#recovery cw

[fatummortem]

[psychotic-tbh]

Stop saying…

“Psychotic/Schizophrenic” when you mean: unpredictable, unhinged, unreal, etc.

“Bipolar” when you mean: polarized, scattered, fickle, unstable, etc.

“Delusional” when you mean: unrealistic, unreasonable, close-minded, stubborn, etc.

“[insert “R” slur in relation to intellectual disabilities]” when you mean: unreasonable, unintelligent/ridiculous, immature, etc.

“OCD” when you mean: particular, neat, overbearing, etc.

“Narcissistic” when you mean selfish, abusive, manipulative, etc.

Note: I’m NOT saying that these are synonymous. This is also not an exhaustive list.

[bitternanami]

something i think is really interesting about dungeon meshi is the cast's respective views on food as the story progresses. the way many adventurers get through the dungeon is to eat when they Must, but mostly rely on healing magic to keep going when they're tired or beaten down. death is something you can buy your way out of, here.

having these lower stakes when it comes to running yourself too hard has made a lot of people in this setting kind of devalue food and what it does for you.

im not all the way through the manga yet, but so far i really like how it goes about debunking that mindset.

long post under the cut, cw explicit discussion of disordered eating. textual depiction of unhealthy methods of dealing with it. please be cautious!

it seems like to most folks, food is either a decadent luxury, like when the governor offers mr tance a feast as a show of power and wealth, (although he is the only one who actually eats in that scene as he talks about his ambitions);

[id: the governor and mr. tance talk politics and hierarchies, while the governor eats from a bowl. mr. tance's meal is not visible behind a speech bubble.

"so you believe the sorceror is an elf?" he asks.

"i can't say with absolute certainty," mr. tance replies, "but the spells are not ones dwarves and humans typically use." /end id]

like the painted-royal feasts laios tries to partake in that never actually nourish him...

[id: laios, fresh out of the living painting feast, surprisedly holding his grumbling stomach /end id]

or, to the working class, it's pretty much exclusively fuel. i'm thinking about the scene where kabru's party, ostensibly intended to be our view into how adventuring Typically goes for most people, is shown preparing to go to the dungeon by like. walking up to someone and ordering 'a weeks' worth of rations.' purely functional.

[id: kabru enters a store, and the merchant says "welcome!"

kabru says "i need a week's worth of rations for six, and two days' worth of water."

"sure thing." the merchant then reaches behind him and grabs a large cube-shaped package, wrapped in nondescript cloth and tied in place. it thumps onto the counter in front of them both. /end id]

when kabru hands mickbell his food for the trip, he complains about how heavy it is on his back. it's a necessary liability.

we also see chilchuck, in an early chapter where there isn't much food to go around, grumbling about how he used to be better at not noticing when he was hungry. he's frustrated that he's more attuned to his bodily needs, now that he's starting to fill them with regularity.

[id: chilchuck, the only one awake, sits in his bedroll and glares at the timekeeping-candle burning down in front of him while he listens to his stomach growl. moving to find his canteen and fill himself with water instead, he thinks to himself, "my stomach has gotten weaker. i used to be able to go two days without food." /end id]

(like im not even gonna lie this is a big mood. the healing process is really really annoying)

even laios, early on, working out the logistics of going back for falin, considers his expenses and ultimately the thing he decides to save money on is their food supply. like, even the guy most invested in eating as an experience kind of just assumes he will Figure It Out. its what hes eating, not how hes eating it that matters to him at that point.

[id: marcille looks down at the ingredients they've gathered, the walking mushroom and the scorpion in an unappetizing heap on the ground, and asks laios "so how exactly do we eat them?"

he responds "let's just cook them, like normal." /end id]

but its here that senshi introduces the idea of food as art and as healing. its exciting and its fascinating for laios, getting to taste the creatures hes been reading about and fighting, but i dont think it would ever really help him feel full if not for this.

