#aborted grief

[shallowseeker]

The death of Jack, the rise of the Evil Shadow-Child:

Jack dies.

On the battlefield, TFW is overwhelmed, and Cas more easily takes on the role of acting commander. This makes good sense to me, as angels are codified by open war, and hunters are more associated with guerilla tactics. The way the spirits hit look like bombs, further underlining the battlefield motif.

Cas calls for them to follow and cover him as they try to get Jack to "safety," as if they're still moving on heroic muscle memory.

As if things will be fine.

Cas takes Jack in a "fireman's carry." This emphasizes his strength and protector status.

Even though Sam and Dean clear the way ahead, at some point Dean drops back to run with Cas, covering his peripheral.

///

Inside, they're reeling. Not processing:

Cas looks away. Dean will do the same shortly, hiding his grief.

Dean's chest starts to heave after he looks down.

Meanwhile, Sam...bargains. Hopes Cas can fix it. (This recalls when Cas died, and Sam asked Dean: "What about Cas...is he really dead?")

Here, he looks to Cas to make things better:

Sam's chest breathes heavily in disbelief, like it's hitting him for the first time what's actually happened.

///

Meanwhile, Dean looks for someone to blame, trying to find a common enemy as a rallying point. He's also in fact trying to re-establish a connection with Cas for support and comfort. (But there is no comfort to be had here.)

His distress comes spilling out as anger. To me, it reads as irrational, panicked spousal anger. Cas is the one who makes it okay. "What do we do Cas?"

We get my favorite Dean-Cas sniping at each other. When one doesn't know what to do, there is appealing to one another + frustration.

["I don't know / I don't know what's going on here / I didn't know this would involve ingesting some magic sphere and disappearing, Dean!" Etc. (Cas has been doing this since at least season 6, and vice versa). TFW appeals to each other in general when they're lost, but the Dean-Cas appealing is typically a very emotional appeal.]

///

And here is the glimpse of aborted grief.

...followed by rationalizing and denying culpability: "Chuck. Man, I knew it." (It's like the script says: He didn't. He was wrong. He trusted the wrong person. It's like Metatron. Like Gadreel. Rinse, repeat.)

Jack's death hurts.

And it also hurts to be wrong.

Placing and displacing blame on Chuck allows grief to be sidestepped. Since Dean cannot face the weight of that grief, he turns to revenge. (Like how John could never look directly at Mary's death. Revenge is a shield against reality, delaying grief and intense emotions.)

So, Sam. Sam hops into solve-it mode:

Sensing a potential escape, they work to move the stones. Of note, they struggle with the stones. This is building towards the Evil Child motif, because like the fireman's carry, it serves to highlight Castiel's protector and strength imagery. Cas's difference in strength is usually hidden away by narrative mechanism, but here it's allowed to be more obvious.

Sam and Dean having to work together to drag the stone away from the wall, but when a zombie tunnels through, Cas just--

Cass nods-- welcome. Dean rises--

///

Side note: If Dean is playing the blame game in response to Jack's death, and Sam is in problem-solving mode, Cas grief gets channeled into stoic violence. We'll see this again when he absolutely obliterates Belphegor and "brutally" stabs the djinn. Like with Lucifer, his power is actually accented by anger. He is simmering, unable to do the peaceful things (healing, control, discipline). However, when he's angry? HIs powers almost work too well.

Instinctually, I think Cas pulls his powers back when he gets strong emotions, lest he become like Lucifer or soulless!Jack, powering it into a, to quote the 15x03 script, "rage kill."

Being gentle towards his loved ones, dutiful, and reserved is his emotions is something he seems to pride himself on. He doesn't want to lose that, so he steps away--distances.

///

And finally, we get Belphegor, the ultimate grief delaying tactic. His appearance functions to delay the reality of Jack's passing further:

CAS: That's not Jack. That's a demon.

And yet...it looks like him. It's almost like Jack's still alive--

But Belphegor is a false notion.

He's a shadow anxiety. Not "real," in a sense. It's authorial interference, superimposing discomfort on an already terrible trauma. Jack has been recently soulless, he's killed Mary, and Bel is a natural outcropping of every toxic anxiety you can think of.

