#trauma onions?

[amyintherapy]

Trauma layers

Therapy is such a mindfuck sometimes. I 100% get it when people say they don't think therapy would help them because they are pretty self-aware or self-reflective. Cause, that seems so freaking logical. But, I swear, with the right therapist you'll find yourself routinely shocked at how blind you actually can be to your own bullshit. Our brains try SO hard to hide our bullshit from us, it's insane. I guess I shouldn't speak for everyone, but it's so true for traumatized brains, at least. I know that minimizing or outright hiding your issues from you is how the brain responds to trauma. But it's still eye opening to me when I catch on to new pieces of this in myself.

I went into my appointment today with several ideas of what to potentially talk about written down. I knew what had been on my mind the most, but I wasn't sure if it made sense to use the appointment to discuss it because I've discussed essentially the same thing with my therapist multiple times in the past. So a big part of me was like eh, that'd be a waste of time. I know everything there is to know about myself in this area. Probably spend more time on these other things as that'll probably be more productive/helpful. But I decided to at least mention it and see where it goes. I expected to jump topics pretty quickly as I didn't think we'd find new ground to cover. But we wound up spending 45ish minutes out of the hour on it. And it was productive. And yet, it's hard to really express why. It's not like there was some big new revelation. I largely went into it knowing what my trauma is, why I have this trigger, what my default response is, etc etc etc.

To spell out this piece of my trauma a bit...

I had an eggshell stepdad, and a constantly-overwhelmed semi-eggshell mom. My stepdad exploding was my mom's biggest trigger. And anger from either of them basically means anything could happen. Some of what I saw happen after anger, much of it starting off with really low level things like..someone shutting the door a little harder than normal (not really slamming it) or tossing their keys onto the counter a little too loudly. These kinda things were triggers to me as a kid because I knew they could mean an explosion was coming. Anyway, what I dealt with related to my eggshell caregivers' anger...

Emotional abuse between adults (very common)

Emotional abuse at kids (very common, my siblings who were externalizers caught more than I did, but I couldn't avoid it either)

Lower-level physical abuse of kids (semi-common but was my siblings, not me that I ever recall)

Domestic violence between adults (very rare, maybe 2-3 times ever)

Items being broken/physical aggression with household items (Rare-ish, maybe once a year?)

Recurring arguments or break-ups (extremely common. Fights rarely stayed as one event. They'd usually argue, try to wrap it up, and then explode again within a few hours, or perhaps even a few days later, but there was almost always a round two, at minimum. Core issues were never resolved, clusters of several related arguments over a week or two were common as well.)

Once I saw an adult hold a gun to their head after threatening suicide.

Once I saw an adult pull a gun on another adult (neither was part of my household).

Maybe 4-5 times over my childhood cops came to our house following arguments and/or violence.

My coping method was to try to be pleasing when the anger was lower-level. Keep things light if you can, but at minimum, don't do anything that might set anyone off. Once anger was bigger, just try not take up any space. Outright leaving (like going to my room) would sometimes get noticed in a negative way, so don't flee, but stay as far away as you can without actually leaving. Like...stay in the living room but sit silently on the couch, pretending you don't even notice the argument happening. Try to go unnoticed...blend into the decor. Stay out of the line of fire when the bombs are going off, basically. And when that failed and you're in the line of fire, fawn/people please to try to 'fix'.

What this looks like for me now, as an adult - is still to try to 'fix' other people's irritation, frustration, low level anger if I can find any way to. Or with 'big' anger, kinda freeze, or try to fawn/people please if it's directed at me. I can't feel safe if others are upset, so I try to absorb it so I can do something about it. And after someone around me shows anything adjacent to anger (like frustration) my brain likes to assume this is just 'round one' of anger, and round 2 will happen soon and will be bigger and scarier. So I'm very on-edge after 'detecting' any anger in my environment, even when it's really small. And my brain tries to pull my down a rabbit hole of finding potential things I've 'done wrong' that might be making this person secretly angry at me. Even when I logically know it has nothing to do with me. My brain wants to find a potential reason it could involve me. I'm pretty good about not letting it go down that rabbit hole very far, but it sure tries - and I have to spend energy holding it back from going there.

