#child psychology

[typhlonectes]

#children #kids #child psychology #parenting #psychology #child development #memes

[todays-xkcd]

My first words were 'These were my first words; what were yours?'

Language Acquisition [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[A child, drawn as a smaller Hairy, stands next to some blocks. Megan and Cueball stand to the right of him.] Child: Vocabulary update: I learned another word today, bringing my total to twelve.

#xkcd #xkcd 2839 #language acquisition #webcomics #child development #psychology #child psychology

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Anonymous

Published: Oct 16, 2023

When my first son claimed he was trans, I eagerly ‘affirmed’ him. When his three-year-old brother decided he wanted to be trans, too, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.

I was a social-justice organizer and facilitator before social justice took over the progressive world. I was at the nascent movement’s forefront, introducing the concept of intersectionality to organizations and asking people to share their pronouns.

My friends and I felt like we were the cool kids, on the vanguard of the revolutionary wave that would change the world. We were going to achieve what people in that milieu call “collective liberation.”

Within this context, I came out as a lesbian and identified as queer. I also fell in love, entered a committed relationship, and gave birth to a son. Two years later, my spouse gave birth to our second son.

Having children and experiencing the love and devotion I felt toward them, was a game changer for me. I began to experience internal tensions. My thinking was split between what I felt instinctively as a mother; and what I “should” be feeling and doing as a white anti-racist social-justice parent.

Because I’d felt victimized by my parents’ rejection of my sexuality, I wanted to make sure to honor my own children’s “authentic” selves. In particular, I was primed to look for any clues that might suggest they could be transgender.

My spouse and I raised our sons with gender-neutral clothes, toys, and language. While we used he/him pronouns, and others called them boys, we did not call them boys, or even tell them that they were boys.

In our everyday reading of books or descriptions of people in our lives, we did not say “man” or “woman”; we said “people.” We thought we were doing the right thing, both for them and for the world.

Even when our first son was still young, he already struck us as different from other boys—being both extremely gifted and unusually sensitive. By age three or so, he started to orient more toward the females in his life than the males. “I like the mamas,” he would say.

We started to attribute some of this difference to the possibility that he was transgender. Instead of orienting him toward the reality of his biological sex by telling him he was a boy, we wanted him to tell us if he felt he was a boy or a girl. As true believers, we thought that we should “follow his lead” to determine his true identity.

At the same time, I was taking a deep dive into the field of attachment and child development. This made me understand that attachment is hierarchical; and that parents, not children, are meant to be in the lead. This obviously conflicted with my insistence on letting my child decide his gender. Sadly, it was the latter impulse that won the day.

At around age four, my son began to ask me if he was a boy or a girl. I told him he could choose. I didn’t use those words—I imagined that I was taking a more sophisticated approach. I told him, “When babies are born with a penis, they are called boys, and when babies are born with a vagina, they are called girls. But some babies who are born with a penis can be girls, and some babies born with a vagina can be boys. It all depends on what you feel deep inside.”

He continued to ask me what he was, and I continued to repeat these lines. I’d resolved my inner conflict by “leading” my son with this framework. Or so I told myself.

His question, and my response to it, would come back to haunt me. In fact, I remain haunted to this day. To the extent I was “leading” my son anywhere, it was down a path of lies—an on-ramp to psychological damage and irreversible medical interventions. All in the name of love, acceptance, and liberation.

About six months later, he told my spouse that he was a girl and wanted to be called “sister” and “she/her.” I received a text message about this at work. On the way home that night, I resolved to put all my own feelings away and support my transgender child. And that is what I did.

We told him he could be a girl. He jumped up and down on the bed, happily saying, “I’m a girl, I’m a girl!” We—not our son—initiated changing his name. We socially transitioned him and enforced this transition with his younger brother, who was then only two years old and could barely pronounce his older brother’s real name.

When I look back at this, it is almost too much to write about. How could a mother do this to her child? To her children?

Once we made this decision, we received resounding praise and affirmation from most of our peers. One of my friends, who’d also socially transitioned her young child, assured me that this was a healthy, neutral way to allow children to “explore” their gender identity before puberty, when decisions would have to be made about puberty blockers and hormones.

We sought out support groups for parents of transgender children, so that we could find out if we’d done the “right thing.” It hadn’t escaped my notice that our son hadn’t exhibited any signs of actual gender dysphoria. Was he actually transgender?

