#survivor of suicide

[martyr-inthedark]

Make your Whumpee tired.

Whumpees that have been deprived of sleep by Whumper, so much so that they don't remember how to walk in a straight line and can't figure out whether the recent appearance of little black bugs in their cell are real or a hallucination.

Whumpees that can't get a full night's rest. They doze off, only to be jolted awake by their own anxiety of not knowing when Whumper would come back. Perhaps they are awakened by phlegm-coated coughs induced by their illness. They are awakened by nightmares, or by Caregiver who is worried they may succumb to hypothermia, or by a thunderstorm, or the rough blanket scratching their open wounds, or so on.

Whumpees who pull all nighters to protect their friends or lovers.

Whumpees whose eyes burn when they finally can close their eyes. Whumpees whose muscles twitch, who can't stop yawning no matter how hard they try to stifle it. Whumpees with dark, glassy eyes. Whumpees who are slow to react or have a hard time keeping up with the conversation. Whumpees with throbbing headaches. Whumpees with brain fog and memory loss.

Whumpees who have been on the run and have over exhausted their bodies. Their muscles and joints continue to scream long after its over. Whumpees with extensive blood loss. Whumpees who are malnourished.

Whumpees whose survivor's guilt keeps them awake, wondering what they might have done differently, whether it was all their fault, or why they were the ones to live.

Whumpees whose bodies are in chronic pain or illness and who have to hide it, causing muscle and mental fatigue. They keep going with a smile until they collapse or pass out.

Whumpees who break down in tears, begging to be left alone so they can rest. Whumpees who sob when they are told that the bed in front of them is theirs to use whenever they want.

[neuroticboyfriend]

as long as you're here, there is hope. as long as you're here, something can change. something can make you smile. something can give you peace. something can get better. as long as you're here, a better life is not impossible.

[notaplaceofhonour]

I was raised in the People of Destiny cult (later renamed, and more well-known as, Sovereign Grace Ministries, now Sovereign Grace Churches).

The valorization of martyrdom and The End Times was so ubiquitous it was ambient noise. We stood in the church lobby theorizing about who the antichrist would be, we argued about whether Jesus would rapture us all before, after, or during the Tribulation Period where Satan would be given free reign over the earth. There was a strong Christian Zionist fixation on Israel as the final battleground and capital of the coming Messianic Age. But the one thing we were all certain of was is that we were in the End Times, that we were not of this world and couldn’t get too attached to our lives here.

We were raised to believe our sin nature made us undeserving of life, that we deserved death and eternal conscious torture.

My parents read us the Jesus Freaks books (a series by Christian Rap group DC Talk about martyrs). I spent “devotional time” reading Fox’s Book of Martyrs. We had guest speakers from Voice of the Martyrs, their pamphlets were often stocked in our church’s information center. We grew up with our dad listening to right wing talk radio and making us listen to songs about how the Godless atheists were outlawing Christianity in America, that we could all become martyrs soon.

The group’s theology was damaging & traumatic in a lot of other ways that contributed to the suicidality I have continued to struggle with for the rest of my life. For a long time I did not believe I would live past 20. There are times when the idea of giving my death meaning by using public suicide to make a political statement has appealed to me.

So now, seeing so many social media posts glorifying the suicide of a US Airman this week, I have been furious. Reading his social media posts, I recognize so much about the way I was raised in his all-or-nothing, black-or-white mindset, the valorization of death-seeking & martyrdom, and the apocalyptic fire-and-brimstone imagery of self-immolation. The moment I saw people I followed celebrating his self-immolation, I said to myself “this feels like a cult��

So when I learned he was raised in a cult too, nothing could have made more sense to me. His political orientation may have changed, but his mindset did not—it was no less extreme or cult-like.

I’ve talked about so many of the reasons this response from the broader left scares me, including how it’s laundering that airman’s antisemitic beliefs, but I cannot think of anything that would hit me in a more personal place than this specific response to this specific situation has.

When I see the images, I think: that could have been me. That scares me, and what scares me more is that so many prominent people are overwhelmingly sending the message to people like me that there is nothing else we can do that would have a more meaningful impact than killing ourselves for the cause.

I do not believe that. I will not even entertain it. And having to see his death over and over and over again, to argue against people who are treating this like an intellectual/moral exercise or a valid debate we all have to consider has been immensely triggering and fills me with a rage I rarely feel. It’s unconscionable that we are even putting self-harm on the table, and that pushing back against that is somehow controversial.

