the Big Fall.

I think that Vash's love for humanity can and should be seen as a destructive force. Too much of anything is bad. In this case, my belief is that the writers in Tristamp specifically are going for a very precise message. That message as I interpret it, is the fact that A: People are very different. No matter how much or how well you know someone you can never expect them to 100% understand you as a person. No matter how much you long for that-- even twins are different people. The second more heavily thematic part of that is: that neither Vash nor Knives can be considered completely morally correct. Their greatest sin isn't the things they've done, caused, or allowed to happen. Their sin is not being able to understand each other through their human pride and pain-- enough to strike the balance between their ideals.

This, is in my opinion a reflection of many real life situations. I've been an activist on the leftside of things most of my life. The movement's greatest weakness in my opinion is directly reflected in this theme. Centrism is garbage-- that's not what I mean, but the movement needs both Knives' righteous fury and Vash's unconditional love-- And THEY need each other to not turn those things self destructive. Their two ideals can only save each other or anything else when they are working hand in hand through constant compromise and careful communication.

So in my opinion, the writers in Tristamp are telling us that even love can be self-destructive and perpetuate the abuse you've experienced. Righteous violence FEELS right, to punish evil doers feels like a high-- but it robs you of everything you love on the way.

[vizthedatum]

Woke up to disappointing (not life-threatening) news from my brother.

I am so fucking tired of my parents not actually helping him.

I feel like no matter what I do, the situation won’t get better unless he starts taking more decisive action against them too. Maybe I need to learn how to let go a bit as well - it just hurts to see them propagate their bullshit onto someone so vulnerable.

Am I just supposed to let my favorite person in the world figure it out while struggling while I do nothing? Or maybe I’ve done enough….

How does one protect an adult in this country? Especially if that adult is already ostracized by the law and if the other adults in question are disabled POC?

Do I just watch it happen? Do I just watch my brother never live his life and never learn how to be independent until my parents die?

[praublem-child]

I don't know how to fix the part of me that seems convinced that I don't need treatment, or that it's more work than it's worth. I don't even know why I do it to be completely honest. I thought for a long time that it was pill anxiety, but now I'm also doing it with my compression socks and with my cpap and it's starting to fucking scare me.

I don't take my medication for over a week because I'm convinced I'll be fine if I skip a day or two and I feel like it's too much work to go take them, then I end up skipping until I'm sick in bed again and can't move or I'm so depressed I just sob all day until I feel nothing. I don't wear my compressin socks at all, convinced that they're not worth my time or that it'd be too much effort to go get them and put them on until my legs are swollen and uncomfortable or I'm passing out when I stand. I skip my cpap for two or three nights until I'm so exhausted and back to getting only 4-5 hours of sleep at night that I can't stand it anymore.

I don't know why I do it and I don't know how to stop. I don't know how to stop and that fucking terrifies me because my dad never took care of his health either and he died at 39. Watching him fall apart in front of our eyes because he refused to take care of himself was just as mentally taxing and traumatizing as him just being an abusive and neglectful father was. The times that I had 911 pulled up on my phone to dial when he wouldn't drink an orange juice and wasn't responding while I was 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, they show up in my nightmares just as often as all of the times he screamed at me from downstairs to do whatever he wanted, the times he pinned my arms behind my back because I annoyed him, and the times he grounded me for showing symptoms of being neurodivergent or mentally unwell.

I don't want to be like him. I'm fucking scared of becoming like him. Actually, scared doesn't even begin to cover it. I have panic attacks thinking about doing that to my current family and any future family I may have. And I like to think that I'm nothing like him, but sometimes things pop up. Sometimes I don't beleve my brother when he says he's going through something, sometimes I say things to my friends that I probably know aren't great to say but I do it anyway and I never quite know if I've crossed a line or not until they stop talking to me for a while, sometimes I'm too selfish for me to feel proud about it.

