#but im hoping that shipping with barbie/ken is going to help me feel like i can reclaim control over my ships

[frecklystars]

i know nobody is online rn to read this but ;-; i gotta get it off my chest i love ken so much he means everything to me he's making me so happy and i've needed him so so so bad. he's brought me comfort when my ptsd has been so fucking unbearable and every time i'm having a crying fit over losing my tf f/os or every time i'm having a flashback i ALWAYS immediately IMMEDIATELY think about him rushing to my side, holding me and saying "hey hey it's okay, i'm here, i'm right here" and it's such a relief because i haven't been able to genuinely wholeheartedly believe any character would be willing to do that for me the entire time i've been struggling this year.

i've never gone so long without comfort from f/os, much less being triggered by the ones who used to comfort me the most. so to have barbie and ken right now is like the biggest wave of relief every single day when i wake up and the hyperfixation is still there. sometimes i will literally close my eyes and sigh in relief when i hear a song and my first thought is sebastian or ken or six or... whomever. i love being in love again. i NEED this. i love waking up and my first thought isn't my trauma most of the time now, it's ken. or it's six. or it's barbie. or it's harley. or it's officer k. or it's... yeah you get it. i needed these characters so fucking badly. every time i see a gifset and get excited over it, i feel a rush of gratitude bc self shipping has always been the glue holding me together. it doesn't feel as intense or strong as the SB musical or TF used to make me feel but i am not picky. not at all. i will take anything and i'm praying this lasts for at LEAST another few weeks please

i may not be at a sense of peace right now and i dont know when i ever will be, it could be years, but im so. so. so. so so so thankful to have these characters right now when i've needed someone so badly for so long. i hope ken knows how much i love him ;-; i hope barbie knows how much she has helped me, has saved me from one of my major triggers and has helped me to love and feel safe around the color pink again. i wish they could see me when i'm not so broken but i'm glad they're here even when i'm at my worst, i'm glad they still love me even when they deserve to see me in a much better light

#it feels so fucking terrible not celebrating my bday with my starlight. i used to buy myself cakes and put his figurine next to them #i mean i still have... a little bit over one week... i cant... let it pass by without him being involved somehow #so i might make a quick vent doodle and queue it for the actual day of my bday #i refuse to not draw myself with him at least once for my special day #its not like we 'broke up' or anything but fuck it feels so bad #he's a literal fucking ptsd trigger. how fucking insane is that #im still in shock. im still in shock over what happened to me like i cant fucking believe it #wearing his necklace makes me cry so i just leave it on my dresser #that shouldnt be normal!!!! #but im hoping that shipping with barbie/ken is going to help me feel like i can reclaim control over my ships #bc my abuser made me feel like... i had no control over my TF ships whatsoever for a solid year #so now that i'm finally free of that toxicity i'm still shakily trying to learn how to ship again #i'll have moments where i'll worry ken will try to hurt me on purpose bc im so used to my abuser telling me how abusive any f/o would be #but then i tell myself 'hey what the fuck. this is MY story. NOBODY would abuse me i dont care WHO they are' #but it's so hard to unlearn several months of abuse 😔 #and even harder to look at a character who i invested so much time and energy and money into #my voice clips. my cameos. all of my steve blum autographs. my art for steve. all of it feels sad and numbing #not just stsc but everyone in any TF universe feels like... a threat and i get panic attacks when i see very specific characters sometimes #its awful. it hurts so bad. i love ken so much. but nothing compares to what i had with my TF comfort characters #but it's okay bc... ken is holding my hand and he might not understand ptsd at all but he can still squeeze me tight #and six HAS c-ptsd he GETS it. and he's there to hold me when my nightmares make me fall apart. he's my rock #vent #ptsd #sorry it's 5am i had a bad nightmare and now i refuse to sleep again #i fucking hate ptsd i fucking hate living like this i rly wish i knew how to cure myself #im exercising im eating and drinking often im sleeping as much as i can #theres only so much i can do #when does it get better?? when the fuck does it get better? im serious. not rhetorical. when does this finally heal #i dont even know if im healing or if im just distracted... but fuck ill take anything

[frecklystars]

im gonna start making doodles trying to reclaim my TF F/Os that i've lost, maybe once a week or once every two weeks... or once a month?? i dont know, i will try to keep some consistency but i really need to start slow on this. here's to hoping that drawing them every once in a while will make even just the smallest difference.

