#rereading old rps with friends and im seeing a Pattern

[bubblyernie]

literally every single one of my ocs (who are dudes, or masc-leaning) are the most doofy-aaaa boyfriend ever. like without fail i don't think i can even write a guy who, regardless of composition and personality, will turn into the most stuttering man-loser the second he's confronted with the sheer beauty/levelheadedness/competency of his boyfriend/wife/girlfriend/whatever

[c-ptsdrecovery]

I’ve been rereading my old fanfictions the last couple of days. Fanfic (IME anyway) is pretty straight-up wish fulfillment, so it’s been a fascinating look into my own psyche. I’m noticing some interesting patterns (like the way my characters react when other people see them cry, which is something I have a complex about). 

One thing I’ve noticed, I never thought too much about before it came up in an RP I was doing with a friend, and I noticed it again in my fanfic:  the way I react when people offer to give me things or to do things for me. I usually automatically say, “No thanks, that’s okay!” even if it would really help me to accept. And that’s because my mom is a narcissist.

She taught me implicitly, through her behavior, that it is unsafe to accept generous offers from others. Because she would offer things only for show: she didn’t really want to have to DO them. So if she offered you something and you said yes, and she DIDN’T want to give it to you/do it for you, she would get MAD at you and resent you for accepting. She thus taught me implicitly that it’s WRONG and UNKIND to accept generosity from others. Which is just, SO fucked up. But like, you can see it all the time in our family, especially at mealtime. She will offer somebody (my brother, my dad, me) something that she’s eating under the apparent belief that we will like it better than what we already have. But since all three of us have been firmly conditioned by her that she will get MAD at us and martyr herself if we take it, we will INSIST that we are not taking that piece of food, while she INSISTS that we should. So she gets to look generous but at the same time not have to give up something she wants. I have watched my brother and my dad get ANGRY with her and raise their voices, like, “NO! I DON’T WANT YOUR FOOD!” because we all know what happens if we accept, and it’s .a fucking guilt trip

This makes it very hard for me to accept generosity from my friends. Really good, generous, well-meaning friends will offer me things or help and I’ll say, “No, thanks, that’s okay,” over and over and over again. If someone gives me a gift, I instantly feel GUILTY thinking about them spending money on me or giving me anything, because I was implicitly taught that taking gifts from others was WRONG and made me a BAD PERSON. Because my mom wants to look generous, but she is deeply, deeply selfish. So accepting anything from her that represented any sort of sacrifice at all would mean an instant guilt trip.

This is seriously fucked up. I am going to have to be very intentional about recognizing that if somebody offers me something, they would only have done so if they actually meant it, and that it is therefore okay to accept. But “No thanks, that’s okay!” is such a damned reflex, and saying, “That’d be great, thank you!” is so FRIGHTENING! This is gonna take me awhile.