#and not feeling smart is inherently triggering

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

#Dungeon Meshi #Kabru #Kabru of Utaya #Dungeon Meshi meta #I'm putting it in the tag. I'm making you look at it. #if you come into my inbox to bitch about this just know that people used to send me b*heading videos in there for similar racist reasons #so I will not be impressed #I'm in a fucking time loop someone get me out!!!! #musings with Dea

[anxiously-going]

New mantras: "My intelligence is not based on people's (perceived) assumptions of my knowledge." And "I have value beyond my intellect."

#screaming into the void #every so often i'm confronted with the knowledge that the adults in my childhood hung my self-worth on my intelligence for me #i was taught that i was naturally smart and given very little to no support beyond #empty encouraging statements and urges to try harder #which has led to an ongoing identity crisis because i'm not actually the hyper intelligent person i was promised id be #learning has become scary because im a failure and a disappointment if its not easy or if i cant 'prove' i know a thing #i wasnt supported beyond being called smart so now i dont know how to support myself in learning #and not feeling smart is inherently triggering #messy thoughts #im struggling to maintian a line of thought just ignore me

[punksocks]

To Tame The Untamable: Lilith & Obsession:

*just based on my experiences, only take what resonates

**This is more so the like analysis portion, for synastry & placements that trigger obsession see part 2

Black Moon Lilith is fascinating. Even in her presence in your birth chart, she’s less of a planetary body and more of a philosophical (I.e. mathematical) point. She’s elusive and hard to pin down, and yet her influence is permeating. Similar to how Scorpio placements bleed through a birth chart like ink bleeds through paper. Lilith has a distinctive presence (Lilith’s energy is especially felt with hard aspects- square/opposition/conjunct to the angular houses -1st,4th,7th,10th).

Lilith is so weighted yet so elusive, and that is definitely a cornerstone of why she triggers such obsession in others. Even in her original mythology, her husband, Adam, couldn’t control her - and she was made for him ! There’s something inherently rebellious and hard to categorize about the impact of her energy. She’s dark, sultry, and heavy. She’s the eternal antithesis of the traditional feminine. Because she’s always sitting in this outsider energy, there’s an inherent challenge to power that is attached to her presence.

There’s something shocking about what she brings to the native’s energy. She swings in extremes so that people with heavy Lilith placements are often derided for being so outside of the norm. Too s*xy, too opinionated, too smart “for their own good”, for having too much of a strong impact in general. The reality of the situation is that Lilith is here to show you how to live outside of a traditional lens and embrace this energy you already have. She’s here to help you step into your power (while keeping your approach balanced and not over indulging in it, of course).

…So… what’s the deal with the men?

I had to restart this paragraph like 3 times lol. From the top, we live in a society ! Lol

Social roles have certain social rules depending on cultural structures. I often wonder what all of this, all of these dynamics would look like if the gender fluid or the matriarchal societies didn’t get so eroded by colonialism but obviously that’s an essay for another day lol. The dominant culture is a not so distant run off of conservative religious power structures. So as a result, our sort of default social standards are set to be white, patriarchal, heteronormative, and many other strict social categories in line with those ideals. The more you culturally align with these ideals by default the more power you tend to have. And, through a sort of simplified lens, to be socialized within, or at least in closer proximity to those ideals can create a curiousity about those on the outside. Those who cannot and do not align with those defaults have this something else. Something else about how they exist in the world, sometimes on the outskirts, does compel people that are committed/used to living within these strict categories.

There’s something about people with that outsider energy, that exude this inherent wildness that sort of captivates the attention of those that don’t have it. Like an it factor with a bit more darkness attached to it. I think there’s a power in like finding your identity outside of these circles. And when any sort of feelings come into play it can make things more volatile. I think the grip that Lilith tends to pull on guys lies in the power dynamics at play in many relationships in -patriarchal- society. If she’s uncontrollable does that mean you have any power at all? It can be dizzying to be vulnerable in a relationship and lose any of the power/control you’ve had your whole life (I assume lol, I’ve never been a man and they know how I feel about them lol).

I think that’s why relationships tinged by Lilith energy/synastry can quickly become a lot. A lot of passion, a lot of drama, a lot of vying for power. When you’re a femme, much of your social power lies in your attractiveness (even when it comes to stuff that should be neutral like getting a job, or getting a fair chance if you get in trouble, etc). And I think it’s so interesting that Lilith has such a strong effect on the girls. She makes you attractive and gives you power but makes you damn polarizing and makes the power you have into this double edged sword.

On the flip side (Mm yes very 90s of me), this is just shadow side energy. Which is to say Lilith doesn’t make anyone do anything. Her energy just exposes the other side of people (all people, but that’s another essay for another day). If a man, any person really, was going to have positive intentions towards you Lilith energy wouldn’t warp this. She just shows you the darkness some people try to hide. If you’re dating someone and they try to cross your boundaries and get controlling after the second date- this was always going to happen, they just were compelled to try to box you in earlier than they may have intended with someone else.

But yeah in summary, Lilith triggers obsession in others because entitlement. Whoever is acting this way had those controlling and obsessive tendencies all along- it was just brought to light. And when someone shows you who they are, take it from me, it’s best to listen.

Disclaimer: 1. This is a generalization of how things can go, not how they always have to go, so yknow grain of salt 2.With great power comes great responsibility, stay safe out there y’all :0 3. Ok so we live in a society lol, and so we have a lot of social conventions we tend to be used to by default. Romanticize even. And I definitely think obsession is one of those conventions. Desire can be enticing. To want to be wanted. But if it’s taking over your life? I don’t think that should be aspirational. I think everyone wants someone to be obsessed with them until they actually are then it’s this wild uncontrollable thing -and frankly that’s terrifying. (We’ve seen the show You right? It tends to go bad lol.) Live your life ofc, just be careful not to romanticize ab*sive/controlling tendencies in others because it’s unhealthy at best and dangerous at worst. Just my two cents.

(Also omg this whole thing took me so much longer to write than I intended lol, thank you so much for the support everyone <3!)

#astro observations #astro notes #astroblr #astro community #astrology #lilith astrology #astroloji #lilith culture #lilith aspects #lilith

[lavendertales]

skyfall || Joel Miller x f!reader

summary: in the aftermath of Joel's most shocking confession, you try to support him to the best of your abilities.

word count: 854

warnings: angst (with a dash of fluff!) talk of suicide; established relationship.

A/N: some spoilers from TLOU ep9 I suppose bc Joel talking about how he was the guy who aimed & missed has me drowning in feels😭

gif: @loregifs

There were still plenty unanswered questions about Joel Miller and his past. Even now, years after the two of you have shared everything, from supplies to deadly experiences, guns, trauma and a bed, you still couldn’t bring yourself to ask him certain things from his past. You knew he liked to preserve a certain mystery to his persona, so you never pushed him to reveal anything more than what he could, though sometimes you were just so curious.

You knew he had a daughter, Sarah. He rarely brought her up; he only ever mentioned her in passing, or when he had one of his heart to heart’s with Ellie. It seemed it was easier for him to talk about a kid with another kid, and that was more than understandable.

You knew he was married, but the details surrounding the split from the woman were unclear as well. He did mention that when Sarah was around six years old, the woman simply vanished from both their lives. She requested the divorce, and Joel had no other choice but to continue raising Sarah on his own. You couldn’t help but be impressed of Joel’s attitude regarding the whole situation. Matter of fact, there was something inherently attractive about a man owning up to his responsibilities and showing up for those who need him.

He did that for you, too.

But perhaps the biggest mystery about Joel Miller was the scar on his right temple. You noticed it a lot in the beginning, and when you cautiously asked him about it, he only said a guy shot at him and missed. End of story. You assumed that was the reason behind the partial hearing loss in his right ear, but you didn’t tell him that. Not that Joel wasn’t smart enough to pick up on your suspicions or curious glares, but he liked to think that silence was your way of a mutual understanding that some things should be left unspoken.

Except tonight, Joel had seemed more quiet than usual. Whenever the two of you shared a meal, he was pretty talkative and in a good mood. But tonight, he seemed off.

“Is everything okay?” you shyly asked.

Joel nodded, leaving you to suspect that something was indeed amiss. But you didn’t bother him with questions. You kept eating your ravioli in silence, wondering what could have happened during the day that had Joel lost in his thoughts.

But nothing came to mind. You assumed it must’ve just been a bad day for Joel. Maybe his back was hurting again, or his joints. The weather was a little gloomy today.

“Joel, what’s going on?” you asked when dinner was all done. “Is there something wrong?”

Joel faltered, struggling to maintain his composure. Once you were in the privacy of your bedroom and you were seated, Joel took a deep breath in and stared at you, guilt easily legible on his face.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” he began, his voice grave and ominous even. “How I got this.”