///

The first thing Belphegor does is dons sunglasses.

He puts on the sunglasses to hide the reminder of his death, of course, but in doing so he also becoming a dark reflection. Jack reversed. Evil child. Changeling. The dark reflection of Jack contains all the shadow-family-unit anxieties--

--and most of those are focused on Dean and Cas, not Sam.

(Why? You know why.)

[Symbolically, sunglasses give you self-confidence and freedom to act against your personas. They hide our insecurities and our pain.]

Belpheghor will directly embody the narrative's trite cliche of "dark family" -> Freudian pop-psy shadow:

(a) The protector-father Cas "is muscle." But ultimately, he's a rival to be barraged with hostility and supplanted. That's why Bel's motif directly parallels Godstiel's past actions.

(b) The [other father] Dean is an object of desire to be admired and possessed: "You're gorgeous." Ultimately, he wants to drive the protector-parent away so he can suck up all the attention from the parent he admires.

There is no scientific basic for this particular pop-psy, and I find it something of a cliche/overused/overemphasized in media (to say nothing of what the flawed case studies usually reveal about the analysts themselves), but I do think Bel taps into this narrative anxiety as the "Evil Child / Supplanter."

It's a trope. If Bel were to become a recurring characters, he would narratively resolve by identifying with the object of hostility and subsequently abandoning the desire of false fixation. (Like how in Amara's case, healthily identifying with her hated brother and understanding his actions allowed her to abandon her Civil War-type aggression and see through the falsely constructed love object, Dean.)

But in Bel's case, he's not a recurring character. He's a falsity, a doppleganger. This false image is simply killed, and the Enchantment of Delayed Grief breaks. Jack's death has no root in this false construction of "secret psy-pop drama." Instead, it's a tragedy.

Nevertheless, AS a trope, it's a flashing neon sign that Bel pretty much...doesn't pay Sam a lick of attention, lol. This motif underlines that while Sam is a mentor type of parent, he's more of an older brother who shares in the village caretaking, not the root material for a pop drama the way that Dean and Cas are.

///

Anyway, OVERALL, Bel is just a symbol of anxiety in the viewer.

For the characters, he's simply a delaying and denial of reality . When Bel dies, Jack's death becomes real, and the grief is all the worse for the delay.

#belphagor #on grieving #aborted grief #incest mention #just to be safe #even though it isn't #that's not how shadow anxieties function #they're there to elicit discomfort #mcd death #jack kline #jack's death #belphegor as shadow jack

[itwasonlyjustadreamx]

#abortion guilt #abortion grief #loss #greiving

[confused-and-queer]

One of the things I wanted after my abortion was a memorial tattoo because of how much I wished I could have kept my child. I finally got that tattoo a few hours ago and it was an almost surreal experience. Walking to and from the studio, sitting through the tattoo in silence even though I’m usually a talker for tattoos, it felt like I’d “made it”. It feels like I’ve taken a big step in my grief now that I have the tattoo and the artist did a great job. He knew how important this was to me and was really respectful which I appreciated beyond measure. I walked home and felt a wave of sadness and panic as I recalled what I’d been through with my pregnancy and abortion. I miss my kid.

I don’t know, I’m just grateful to have it and fuck what my parents say about this tattoo because this is the most significant one I have. TW If I have to get rid of my child, mum and dad, the least you can let me do is get a tattoo dedicated to them. I’m not tolerating any complaints from them for this one.

#abortion #lgbtq #pro choice #reproductive rights #tattoos #coping with grief

[ironwilledf-up]

I block pro lifers and this is why.

#baby loss #tfmr #termination for medical reasons #abortion #wanted baby #21 weeks #intersectionality #feminism #fuck pro lifers #pro choice #grief #grieving #trauma

[thepro-lifemovement]

When discussing whether women regret abortion, I think people are using different meanings of the word “regret.” Some mean feeling remorse over an event or wishing it had gone differently. Others mean feeling sorrow or otherwise suffering. The ideas are similar but not identical.

The distinction is important when we discuss whether women regret their abortions. Which meaning of “regret” are we using? Some people specifically mean women wish they hadn’t gotten abortions, while others more generally mean women suffer because of their abortions. Again, maybe the ideas are correlated, but they aren’t identical.