There is hope. Our lives do have meaning. There are far more effective means of fighting injustice. And the world is a better place for having you in it. Don’t fall into believing this is a way to give life purpose.

[calkestis]

CAL KESTIS | TRILLA SUDURI Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023) Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019)

[wheelie-sick]

this is going to be a long post, it's kinda just me writing all my raw unfiltered thoughts on ABA therapy as someone who actually went through it

-> TW for ABA therapy, child abuse, suicide <-

I was functionally diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 but it wasn't until I was 13 that I was actually formally evaluated for it and given an official diagnosis. I was behind in social skills and developmental skills

[ID: "was also described as a sensory seeker. She does not currently have any friends and has struggled to make and maintain peer relationships throughout her childhood. Difficulties with social skills were initially noted when she was in preschool (years before the onset of clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and"]

[ID: "Social functions: [blank]'s mother also completed a questionnaire rating her social responsiveness. Her responses on the SRS-2 indicated that [blank] is demonstrating severe deficits in the areas of Social Communication (reciprocal social interaction and nonverbal and verbal communication), Social Motivation (motivation to engage in social-interpersonal behavior) and Social Awareness (perceiving social cues) and moderate deficits in the areas of Social Cognition (understanding social cues). Severe Repetitive and Restrictive Behaviors (stereotypical behaviors or highly restricted interests) were also reported. The total T-score on the SRS-2 indicates severe deficiencies in reciprocal behavior that are likely to result in interference in everyday social interaction"]

[ID: "%ile) are mildly impaired, while her social skills are moderately impaired (2nd %ile). By domain, demonstrates mildly to moderately impaired abilities in six adaptive skills areas, including self care (9th %ile), communication (5th %ile), home living (5th %ile), self-direction (2nd %ile), social (2nd %ile), and leisure (1st %ile)"]

and ultimately all this ended up with the number one recommendation after my autism evaluation being for ABA therapy.

[ID: "Recommendations: Based on the above results, the following recommendations are made for [blank] and her family.

1. ABA therapy: [blank] May benefit from an intensive treatment program to foster cognitive and communication skills, improve independence and adaptive functioning, and help manage interfering behaviors (i.e home-based, 1:1 instruction, task analysis, etc.) Most private and community programs are based on principals of operant conditioning and taught in home with 1:1 instruction"]

*I'm getting misgendered here. my pronouns are he/him

"operant conditioning"-- like a dog 🐕🐕. woof woof.

my mom didn't know any better so she put me in ABA therapy with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders. she regrets this. I regret this more.

my autism evaluation was cruel, it dissected all my flaws as if I was a bug under a microscope in a highschool laboratory. my evaluation was passed around to ABA therapists, a line of high schoolers peering through the microscope examining the most vulnerable parts of me.

and I choose the highschool analogy quite deliberately. most of the ABA therapists at my center were recent highschool graduates with no degree and little training. they knew nothing about autism and had no qualifications. you need more certificates to become a professional dog trainer than to become a professional human trainer.

"operant conditioning"

and I wish I could say it was just a poor choice of words but ABA therapy was dog training for children. my dad used to call me an "it" and somehow I felt less dehumanized by that than the entire experience I had in ABA therapy.

I was the oldest person at my center (I did not receive in home therapy) with the next oldest being approximately 3 years younger than me. at the time I felt babied. I was surrounded by 5 year olds and I was treated as if I was not just a 5 year old but an autistic 5 year old and anyone who has been a visibly autistic 5 year old knows what that feels like. I had escaped being an autistic child and now I was being treated like one again. The head of the program tried to console me by telling me adults received their services too.

[ID: "Following the principles of applied behavior analysis, CARD has developed a treatment approach for children and adolescents with"]

this was the first lie they told me. CARD does not work with adults.