He pointed to the scar on his right temple and you unconsciously held your breath.

“You said someone shot at you and missed. Happens to a lot of us.”

“It was me. I was the guy who shot and missed.”

You felt like you weren’t even breathing at this point. Your body went cold as the understanding and the weight of Joel’s words hit you.

“When?” you whispered.

“The day after Sarah died. There’s no real story. I couldn’t see the point anymore. Simple as that. And I wasn’t scared either, I was ready. I was ready to be with her. I couldn’t have been more ready. When I—when I went to pull the trigger, funniest thing. I—I flinched.”

There was a moment of silence in the air as Joel chuckled, perhaps at his own foolishness or his own reaction, whereas you stared right at him, your heart shattering into a thousand pieces as you listened to the man you love confess what can only be described as the worst time of his life.

“Still don’t know why,” Joel cooed.

“Maybe you weren’t as ready as you thought you were in the end,” you replied.

“Maybe. Anyway, Ellie knows already, but I’m tellin’ you this because—“

“I know.”

He turned to you, astounded. “You do?”

You nodded.

“I reckon you do,” he continued. “Never could hide anythin’ from you.”

You smiled, finding his hand and squeezing it into yours.

“Like I told Ellie. It’s not time that healed any wounds.”

Your eyes locked and it seemed you had once again forgotten how to breathe. Your eyes were filled with hot tears, almost ready to flow down your cheeks right when Joel rested his forehead against yours.

“It was you,” he muttered. “It was you and Ellie. You saved me.”

You closed your eyes, letting the tears roll down your face as your head rested in the crook of his neck. He smelled fresh, of pine and soap, and he was warm. So warm, so… alive.

And you couldn’t have been more grateful for that.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #tlou #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal angst #pedro pascal fluff

[xxlovelynovaxx]

An uncharitable reading on a population of largely traumatized neurodivergent kids that I found, that I responded to assuming OP was acting in good faith to try and open a conversation on the subject:

(Plaintext: An uncharitable reading on a population of largely traumatized neurodivergent kids that I found, that I responded to assuming OP was acting in good faith to try and open a conversation on the subject:)

to be honest i generally dislike the term "gifted kid". when people talk about being an "ex gifted kid" it's usually just to talk about burnout, which isn't anywhere near unique specifically to children who were part of some local gifted and talented program. when people talk about not learning the skills they need as an adult, that isn't unique to being "gifted" as a child. this happens to most people.

i think what is actually happening is that, as a child being treated better than their peers, their self worth was determined on academic success and being seen as smart and clever. but people develop at different rates and have different skills and the sort of abilities, skills, or intelligence you need to use isn't consistent throughout your academic year. so they "fall behind" when actually they're just average and not particularly worse than most other people. what they didn't learn was how to not hinge their self worth on academics and being better than other people. and how to see everyone as equal regardless of academic ability. people get caught up in the idea of only being "good" if they can be better than others and get top results with less efforts. which is really insulting to other people's efforts. this isn't getting over being labelled "gifted" and moving on with your life. it's clinging to that label that has long expired, and using it as a reason for why you are not as good as you would like to be.

and it shouldn't be insulting to say so if you've truly let go of the idea that people who are good at academics are better. that being smart and talented makes someone better. i really wonder how you think people who were bad at academics growing up feel about people saying that they should still be better than them, because they were better as children, and being on the same level is the worst thing ever. the moralising of intelligence and grades is so deep rooted you need to really dig in to get it out

My reply

(Plaintext: my reply)

The thing is, this is not how we use it at all.

continued below the readmore, please make note of the content warning/trigger warning tags on the post. we added both cw and tw tags to hopefully have as many people's filters be able to catch it as possible

The label "gifted kid" itself we view as a form of violence forced on kids.

It's not being told you're only "good" if you're "better than others". It's being told your sole, entire worth is wrapped up in your personal academic performance. It doesn't matter how other kids do, because they're "smart in their own ways" and "even if they're not smart, they're good at other things". It's still violently ableist against severely disabled kids, don't get me wrong; the message needs to be that all people inherently have worth, not that everyone is good at something.

But it's not about anyone else's performance, really. It's about yours, and only yours. I remember telling my parents "but [friend] gets Cs" and their response was "[friend] isn't you". Other kids were allowed to not get perfect grades in school, but if I didn't, I wasn't just not good enough, I was no longer a person.

This didn't just lead to "being average". This led to being severely, likely permanently, cognitively disabled. The burnout and trauma associated with it has made me incapable of doing many of the things that even the average adult can do. While the extent varies, especially after several years in recovery, for multiple years I couldn't do elementary level tasks. I've wondered for a while now if it caused actual brain damage (not due to traumatic injury, but that's not the only thing that can cause brain damage).

I still struggle with extreme executive dysfunction, worsened by the severe burnout and subsequent breakdown I endured - not just to the point where I struggle to fill out disability paperwork and make appointments, but even to the point where I need a caregiver in order to do things like make food and so laundry, and to the point where I sometimes have to wear diapers because task inertia and executive dysfunction make me unable to move to get to the toilet.

(This is worsened by physical disability, but if I'm being quite honest, the primary ways the two intersect is that pain further worsens executive dysfunction as well as ironically my lack of awareness of my bodily needs - forgot the term for that specifically; as well as increases frequency and urgency of bathroom needs and both cognitive and physical effects of missing meals.)

It's not and was never about "other people's efforts".

It's also hard to understate the severe negative impact of being taught to hinge your entire self-worth on something you become no longer capable of doing. This is the precise type of withholding conditional love and support in early childhood development that can later cause cluster B personality disorders. It's not really even about what you can be "good" at. It's about being taught in your most formative developmental years that you, and only you, are not deserving of love or even life if you don't earn it.

I'm not "on the same level" as most others. I'm far below their level. I'm severely disabled, and the experience of neurodivergent burnout as a result of being treated as a gifted child is what caused a good portion of it. Even the subsequent abuse by my parents after dropping out of college was in large part for these reasons, and could be partially responsible for the development of my physical chronic illnesses, even.

I don't see those without "academic ability" as worse than me. Why would I? They don't have to earn their worth. They never have. They were always allowed to exist as they were, however they were.

The messaging I internalized, as I began to fail to meet the high requirements expected of me, and eventually became completely unable to meet even what are considered basic requirements for others, was that I was uniquely broken. That there was something fundamentally wrong with me that wasn't present in anyone else - that I was born tainted in some imperceptible way.

The only comparison that I did ever internalize was that I, and I alone, had not earned the right to be alive if I wasn't "the best". My intelligence didn't make me better than other people; it made me almost as good as a real person. The only reason it was even being celebrated at all was for how I could "help other people".

I had a duty to be a doctor or a scientist because since I had been born "smart", if I didn't use it, I was basically depriving suffering people of relief and was therefore evil. I was told, explicitly, repeatedly, that I owed this to the world because I was "gifted". When I became more profoundly neurodisabled, I wasn't actually incapable, or if I was, it was just temporary. I needed to "work harder" to overcome it. When "working harder" made me suicidal, while actively being abused, I was told I was selfish for wanting to take away what I could "give" to the world. When I wanted to do anything other than a STEM field viewed as directly benefitting humanity - even arts or social sciences or pure mathematics - I was similarly selfish.

Don't get me wrong, I despise the term gifted kid. To me, it will only ever be the phrase used to teach me that my only worth was in what I could do to advance science for humanity, and that anything less than that made me a selfish burden not worthy of life.

It's quite possible that the other people you've seen who were once labeled as such didn't experience the extent of trauma that I did. They might also lack awareness, having not fully unpacked it yet, or not be able to articulate it. I don't know.

But I do know the people who were labeled as such that I've spoken to have had similar experiences. Making it just about being "better" than others or being "average" or "the moralizing of intelligence or getting good grades" isn't just severely downplaying the trauma many of us have endured, it's wholly inaccurate to many of our experiences.

I'd also add - even in cases where it is about that - there's still a component of kids being taught during developmental years that being "better" is the only way to earn love, worth, and the right to live. Being taught you have to be "good at" vs "better than others at" something are two different things.

But even in the case of the latter, in order to convince a severely traumatized, formerly neglected or abused person that it isn't true... you have to lead with the fact that they are still deserving of love, have worth, and are allowed to live, if they are average or below average.

Because yeah, if you say "you shouldn't think of yourself as better than others because they have worth and deserve to be treated well, and you're hurting them if you do", all they're going to hear is "they have worth and deserve to be treated well, and you're hurting them".

