#only child vent

[sickly-honeylamb]

[honeypleasejustkillme]

who else mourning the person they could've been if they were treated kindly as a child

[rosyhoneydew]

Against his better judgment, Tommy had actually been excited for the visit.

It had been over a year since he last saw Ron, longer since he'd seen his nieces and sister-in-law. They got along fine and all, they just got older and busier and life gets in the way, doesn't it? So when his big brother floated the idea of a stopover in LA on his way back from a business trip overseas, Tommy had looked forward to it.

Two full days to take him around, show him his city, let him see a little bit of what his life looked like these days. He'd definitely gotten overeager. He'd packed their weekend with stops in Hollywood, a proper tour of the city from the bird, and a few drinks with their friends, and Evan, of course. It'd been a while since anybody came to visit, in his defense.

They're at one of Evan's favorite breakfast spots when he starts to pick up on it.

Ron knows he's gay, Tommy had come out to his whole family a few years back, not really expecting much. A cursory this is who I am, take it or leave it was all that really needed to be said. He had been pleasantly surprised when his brother didn't so much as bat an eye. Sure, they didn't talk about it, but they never really talked about anything in his family. Par for the course on that one.

So it twisted in his gut when he noticed.

Tommy and I actually thought about taking a trip to Yosemite this fall. Maybe make a vacation out of our anniversary, Evan said. Ron had just grunted.

You should see Evan's place, Tommy had rolled his eyes, not without affection, I swear I should just move in there. Ron had cleared his throat and asked 'where the hell a guy could take a leak in this place.'

It's not a big deal, but Tommy feels his face growing hot. He feels stupid. Evan rests a hand on his back while Ron's away, but Tommy can't tamp down the impulse to shake him off when his brother makes his way back to the table.

The ride home is quiet, each of them unsure of what to say. Tommy invites Ron inside for a last coffee before his flight, but he declines. Gotta see what that LA traffic is about, don't I? Tommy nods, claps a hand on his brother's shoulder. See ya later, man. Ron's mouth tightens into something like a smile, nods once at Evan, and drives off.

He's quiet when they enter the kitchen, hands resting on the cool countertop. He feels Evan come up behind him, rest his forehead on Tommy's shoulder, wrap his arms tight around Tommy's chest.

I'm sorry.

Tommy sighs and fits his hand over Evan's. He lets himself wallow, just for a little while in his partner's arms. He's not okay today, but tomorrow he'll wake up in those same arms, he'll tell his friends at work about the docuseries Evan's been loving lately, he'll spend guy's night at Eddie's with his partner like they do every other week now. And he'll be okay.

[nostalgiclittlespace]

Regression Grief

Does anyone else while regressing occasionally just sit back and think ‘what happened to me?’ Where did that time go? Why am I suddenly an adult with real responsibilities, when it seems like just yesterday I was running around my backyard and learning to read? What happened to the days when my biggest worry was whether I would play stuffed animals or action figures? I’m closer to being 21 than I am to being 10, and how can that be right? Why did that have to go away? I’m not ready for it to go away

I want it to come back, for real. Just for a day. I want to be a real kid with my siblings again.

I’m sorry for this insane rambling; I’m pretty regressed rn and I struggling with growing up.

[aroha-scape]

Have I ever mentioned I am an only child?

There's an unfair responsibility that comes with being an only child. You grow up knowing you aren't allowed to disappoint, you're not even allowed to die. There isn't a replacement toddling around; you're it. It makes you desperate to be flawless, and it also makes you drunk with the power. 

Sometimes I realize that being an only child has made me simultaneously clingy and distant, a being that craves being hugged but is also so used to not having physical attention that when I receive it, it feels foreign and I startle or tense, then crave more when a brief hug or touch ends

[tabooballoonpolice]

The things no one tells you about being an only child-

You're so soul-crushingly lonely all the time. You feel like you're missing out on some fundamental part of being human, yet everyone tells you you're lucky. When your parents fight you're either dragged into it or completely isolated- there's no one to relate to. You're told your "mature" but it's just because you spend all your time around adults. You love your friends like family but you know they'll always love their siblings more than they love you. You have so much pressure on you all the time- you're expected to be the golden child. Yet you're also treated like a baby. The attention is on you 24/7 but you're still lonely. You're convinced your parents are always right and your points are invalid because there's no one to take your side. If your parents want more kids but can't have them, you feel like you're not enough. Your parents are your only family, your everything, but they need time without you. You're the third wheel in their relationship. You're paralyzed by the fear that someday they'll die and your entire family will be gone. You feel unable to make close relationships with people your age.

You feel all of this and more, but sure, you're lucky because you don't share a room.