None of this is news to me, at all. I sort of forget when I've made certain realizations in therapy, but I think I've known all of this about myself for at least a year? So I wasn't sure there could be anything productive to come out of sharing how someone was frustrated around me this week and it triggered me...and how I knew I was triggered, and talked to myself about how my brain was reacting the way it did when I was a kid, but how my current situation is safe. How someone else's anger isn't a threat to me anymore. How I've created a life for myself that is safe, even when people get angry. I can have tough conversations with those closest to me. I don't get very close with anyone I can't do that with. So I consciously recognized all of this, but it didn't get rid of the anxiety. I stayed frozen in a moderately anxious place, hyper vigilant, unable to focus, and so drained from all of this emotional energy being spent on basically, nothing productive.

I expected my therapist to remind me that I'm trying to literally rewire the pathways in my brain, and I have 30ish years of my brain going down the "anger is very unsafe, I must regulate others' emotions and people-please." pathway. And that was said. As well as some usual points about how some of this equates to expecting myself to be able to mind read, and given that I am not a superhero or someone with magical powers, that expectation is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. I know this, but the reminder is good. But some new things were said too.

They asked if, after detecting someone else's frustration recently, I was able to put a loved one in my own place. We've talked a lot about how it's easier for me to empathize with myself if I imagine someone I care about in my shoes. Would I tell a friend that they should 'fix' someone elses frustration? That if someone sighs in their home that they should become hyper-critical and over-analyze anything they could have possibly done 'wrong'? Of course, the ridiculousness of this is apparent to me when imagine someone else in my shoes. But I admitted to them that I hadn't been able to remember to try using that trick to change perspectives until after I had settled some. That when I'm first triggered, I kinda seem to lose access to that more logical side of my brain that would allow me to try to remember specific suggestions or tools that had been suggested to me. They said it makes sense to forget when you're that emotional, so sometimes visual reminders are good. Like wearing a bracelet with a compassionate statement on it or something. Honestly, that feels cheesy to me, I don't really care for wearing anything that has text of any kind on it, to be honest and growing up with no positive feedback/praise has left me with a strong aversion to positivity like that..which is something else to work on but, one thing at a time. Anyway - I do like the idea of some sort of symbol in my environment serving as a reminder even if it has no text on it. Something that I'd take as a reminder perhaps, without anyone else needing to have a clue what it's about. So it was nice to get a little bit of a fresh idea on something additional to try. But bigger than that...they helped me realize that I have continued my pattern of self-abuse, and just disguised it as trying to help myself.

Meaning...I see myself being triggered, I see myself starting to fall into old patterns of trauma responses to try to cope, and I know that reaction is maladaptive at this point in my life. So I try to stop myself from repeating that old pattern of trauma responses...and on occasion I can stop it in its tracks. But not often with this anger related trigger, it's a real powerful one for me. And when I'm not successful and I find myself becoming hypervigilent and self critical due to someone elses anger..I beat myself up about it! I beat myself up for beating myself up...because I'm 'supposed to' be working on being more compassionate. And that's still part of this cycle, it's just another layer of it. I beat myself up because keeping myself in a position of guilt/shame keeps me small so I can stay in this position of feeling like I am wrong and they are right and I am guilty and need to fix.

It's bonkers that even in my attempts to heal, my old self-harming mindset comes out disguised as a cure for.

In other words..

My logical brain "I need to stop beating myself up. That is a trauma pattern that used to serve me as a kid, but is just harmful to me now."

My trauma brain: "Right! We're hurting ourselves and that's dumb! Let's beat ourselves up about that! That's the solution!"

Fuck.

[spkyart]

THE BOYS ⭐⭐⭐⭐

One of them is a professional yapper

[welcomehomeincorrectquotes]

Sooo, that update, huh?

[the-overanalyst]

i was thinking about this and about how, despite this person being absolutely right, the traumatized villain still feels so much more intuitive to us, more realistic even. why is that? is it just an oversaturation of the trope? is it human rationality insisting that everything needs a reason? in that case, is it naivete? denial about who our real life villains are? (something something you're more likely to become homeless than to become a billionaire) maybe it's easier for the average person to imagine rage at becoming what they dread than dissatisfaction despite having everything they want. and when you do get a fictional villain who has never suffered, these characters don't feel human, because our average-person rationale just doesn't apply to them. the real life villains mentioned in the tweet might as well be living in their own fantasy world.

[persianflaw]

mash x the onion headlines (2/?)