Even setting aside whether they think being "better" means they deserve to be treated better, or if it's like most trauma and mental illness where they are far harder on theirself than anyone else and are horrified at the very idea of anyone other than them needing to earn worth and good treatment...

Blame and shame will simply be less effective at convincing them to listen. Being effective in convincing people to examine their internalized ableism and ideas around the moralization of intelligence is what affects material reality and helps make changes. I've been as guilty as anyone of simply ranting about how people treat those they view as "unintelligent", especially since entering that category myself. It's what feels good!

But I also think that addressing the concerns and fears of people who have actually been hurt is necessary in convincing them of your point.

I also think that the conflation of even seeing yourself as "better than" others and thinking that therefore others deserve to be treated as "lesser than" is wholly inaccurate. I mean, we have NPD, and we do sometimes think we are better than others in other ways (often either in highly abstract or highly specific ways - so just "I'm the best" "at what" "the best"; or "I'm one of the best knitters ever for figuring out fair isle knitting on my first try").

That doesn't mean we think that anyone else deserves to be treated worse than us - to the contrary, it only convinces us that everyone deserves to be treated with the fullest amount of kindness and compassion possible, because we want everyone to feel as good about themselves as we do, and to recognize how deeply inherently worthy of that feeling as we are.

Conversely, when we have crashes, and this is probably an even bigger factor in how we feel about every human being having inherent worth and deserving respect... we never, ever, ever want anyone else to feel even a fraction of what we feel when we feel we aren't good enough.

Because we rely a lot of words of affirmation and verbal reassurance, we find exactly what the people around us take pride in and then find every possible thing we can to compliment about it. We remind acquaintances and strangers we strike up a conversation with that they don't have to earn decency if it even comes up at all.

We even had a conversation with our abusive mother, who we've chosen to continue a relationship with due to marginally improved behavior, that being able to support them while her mom has dementia, is a privilege and joy, that she deserves all the kindness and support I can give, and that she should give herself the grace of rest and letting others help.

Mind you, supporting her is a struggle and sometimes one that I question if it's worth it, because she and my father are sometimes petty and mean in return, take me for granted, and take out their frustrations on me (likely as much because I'm one of the only people they trust enough to do so, weirdly). But I don't want the literal abuser that nearly drove me to suicide multiple times to feel unworthy of love or support or just generally not good enough.

(I don't judge others who do hate or feel indifferent towards their abusers. This is not an "I'm better than any other victims for this, because this is a conscious choice I am making. Ironically, some of how my parents continue to mistreat me is because of a lack of self awareness that they have a choice in how they engage with their parents too, even if it's one that they would only ever choose one way. But point being, this is to illustrate the full extent of what I mean when I say "I truly believe everyone has innate worth and deserves to feel worthy of life and kindness and love". I know plenty of other victims are capable of believing that while not being able to feel it towards their abusers - I'd even say many of us fall into that category of believing it but not being able to feel it emotionally towards our abusers.)

(Also, as a secondary note, we switched to "we" language specifically for our whole system to take accountability for our thoughts, beliefs, and actions here, not because I specifically am excluding myself from it in any way.)

I do think you're right about how a lot of people moralize grades and intelligence. It's something many of us had to deeply examine in ourselves.

I also think that it's a bit unfair, however, to assume that "former gifted kids" think other people are less worthy or deserving of love, support, and life in general if they are less intelligent, just because they've internalized those messages about themself specifically.

Trauma and mental illness don't work that way. They're rarely rational, and even more rarely focused on other people like that. Many "former gifted kids" specifically struggle with severe depression and anxiety.

One of the most common experiences of depression and anxiety is the mental illness convincing you that you are uniquely horrible for doing things, not doing things, or not being able to do things, that it's perfectly fine for other people to do, not do, or not be able to do.

The logic isn't consistent, because mental illness is not logical in the first place. It's even more illogical when those same ideas are further supported by adults treating your past self as uniquely bad for things they actively say and show are fine for others to do - because now you have "evidence" that these thoughts are true. You have to earn your worth because you are uniquely unworthy - you must even be worse than everyone else, because they don't have to earn their worth.

Being on the same level as everyone else isn't bad. It would be great to not struggle with self-esteem issues (the root and one of the symptoms of my NPD, actually) constantly trying to tell me that I alone do not have worth and am in fact a burden on existence just for being alive. I've spent years trying to convince myself "I'm not lesser than literally everyone else, even the most evil figures from the darkest periods of history. Everyone else doesn't somehow have some innate quality of worth that I wasn't born with and therefore uniquely have to earn. None of that is true."

(If this seems to contradict what I said about the symptoms of NPD highs, those are themselves a reactive overcorrection to that trauma to try and cope with the low self-esteem. The truth is, I'm not special. I'm neither uniquely bad or uniquely good. Thinking of myself as the best does help, as long as I manage it to avoid severe crashes, and it's not harmful. It doesn't affect the way I treat people, except perhaps in how it makes me wanna help others feel the same way. Thinking of yourself as "better than" others or "the best" is harmless unless it causes you to mistreat others, in which case the problem is still the mistreatment itself.)

And yeah, I'm not "as good" as I would like to be. I lack basic functionality, and it causes a lot of struggles and hardship in my life. It often directly or indirectly causes trauma.

I've cried in my partner's arms, terrified she'd want to leave me or would hate me or think I'm disgusting because I made a double mess in the bed while feeling too unwell to move, or because I wet the couch repeatedly as a reaction to processing sexual and related trauma. We live in abject poverty because I am incapable of working - due primarily to my neurodivergent disabilities, much more even than my profound physical disabilities - and that is a source of ongoing complex trauma. Another source of ongoing complex trauma is the reevaluations I have to spend the entirety of every third year panicking over the possibility of losing my entire meager income from.

I have to constantly field "advice", judgment, and questions from people convinced there is some part time job that plays to my strengths, when I spend between 50 and 90 percent of every day simply being disabled or recovering from being disabled. I am constantly fatigued, sick, in pain, dealing with panic attacks, flashbacks, dissociation, and a plethora of general symptoms of both trauma and chronic illness, and spend multiple hours a day either doing those things or resting after.

Most people seem truly incapable of comprehending the true extent of my disability - how I can talk and seem "normal" (even though doing so with most people can mean I have to recover for the rest of the day, or longer if I have to do so for longer than a few minutes); how going to a single store, even while using a motorized cart, two days in a row can leave me bedridden for several days and housebound for several weeks; how I seem eloquent and well-spoken and "intelligent" but even writing this post is making my brain feel like mush and it's entirely possible I won't be able to do anything at all for the next several hours at least.

I'm not saying all this to seem dramatic. I'm admitting - yes, I'm not "as good" as I want to be. I can't even do the things I enjoy most of the time, despite having what looks externally like "free time" and appearing "normal" and "functional" to the average person I interact with. I'm saying I don't judge anyone who also can't do the same things, but that doesn't make the experience of profound disability any less frustrating.

And yes, having been previously comparatively abled absolutely plays a part in that frustration, because I know what it was like to be at least average, if not in some areas moderately better than average. I know what it's like to exceed my own personal goals, not in comparison to anyone else, but the own measures I've set for my success. I know what it's like to even meet them. I know what it's like to meet only some of them, but to be able to at least work on the ones I didn't meet.

I know what it's like to be able to even try, to not be trapped silently screaming from both physical pain and emotional anguish in a body that's falling apart and it seems is actively trying to kill us half the time, where what little energy we do have becomes a choice between directing it at the few things we can still do that make us happy, or chasing down and begging doctors to stop being massively ableist egocentric pricks and actually do their jobs (or at least, not actively prescribe things that have a good likelihood of killing us via actively worsening one or more of our health conditions).

So I don't think, even for people who are now "average", that it's bad for them to mourn their own personal capabilities. It's still not even necessarily bad if they do feel it makes them "better than" other people, as long as they don't think other people deserve to be mistreated, don't mistreat other people themselves, and don't think people have to earn worth/the right to live. But it's also not always even about that, because being "good at" something in the sense that it comes easily to you, and then hitting a wall where you struggle with or are unable to progress further, while other people still do, is difficult!

It's difficult in sports, if you hit the limits of your athletic abilities but some of your peers start outperforming you - even if others don't, you probably joined sports BECAUSE you were competitive and wanted to push your limits, and finding you can't push them further is difficult. The existence of disabled people who can't do sports (like me, I am quite literally allergic to exercise; my MCAS causes exercise induced anaphylaxis) doesn't make it ableist to want to be good, or better than average, at them.

It also doesn't inherently mean you think you're better than nonathletic people or that nonathletic people. Some people do think that and treat people as such, advocating for the mistreatment of "physically lazy" people. That's both generally bad and very ableist. But that's an entirely separate issue from just wanting to be good at or better than average/better than others at sports.