At these support groups, we were told, again, what good parents we were. We were also told that kids on the autism spectrum (which our son likely is) are gender savants who simply know they are transgender earlier than other kids.

At one of the support groups we attended, we were also told that transgender identity takes a few years to develop in children. The gender therapist running things told us that during this period, it’s important to protect the child’s transgender self-conception—which meant eliminating all contact with family or friends who didn’t support the idea that our son was a girl. I believed her.

Looking back, I now see her comments in a shockingly different light: this was part of an intentional process of concretizing transgender identity in children who are much too young to know themselves in any definitive way. (One set of parents attending the group had a child who was just three years old.) When identity is “affirmed” in this manner, children will grow up believing they are actually the opposite sex.

The therapist endorsed the same approach that many adolescents use on their parents, who are urged to write letters to grandparents, aunts, and uncles to announce the child’s transgender identity. In these letters, the conditions of continued social engagement are made clear: Recipients must use the new name and new pronouns, and embrace the new identity, or they will be denied contact with the child.

After about a year of social transition for our older son, our younger son, who was by now only three years old, began to say he was a girl, too. This came as a complete shock to us. None of the things that made our older son “different” applied to our younger son. He was more of a stereotypical boy and didn’t show the same affinity for the feminine side of things that his older brother did.

The urge for “sameness” is a primal attachment drive in many family members. We felt that our younger son’s assertion of being a girl likely reflected his desire to be like his older sibling, in order to feel connected to him.

His claim to be a girl became more insistent when both brothers went to school part-time, because their program included pronoun sharing. Why could the older sibling be a “she” when the younger sibling couldn’t? Our younger son became more insistent, and we became more distressed.

We made an appointment to see the gender therapist whom we’d met at the support group. We truly believed that she would be able to help us sort out who, if anyone, was actually transgender.

To our shock, the therapist immediately began referring to our younger son as “she,” stating that whatever pronouns a young child wants to use are the pronouns that must be used.

She patronizingly assured us that it might take us more time to adjust, since parents have a hard time with this sort of thing. She added that it was transphobic to believe there was anything wrong with our younger son wanting to be like his older transgender sibling.

When I pushed back and asserted that I wasn’t yet convinced our younger son was in fact transgender, she told me that if I failed to change his pronouns and honor his newly announced identity, he could develop an attachment disorder.

We were unconvinced. But, again, we wanted to do what was right for our son and for the world. We decided to tell him he could be a girl. And that night at dinner, we told him that we would call him “she/her.”

Right after dinner, I went to play an imaginary game with him, and I wanted to be affirming. So I put a big, warm smile on my face and said, “Hi, my girl!”

At this, my younger son stopped, looked at me, and said, “No, mama. Don’t call me that.” His reaction pierced me to my core. I didn’t turn back after that.

For the next two years, my partner and I dug deeper, agonized, and then continued digging again. Everything we thought we knew or believed that had led us to socially transition our older son began to unravel.

I continued to study the attachment-based developmental approach to parenting and learned more about autism and hypersensitivity. We decided not to socially transition our younger son. Not only was he not transgender, we now realized, but our older son probably wasn’t either.

He was just a highly sensitive, likely autistic boy who saw a girl identity as a form of psychic protection. It also provided him a way of attaching to me through sameness.

My spouse and I decided that since we’d been the ones who’d led him down this path, we were the ones who needed to lead him off of it.

A year ago, just before our older son’s eighth birthday, we did just that. And while the initial change was hard—incredibly hard—the strongest emotion exhibited by our son turned out to be relief.

In the days following my first conversation with him about going back to his birth name and pronouns, during which I told him that males cannot be females and that we were wrong to tell him he could choose to be a girl, he got very mad at me, then sad. Then, the next day, I felt my son rest. I felt him release a burden, an adult burden that he, as a child, was never meant to carry.

Since that time, we’ve all been healing. My son is now happy and thriving. We’ve watched him come to a deeper peace with himself as a boy.  

Our younger son is also thriving. Once his older brother became his older brother again, he happily, and almost immediately, settled into his identity as a boy.

I feel like someone who’s escaped a cult—a cult whose belief system is supported by our mainstream culture, the Internet, and even the state.

I fear for the future—the future of sensitive, feminine, socially awkward boys. I fear what the world will tell them about who they are.

But no matter what the future holds, I will never ever stop fighting to protect my sons. I am no longer a true believer.