[id: three panels of laios tasting the scorpion hotpot, looking stunned, and then excitedly telling senshi "delicious!"

senshi matches his energy, asking "isn't it? isn't it?" /end id]

pictured: guy who had resigned himself to kind of just doing his best rediscovers the joy in something tasting really fucking good

what they did last time isnt going to work. falin is gone, and constantly anesthetizing their pain and healing through their weakness is no longer a realistic option for the party. in order to make it through they must all relearn how to eat well, one by one and as a group over and over again, because its either that or nothing.

one of my favorite depictions of this idea thus far is when marcille is seriously low on health and mana, and both of these problems are mitigated by taking care of herself, and trying to get iron and protein

[id: marcille, looking sickly, wakes to laios saying, "marcille, marcille, can you sit up? we've got something nice for you."

she watches senshi grill pieces of kelpie liver on a low fire, while laios ties a bib around her neck. /end id]

and drinking a bunch of dead water spirits. she gets the idea, she's supposed to get in nutrients and it'll help her feel better, but in aiming for the quick, inefficient fix, namely chugging that shit down like she heard it was good to Stay Hydrated and decided that would be the thing that fixes her,

[id: marcille throws back a cup of boiled undine-water, her face red. laios asks, "do you really need to drink it that fast?"

she gasps out "...the magical energy stored in nature spirits is actually quite hard to absorb. even if you drink a lot, the majority of it is excreted without being absorbed," and takes another drink. "that's why i need to drink as much as i can."

laios says weakly "you'll get water poisoning," but marcille only stops when senshi puts a hand on her shoulder and says,

"it's easier to absorb nutrients if ye digest them with food. that's a fundamental rule of nutrition."

marcille says, "senshi..." contemplative

and he holds out a bowl of tentuclus and a thumbs up. "let's get cooking!" /end id]

she doesn't immediately realize the answer is that she needs more than that. she's been working hard. she needs care, and she needs nourishment.

once she gets that, though, she makes her boiled water into a stew, and she works to make that stew as good as she can, and everyone can have some.

because in dungeon meshi, to feed yourself or allow yourself to be fed is treated as performing a kindness for yourself. food is what propels you, but there is also an art and a joy inherent to the process of making it; in the way you feel when you've had enough to eat.

[id: senshi watches as chilchuck and marcille eat and excitedly hash out plans.

"i've got a good feeling about this! maybe it'll work out!" chilchuck says

marcille responds, "well it's easier to feel optimistic on a full stomach!"

senshi smiles, proud. /end id]

^^^ i want to put this image on my wall

when you're working through disordered eating habits, you really do have to keep learning this shit. (in my experience, learning about cooking is one of the best ways to do so.)

i'll have to see if my thesis holds up as i continue, but i think one of the reasons the portrayal here resonates with me so hard is that ryoko kui puts most of her characters at eye level with me on this. they're all working at it, too. the text and i are both commiserating, and encouraging each other, 'have some more, you'll feel better.'

[whump-in-the-closet]

when a living weapon whumpee only takes orders from ONE person. They’ve been conditioned to ignore everyone else’s orders. This means that after rescue, the team can barely get whumpee to drink or allow them bandage their injuries. One of the teammates manages to imitate whumpee’s handler by deepening their voice.

They stay out of whumpee’s line of sight, standing behind their hospital bed. “Drink this,” they snap, hating how they have to command this broad-shouldered ghost of a person. Without their armor, without their mask, whumpee looks like a wraith. There’s nothing behind their eyes. They play with the hospital blanket with twitching hands that have strangled and maimed.

When whumpee hears the order they stiffen to attention and take the cup offered with those still-shaking hands. But the cup slips through their fingers and lands in a puddle on the tiles.

They immediately tense up, shoulder blades flung so far back they touch. Their breathing quickens, waiting.

But nothing happens.

They give whumpee a new glass of cold water. This time, they lift the cup to whumpee’s lips and hold it steady, with one hand behind their head for support.

[thescrolls-haveforetold]

mother is mothering

[familylightfox]

Whatever the two adults didn’t eat, Harmony finished off. If on,y to make sure that the bowls were easier to clean. She smiled at Tails when he came to join them in the spacious kitchen and handed the bowls to her grandfather as he held out his hand, dodging the other that went to ruffle her bangs with a giggle. The older goat took every bowl and placed them into the sink before shooing anyone away with soapy fingers.