Sometimes, sometimes I fuck myself up on purpose, and sometimes it's on accident. Sometimes I start to hate myself to violently that I convince myself that I don't deserve help or love or friends and I isolate and push away and refuse treatment. I stop eating, let alone eating properly, I stay in bed for months on purpose and let myself rot because doing anything else is incomprehensible. I let my schoolwork fall apart because it seems stupid and I feel like I deserve to fail. Sometimes though, sometimes it really is an accident, and I can't always tell which is which. Sometimes my medication box goes off for me to take my meds and I'm in the middle of something so I turn it off. Sometimes that something distracts me immediately after and I forget to take my meds at all. Sometimes I go to sleep before my box goes off and I'm not coherent enough when it does to think beyond getting the noise to stop, or I go to bed too late and sleep right through it in the morning. Sometimes I lay down because I don't feel well and I fall asleep without my cpap and I won't remember that it's important until I wake up. Sometimes I'm in a rush and my compression socks get completely forgotten.

I don't think it really matters what reason I have for failing to take care of myself though. Sometimes both happen at the same time, sometimes one triggers the other. Both remind me too much of my dad. Both remind me of failing health, ignore the pleas of your family, telling your child not to call 911 after refusing to respond to anything else, of never holding a steady career, of forcing other's to take care of you. I don't want to be like that, but I don't know how to stop. The only thing I have every successfully done to avoid hurting others like that is isolating and not accepting help, and I know for a fact that that hurts the people that care about me in other ways.

The only thing I can fucking think of is having someone treat me like a toddler throughout the day, waking me up, making me take my meds, putting my fucking socks on for me, filling and cleaning my cpap before bed. But I have to go out into the world in a few months. I have to go out into the world on my own. I won't even have my mother around to remind me to eat when I forget. I couldn't afford a home health nurse to come even once a week, and there's no way in fucking hell someone would approve me for one multiple times a day through insurance. I don't want to be like dad. I don't. But I don't know what the fuck else to do.

[hajihiko]

It runs in the family

[incognitopolls]

"Abusive" includes forms of abuse like physical, mental, emotional, or any other form.

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[mother-of-houseplants-2]

they’re my big three ❤️

alt versions^

[gremlinmodetweeker]

Why König Was Bullied/ Why He Loved His Family

TW: Severe Bullying, Kids Being Cruel, Severe Social Anxiety, Growing Up Mentally Ill, Chronic Feelings of Being Unsafe, Unstable Environments Growing Up, Isolation, Loneliness, Self Esteem Issues, Anxiety, Social Anxiety,

I'm gonna say it. I think König actually had a great childhood home. He wasn't bullied because he was an abused child, he was bullied because he was a socially awkward kid raised by socially awkward parents. He was bullied because he was chubby (his mama loved giving him sweets) and because he was weirdly big and not in a hot way, just in a lumpish oaf sort of way.

On his own, König loved to keep his own company. He would make up imaginary worlds in his mind and play with stuffed animals and model trains. He read fantasy books, and became an advanced reader for his age. He loved learning as much as he could about the world around him, and his Oma nicknamed him 'her little Why' when he would never stop asking why things were the way they were. He loved to play outside most of all. Almost all his free time was spent outdoors, and he developed a deep love of nature, hiking and camping.

Kids are cruel, and one kid looking a little bit awkwardly proportioned and being awkward to boot was the perfect target. It didn't help that (especially in the beginning) he just liked to do his own thing, regardless of what others thought. He liked playing with his stuffed bears and rabbits at recess and he loved to read more than he liked to play sports. He was a bit awkward in both speech and body, growing too big for his body to adjust to too quickly and always a bit nervous to speak to others, leaving him a lonely child with nobody to play with. Nobody wanted to play with a boy who still played with stuffed animals or played imaginary games with himself. He was the kid who would call himself the dog when kids played house. He had to hold other kids' coats at recess just to be acknowledged.