#gender ideology #queer theory #genderwang #gender cult #social transition #autism #social justice #critical social justice #affirmation model #gender affirming #gender affirmation #trans identity #gender identity #child psychology #religion is a mental illness

[alchemistofthenewage]

How to HELP Children learn?

Tips for Successfully Teaching Children

Be gentle and respectful at all times. Equality is important even if there is an age and intelligence gap.

Create the right environment which is free from stress, pressure and fosters creativity, trust, curiosity and fun vibes. Keep the pace of learning comfortable for the child.

Cater to the specific learning style of the child and learn to observe their areas of interests and listen to what motivates them. Participating and self-expression is essential to keep the child engaged.

Try out a combination of learning methods to help the child understand, such as tactile, movement-based, visual and auditory. Always provide context for what is being taught and why we need to learn it from a larger perspective.

Stick to the basics but also be spontaneous with the curriculum. The right mood for the right subject is important. Take time to present information in an appealing manner that excites the child.

Be in the right mind space attitude and energy when you are going to teach the child. If you lack enthusiasm, learning will suffer.

Teach as per the individual’s grasping power and introduce new concepts only when the foundation is ready for them.

Keep it light and don’t overload or confuse children with unnecessary information. Make sure they have understood before moving forward.

Each individual has subjects that they are more drawn to versus others. Choice is a gift, hence we need to honor the choices of children and understand that each one is born with a unique purpose.

­­

#parenting #teaching #teachers #homeschool #homeschooling #home school #children #child development #child psychology #rainbow children #new earth #starseed

[distracteddaintydemon]

Nimona is a child god

an indomitable child who needs to be loved even at the cost of hating herself but also needs to survive as herself even at the cost of being hated

but a child who can keep it going for a millennium without surrendering, without burying self, without going numb, still FEELING, still yearning, has clearly a willpower worthy of a god

so when the child part finally gets to be loved as herself? yeah, try to take down someone who survived this. Any adversity gets redirected straight to the deity part. Try and nuke the god. Good luck

#nimona #nimona netflix #jungian psychology #child psychology #nimona is a child-god #modern mythology

[ivandra-winters]

Watching the original version of Disney’s Pinocchio after studying developmental psychology is a bad idea, because the whole film is just…so terrible in terms of how everything is presented to Pinocchio. Like, he’s brought to life late at night, and in the span of 24 hours, he gets kidnapped twice and gets constantly manipulated by literally everyone around him, and then he’s punished for being manipulated.

“Oh, but he should’ve listened to Jiminy and done what he was told!” - Listen here, you son of a bitch, that poor puppet was brought to life and then expected to just go to school without any socialization or time spent with his father. That boy had no business going to school in the first place since he knew literally nothing and should’ve been acclimated to listening to Jiminy in the safety of his own home. Not only that, but Pinocchio continued to be punished for making choices despite the fact that literally nobody warned him about the dangers of trusting people he doesn’t know. He was never taught stranger danger, yet he kept getting punished for trusting people he had never been told not to trust. Also, nobody gave him a good reason to go to school? He was just expected to go because he was told to?

Bottom line is that Pinocchio kept getting let down by the authority figures in his life and was punished for it, and I’ve had enough of that-

#pinocchio #disney’s pinocchio #child psychology #developmental psychology #this movie makes me angry #the puppet was continually let down #and this poor boy had to fucking die to become human #he had to experience death in order to be considered worthy #yeah give the kid trauma #that won’t end terribly for anyone

[gracelyngrausamkeit]

"Being left by a parent is a difficult thing to swallow and, unfortunately, something you cannot do anything about. Thus, it’s ok to be sad about it, to be angry about it. Kids shouldn’t have to suppress their emotions, and grown-ups should respect that."

This is what the psychology pamphlet I worked on was trying to convey. Mental health is something we all should consider and take seriously.

While this definitely isn't my best illustration, I tried to make it as impactful as possible to fit the story the client was trying to tell.

#art #illustration #artists on tumblr #child psychology #abandoned #parent issues #emotions #disappointment #psychology #commission

[luulapants]

One of the surest arguments that capitalism is an unsustainable nightmare that destroys innovation is the way it's made it impossible to create an effective education system. We've made it financially impossible for most people to let their kids succeed academically.