“Unless you vant to be vashed vith the dishes, leave them for mein husband.” Greta warned, chuckling softly as said husband nodded rather proudly. “You may help me vith labeling leftovers. I do not vant Star to accidentally get meat stew.”

She always thought of others in everything that she did, was always two steps ahead. “[Little Fluff, I just did a load of blankets. Get the extra pillows from the closet and make your nest.]” Always two steps ahead. Harmony looked over and nodded, running off with some of her teammates in tow to grab the majority of pillows and blankets from the linen closet to surround the couch. After she picked up and carefully moved the coffee table out of the way. If the adults were going to be taking up the couch, the teens would take up the floor.

No one was going to get close to any of them without having to step over a teenager to do it. And the Gods help whoever might have been stupid enough to try…

Volt could only really watch through half lidded eyes, nuzzling the tan shoulder he was resting against at the kiss to his neck. Everything ached and protested movements so he stayed relatively still, save for his lone hand reaching to take one of his partner’s. The blanket added one more sense of security and a mumbled thanks was all he had managed before he gave in to the exhaustion.

The next few days would be hard.

Despite his rapid healing ability, Volt was still having to adjust. The nightmares were constant and far too often he had blown a nearby lightbulb in the process to the point that Greta had Edgar take the lamps out of the room they were in and instead used the old fashion oil lanterns. Not as much light, but added a warmth to the room that Volt found some solace in. He never strayed too far from his partner and usually had a hold of something of Star’s when moving around.

Be it a hand, or the sleeve of a hoodie.

Tails was sure to thank the lemur as she handed him a bowl of stew, grinning right back at her before laughing as Buddy revealed Tangle’s past mishap. “I guess that’s one way to learn that lesson.” A few more chuckles and then it was time to dig in.

Star kept an eye on how much Volt ate, and while he wished his poor partner could eat more, he knew that he shouldn’t. At least Volt had something in him now, and it was something warm and hearty. It eased Star’s concern just that little bit more. As for his own food, the hedgehog couldn’t quite finish it. He wanted to, but there was a knot in his stomach that just wouldn’t let him.

Maybe he would be able to eat more after a good night’s rest. He’d barely slept the entire time Volt was gone, after all. A grateful smile was cast toward Harmony as she took their bowls. Tails and Shadow consumed the entirety of what was given to them, and the fox made his way to the kitchen as well to help with clean up. Shadow stayed, closing his eyes but still listening carefully to everything around them. He needed time to… process.

With the bowls taken care of, Star’s full attention shifted to his partner, noticing the frown and strange sound that came from the hybrid’s throat. It made Star’s heart sink and he nudged closer, carefully tilting his head to place a soft kiss against the side of Volt’s neck. Avoiding the area that had actually been cut, just in case the hybrid wasn’t comfortable with contact there, but wanting to offer at least that small gesture of comfort and understanding.

As the hybrid shifted Star did too, getting them settled and holding Volt close, making sure he felt completely secure in his arms. Nothing, and no one, was going to take Volt again. Star wouldn’t be letting the hybrid out of his sight anytime soon. One last smile was given to the sheep as she reassured them, and then he let his head bump against Volt’s again.

“Get some rest, love,” Star told his partner quietly, tone soft as fingers moved through fur, “I’ve got you.”

As comfortable silence filled the room, Shadow opened his eyes to glance at the couple. Brows furrowed at the way Sonic still seemed to refuse to fully shut his eyes, despite how exhausted he clearly was. The alien hybrid got up, pulled a blanket over the couple, and sat back down right next to Star, who sluggishly lifted his head to catch ruby eyes.

“You get some rest too, hedgehog. I’ve got you both,” Shadow assured his friend with a firm gentleness that finally allowed Sonic to release tension he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Star let his head flop to nudge and nuzzle against Shadow’s shoulder, the only way he could manage to communicate thanks, before shifting again to return to nuzzling the fur atop Volt’s head. With one of Shadow’s arms going around Star’s back, the blue hedgehog finally settled and slowly… slowly shut his eyes.