Idk, to me, the experience of being a "former gifted kid" is not at all about any kind of pride or superiority complex or any of that.

It's about having love, support, sometimes physical needs, and being treated as worthy of life, all withheld on the condition of performance in academics, being treated as worse than worthless if you fail to perform, and internalizing that if you can't perform you're better off dead and even doing people a favor by destroying yourself so that you won't be a burden any longer. It's about the inherent violence of teaching a small child that they're horrible and selfish for doing things that make them happy, and that the only way they can earn the right to exist is to sacrifice their own feelings for the "greater good" of everyone else who is worthy of love and support.

It's about the combined isolation of undiagnosed neurodivergence causing your peers and often authority figures to treat you as weird and reject and mistreat you, while also having it repeatedly reinforced that you are uniquely unworthy of love and only by being perfect (or in some cases, performing better than others), can you even earn the basic decency and support and love they already possess being deserving of just by simply existing.

It's about the way that this trauma and neglect and often abuse is downplayed if not outright erased, how we are often blamed for the ableism and mistreatment that was perpetrated against us. It's about how despite acknowledging that most "former gifted kids" are neurodivergent, the fact that neurodivergence is typically disabling and that neurodivergent burnout often has severe, lasting disabling effects is brushed aside.

It's about how we're treated as abled or basically abled - mildly disabled but still retaining average functionality - when most of us simply don't have even that much ability or privilege. It's about how when so many of us are unable to work - many of us having been determined by the infamously ableist and gatekeeping disability divisions of our governments to meet their extremely stringent requirements of disability allowance, and many more pursuing it - we're still treated as basically "average", or as if it must actually be physical disabilities mainly contributing to that level of severity of disability.

While I'm using your wording, OP, I'm not saying you're doing this. I'm reusing it for lack of better phrasing, but this is what I have faced in general, repeatedly, from people and from society. These experiences are reflected in the accounts of friends who grew up having basic decency dangled over their heads to make them perform like little monkeys in the field of academics only to be discarded as soon as they couldn't dance anymore.

People do downplay the severity of neurodivergent burnout, the way depression, anxiety disorders, and personality disorders are directly caused by neglect and abuse that result from the expectations placed on "gifted kids"; that parents, family, and other important figures in child development making love and support conditional and withholding it in the first place, and berating and punishing the kid for the smallest of academic "failures" even IS neglect and abuse; and how this plays into the extremely high rates of complex trauma in neurodivergent adults.

They ignore how neurodivergent burnout is not simply burnout. They ignore how it causes extremely high rates of self-harm and suicidality and is often comorbid with depression as well as anxiety and trauma disorders. They ignore how it is heavily influenced by executive functioning, and how burnouts are usually progressive in severity and profoundly and often permanently affect overall executive functioning. They ignore how because of differential development, the vast majority of "gifted kids" are neurodivergent (though plenty of neurodivergent people are not gifted kids - neurodivergence can be significantly disabling at any age and for any given diagnosis).

They ignore how autistic burnout at least, and iirc to a lesser extent ADHD burnout, is an actual studied phenomenon acknowledged as serious and severe. They ignore how most other forms of neurodivergence can't be diagnosed at a young age except in cases of ableist violence being used to force "compliance", and are therefore less studying and also kids receive significantly less treatment for. They forget there's still a stigma of kids being "too young" and having it "too easy" to be depressed, anxious, or suicidal - and how depression and anxiety are treated as mental illness on "easy mode" by many people anyway despite being deadly.

Again, I'm not saying OP is doing any of this. This seems to be a vent post about their own personal experiences, which of course is going to only cover their own personal experiences and perspective.

But I am saying this. If your immediate thought is to say "it's not downplaying it to say that most 'former gifted kids' are just average people having to deal with not being better than the rest of us", you have several things to examine -

about your moralization of thoughts and feelings,

about your subsequent projection onto them of the idea that people thinking themselves better than others at a specific activity causes them treat other people as less worthy of respect and dignity as human beings,

about how you're not listening to and erasing the experiences of more disabled "former gifted kids" and basing your view of the majority of the community on a small minority that is most vocal precisely because of their privilege,

about how your anecdotal experiences are biasing you in general,

about how you may not be listening to what the people you're describing are even actually saying, but might be ascribing your own ideas of their feelings, motivations, experiences, and even material realities onto them,

and about how when people say "you don't need to downplay my trauma to talk about how bad yours/someone else's was", they're not even saying you can't ever compare the two, but they are saying not to assume what an entire group of people has gone through simply because you don't THINK it could be anywhere near as bad as your/another experience.

Because here's the thing. I actually agree that SOME "former gifted kids" are relatively privileged and dealing with comparatively minor setbacks in their own performance, and perhaps even comparing themselves to people they think are "less intelligent' in a way that is derogatory and possibly ableist to those people. I've met a few myself.

I think they still deserve a space in these discussions, especially when they are disabled, but I also think they currently do sometimes take up a disproportionate space - precisely because they are not even most of the subset of people considered "former gifted kids", let alone most neurodivergent/disabled people.

But I also think that "I think that what is actually happening" is carrying a WHOLE lotta weight in that post. I vehemently disagree that that is what is actually happening. It's a whole lot of assumption, projection, and judgment, about an experience I don't know if you claim to have, but one that is not accurate to the vast majority of the people who were labeled as "gifted kids".

And I think maybe you think the negative emphasis when people call themselves a "former gifted kid" is on the word "former", when actually, for most of us, it's on "gifted".

Former "gifted" kid. Yeah, right. Former neglected, mistreated, and abused kid, who was taught they were "gifted" with the responsibility to spill their last drop of blood to feed a bunch of thirsty vampires.

It's an entirely different kind of mistreatment from the kind that other neurodivergent and disabled kids go through. Those who get sent through the special ed track in fact endure a particularly awful kind of hell, one that even from an outsiders perspective does seem worse to me.

It's not saying "others didn't have it bad" or even "others didn't have it worse" to say "we had it bad", or even "we had it worse than you seem to think we did". My own little brother ended up homeschooled from third grade on due to his learning disabilities. My mother, by his own words, was never abuse to him (and I never witnessed such, she seemed to be a good teacher for him and a good mother to him) but I did see a small fraction of why he got pulled out of school in the first place, and it was horrific.

So I'm speaking from the heart when I say that all I'm saying is that both can be bad.

Even if one is always significantly worse (which, "at what point does actual abuse of gifted kids even become comparable" is a pointless and harmful argument, so I think "always is significantly worse" is probably not accurate either, but even if it is), it's still wrong to assume that because one is worse, the other is just basically easy.

It's wrong to assume that therefore only "xyz" ever actually happens to "gifted kids" because you've already established that they have it easy and so only easy things CAN happen to them. That's a logical fallacy (circular logic) and can cause you to reject every account to the contrary due to your own bias, and say there's no evidence otherwise because obviously, there appears to be no evidence when it keeps getting circle-filed.

One example I use, because people recognize it as "objectively one of the worst kinds of abuse" is my infant CSA. Other people are still allowed to talk about other CSA, adult SA, grooming, emotional incest, sexual harassment, and everything else within that category. It's all able to be recognized as significantly bad - even if you can put "degrees" to it, it's recognized by decent people to start at "very, very, very bad" and only get worse from there.

Though I will say, precisely because of downplaying certain types of sexual violence specifically, it took me so much longer to realize the way my adoptive mother groomed me about coming to her about sexual material in media and sexual thoughts and feelings, and how she exercised a chokehold over my sexual agency well into adulthood by means of this emotional control.

This is why I am so vehemently against downplaying ANY form of harm - because I, as a victim of the "more severe" harms, have been directly harmed by downplaying the "less severe" harms.

This post has dragged on long enough already. That's the compulsive hyperlexia, trauma around past (sometimes malicious, more often not) misinterpretation of my words as a neurodivergent person, the emotional flashback that initially occurred, and general PTSD symptoms causing me to try and explain exactly why I don't agree with the original post.

I'm open to an explanation of your own perspective, OP, but I'd also like to be clear that if you do just want to argue with me about the severity of trauma or frequency of significant trauma of people who are labeled "former gifted kids" - or about what you think I "actually" think, feel, or am saying - I'd rather you just block me. I would hold no ill will towards you over that, but that is a hard boundary for me.

I absolutely respect that my perspective is not one that you've previously encountered, and I admittedly neither have the studies nor the spoons to find them to back up where I talked about how prevalent mental illness and trauma are in contexts relevant to this conversation.