Illinois just passed a law making it mandatory that all kindergarten is now a full-day program. Most already are. This is being hailed as a huge win for low income working families, and it is... But it's a huge loss for kids. Full day kindergarten means no naps. We have strong evidence that most children still need daily naps at age 5. "But they can stay awake just fine!" you may think, but it's not about that. Sleep is the time when our brains convert short term memory to long term memory, and kids 5 and under have reduced short term memory capacity. If they don't get a midday nap, anything they learn in the morning can be lost. Naps are critical for learning.

In fact, most kids are done napping earlier than that, either in preschool or daycare, because it's incredibly difficult for childcare programs to get a bunch of ambulatory, verbal kids to nap all together in one space. It's too noisy, too disruptive. The bedding takes up too much space. So they don't do naps, and their 3 and 4 year olds lose their morning learning. Half of their days. Because their parents have to work all day. Because their schools can't afford adequate napping space and their parents can't afford schools that can.

We know that early childhood education is one of the most important indicators of long-term academic success. Kids that can't nap will learn less in preschool and kindergarten and start first grade behind where they should be. That deficit will follow them, compounded by the other structural issues of capitalism and its effects on our schools and will create less effective workers for the capitalist machine. And so the machine breaks down because we couldn't adapt it to the schedules of 5-year-old brains.

#anti capitalism #child psychology #us schools

[obaewankenope]

I caught my 11yo niece stealing jewellery today.

Well, I say caught, what I mean is I noticed a specific thing missing (a ring, very special, I know where I put it) and instead of instantly accusing her, I decided to give her a chance. I asked "have you seen my ring [niece]? It's really special, [friend] got it for me and I swore I put it there [specific location] last night." I then asked my mother to search for it downstairs and left it for a little while. My niece went back upstairs after her breakfast to get dressed and I went back up myself. She didn't hear me over the dryer so I caught her with the ring on the bed beside her. She didn't confess to having taken it, and she did take a different ring instead (one I don't care about so I'm not bothered there) but I didn't shout at her. I did tell her, calmly and gently, that I knew where I'd put it, that another ring had been there too that wasn't now, that I'm not angry and if you want some of my jewellery, lovely, just ask me and if it's not something special, I'm happy to give you it.

I gave her some bracelets and a necklace and let her know that sometimes it can be scarier to not have someone shout at you for something you've done (like stealing) than it is for them to actually shout at you. Especially if you're used to being shouted at. You don't have a script when they don't shout at you. You don't know how you can react. It's different and it's scary.

And that's okay.

Because what matters is that my niece understands that I won't shout at her for something like this (I'd only shout if she ran in the road or something that risked her safety, and I'd tell her why I'd shout and what it would be about, aka worry for her and to not run out in front of the moving car for example).

Because shouting doesn't help.

Shouting means you punish children for stuff instead of understanding why they do it. And I'd rather understand why and then figure out how to help than just shout and ground and blame and judge.

Just because shouting is easier doesn't mean it's right.

#Kat talks #Kids #Important #Children #Child psychology #Raising kids is hard #Loving them is easy #Treating them with respect should be the least a parent can do

[ineedfairypee]

Psychology be like…

#psychology #psychology memes #psychology student #psychology facts #spiderman meme #psychology studyblr #mental illness #mental health #mental health memes #psychology nerd #student memes #university memes #psych student #child psychology #developmental psychology #original content #oc meme #oc #meme maker #psych #oc memes #ineedfairypee #fairypeememes #I Need Fairy Pee

[vyorei]

Yes, it's obvious, but it's important to say it anyway

#free gaza #free palestine #gaza strip #irish solidarity with palestine #palestine #gaza #news on gaza #al jazeera #boycott israel #israel #Child psychology #Mental health #Samantha Nutt #War Child Canada

[typhlonectes]

#kids #children #child psychology #psychology #child development #parents #parenting

[thepowerisyouth]

MONEY / FINANCE STRESS CONTENT WARNING, this next line is unfortunately quite stressful about money so this was an important warning for me to add:

This is also less for the random strangers on the internet who have no reason to trust my advice but more for the 10-15 people I know personally who trust my money advice based on prior experience and Ive sent them my blog link in the last month or two

US stock market is about to tank. On a global perspective its stupidly overpriced because markets like China are hitting 5 year lows (as in we've increased our stock market over 2x since "COVID lows", but their market is even lower than it was then.

Timing is hard but it is entirely possible yesterday was the peak of the market. Might also not tank for 6 months.

Market psychology is fucking weird tho so please absolutely dont 'short' anything, which is basically the same as 'buying puts'. Michael Burry nearly bankrupted all his friends, family, and random investors by insisting on 'shorting' things based on knowledge of impending crisis.