[mobius-m-mobius]

Loki S2 Anniversary x Episode 1 - "Ouroboros"

[ed-recovery-affirmations]

Hey, if you live in the US, you've got Thanksgiving looming over your head. It's a very food-based holiday (and family-based, for many of us.) And I know that food and family can be our most major triggers combined. I just want you to remember some things.

Take a breath. It's just a meal, like any other meal, which can be hard to remember with all the fanfare around the feast.

It's okay and normal to eat a little bit more than usual on a holiday and you don't have to feel guilty about doing so. You also don't have to feel guilty if you can't.

It's okay to take some space if you feel the urge to binge. It's okay to take some space if you feel watched.

You're allowed to set boundaries if family members comment on your portions, eating habits, or body. You're allowed to ask them to stop, walk away, or, if you're not feeling up to confrontation, to just take some space in the bathroom and have a few affirmations and deep breaths.

If there's nothing on the table you can eat, it's okay to bring your safefood. It's not rude to make sure that there is something you can eat. People don't always understand things like ARFID, obscure food allergies, health conditions, or fear foods. Their lack of understanding doesn't make it less real.

If you struggle at all tomorrow, remember that you are absolutely not alone in finding the day difficult.

If you relapse tomorrow, or if you have mental health struggles tomorrow, or if you hold it together just by a fucking thread tomorrow, remember that it will end. After tomorrow, it will just be Friday, a new day in which you are free to start fresh.

Let's get through this, everyone. Sending love.

[lizardho]

I think the worst day I had as a missionary is hard to pin down – for comedy bad day stories, I like to talk about my cute companion who ripped three pairs of pants in one day because his ass was so fat. Literally, two in the morning, we missed 3 appointments in the afternoon because people kept cancelling on us, and we ended up far away from home visiting “Less Actives” in the downtown area. We find a family who says we can come in once their dad get home, and we sit down to wait for the dad to get in and RIIIPPP goes the third pair of slacks this man wore that day. I hand him my suit jacket and he wraps it around his waist like a bashful adolescent who just started his period at an inconvenient time. We catch a ride home on a bus and ended up home an hour early. He cried for like 30 minutes while stitching up his pants, and I got to rest a lot more than expected that day. We ordered a 4-cheese pizza and went to bed early that night, having walked probably 5-6 miles that day knocking doors and getting turned away.

Another bad day was the day the Mexico City Temple was re-opening. It was a funny experience for me because the evening before I was contacted by the Mission President and told that an elder in our district had confessed some serious sins to him and that those sins precluded him from going to the temple. The MP told me that nobody in this elder’s ward could get time off to babysit him so he was begging one of us – I didn’t want to go to the temple, it was a crappy way to spend a P-Day in my opinion, so I told the MP I’d do it. I spent the day eating popsicles and napping with an elder who, in between Bolis and naps, would shakily and tearfully confess that no fewer than half of his companions had secret phones they used to watch porn, hire prostitutes, and buy drugs. This was bewildering to me since I had been Trying So Hard my whole mission and had always felt inadequate, and these elders who were doing better than me and more respected than me were somehow out here fucking, doing drugs, and jorkin’ it.

I was actually in a “Punishment Area” at the time because in my last area one of my life-threateningly attractive companions had gone into the homes of widows to repair their electrical wirings (he was a trained electrician prior to going on a mission.) Being alone in the home of an 80-year-old widow with failing lights was “against the rules” to the extent that me mandaron a la goma, and some handful of guys I’d been told to view as role models were out here breaking actual laws and shit. Of course, I knew in my heart of hearts that I was in this area because of the Deep Evil that Lay Within My Heart (wanting to kiss Elder Electrician on his stupid himbo lips) but my MP could not have known that, just like he didn’t know that the guys he was making Zone Leaders were getting their dicks sucked and snorting cocaine. That honestly felt outrageous to me.