I am firmly against the exact kind of ableism and moralization of intelligence that the point of your post was to address. In that, we are very much on the same side, and it is... really grossly prevalent in our culture and society, both in abled/neurotypical and disabled and neurodivergent spaces. I absolutely agree that there are even people within the "former gifted kid" conversation that do this.

I also personally don't use that label because "gifted kid" and "former gifted kids" were labels forced on me, and forms of violence done to me. I have only ever used them in reference to other people calling me such.

I disagree that most people who do use the label actually think others are less deserving of respect or basic existence in general, or that it's even about other people for most of them at all. I hope you'll also consider what that label can mean for those it was used against, beyond just a "superiority complex" over people it was never about and who often weren't even a factor.

And we do agree that in either case, effectively fighting that ableism and stigma around (lack of) intelligence is the most important thing. That's the most important thing, I think.

Their reply:

(Plaintext: Their reply:)

it's not appropriate to bring up such personal traumas on someone else's unrelated post such as grooming. also sorry you're assumptions about me are wrong

also block me because i don't wanna talk to someone who is "proship"

maybe delete your reblog too. i'd hate for other proshit people to interact with me

My reply: 

(Plaintext: My reply:)

Ah, so a label we use to indicate we are against harassment over fiction and against censorship is apparently enough to tell us we are not allowed to share our opinion on something that does affect us.

Also, personal traumas being used as a point of comparison, being directly related by a person who has experienced both, are not inappropriate. I tagged the post according to what I brought up that might be triggering, but my trauma from grooming is wholly relevant as something that, like my being treated as a gifted kid, was treated as less serious than other traumas I've been through in a way that seriously hurt me.

You don't get to start a conversation with an uncharitable and frankly somewhat ableist narrative about (other people's?) trauma and then define what trauma is palatable enough to be related for survivors themselves, nor what survivors are themselves morally "pure" enough to have a voice in the conversation.

Finally, it's on you to block if you do not want to interact further. I have blocked, but I will not delete a reply to a post I made about something entirely unrelated to shipping discourse, that never broached the topic of shipping discourse, because you don't like survivors being against something that is typically used to censor them talking anout their experiences.

Ironically, if you blocked me, it would make me unable to reblog this, AND unable to see your little comments about what you think are acceptable boundaries around what other people can discuss and what other people can believe when having an unrelated conversation with you at all.

Anyway honestly, I'm leery of making fun of reading comprehension because I think it can be really ableist. But clearly this is an example of the people who use the term "proshit" not bothering to actually read or even try to understand other perspectives. I will make a separate version of my reply and original context so people can further comment without getting harassed by OP or people they follow - don't worry, with OPs username redacted and everything - but weirdly, it's almost as if very few people who claim to be fundamentally anti-harassment will bother them when they wave a giant red flag saying "I do not use a label or interact with people who use a label that means 'we believe harassment is wrong'."

One of those groups is dangerous, and it's not the people saying "hey, don't tell other people to kill themselves because they can tell the difference between what's moral in real life and what's okay to depict and engage with in media".

Obvious statement to leave OP alone is obvious. They're already blocked, so they won't see this. They have a right to ask me to take down my response. I have a right to refuse. If they block me, it will no longer show up in notes, but if you wish to circulate my version, I'd suggest either blocking them first or doing it with the alt version I will put up. I encourage people to block OP for their own safety, more than anything, to avoid harassment, since it seems they may harass you if you interact and have views on shipping discourse they disagree with.

OP, you don't get to have a monopoly on the conversation on "former gifted kids", a subset of traumatized largely neurodivergent people, though, just because you find something to attack about anyone who disagrees with you.

I also don't know what assumptions I made that are wrong. That you may or may not have been labeled a gifted kid, which I acknowledged I didn't know? Or that you find effectively addressing ableism to be the most important part of this conversation. Because if it's the latter, you should be sorry, but I don't accept your apology. Care more about actual marginalized people being hurt than your moral superiority complex, be better, then maybe you'll have actually done the work of changing your actions to earn forgiveness.

If it's about something else - something I said I "hoped" you'd do or similar, I'm lost. Go learn what appropriate boundaries actually are and when you're just weaponizing therapeutic language to control other people somewhere else.

Oh and OP, if you block evade and see this: you can still block us on desktop. If you navigate to settings and blocked users, you can add our username to the field there to block us. It's a bit of an extra step, now that we've blocked you, but we don't mind helping you maintain a boundary that is your responsibility to maintain.

We have redacted OPs username to keep the larger conversation from reaching them. It is easy to find them due to our original response being kept up, but of course we ask that they be left alone, blocked at most. I would honestly prefer if people circulated this version.

Also, I'm now wondering if the "assumptions" in question were us saying "hey IF you think this, you PROBABLY need to examine these other things". We wouldn't be surprised. We also note that we neglected to tag grooming specifically on the original post, likely as a result of the exact problem of just categorizing it as a subtype of SA, which isn't wholly accurate. That's on us, and we have added the tag to this version. That is, however, why we had the "ask to tag" and "ask to tw" tags on the original post.

#ableism #neuroableism #suicide mention #cw suicide mention #tw suicide mention #burnout #“gifted kid”/“former gifted kid” labels #CSA mention #SA mention #cw CSA mention #cw SA mention #tw CSA mention #tw SA mention #grooming #cw grooming #tw grooming #ask to tag #ask to tw

[lakesbian]

Re: Minecraft Lisa is doing the most intricate red stone creations yet known to man. Getting flagged as a possible new tinker trigger

see people keep saying this and i feel like its just because shes stereotypically The Smart One. but her thing is obsessive information gathering about People because of her psychological issues. i feel like redstone wouldnt actually inherently appeal to her. like she would be able to do it, and probably Would for the other undersiders in exchange for shit or just 2 make taylor happy or just 2 be nicey, but i do not think it would necessarily be her minecraft calling. i feel like her minecraft calling is actually just being minecraft nosy. more Hanging Around and Chilling and Commentating than actually playing per se. that's just my 1 cent though i don't know her very well

#ask

[system-of-a-feather]

Other Side to Body Memory

I wouldn't be shocked if I wrote something about this a year ago cause I used to think about it a lot more actively when I had first started Wing Chun since Wing Chun highly emphasizes this concept in relation to learning and fighting, but I was thinking about it and if I did, I'm going to rehash it with a year more of sitting on it

But in a lot of PTSD spaces, "Body Memory" I feel is a term a lot of survivors and peers say with at least a mild sigh or disdain as most of the time we talk about body memory in the haunting sensations, feelings, and trauma that the body holds which sometimes is even more deeply ingrained and seared into our memory than our conscious "mental / psychological" memory (for a lack of better words at the moment)

Body memory is often talked about as a symptom, a problem, an inherent trauma aspect, and that is totally normal, valid, and honestly correct - but a perspective and opinion I live by and have spent over a year pleading (more accurately shoving, but ya know the saying) my case to the system, but Body Memory isn't ONLY a symptom or trauma aspect, its a COMPLETELY normal and adaptive feature of the human and most complex organism's body and survival mechanism grown over years to deal with stimuli that is either abstract, fast, or complex of a "calculation" to consciously run.

Body memory in regards to trauma sucks fucking ass, but its important to remember that while there is a trauma aspect / dysfunction / problem to it that can bring feelings of pain and triggers and flashbacks - body memory, even with people with trauma, still probably serves a very unrecognized function in day to day life. You ride a bike easily because of it. You pet your dog without hurting it because of it. You can bite hard enough to bite a carrot but you can't bite hard enough to break your finger. While its not as obvious or seen, body memory - and your body - works every day to keep you safe and functioning and it does deserve that acknowledgement, even if some days - maybe even most days - it throws haunting pain.

That's just to say that your body isn't your enemy - even if it might feel like it. Your body is doing the best it can. It's your friend, it just sometimes struggles to understand how to use some of the things it's learned in a way that helps as it too is likely overwhelmed with what had happened.

And once a relationship with your body goes from "not enemy" to "struggling friend" you can really start to think about ways to work with your body, with your friend, to help both you and it out. Your body is extremely smart and a fast learner, for better or worse. It literally "calculates fucking physics and predicts" how much force to move XYZ and do all sorts of shit just to allow you to walk and not break everything both in your body and not. It won't talk to you like an alters does (unless you have a manifestation of that in your system) but it is probably by far the smartest part of your existence. It does however, depend on what you feed it, how you interact with it, and shape it's memory and how much you engage with it's sensations.

