#makes your relationship somehow less or you a shitty partner tho. so long as people both go at it with similar ideas in mind!

[ottitty]

Less of like. Pressure to move in and make plans and fuck and have lots of romance and have all things joint decisions and more like. I'd like to live my separate life w you in it but also kiss n cuddle n be there emotionally when needed sometimes.

[blitzturtles]

Title: It Starts Like This, Ch. 6

Rating: Teen and Up

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo

Pairing(s): BruAbba, FugoNara / NaraFugo (Could be platonic, honestly, tho the BruAbba definitely isn't.)

Summary: “What?” he snaps.

“I’m just thinking.”

A pause. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Notes: Turns out being dead has a bit of a long term effect. Who would have thought?

This fic got away from me, so I'm breaking it down by character interaction (sort of). Here's another Bucci-centric chapter for the Bucci-centric fic.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Additional Notes: Sometimes having two disabled folks in one relationship is... rough. Not at all based on real life experiences...

Content Warning: couple fighting and a panic attack.

Also, for unnecessary clarification: Moody doesn't zipper through anything. Abbacchio goes around barriers and resets her timer as needed. Oh, and I use she/her for Moody. I've got a fic planned for that eventually.

There's also a mild mention of a headcanon I have where Bucci is technically Narancia's guardian. For school and healthcare purposes. (Fugo emancipated post-disownment, and Giorno kind of flies under the radar.)

-

Bucciarati won’t admit it, but there’s something devastating about the first medication not working. Or not working well enough. They can’t be sure, but he’s not willing to continue on something that ultimately failed to curb such a traumatic experience for one of the people he cares for most. He can’t quite shake the guilt that’s been slowly wearing away at him for days.

It’s only the anxiety of having another seizure in front of his famiglia that has him permitting Abbacchio staying home once more. He can’t do that to Narancia again, and he knows that it won’t be any less stressful for the rest of them. It’s bad enough when Leone has to deal with the fallout, but he’s better prepared for it. He’s seen worse, and it’s part of what they both signed up for. For better or worse, in sickness and in health. They’ve done everything but scribbled their names on the paperwork to make it official, but Bruno thinks that, with everything else they’ve gone through, they’ve more than earned their right as one another’s life partner.

Still, that doesn’t mean that Bucciarati likes to be watched like a lab experiment. With eyes that are waiting for the slightest hint that something’s wrong. It makes him acutely aware of the fact that he could have another seizure at any given moment. That he might have one with no warning signs, or at least not any that he’d recognize as such.

That’s the problem with auras; he can’t seem to recognize them for what they are.

He’s being unreasonable, he knows. He hasn’t had enough seizures to know whether or not he’ll learn to recognize the warning signs, but it feels like it’s been an eternity already. And a thousand seizures, rather than a small handful. Part of that is due to how poorly he feels afterwards, and how off he feels on the medication. Part of it is how all of this has disrupted their lives in every way imaginable. And all of it has him in a sour mood.

“You’re upset,” Abbacchio starts with a frown. It’s the first time either of them has spoken all morning.

“I’m frustrated.”

Abbacchio hums in response. A quiet sound that wouldn’t normally grate Bucciarati’s nerves, but it gets under his skin and festers.

“What?” he snaps.

“I’m just thinking.”

A pause. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You never want to talk about it,” Abbacchio answers, snappish and untrue. Even if it were, he knows why. Understands better than anyone else.

Bruno’s eyes widen slightly. A startled, wounded look evident in his blue irises, but his gaze hardens and he sneers,

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Bruno, wait--”

But Bruno is already gone with nothing but a trace of gold left behind.

Damn that stand.

______

It’s a childish thing, to storm off, especially when Bucciarati knows that Leone’s only worried. That he hadn’t meant the words that came out of his mouth, and that he’s as scared as Bucciarati is. That this is all out of his depth, regardless of what they feel for one another or what promises they’ve made. It’s still terrifying the way it’s terrifying to watch Abbacchio cough up blood some mornings.

He regrets leaving the moment he stops moving. Stops tearing holes through walls and leaving Sticky Fingers to put them back together. It’s like someone punched the air out of him, and all he can do is sink to the ground, on his knees, with his head held in his hands and his mouth open, gasping for air.

