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#parental neglect
thebibliosphere · 6 months
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Sometimes, talking about religious trauma with other people is really funny for me (not funny, haha, more funny 'I should probably talk about that more in therapy) because it feels like I'm playing with a stacked deck.
Like, Mothman will talk about growing up with Catholic Guilt™, and another friend will talk about the shit they encountered in a Baptist church, all awful, truly horrific, damaging stuff.
Then they'll ask, "What about you?" and I hesitate because it's like, well, my dad was raised by his strict patriarchal Irish Catholic grandfather and Austrian Jewish grandmother* because his Jehova Witness mother was deemed unfit, so like, he'll argue with God, but feel really bad about it while also feeling the need to tell everyone about it.
And then there's my mother, who was raised Calvinist but fell into Christian Science for a while before falling fully into New Age Occultism tinged with insane family lore** while still holding onto the purity of Calvinism and the faith healing of Christian Science, which led to my parents raising me as an indigo starseed child sent to earth by angels to absorb the pain of others as God intended and that's why I never got taken to the doctor because it wasn't my body that was in pain, it was my soul.
And it's like, I swear I'm not trying to one-up you, I SWEAR. My family tree is just a smorgasbord of poor life choices and questionable reasoning ability.
----
*Arguably, the only normal one in the entire family who did her best to keep a lid on everything. ** Apparently, there was some family curse on my mother's mother's side from pissing off a fairy that caused all kinds of health problems that no one looked into because it was "the curse." They're still somewhat mad at me for going to a doctor and getting diagnosed with a genetic connective tissue disorder. Though, arguably, what is a genetic disorder if not a familial curse?
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bunnighost · 9 months
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punkstylerecovery · 11 months
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Generally speaking, your parents often owe you a lot more than you're taught to believe. A lot of people are raised to believe that parents do not really owe you that much beyond food and shelter and that's not true. In fact, you can have parents who give you food, shelter, patience and kindness and STILL deserve more from them.
By being your parents, they've accepted a very special relationship and amount of responsibility for you. Do you know how many people I know whose parents have never genuinely apologized to them? How many people’s parents physically hurt them, how many people’s parents mock their insecurities, how many people’s parents don’t care for their children’s health, how many parents make their children (intentionally or otherwise) want to die? 
And so many people don’t give a fuck. We’re raised in cultures that more often than not treat us to respect our parents in spite of most anything while also teaching everyone that children don’t deserve shit. We’re raised in cultures that more often than not teach us to “respect our parents” in spite of most anything while also teaching everyone that children don’t really deserve shit. It varies but its so common that lots of people don’t even think twice about it. 
But children DO deserve more than they’re generally given. So much more! And so many things that are literally just abusive are considered normal parenting all around the world and that’s vile, especially considering children are the most severely affected by this and have no “societal power” to wield to put a stop to it beyond what they can scramble together through a combination of sheer determination, shock value, strength and fucking luck. 
Not to sound radical, but I think we owe children a fuck ton more than they’re being given now and I think people need to learn so much more about abuse and how that ties into the common underplaying of what we’re owed in parent/child relationships. 
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nerdofspades · 2 years
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Continuing from this post, with some more details being pulled from this reblog.
When Phantom sees Batman hanging out on a roof in Amity Park (where he can be seen easily, but only by someone who can fly) the first thing he does is sneak up on him.
For Phantom, it's easy. Invisibility, intangibility, and flight make it ridiculously easy for him to not make noise while approaching someone. He just needs to not breath too loud while he approaches. (Or speak. Both of these things are also easy for a ghost. Or a half ghost like him.)
So Phantom does that, and if it's pay back for all the times Batman startled him while he was working. No one needs to know.
The first thing he says is that Batman looks like he's looking for a fight. Batman does not jump or look startled in anyway. Danny is disappointed.
(Danny did manage to sneak up on Batman. Bruce just has excellent control over his reactions to maintain his persona. He also knew Phantom to be mischievous and was expecting this.)
So, Batman doesn't skip a beat and tells Phantom it's just a precaution. Mostly for if a less friendly ghost spotted him first. He wasn't going to start any fights.
Phantom gives a nod and says "good, you're learning."
