#hope these trigger warnings are okay

[veggietales-and-trauma]

Growing up as a missionary kid with ARFID

I recently found out I may have ARFID. no official diagnosis yet, but learning about this disorder has resonated so strongly with me. It also has made me so angry and sad about the shit I had to go through because of my parents' decision to become missionaries.

If you don't know what ARFID is, it's basically an eating disorder that messes with the way your brain perceives food and causes you to avoid certain foods because of sensory issues like texture, or anxiety about possible reactions to food. in my case, I am very sensitive to textures, tastes, and smells, and cannot eat certain foods without gagging, nausea, and/or being unable to physically swallow. It is uncomfortable at best, painful at worst. As a kid, I had a much smaller list of safe, edible foods than I have now, but I have always had this experience with new or unsafe foods and still do at 28 years old.

Now, if you don't know what being a missionary kid is like, well, I don't blame you. I wish I didn't either. But here we are.

When I was a toddler, my parents decided God was calling them to go to a foreign country to win souls for the kingdom or whatever. This required us to travel around the states for years going to different churches and families to ask for money to support this lifestyle. Once we had enough money, we then moved to overseas to tell people about Jesus. Woohoo.

My ARFID pals can probably imagine what a horror this sounds like. Almost every week, I had to travel to a new church and go to a new restaurant or eat at a stranger's house. Sometimes we had lunch with the pastor, sometimes we stayed at a stranger's house for several nights and ate with them.

I had plenty of issues at home surrounding food. I was constantly getting in trouble for not finishing my potatoes, being sentenced to sit at the dinner table for hours until I ate 4 more bites of broccoli, or being threatened with no dessert or other punishments. None of this ever worked, and I would just sit there filled with shame but unable to eat.

Eating with strangers was another story. Most of my memories of this time are of my mother harshly whispering threats into my ear if I didn't eat, apologizing for me being a "picky eater" and complaining about me right in front of my face, or whisking me off to the bathroom to spank me. None of it helped me. I would cry, I would sulk, I would beg. But no matter the punishment, I could not make myself eat a bite of lasagna or try a bit of sauerkraut. On a couple of occassions, I even threw up at the table.

Unsurprisingly, things did not get better when we moved overseas. We moved to a country with a cuisine almost entirely comprised of food that I still can't stomach to this day. Seafood, lumpy potatoes, complicated stews, dry sandwiches, meats with large ribbons of fat running through them.

I don't mean to be culturally insensitive; there is nothing at all strange or bad about what they ate. My brain just couldn't handle it. Every time I had to go to a church lunch, I would basically starve and get sick from not eating. Church camp was the worst, with multiple days of suffering through meals that I could barely eat tiny bites of, getting constant headaches and feeling weak and unable to enjoy being with the other kids. I loved sleeping out in a tent, singing songs, playing games with them. But I hated the food experience so much, I would contemplate jumping out of my window so I could break my legs and not have to go.

I did get to eat at home more. But did you know that manufacturing processes are different in other countries? Did you know vegetables can have different shapes, sizes, and textures? I did. Nobody else could tell, but every single food was new and different and strange and unsafe to me, except for the peanut butter we brought over with us. Slowly, I would find foods I could handle and get accustomed to my new safe foods and eating routines. Then, we would have to go back the states to visit family and supporting churches.

Suddenly, everything was new again. I hated M&Ms because they were too small. Cheese and milk tasted weird. Hot dogs had too thick of a skin. Cucumber slices were too big and watery. Now the process had to start over again, forcing myself to find new safe foods, until it was time to return overseas and switch back to the old ones.

So it went, like a yoyo, being yanked around the world, trying desperately to find safety and consistency. I was tiny, couldn't gain any weight until years after adulthood. I was full of constant guilt, and I always felt othered. Singled out for being too stupid and stubborn to just eat a fish sandwich with the rest of the kids. It compounded with my awkwardness and social anxiety and I ended up with no friends, just the weird kid who didn't talk and never ate lunch.

I know my parents were totally unprepared for this and they did what they thought was best. ARFID wasn't added to the DSM-V until after I had graduated high school. None of the strategies to deal with picky eaters worked on me. How could they know what to do?

I do wish they wouldn't have made me feel like such a useless sack of shit every time, though.

But I get it. I made them look bad in front of their donors.

Missionary kids are told they must be adventerous, brave, charismatic, intelligent, flexible, generous. We were supposed to evangelize too, after all. More importantly, we were supposed to be model kids that people would want to give money to.

Instead, my parents got a small, weird, unsocial, anxious kid who couldn't eat food, couldn't talk to people, couldn't take a car ride without throwing up, much less a plane ride.

It wasn't my fault. It was just too much for me.

Doesn't stop me from feeling like a failure.

[zerosuitsammi3]

If I can take a moment to share my experience as a trans woman on the internet

My experience is by no means unique, it's just one experience in the plethora of trans feminine experiences and not unique to only tumblr. Though, I'll mostly talk about what I've experienced here. In the light of recent events, the reaction of "the ceo," and the comments he contributed regarding dog pile harassment; I simply wish to share my experiences that I have had to juxtapose the dynamic of his statements against a lived experience.