Each breath comes too quick, and leaves before he feels like he gets any air. There’s something wrapped around his chest. Too tight, and somehow pulling tighter. It’s all he can do to lie down. Before the next inevitable comes. He already feels too light-headed with a lingering dizziness that makes it impossible to think through.

“Bruno,” the voice sounds familiar. Too much like his own echoing in his ears, but he’s not talking, much less calling his own name. His voice wouldn’t sound like that. Wouldn’t sound steady, if not worried, but, when he looks, there’s a mirror image of himself looking down at him. It falls to its knees, and a familiar sound rings out in the air as Moody’s timer runs out. She reaches for him as purple wraps around her frame once more.

“Bruno,” Leone repeats, this time in his own voice, from his own body. He all but collapses on his knees beside his stand and reaches out with careful hands to brush Bucciarati’s hair from his face.

Time freezes for a moment. Bucciarati expects consciousness to flee him without warning, but the air lingers. Stale and stiff and impossible to breathe, and all he can do is try and try to pull enough of it into his lungs to try to chase away the spots dancing across his vision.

Recognition flashes across Leone’s features. Where his hand has gone still in Bruno’s hair, it moves once more. A gentle carding. A distraction from the racing fears in Bucciarati’s head. He can’t calm his breathing no matter how hard he tries. It feels completely out of his control, and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Leone asks him seemingly out of the blue, but he knows that’s not right. That Leone must have been talking since his arrival, but Bruno can’t recall a word that’s been said.

“Yes,” he breathes, because he is now, and he meant to before. It’s just so hard to hear anything past the roaring in his ears.

“You need to calm down a little bit. Take some deep breaths,” Leone tells him, as if Bucciarati hasn’t been trying to do that since he stopped moving. There’s a sense of impending doom that lingers, pressing down on him until it’s crushing and unbearable.

“Hey,” Leone calls, tapping Bruno gently on the forehead, “You gotta focus on me, alright? Stop listening to whatever’s going on in that thick head of your’s, and listen to me. I need you to breathe in-- slower than that. Okay, good, hold-- now out. Annnd in--” They go through the steps several more times, until Bucciarati can successfully follow the counts more often than not. Finally-- finally he can breathe. Oxygen filters through his system, and his vision begins to clear. It’s only then that he starts to put the pieces together, and it’s shame that replaces the panic.

“I’m-”

“Don’t,” Leone cuts Bruno off before he can apologize. “I get it.” He moves to catch Bruno when he wobbles a bit too much upon trying to sit up. “Take it easy, will you?” He sighs and sits back.

“Sorry,” Bruno says, for lack of anything else to say.

“I’ll kick your ass if you apologize again.”

Bruno opens his mouth, and Leone quirks an eyebrow. It’s enough of a threat, empty as it may be, to convince Bruno to click his teeth together.

Leone huffs a sound that might be a laugh. Or it might be the last of his sanity slipping away. He scrubs his hands over his face and sighs. “I’m sorry. For what I said earlier. That was shitty. I’m just-”

“Scared?”

“Terrified.”

“That’s fair,” Bruno muses quietly. He absently wipes at his face, and it’s the first time he realizes that there are tears there. Streaking down both cheeks and plentiful in nature. He can’t remember the last time he had a panic attack. He’s better at running from his problems than he is dealing with them head on. At least the ones emotional in nature. The rest he’s always tackled with little more than a hope and a prayer to a deity he’s long lost faith in. “I’m sorry, too.”

“I told you to stop apologizing.”

“When have I ever listened to you?” Bruno snarks back, shoulders relaxing slightly.

Leone snorts, “Not a day in your life.” Bruno has the scars to prove it, too. Bastard. “C’mon. Let’s get off the floor. I’m getting too old for this.”

It’s Bruno’s turn to laugh this time, “You’re barely in your twenties.”

“And I’m too goddamn old. Up,” Leone pushes himself to his feet before reaching his hands out to pull Bruno upright. There’s a pause where the two are lost, staring at one another, and Leone decides ‘fuck it’. What better time to go for a kiss then after your partner has a full on panic attack? They’ve done worse with far more questionable timing.

Bruno responds to the kiss with a pleased little sound in the back of his throat. He tugs Leone closer, wanting the contact more than anything. He can feel Leone’s hands cradling the back of his head, fingers linking together at his nape.

“Gross! Get a room!”

