you were raised in comparison.
it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.
you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.
you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.
what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.
it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.
you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.
you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?
a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.
you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.
it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.
something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.
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I know you did “The Birds and WWEs” with Penny ready to throw down with Eddie for hurting her momma. HOWEVER image, if you will, this happens with baby Wayne while Penny is out somewhere with auntie Robin for a girl’s day or something so baby Wayne was taking a nap and they think he’s napping. So he hears reader and it sounds like she’s getting hurt so he freaks out and does the only thing he can think of and calls Uncle Steve saying that “MOM AND DAD ARE FIGHTING AND MOMMYS GETTING HURT” and he takes the phone to the door and Steve tries his damndest try not to burst into laughter realizing what happened. “Bud can you knock on the door and let mommy and daddy know you’re up? I think they’re just playing” so he knocks on the door and Eddie comes to the door disheveled af with his boxers on and is MORTIFIED cause he’s already having flashbacks to when he had this conversation with Penny.
Imma go ahead and hand over the reins to our little family because this is FANTASTIC!
There’s no chance in hell Eddie wouldn’t use his children’s nap times to rail you into the mattress. It’s why he looks forward toward to them (and also since it keeps them from turning into Gremlins). His kids are usually pretty heavy sleepers unless you and Eddie actually want them to sleep in (then they’re waking up if a twig across Hawkins snaps at 5am) so he’s not all that worried about you accidentally being too loud.
Which, of course, means he’d be HORRIFIED when he hears that knock at your bedroom door while he’s balls deep because he knows there’s only one other tiny person in the house. But he can’t leave his tot waiting for long so he’s gotta hop into his boxers (if you weren’t’ so mortified yourself—you’d make fun of him but you’re in an even worse state) and step out, swooping Wayne up before he can catch a glimpse of you in the bed, even though you’ve thrown yourself onto the other side of it.
Nothing is worse, though, than when Eddie picks up the sound of Steve’s voice and sees the clunky house receiver in his toddler’s hand because he knows he probably traumatized his baby and if, by the grace of Odin, Wayne managed to forget it, Steve never would, nor would he let Eddie live this down.
Steve when Wayne holds the phone to the door and he can hear you and Eddie having s*x:
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I'm only halfway though Hbomberguy's new video and I dont know if this is a universal experience but my main horrified takeaway from hbomb's plagiarism video so far is that one of my highschools TAUGHT AN ENTIRE CLASS OF 13 YEAR OLDS TO PLAGIARISE. LIKE, ON PURPOSE.
I ended up moving to a much better highschool, but my first highschool essentially taught us to "write" essays by reading what someone else had written and then write what they said again but putting it "into your own words". Which in practice was teaching us to change, for example, "the works of Shakespeare were regarded by many as the first popular art form" to "Shakespeare's plays have been said by some to be the first example of popular media". One teacher actually told us that the process of writing an essay was "saying what the people you've researched have said, in a way where it sounds like you said it".
Like. The tactics that actual plagiarists use to hide the fact that they were stealing. An actual teacher tried to teach me to do that.
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Honestly I think I do want to have kids someday. Definitely not bio kids but kids of my own all the same. Maybe just 1, maybe an entire 2.
I want to give the love and support that was not afforded to me. I want to watch them grow into amazing adults and know that I gave this child/these children the opportunity to live a good, fulfilled life. I want to instill in them my love of books; teach them important things like courage and bravery, kindness, respect, a sense of genuine wonder in a world so empty of it. I want to encourage their interests and pursuits and congratulate them when they work hard no matter the end result. I want to be the parent I never had, the best one possible.
I don't know where that fits into the rest of my life plan if it does at all. Idk. Sometimes when I experience something cool and whimsical I think; wouldn't it be awesome to share this with my own kid? A nice book or a pretty landscape or when I'm thinking about advocacy for good public schools. The thought creeps in, wouldn't it be amazing to keep even one person safe from the foster care system? Wouldn't it be lovely to have someone to nurture and support? Wouldn't it be awesome if because I was such a good parent my child lived a happy life where they felt free and safe to follow their dreams and be themselves and things?
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The cognitive dissonance that says both that humans are inherently superior and also completely separate from the world and everything that's in the world is a very interesting one. It says a lot, I think, about how people view the world and others when they believe these things. The political implications of these ideas are vast and honestly staggering - because people both feel superior and separate from the world, they sometimes start to treat the world in that way.
I wonder how much of this is tied to hyperindividualism which posits that the way to live is to separate yourself from everything around you - to see the world as inherently lesser, inherently something to own and to find monetary value in.
At the end of the day:
You are inherently tied to the world you live in because you live in this world
You are inseparable from Nature™
You affect the world by loving here, just as the smallest wasp or the largest whale does. This is inevitable and isn't good or bad
Your worth is not tied in with how individualized you are, or by how much you separate yourself from the world
Whatever you do to ground yourself in this world, make sure it's something that fulfills you. It's honestly crazy how much this can open your eyes
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