This account started as a way to document my social transition and eventually my journey with HRT. Tumblr had always had a large lgbtqia+ community. The queer people here inspired me and gave me hope. What I didn't know, but soon learned, is that there were people here who hated me for being trans. Being early in my transition I was a prime target. TERF groups would plan raids on my account. What this entailed was: rebloging my selfies into circles that would say the most vile things about me, threaten to kill, tell me I was ugly, tell me that everyone I knew thought I was a joke, I was a monster, my family hated me, that I should kill myself, they'd download and edit my photos into caricatures or depictions of violence. They would fill my ask box with hundreds of asks detailing how they'd kill me, call me slurs, describe the ways that I should kill myself, and pretty much everything else I mentioned above with the reblogs. Their words were carefully curated to try and break me, break my spirit, break my will to live. I tried reporting it. But it was impossible to keep up with, and like many others I saw no real response. Eventually I learned that I had to block all of them. 100's of blogs, eventually 1000's of blogs. My block list these days is incredibly extensive. I had to wade through their blogs, traverse sickening hate speech and imagery to eliminate entire circles of people harassing me. I became jaded to the hate speech, hardened to it. But mind you, I shouldn't have had to expose myself to all of this just to be at peace here amongst my community. I received no help, I was left to my own devices to protect myself. The people who hurt me never saw consequences. It was painful, it was unfair, and no one else should have to put the hours upon hours of effort and exposure to hate in to protect themselves like I did. But again my experience is not unique.

I have had to repeat this process of preemptive blocking periodically once a new circle discovers me. Blocking them all before they can start the process of hate all over again. A process of hate that seems to be hitting my community with rapidly increasing fervor as of late.

I've seen others experience far worse than me. The TERF circles will hunt down their personal information and doxx them. Expose their home address, telephone numbers, names of their family members. I can't begin to imagine the terror my queer siblings must feel when someone tells then that they want to murder them all while showing them that they know where you live. This is not a new thing, not a rare tactic, it happens. And we've all seen the news stories of trans people being murdered by people who planned it and were vocal about it.

I know this is depressing. And it doesn't reflect all of my experiences. I've had wonderful experiences here, met amazing people, made close friends, found inspiration, found hope. I found a community.

And it's my community, and I never want to let it go.

I do have fear that making this statement will get me banned. But, I wanted to say it. I wanted it to exist in the world so that everyone who doesn't know our experiences has a chance to understand and with luck empathize.

I'll part on these words and hope for the best both for myself and for every member of the community.

[pixelatedraindrops]

Yuma Month: Day 20: Truth

The truth…is uglier than you could have ever expected.

tw // vomit (spoilers too)

...happens only if he ate a meat bun prior to this

(all vomit in rain code is censored in pink glitter ✨)

based on this post I made long back

[katebeckets]

cw: suicide //

September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. It always makes me think of these pictures that were taken about five years ago. Even though they’re pictures of me, and it’s an experience I literally lived through, it’s still always so jarring to me.

These are from the day I was hospitalized on a 5150, taken just about 6 hours apart. It was a Friday. Before I was hospitalized, I went to all my classes, went to work (where they took the picture on the left), walked through campus and my college town to get dinner, and tried to talk myself into sleeping instead of asking for help or support.

Nobody knew what was going on. This was the third day of secretly crying whenever people weren't looking. I cried walking between classes, in class, during breaks at work, and at home in my room. The only people who knew were the ones directly involved in getting me to the hospital that day. And, if I'm being honest, even I didn't know how bad it was. Reflecting back on this experience as a therapist myself, I know I would've made the same call as everyone else in my life that day (that I needed more help than they could give). But the only reason I agreed to go to the hospital that day is because I was 100% certain they were going to look at me and say "what are you doing here? Go home. There's no reason for you to be here." Because nothing was wrong (I was just inconsolable and completely incapable of regulating my emotions).

We say it all the time, that you can't tell what someone is going through just by looking at them. We all know that. But somehow, this still shocks me. The photo on the left is me helping a kiddo at work. It's such a normal photo of me; I have my usual makeup on, I'm in the classroom, I'm focused on the kiddos in my class. The one on the right is me without makeup, not because I hadn't put on makeup that day or because I washed it off, but because I had literally cried it all off at that point.

I know that I am not the first and will certainly not be the last to experience something like this, and nothing I've said is particularly profound or insightful. But I share this anyway, a potential reminder for anyone who needs it:

People can struggle without anyone knowing. Your hurt is valid even if nobody can identify it. It doesn't mean you're faking it.

Every tired, irritating cliché is true: things can get better, but you have to still be here to see it.

"Better" doesn't always look the way you think it does. "Better" might just mean that, more days than not, you want to be alive. Or maybe even that more days than not, you don't want to be dead.

Feelings are not reliable or factual narrators. They are valuable and valid, but not always accurate.

Mostly, I share this because I want anyone who needs it to know that they know someone who has experienced this. You can ask me questions or ask for help or just say hi; I truly don't mind. And because everything I do involves playlists, here is an updated version of a playlist I made a few years ago when I first spoke about this experience.