I feel like the stereotypical “worst day” of a mission is the last day – they take you to the airport in a big van, all melancholy and nostalgic. We sang on our drive to the airport – elders and sisters tearfully sang or hummed hymns together. I was deadpan the whole time, it was such a relief to be going home. For me the worst part of the day was the relief – the release of pressure. The pressure to perform, to be “on,” to be at your best, is omnipresent for elders. I was the only person flying to Phoenix, so for the first time in two years I felt a release from that pressure. Nobody was scrutinizing me, I no longer felt that every thought, action, and feeling was being evaluated and judged as a sign of my true character. It was hard to realize, a the pressure let up, that I had been holding all that weight for two years without knowing when it had started. I remember getting confused in Customs and needing someone who spoke Spanish to talk to me because I kept forgetting words in English. I remember getting home and my family waiting for me and feeling like it was all finally done, finally over, I could finally breath. It didn’t feel bad, but it did feel heavy. And it definitely was not the worst day of my mission.

The actual worst day of my mission, though, was about 5 months in. At the 6-month mark I was expected to make a long trip down to an area of town near La Basilica de Guadalupe to submit my visa paperwork, and the mission office had sent me an extra $500 MX to use for transportation costs. When I withdrew the money they had sent for the month, I noticed it was higher than expected. My companion, a senior companion and district leader, had the cell phone. He was talking to another elder while he waited for me to withdraw my monthly deposit. I approached and asked if I could use the cell phone to call the mission office, as I had questions. He said “no,” and ignored me. I waited until the conversation ended and asked again, and again, angrily, he said, “No.” I said “Elder, relax, I just need to call the mission office to see why they sent me more this month than usual.” His face turned red as he realized other elders were watching the exchange occur. He handed me the phone, I called and was told the money was for transportation costs, and laughingly returned the phone to my companion. He took it, told the other elders he needed to tie his shoe but they could head on over to the District Meeting, and waited until they were out of eyesight. Once that was done, he grabbed me hard by the wrist, dragged me into a hidden corner out of earshot from others, and said, “If you ever disrespect me or my authority again I swear to God I will kill you.”

I was actually shocked. This guy had spent the last month and a half being SUPER nice to me, so I thought he was kidding and I was just confused. I laughed and said “Haha, yeah, your authority over the cell phone is sacred,” and tried to walk away but he didn’t let go of my wrist. He pulled me back and said “I will literally slit your throat if you ever talk to me like that again. As senior companion my authority over YOU is sacred, and I will not let God be mocked by you.”

I realized that he was serious. Like, actually threatening-my-life serious. I could see it in his eyes, I could feel it in the way he squeezed tighter on my wrist. In actuality, the idea seems laughable now. The guy was absolutely chickenshit. He cried if his shits were too hard, he couldn’t end a human life, but I still didn’t let myself fall asleep first for the rest of our time together. And I still hid the two knives we had in a different area while he was showering the next morning.

If I’m being honest though, even that wasn’t the worst day of my mission. That was bad, and each subsequent time he told me he was going to cut my throat for minor infractions against his God-Given Authority Over Me (like not wearing a belt for morning scripture study, or not taking the path he thought was best to get to a lesson) was a bad day. Every P-Day where he read my emails over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t telling my parents about how he was treating me, every day he told me that the ward members would never believe me over him, every day he put me down in front of other elders and they laughed in agreement, every day he was in a bad mood and took it out on me was a bad day. But the worst day was the day I told the mission president about it. I told him about the threats to my life, his temper, his physical abuse, hiss manipulation and rule-breaking, and the mission president told me “The time to tell me this was 6 months ago. The time to forgive him and focus on your own failings is now.”

I don’t think I’ve ever felt as confused or betrayed as I did then. Like, man oh man, that was a rough thing to hear, but as the day went on I kept feeling more and more confused and scared – had I misinterpreted everything? Had I miscommunicated something in telling the story? Had I not been objective enough in recounting the threats against my life? Was it true that a senior companion actually had the authority to hurt me if I went against his authority? Was I wrong the whole time? I had no idea, to be honest, but it was bewildering.

