#growing up abused

[furiousgoldfish]

When you're a kid going trough a scary, non-understandable traumatic experience, your child mind contextualizes it in a way that doesn't seem that scary. Like we don't tell small children when their relatives are dead, they're just traveling; it's easier for a child's mind to comprehend that someone is just gone for a while, and will be back.

When you're a small child living in abuse, not only does it seem normal to you, but your brain will find a way to put it into context that you can understand and live with. Your worst experiences of abuse might be foggy, forgotten, blocked off, or seem like it was a dream; not something you need to worry about or be wary of. Your parent, who violently attacks you, calls you names, turns on you and at times feels very dangerous and hateful, that's not their real self! They just 'turn' into this other person, and the times when they do that just need to be not taken seriously, you firmly believe that their true self is safe, okay to be around, necessary to love and understand at all costs, and not someone to be afraid of. You might want to keep all the bad memories away whenever things are good, so you'd be able to enjoy the moment when it feels normal, non-scary, so whenever they're not aggressive and scary, it feels like they never were in the first place. You feel like those times are made up, unreal, something your mind refuses to linger on.

Sometimes this defense turns against you. It can turn an experience out of your control, into something you could have potentially controlled if only you did things differently. If you never made a mistake, never broke anything, never said or did that one thing that set the abuse off - it wouldn't have happened. And so you have to focus on what you're doing wrong in order to 'prevent' future events of abuse. It ultimately plays into the idea that the abuse is 'your fault', and invokes deep feelings of guilt and shame; you end up feeling like you're the one causing yourself all that damage.

Abusers know this child mind defense, and fully expect to get away with anything they've done, by insisting the child imagined or dreamed it, and it didn't really happen. They know the event was traumatic for the child and makes them look bad, so their best luck is to convince the child it really was just made up, and to never recall it or show any consequence of it. They even go as far as trying to convince, now adult child, that the parent's own actions of abuse, were the child's fault. Something an adult can tell right away is not true, because you can now connect a cause and consequence, and you know a child is incapable of controlling adults in any way. But being told something as despicable as that will cast doubt and deep emotional damage.

Every time such experience is suspended and blocked off, the child loses a bit of their vitality, energy, health, trust, feeling of safety, feeling of connection. When these experiences accumulate, eventually the child might experience dissociation, or a full amnesia, not even being aware that anything more is happening, because they cannot handle even one more event of abuse. And these experiences won't stay suspended forever; soon they'll cause the development of anxiety, depression, ptsd, cptsd, and other related disorders. And eventually the truths can no longer stay hidden, the child will remember and struggle to add new context, to realize what exactly happen, because now they have a chance of knowing the truth and surviving it.

If someone attempts to make you feel like something they did to you as a child, was your fault, this is what they're trying to push you into. They'd prefer you never being able to put your life and experiences into context, never be able to recover from keeping trauma inside, just so they wouldn't have to look at what they've done to you and take accountability. If someone is telling you that the events you remember are made up, imagined, a dream, something you shouldn't think and talk about - but it's only like that when you're remembering abuse, they're trying to use your own defenses you had as a child against you. You needed to believe it back then in order to survive it, but you need to correctly contextualize it now, if you ever hope to feel okay again.

You can trust in your own mind, and your own defenses to get you trough this. You are not wrong in looking back and seeing things a different way. You are right say 'that was fucked up'. They shouldn't have done that to me and they know that.

[wingerb17]

Anyone else ever got the "You better actually be sick, or you'll be in big trouble when I get pick you up from school early."? Like, "You really are putting me out like this making me end my work day because your stomach hurts."? Anybody else get yelled at for calling an ambulance on themselves because you vomited six times in one day? Or the time I was grounded from homecoming because my ambulance bill (from a separate incident) was over $700? No? Just me? Alright.

[dddemigirl]

I may not remember exactly what you said but I will always remember the way that your words made me feel.

[anti-kink-queen]

When the abuse is so bad you stop Fearing the dark cuz you'd lowkeyr rather be dead rn<<>>