Leone curses as they break apart and shoots Narancia the meanest look he can, “I will murder you.”

“Only if you catch me!” And the kid is off before Leone can even respond.

Bucciarati can’t help laughing at the whole display. He grabs for Leone’s hand before his partner can seriously consider killing Narancia. “May I remind you that I’m legally responsible for him?”

“They won’t find the body.”

“Leone!”

[whentherewerebicycles]

Hi! I really hope this isn’t overstepping but I don’t know any grown up lesbians irl (I mean I’m 23 so I guess technically I’m a grown up but for the purposes of this question it doesn’t count). Anyway, you can delete this if you want, but here’s the sitch: I met this girl like 9 months ago at work and first we hated each other and then we became friends and then we started hooking up but just as friends. I’m leaving this job in a few weeks and moving across the country, and I’m having all sorts of complicated feelings about this. Like, I don’t really want to date her, but we haven’t hooked up lately and i think I’m experiencing that as a kind of rejection of me as a friend even tho we’re still friends and do friend stuff together, just minus the kissing. And those rejection-feelings are making me sad. And I guess my question is, since you seem like someone who is really good at processing emotions and sort of regulating your responses—how do I do that? Like how do I become okay with things, especially things that I didn’t think would happen? I’m sorry I know that’s really broad and not really an answerable thing but if you have any advice I would really appreciate it. Thank you

aww it's not overstepping! i am happy to be a Grownup IRL Lesbian in this situation, although yknow take everything with a grain of salt as i am just one person and this is just one perspective. it sounds like there are a couple things at play here... one has to do with communication between the two of you and one has to do with emotional self-regulation. the communication piece i have historically been less adept at handling than the emotional self-regulation piece, but i have a best friend who is very good at it, and i feel like i have learned a lot from watching her navigate these kinds of emotionally sticky situations. so i will tell you what i think she would do -- and i will also tell you that historically, while communicating clearly with people has not always gotten her the outcome that she wanted, she always seems to feel a LOT better for having done it, and it clears the way for her to do the emotional self-regulating part more easily without having to also wade through lots of emotional projecting / attempts at reading the other person's mind.

it sounds like the way this relationship started (because it IS a relationship, even if it's not a capital R relationship) may have laid the groundwork for what's happening now. you say you hated each other at first, so you probably didn't feel comfortable or at ease around each other, and you may have established a pattern of not treating each other with special consideration or thoughtfulness (even if you aren't outright antagonistic towards each other). i'm also assuming (though correct me if i'm wrong?) that the transition into being friends who hook up probably wasn't discussed much at the outset or was treated as a casual thing that didn't need a lot of communication or clear boundaries (since it wasn't a capital R relationship). that kind of thing happens! i think it especially happens in your early 20s (and maybe also in situations where the two women involved don't have a lot of experience dating women or navigating that tricky 'are we friends or...?' kinda thing). but, again, it seems like it might be laying the groundwork for what's happening right now, where one person has withdrawn without explaining why, and the other person is left feeling rejected or confused about what's happening. it also doesn't sound like you think of this as something that could be resolved between the two of you -- you're asking for advice on how to manage your own feelings about the situation, rather than advice on how to address it with her.

from ten years of observing my best friend, i have found that she tends to operate according to the following principles:

ask the person in advance if you can have a conversation with them about something that's bothering you (instead of springing it on them in a social situation when they're not expecting it). it doesn't have to be a big serious We Need to Talk thing. you can make it clear that you're coming into it from a casual, friendly, 'can we try to work this out together' place, not from an attacking place (so as to avoid making the other person defensive)

have the conversation in person instead of over text (it's awkward but trust me TRUST ME it's better)

don't assume that you know what the other person is thinking or why they're acting the way they are. use "I" statements and try to frame things in ways that defuse tension and don't put the other person on the defensive. in your situation, you could say something like, "hey, so, I've noticed that we aren't really hooking up anymore. i respect your choices, and i'm completely okay with that if it's what you want to do. but i've been feeling kind of mixed up and sad about it, i was wondering if we could talk about what the next few weeks of our friendship are going to be like." you can also ask open-ended, nonjudgmental questions: "would you feel more comfortable not hooking up anymore, since i'm about to move?" "would you still like to hang out even if we're not going to be hooking up?" and you can voice your own preferences too - "i'd really like to keep hanging out, but it would help me feel better/more secure to know what you're thinking re: hooking up again," or even "i think it's getting harder for me to separate my feelings about the friendship from the hooking up - i think it might be better for us to stop hanging out."