Which sets off Batman. Because Phantom was not supposed to know. Danny scrambles and manages to brush it off. Batman has Fenton tech. He clearly got it from someone and if it were Jack and Maddie, Batman wouldn't be having a conversation with Phantom. Jazz has never been particularly good at the tech and hunting stuff, but she's got an interest in ghostly psychology. That leaves Danny, and that kid has been in and out of town all summer. That and with the only consistent access to the ghost zone in FentonWorks, it pays to have friends inside the house. And Phantom uses Fenton tech too. Gotta get it from somewhere.
While everything Phantom says is technically correct and factual something about the way he says it (the panicked rambling) doesn't sit right. Batman decides to "make polite conversation." With Phantom about the Fentons.
The more he asks and the more Phantom talks the more concerned he gets. Jazz has basically become Danny's parental figure in any situation where Jack and Maddie aren't technically required. Sure she inherited their genius, but at least half her drive to succeed is tied to getting out of there. They don't have safe food to eat and the entire house has been contaminated with ectoplasm due to Jack and Maddie's lax lab safety. (Phantom off hand mentions that the ecto-contamination will probably have effects on the kids that aren't constantly wearing jumpsuits.)
And the amount of things Jazz and Danny do that Jack and Maddie apparently just don't notice is astounding. Both kids sabotage or steal particularly nasty ghost weapons on a regular basis. Danny sneaks out more nights than not and his parents notice less than five percent of the time.
(Phantom specifically does not mention why he knows all of this, but it is obvious to Bruce that he and Danny do not have a professional relationship. He doesn't have it actually figured out, but he probably thinks they're dating.)
Batman wants them out of that house. Now. It's only when Batman directly brings that up that Danny realizes he's fucked up and said too much. He debates back tracking and trying to play it down again. But. By now he's spent enough time with the League to know about his adoption tendencies and has spent enough time listening to Jazz, Sam, and Tucker to know that he's actually right. That house is fucked up. Trying to cover it up now would just make Batman more convinced he needs to take them in.
So Danny does the opposite. He tells Batman that trying to move them now would be worse. They don't want to be separated and one or both of them would immediately sacrifice everything to help the other if separated from their parents.
The only way to make sure they stay together would be for Jazz to take custody of Danny. So, either she gives up Harvard and stays in Amity so Danny can finish high school with his friends, or Dannt gives up Amity so Jazz can stay at Harvard. Even if Danny manages to convince her to go to school, she now would need a full time job to take care of them on top of needing to pass her classes as a full time student to maintain her scholarship. Doing both would likely be impossible.
They will not thank him for intervening.
(Danny does not mention his obsession. He does not say that leaving Amity is not an option for Danny. That it would mean so much more than just leaving his friends and support network behind.)
Bruce hates it, but concedes. In this case. For now. He quietly resolves to get as much money into Danny's bank account as he can without making it obvious. No need for the League to know about that.
He also suggests that Danny and Jazz get therapy. Offers up a League contact that they can meet at the Watchtower if they don't want to visit anyone local. Especially with their relationship to Phantom. (And now the League.)
Oddly enough, Danny takes the offer. Jazz does too, but that wasn't too much of a surprise. Danny knows that Jazz can't actually be his therapist because of their relationship, and the main reason she's been toeing that line is because Danny didn't have other options. Now that he has one he can take some stuff off her plate and even get her some help off loading all the crap from their parents and taking care of him. So yeah. They take the therapy offer.
(This does nothing to curb the League's belief that Danny is one of Bruce's kids. Jazz gives them a little confusion, but it's not like Bruce hasn't taken in kids with families before.)
(Bruce does remember to handle his actual business before leaving. He was there to give Phantom a League communicator so they could call him for major ghost problems outside of Amity and he can call them if he gets in over his head. While Danny is good at what he does, Batman does not want to call a civilian child to a battlefield if he can help it.)
Dinah (Black Canary) takes them on as patients. Because neither one is directly connected to the League and Dinah spent minimal time with the ghost gear stuff, she doesn't have any concerns about being able to stay professional. She does tell both of them that if they have concerns about that, or if Danny becomes more involved in the League, they can tell her or Batman and they'll work to find a suitable replacement or address those issues in another way.
Neither of them talks about Phantom at first. Jazz opens up much faster, but she also has an easier time obfuscating the relationship between Phantom and Fenton.