[spyroz]

if anyone needs help identifying things that can become moral scrupulosity OCD obsessions/compulsions, heres a list of some i've experienced:

rereading your posts/texts over and over

checking your notes and/or followers list frequently to "make sure" bad actors aren't interacting with you

checking OP's blog before interacting with posts

compulsively opening a social media tab to look at your notifs and then closing it, over and over

fearing ways that things you say/do (or don't do) could be taken in bad faith. being anxious that your words/actions will be misconstrued as morally wrong, bigoted, rude, or aggressive

feeling guilty or obsessing over whether you should or shouldn't have reblogged a post

feeling like you aren't "allowed" to disengage from online discourse or unfollow people who post it

fearing you're being stalked, talked about, or called out behind your back. fearing you'll never be forgiven and that people might even celebrate your disappearance or death, even though you havent done anything wrong

searching your own name/username to see if anyone is actually talking about you

imagining defenses you would make against nonexistent heinous accusations or arguments against you, to prove that you didnt do it

feeling like you have to roll over and become a doormat when others are cruel to you, because it could cause strife if you do anything other than grovel or apologize

having trouble enforcing your own boundaries out of fear that they are somehow "wrong" or unethical

ending up surrounded by people who have all the "right opinions" but are super mean and unpleasant, and make you feel like you have to walk on eggshells

fearing that just HAVING moral ocd makes you a bad person somehow (for example, i often fear that having moral ocd is somehow pushing a 'stranger danger' or misanthropist agenda, even though i actually have a lot of faith in my fellow humans)

some of these bullet points are not inherently bad on their own, but if you find yourself having this kind of anxiety very often, that's not normal, and it's time to get offline or even seek professional help if it's impacting your life

this list is catered to how online culture influences moral scrupulosity, it is not indicative of how everybody's moral scrupulosity functions, and it is not exhaustive

[its-simply-just-krys]

anonymous ; found on pinterest

[reasonsforhope]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but especially with the end of the school year coming up soon, and a bunch of people about to leave high school or about to leave college, I just wanted to say:

Being an adult can be really nice, actually!!!

Like, okay, yeah, life can be fucking stressful sometimes, and there's definitely an annoying amount of paperwork.

But me and just about every single adult I know will agree: I would never choose to go back to being a teenager, even if I somehow could.

Insert obvious disclaimer that nothing is universal. But for people worried about aging or graduating into the next chapter of life, here's some words of reassurance:

When you're a teenager, your brain is extra mean to you. Like, neurologically. All of the changes it's undergoing really, really increase rates of depression/anxiety/etc. A lot of the time, literally just not being a teenager anymore is really good for your mental health

Less than five months out of high school, everyone I knew my age was like "Thank fuck we're no longer in high school." Once you leave high school and adolescence there's really just such a dramatic drop in petty bullshit. Shit that would have been a huge social humiliation or gossip in high school is really often just like, "Hate that for you, man." Boom, done.

When you're a teenager or a brand new adult, you're encountering so many problems for the first time ever. When you're older, you just. Have learned how to handle a lot more things. You know what to do way more often and that builds confidence

When you're an adult, other people generally don't care if you don't do things perfectly, because jobs and life don't work like grades. This was such a trip to learn, honestly? But when you are an adult or have a job the bar for success is usually just "Did you do the thing?" or "Did you do the thing well enough that it works?" or "Did you show up to work for your whole shift and look like you were doing things?"

Similarly, if you're about to graduate college and you're really stressed about it, fyi just about everyone I knew in college ended up very quickly going "wow, 'real life' is way easier." Admittedly I went to a school full of very stressed out perfectionists and the like, so I can't promise this is universal, but there's a very real chance that life will in many ways get easier when you graduate

WAY MORE CONTROL OF YOUR OWN LIFE

Literally I cannot overstate that last point. As an adult, you are (barring certain disabilities or shitty circumstances like abusive family/the criminal justice system/etc.) able to make most of your own decisions. If you want to rearrange your furniture, you can. If you want to eat tater tots at midnight, you can. If you want to get yourself a little treat, you can. You can sign contracts and make your own legal and medical decisions and not need a parent or guardian signature for just about anything ever again

You generally learn how to give fewer fucks

The people around you have also generally learned how to give fewer fucks

Even when things are shitty, being able to choose what kind of shitty a lot of the time can really be worth an awful lot

[nevermeyers]

I find it very realistic that Megumi wants to try to live for someone else again instead of for himself directly. I mean it. It will take him a long time to recover from what he has suffered, which was too much for a child (because he is still a child!!). At first I thought Megumi was going to pick himself up, but looking at it from another perspective and analyzing my own experience with mental health: it makes sense. Megumi needs help. And he will get it. Yuuji and his friends will teach him to live for himself. The ending of Megumi's character is a new beginning, unlike the others.

Btw, did y'all notice his scars are Sukuna's? The way i'd kms on the spot, poor boy :( he's going to live with the curse of remembering every time he looks on the mirror

[uncharted-constellations]

~You were just a kid too, huh~

Again, I refuse to make adult mm link edgy sorry.

[shybasementkid]

did some tiktok ninjago fans just not watch the show

[furiousgoldfish]

Existence in abuse is riddled with constant guilt and shame – and this is not by accident. All abusers put effort into convincing their victims they deserved it, to prevent resistance, and make them 'ashamed for deserving it', to prevent the word from getting out. If abusers can pinpoint one bad thing you did in your entire life, they will repeat it back to you consistently, amplifying how guilty and ashamed you need to feel about it.