think about what you want the result of the conversation to be -- not necessarily your most desired outcome, but what your priorities are re: the relationship and your personal needs for closure. you can go into a conversation hoping for a certain outcome ("i hope she says it was just a mistake, apologies, and says she wants to keep hooking up until i leave") but you have no control over whether or not you get that outcome, and you may just be setting yourself up for disappointment. what you can do, though, is set priorities for yourself, so that in the conversation, you are making choices or discussing things in a way that aligns with those longer-term goals. an example of that kind of priority might be something like - "I don't really need to keep in touch with this person after I move, but I want to leave on a good note - so I want to prioritize keeping the conversation positive and friendly, without either of us resorting to the animosity we used to feel towards each other when we first met." or you might set a priority like, "I actually do want to maintain this friendship in some form, and to do that I need to feel like we can be comfortable enough with each other talking to each other openly. I don't know how she'll respond or if preserving the relationship will be important to her at all, but I want to prioritize clearly sharing my own needs and feelings, giving her the opportunity to respond in kind, and modeling what i hope our friendship could look like going forward." getting clear in your own mind about your priorities in advance is different from attempting to emotionally project onto the other person or to control/manipulate their actions in some way. it's something that prepares you to communicate well with another person, but at its core it's an emotional self-regulation strategy -- a way for you to check in with yourself and decide in advance what your 'values' for the conversation are going to be. in the middle of the conversation, you may start feeling defensive, angry, hurt, rejected, or some other Big Feeling that causes you to want to react instinctively and impulsively, or makes it more likely that you'll cave on something you don't really want to cave on. doing some of this thinking beforehand gives you something to refer back to when you're feeling emotionally overwhelmed in the middle of a difficult conversation.

remember that you can only regulate the way you act and respond in a situation. so your priorities can be not just about your hopes for the tone of the conversation or the longer-term outcomes, but also about how you want to respond if things don't go well. poor communicators often tend to interpret attempts to openly, directly communicate or to set boundaries as an attack of some kind or an attempt to manipulate the situation. if she's not a very good communicator, it's possible that she might respond negatively to your attempts to have a calm, direct conversation -- whether it's by lashing out, dismissing or invalidating your feelings, changing the subject, stonewalling you, or trying to turn the situation around on you to make it somehow your fault. remember that if someone is violating your boundaries or making you feel shitty about yourself, you can always leave the conversation. it's not you failing as a communicator -- it's that the other person just isn't able to communicate with you in a healthy, productive way. i feel like when i was first dating women (and navigating breakups or complicated conversations like this one), i used to get sucked into these long, drawn-out processing conversations, which would sometimes last for hours and could be really painful. and i always used to think that to communicate well, or to be a respectful partner, i owed it to the other person to sit there and listen to everything they wanted to say to me, even if it was really cruel or was upsetting me. or if i was breaking up with someone, i owed it to them to answer every single angry or hurt question they asked me, because i was "hurting" them by breaking up with them, and so they were entitled to hurting me back or to dragging me through hours of processing. but that is NOT the case. not to traffic in stereotypes too much, but i think that women are socialized to feel like extensive emotional processing is always required / necessary, that we owe other people our undivided emotional energy and time, and that setting reasonable boundaries or calmly stating our needs is somehow "hurting" or inconveniencing other people in some way. this is simply not true. you have an ethical obligation to respect other people's autonomy and human dignity, and you have the right to expect that they communicate with and treat you with that same basic respect. watching my bff communicate has helped me realize that setting healthy boundaries (and then clearly demonstrating that you will honor those boundaries, by removing yourself from the situation if they are violated) is a way of showing respect to yourself and can also be important for the other person to see. like, way too often poor communicators are rewarded for poor or immature communication by getting what they want from the other person -- whether it's wanting the other person to fight back, or seeing the other person be visibly hurt/filled with self-doubt, or successfully manipulating the other person into doing what they want. every time you let people violate your boundaries, you positively reinforce the idea that emotionally manipulative or disrespectful behavior gets them what they want. by choosing to leave, or knowing where your own emotional boundaries are and having a plan for what you'll do if they're violated, you can protect yourself while also avoiding inadvertently providing that positive reinforcement. btw i don't necessarily anticipate that all of this stuff will be relevant in your situation! but i think it's good to keep in mind, especially if there's a history of antagonism there in the early stages of your friendship. also it's just good Lesbian Dating 101 knowledge to have in general, i think! again, not to generalize too much, but i think that women dating other women can be especially prone to really complicated, painful, emotionally manipulative dynamics, in part because our society teaches women that it is dangerous, unattractive, pushy, selfish, etc to clearly express our feelings/needs and enforce healthy boundaries. not to mention that lesbians and bisexual