[stellewriites]

really fucking grinds my gears how my dad knows just how to make me feel fucking guilty for putting up boundaries and saying no

[bearyyayay]

@mdemn HAVE WE TALKED ABOUT HOW SAM MIGHT BE LIKE AN ONLY CHILD AND HOW HIS FAMILY PUTS PRESSURE ON HIM AND DESPERATELY TRIED HIS BEST TO MAKE THEM PROUD KNOWING THAT THEY COUNTS ON HIM AND HIM ONLY BUT ITS NEVER ENOUGH SO THIS GOES THE SAME FOR WHEN HES OLDER HE THINKS THAT HE NEEDS TO DO MUCH MORE AND THAT HE CAN DO MUCH MORE JUST TO MAKE SALIERI PROUD

[imqueerandadeer]

if someone says to me one more time "oh you're so lucky that your an only child" I will kill someone, mhm yeah so lucky that no one else is around to take my side when my parents scream at me, so lucky that no one is there to validate that my parents are kinda terrible sometimes and that I have every right to resent them, so lucky

[vaaaaaiolet]

[moondharse]

Looking back at the "severe" social anxiety diagnosis I got as a teen ..

It's like, if I went to a therapist and said: "I do not like being stabbed with knives. I do activly avoid situations that involve me being stabbed with knives. When I have to face a situation where I can expect to be stabbed with knives, I dread it and can sometimes not bring myself to pull through, no matter how much I want to reap the benefit I am after, that requires the situation."

And the therapist went: "Oh, so you're irrationally afraid of people. Got it."

[spunkykirby]

ugh look i love childe too but please for the love of god stop clogging the neuvili tag-

[dukeofthomas]

I'm ngl I forgot I'm not an only child and was extremely confused on why I had such specific opinions on Jason's and Dick's brotherly relationship. Like I am a younger sibling ofc I'll have opinions on the brothers. Stop forgetting my older sibling exists challenge [level impossible]

[fussystreetlight]

https://youtu.be/D_aRzXXCv4s

I'm referring to the comments on this video because they give me a headache. No one thinks more about sex, and kids, and "kids in sexual situations" than pro-censorship people do. I don't know why they think book banning is "making sure the Kama Sutra isn't in elementary schools" but...it's not. It's really not. (I also don't like how most of the commenters are acting like the other side is just blowing things out of proportion and making a big deal out of nothing so they can hurt kids because that's what they were told. The first part of that rhetoric can easily be used by certain people to commit or sweep atrocities under the rug. And the second part, that's just the typical anti-lgbtq+ rhetoric...)

Anyway, that's not really the majority of the stuff that gets banned.

I only know about book bans in America so I can't speak about other places. And this is the site I normally use: https://pen.org/

Some of the top banned books were:

Nineteen Minutes by Jodie Picoult:

"Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens--until the day its complacency is shattered by a school shooting. Josie Cormier, the daughter of the judge sitting on the case, should be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened before her very own eyes--or can she? As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show--destroying the closest of friendships and families. Nineteen Minutes asks what it means to be different in our society, who has the right to judge someone else, and whether anyone is ever really who they seem to be."

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood:

"In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic."

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison:

"In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment."

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie:

"Junior is a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot."

Yes there are some of Sarah J. Maas' books on the list, but they're trying to ban that from high schools (teens and toddlers are different age groups people, please stop infantizing teens).

Censorship isn't really about protecting kids from "books that predators will use to groom them" or "child molesters", it's not about not giving kids access to sexual content when they're too young for it, it's really not about protecting kids at all, and it's not about getting rid of "icky sex books" in general.

It's mostly about control and having power, especially over LGBTQ+ people and minorities. It's about the people in charge getting rid of any narrative that they personally don't like or silencing any voice that doesn't resemble theirs (anyone who's not a straight white rich man really).

And it's not about the fact that "well you can still get these books so banned books are a myth!" It's the fact that people are trying to make it harder for students to access these books. Books that can help them. Maybe they're going through a difficult time, maybe they're struggling with mental health issues, maybe their home life isn't great, maybe there aren't many other people in school like them. And these books have characters just like them, going through the same things. And it makes them feel less alone or helps them realize things about their situation and come to terms with it. But these helpful stories are the ones targeted the most. And it gets harder for anyone who's even slightly different to feel like they belong or that it's okay for them to exist and be themselves. Books being challenged and removed from libraries is about making people conform to what the people in power want them to be, and again, what they want them to be is what they can tolerate and use.

PS: some schools in Florida also had to take away and review dictionaries for "sexual conduct" because of a relatively recent bill (that seems to also be against teaching students important sex ed, "along with requiring schools to teach that "reproductive roles are binary, stable and unchangeable"). But also the Bible is apparently still allowed, despite having all that stuff people claim to dislike.

[k1ku0l3vr]

being an only child is so weird bc like ur nvr truly urself around ur parents. like with a sibling, u could probably relax and be more lively with them bc ur at an equal playing field, but when u don’t have that equality, u can’t truly build relationships based on banter, which i think is one of the biggest part of a healthy relationship. the parent/child relationship feels less familial and more..professional in a way.

[luckyyyduckyyy]

Feel free to ignore this, yapping into the void makes me feel better

Bros... The day I had went from good, to eh, to wtf

Even my own body tried to kill me today what /hj