Lacking anything concrete, they will shame you for everyday, small things, and depict them as malevolent crimes. You will hear about how selfish you are, for failing to put someone else's feelings first and even for wanting to do one little thing for yourself, after taking care of everyone else's feelings. You'll hear about how spoiled and inconsiderate you are, if you voice your struggles or problems, when abuser expected of you to only give attention to them. If you dare to call the abuser out in return, the focus will be put on you with so much fury, leading you to find out that this person is enraged by every single thing you ever did. They'll accuse you of not even knowing how much damage you did to them, what they sacrificed for you, what you owe them, what you already took from them (they list something they did without you asking for it).

The repeated treatment of being told off and shamed even for acting in the most normal, or empathetic ways, will lead you to question yourself, your intention, if this is all justified. You'll analyze past situation to see if you could have done better, blaming and shaming yourself for 'mistakes' your abusers are throwing back at your face, when you either didn't know they were bad, or had the kindest intentions in doing as you did. Your own actions will become scrutinized and you will wonder if you in fact, do deserve punishment and hostility for anything you ever did. Even when your standards rise and your behaviour becomes as kind and considerate as possible, it will turn out it's never enough. You're always guilty of something, you must always feel ashamed. You're ignored and neglected and then told off for not paying enough attention to them, you're working all day to please them only to be made feel stupid for thinking this would in fact, please them. You become helpless and desperate for any confirmation that you're a good person, because no matter what you do, it's never good enough, it's always shamed and ostracized.

I remember living in this soup of toxic shame and guilt, too scared to take credit for anything I did, because 'then I only did to get credit', too scared to feel good about anything good I did, because then I did it 'only for the sake of feeling good about myself'. I couldn't win. The abusers around me amplified what a horrible person I was, until I gave in and believed it. After all, if every person around me is confident that I am a wretched monster, then how could I be anything else? I can't be the only one who is right, and all of them wrong. They wouldn't be saying it for no reason, and why would they lie to me. These people love me. They're saying it for my own sake. They're doing it so I would have a chance to become better.

This is how they prefer you to think; you must stay focused on your own faults, and boil in shame until you're too scared of doing anything, and refuse credit for things you do, so someone else can take it. There's one very convenient feature to this brainwashing; you are not allowed to focus on what anyone else is doing.

You can't be scrutinizing your abuser's actions, or comparing them to your own, because that will make them mad, and they'll explode calling you derisive and insulting names, and you will get triggered and crushed. You can't point out their hypocrisy when they're apparently 'trying to make you a better person', when they themselves are not even trying to be good, because again, this makes them mad, and is too dangerous for you. You have to focus on yourself while also putting yourself in a world where nobody else's actions are scrutanizable or accountable, only you need to be perfect, only you need to be guilty and ashamed of everything you do; everyone else can do whatever, and you better pretend you didn't see it. Phrases like 'look at yourself before you look at others' might be thrown at you to make you ashamed for even looking at other people's actions critically.

I too was afraid to compare myself to others people, constantly keeping in mind the regular excuses. 'These people had it rough, they have reasons for doing what they did, they're struggling with guilt too and would be crushed if it was ever pointed out to them what damage they're doing, they don't know how much hurt they're causing, they were never taught better, I can't judge, I can't hold them accountable. They wouldn't be able to stand it'.

All of these excuses, of course, were not applicable to me; I had to know what I was doing, I had to take responsibility for everything I did or didn't do, I had to be strong enough to withstand the guilt and shame, but others could live instantly absolved and asking them to feel guilty was just too cruel.

I wasn't able to escape this worldview while I lived with abusers, because the constant stream of guilt trips and shaming was pushing me back, but once I escaped, I allowed myself to take a look at how other people live, what they do and say, and what they feel ashamed for. To my surprise, even the slightest scrutiny revealed that people I lived around did numerous crimes to their own children, neighbours, to the world in general, they felt comfortable lying, manipulating, using, exploiting and gaslighting others; they felt justified to invent any kind of story that shows them in a good light while hiding atrocious amount of cruelty and lies. If I was to do any kind of comparison, it became obvious that by any moral standards – I was better than all of these people. Easily. I never did any of that shit, and considered other people's well being meticulously before deciding on my every move. For all of them, other people's well being wasn't even an afterthought, it was something they actively attacked and mutilated. As long as they could get away with it, as long as no consequences followed.

Finding this out, I was mortified to know that these were the people who had the nerve to shame me for my behaviour. People who never cared about anyone in their entire life said to my face that I was selfish and inconsiderate for not caring about them enough. Outrageous. People who reached for violence to get their way were getting mad at me for not guessing what would please them good enough on a certain day. What inverted hell is that.