Knowing now what I wish I had known then, I would have done things differently. But in the moment, on a mission, knowing that my biggest reason for going on a mission was the hope that the Spirit of God, which hymns told me burns like fire, would burn the faggot out of my heart. I think I felt like I deserved it. Like somehow that elder knew the evil I was hiding and felt compelled by God’s power to hurt me. I think that’s what made it so hard to defend myself in the moment – I did not have that problem with other elders. The companion who told me we were gonna wrestle to settle an argument lost three consecutive matches and pouted about it for like a week. The elder who threatened to punch me for making a joke at his expense got knocked on his ass just for raising his fist. But this elder got into my head first, and that made it hard to fight against it. Instead of fighting against it, I just silently lived with actual, verifiable, diagnosed, by-the-book, DSM-5-TR Posttraumatic Stress Disorder because I thought I deserved it. It took consistent supervision of my clinical work revealing countertransference with Male LDS clients (I consistently discussed addressing shame in a client’s presentation where no shame or discomfort had been reported), an awkward conversation with @inbabylontheywept after an even more awkward dinner with a cousin who vaguely reminds me of that companion, and a bad acid trip where I had visceral flashbacks to my mission, before I was able to realize that I was living with a pain that was as abnormal as it was unnecessary.

Even once I realized it, even once I got help, it was hard. I remember telling jokes about what happened to my therapist and seeing her jaw just…drop. She said she didn’t know it had been that dangerous for me. The session ended and he sent me the PCL-5 (a good, evidence-based, highly face-valid measure for PTSD) and some other measure for dissociative symptoms and I was like “Girl, I just took this class, I know what you’re trying to measure and this ain’t it.” I reported my symptoms accurately and was fully prepped to confront her the next session. She showed me my scores and the norms used, and I was like “Oh fuck, this looks really bad on paper,” and she was like “Yeah, I can’t imagine living like this” and I just sobbed for most of that session. We ended up doing 9 months of TF-CBT and ACT (largely because I am a terrible and uncooperative patient, realistically I think I could have been done in like 5-6 months if I wasn’t so stubborn) before I was discharged from treatment successfully.

The thing that was so weird about starting therapy for PTSD was that it made things feel worse for a while. I started taking edibles a lot more. I started behaving differently around family members and Mormons. I started being outright hostile to elders I could see. It took about 3 months before I could see the missionaries and not have an actual fight-or-flight response to their presence. I think the way I had made it a far as I did without getting treatment was by repressing the thoughts, feelings, and memories that made it all hurt, and a soon as I let them just be there it was like all the confusing aching hurt came back. The first few months of therapy were just spent expanding the amount of time I could feel that hurt before turning to other means (like dissociation, cannabis, repression, etc.) so I could actually address the experiences without crashing the rest of the day. It was hard. I know I ended several sessions sweating a LOT from the exertion it took to just let the feelings happen. By 6 months, however, I could go into a church building without blacking out from panic. By 9 months I could sit in the same room as elders without sweating and shaking like a chihuahua on Adderall. 3 months after therapy and me and my supervisors noticed that my work with Mormon men had improved substantially. 6 months after therapy and I was able to begin writing anonymous stories online. Now, about two years after completing therapy, I feel like I can talk about it without needing the cloak of anonymity, and that is empowering.

Again, I am not sure why I’m typing these stories out – they’re not fun to write, I don’t love that my family can find these posts, but I guess I just like to remind myself and others that it can always get better. That mind numbing platitude, the old thought-terminating cliché that “it gets better, just power through it” doesn’t give enough credit to how much it hurts to get through it, but it does get better. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. The triggers can go away with time, great effort, significant expense, and a lot of discomfort. The world can feel safe again, the hurt can feel bearable, that nagging worry that I might have deserved this, or that I did something wrong, can eventually go away too. It’s not easy to do it, and I have an incredible respect for the patients of mine who can pull it off, but it is undeniably as doable a it is difficult. If this story resonates with anyone, if it feels close-to-home, if these experiences feel shared, just know that the relief I talked about can feel shared too. Know that it’s worth it to get the help, that you deserve the help, that you deserve to live a life that doesn’t hurt you, that you deserve to be a full person and not a living prison for the pain and memories. Know that healing yourself does not involve extending forgiveness to Them, whoever They are. That the pain you felt will not be made less important by making the pain less potent. Know that taking care of yourself now is, in a way, taking care of yourself then. And Please, with a capital P, take care of yourselves.