König had a hard childhood due to the isolation. Kids got crueller when puberty set in, and they got more overt with their bullying. It didn't help that König hit puberty early and shot up like a reed. He grew strangely thick facial hair for a twelve-year-old, and people would pluck hairs out of his face when he wasn't on guard. After his growth spurt, shoves and nasty playground names became black eyes and rumours traded between classes. Everywhere he looked people watched him, talked about him, scorned him. He developed mild scopophobia, and the fear still lingers with him in adulthood.

König always had the potential of developing social anxiety. Just genetics, really. But growing up in a poorly equipped rural town didn't help. He didn't fit in, and for that he was tormented throughout life. Bullies would find out who his crush was and kiss them when he walked by in the halls. Girls would ask him out, and when he eagerly accepted they would laugh in his face. Worst of all was how they'd torment him for startling easily, and laugh whenever he physically lashed out in a panic. They loved to scare poor König, and did whatever they could to get a reaction out of him. He learned to keep his emotions guarded and to himself, but he still tears up when he thinks about how they once set his stuffed rabbit on fire after school. Whenever König felt like he'd learned to take it all, something else would come along and remind him that no, he would never fit in, and he would never be safe.

König grew up to be cold, harsh and cynical. He refused to let others play with his emotions. He became hardened as a man. However, deep inside of König, there was always a little boy who just wanted to read fantasy books and play with his stuffed animals in peace. He took to taking long hikes and camping outside when he needed time away from home. As a preteen, he was humiliated by how fat he seemed as a child, and horrified by how thin and lanky he became as he matured, so he began working out vigorously and filled out into a powerful, handsome young man. When girls would ask him out as a teen, he'd scoff and shoo them off, even though they genuinely wanted to be with him. He'd been burned too many times to know when someone truly wanted him. He didn't realize that he was a highly intelligent, strapping teen that had become a heartthrob among some of the other socially outcast children. Sadly, König would never learn, instead focusing on how his bullies would mock his height from afar (they'd long since learned that fighting a 200 lb young man who learned to fight from a war vet was not a good idea after all). But no matter how much König tried to get out from under their thumb, his bullies ruled his life.

But while school was a battleground, every day this brave little soldier would march home into his mother's open arms. His father would be there to remind him of how strong he was, how proud he was of his little soldier son. Home was his sanctuary away from the war outside.

König's mother was very much a housewife. A big, tall (at least 6'1) woman with broad arms and a powerful jaw, Annabelle Leichenberg looked more like a warrior princess than she did the sweet and doting mother that she was. She was always a bit awkward in the village, and many other mothers made fun of her for being harsh and dismissive in her exchanges of village gossip. She was a practical woman who had no time for their prattling nonsense. All her time was spent doting upon her loving family. She was a dutiful, determined woman who never backed down from a challenge. Despite working in the next village over, she would spend as much time as she could with König and her four other children. She would teach König to braid his sisters' hair, and played card games with him and his brothers late at night. She made sure his siblings never picked on him too much, and she spoiled him rotten with strawberries from the garden. To this day, König swears up and down that nobody makes strawberry tarts quite like his mother.

Contrary to his brash and outspoken wife, König's father, Fritz Leichenberg, was a quiet and studious man. He was the tallest man in the village by far, but he was a shy and soft man who preferred his books and his record player to the drunken sports rallies every Friday night, making the other village men consider him effeminate and weak. König's father was a professor of agriculture, and so preferred to spend time in his garden with his wife or reading stories to his children. He was surprisingly soft-spoken for his size, and seemed to always be shrinking away from conversation, preferring the company of his many houseplants to the boisterous drunks at the bar. Fritz liked to play piano on the baby grand in the foyer, and the family would gather and sing around him (Annabelle could never hold a tune, but Fritz never seemed to mind). Fritz was the major disciplinarian in the household, but it seemed his punishments were composed more of long lectures and discussions than spankings that the other children at school got. König was very close to his father, and learned from him the strength of being comfortable with his masculinity, and learned how to be gentle from him. He originally wanted to be a professor like him, but became a soldier when his grandfather passed away.