I was not allowed the privileges of being a 13 year old. because I was an autistic 13 year old and therefore I was the equivalent of a 5 year old. I was in psychotherapy at the same time and I had grown very accustomed to some level of freedom in therapy. I was allowed to use the bathroom independently. in ABA therapy I was not allowed to use the bathroom independently. I tried once, me and my therapist were on an "outing" to the grocery store and I told my therapist I was going to the bathroom and walked off and I got a very stern talking to about how I needed to "stop eloping" and if I didn't stop it would "become a behavior"

eloping became a common theme used to control me and squeeze money out of my parents.

out of everything I hated in my life, including severe physical abuse at home (which they did not report), I hated ABA therapy the most. I would repeatedly make serious threats of suicide to try to get out of ABA. no one cared. everyone thought I was being dramatic but there were times I wrote out suicide notes and ABA was among the reasons I listed. ABA made me feel hopeless, depressed, revolting, disgusting, inferior, and less than human. between ABA, my home life, and my social life I had never felt so hated and it was boiling through my skin. I acted out, I was bullying people, I was behaving recklessly, I was starting fights, and all this only made the oppressive force of ABA crack down on me harder. I was a cat hissing in the corner begging to be left alone and ABA brought a net to try to tame me further. every time I scratched back it was listed as a reason I needed to be there.

I was "disruptive" and "rebellious" and "uncooperative" and "resistant to treatment" and no one could figure out why I was "regressing" despite me shouting the answer. I was screaming and no one was willing to hear me

I hated myself and my autism. my autism diagnosis made me want to die. I didn't feel freed by it or understood I felt ashamed and disgusted. I felt incompetent and like I had failed. I was ashamed to be at ABA, it was my biggest secret. I'd lie to my friends about why I couldn't hang out and I'd lie to people in public about who the woman I was with was and I'd lie about all of it to try to cover up my most shameful secret.

ABA therapy did nothing but foster this. In ABA therapy I was mocked for being autistic and what was happening only clicked when a young kid, maybe only 4 or 5, was flapping his hands and a therapist took out her phone and recorded him. we were circus animals. it was all an entertaining show to them while they poked and prodded at us with metaphorical hot irons to make us dance. the first time a therapist laughed at me for rocking back and forth I wanted to throw up. I almost did. it was systematic bullying of children I was forced to watch and experience.

my point is: the last place on earth I wanted to be was the ABA center.

so of course I tried to leave. my mom would bring me McDonald's and I'd beg, sobbing real tears, to leave early because only she could sign me out. every time I'd go to meet her I'd be marked as "eloping" and my hotel stay in hell would get extended.

my natural response to a stressful environment (leaving) was pathologized. I was eloping this way and that way and never once did I actually, truly elope. that word was a weapon used against me. they used my "elopement" to justify extending my stay to my parents. they ate it right up.

they argued I needed to stay there because I was making friends. this was true, I'm great at getting along with children it's part of why I want to go into pediatrics, but I had also made real friends with people my age at my highschool. ABA was getting in the way. I wanted to spend time with my friends outside of school but ABA took up all my time from the minute I left school to 6pm and all day on weekends. I was doing a full time job's worth of hours. I complained about how I was missing out on spending time with my real friends (as in, over the age of 7) and I was met with almost no wiggle room in my schedule. I was allowed to pre-plan time to spend with friends but every time my friend group wanted to do something spontaneously? I had to say no, and I had to lie about why. my friends would share stories about driving around town with 2 people in the group stuffed in the trunk, of hanging out in the woods together, of taking part in ordinary highschool activities as ordinary high schoolers and it made me cry because I was not an ordinary highschooler and I was not allowed to participate in ordinary highschool activities. I was one of those weird, unpleasant, socially awkward autistic people instead. eventually, they just stopped inviting me. I was forced into the out group by ABA.

I'll never get that back. I'll never get a chance to be a normal highschooler ever again.

when I did have time available to hang out with people I never had the energy to. at the time I was living with an undiagnosed physical disability and I was begging to see a doctor but no one would believe that it wasn't just anxiety. the people who believed me least of all were the people at the center.