women are also more likely to have issues with internalized homophobia, shame, etc, which may cause us to develop lots of maladaptive coping mechanisms, which in turn can further distort our ability to be honest with ourselves about our feelings/needs and to clearly communicate with others. so yknow! as you continue to date and sleep with women i think it's good to be working on your shit while also being attuned to signs that someone else is working through (or avoiding working through) their own shit.

also remember that, while it's good to be prepared for worst-case or most stressful outcomes, it's also very possible that having an open, nondefensive, nonjudgmental conversation with her will work! it's very possible that it will go well, that you will work things out in a way that makes you both feel better about each other and about the situation, and that she will take your good communicator cues and respond to you with the same openness and respect you are extending to her. so i wouldn't go into it expecting things to go badly!

anyway to sum all of that up: i do think that my advice would first be to try having a conversation with your friend/casual partner -- and i would especially recommend approaching this conversation not as a Huge Emotional Thing but as a good, low-stakes situation where you can practice your open communication skills! the fact that you are moving in a few weeks imposes natural parameters around this situation, so you don't have to worry about, like, seeing her at work for years to come, or moving in the same social circles as her. i think that can kinda free you up emotionally to take a communication 'risk' or to try something that's a little bit outside of your comfort zone. and whether that conversation goes well or not so well, the experience of reflecting on your priorities for the conversation, making choices in the conversation that align with those priorities, and reflecting back on how it went afterwards can be a really good, really important learning experience. if you can start practicing these things at 23, you will be SO far ahead of where i was at that age, lol, and you really will benefit from having these strategies in your relationship/friendship toolkit.

to get to the question of emotional processing and self-reflection, though, here's how i think i would handle this situation.

first and most importantly: make space for yourself to feel the bad feelings. don't try to downplay or compartmentalize or dismiss what you're experiencing. if you feel sad, rejected, and confused, make space for yourself to really feel those feelings and to acknowledge to yourself that they are real, and they hurt. i often do this in writing (private writing rather than tumblr writing) but i also do it out loud, and i find that saying it aloud can really help me feel that sense of relief/release. a couple months ago a thing happened that really bothered me & made me feel very ashamed and small and embarrassed. and i just spent that morning in my apartment writing through the feelings, and then saying aloud to myself: "I feel really bad right now. I feel really embarrassed, and I feel shame - ie I'm not just embarrassed about something I did; I feel embarrassed right now by who I am as a person. It feels really bad. It makes me feel really small. It stirs up a lot of painful past memories where I've felt like this before, and it's really hard for me right now to not link this situation to those past situations, and to tell myself a story about how I have always been the kind of person other people perceive as too much."

you will absolutely cry a lot, if you are anything like me! but it is a good, cathartic kind of crying. It doesn't exorcise or expel those feelings, but putting them out there in the open allows you to look at them clearly, and to put them outside of yourself instead of doing the shame thing where you repress them and internalize them. internalized shame, for me, always feels like it is literally internalized in my body. repressing or avoiding voicing feelings of shame doesn't make it go away; it just gets internalized as physical tension, like literally stored in my muscles (tight jaw, hunched shoulders, constricted chest, etc). voicing the feeling aloud and letting yourself cry through it (or however you let yourself process big painful feelings) releases that tension, and means that i don't literally "carry it" in my frame like i used to.