Danny doesn't talk about Phantom at all.
Both of them raise a million red flags for Dinah regarding their family life, but both of them reiterate that they would rather not bring it to court.
Slowly, eventually. Danny feels safe. He's still slow and hesitant. He asks a few questions to verify that even the nosiest League members don't know what he tells her. (Manhunter has gotten several talks about not digging into Dinah's memories and if he has to, staying away from any that take place in this room. There is no camera and everything is hard copy. If Bataman were to try and open that door, it would set off an alarm. The walls are lined with lead and so on and so forth.)
Then Danny tells her outright that he and Phantom are the same perosn. They tall for quite awhile about the accident, hero work, his parents, and more. At the end of the session Dinah can tell this is something Jazz has been avoiding with the gift of hindsight and Danny says he'll tell Jazz she can open up about it.
Things look good for them.
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melblogsgfreethruptsd · 6 months
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twoheadedfather · 1 year
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on today's episode of : are my parents treating me like im an adult or are my parents just acting like children?
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invalid-request · 6 months
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I'm realizing now that what you really wanted was to be able to call yourself a good parent. Which is different than wanting to *be* one.
It didn't matter if I struggled, as long as you found a way to argue it was my own fault.
It didn't matter if I was hurting, as long as you could persuade yourself it was best to do nothing.
It didn't matter if I was in need, as long as you had everyone convinced that you gave plenty.
You were too busy crafting your own story to put any care into the way you crafted mine
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the-grand-gemini · 3 months
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Wyll Ravengard thoughts/writing prompt:
Wyll's identity is so heavily focused on his father, which absolutely makes sense given his upbringing with only the one parent, but that doesn't mean sometimes Wyll never wonders what his life would be like if she'd been there. He doesn't necessarily miss his mother as he never had her, but there are moments of "what if". What would father be like, would his expectations have been the same, would his mother have stopped him from being sent away, would she have come with him if Ulder would not let him remain in Baldur's Gate, would she too have cast him out, would she have written to him after he left the Gate, would she make father stay in touch too? Wyll carries a sense of loss and nostalgia he has no means of placing. His mother is an empty shadow in his mind.
Which brings me to this: I can't get the idea out of my head that after Wyll is transformed he feels he's lost part of the gift that his mother gave him. Specifically his eyes. Are Ulder Ravengard's eyes also brown like Wyll's? Probably, but maybe Wyll's eyes were the same shade of brown his mother's were... He had already lost one during battle, and now his remaining eye has been touched by the Hells.
The scene that made me think of this is when Karlach is mourning the loss of the heart that her mother gave her. I feel like Wyll is still probably in relative shock over his changed form and is experiencing body dysmorphia. He would hear Karlach's words and suddenly have another moment of heart break. A thought that had not sat with him yet while too busy trying to adjust to his new form and survive their adventure. The gift that his mother gave him has been corrupted and it's his fault.
(Not that it's actually his fault given that he was a teenager when forced to take Mizora's deal, but you can't tell me Wyll doesn't feel guilty at times for "failing" to meet his father's expectations and internalized that sense of shame)
Even though he's never really met his mother as she passed before he could know her, he feels another level of loss. The body she died giving to him has been altered, the eye(s) in the mirror watching him are no longer his mother's. Maybe one day there will be some relief. His changed body is a means of stepping out of the shadow of who his father expected him to be. But for now there is loss and mourning a gift given by someone he never knew.
I just feel like Wyll doesn't get as much writing and we don't really get to deeply explore the horror of having your body altered without your consent! Which thematically everyone in the party is desperately trying to avoid having their body altered via the illithid tadpol! What we do get are a few brief lines saying that we are sorry and that he's still himself (as well as very handsome if not more so because... horns 👀💦).
I need to read about Wyll mourning himself and accepting his new body. Confronting his father for abandoning him in a time of need. Remembering his father choosing his duty to the city over his duty to him as his child. I mean he could have retired! He and Wyll could have moved to the country OR travelled the coast together fighting for others! However that didn't happen and I feel like a bigger discussion is needed before healing that bond.
You can't tell my young Wyll Ravengard, who loves his father so much he already forgave him the moment he was cast out, didn't cry his heart out alone under the night sky the first time he was on his own. That he doesn't suppress those emotions constantly, because yes he doesn't regret sacrificing himself to protect the people of Baldur's Gate, but that doesn't mean he doesn't weep knowing his father's love was conditional.