I was constantly told I was trying to get out of therapy by "feigning" very real pain and fatigue. I tried to explain spoon theory, and that I had limited spoons, and in response they made a task for me to name things to "regenerate spoons" that's not how it works. I wasn't the only physically disabled person there. there was a wheelchair user who was constantly forced to stand for periods of time despite being in agony doing it. he wasn't allowed rewards until he did it.

rewards were used to train us like dog treats are used with dogs. sometimes the treats were fun! I'd get to cook, play Mario kart, and go on outings. other times the treats were "using the correct name and pronouns for me." I'd constantly be threatened with deadnaming and misgendering if I was being "noncompliant."

misgendering because of my autism was a theme in my life. my neuropsych evaluation report misgendered me. my parents misgendered me. the staff at ABA misgendered me. at one point the head of the program suggested that my "gender confusion" was because of my autism. my abusive father latched onto this and still claims that the reason I'm "confused" about my gender is because the evil transgenders tricked me into thinking I'm one of them because I'm autistic and therefore easily impressionable.

the two therapists I had were nice because I refused to work with the others. they weren't on a power trip and both eventually left because they realized the harm the organization was doing. other therapists were not so kind. other therapists were on a power trip, because in their mind lording over autistic 5 year olds (and autistic 14 year olds) makes them powerful and strong. occasionally I'd get stuck with one of the other therapists when my usual therapists were out. they would talk to me in a baby voice. they would make fun of me for rocking back and forth, for not making eye contact, for talking about Skyrim "too much" and generally just for being autistic.

I never really knew what I was supposed to be doing, just that I was doing it wrong. the therapists there rarely actually told me what my tasks were they'd just mark yes or no on them, judging me for something I wasn't aware of. I was never actually supposed to graduate, I was never supposed to get out, if they wanted me to succeed they would have taught and explained what was happening but I was intentionally left in the dark.

I continued threatening suicide to get out. no one took me seriously. I was seriously considering it. there's no happy conclusion where someone finally realized it was all wrong, or I figured out how to be allistic and graduated, or I felt more comfortable there. I only got out when covid struck and shut the center down. it's gone now, replaced by a family advice center. I hope their advice for autistic children is to never put them in ABA.

there is no grander message here just suffering. I'm sorry if you were expecting some sort of great point at the end of this. there's not one. it happened, I wish it didn't, and I hope no one else experiences what I did ever again.

okay to reblog

[defire]

What about whumpee with no physical marks so everyone assumes they’re fine but they have nightmares about what whumper did to them? Maybe whumpers still around in their life but they can’t tell anyone?

Oh yeah, I bet a lot of people could identify with this

(kink blogs pls don't reblog it just makes me uncomfortable)

No-marks whump

Content: intimidation, threats, emotional abuse, suicidal, noncon, rape, spraining, bruising, gag, stress positions, restraints, noncon touch, intimate whumper

Whumper sneaking around and suddenly popping up right there. Being in the shadows as whumpee crosses and making them think they're seeing things. Threatening whumpee with weapons and getting more intense each time,

Wrapping something around whumpee's throat enough to strangle them slowly but not hard or abrasive enough to leave marks. Whumpee still feels the collar around their throat and starts having trouble breathing any time they get think of whumper.

Friend of whumpee: "I get it whumpee, you're upset. But at some point you have to get up and pick up the pieces." Meanwhile whumpee is still deciding whether to use the knives on the vegetables or their wrists. No one can see the destruction they've suffered, no one understands.

Eyeing whumpee and "stripping them with their eyes" anytime whumpee walks in the room

"Whumpee, I'm surprised you'd take the risk of assaulting me." "You pulled a damn gun on me!" "He said, she said," whumper smiles. "And I'm the one with marks on my face to prove it. Now, I'll ask you one more time. Get on your hands and knees, or I'll blow your brains out."

Getting them alone, cutting off their clothes, then shoving them into position to be raped, slapping them anytime they resist. "Sure, I'll get you more clothes in a bit. Just need to wait for those red marks to fade. What should we do in the meantime?"

Whumper knows how to sprain without breaking. Whumpee can feel intense pain for weeks afterward anytime they use the joint or tendon, but nobody seems to even notice that they're crouching over their injuries in pain.

Gripping whumpee with thumbs digging into their thighs near their crotch so the bruises won't be visible--unless whumpee wants to pull their pants down to show people.

Makes whumpee spend hours kneeling with a gag in their mouth.

Making them focus on it and watch as whumper very slowly, delicately touches and kisses ears, and then begins to touch thighs... Moving so slowly is excruciating and by the time they're unzipping whumpee's pants, victim has already been crying for twenty minutes.

"you made a mess... That's okay, we'll clean you up. Just hold still. I'll clean you myself."