im so sick of associating these characters with my abuser and i'm so sick of the immediate fight or flight response that i get when just looking at pictures of TF characters or even the voice actors. i have tried just about everything... therapy, medication, exercise, watching a few clips from the shows, buying cameos, commissioning art/fics, talking to voice actors in person at conventions... nothing has helped me get better at all. i tried giving up on TF entirely, throwing out/giving away all of my TF merch, refusing to touch the franchise, but that has only made me more and more miserable as time has passed. it has been over a year since [insert the most horrific experiences ever here] happened to me and since i associated that with a long list of things, TF included. and im! sick! of feeling bad! so! if im gonna be miserable no matter what, then i might as well try to get better, right?? drawing my F/Os loving me has never failed me before, so here's to hoping it isn't gonna fail me now. i am quite the stubborn bitch and i refuse to allow my main coping mechanism i've used for 2 decades to remain tainted forever and ever 😤😤

these will be the shakiest, shittiest doodles imaginable, but i think drawing the robots i miss so much at least once a month can help me rewire my brain into believing they're safe again and they love me and i'm not in danger. i think the best thing that will help me is drawing my Ryan F/Os interacting with them as "proof" that they're safe to be around, that they've "approved of" them, will help me slowly reclaim them. fake it til you make it as they say. let's try this for maybe just a couple of months as a slow start and see how it goes :/

any TF doodles will be tagged as "reclaiming robots tag" and nothing else - free to blacklist it if you dont wanna see. i'll most likely be rarely posting these but jic //shrug

anyway. yay. attempts number one and two. i like to think barbie and ken stop by the starflower meadow every now and then because stsc summons them across the multiverse, asking them how i'm doing, if i'm safe, if i miss him at all. wow i am shaking so bad. ha ha haaa. these took about ten?? minutes?? so woohoo to ten minutes of drawing TF. im proud of myself for trying. even if i dont go through with this and end up not being able to draw TF ever again, at least i managed this one single post. if i keep this up, maybe a year from now, or two years or five years or whatever, i'll be able to handle it. i don't even expect to hyperfixate on TF ever again because my self shipping will never ever be the same w/ them -- i'll never interact with the fandom again, i'll never reblog fanart or gifsets or anything like that ever again, if i even somehow managed to feel good enough to actually throw myself back into the shows -- but i want to think i'll feel indifferent to it one day. to not have that fight or flight response. that is my goal. literally the bare fucking minimum <3

anyway. i'm super nauseous. this is so incredibly hard! holy shit!!! but that's why i have to do this. to quote pedro pascal, i am going to have a panic attack and i am going to leave 👍✨

(BTW I am still gonna stay offline for a few more days. I am back from vacation but I am SO burnt out I don't want to interact with dms/my inbox yet. I just wanted to post this just to get it out of my system and let it disappear into the void. But I will be back later this week bc I still have some commissions to finish and I wanna gush about my very exciting time meeting steve/tom/the brba cast. anyway... goodnight. i love you. smooch)

#reclaiming robots tag

[frecklystars]

i hate that i see one gifset of stsc and my whole body just. locks up. and starts shaking. i hate that i immediately feel like im going to die. im not in danger oh my god im just. im just looking at a fictional robot and my body makes me react as if i have to run. run from what??? im so tired of feeling so nauseous and dizzy and angry every single day. my god i miss stsc more than anything. loving ken is great but it is not the same. nothing is the same. i have come to truly hate TF with my entire being, even tho TF didnt hurt me, it was someone i associated with TF. but i am so bitter about what happened to me and i wish the franchise never existed bc then i never would have met my abuser. but at the same time i miss TF so badly i just want to be able to look at an insignia without crying, or think of a flower meadow without my heart breaking, or listen to the 400 songs collecting dust on my TF playlist. my god there is so much music i miss, but every time i listen to a song on that playlist, my brain just associates it with my TF ships and then i miss them too badly and i cant enjoy the music for what it is. i have tried associating them with ken. i have tried associating them with barbie. it doesnt work. the furthest ive gotten is associating 7 out of 200 megakeri songs with patrickeri but !!! thats just!!! 7 songs!!! out of!!! two!!! hundred!!!!!