Back to the first paragraph, Wing Chun is heavily based on teaching your body - particularly your hands - to recognize how the touch of another person's body moving in a fight. It encourages a lot of keeping your hands on primary offensive / defensive parts of the body of the opponent at all times (wrists, arms, elbows) so that the body can constantly stay in contact and feel the opponent as they flex and twitch every so slightly - then training it how to respond to each movement with a counter and a strike. Very little of it's actual practice is cerebral past the training because much of any thinking is done by the body. A large part of training is regularly drilling and often times you are encouraged to chat and be distracted while drilling so that you can turn your brain off and let your body do what it does best and respond. It helps you build speed and response after you've made sure you are teaching it the right moves.

After a while, your body learns to break grabs, block, trap, and strike back without it ever properly registering in your brain to do so and the only switch you have to actually flip is "do I actually want to hit by stepping in to make my strikes reach, or do I maintain the distance since this is just sparring"

Before Wing Chun I largely trusted my instincts and my body because that is largely how I survived - I've been fighting and going with my body's instincts since we were young so the body memories I have from trauma have served me far more than they've hurt me, but after Wing Chun it really instilled this principle of conscious trust and awareness of my love and trust in my body to a new level.

My body is 5000x smarter than I could ever be, and its 5000x faster at making critical decisions than I will ever be and so long as I nurture it, it is always going to be my best ally. I don't need to worry about someone jumping me, not only because I can kick ass, but because my body is well trained to respond to threatening invasion of my personal space. I don't need to worry or stress about my ability to drive or respond to a dangerous unexpected situation like a crash or a crazy driver while driving because I trust that my body knows how driving feels and how to maneuver a car appropriately. I don't have to worry about if I know how to play a scale on the guitar how have to worry beyond originally learning the technique - cause thats something my body is better at learning, recalling, and doing.

I have a stupidly huge fucking ego and I do think I'm better than everyone in the system in 90% of all metrics (the elders will kill me for that but bitch theyd have to fight me first) but the only thing that I can say I genuinely respect the expertise of more than my self in 90% of realms is the body that we share. That shit while having not the best judgement on what is helpful in the long run, keeps us alive and functioning on the daily, hourly, very second to second of life and through some of the most mild threats to the largest threats were able to make fast short term decisions and calculations to keep us alive.

That bitch might sometimes need someone to curate the content it consumes and learns from, but that bitch is a fucking survivalist BEAST and god damn does it have my warriors bond and respect so god damn will I curate that survivalist to be the god damn best AND societal functioning survivalist I could give.

That bitch is my evolutionary horned over three billion years knife against the rest of the world. I don't CARE how much of a badass and combat bitch I might be, I can not beat Over Three Billion Years of Evolutionary Selection for Survival in being good at living. I'll treat that bitch likes its a god damn three billion dollar knife or sniper or whatever. It's my precious and most valuable asset in my collection of weapons and skills.

TLDR: Body Memory isn't inherently only a negative symptom / experience and while it can be hard, your body can be your god damn best friend if you nurture a relationship with it.

Post Script: If Riku is willing / has the time / sees this it would be kinda funny and helpful if you took this post and translated it from "XIV-ese" to whatever functioning language you use on this blog to actually make good self care / self help posts cause I think I did a functional job but I also know saying "that bitch" at our body 20x is off to say the least 😂

#alter: xiv #xiv rambles #ptsd #c-ptsd #body memory #recovery #healing #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #trauma #wing chun

[longeyelashedtragedy]

it’s been a really powerful year for like mental health acceptance and self confidence building which inevitably means, when you’re as fucked-up as i am, that periods of that always then make you realize how much else is still wrong

at this point i think that as someone with C-PTSD i can’t expect to live a “normal” life in terms of how i interact with other people.  i really...don’t think that will be possible.  this level of acceptance has been my thing this year and it’s really been helpful to defy toxic positivity/disability porn culture and be honest and open with myself about the reality.  it will never happen and that’s that.  so i have to figure out what kind of “normal” i think i can realistically achieve and of course adapt that over time as needed.  but there’s no way i can have what other people have--in offline or online spaces.  and it’s actually sometimes worse to think about the latter because of the common belief that “oh you’re WEIRD you can’t make irl friends but can make Internet Nerd Friends” but to be totally honest i have some of the same problems in both spaces.

i was just reading about how exposure therapy for people who find it impossible to be in successful relationships with others is...duh, nearly impossible when you are triggered by relationships with others 😭 i keep trying to find alternate explanations but i think my actual complex trauma diagnosis kind of covers everything. 

it’s very difficult to be in a social setting when you kind of can’t keep up in a “group” and “group” to you literally means more than one other person.  i like...stop existing.  i feel like this caged spectator.  as the conversation goes on i start losing the capability to try to put a sentence together to get a word in.  like those people who are “locked in” and can only move their eyes.  if this happens the only thing that can kind of end it is if one of the people leaves or someone mercifully brings up something i’m very good at talking about, but i feel hurt after, like i’ve been hit by a bus and am picking myself off the ground.  i used to have these very big, very scary dissociative episodes that were kind of cinematic, and i haven’t had one since 2014 but i’m realizing that i think i have smaller ones all the time. i complain a lot about my work team but we also were weirdly close to the point where i just told my coworker that i have Trauma so if i ever just seem like....weird or off that’s why--sometimes my mind just goes elsewhere and i don’t realize until it eventually returns to me and i realize i’ve been sitting in a room of people staring blankly at a wall for....a LONG time.

(the thing is...my brain doesn’t shut off so...It’s that i’m looking inside my head you know?  the outside world just ceases to exist for a while.)

and like, jesus, everyone in the know agrees i’ve been doing “so much better” socially. this is so much better? i can’t even hold a conversation in a groupchat (unless it’s the deathpond because the deathpond is just. magical.) i’m so deeply afraid of other people.  not afraid of their judgement or something, but like, the crux of it is that Other People in Groups are going to happily watch me die because of something inherently wrong with me that makes me deserve this from them, and i can’t tell people i need help because...i can’t trust Other People in Groups.  by the time i was in pre-K or Kindergarten i knew my parents couldn’t help me with my problems and i lived in a constant state of random fear that would appear out of nowhere, which is pretty developmentally fucked up for a child less than six years old.  i used to want to tell them to please help me--but i was also a disturbingly smart and intuitive kid, and i remember thinking, i can’t tell them because the only thing that will help me is to “take it out of my head.” and they can’t reach in and take it out, so it will just continue. and indeed--that is the only thing that would have helped me!  i wasn’t properly diagnosed with anything till i was 24, and i had been to many therapists before that.

i’m not sure why i’ve written all this out.  i used to write stuff like this on my tumblr but then stopped because of how public it is, but whatever.  i guess i just want people to know.  i want to have good relationships with others and laugh in groups and have fun. but it’s just too hard for me a lot of the time.  sometimes i can handle it but other times it’s not at all possible.  i just have to learn to accept that i won’t fit in. i might truly never be able to. it’s hard to accept.

#sigh #brain stuff #a passage i just read in jamie redknapp's book made me think of all this #of all the fucking places to see a disturbingly accurate depiction of part of your childhood LOL

[yamcat]

ten faves in ten fandoms

I was tagged by the ever lovely @saltedpin , thank you for thinking of me, this was so much fun <333!!!!

Golden Kamuy: this is a tough one for me, because one of the things I love the most about this story is just how well written and intriguingly fleshed out each character is, especially in relation to eachother and to the story itself, but I think I will go with the OG who captured my interest right away, Tsukishima Hajime. Yes we love an unhealthy and obsessive relationship with authority and sense of duty, throw in the belief of living on borrowed time and therefore a life that can't possibly belong to you anymore, and I'm all yours.

Haikyuu!!: the thing is that I've always been IN love with Daichi, but Oikawa is the one who I have always felt the strongest for. A proud dramatic overachiever who cares too much but pretends like he doesn't, genuinely passionate about what he loves to the point it risks consuming him; a tough bitch as much as a sensible nerd. I care for him a lot.

HunterxHunter: Gon, my precious little feral kid who gets traumatized over and over again, but still decides to be kind. What I love the most about him, though, is that he is never portrayed to be inherently good; he is stubborn and occasionally selfish because of his nature as much as because he is just 12 y/o and he doesn't know any better, which is what makes him as lovable and charming as he is.

Helluva Boss: I know I'm not too loud about it, but I have been utterly in love with this show for a good couple months now, as well as with the helluva boss himself, Blitzø. He is a raunchy little imp who severely struggles with self-love and therefore does his best to push away every opportunity he has at a good and healthy relationship because who could possibly love him, right? but he genuinely TRIES, and sometimes he succeeds too, plus, he's still always there for the one he cares about. and honestly, he is just so fucking funny, he has my entire heart.