[hancocksbestgirl]

this sucks so bad i need to [remembers suicide jokes only worsen my mental health] blow up the prydwen

[thewistlingbadger]

Upon further inspection, I think the beginning of ep2 S2 was a suicide attempt from Jinx. We see how deep she is in the water, she's so far away from the surface and she's holding her breath for such a long time. She doesn't seem to have any intention of leaving either, we see how much she clings to him. In this scene we hear Silco's line "have you had enough?" I've made a post about the inclusion of this line back when the act came out. I questioned the inclusion of this line because originally I thought that Silco's monologue was meant for the audience only, so how would Jinx be aware of this line? Unless he had given her that monologue once upon a time?

But for this post I'm going to focus on the context of the line. Silco talks about the dichotomy of drowning, the inherent peace and also the violent instinct to fight the water and survive. "Have you had enough" is the question of this dichotomy. Have you had enough of drowning, or have you had enough of living? The fact that we hear this line in this moment means Jinx had the option to join Silco in the water or to go back to zaun, to the surface. She screams in frustration after this line is given. Like she wanted to join him and decides she can't, not yet, despite how much she yearns for it.

As a matter of a fact, everytime jinx speaks in suicidal language, it is in connection with silco. It is about being with silco again, in a way. We have this moment then the next moment happens in the office. She says "if you want me to play your stupid revolution game, speak up now or I guess...I guess you're really gone, and there's no reason to stay here anymore." I've made a post about this line too. Where exactly is here? Does she mean the office? Zaun? Or does she mean life, if Silco's gone what's the point of being alive anymore? The final moment of course is that whole "break the cycle" thing which I don't think I need to talk about for obvious reasons.

Ive seen people suggest that the opening to ep2 was fake due to the fact that she's so deep and survives for so long and because Silco's right eye is closed, despite the fact that it didn't have an eye lid all of s1. I disagree with this take because it severely cheapens this moment.

[many-but-one]

why do people program kids? what's the point???

(TW: ramcoa, programming, mc, trafficking, torture, child death, csem)

This is a question that has been rattling around in many people’s brains for a long time. I will rephrase your question in a way that is even more blunt: why do people torture kids? Because that is what programming is. Torture.

There are two answers, one is the one that programmers would say. One is the truth.

What programmers say: to create a perfect slave, someone who will do what I want with a simple gesture, phrase, etc. No matter the risk of harm to them or others.

The truth: thrill seeking egocentric sadists derive pleasure from torturing kids, raping kids, and making them bend to their will. They often film it and sell the media to other sick fucks for profit. These sorts of videos are unfortunately extremely profitable. One snuff film made over the course of a night could be worth thousands of dollars. That is why they do it. They like hurting people, kids are easy to control, and they like making money doing it.

There is no real, justified reason why programmers do what they do. There is no justification for torturing children and animals, no matter what they say. And if they truly believe what they tell others, it is because it helps them distance themselves from their heinous acts. If they are creating something with it, it makes the actions seem justifiable to the right people. They may claim they are building an army of programmed soldiers, but don’t realize that if they sent their programmed system into a combat situation the gunfire would trigger them so such a degree that they would be rendered useless. They make subservient sex slaves for profit, but once they get too old to not draw in the same crowd, they dispose of them and let them out into the world with no care to the mental and physical toll that life as a sex slave has done to the child.

They are insidious, evil people. They do not see children as human beings, but products to sell. Animals to put down. They care a lot less about the final product and more about the product that is made along the way—the torture films they make money off of and the excitement and thrill they get from torturing kids to program them.

Programming is not like how Alison Miller and many other conspirators make it seem. They are not making super soldiers or spies. They are profiting off of child torture and then either killing them by the end or letting them go. The only true reason things like callback programming or loyalty programming or silence programming or omega/suicide programming exists is so that they don’t get caught. If the system goes back, they will either be killed or reprogrammed or retrafficked or convinced to become a programmer themselves. They will not be going to complete some sacred duty that the programmers told them. Loyalty is only so they never tell secrets. Silence is so they never tell secrets. Suicide programming is so that they will die before telling secrets.

Programming is all about profit and not getting caught. That is why they do it. My programmers told me all the time that I would eventually become a spy for them. Black Widow style—a seductress who would kill their targets. The reality? I was a sex slave who had to commit heinous acts on camera that they sold, and when they were done with me, they cared less about that “end product” they claimed I was working towards. They’d rather see me kill myself than say even a modicum of truth about their motives.

To which I would say: kill me yourself, you cowards.

I hope that answers your question.

