#trauma-bond

[lumpyorganelle]

Passive dependency

Source: The Road Less Travelled - M. Scott Peck

Passive dependency has its genesis in lack of love.

The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependent people suffer is the direct result of their parents' failure to fulfil their needs for affection, attention and care during their child-hood.

It was mentioned in the first section that children who are loved and cared for with relative consistency throughout childhood enter adulthood with a deep-seated feeling that they are lovable and valuable and therefore will be loved and cared for as long as they remain true to themselves.

Children growing up in an atmosphere in which love and care are lacking or given with gross inconsistency enter adulthood with no such sense of inner security.

Rather, they have an inner sense of insecurity, a feeling of "I don't have enough" and a sense that the world is unpredictable and ungiving, as well as a sense of themselves as being questionably lovable and valuable.

It is no wonder, then, that they feel the need to scramble for love, care and attention

wherever they can find it, and once having found it, cling to it with a desperation that leads them to unloving, manipulative, Machiavellian behaviour that destroys the very relationships they seek to preserve.

As also indicated in the previous section, love and discipline go hand in hand, so that unloving, uncaring parents are people lacking in discipline, and when they fail to provide their children with a sense of being loved, they also fail to provide them with the capacity for self-discipline.

Thus the excessive dependency of the passive dependent individuals is only the principal manifestation of their personality disorder.

Passive dependent people lack self-discipline.

They are unwilling or unable to delay gratification of their hunger for attention.

In their desperation to form and preserve attachments they throw honesty to the winds. They cling to outworn relationships when they should give them up. Most important, they lack a sense of responsibility for themselves.

They passively look to others, frequently even their own children, as the source of their happiness and fulfilment, and therefore when they are not happy or fulfilled they basically feel that others are responsible.

Consequently they are endlessly angry, because they endlessly feel let down by others who can never in reality fulfil all their needs or "make" them happy.

I have a colleague who often tells people, "Look, allowing yourself to be dependent on another person is the worst possible thing you can do to yourself. You would be better off being dependent on heroin. As long as you have a supply of it, heroin will never let you down; if it's there, it will always make you happy. But if you expect another person to make you happy, you'll be endlessly disappointed."

As a matter of fact, it is no accident that the most common disturbance that passive dependent people manifest beyond their relationships to others is dependency on drugs and alcohol.

Theirs is the "addictive" personality.

"They are addicted to people, sucking on them and gobbling them up, and when people are not available to be sucked and gobbled, they often turn to the bottle or the needle or the pill as a people-substitute."

In summary, dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in actuality it is not love; it is a form of antilove. It has its genesis in a parental failure to love and it perpetuates the failure.

It seeks to receive rather than to give. It nourishes infantilism rather than growth. It works to trap and constrict rather than to liberate. Ultimately it destroys rather than builds relationships, and it destroys rather than builds people.

[livingfictionsystem]

A lot of pop psychology gets thrown around and since I already have a headache, here's preventing you lot from making it worse.

Love-bombing: A manipulation tactic of increasing affection and grand gestures before or after doing something abusive, specifically to weasel one's way out of consequences.

What it is not: A streak of affection and generosity towards friends/loved ones.

Trauma-bonding: Knowingly traumatizing someone to take advantage of their vulnerable state, to then act like the "hero" or the one who cheers them up.

What it is not: Bonding over similar traumas.

Gaslighting: *Knowingly* convincing someone they cannot trust their own perception of a situation in pursuit of one's own narrative.

What it is not: Misaligned perception of events.

Narcissist: Someone afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a traumagenic cluster B disorder, that struggles with self-obsession, paranoia, craving validity from the public, delusions of grandeur, and social disconnection.

It is not: Your rubbish ex that cheated on you.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

-Xanthe

[hinamie]

to moving forward

[chloesimaginationthings]

I hope Vanessa and Mike dance in the next FNAF movie,,

[thepeacefulgarden]

And remember, they don't have to hit you in order to qualify as an abuser. Do they...

Say mean and/or creepy things and then try to walk it back as "just a joke?"

Tell you that you're "too sensitive" when you call out their words or behavior?

Use the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, the Vedas, or any other religious text to justify mistreating you?