[crimeronan]

Any chance you'd drop the terrible Lunter premise since we can't find it now anyway? 🤲🤲🤲

LMAO. GOD.

the premise was actually pretty simple and solid and i Do stand by it. so if you happen to find a completed anon-posted fic many many moons from now with this plot that sounds like me.... well. what are you doing at the devil's sacrament.

kikimora snitches on hunter after hunting palismen. belos, in a not-so-rare moment of Creepy Luz-Related Magnanimity, is like, "oh, excellent. hunter has fallen in love with a human" (he has not) "and therefore has achieved what every grimwalker before him failed to do. this will work out Great if i can just get her to Behave"

so he has luz kidnapped. while also being like. ha ha hunter!! i know you're ready to betray me at the drop of a hat and if you do anything to try to help your paramour i will consider it another betrayal and there will be Consequences ! 💕

anyway. WILDLY unhappy E-rated horror fic where hunter and luz are both having The Worst Time Ever, In Different Ways. i figure if i ever write it all at once and post it again then i'll have them get rescued eventually, but until then they just have. the worst most fraught coerced emotional blackmail relationship you can Possibly Imagine.

[chooeychoco]

Onions on Wayne family adventures?

Hmm, probably Onion Damian.

KIDDING ASIDE I'M LOVING IT!!!

I'm only like, idk 17 issues in because I'm busy lately, but I'm gonna continue reading it!!!

[aingeal98]

Imagine your best friend turns out to be kind of very evil and it's something that's steadily becoming clearer every year as her actions go from morally grey to just unforgivable. But despite your disgust of everything evil and your talent at killing them you cannot bring yourself to do anything but forgive her even though she's not even the person you remember anymore. She looks like your old best friend and talks like her too. The girl who was your first little sister before your blood family came along, the original innocence you fought so hard to protect. (Was any of it real? Of course it was. It has to be or-) And that's why you will drag her living corpse into every escapade and force yourselves to stay a family ignoring the elephant in the room because you cannot handle even considering an alternative. Sometimes she accidentally almost drains the life out of you and it reminds you of the two times she almost killed your baby sister and that's something you would stab anyone else for. You've stabbed people for less. But not her. Never her. Even when she kills people. Even when she tries to murder everyone including you and your family. You can hate everyone else but you'll never stop brushing her crimes under the rug because you've been through too much together and you can't do this without knowing she's by your side. Not just because she's so powerful that you could only kill her if she lets you. (And she would definitely let you but you have to pretend not to notice that too. She's getting better guys it'll be OK in the end. It has to be.) Not just because she raised you from the dead twice, (You might actually hate her a little for that sometimes.) But because every single battle and trauma you've been through together has etched some sort of loyalty on your soul, an unbreakable bond, not quite romantic or familial. You don't even know if you like each other that much anymore, sometimes your conversations grow heavy or awkward with the weight of all the skeletons you're choosing to bury. And yet if the world is ending you will find yourself by her side, and the trust will be so easy and natural for those moments that you could be right back in high school braiding each other's hair and watching cheesy old movies and joking about your latest near death experience.

Anyway this happened to my good friend Buffy Summers.

[latenightsimping]

had a flare up where my conditions did a power ranger move on me and all flared up at once just as i got upstairs for a bath, so now i’m back in bed buck ass nude buying little knick knacks on vinted like

[dukeofthomas]

Y'know sometimes I forget (cause I'm mainly a jaybin fan honestly) but like. jason todd is a whole ass serial killer. full-on mass murderer. he is also just a genuinely bad person who does bad things. and i should love him for it, not in spite of it

[what-eats-owls]

Is 'Painted Devils' and the proverb it comes with a deliberate Macbeth refrance?

It is, good catch! The full line from Macbeth is: "The sleeping and the dead / Are as but pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood / that fears a painted devil."

MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.

[pjshermann]

Do you ever wonder if Jude's aversion to having his photo taken wasn't just because of self-consciousness but rather because of how the clients would take humilating photos/videos of him?

[nym-eclipse]

Was onision part of your childhood trauma or are you normal

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

tagged by @arendaes to do this uquiz and make myself in this picrew and would you look at that me n my ocs have plenty in common! fun fact i have actually been told i looked like this guy from a friends angst edits<3

no pressure of teh top of my head tags: @archduke-enver-gortash @miseryscrowned @i-know-how-my-story-ends @ariaofsorrows @kaleido-scope-lady @aaaaaarrrghhhhhh and anyone else who wants to do it!

[klirk-hammurton]

No thoughts, just Cliff Burton

[filbuddy3]

keep this thought under tight scp containment but i think truly only lesbians actually understands saitatsu