when i've let myself feel the big feelings, i start doing something that i think of as bathing myself in acceptance and compassion. this is kind of a metaphor, but i also try to use it as a visualization, kinda? i think of shame and feelings of rejection are emotional experiences that flood my body/mind/senses. so i try to visualize acceptance and self-compassion in a similar but slightly different way. flooding is so violent and is something you have no control over. bathing can similarly 'drench' you in a whole-body feeling, but for me it has connotations of consciously chosen tenderness and care. instead of opening the floodgates of negative feelings, you are choosing to gently care for yourself, to bathe yourself in acceptance and compassion. if i am really really upset about something, and am really having a hard time with shame-flooding, i will sometimes sit in a quiet place somewhere, close my eyes, and actually say those words aloud to myself -- I am bathing myself in accepting and compassion. I am bathing myself in acceptance and compassion -- as I try to visualize those feelings of compassion, permission to feel what i feel, and nonjudgmental acceptance just gently washing over me, again and again. i usually cry some more! i am a big advocate for crying all the time as part of healthy emotional processing! but it really does seem to work, to soothe my flooded brain/body back to a state of calm equilibrium.

at this point, i usually am feeling calm enough that i can look at the situation again and think about it in a less visceral emotional-response way. i've cleared time/space for myself to feel the bad feelings, and then i've consciously chosen to honor those feelings and to make it clear to myself that i'm not going to judge myself harshly or critically, either for feeling what i feel or for whatever i did/failed to do in the original situation that prompted the bad feelings. doing that emotional processing work seems to allow me to reengage the prefrontal cortex and look more carefully at the situation. i tend to do a lot more writing (and some talking-aloud) at this stage, and i try to ask myself lots of open-ended, exploratory questions. when i was very upset and ashamed of the thing that happened a couple months ago, here are some of the questions I asked myself and spent time writing through:

why do I think that situation triggered such a strong emotional response in me?

what was i imagining the other person was thinking about the situation or about me? what are some reasons that upset or distressed me?

i noticed that i started immediately linking this situation to past situations where i've felt the same way. is it possible that the intensity of my response might have less to do with this specific situation, and more to do with other situations it reminded me of?

when i was awash in those shame feelings & linking the situation to past situations, what kind of narrative was i constructing about myself? what story was i telling myself about the kind of person I "am" or have always been?

looking at the same set of facts, can i construct an alternative story about who i am/have been? my initial narrative was really focused on my negative traits and negative past experiences. what would it look like to tell myself a story that centered the ways in which i've grown and changed, or a story that incorporated both traits i like in myself and traits i am less proud of? what might those alternative stories offer that my original story left out?

what could i learn from this experience? without resorting to self-criticism or self-judgment, are there things i might want to do differently when i find myself in this situation again? what choices could i make that might better align with my values or my understanding of the kind of person i want to be in the world? without shifting blame onto the other person, is there anything i can learn from the way they responded -- about how i want to treat others (or avoid treating them) when we're in some kind of conflict with each other?

i really cannot stress how crucial it is for me to actually carve out the time/space to do this kind of deep, sustained emotional processing. in my own emotional history, the things that i have struggled most to get over/move past/grow beyond are the things that i initially brushed off, or told myself were too trivial to feel bad about, or actively repressed because at the time they felt too raw and painful for me to look at or handle directly.

i was just thinking earlier this week about that whole embarrassing / painful experience, and sort of marveling at how easy it is for me now to think about it without feeling it like a wound, or without my mind instinctively trying to deflect or evade thinking about it. looking back at it, i can still see exactly why it caused me pain, and i can still remember/access what that hurt felt like. but i created space for myself to deeply process it -- that is, space to actually acknowledge the feelings; to extend acceptance and compassion to myself for what was past/over; to openly explore what the situation made me feel and why; and to reflect on what i could learn from the experience or take with me moving forward (ie, consciously choosing what i wanted to carry with me from the situation, instead of involuntarily carrying the shame, tension, etc in my body). and that processing allowed me to integrate that painful experience into my sense of who i am and how i relate to other people, in a healthy way that doesn't deny the pain but also doesn't let it become all-consuming, or assume outsize importance in the stories I tell myself about myself.

I'm sorry this got so long! i just really do enjoy and value getting to think aloud about this kind of thing, so thank you for the chance to do so. I don't know how much of this advice will be directly relevant to your situation! I think everybody processes things differently, and while we can learn from closely attending to other people's methods, we all have to figure out how to create and consistently practice healthy coping mechanisms that fit our individual temperament & emotional histories. but i hope that this at least gives you some starting points for thinking about how you might work through your own complicated emotional situation, in a way that feels healthy for you. i wish you the very best of luck!!