💜

[emerald-oceans]

That is the second time now I have gone on Twitter to look for baby Bill art and have seen fan art of him being raped.

What the fuck is wrong with some of you people?

Please be careful if you are going on Twitter and browsing #babybill. The one I just saw is graphic. Be careful.

[mrpuzzle]

TW Sexual Assault.

For the consideration of many folks safety. If any of this stuff triggers or this topic makes you uncomfortable, I would highly reccomend to ignore this post. Your mental heath and safety is a priority. I wish yall to take care of yourselves during this journey of those affected.

This is my experience as a survivor myself being someone who experienced that specific trauma while in a relationship. There is still guilt in my mind, but I been going to therapy to become kinder to myself.

Thank you take care.

Part 1/?

“I drew you for comfort and I wrote you for comfort”

[henriiiii-1001old]

a family dinner! except they're eating part of the family and gaslighting the youngest member of the household she killed her own brother.

this was also something i wasn't too proud of at first but it ended up being SO GOOD. also just to note, the blurred out soup is just for visual effect

hope you enjoy!

[avida-heidia-5]

And now for something…slightly different than usual. Same F1 content, but this time with a different author in mind.

For fans of Tianvette’s work, I’ve drawn a few scenes from some of my favourite fanfics from her. They are the following:

• Forget Me Not

• I Heard You’re A Player, So Let’s Play A Game

• Trust/Fall

• Baby’s First Apology

• Wider, Baby, Smile

• This Time It’s Personal

I haven’t done any drawings for Solar Flare yet, but that might be something to do for the near future. I hope you like them, Tianvette. 😊

[bluestjayy]

Maybe I'm just cursed 🤪

[mbat]

yikes, joined a few gravity falls servers a few days ago and one is called 'the omniverse hideout' ran by someone whos account is based around vegeta or some shit, and it was fine at first but then they started going off about stuff like 'all these young people who cant even spell contemplate but they know about all "52+ genders" and theyre all so sensitive and personality-less and triggered all the time'

so that was an instant leave.

[saturdaymournings]

NEW USERNAME STEPCHILD????

Yeahhhh !! Not the best circumstances but I’m being brave and it feels fitting because it’s named after one of the wholesome little small joys of my life :) I also feel like it’s fitting to the energy I’m going for right now since trying to get rid of that constant feeling of underlying guilt in favour of like. Not feeling that lol. It’s been going pretty well I got my shit together most of the time :3

[hatefulxtendencies]

Lmao. Blades are gone but this is how I used to self harm when I was institutionalised. Threw up because my body can’t contain this sickness inside of me. It’s spilling out. I’m a rotten mind in a rotten body. Nothing matters anymore. I’m so done. I’m.so.fucking.done.

[bittersweetblasphemy]

hey so i really dont appreciate being confronted with graphic depictions of something that i know is a trigger for me. like. i have a dozen tags and key words blocked around this one thing because i know it's my responsibility to curate my own online experience.

but if you're going to post this thing, which is vastly different from your regular content. with absolutely no appropriate tags. is extremely graphic. all for the sake of guilting me into caring about a current event i already care about but have fuckall control over as a poor cripple who lives oceans away. i really don't appreciate it.

[3lji]

happy friday angels! 💌💌💌 hope you have a wonderful weekend xox

it keeps being a weird week ♥️ things are okay but i got sexually assaulted on public transport yesterday 😂 so things keep going good and bad. i just want to say happy friday to you all and please take good care of yourselves! please don’t worry tho - i’m totally fine.

i really hope we get a new chapter soon - i want some more fic! maybe i should write but i’ve largely given that up haha ♥️ if i could write something i’d write about how domestic tianshan can be, and how happy they’d be when they were finally together - finally living together, calm and peaceful, and the food they’d make and eat together. i think food is a big thing between the two of them. sometimes i think about whether tian has ever had a member of his family cook for him? and what it means to him when guan shan cooks for him 🥹❣️

[todomemolesta18]

The way the anti-hazbin crowd talks about Angel makes me sick, which is why I was happy to see you agreeing that Angel’s abuse was not glamorous. These people say things like it’s unrealistic that he doesn’t leave or that he was portrayed as enjoying abuse, when he wasn’t. They end up repeating a lot of terrible things about abuse survivors which is why I can’t take them seriously. But if I mention that saying these things about Angel are wrong, I get accused of defending Viv. I wish people understood that they not just talking about a character but real life things that real people go through. I also never see any antis posting fundraisers or resources for survivors. They’re so focused on hating a show, they forgot to be good people.

EXACTLY. I dont care if you dislike a character, please, THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK. Real people are affected by this abuse. Im sorry people talked to you that way, I hope you doing okay.

[ask-cthulhu-mythos-au]

Hey.

ok, I know no one's gonna care, and that it's useless for me to post this and ya.

But I just feel bad for not posting regularly, but uh, I'm not okay rn. And what I thought would be just a small amount of time off, is probably gonna be something like a month. I was about to come back because I thought I had mostly beaten what was going on. But uh ya, I relapsed and I'm worse now.

So ya...sorry. but I PROMISE..i think...I WILL COME BACK