Treat you badly, apologize, promise never to do it again, and proceed to do it again?

Try to control where you go, how you dress, who you see and talk to, what and how much you eat, etc.?

Snoop through your phone, emails, belongings, or other private stuff without your OK? Or manipulate you into "letting" them do so?

Track your menstrual cycle (if you have one) without your OK? Or manipulate you into "letting" them do so?

Try to make you keep a pregnancy you don't want (or terminate one you do)? Or try to dictate what (if any) birth control you use?

Threaten to hurt themselves or other people if you leave, or "step out of line?"

Break or throw things when they're upset?

Punch holes in walls, doors, etc.?

Make you (or try to make you) engage in sexual acts you don't enjoy, don't feel ready for, don't feel comfortable with, or just plain aren't in the mood for?

Try to make you feel like a bad person for saying "no" to sex?

Try to distance you from your friends and family?

Actively try to turn your friends and family against you? Or you against them?

Get mad when you say no or try to set a boundary?

Call you degrading names?

Use your insecurities against you?

"Neg" or "should" you into conforming to their preferences?

Try to get you to quit your job, or get you fired?

Use drugs, alcohol, a bad day at work, or whatever their deal is as an excuse for their behavior? If so, you need to get out. Now. Make a plan. I promise, it doesn't get better as long as you are in this relationship. You cannot love the red flags out of people. Even if they don't hit you now, there's a good chance they'll start sooner or later; abuse has a nasty tendency to escalate.

[thatrandomblogsays]

Percy: *sacrifices himself to save his friends*

Grover & Annabeth: having PTSD flashbacks

[deadsetobsessions]

Damian Wayne was like a duckling. A violent, stab-happy, danger-prone duckling, yes, but a duckling all the same. Which means when Danny almost got stabbed by a sleepy, instinct driven Damian, he was able to wave it off with a laugh. Damian, on the other hand, stared in horror at the butter knife firmly lodged in Danny’s arm.

“PENNYWORTH!” Danny jerked back at Damian’s scream. “RICHARD! FATHER!”

God damn, the kid had a pair of lungs on him. Danny’s wince was interpreted as pain to Damian, who gently grabbed his injured arm and started to pull him towards the kitchen’s marble island.

Danny blinked, non plussed as his hearing picked up a thundering of feet as the present family members scrambled towards Damian’s distress call.

“Wait, Damian, I’m fine. It’s-”

“You have been impaled, you imbecile! Had it been any of the other simpletons, they would have-!”

“Ouch.” Danny put his other hand in mock hurt over his slow-beating heart. He literally doesn’t care about the butter knife. He’s just impressed there was enough force in there to impale him. “Are you calling me names now? After- gasp- stabbing me?”

Before Damian could reply, the beginnings of regret, remorse, and guilt on his face, Alfred, Dick, and Bruce burst into the kitchen.

“What happened?!”

“My word, master Danny!”

“What is it?!”

“I’m fine. It’s like a small stab. Not even a big stab. I’m good.”

Dick paled, seeing Danny’s arm clutched in Damian’s hand.

“That’s- that’s a knife. In your arm. How is that ‘fine’?!”

“What happened.” Bruce asked Damian, gently removing Danny’s arm from Damian’s death clutch.

“I- I did not mean to,” Damian starts, guilt coloring his voice.

“He didn’t,” Danny cuts in. “I startled him and got stabbed for being dumb. I won’t fault him for having a defense mechanism like that, ancient knows what I might do if you guys startled me.”

The awkward silence that settled at his words made Danny twitch awkwardly.

“Uh, so, can I add this knife to my collection? Even if I didn’t get mugged?”

“Danny.”

“Bruce.” Danny stared stubbornly back. With his uninsured hand, he patted Damian on the head. He was going to enjoy the fluffiness before Damian’s guilt was no longer enough to hold him back from snapping at Danny’s hand like a grumpy alligator. Bruce loses, obviously. He’s a teenager who was also an ex-vigilante. Batman’s got nothing on a determined halfa.

“Master Danny, I must insist you refrain from getting stabbed. There is only so much gauze and antiseptic cream in the house.” Alfred returned- huh, when did he leave?- with a med kit.