König had a good relationship with his siblings. He was the second youngest of five. The eldest was Friedrich, then Stephan and Lisa, then König (Kilgore), then finally Klara. König's brothers were awkward, but they fought back hard against their adversaries. Lisa was actually rather popular among her age group, and she managed to keep people in her age bracket from targeting König as well. The brothers and Lisa tried their best to protect König, and even his younger sister ended up becoming a defender and prevented her classmates from targeting her brother. König loved his siblings, but even they could be cruel to him on occasion (particularly when they had friends over). However, they cared for him as a sibling, and they did their best to ensure he was always safe at home.

König also lived with his Oma and Opa (on his father's side). His Opa was a veteran, and taught all the children how to fight. He took a shine to König in particular, and tried his best to encourage his grandson to stand up for himself. His Oma was a bit more skeptical. She loved König, but she always worried about him. She would often try to get him to make new friends, but sadly these efforts were in vain.

So all in all, life was not all doom and gloom for König. He grew up a social outcast, but in a loving home. He's fiercely loyal to his family, and skeptical of anyone he does not consider to be of that ilk. He will always be paranoid, he will always be afraid of people watching him, and he will always have that horrible trait of being ruder than he intends to be. But, in the end, he was loved and raised in a good home.

Bonus:

On König's first day of school, his mother bought him a toy. It became a tradition that every first day of school, she would buy him something special. With all the years that passed, most of these things were broken or lost, but he kept the wooden train set his mother gave him on his very first day.

[lostmf]

By @desnos

[whiny--puppy]

Childhood trauma is so funny because yeah I have PTSD about it but also can you hit me as hard as you can?????

[waystarresourceco]

Jesse explaining that although all three boys generally experienced the same physical abuse, Roman has internalized his experience as a victim in a different way than Kendall and Connor.   

“I would suggest Logan would have cuffed and hit all the boys at different times in their lives.  I think the difference for Roman maybe is that he feels like he was bullied in the domestic environment and so we can all react to things in different ways. I think Connor and Kendall probably have experienced that and have managed to accommodate it without it being a big part of their psychology whereas I think Roman being that beaten dog and being - there’s often a dynamic isn’t there with bullied people as sort of needing the feeling of negative attention that you get from that and I think he’s become, not addicted to it, but related to it.” 

Excerpt from Firecrotch and Normcore: They Like to Watch (recorded at Edinburgh Fringe Festival) – Aug. 29, 2023

[lifewithchronicpain]

Study underscores urgency of addressing adverse childhood experiences, potentially traumatic events that occur before 18 years of age, and taking steps to mitigate their long-term impact on health. These results are extremely concerning, particularly as over 1 billion children - half of the global child population - are exposed to ACEs each year, putting them at increased risk of chronic pain and disability later in life. Previous research has indicated a positive relationship between exposure to ACEs and chronic pain in adulthood. However, there are still gaps in knowledge - particularly around which type of ACEs are associated with specific pain-related conditions, or whether a dose-response relationship exists.

[formula-red]

I tried to be good, am I no good? Am I no good? Am I no good?

untitled, Geloy Concepcion // Seventeen Going Under, Sam Fender // untitled, traumatizeddfox // Two People, Sam Fender // The War of Vaslav Nijinsky, Frank Bidart // Hard Times, Ethel Cain // Child Wearing a Red Scarf, Eduoard Vuillard // Complex, Katie Gregson Macleod // Funeral by Phoebe Bridgers, malaak // Too Much Wine, The Handsome Family // untitled, milklump // untitled, dying-weeds // Strangers, Ethel Cain

[nmolesofadrenaline]

[catgirl-kaiju]

Parents will give you so much trauma and then deny it ever happened and refuse to talk about it, like a 5 year old getting caught smashing a vase only the vase was your brain