Dungeon Meshi: Laios, the supposedly knight archetype who does eventually fulfill his destiny, but in the messiest way, unwilling, and at the cost of what he loves the most. There are so many characters I genuinely like in this story, but I am too fascinated and amused by Laios' obsession with monsters and how it makes him so smart and so dumb at the same time to not love him the most. I'm sorry, apparently I have a particular liking for people who are extremely passionate about what they love.

Star Trek: I was unsure about who to choose between Spock and Kirk until the very end, but I have to say Spock. His double heritage and the way he navigates it, all the suffering and treasures he finds in feeling less and more, misunderstood and capable of understanding more than anyone else the multiplicity that deeply characterizes the universe he explores and is so curious about. Rarely I have empathized so much with a character before. Plus, he can be a dramatic bitch, Spirk divorce ark Spock is my favorite Spock.

Tiger & Bunny: honestly both of them, but for the sake of the game I shall say Bunny a.k.a. Barnaby Brooks Jr., my favorite traumatized model face babe with deeply rooted trust issues who completely falls in love with a hot loser single dad who has the tendency to help everyone else but himself. A match made in heaven. And me with them

LOTR: Frodo Baggins. No one understands him like I do....

FMA: my heart is divided between Olivier Armstrong and Riza Hawkeye, because what's not to love about strong, gorgeous, mature, cunning, intelligent, trust-worthy, powerful women? Different flavors, but equally delicious.

Saiyuki: Genjo Sanzo. In a few words, a trigger-happy, easily annoyed, short-tempered Buddhist monk who overly smokes and drinks. In a lot of words, please read Saiyuki.

I'm tagging whoever sees this and wants to do it, it is a lot of fun! And of course, please feel free to @ me if you so wish to!

[skyhon]

I thought for so long that I couldn’t finish my highschool diploma, let alone start a college education. But now I’m a straight-A student who’s made the vice president’s (fall quarter) and president’s (winter quarter) honor list. I can confidently say that the reason this is possible is because of two things: my diagnosis of ADHD (and the tools that brings) and my support group.

I dropped out of highschool at the age of 17 with no hope to ever finish because of mental health issues and my undiagnosed ADHD and bipolar. I was sure that I would be stuck in dead-end retail forever. I even tried to get back into highschool two separate times, but I couldn’t juggle school and my full-time job without triggering a hypomanic episode and then immediately dipping down into depression.

I am now part of my school’s top 5% GPA President’s honors list. And I am constantly feeling as if I shouldn’t belong on it. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m actually smart, and that the reason why I failed before wasn’t because I was dumb and stupid, but because I wasn’t given the proper tools and support. My education and importance wasn’t cared for by my parents in a way that actually mattered for someone with ADHD. I wasn’t even aware I had it, because my mom just didn’t talk about it. (She’s tried to gaslight me by saying she did. I actually learnt from here, on Tumblr, that I might have it, and then I got a psychiatrist who diagnosed me officially. I shouldn’t have realized my neurodivergence from memes on Tumblr. I should have been told by my mom, who, as I said, KNEW the whole time, but did nothing about it, even when I struggled through highschool and had to drop out).

It's okay to take time away from school. It’s okay to drop out when you need to. You are not a lost cause if you ever find yourself having to take time away from education because of your mental health. It does NOT define you. But please be aware — those who drop out likely have no support network. They don’t have people to help and provide encouragement. They don’t have loved ones who care enough to support you as you seek out something like a professional diagnosis, or a program that would help you create a useful structure that will boost you up and not drag you down. They don’t have the love and hope that they desperately need. And this is not their fault. That is not something they, an adolescent, should have to struggle through and feel helpless about. They should be engaged with and cared for and they should KNOW that they are cared for not just by the means of words from others, but by ACTION.

I slipped through the cracks, just as my father did before me. I lived without the support I needed and I failed. But that wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t the reason that the people around me failed to provide for my most basic of needs.

And I might have to keep reminding myself of this. I likely will have to. But I won’t do so alone. I have support now, in my found family. I have it in my teachers, who actually care. I have it in my meds, my psychiatrist, my psychologist, my therapist. I have it in my healthy coping strategies, my learnt self encouragement, my specific way of working with my ADHD and bipolar, not against it. All of this is possible because I have people around me who give a shit. Who remind me of my worth as a human being, inherently and without a needed ‘reason’ to be important in their, and my, life.

So if you’re struggling... if you can, please take some sort of first step to building that new network. I had to abandon my old one because it wasn’t working. Even though it was my own parents, I had to let them go as my source for support, because they just weren’t giving me any. I found people who care. I found people who support me. I found my home, my family.

And yeah, it might be a bit unorthodox. But I don’t care. Who gives a shit. The people before weren’t helping me, and that wasn’t my fault. Do I feel wronged? Of course I do. They were supposed to be my parents, and they were supposed to be ready and willing to help their kid succeed not only academically but also health-wise, mentally or physically. But I have to acknowledge this, and then keep walking. I can walk backwards for awhile, both middle fingers up to the world, but some day I’m going to feel okay enough to turn back around and keep walking forwards. And that day will be so fucking good for me.

The first step is to realize and process this reality. That you are not bad or wrong for having needs as a kid. Your support network neglected you and your needs. And you can be angry about it. You don’t even have to “move on” in the way most people think “moving on” means — which is usually framed as “forgiveness” for the neglectors’ behavior. Fuck that.

But someday, you’re not going to give them as much thought. They’re not going to be as important to you as they once were. And you’re going to have others there to care about you and love you. And you’re going to feel powerful, because you are. You’re going to feel capable, because you are.

You can do it. I believe in you.

Just as I’m learning to believe in myself.

#college tag #adhd #bipolar #bipolar ii #worm talks #school #tw mentions of child neglect #tw mentions of gaslighting

[caffeinatedopossum]

Tag yourself

(flavors of trauma edition)

Glacier Freeze:

- dehydrated always

- "I'll rest after I've done x" neglected kid. Tries to 'earn' sleep

- thinks their needs are somehow inherently different from everyone else's and that they require less and/or that their needs are harder to fulfill and therefore they are less deserving of them

Autism Yells:

- abused for ND traits. Parents refused to listen when you told them something was wrong

- *in the middle of sensory overload, sobbing, throwing up, pissing* "stop being a baby/brat/spoiled little kid" "you just have ADHD. It's not a big deal, it just means you're smart :)" "deal with it/everyone feels like that" narrator: everyone did not, in fact, feel like that

- either hates being misunderstood with such a strong passion that they never even talk in groups to not risk it OR is angry and thinks everyone else is probably just stupid (you're not exactly wrong)

- found out that they have The Symptoms only because physcology is a hyperfixation or special interest

Nervous System:

- DID or OSDD system

- "am I faking??? Omg I'm faking aren't I why am I such a bad person" *has Symptoms*

- *gets accused of faking* wait no that's silly. Lol look at you, you silly little guy. Do I look that stupid when I accuse myself of faking? Damn

- "OH MY GOD IS THIS KESHA? I LOVE kesha!" When they hear a song that a specific alter likes and it automatically triggers that alter to front

- introjects, fictives, and non human alters: *just existing* so... w-we can just ignore those guys right? What, we can't? They're valid manifestations of my trauma?? ://

- my trauma wasn't that bad *proceeds to have their life consumed by long term effects of said trauma*

- "hey remember whe-" no ✨️

Biblically accurate:

- religious trauma through the roof. Late night existential crisis, lying on their floor on their back, or standing in the shower silently, thinking about everything and nothing at once (chronic insomniac because of this)

- knows more about the Bible than all of the ex friends that are not getting the message of "hey do not try to reconvert me :)"

- the first person to explain to you that Satanism is not the actual worship of Satan but more about individualism, philanthropy, and introspection (may or may not actually be a satanist)

- probably transgender and queer in at least one other way as well

- writes music/plays an instrument and is damn good at it too

- guilty pleasure bands that are nostalgic Christian bands but still make incredible music

- doesn't know how to stop people pleasing. Greatest fear is that they'll become as manipulative as the authority figures that manipulated them.

[urproblematicfav-arsonk]

Currently thinking about all the families having their tropes(Cursed Bloodlines, Absent parents etc)and The Stampler trope being stepping up/breakup the cycle of abuse. Thinking about Willy who had undiagnosed aspd or npd and grew up with a neglectful drunk father. Willy who grew up killing cats to gain attention and being implicitly taught he can just get away with that with no consequence. Willy who did try in his own apathetic way to be a parent but giving up because it didn't meaningful benefit him. Willy who spent years and years and years alone with only his own thoughts and memories to occupy himself. Him finally coming to understand his own mental health/neurotype for the first time and trying to figure out how to move on with that. Willy connecting with Scary, his step step granddaughter who just like him and his own son, feels misunderstood and out of place with the rest of the world. Willy who now takes criticism a bit more humbly and is learning how to express cognitive empathy more easily.

