#trauma rambles

[struggling-to-find-home]

An incredibly fucked up part of my life, now that I think about it, is that I simultaneously had two childhoods and also didn't have a childhood at all.

Like, obviously I was a child, at some point, considering that is how time works. I was a child, who had a personality, and thoughts, and feelings, and memories.

Then, I was a teenager - and, as a teenager, I killed my personality, got my thoughts indoctrinated by my abusers, denied all of my feelings, and had a constant stream of poisonous memories fuck up all my decisions in the backround. I knew what it was like to live through a childhood, an actual one, lasting multiple years.

Then, everything broke, my psyche broke, and, after swimming in dissociative hell for a good six months, I woke up after what I jokingly call my "factory reset" - and I had to memories. Like. At all. Literally, a black wall lasting seventeen years of my life, and then, all of a sudden - I was there.

My first ever conscious thought, the one I remember, at least, was - "Holy shit, I can actually think". Not very exciting for a first thought, I guess, but it was very exciting for me at the time, considering that my dissociation was so bad I couldn't count to five most days without getting lost.

Do you understand just how fucking terrifying it is, to suddenly gain awareness and realise that you don't know how you are, what has your life been life, and how to interact with the world, with the only information actually being in your brain being memories of abuse which were too horrible to forget? Because I fucking do, I lived it. You read isekai for the plot, I read it because it's the one genre that can describe my experience. I literally was the "born sexy yesterday" trope - a mind with no knowledge of how life works, who was, let's be real, at the emotional regulation level of a toddler, stuck in an body of an adult.

I had to teach myself everything - how to talk to people, how to focus for more than three seconds at a time, how to extract my memories, one by one, and slowly piece together who inhabited this body, my body, for all of my life. I was literally learning how to person from scratch, and in the beginning, you can bet your ass I didn't feel any close to, well, an actual adult, like I was supposed to be. I had to stumble over every mistake, and learn every lesson you learn as you grow older.

Fucking hell, for one and a half years, I lived in a world where I physically couldn't comprehend that someone wouldn't like me. When I say I had to learn everything, I mean it.

Sometimes, it gets to me - the fact that I am technically inhabiting the body of a corpse. She - the child, the teenager, the one who actually lived through hell - is dead. I am somebody else. I will never be her. All I can do is live - like this, in this bizzare existence - and try not to wince every time someone mentions their childhood.

I don't remember what it's like to be a kid - to be able to grow, make mistakes, and not be judged for being in the process of figuring things out. In all honesty, I'm not sure whether I was allowed to be a kid - I got some memories back, but none of them give me that kind of info. I don't remember what it's like to be a teenager.

I remember what it's like to try to live a normal life when your first memory was yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. I remember what it's like - to have that innocence, that naivety, that additude of not having any shame or self-consciousness that you usually only see in children, going through the world without looking at any obstacles because your enthusiasm hasn't ever been crushed yet.

For a child, every obstacle they encounter can be the biggest one in their life yet - even if it's something as simple as learning to tie your shoes. Fortunately for me, the first obstacle I encountered as myself was a horrible, terrifying monster - my mother - raging at me and disowning me in a week-long fight over me not wanting to take a math test. Everything else seemed like a small problem after that. Well, until my brother pulled a gun on me, but that's besides the point.

So now, when people say "Childhood" - I think about my first days as myself, the amnesiac teenager. Being young, moldable, soaking every piece of information up with no filter because I didn't know better. But then I think to myself.

Oh. Right.

I was a child, but it wasn't a childhood.

I was a child, but that childhood is lost forever.

And then, internally, I weep.

[arthur-side]

Idc what the outcome will be but I'll probably need the motivation

If this post gets:

350 notes: I'll start properly writing the Vigilante AU that I'm struggling to do

500 notes: I'll start to clean my household that's dusty af

1000 notes: I'll start studying for my Journalism(I have to catch on a lot hwlp)

2000 notes: I'll start art studying more on the face

3000 notes: I'll start actually exercising the whole week(I've been needing to take vitamins because of how much I just sit and struggle to do something with my body)

4000 notes: I'll start actually studying for my school

5000 notes: I'll try stopping the voices in my head that says that all my injuries/suffering are just little and actually start trying to ask for help more

10000 notes: I'll go and fight my trauma and start trying to cook more food other than rice and eggs because I still remember that fire back when I was around 5(It's funny because I wanted to become a chef before and now I joke a lot about arson, ironic, ain't it?)