Just sell everything. I mean literally everything. Bond etfs might go up but youd have to have eyes glued to the charts to sell in time. Gold wont do, neither will bitcoin. Their negative correlation to stocks isnt really a thing anymore.

Get every etf, stock, whatever into cash in the brokerage account, then move it out of the banks/brokerage firms and into something physically in front of you because we are, in fact, in another 'historical period of bank runs' its just not quite at the peak yet.

Not trying to increase anxiety beyond nessecary-- its just that any, single bank can immediately freeze your money-- leaving it up to the Federal Government to pay you back-- and it might possibly be the case that youd have to rely on whats called a "bank bail in" to see your savings again.

Not a fun situation to be in, even if it wont happen to most people its just safe practice to do this during a "historical period of bank runs"

----------------

This blog is basically my diary of my thoughts (suprise suprise). But Im an open book, privileged (but poor) little white boy with complex societal/generational abuse and very little home problems so lets fucking go theres a whole mormon cargo van to unpack

Definitely recommend tags Im terrible at them.

---

To those reading this, if you have ever met me in real-life or on the internet than you have taught me varying degrees of information which can be randomly retrieved by my brain at any time depending on current CPU performance. Thoughts of my loving husband have occupied my headspace probably 95% of my time since 14 so he has absolutely taught me at least 100x more than anyone else in the world.

When I say "I", oftentimes Im thinking about "me and my husband", or even sometimes "me and my friends/family", or even sometimes "me and society"--- but I am not always 100% aware of the current headspace environment and/or beliefs of the minds of those around me without feedback

---

There are currently over 8 billion individual varieties of the global human language spoken within the mind. Lets start translating them all. Misunderstood words become mean labels.

I fucking hate mean labels

"Math wiz" = racism and/or classism and/or gender shit. Fuck that shit

When a person is niched off into one part of an 8 billion population human society, it becomes impossible to not "live in a bubble". Bubbles change in size constantly even if not visibly observed. Bubbles can be different sizes depending on your current day-to-day thoughts of your own society. Bubbles must pop. Enlightenment implies life only gets better the more times ya pop and lock it

My path away from purely mathematics, logic, and scientific theory began when I met my husband, and for the first time in my life it became important to me not to be an asshole to everyone around me

Ive been told (only after I started dating my traumatized husband tho and helped him heal a lot) that I'm a natural communicator-- and all my life I found myself listening and learning to everything and everyone around me trying to understand both their and my own motivations-- then I like to garble them up and spit 'em out. My memory recall ability is wonky tho and fluctuates highly with nutrient intake-- I'll get into that later

I wish I could have a million years to read every blog on tumblr. I really do. Connecting & communating is extremely important for understanding one another but it takes time

I had an extremely unique childhood (who hasnt lol), enough so to isolate myself quite a lot through sheer dumb luck. My mom is also everyone's favorite school teacher so of course I was learning a lot from a young age. Luckily I glued myself to the first person who wanted to glue themselves to me equally & we grew exponentially closer to eternity

If its still not clear: my husband and I are bored and love chatting with people, but like most internet loving freaks my mouth don't work sometimes well but my fingies do. My ears got fluff a lot but I got eyes for LEDs like a hawk. Wish they werent LED tho

I also have a naturally short sleep cycle (i.e. extra time for this), and I really wont be offended or weirded out by someone reading through and liking 20+ or whatever of my posts at once randomly. Stories are supposed to be read in chunks, and I think of this blog as a story & also workspace for my thoughts that Id love to see which chapters everyone has read through. Also I love (and only respond positively to) positive feedback, yet also suggestions for ways to improve my "theorums". As in, good faith discussions are totally welcome on any post.

For my 50 year old parents reading my blog so lovingly in their limited evening time-- you can sort by tags to see what topics your familiar with, if you play around with the search function while on my page. Mom. Show dad how to do it

In the very, very bottom of my blog I dont even think I managed to tag shit properly-- but its the roughdraft workings of the philosophy, as well as my own logical framework for answering lifes questions. Its 2 months ago so I might not even be writing according to my own works down there anymore idk I change fast sometimes

Last thing for now here is that I was always criticized by teachers for not showing my work, and for not reviewing my tests before turning in, and I pushed back hard because nearly every time I went over and corrected a mistake-- I saw I most often got it right the first fucking time on a pure hunch. I act on impulse when I'm not meditating mostly for efficiency purposes because I believe I'm correct, but remain open to emotionally positive feedback so I can help remove all doubt.