At Secular Pro-Life we’ve been touching on these ideas when we post testimonials from Shout Your Abortion (SYA) of women essentially saying they are experiencing deep grief, but still insisting they do not regret their abortions. Here is one such story along with some of the comments others left underneath it:

Other examples here.

Grief and regret aren’t interchangeable. It’s possible to feel sorrow over an event but still believe it was for the best. And it’s possible to wish an event had gone differently without specifically feeling grief over it.

When the Turnaway Study and abortion activists claim virtually no women regret their abortions, I think they’re using “regret” to specifically mean “wish they hadn’t gotten abortions.” But even assuming their claims are true in that regard (and we are skeptical), those claims don’t negate the people saying women suffer from their abortions. Because you can both not regret and still suffer terribly, as many SYA testimonials suggest.

None of this is necessarily an argument for outlawing abortion. (Abortion should be illegal because it kills valuable human beings.) But it’s a separate (and still serious) problem if broad cultural messaging incorrectly tells women there are no significant mental, psychological, or emotional repercussions to abortion. It’s one thing to say “no one regrets it.” It’s another to imply “no one suffers for it.”

#thought this was important to share #abortion regret #abortion grief #prolife #pro life #pro-life #anti abortion #abortion #secular prolife

[augustmarie2022]

I knew I had to escape him…..

I’m pregnant with our second child

First one in heaven

And this roadman

Said “ I don’t even know what I would teach him”

Mind you

this motherfucker

has an 11-year-old daughter

…..

Bitch who the fuck did I marry ??

I got an abortion

I would never bring his kin into this world

#abortion #baby father #memories #woman #loss #grief #asexual #solo poly #roadman #wasteman #beach boys #weat Indian men #Jamaican men #jamaican #pro choice #dead beat dad

[woundgallery]

the lost baby poem by Lucille Clifton

the time i dropped your almost body down down to meet the waters under the city and run one with the sewage to the sea what did i know about waters rushing back what did i know about drowning or being drowned you would have been born into winter in the year of the disconnected gas and no car       we would have made the thin walk over genesee hill into the canada wind to watch you slip like ice into strangers’ hands you would have fallen naked as snow into winter if you were here i could tell you these and some other things if i am ever less than a mountain for your definite brothers and sisters let the rivers pour over my head let the sea take me for a spiller of seas        let black men call me stranger always        for your never named sake

#lucille clifton #poetry #abortion #grief #favorite poetry #project #words #motherhood

[mindsafe]

hc + perspective on denial for kenny !

@pontevoix || from [ X ]

headcanon || kenny ackerman + denial

DENIAL ( psychology ) : a defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality

―

back then, ackermans were dropping like flies. the lucky ones were able to scrape by on the fringes of society && survive by any means necessary. when he was finally reunited with his sister, she was making an honest living the only way she knew how; she was also pregnant.

kenny wasn't a man to ask for things, let alone ask twice, but he all but begged her not to keep it: ❛ be reasonable, 'chel. the underground ain't no place to raise a brat. ❜ // ❛ i know a guy, who knows a guy; he'll do it dirt cheap if i tell him to, no questions asked. ❜

thing is, unlike her GOOD-FOR-NOTHING brother, kuchel had a good heart ― she was naïve as all hell, but she had a good heart. she was dead-set on having that baby even if it meant sacrificing her own well-being. && kenny, who could slit a stranger's throat without flinching, couldn't bring himself to stick around && watch his little sister fall into ruin.

he did eventually visit her, with the intention of convincing her to come home. kuchel belonged on the surface, where sunlight could parse through the dark strands of hair framing her pretty face.

she was a lot paler than he remembered, her warm complexion all but faded; she was thinner too ― practically skin && bone. but she's still breathing.

SHE'S DEAD.

the sleazy bastard at the front desk did say she was ill. now that circumstances have changed, chances were he could get kuchel out of this shithole && find her the best doctor in all of sina.

SHE'S DEAD.

he remembers approaching her, unresponsive under the bedding that had more colour than she did. apprehension of a grim reality poisoning the air ― or maybe it was asbestos.