Thank you to my family, especially my immediate family (special shout outs to @flowerologists and @inbabylontheywept) for the support and patience with me as I dealt with this.

Thank you to my therapist, Jordin Borques, who I recommend highly to anyone seeking trauma therapy in Arizona.

Thank you to my wife, @cintailed, for being the push that got me into therapy, and for taking care of me at my worst and still being here with me.

Thanks to my mission president for being such a colossal disappointment to Christianity that my departure from the church was inevitable.

And a general thanks to the queers for being so cute and making life worth living, even on bad days.

[alpaca-clouds]

BG3 fans, we gotta talk CPTSD

Okay, I have spend about a week considering writing this blog, but I really gotta say, that it is something people really need to understand. See, I mostly see this issue with Astarion and his depiction in fandom. However, I would argue that it is a thing that affects literally all characters that play some sort of bigger in this entire game. Including many NPCs.

But let me start with Astarion. See, I wrote the blog two weeks ago about people being judgy on people, who do not want to have graveyard sex with him. Mostly people will argue how Astarion should be allowed to have his agency in that moment - while I argued that whoever the player is playing should have also agency in that scene. Including the agency to say "no" for whatever reason. I also included that my Tav absolutely denied Astarion, because he was not trusting that Astarion in the scene really was ready for it, for a variety of reasons. Which is very much a valid reason for someone not to want to sleep with someone else. (Literally every reason is a good reason for that, mind you.)

And obviously there came the comment, that went basically: "As someone who was raped I am very appalled by you saying that raped people cannot consent." Which is very much not what I said.

What I said was, that my Tav did not consent. Yes, he did not consent because he thought Astarion was not ready for it - but he is the one not consenting. It does not matter for this whether his assumption about Astarion is true or not. Tav does not feel comfortable in the scene, so Tav does not want sex right there.

However... If you consider the drow orgy scene, Tav is also very much right. If you do that scene after defeating Cazador, Astarion is enthusiastically consenting to that orgy, but he still ends up dissociating during the scene. (And in that scene, even if your character notices it, you cannot go "Stop!" Which I hate.)

Here is the thing. If you are in the BDSM scene, you might actually have encountered a scenario in real life where someone was enthusiastically consenting to something - only to them realize, that they were not into it at all. And people can withdraw their consent IRL at this point. Only that in this game, obviously you can't. So within the game choices I will just start out with "no" for this character.

Still, that is actually not what I mainly wanted to talk about. No.

What I wanted to talk about is the other thing. I absolutely know that for a variety of reasons a lot of SA survivors do identify with Astarion, and I do not want to take that from anyone. I think it is amazing that we got a character with whom we see this issue portrayed seriously. And let's face it. Especially in tumblr fandom circles, we will have a lot of SA survivors, because the userbase of this website is majority afab, and many are queer. And we know from statistics that queer afab people are even more likely than non-queer afab people to experience SA at some point in there life. So, yes, Astarion is going to be embraced by this community makes sense - even without his dashing looks.

But here we get to the actual meat of the issue: Astarion was not just raped. Astarion was abused in a variety of ways - some of them sexual - over the course of 200 years. He went not through a single traumatic event, but an ongoing trauma that, again, lasted for 200 years.

Or to put different: Astarion does not have PTSD. He has C-PTSD. Complex trauma. The kind of trauma that develops when the trauma lasts over a long, long time, without the survivor getting a chance to ever really properly ever relax. Something that was very true for Astarion's time under Cazador. He was under constant threat of rape, torture, and other forms of violence.

While CPTSD is a form of PTSD, it has some differing symptoms - and additional symptoms from plain old PTSD.

I found this graphic on this blog here, and found it fairly good in the depictions. (If you google CPTSD you will find several graphics like this.) It shows very well the additional symptoms, compared to normal trauma.

Generally speaking, CPTSD brings a lot stronger issues with self-worth, interpersonal problems, and emotional regulation. CPTSD folks are often prone to emotional outbursts (this graphic names anger, but technically it can be all other kinds of emotional outbursts - which is why at times CPTSD gets confused with BPD).

