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i dont “have ptsd” that’s all just the wizard’s curse

#humor

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Parts of PTSD that no one talks about

Not knowing who to be angry at.

Being angry with yourself for letting it happen even if there was no way to stop it.

Crying and not knowing why.

Flashbacks where nothing bad is happening but it feels bad.

Denying that it ever even happened because your brain doesn't want to process it.

Wanting to go back to it so it feels "bad enough."

Intentionally triggering yourself to feel like your suffering is real.

Being angry all the time at every little thing.

Getting triggered by minor things and then being treated poorly because of your reaction to said trigger.

Hating change.

Being scared to sleep because you know you'll have nightmares.

Struggling to find hobbies that you enjoy.

Feeling like you're barely human.

Struggling to be positive about anything at all.

Feeling like you may be manipulating people around you into liking you.

Feeling like no one believes you because you barely even believe yourself.

Treating your past self as a "dead" version of you and feeling like a completely different person.

Being tired all the time, both physically and mentally.

Feeling like if you talk about it, your safety will be at risk.

Feeling the need to hide your trauma from everyone, including professionals there to help them.

Being paranoid everyone is going to hurt you.

Being physically incapable of talking about it.

Feeling like you're stuck reliving your trauma.

Having to skip classes or work days because of flashbacks.

Mourning your past self.

Wanting to hurt others so they feel what you feel.

Wondering why it had to be you and it wasn't someone else.

Chronic pain.

Clinging to "safe people."

Not being able to find a solid sense of identity.

Forcing yourself to be around people who trigger you for the sake of politeness.

#symptom talk

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ok well im going to build a good future for myself whether i like it or not

#positivity

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people when trauma victims act traumatized especially in a way that is unpalatable to them because it involves lashing out and unpredictable moods and having boundary issues rather than just being demure, sad, and consumable

#humor #ableism talk

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shoutout to people who don't have a "before" the trauma.

shoutout to people who don't have any sweet or nostalgic childhood memories. to people who don't remember enough of their childhood to know what the before was like. to people who lost their innocence before they ever learned the word for it. to people whose pasts were too painful to keep around in any form. to people who only knew trauma, and don't have an idea of what life would be like without it. to people who can't long for "the better days" because there weren't any.

you deserve a good future. i hope it's there for you soon.

#recovery talk

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"But she gave birth to you, you owe her!"

My mother wanted to be a mother. It was her dream to be a mother. She poured all her energy into being a Good Christian Mother.

She did not want me. She wanted motherhood. I was a side effect of her dream. Once I was old enough to disagree with her, she hated me. I wasn't making her look like a Good Christian Mother. I was loud, disobedient, needy... almost like a child. Not quiet and pretty and grateful for crumbs.

Yes, she birthed me. For herself and her partner. For the people who were already born. Not for me. As all mothers have for all of time. It's not the birthing that makes a mother worth honoring, it's the parenting.

#parental abuse

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Hi there!

I personally don’t know if your blog is still active but, I recently came upon it and I felt instant comfort within it. We decided follow you for the time being however I just have a question regarding your stance on non-traumagenic systems; Are you against those kind of systems?

I’m only asking because I honestly am unsure where you stand on that topic since I know your blog stands for mainly trauma yet I don’t like assuming things… I enjoy knowing for sure!

Tone tags / Tone indicators:

/GENQ (Genuine question) /NBR (Not being rude)

— Asked by a system with co-morbid BPD

Hello! I am indeed still active, and I am glad that my blog has brought you comfort.

The question of “syscourse” often falls into two camps: one where the question is, “are your experiences even real or possible?” This camp of questioning claims that all non-traumagenic systems are consciously faking their symptoms.

The second question is, “should your experiences be labeled as systemhood?” This camp of questioning is less about questioning the legitimacy of experiences, and more about the definition of system.

Due to my being a singlet, I hold no opinion on the second question. I feel as if it’s not my place to ask that.

Regarding the first, though: I have a general rule (which I apply to all things) that I cannot, and will not, tell others that their personal experiences are wrong, or do not exist.

I apologize that my answer is so long. But if you tell me that you experience X, Y, and Z, then I will believe you. You know yourself better than I, as a stranger on the internet, ever could, and I’m not too self-important to pretend otherwise.

#discourse tw #answered

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Shoutout to the victims of child abuse who don’t feel innocent.

Whether you threw tantrums, got in fights, broke expensive things, said means things, or caused any other type of trouble, you still never deserved to be abused. Children are at the disadvantage against adults, whether they feel like they are or not. Your abuse and trauma is valid and you deserve as much sympathy and recovery just as much as any other survivor.

#parental abuse

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Why romanticize depression when you can romanticize recovery, learning how to enjoy things again, trying to forgive yourself and build a life you are satisfied with

#recovery talk

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The reason people often "wallow in their misery" is because all of the good things that will help them have been tainted by neglect and abuse.