-Jade 🐉 (she/her)

[trans-axolotl]

content note: discussion of suicide.

this next monday will be the six year anniversary of losing one of my friends to suicide.

when he died, my high school barely mentioned his death, even though for other students who died by things like car crashes or illness, there were so many public expressions of grief. they believed that having any memorials for a student who died by suicide would encourage other people to die the same way. in their rush to erase the circumstances of his death, they erased the memory of his life.

there are so many things i am angry at that high school about in terms of how they treated mental health (mandatory reporting and collaborating with cops, their refusal to recognize the ways in which that system led to peer-to-peer crisis support, their refusal to recognize the ways that trying to keep each other alive through trial and error was scary and exhausting, carceral disciplinary policies, etc etc etc). but i think one of the things i am still angriest about is the way they enforced shame around his death. it felt like they were retroactively blaming him for the constellation of circumstances that made suicide an option in his life. it felt like they were blaming those of us who missed him and cared about him and wanted to grieve him. it made those of us still there who were actively suicidal feel even more scared about the reaction if we did reach out for help from one of those mythical safe adults.

as an adult now involved in psych abolition/mad liberation work, it makes me so fucking mad to see the ways in which he was discarded by people in authority positions. and the older i get, the more options i have found in my life for making sense of the world and finding healing and community and support which were never available to him because he died when he was 16 and the only things offered to him were a carceral psychiatric system that blamed him for his own fucking death. it feels so incredibly unfair.

i miss him and i think i always will; i can't remember his laugh or the sound of his voice or his favorite color any more and that aches. this grief is so heavy and it feels harder in a new way each year, when i become older than he will ever be. sometimes meeting new comrades or seeing new anticarceral suicide support models hurts because i wish so fucking bad that we had that back then. i remember how close we came to losing even more people that year and i know it is simple fucking luck that i'm still here when he's not.

i remember another letter (never sent) that i wrote to a friend while they were in an ICU bed after a suicide attempt when i didn't know if they would live or not. i have spent so much time in the past 10 years begging for anything to keep me and my friends alive, but even in that letter i knew that there is so much fucking violence that is hidden beneath psychiatric logics of cure and safety that promise a "solution" to suicide. I knew that institutionalization, coercion, and shame would not have helped build a life more liveable for him or **** or any of the people i've loved and lost since.

there needs to be more fucking options for care and support that aren't so incredibly cruel to suicidal people. i know so many people doing incredible work in alternatives, peer respite, a million different frameworks for healing and liberation. but it makes me so mad every day i have to live in a world where there are still people restrained, locked up in psych wards, having all autonomy and personhood taken away from them. knowing there are dozens of people every day getting blamed for their deaths the same way he was blamed for his.

i miss him. i cared so fucking much for him. and he died by suicide, and all of those things are true. he has been dead for 6 years and he lived before that and the people who loved him want to remember all of him; our celebrations of his life should not require hiding the way that he died.

Image description: [1000 origami cranes in all different colors and patterns that are tied together in strings of 25]

(these were the 1000 cranes we made to give to his parents, in memorial and recognition of how much he meant to us.)

[pan-gya]

I bet the infirmary has a bed just for him....

[delicatebeauties]

Small personal hc that kant jumped to his "death" because

1 he thinks he deserves it for hurting the ones he cares about (and blinded by pain forgets about style or babe) and the pain of bison disbelief in his love when it's the only truth in his lying body, the immense love he has.

Story wise by the hospital scene he had officially switched sides looking to rescue bison

2 he has been a dead man walking for so long , the cards dealt by life exhausts him and when given that choice to prove his love by death like a romantic hero he does

He doesn't beg fight or struggle for mercy. He could have crawled at bison feet

3 in his love for bison he doesn't want to make him carry the burden of shooting him. If he jumps and kills himself then bison can still save him

[fitzrove]

Thomas Borchert and Lukas Perman performing Mayerling (Elisabeth das Musical, 2004 Trieste concert edition)

[neuroticboyfriend]

massive trigger warning for abuse/suicide on this one, but for anyone who thinks psych wards are about protecting people:

1. my friend was trying to choke herself. i begged the staff to help her, and they said she was only looking for attention. minutes later, they call a code, wrangled her to the ground, and forcibly sedated her.