Why so much? I really want to do these and yet there's something in my head making me scared of doing these

No rules, go insane if needed

[foreignemotion]

“you promised to destroy the hexcore” versus “i won’t fail [to destroy it]”

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

it’s always jarring talking about shock value in fiction— a term I’m always so hesitant to use, personally— and hearing someone say how something in a book is too unrealistic or too unpleasant (implicitly: to exist) and it’s outright things I’ve experienced

there’s especially this push in certain spaces that feminism means not acknowledging or portraying suffering past some nebulous point of tastefulness. and it’s so frustrating! making real things, that happen to real people, more societally unspeakable certainly isn’t protecting anyone

[crismakesstuff]

cast out of paradise

[whatsjulietslastname]

HEY GUYS REMEMBER WHEN CHLOE WANTED MAX TO BE THE LAST THING SHE EVER SAW BEFORE DYING. BTW GUYS. REMEMBER WHEN CHLOE SAID “i’m never leaving you” AND “that’s okay we will, forever” AND “Max, i’ll always be with you”. GUYS GUYS GUYS HOLD ON REMEMBER WHEN CHLOE SPENT YEARS TALKING TO MAX IN HER DIARY BECAUSE SHE COULDN’T LET HER GO GUYS. AND WHEN SHE TOOK MAX BACK IN A HEARTBEAT BECAUSE SHE MISSED HER TOO MUCH. OH AND BTW REMEMBER HOW THEY WERE CHILDHOOD BEST FRIENDS AND GREW UP TOGETHER AND FELL IN LOVE AND ARE NOT LINKED ONLY BY A ‘trauma bond’. DO WE REMEMBER THAT. COLLECTIVELY.

[bluerosefox]

Stellar Dynamics

You know what.

ANOTHER DPxDC idea (as if I write prompts for anything else lol ✍(◔◡◔)

And once again, I think I might have a hyperfixation rn, another deaged Dani (Ellie) and Dan (Dante)! and Dad!Danny.

And you know what, lets make it another DannyxConner idea.

Danny is on a field trip with his class (NOT in Gotham though, LOVE Gotham but lets go with a different city) in like Central City or Metropolis (If Metropolis, Danny is SUPER excited to see the space sections they have at the museum they no doubt have, because well SUPERMAN is an alien and based in their city. If in Central City Conner is visiting Bart.)

During the trip he bumps into Conner and the two just hit it off. Conner enjoys listening to Danny rant about space and the stars and finds watching Danny's eyes light up in joy kinda cute. And if he got his new hero name Supernova from listening to Danny's rants about the stars well... no one needs to know how he got it.

Danny likes how chill Conner is and how the guy stood against Dash and the other jocks when Dash decided he wanted to mess with Danny during the trip, a rare thing nowadays but sometimes Dash does try, and how he respects/likes Danny's friends.

He didn't even say anything negative or hurtful when he found out Danny has two kids back home.

In the end the two exchange numbers, flirt hard, and maybe set up a date in the future. And then more dates. Becoming boyfriends. AND meeting the family. Conner is smitten with just out of toddlerhood Ellie and toddler Dante and adores them. And he loves how the Fentons just love him the moment he stepped into their house and was introduced as Danny's boyfriend, he made sure to bring over a pie Ma should him how to make.

Things get a bit complicated when Conner, Supernova, is at a reunion of YJ members and his phone lights up with a text message from Danny.

He's smiling with a goofy/soft look when he opens the text and see's its a picture of Danny holding a pouting toddler Dante and Ellie on his lap smiling with a notable gap in her teeth at the camera. The message he got was 'Ellie wanted you to know she finally lost her first baby tooth. Dan's been grumpier, I think he misses you.'

He is pulled out of his happy thoughts and musings when he hears Bart gasp hard and drop a bowl of snacks onto the floor. Conner turns to from the future Speedster and see's him about to have a panic attack.

Bart, Impulse, is having a freak out after catching a glimpse of the text picture Conner had gotten and being nosy wanted to know what got his friend to smile so smitten. He knew of Conner's current boyfriend and the kids Conner adores but haven't had time to be introduced to them or even see a pic.

He wasn't expecting to see the very MONSTER of his NIGHTMARES that basically destroyed the world in the FUTURE as a toddler pouting at a camera and surrounded by two smiling identical looking people either. People he never saw in the future or with HIM AND-

Oh.... OH!

Was that why he turned evil? Did something happen to his family?

[aintnopartylikeaprideparty]

as someone who has experienced abuse from someone with a personality disorder, it's actually incredibly easy to not dehumanize everyone with a personality disorder. i've seen people do borderline eugenic rhetoric surrounding people who have npd, aspd, bpd or other personality disorders, and then be like "I'M allowed to say these things because i'm a survivor, and if you disagree you are hurting abuse victims."

and frankly? i'm tired of it. as an abuse survivor i'm here to say that you're NOT allowed to turn into a fucking eugenicist the moment you're hurt by someone with a personality disorder.

does hurting and belittling other people who happen to have the same disorder as your abuser, people that are already suffering and that are already looked down on by society, bring you any healing? does it bring you peace?

Being hurt by someone isn't an excuse to hurt others that you feel justified in lashing out on. you're literally in control of your own actions,

you may claim to be making a safe space for abuse survivors, but i will never feel any solidarity with you, and i ESPECIALLY don't feel safe with you considering i might have a personality disorder.

you are excluding a large amount of abuse survivors in the name of "advocacy". a lot of people with personality disorders developed one or multiple due to heavy abuse. in the aim of creating a safe space, you are excluding the ones who need a safe space the most.

[eepy-bats]

TW for talks of abuse, neglect, depression and su*cide

I fucking love the "platonic yandere batfam x neglected reader" but I wish there was more of it to explore.