❛ she's dead. ❜

the voice belonged to a malnourished runt in the corner of the room; presumably his sister's. kenny couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the boy ( he was the spitting image of his mother ). somehow this kid had accepted a truth that kenny still vehemently denied with all that was left of his heart.

everyone experiences denial at some point in their lives, even the worst of the worst.

#pontevoix #「 ♛ 」answered #「 ♛ 」headcanon #cw: abortion mention #cw: death #cw: grief #「 ♛ 」oh sinnerman; where are you gonna run to? ( kenny )

[mushroomheadgirl]

All love but I need shiv to abort that baby it’s inconvenient to me personally and also I don’t trust pregnancy plot lines 🫶

#succession #shiv roy #during that phone call my brain went from cancer > abortion > miscarriage cause I just couldn’t accept that she’d be pregnant #five stages of grief speedrun

[jahrube]

It’s been a while and it’s been a ride. Changed medications from Fluoxetine to Mirtazapine.

My back has been really bad recently and they’ve put me back on Gabapentin. I’m currently on 1200mg a day but need to up to 1800mg over the next 2 weeks. They also recommended Tramadol. Sigh.

Me and Tramadol have a complicated past. I used to take them for my back. It started off fine but soon I was taking one more tablet a day than recommended and then it was 2 more and 3 more and before I knew it I was buying strips from people because I’d raced through my prescription that fast. During this time I was also recreationally taking high doses of Codeine. All a very bad mix.

Whilst in the grips of Tramadol and Codeine, my Dad died. He had Dementia, had a lot of strokes, was blind and was physically disabled. We had a rough relationship. I could tell that he definitely loved me but he couldn’t treat people right. He was endlessly abusive towards my Mum and myself and she eventually left him when I was 11 after they’d had a fight over my Mum taking us to see her parents and I had called the Police. He wasn’t just vicious with his fists though, he was also vicious with his tongue. I once overheard him telling my best friend at the time that I’d make nothing of my life and end up an alcoholic in a ditch somewhere. So, anyway, I was a mess then and I ended up falling into the arms of my ex neighbour/Dad’s business partner after my Dad’s funeral.

He, we’ll call him J, told me everything that I was dying to hear. I now realise that it was grooming and completely wrong on his part to be manipulating a grieving 22 year old addict. He told me that he would look after me because he had told my Dad that he would. J understood how I was feeling about my addiction as he was an addict too. I felt like he knew me inside and out. At this time he was spilt from his wife (who lived a few doors away from me and still does) so I felt like I had a purpose to care for him and look after him. Weird really. Anywho, I ended up pregnant and having an abortion. Do I regret it? Not really. I couldn’t bring a child into the world when I couldn’t get off these pills and definitely not with J as the father. I, we, wouldn’t have been able to give that child a good life.

Because I’ve heard the word Tramadol, it’s brought all this up in my mind. My Mum, who we currently live with, takes Tramadol. I’m sure she’s probably addicted as well. But it makes me want it and I’ve asked her for a strip to bring with us, whilst we’re on holiday for my little boy’s birthday.

I’m stuck. I don’t want to be in pain but I definitely don’t want to go back down that addicted road. I can hear the tablets screaming my name from my bag.

Fuck.

#mental health #fluoxetine #degenerative disc disease #mirtazapine #grooming #abortion #addict #grief #loss #Dad #gabapentin

[1ore]

i Have to write this philosophy paper. i have to. it has to be finished today. however i am thinking so hard about my big takeaway this semester, which is that i think we need to be more comfortable with death and killing. not as abstract concepts or punitive actions or acts of god, but as processes that occur around us constantly, randomly, all the time, and are necessary for continuity, which means there are certain demands made of us to sometimes engage in Death And Killing. and the discomfort and grief that comes from that is also a necessary part of the human experience. YES im coming at this from the ecology angle, but I really think if we were more skilled in making difficult moral decisions related to Death And Killing, things like the abortion debate would not be what they are today. An act can be awful and difficult and emotionally trying and morally wrong*, but also necessary.

*not how i personally feel, but what I mean is it doesn't matter if it's inherently morally wrong or not, we sometimes have to do things that we don't want to do in order to survive. and the guilt and shame and so-called sin of this would maybe not seem so permanent and reprehensible if we were societally familiar with making difficult decisions related to life and death. and regularly engaged with death.