2. a girl was upset because she couldnt call her dad past a certain time. she started screaming, and crying, messing up the front desk. 8 security guards took her down. they broke her arm and sprained her wrist.

3. i came back to my unit in shambles because the staff on hand did nothing to stop a fight. i had to remedy the situation myself. things like this happened often.

4. i was having a trauma meltdown during "quiet time." the youngest patient tried to comfort me, and staff told her to stop and go back to her room because i was "a big girl who can handle herself." i was an out trans guy. the staff member didnt speak to me at all.

5. they separate roommates if they become friends. but they put me and my friend together for the sole purpose of putting us on constant observation together. we had zero privacy, even in the bathroom (which they took the door off of). at state, if you're on C.O, they take away your clothes, possessions, and "privileges."

6. im a CSA survivor. i was forced to regularly occupy the same space as a rapist, no matter how many flashbacks it caused me. they even roomed him next to me.

7. i am intersex. at state, doctors forced me onto an anti-androgen. i refused at first; they labeled me noncompliant, extended my stay, and took away my "privileges" (ex: snacks, going outside, doing fun activities, socializing).

8. they left my friend in a padded room strapped to a table for hours. they then let her off the table and left her in the padded room overnight. she had to wait hours in the morning to be let out.

9. at state, kids have to choose between being forcibly injected with a sedative, or being locked in a padded room if deemed "necessary." your parents have to sign away most of their parental rights, and if they want to sign you out, they need to go to court. for months. the state owns you.

we were all children. none of what i said is a "bad apples" situation. things like this happened every. single. day. it happened at multiple hospitals. these places are made to control mentally ill and other marginalized people. they exist to abuse us into conformity, take away our autonomy, and keep us away from polite society. psych wards should not exist.

[imtheecrybaby27]

Football season has started again

Which statistically means it also the season of domestic violence cases being on the rise.

Please know it is not your fault, he will not change, you need to get out!

Here are some resources:

National Domestic Violence Hotline -

Call: 800-799-7233

Text: START to 88788

Hours: 24/7. Languages: English, Spanish and 200+ through interpretation service

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[xxflutterinax]

the thing about troubled teen industry trauma is that every single ‘good’ or supposedly good adult in your life becomes complicit in your abuse, some of them for real, some in your mind (it doesn’t matter to your brain, it’s equally destructive to you) and therefore part of the betrayal trauma.

your pediatrician who knew you since you were a baby

your babysitter from when you were a little little kid who your mom still has lunch with every so often

your outpatient therapist and or psychiatrist

your teachers from the school you went to before being Sent Away

your neighbors

your parents friends

your friends parents

your guidance counselor

the special education department in the school you would’ve been attending if you were normal

the therapeutic day schools that could have actually helped you, that should have, but wouldn’t let you even apply because your behaviors got worse after being Sent Away for some completely inexplicable reason

your IEP/504 team

ER staff, nurses, EMTs, psych ward staff

extended family members who you actually cared about and who cared about you

your parents, obviously. tragically.

not adults but most friends you had on the outside, if you had any, if the ones you might have had haven’t forgotten about you or written you off as retarded or insane or both

literally, the only people who could even possibly be safe are:

the other mentally ill children (who are often laterally harming each other)

peers on the outside who validate you but can’t really help either

any adult exceptions, adults who are neither able to truly help but also are not gaslighting you. can be broken into a few categories:

outside adults who validate your experience but have no power to intervene so like. they’re safe but leave you feeling helpless. they confirm that something bad is happening and also they can’t save you

staff who are good, who are kind and caring and treat you like a human being, who you get attached to because your own parents are the ones who sent you there, and then quit as soon as they realize the true nature of the industry, because they’re good people, as good as a human could reasonably be, genuinely, but they leave and it hurts and when you’re a teenager living in an abusive institution, it’s extremely hard if not impossible to see why they’re leaving from the outside. it just feels like abandonment. your nervous system processes it as abandonment. so, not actually safe. not to you. not dangerous or bad, not as people. but ultimately not safe to you.

staff who make you feel good, who know all the right things to say, who know how much power over you they have, who know how isolated and desperate you are, and then use that to abuse you in more personal ways than the general institutional abuse (emotionally abuse/sexually abuse/grooming/etc) so they are both giving you what you desperately need and also further abusing you

honestly we don’t know which of the last two categories hurt worse.

we are just stuck in the body of the enemy. forever.