And Astarion is written like this. He shows very much all the symptoms of CPTSD. And let's be honest: That is an issue he will have to deal with for a long, long while.

But... As I said, the same is actually true for pretty much all the characters.

If you look at the companions, it is obvious.

Gale spent at least a year in constant fear of blowing up. While Mystra's abusiveness towards him within the relationship prior the orb is more fanon than canon (though the relationship was defnitely not an easy one), the "one year in constant fear of death" is very likely going to instill some form of CPTSD in him.

Karlach was a slave for 10 years, forced to fight in the hells. While she will also probably suffer from certain forms of PTSD more common in soldiers. Additionally I would argue that she also has some CPTSD from tiefling-racism. While she does not bring it up often... She does seem to have a thing there.

With Wyll it is a bit more complicated. Yes, for him I would see the kind of CPTSD I have - parental abuse related. Ulder was not openly abusive, but neither was my mother, and guess what fucked me most up in my childhood, despite experiencing some really bad violence elsewhere.

Shadowheart was abused by Viconia and midwashed and tortured and was forced to kill her fucking pet mouse. Bonus points that a lot of it happened during her childhood. She very much is gonna suffer the consequences.

Lae'zel... Do I really need to say something about her upbringing among the Gith?

Then we have Halsin. We know fairly little about his background, given that he is very coy in talking about it. But his "three years as a drow slave" definitely make it likely that he has developed some form of CPTSD.

And then we have Jaheira and Minsc. For whom just the... Well, look folks, the adventuring lifestyle would logically also leave you with CPTSD of some sort.

Even if you play a Tav who entered the game after having a very untraumatic life... They will spent what has to be at least two months with a tadpole in their head threatening to kill them - while half of Baldur's Gate is trying to do the same. They'll have PTSD after this at the very least, if not CPTSD. (Even though, let's face it, chances are we all gave our Tavs more than enough background trauma to go along with it, right?)

And same goes for so many other characters. The tiefling refugees. Our main villains (especially Gortash and Orin). Cazador. The other vampire spawn (duh). The list goes on.

So, what am I trying to say here?

Well, for once I just want to make sure folks understand that CPTSD is a thing that exists and while being similar to normal PTSD differs in some points. Including the fact that people with CPTSD have a high likelihood to make very rash decisions driven by instable emotional states, that might be harmful to them on the long run.

And mind you. In real life most people with CPTSD have it because either they were bullied for a long time, or were in an abusive relationship of some sort. (Abusive parents, abusive partners, abusive friends/roommates.) But even in those heightened scenarios the game represents for the most part - the issues are gonna be still mainly the same.

[rbtlvr]

(text from this post, fic is little kid with a big death wish by @remedyturtles)

i'm genuinely not sure where to start here - ig first of all this fic is absolutely incredible and if you somehow haven't read it yet you absolutely should!

okay. man. rem, this fic means so so much to me and i'm so glad i got to be here for it. i think this is one of those fics that'll stick with me years down the line even if one day i'm not into tmnt anymore, one i'll come back to over and over again

your writing has touched so so many people myself very much included, and i just. want to thank you so much for writing this fic and thank you for sharing it. you're an amazing writer and an amazing person and i'm lucky to know you. i can't wait to see what you do next

[flowersbark]

having a complicated relationship with sex/sexual things after sa is so weird because like . it'll be 1 am and ill be switching through apps and ill be thirsting over a character and then ill open tumblr and i remember everything bad shes ever done to me

[lostmf]

By @desnos

[dumbbitchdisaster]

I hate living in extremes

Its either starving or binging

Its either full recovery or full relapse

I can’t go in between, it feels like failing if I do

[psychotic-tbh]

Do any other social folks on the schizophrenia spectrum also feel like they don’t know how to “people” after an episode?

It’s so strange to look back on how social I was when my symptoms were less severe and how (almost) outgoing I was

Now I’m not even sure how to talk to close friends and am just awkward. I lost my conversation skills :(

[runby2]

its mytrauma and i get to make the the dolls reenact it and get through it and survive

and yes i get to use the gross words bc noone else will and we're not alone, damn it.