After a lot of anger and objective scrutiny of actions of people I lived with, I was able to conclude that I lived with garbage. These folks has no humanity in them, they were only parasites, and they had me thinking I was somehow worse than all of them, and that my normal and humane actions were in fact, worse than their cruelest crimes. That is one skill that all abusers train themselves in; making other people feel worse about themselves. It's a tactic of abuse that often comes so aggressively that people become too shocked and scared to counter it, it takes an abnormally cruel and self-justified person to reach for it. They consistently get away with it. People will learn they're not allowed to think badly of them, before they even get to judge or scrutinize their behaviour.

While you're living with abusers, some of their suspicious actions and evasive tactics will not make any sense; so write it down, and remember it for later. Once you find out what they've been up to, what they were trying to get away with, what they've been lying about, what they were doing in secret – you will become able to see both them and yourself more clearly. Yes they can confidently lie to you about who you are, not because they think they're right, but because they're trying to convince you of it. If they truly thought you were the worst of them, you'd be celebrated.

[certainlyathrill]

they were boys together !!!

[boytransmission]

seeing gay porn featuring someone, especially a bottom, with a noticeable cross/otherwise christian tattoo does something to me that's not initially or even necessarily sexual, but i suddenly become much more invested in their performance and apparent feelings and moans

[gor3sigil]

I spent the majority of my life being scared to DEATH about getting older. When I was 10, I listened to a song about growing out of the innocence of childhood and cried for hours. When I was 13, I could have panic attacks and crying fits because I was terrified of not being passionate about music as much if I grew older. I cried when I reached my 20s. And I'm scared shitless about turning 30.

The adults in my life were MISERABLE. I was told almost every day that growing up meant giving up, making sacrifices, having to bury inside everything you ever were as a child and teenager to fit in the mould or you were going to be the scum of society, useless, not worthy of anything.

The adults in my life were traumatized and never did anything to address their traumas. And they openly didn't want to. They were persuading themselves that they were fine or that it wasn't important to heal from the past. But their traumas transpired in everything they did, every decision they made, and the way they treated me.

And look, I'm not old by any means. I'm almost 27. But I spend every day that makes me closer to 30 like a waiting room before my inner death. Like one day I'll wake up and become a zombie and everything I ever loved and was passionnate about will be erased from my mind and heard, only to be replaced by the excruciating burden of responsabilities, chores, work, filling papers and wondering how I ended up living this way.

That's why I left my family. Because I was so sure that they would shove me into the same patterns they were in that I just dropped everything and went away. And the reaction I got in return was "Well, do you think WE'RE happy ? No, but life goes on anyways." I felt my inner child scream in agony. I packed, took a train, never returned.

And thank god I did.

It warms my heart so much when I see peolle here in their 30s still engaging in famdoms, nerdy hobbies, passions like writing, drawing, make music. Know that you're the reason I keep going and am a little less scared of being myself and growing into who I want to become.

[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.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

The Helena diaz of it all has me fascinated. I’ve said for a long while that Eddie’s real issues are his mommy issues and this episode just cemented for me that we’re gonna explore that and deal with it.

Because it’s Helena who forced Eddie to grow up to fast - because her husband wasn’t around much - so she pushed Eddie into de facto parent and husband role ls - selfishly filling her needs and ignoring the damage it was doing to her son (it is a form of abuse in my book).

Eddie then had the audacity to fall in love with and marry Shannon and get her pregnant. It’s why Helena was always so off with Shannon - she was punishing her. She is also punishing Eddie for all of this and his refusal to return to El Paso only cemented further her bitterness and resentment.

Now she does have Ramon back she doesn’t need Eddie any longer to fill that role so she is still punishing him and part of that is tied into her glee over now getting to parent Christopher - something she has always been intent on doing the doppelgänger just gave her the opportunity- as well as allowing her to further punish her son and his love of Shannon.

Her barbed comments about building a pool were all about showing what she can provide Christopher - how she is parenting him better than Eddie - it’s part of her mind games - making Eddie feel like more of a failure as a parent to his son.

The reality of course is that the reverse is true - Helena’s parenting is all superficial, flash and showy - it isn’t the hard day to day parenting when things get tough and you have to be the bad guy. While Eddie has made mistakes, there is nothing superficial, flash, or showy about his parenting. It’s why bucks comments about Eddie being a great dad are so important.

Eddie feel like a failure right now and that he is entirely to blame for everything. But in reality, while he does bear a bit of the responsibility, the truth of the matter is that he needs to learn and deal with the fact that all of it actually stems from Helena and her abuse of her young son - Shannon never stood a chance just like Eddie never has.