Danny called bullshit because he knows there’s a whole ass medical bay beneath the manor.

“Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Alfred said, promptly beginning the extraction of the butter knife.

“Are you okay?” Dick asked, hovering worriedly. “He- are you…?”

Damian was allowing Danny to ruffle his hair, so…

“Yep, I’m good. This isn’t even on my top thirty most painful stabbings,” and it really wasn’t. That honor was given to the GIW and that one time Jazz accidentally stabbed him with her earrings. “That was pretty impressive, actually. It’s like, a butter knife. The other ones had pointy ends.”

“Do not clump me with those pathetic wastes of spaces. I am naturally superior and would… would never harm you on purpose.” Damian said, getting quiet at the end like he was trying to plead to Danny to believe him.

“Of course not. But- if you want help me keep the knife, you can hit me with a mug, it would technically be a mugging.”

The pun got the desired effect. Damian leaned away with a disgruntled look and Dick stopped hovering as close in order to let out a small cackle.

“Done.”

“You should go get changed, kiddo. We’re going to see Tim’s photography at the Gotham Gallery today.”

“Oh, for real?” Danny patted Damian’s fluffy hair one last time, pushing away from the counter. “Oh, I’ll clean up here first and-”

“That will not be necessary,” Alfred scolded, a mop somehow already in his hands. “Please see to it you are prepared for the day.”

“Thanks, Alfred. Can I keep the knife.”

“Very well.”

“Sweet. See you guys later?” Danny pranced off after seeing the nods.

——

“He’s… he got stabbed a lot. Before us, I mean.” Dick tapped a furious rhythm onto the counter. “Not that we’ve stabbed him until now but even once is concerning for a civilian.”

“He was used to it.” Bruce replied.

“Perhaps we should join Todd in his endeavor and ensure that his worthless tormentors are permanently out of the picture.”

“God, he said top thirty. He was counting.”

Damian silently withdrew a kitchen knife.

“No murder with my quality chef’s knives, Master Damian.”

“Tt.”

“Master Jason follows the same rules. Now, out of the kitchen. I may be old, but I remember the last time master Bruce and master Dick stepped foot in here and I will not have a repeat.”

[phosilli]

eye of the vulture king

[potato-lord-but-not]

c’mon baby, cry

[alexxuun]

Vash ver (+ Meryl)! They are coping.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

anyone else have multiple traumatic memories associated specifically with holidays/family vacations? because that is a topic I never see discussed in all the So You Had A Shitty Childhood, Now What? self-help books i've been reading. but for me, it was a significant thing. and the more i think about it the more it seems like this would be an (unfortunately) common experience. would be grateful to hear if this matches other peoples' experiences...

[callmelinamfsnow]

“I’m family”

“So. is. he”

[girl-in-the-thunderbolt-suit]

Baby reindeer was brutal, triggering, uncomfortable, honest and beautiful. One of the best portrayals of someone with sexual trauma I've ever seen on TV.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael is very subtle about his daddy issues in FNAF..

[chironeis]

the thing is that martin thinks it took "two years of crisis and trauma" just to make him and jon compatible and the reason jon doesn't know how to rebut that wildly incorrect fact is because he's barely aware that he had a stick so far up his ass in season one that it grew roots in his brain before he stubbornly and meticulously and with gritted teeth plucked them all out. jon could've plucked those roots out before all the trauma and crises if he simply chose to. and he would. in so many universes. because martin (and friendship and love and connection) is worth it. mic drop

[burr-ell]

What I love about Spy x Family's recent chapters concerning Martha and Henry—two secondary characters with little direct connection to the plot as we've known it—is that Endo's taking the opportunity to once again hammer home what the story's actual stakes are. The idea of potential conflict between Ostania and Westalis isn't just window dressing for a wacky wholesome badass family gimmick—the previous wars are real events that various characters lived through, and all of them are in some way affected by it and have good reasons to want to avoid another one. This is primarily an action-adventure/slice-of-life manga with a lot of sendups to spy movies and pop culture of the 60s, but I think those things hold much more weight with the thematic underpinning of the horrors of war and the ruin it leaves behind.