#rhetorical 'we' meaning westerners. settlers. w/e #obviously this extends to things like hunting and eating meat #and the fact that i dont have the heart to uproot the basil plant that is growing out of control in my garden #put on this earth to eat potatoes and grapple with the raw grief of having to kill other beings to live #content warning: abortion #content warning: Death And Killing etc

[darkobssessions]

There's so much I didn't get the chance to say.

Caught in my throat for weeks, looping in my mind as I try to fall asleep, there when I wake at five am, fresh like I never stopped feeling and transmitting it.

It's strange because people from all walks of life say you don't always get closure. And I've had so much resistance to this concept because I can still feel you, you're not dead yet. 'But you might as well be' buckles me to the floor. Now I am sobbing like when I lost my first child and I don't know which way is up from this grave.

I'm the type of person that likes to know what I am in for. Tasting grave dirt just to say I know the shape of enterrment. But I didn't see this coming. When I bristled about closure it was because I still hold onto hope that this is not the circumstance I fear. But the problem is I don't know anymore.

Nothing has been as it seems for months, everything I know is crumbling. What I relied on is gone, my navigation system is shot. I could be digging downwards. This state is agony, with all of our speculations. You're happy for me, you're sad for me, you're noting with bitterness that life is not fair. It all seems far removed from me and my life.

The living inside me that is still breathing, tied to a bruised heart beating furiously. My blood is running, matrices of memory enlivening every cell. Closure to me is not just some pipe dream. I'm bleeding out and I need my platelets to hold it together. I need bandages, reaching hands, plugging holes that make up more of my surface than my imagery.

I'm longing when others are so sure I am cut short. If so then why am I still spread eagled on this sacrificial stone? Why are my limbs still elongating? Why do roots seek gravity and shoots chase sunlight?

The trouble is, I'm still telling the story. It's alive in a shadow realm and you're going to need to kill it dead if you want to stop it in it's tracks. Spin me every which way and it will still beat and bleed for you, rise and fall for you, open and heave for you.

I've birthed the sadness now, is it time for joy? I've paid the price now, can I rush to meet you?

#separation #longing #grief #loss #twin flames #twin flame journey #abortion #twin flame separation #agony #missing you #closure #open ended #break ups #stages of grief #left hanging #cliff hanger #my writing #devotion #love #love across the ages #suffering #initiation #heart opening #transformation #death #grieving

[winteradder]

TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones

Bonus: Trans Abortion Doula! Featuring: community organizer and abortion doula Ash Williams

“Being a trans person makes me uniquely prepared to answer the call of abortion access at this time”

#abortion doula #translash media #translash podcast #imara jones #ash williams #trans doula #grief doula #Spotify

[confused-and-queer]

Since my abortion I’ve had a desperation to be pregnant again and have the child. Idk why I feel like this but the desire is so strong that it’s starting to hurt

Just me?

#lgbtq #abortion #abortion story #pro choice #abortion trauma #abortion grief

[ghoul-haunted]

shows will attempt to do modern feminism in a historical setting and end up being anachronistically regressive for the time period

#like between rodrigo blackmailing ascanio and no one knowing what the hell an abortion is and also that whole #'we women are at the mercy of men' bullshit like shut the fuck up you're a woman from a noble family you have SOME room to do shit #what are you caesar fucking augustus. update your social settings a couple of centuries #aside: #giulia AND machiavelli calling alessandro a victim to cesare's behavior is fascinating tho bc giulia has ulterior motives for it #but what ulterior motive does machiavelli have for that scene other than that he just watched cesare try to attack alessandro #in a courtroom #anyway now that im done chasing down that thought from a footnote i can go back to trying to find the gay grief quote from augustine

[rottinglittleprincess]

i’m so glad i never had our baby

#abortion #first child #baby loss #awful #that was my child #not you #teen moms #so hard #so fucking hard #grief journal #wrong person #he never disappoints #i’m dumb #life lessons #post traumatic #depression #self h@rm #toxic #mother #mom #father #dad #anxeity #depressing shit #ultra sound