Going outside regularly is good for you. Being Forced to go outside when you don't want to and being treated like you're stupid for not being super into nature is going to make you not believe that.

Exercise is good for you. Being told all of your feelings are "in your head" and exercise will get rid of any mental issue you have is going to make you not believe that.

Laying off technology is good for you. Being told by a parent that they wish they could break every piece of technology you own is going to make you not believe that.

You can't be mad at people who were force-fed poison and wonder why they aren't "trying to do better"

#reminders

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i've noticed that, in discussions of how to handle grevious harm and abuse at a community level, victims of harm who want to preserve their relationships with perpetrators to some degree are... discarded?

there's an automatic assumption in left and abolitionist circles that all victims of harm either currently hate and want to cut off the perpetrators of that harm, or are temporarily confused due to being emotionally victimized and dependent on the perpetrators but will eventually come around to wanting to cut them out of their lives.

and i do think we need to provide unilateral structural support for people who want to entirely remove perpetrators of harm from their lives--there's already many legal and financial barriers to that in the case of legally recognized family members, and many other barriers in the forms of financial and housing entanglements, and those require work and support to untangle and remove as barriers on a broad, societal level. simultaneously, though, i don't think it's necessary to discard victims with other relationships to perpetrators in the process, nor to dismiss them as not capable of having that autonomy, nor to pathologize their decisions.

i've found that often in left and abolitionist circles, if someone wants to maintain a relationship with someone who's deeply harmed them, there's suddenly just... a total lack of community support, and even a tendency to lump them in with the perpetrator of harm and implicitly frame them as not being a ~real~ victim, or at the very least one who is suspect because they must have agreed with the premise of the harm or thought it was excusable in some way. and like... socially ostracizing victims is socially ostracizing victims regardless of why you're doing it!

and there's a tendency to reach a social consensus somewhere along the lines of like... "i'll help you, but only if it doesn't help the person who harmed you/is harming you." which is all well and good until you realize that shuts down the very possibility of external supports in healing the relationship in question and preventing further harm/abuse. it implicitly places the full responsibility of supporting the perpetrator's journey to accountability and improving their actions on the victim, which i shouldn't need to say is both unhealthy and doomed to fail. furthermore, it places the victim in a vulnerable place socially--if they live with the perpetrator, can they ask for rental support or help with groceries, or will that be seen as helping the perpetrator? if the perpetrator has some sort of health crisis, can the victim reach out for support through it (housecleaning, cooking, medical bills), or are they on their own because they chose to maintain this relationship?

thinking about how many of my friends were able to reconcile with abusive parents as adults, due to the shift in power dynamics, and were actually able to hold their parents accountable for their past actions and demand change that has actually progressed and improved their relationship... and thinking about how many of them are implicitly treated like helpless idiots that cannot be trusted to make their own life decisions because of this, by people who are supposed to be in community with them and talk a big game about restorative justice and abolition.

#good post op! #ableism talk

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Important reminder that "they were good parents and did their best" and "I was extremely abused by my parents" are not mutually exclusive. They can and do co-exist.

Good parenting techniques are not immune to abusive practices.

So, yeah. You may have been loved more than the earth and stars but still been traumatised as fuck.

#parental abuse

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Your BPD flag's symbol blends into the light colors a bit which makes it inaccessible, you should try and make it a different color :)

Thank you so much for letting me know! I have updated the post. BPD flag version 2.0!

#asks

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Ur BPD flag is ugly 😭

I personally disagree, but the point of its design wasn’t to be “pretty”! It was to 1) incorporate the colors selected by the BPD community in a survey I conducted, and 2), be recognizable and simple.

#asks

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I think another good thing I came to realize was that, in therapy, "acceptance" doesn't mean that something is okay or good. To accept a situation or emotion means to understand that any amount of wishing it didnt happen, pretending it isn't happening, or regressing into maladaptive coping mechanisms will not effectively deal with what's going on. To accept is to acknowledge, to understand what is happening or what you're feeling and cope appropriately and healthily without self-judgement.

#reminders

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complex ptsd? i find it quite shrimple really

#humor

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I despise the idea of trauma making you stronger, ie cold, distant, rude, cruel. I despise the notion that the only way to become strong is to become cruel and unloving, I want to learn and grow from my pain.

I want to be a warm soft blanket to those in need after a cold harsh day, I want to become so kind and gentle despite all my pain. I want to be a beacon of absolute rejection to the universe for being cruel, my acts of hope should spit in the face of that which wanted to break me, and make me as sharp and jagged as it. When I was brightly colored that was torn to shreds, instead of being glass, I choose to be confetti. Gently sprinkling brightness to others.

I want to be so unyieldingly kind it pisses mean people off, you can demean, yell, and insult me but it will do nothing. I will simply cut away from you and choose to share my warmth with those who actually want me in their lives.

#positive