-------

This might turn into my 'life story' post, as its already going there. Heres what I have so far in the way of my knowledge of my family before I was brought into existence, and my "earliest memories":

Family context:

I dont know jack shit. Nobody talks about it at all.

Here's my own observations Ive made using the framework and perceptive filters I was given--

My whole family is white Texans.

Ancestory is slaveowners of course, further back is a very likely direct parent-child descendent line from the most famous inbred british royalty of the 13th century i.e. King John, whose brother was the arab genociding Richard.

I would call my immediate family as upper poverty class. Its more like poverty with extra privileges cause mental health stigma was the only thing holding them back not other shit too.

As children we had a lot of very privileged opportunities because my parents made a lot of sacrifices to try and bring us back up the class ladder. Lets look into that generational trauma issue

My dads parents (born in the early 40s, dont know the year exactly. I think '43 or '44) were more upper middle class, pretty high income. Owned an insurance business that was very successful by the early 2000s at least. My grandpa is described to me as a "monster" and "violently abusive". I have a single memory of him screaming at me as a young child and I was cowering under a desk, so I really believe it. No other stories at all to provide context.

-- I gotta split this section off I realized I wrote the next thing about post-me context Ill need to move this part lower down later--

My grandpa got early onset dementia, my dad didnt notice in time, and my grandpa bankrupted his successful company and lost several million of dollars to "scammers and sexy ladies."

My dad found out around 2015-16 or so. He told me a little bit after telling me my grandparents were getting divorced. My dad managed to scrape together about $200,000 which is being sued for by the IRS actively.

(He split that money in two, and entrusted me tell him how to invest half in safe value stocks that I handpicked as well as a calculated risk allocation to bonds which we sold for 30% profit the second the market crashed. He gave the other half to a brokerage advisor. I never met the advisor but saw the results. Dont get me started on how the other dude did with that money-- we started this endeavor in January 2020.)

Personally I also dont believe that its possible to spend an entire fortune on scammers and strippers, so Id love to see his books and figure out what the hell went wrong with that asshole. I have a hunch I know something more than anyone else ("Enron", guys, we're talking about an insurance company in HOUSTON, in the 2000s) but I will never be sure without the books.

----

Back to other family--

I do not know a single thing about my grandma on my dads side. She raised me quite a lot, but yeah I literally have only heard her life described to me as "she was a housewife"

On my moms side, my Mimi (also born 1940s but slightly younger so I think 1946 or 1947) came from a divorced, upper middle class family. In 1964-65, She and her step mom both got knocked up the same year so she watched her divorced dad remarry to said step mom when she was 18-19 and getting a shotgun marriage herself, so you can imagine what that was like. The "biological" of the two moms was a very good mom and very queer from what I hear. She died when I was a baby, from lung cancer. Thats all I know. My mimi raised me quite a lot, nearly equally as much as my mom did

My mom's dad, my Papa, came from a rural farming family in East Texas. Dont know much else of anything, but he and his siblings were named "Billy, Bobby, and Betty". As in, they are what everyone likes to call "hicks"

--

Moving onto my direct parents now. I know a little more about them of course, but since we're getting closer in age to the present-- I think itll be easier to describe my understanding as common stereotypes. If its unclear what I mean definitely feel free to ask, but I'll probably say "I dont really know"

Not much else is relevant other than knowing that my moms family was the mormon one, but that as soon as my dad was love-bombed by the church he joined to. Mormons were also different in the 90s I'm told.

My dad struggled with being one of the "crazy schizos" of the 90s. As in, very traumatized, upset, and gaslit by the government and his parents. Must have done a damn good job dealing with it by the time he was in his late 20s and I popped out cause he was never a "bad dad" to me at all. Definitely yelled and was more angry at times, but less than any other friends parents Ive ever met, and from what I remember he came into my room at night and apologized to me literally every single time within like 5-10 minutes. I know pretty much nothing about him pre-me. He was a tradesman my whole life and specialized in remodeling kitchens & bathrooms (the 'dirty work of construction'). All his initial clientele were the rich people my grandma lived near and was friends with.