i dont know how to explain it to someone who doesnt get triggered but its literally like... spikes of adrenaline shooting through my body and making me shake every time i see something related to TF or even something that would remind me of a TF selfship i had. and my breathing either becomes very short or i just hold my breath entirely. and i start sweating and my body locks up and there's this urge to run, to hide, to call for help, but i cant do any of that, i just freeze up. and like lol thats so stupid bro. ill see a color and it triggers me, ill see a honeybee and i start crying, i see a flower meadow, or like. just. the word starlight. or hearing a song that reminds me of my TF ships. i miss them all so fucking badly. i see hailee steinfeld and it hurts so bad bc i loved her the most in the bumblebee movie, i loved charlie so dearly, she was one of my favorite main f/os years ago, now its like... i just have such a horrible horrible horrible association with charlie and bee and TF in general and i . dont know. how to reclaim that. and seeing them makes my body react like "you're gonna die holy shit" just automatically. immediately. i cannot control it. it just happens. it sucks.

steve blum hugged me so so so tight just days ago and said stsc would never hurt me. like three times. and that stsc misses me and loves me. growled it, as if stsc was truly enraged for being ripped away from me. and yet my brain is still like... numb. i watch the video with steve and im numb. he hugged me tightly and rubbed my back and, like, okay great i didnt have any "oh my god im gonna die" feelings when he was voicing stsc for me, but i was just... numb. totally shut down. i didnt expect seeing him again to fix me, but i was hoping so terribly that it would do something. anything. but i am tired of feeling this way and i want to try to do something about it even if theres almost nothing i can really do except try my fucking best one day at a time

i think one of my main problems is ive spent three years LOVING TF, feeling good with it, la la la. and then BAM about nine-ish months of being isolated with someone who ruined my fucking life. now spent about 16-ish months looking at TF whether it's a gifset or a photo or even just a flower that reminds me of a character or something, then having a trigger reaction where im crying/vomiting/hyperventilating, and then disengaging with TF entirely and spending days trying to come down from being triggered. for over a year, i have been unintentionaly training myself to believe i cannot look at TF. like. i am unable to ground myself when im triggered, i am supposed to say "ok im scared right now but he would never hurt me" or whatever. but i havent been able to do that, i just get triggered and immediately try to get away from whatever i saw that triggered me, and its wired my brain to believe TF is genuinely something to avoid.

i think i need to get into the habit of drawing myself with a TF character at least... once every two weeks. or once a week if i am able to. but i cannot just sit here, missing TF every day, get triggered if i see it, and then avoid it and then cry about avoiding it, and the cycle continues. i cannot keep fucking doing that. dude there has to be a way for me to fix myself. i need to train my brain to believe its gonna be ok even if it takes a long ass time. and then the next time i meet steve blum maybe ill feel? better? cmon, if the voice actor can hug me and say stsc would never hurt his little starflower and my brain doesnt believe that, then there is something else i gotta do. i cant just sit here and feel bad!!!! i have tried several forms of therapy and then i ran outta money, i have tried watching the shows but got a BAD reaction out of that, i tried commissioning ppl to draw myself with TF characters but it's done nothing but waste my money bc i cannot look at the pics, i have tried talking to friends about TF and associating it with them, but none of this shit has worked. but you know what did genuinely make me feel better back when this was really fresh? me drawing myself with TF characters and people commenting nice things about it. me posting drawings of me with stsc and people writing a nice tag or a nice comment. that helped the most. i need to get back into the habit of doing that even if i just get one (1) nice comment, i know it will make a difference. nice comments have always made a significant difference for me whether it's my inbox or dms or replies, any time someone shows me kindness, it helps a lot. and maybe if i just. keep. doing that. i can slowly but surely condition myself to believe again that im safe when i see TF. because i am. i am safe and i am loved and i am missed even if i dont believe that at ALL i know it's there even if i'm completely numb to it

my goal isnt even to hyperfixate on TF again. its to just... be indifferent to it, god that is the best case scenario for me right now, realistically. i just want to not be immediately triggered. i'll have reactions with ken or driver sometimes where i'm like "what if they hurt me" but that's not a trigger. i dont feel like im going to die when i look at them. but i feel like im going to die when i look at TF and im so sick of that. lol im done with that. fuck that. i shall take matters into my own hands. even if it takes years i am NOT giving up!!! no matter how many times i cry and scream and stress vomit and jolt awake from nightmares and make vent posts saying "its hopeless ill never ever ever reclaim them" i WILL fucking reclaim them i dont care if it takes me until im 90 years old!!!!!!!!! i hate living like this and i KNOW if i keep kicking and thrashing eventually something's gotta give. i cannot just lay here on the ground and cry. i gotta get up and scream the entire time and claw my way out of this deep dark depressing pit so i can eventually get out. what is that saying - fake it til you make it??? well ill keep drawing myself being so so so loved by these characters, and faking it until i finally fucking MAKE IT

#vent #delete later #im not back online btw im just venting. my god. i am hurting so bad