Like where are the readers that are bitter yet burned out? The reader that knows that they're being forgotten about early on (maybe it's familiar– maybe their mom was terrible too) and doesn't push for the attention? They know that trying their best and worst won't get them the results they want so they just... fade in the background. No awards or straight As– the reader strives for mediocrity and prays to dissappear as soon as they can and start over. They don't want anyone in this godforsaken family to ever give them a crumb of thought but eventually they do and any ounce of attention is hell.

Or what about the reader that hurts and hurts and hurts until they can't take it anymore and they attempt the unthinkable. Whether this reader wanted the batfam to be hurt by their death is up to interpretation but the results are the same. They were negligent sure but they never hated the reader– it's all so sudden that the spiral is damn near immediate. Wouldn't you do so too, afraid and guilty and grief striken that you're inaction could have killed someone that was supposed to be dear to you?

I think about it sometimes.

[durge-marzio]

Ohhh, I'm rereading Mystra's entry in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide... and this detail:

This means Gale was punished for trying to restore and preserve what he thought was a lost piece of Mystra's magic. Gale being Mystra's ex-lover put aside. He as her follower, she his goddess, was punished for attempting to do the one foundational rule of her faith.

I'm seething and so sad at the same time.

Edit: I used the word punish loosely, as in, toxic/abusive people will take any small mistake or action and twist it into something they can take advantage of. This post was also largely from the stand point of a toxic deity rather than a toxic partner, but both takes are valid here. Especially with the, “you didn’t stay compliant so now I’m giving you the silent treatment” part of it—from a god and a partner perspective.

[serenbriar]

I often think about how verbal consent must be such an integral part of Tav and Astarion's relationship even once they've been together for years.

It doesn't matter if his body language indicates he's eager for intimacy, Tav will still ask him "may I?", "can I?", "is it okay if I..?", "do you want to..?" even if it's quite clear. Even after all that time, they want to remind him that he's in control, to make it known that they'll never do anything he doesn't want.

Often, he might eagerly accept, or even beg for them, but other times he might say no. And when he does say no, he never ever fears his boundaries being crossed, because he trusts Tav entirely to respect his body. He feels safe with them, safe to say no, knowing that the word has power here where it didn't so many times before.

Even after years, he might think to himself that they don't need to ask during moments of passion, that it's quite clear when he does and doesn't want intimacy, but it still brings him comfort when they do.

[littlefankingdom]

I knew that Bruce was full of anger as a young teen, always starting fights at school, but I learnt today that he also:

Burnt his teacher's front yard after being asked a question that triggered him.

Was obsessed with toy guns and wanted to go gun down criminals, which led to Gordon taking him on a trip to Arkham (not as a prisoner, but as a "Wanna finish like this???")

Poisoned a classmate and locked him in the boiler room to die (he didn't and Bruce was expelled) after Alfred told him to be less physical and more smart at stopping bullying.

And this was before he was 15. People must have thought he was going to become a serial killer.

Anyway, I need fics where his kids learn this OR have to deal with "violence is not the question, it's the answer" small Bruce.

[dolleriumfluffle]

I just desperately want more recognition of traumagenic experiences that lie outside of the usual "childhood abuse" assumption that everyone forces on that label. what about trauma from bullying? what about trauma from undiagnosed illnesses? what about trauma from queer experiences like transphobia? what about trauma from medical experiences like surgeries, hospitalizations, psych wards, and other areas where the medical field failed you? what about trauma from eating disorders? what about trauma from racism?

there are so many experiences that can fall under traumagenic, but are yet swept under a rug in favor of a strict, stereotypical narrative that's easier to comprehend. I think we as a community need to make an active effort to expand our understanding of traumagenic, especially where it may overlap with experiences traditionally considered endogenic, and understand that trauma can come in so many different forms. so often people are shunned for trying to create roles and labels that describe their specific traumagenic experiences, and I don't understand why. there can be no progress towards acceptance for all systems if we don't accept that traumagenic is an umbrella label too.

[ssseriema]

martyn lore stream was a fucking banger. my favorite bits were the fragments reveal and also this

[lazylittledragon]

70s (?) Damien and Veronika are KILLING ME they're so adorable!! Were they vampires then or were the photos from before they were turned?

these are from when they were still human!! they got married in 1966 and were turned sometime in the late 70s

they had to go into hiding for a few years but then in the 80s it got easier because a lot of people started to look like them

[era-of-ages]

Being ex-Christian but also not wanting to be against people choosing religion is like: i want you to be happy, i hate the lies you stand for, i know you’re not a bad one, it’s an overwhelmingly awful thing, i want to belong with the people i grew up with, they cannot be comfortable with me anymore, I know you will always love me, but not over your faith, im happy that you are bfaithful, im begging you to run as far away as you can before falling too far in, im glad you’re getting baptized, i cannot trust you anymore, i understand the joke, i know im not like you anymore, this event was fun, its a cult its a cult its a cult its a cult its a cult please im begging you you don’t know how this has hurt me so much im begging you listen to me please, haha singing vegetables, im not the lie that you loved anymore