My mom would have been extremely queer-presenting and posting on tumblr if born in the year 2000, but was born in early 70s, and was a raegan teen in high-school in Texas during the satanic panic-- she presents completely cis, straight, but has body dysmorphia issues. Thats about you need to know about those issues I'm sure my tumblr folks can assume the rest and be perfectly correct. Cause thats about all I know too and I'm assuming the rest about my own mother

--- Earliest memories

I think a lot of people face doubt about their own earliest memories, maybe hearing the way I connect the images of these events in my head to my emotions I felt will help others do the same.

----

Two disclosers about me & my current healthcare discoveries before moving on

1) My only "major" childhood trauma is loneliness. I have a partner now (started dating early high school, nearing 10 years together now) who was just as lonely and we are glued to each others side constantly, and have made our life work great that way. So don't feel too bad reading this, I'm only able to write it down because Ive healed that trauma and can dig this stuff up with no issues to validate the emotions I felt even as a child

1) I believe I have a genetic trait that is only just getting discovered. There are something like 6 discovered mutations that hold this similar trait so far, and its just basically chronic insomia.

It being a genetic trait tracks with how my mom describes me as never settling into a normal sleep pattern at 6 months old, having absurd amounts of nightmares and death anxiety keeping me up at night as a child, and I still dont sleep at any given time. I average 2 hours less sleep than my husband, who averages 7-8 now that he isnt actively being abused at home.

Going to get sequenced but even if negative I'd probably just be a 7th mutation, as they only found the other 6 genes via case study.

The scientists whove discovered it call it "Familial Natural Short Sleeper", if you desire to look it up. They describe the trait like its the best possible thing in the world. Well... terminally chronic insomia is not the best thing in THIS world thats for sure.

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My "earliest memories"

These arent ranked by time accurately of course. Took enough effort digging through my brain to turn them up, not like Ive got a 2003 calendar stuffed in here as well.

I did do my best to sort by first memory but it also might be sorted by the order at which I recovered the memories as being one of my "earliest" when I was a child and asked such things

1. Pure emptiness. I can only describe it as dissociation. I can remember nothing about the environment around me, except feeling suddenly sucked out of it, seeing only darkness, feeling almost a ringing in my ears and the deepest dread possible. This same feeling followed me in life for a little while, but started to take more visual shape when I was an adolescent, until at some point I would see myself sitting in a chair alone in a room that is infinitely sized but that slowly gets darker the further out you go. I cant remember what exact "real-world" event caused this feeling to ever happen each time it did. I just can remember having it happen occasionally when I was awake and doing things. Definitely dissociation. (If you are willing to believe me further I think its just probably "lights out" and being scared of that)

1. Riding a mattress down the stairs. I kind of remember two images, one is the tunnel vision of going high speed down the stairs and the other would be from looking back up at the stairs when I was done going down. Totally fun, probably my first rollar coaster ride. I might remember my siblings laughing too but it wouldnt be because I can remember the actual laughing-- but I can remember feeling the joy of being in a group of people laughing. At the time, my parents were selling the house so thats why I also remember it being a completely empty carpeted room that we were riding down into

2. My brother smashing his head repeatedly into the refrigerator for 'fun' and someone saying "wow he has a hard head" or something along those lines. I was learning english I cant remember exactly what they said but that was definitely the meaning I took from their words. I think this memory is strong, because I was truly very curious as to why my brother was just running at full speed, head down, and headbutting a hard surface. The words someone said after that must have been one of my first 'answers'

3. Watching my siblings play in rare Houston snow. Not much remembering there actually. Probably just thought it was mezmorizing to watch as I just really remember a picture and feeling peace

4. Will add more later.

#mental health #trauma #early memories #life story #family #generational trauma #wealth disparity #memory #self healing #child psychology #diary #math #classism #privilege #cycle of abuse #behavioral economics #psychology #philosophy

[moranbarry]

#child psychology #black box recorder #song #90s #silence #grunge #alternative #Speak #playlist #music #spotify #tumblr #sadgirl #tumblr girls #thursday #Spotify

[angelnumber27]

#child psychology #black box recorder #music #SoundCloud #life is unfair kill yourself or get over it

[hopefulsapphic]

where's that one post about children being told something new about like an animal or a bug or something and then immediately coming up with a make-believe game to play that incorporates that fact? i'm gonna cite it in one of my essays if i can

#super professional and academic of me to cite a tumblr post in my essay i know #but it's like crazy relevant so. if anyone knows what i'm talking about please help me find it lmao #literally cannot find it anywhere did i make it up #psychology #child psychology