Ik we all hate those abusive father characters and wanna just kill them and throw them away. As someone who had a very very bad father and was literally triggered by Anthony's acting I'll say that I do get hating/not trusting Willy. But also, people with aspd/npd aren't inherently evil people. They just need more tools to learn and understand some of the social interactions that come more naturally to others. I would absolutely love to see Willy break the cycle of a abuse that he perpetuated for multiple generations.

As much as Willy being secretly manipulative and the backstabbing villian he is/was, I think its just a bit cheap. Anthony Burch is a unironically one of my favorite writers, he is so talented and smart and absolutely fucking fantastic at writing/tone that I fully believe he could pull of a believable and organic Willy Stampler redemption arc and genuinely shows his neurodivergent growth and real tangible consequences for the harm he has caused.

Also I want Willy loving his cool goth daughter to be real so bad come on maybe he only hated Ron cuz he was a boy have you considered that maybe Willy just needed to be a Girl Dad™ to be actually normal and nice

#i go so hard on mental health characters #I'll defend anything man #im obsessed with aspd and autism hypothetically being the same neurotype but on 2 ends of the spectrum #thats right #Willy was autistic the whole time #anyway #dungeons and daddies #dungeons and daddies s2 #willy stampler #meta #mental health #autism #aspd #representation #anthony burch

[focsle]

Poison, parachute, and shooting star for Neris please!!!

poison: vices/bad habits? what are they? how do they affect your OC? For all he tries to divorce himself from his upbringing of Knowledge at Whatever Cost and You Are Entitled To Everything, it’s still very much a part of him. He can be a bit of a brat, and can get uppity if he feels like someone is denying his access to something or is being demeaning to him. While it’s rarely triggered, he can have a vindictive streak and is a master of malicious noncompliance (which can be highly effective when used For Good, but he sometimes also uses it for petty sabotage). He also sometimes glosses over or downplays the harm someone else has done if the result is…something he finds incredibly impressive. He’s very conflicted about the Clockwork City for instance, being all like ‘Listen I know there’s a lot of horrible inequity and its citizens can’t ever leave and it’s all kind of fucked up—and it’s not something /I/ would ever make—but it’s also soooooooooooo……..cool and amazing….’ He can tap into (or fall into) a person he doesn’t actually want to be, if the circumstances prime him for it.

parachute: who does your OC(s) trust the most? who makes them feel safe? who would they do absolutely anything for?

Neris’s fatal flaw is he puts an incredible amount of trust in people in general, as a combination of his belief that most people are inherently decent and that if they aren’t, he’s Powerful and Untouchable anyway. It means he gets screwed over a lot. And it’s never a fool-me-once situation either. He’ll get screwed over multiple times because he always has this little thought of ‘well maybe they won’t do it again!’. It’s a wonder he’s survived himself. But he’s deeply loyal to his close friends and he would truly do anything for them. He’d compromise his morals, his security, even his life for them, if push came to shove. He’d do a lot for your Oorthak and Shadow!

shooting star: if your OC(s) could have one wish what would it be? God I feel like Neris would impulsively waste his wishes and waffle over having just one. Oh oh I wish I was a famous travelogue writer. OR I wish someone would write a song about me. Oh, no, I’d like to see an actual dwemer somehow. Wait, I wish for world peace where no one ever suffers anything ever again. Wait, I know, I wish my father would actually love me. Actually, I want to try a weird food from some plane of Oblivion and not have anything bad happen to my guts. I wish I could touch a dragon…like, an alive one. Nevermind, I want Divayth Fyr to see how smart and cool and talented I am and tell me so. I wish I had a pet chaurus that liked me and lived forever. I wish the Mages Guild would apologize for kicking me out and grovel at my feet for forgiveness just a little. I wish my brother was less of a prick. Oh oh oh I wish I’d never have to sleep again.

I think ultimately he’d just wish that the people he cared about were content. But it’d take a lot of scattered rambling desires to get to that point.

#neris ilyiil #ourinquisitorialness #asks

[funkymbtifiction]

Yeah, your blog focuses pretty strongly on answering asks and typing characters, so it was cool to see others analyzing you + your responses to it.

I am intrigued by you thanking me for not considering you an ESFJ, because as an Fe-user I tend to consider them some of the most "open" of all types in a way. Yes, they live in emotional worlds and react instantly to what they perceive as inequality or mistreatment, but when you dig down into it, they can be some of the most accepting people around. (Whether they want to be or not. They're just inherently trying to merge with others' perspectives ALL the time.) I also mentioned that I could get an INFP impression from you, and I wonder what makes that seem not as unappealing as being Fe-dom would be, given that I think they're both judging dominants?

(I thought about how to dance around this issue, but I may as well be honest about it even if it's a little embarrassing.)

Being called an ESFJ would hit a sore spot with me, because I ran across a discussion about me online in which two strangers agreed on me being a Fe user based on arbitrary things and concluded that I was an ESFJ. They went on to accuse my MBTI book of containing misinformation because I am mistyped. So ESFJ is a trigger for me, because it accompanied an attack on my knowledge/competency, whereas INFP is not. I don't care if they think I am ESFJ or not, but don't accuse me of not having done research for my book.

(I may also still be smarting from an interaction on an online forum where someone claimed that my type—i.e. SFJs—could be "annoying as hell." I have Fe auxiliary! I spend half my life trying to make sure I'm not being annoying as hell.)

I'm sorry to hear that. There is a lot of online hatred toward SFJs that is unwarranted, because people form erroneous assumptions about them. 99% of the SFJs I have ever known have been thoughtful, agreeable, and compassionate -- I've had more positive interactions with them than any other types, and they are also often my favorite fictional characters. I am positive you are not annoying as hell. ;)

I'm a bit unclear on what the difference between judging and perceiving functions is, and a quick glance online isn't all that illuminating (lots of talk about the letters J and P and not clear definitions of which functions are judging and perceiving.) Is it just that thinking/feeling are judging functions and sensing/intuitive are perceiving?

Yes, that's it. Judging places a rational or ethical judgment, and perceiving functions collect information. So perception absorbs things and judgment decides what to do with/about it. Judging dominants reach faster conclusions than perceiving dominants, so EJ/IP is much quicker to rule things out (either based on logic or ethics) than EP/IJ.

#question #mbti

[fanfictionunusual]

Pairing: Wes x Grat from Glorious 2022.

Content: Explicit - 18+ only, Minors DNI.

Summary: One man and one creature establishing an agreement through the harmony of daddy issues.

Part: 1.

_________________________________

Knock, knock, knock. 

"What the hell, is this door locked? Someone in there?" Gary asked in confusion.

"Do not answer him. You know you need to do this, Wes." An ominous voice sounded.

"Well, shit, guess I need to call the department to send an actual technician to fix this shit."

The sound of footsteps grew farther and farther so did his last chance of help.

Wes held the ferocious big dick in his mouth, swallowing it with his wet and hot mouth as much as possible and trying to give his captor a deep throat.

"Pleasure is the emotional core of your sense of aliveness. Moreover, it is the primary motivator in human lives. From a mystical point of view, your capacity for enjoyment is the signature of the inherent blissfulness of creation. From the point of view of brain science, you are wired for pleasure."

Grat began to straighten up and pump in Wes's little mouth.

H-How could the reasonable and of course smart Wes be- be able to do such an immoral action? 

Just a moment ago, he was just thinking of ways on how to get out and away from this monster- being.

Wes absolutely never expected this situation to happen.

Whenever Grat's fingers touched the sensitive insides, it caused Wes's body to tremble abruptly.

"Does that feel good? Food, sex, defecation, and aerobic exercise all trigger the pleasure centers, sending chemicals like dopamine and serotonin to the cortical area, where the brain recognizes that something you’re doing is good and should be continued."

The weird creature who somehow had turned into a human male with pale white hair stared at him without any expression while wantonly playing with his sensitive spot inside with his fingers and ruthlessly pressing against it. 

Wes, whose sensitive point was stimulated, shook back and forth with his squirming shirt sticking closely to his sweaty body.

"Ngh, hah...Grat... Don't poke there…Isnt this enough to satisfy your physical form…"

"Hm? From what I presume you are enjoying this, you can't be so demanding when you're saving the universe, Wes."

"Well, you don't have to be mean about it! Nobody likes to get fucked for the first time by a man- creature in a dirty broken bathroom!"

Grat simply pushed Wes's talkative mouth back to the place it should belong to, what an endearing loquacious human.

"Don't slack off with your mouth."

#glorious 2022 #fiction #movies #horror movies #wesxgrat #daddy issues #part 1 maybe? #fanfiction #glorious fanfiction