#family of origin

[storkmuffin]

when you visit the home of your single most toxic relative and he has left out a translation of the American book "Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members" which has a Korean title that literally says "I decided to excise my family" and you know that he's gonna think he's the victim and not the abuser that everyone else has distanced themselves from already and we all see it there on the coffee table and all of us completely act like we don't see it OMG GET ME OUT OF HERE

[innervoiceartblog]

Some are put in the position of emotionally caring for an adult early in their lives at a time they themselves need more than anything to have their own inner world mirrored back to them.

To be seen as a subject with an interiority, not merely as a narcissistic reflection of the other.

Until reorganized, this template orients the way we see ourselves and engage in close relationship.

In these early configurations, the little one’s sense of self becomes tangled up in the other’s moods, anxiety, and injured self-esteem.

The job of the little one is shifted from unstructured play and discovery into tending to the unlived life of a caretaker, a task that is not designed for a young nervous system, nor for a tender little heart.

If interested, we can explore how this template might be at play: in our phobias around having/ expressing needs, in the fear around disappointing someone, in the hesitation around allowing another to matter.

In the terror of relationship, on the one hand, and in the painful longing for it on the other. In the existential confusion about where we end and the other begins. In the ancient conclusion that caring for another requires primordial disavowal of our own psyche, body, and heart.

Having come to see our own self-worth through the changing psychic states of those around us, we find ourselves wondering: Have I disappointed them? What can I do to make them feel better? Should I take more responsibility for the unfulfilled longing in their hearts? They are upset, surely that is somehow traceable back to me, right? I’ve failed somehow, right?

As a little one longing for any sort of empathic connection, we’ll do anything to receive even a limited amount of psychic (and physical) holding.

Accessing, illuminating, and untangling the tentacles of this template can go a long way in healing chronic feelings of shame and unworthiness, where we begin to differentiate our worth as a person from the moods, suffering, and unlived life of others.

To withdraw the projection of our own basic goodness from others and locate it inside ourselves. This withdrawal is a great act of kindness – for ourselves, the other, and for the world.

It is by way of this disentangling that we can truly love ourselves and others and act from the radical force of true compassion, not merely re-enact the old pathways of self-abandonment and empathic failure.

- Matt Licata

[ididoktoday]

I was raised in the dark, so the light feels scary.

I was raised in the dark, so the light feels strange.

I was raised in the dark, so the light is sometimes confusing and overwhelming.

I was raised in the dark, so my parents don’t understand the light.

I was raised in the dark, so I had to leave my home behind to be in the light.

I was raised in the dark, but I deserve the light.

[mumatsi]

She got him a six fingered kitten

[demaparbat-hp]

Arsonist's Lullaby

[theleakypen]

Back when I was first agonizing my way through coming out as nonbinary to my family of origin, I kept thinking: it would be so much easier if they were either perfect or terrible. If they were perfect, no problem. If they were terrible, I could just cut them off and not deal with all the trouble of navigating my relationship with them.

I didn't really know how to deal with their acceptance being a process, and it was so hard!

When I was coming out, I used a lot of scripts from sources like Captain Awkward, which were simultaneously useful and counterproductive: useful because they gave me SOMETHING to say, counterproductive because they sometimes presupposed a universe where I would choose not to have a relationship with my family of origin, who, whatever issues we may have (and boy do we have issues), love me without condition or exception & are some of the most welcoming and loving people I know.

It continues to be a work in progress, but nowadays they use my chosen name more often than not, & my mom, at least, calls me her child rather than her [gendered child term]. (Pronouns are a whole different issue bc we're primarily Russian speakers)

My maternal grandmother went from "I think it's a sickness" to "My dear / straight or queer / changing your name / my love is the same." I never really came out to my paternal grandparents because their English was much worse than my maternal grandmother's, and I didn't have the capacity to talk about gender in Russian. I loved them all with my entire heart, regardless.

And at my grandfather's funeral, I allowed the rabbi to call me by my given name, because I was named after my grandfather's parent, and it felt like an important compromise to make. (I also don't have the same relationship to my given name that a lot of trans people have; obviously for others that kind of compromise would be a nonstarter)

Anyway, I don't really have a conclusion to this, but we don't really see these kinds of things in media. Especially the immigrant aspect, I feel like.

I feel like we always see parents who are 100% super supportive allies, or parents who are horrible and cruel.  At least in media or in the most popular stories.  But I feel like that ignores just how many people have parents where you just have no idea?  And even if you think they’ll accept you on a surface level, you don’t know if they have a breaking point.  Especially if you need to go on hrt, or request they change the way they think about and refer to you.  Sure they’re liberal and all, or centrists, or “tolerant”, but how far does that stretch?

I think most closeted LGBT+ kids live like this, wading around in the grey area.  I’d like it of more of us knew that was normal, I’d like if we talked about it more.

[nyctosaurid]

don bluth films occupy a weird space because he's both inarguably an auteur who directs very strange, earnest, often "ugly" films but also a guy who near exclusively made movies for 8 year olds in the home video era. so basically everything he's ever done is a grimy, dreamy rumination on death and spirituality and has a direct to video sequel called something like secret of nimh 2: mrs. brisby's holiday adventure

[shyjusticewarrior]

Duke: Would you slap your favorite brother for a million dollars?

Damian: Yes.

Tim: Yeah. Sorry, Dick.

Jason: I would slap Dick for free.

[deedsandcreeds]

When we look at our lives in light of scripture and the call of God, we realize that we have learned many things from our families of origin, from our schools and classmates, from our associates at work and from the omnipresent media that have shaped us - mis-shaped us, really - in the image of human brokenness rather than the image of divine fullness. The new birth [promised in baptism] provides us with the gift of making a break from the effects of that mis-shaping process and its hold on our lives… We are children once again, sitting with and learning to imitate the character and mannerisms of our heavenly Parent, who is present to us through his Holy Spirit: “all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).

David A. DeSilva, Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation through the Book of Common Prayer

[tizzymcwizzy]

for anyone that doesn't know, i recently started school again! (that's why ive been so mia) so ill be posting class projects whenever i finish them,,, this was a figure drawing assignment :)

you can get a print of this here!

[lackadaisycal-art]

Family Recipe

[itsdabatt]

LADIES NIGHT

[getooine]

POV: you just interrupted the Skywalker twins at the space gala

Just a little post to say thank you for a 1000 followers!! I never thought that posting my little pictures on tumblr would get so much love 💕

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[plesiosaurys]

getting emotional over footage of an amateur scuba diver interacting with a coelacanth. they are hunted by large deepwater predators, and here comes a large creature bearing the brightest lights it's ever seen, making strange noises, but it does not shy away. it hovers, calmly, as the diver reaches out and trails a hand down its back. im strongly against the anthropomorphizing of real life animals but the stupid emotional part of me loudly insists this is because it recognizes us, the alternating movements of its four paired limbs matching the diver's four paired limbs, & it is thinking, "hello, cousins, we missed you these 66 million years, it's so good to see you again. welcome back, welcome home."