I need a discussion where he worries that Tav may choose to leave him someday if he cannot meet their expectations. He knows its unfounded, but the hurt inside himself remains.
I want to see Wyll struggle with his changed body and rediscover himself. Either with the support of a romanced Tav or just the entire team as a supportive found family there to help him.
If anyone wants to use this as a writing prompt please go ahead and tag me if you do so I can read it!
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noballoonsinspace · 3 months
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Misbehavior is not a reflection of merit Misbehavior is not a reflection of character Misbehavior is not a reflection of intelligence Misbehavior is not a reflection of work ethic Misbehavior is not a reflection of morals or values
Misbehavior is a reflection of well-being Misbehavior is a reflection of environment Misbehavior is a reflection of power dynamics Misbehavior is a reflection of support systems Misbehavior is a reflection of how someone is treated
“Bad” kids don’t misbehave hurting kids misbehave traumatized kids misbehave abused kids misbehave neglected kids misbehave scared kids misbehave lonely kids misbehave grieving kids misbehave stressed kids misbehave overwhelmed kids misbehave burnt-out kids misbehave
Its not a “tantrum” or a “fit” or a “bad kid” with “unacceptable behavior,” it’s a cry for help
When kids misbehave, stop “punishing” and “disciplining” and “reprimanding” them
When kids misbehave for the love of god just help them
And P.S. this basically applies to adults as well
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The saddest Hamtaro character
So we watch quite a bit of Hamtaro (and used to when it first aired, too), but I only recently saw the episodes "Midnight Celebration" and "Mimi's Dream Park!" and I just gotta say...Mimi has got to be the saddest Hamtaro character, and it's so upsetting!
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Mimi is Hamtaro's friend's--Panda's--owner. In her first appearance, it's her birthday and she's setting up stuff for her own party (which is already disheartening when you realize she's about 4 or 5 years old). Panda says she's been looking forward to her birthday for as long as he can remember, but unfortunately...her mom goes into labor with her little sibling on the day of her birthday, leaving her home with her older brothers.
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Not only do her older brothers rudely eat her own birthday snacks (of which she says she'll have to buy more herself if they eat them all...her own birthday snacks), but her dad stops by on his way back to the hospital, and when Mimi asks if they're still going to have her birthday party, he replies, "You must be confused. I'm sure your birthday isn't for a couple weeks."
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Father of the year, folks.
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Anyways, Mimi's left pretty much alone on her own birthday. Though this is entirely understandable on the parents' parts actually, given that her mother is in labor. But still...they couldn't have gotten an adult relative to stay over and watch her and throw her a damn birthday party??? In the end of the episode, the ham-hams end up throwing her a surprise party, and her baby sister ends up sharing her birthday, which initially is an "ouch" moment for me personally, but she seems happy in the end, so it's great, right?
But in "Mimi's Dream Park!"...
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Mimi is feeling lonely because her parents are focusing so much on her baby sister. Again, understandable having a baby in the house, but at a point it feels like parental neglect.
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She's initially going to go to an amusement park with her parents, as well as with Kana and Laura (and their hamsters, too!) Again, according to Panda, this is something important to Mimi, and something she's looked forward to for a long time (all summer, he states.)
But again, her hopes are dashed, as her little sister is ill and her parents both need to stay home to take care of her. Again, understandable, but why can't one of them go with Mimi to her first amusement park trip? 🤨
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Mimi's (understandably) sad again. Her dad even tells her "[Your mom and I won't always be around for you]". Well-intentioned stuff to say but, sir, she's four years old. Mimi ends up not going to the amusement park due to her parents not going with her. As an attempt at a consolation, Laura and Kana give her a ferris wheel toy (something they then acknowledge may be insensitive given that, well, she couldn't go to the amusement park...)
Her hamster, Panda, tries to cheer her up (a hamster tries to cheer her up, her cousin and her cousin's friend tries to cheer her up, but her parents? No.) Panda tries to zhuzh up his little hamster amusement park to show and give Mimi the amusement park experience she didn't get to have, but...a giant storm blows through and destroys all their hard work.
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In the end, Panda returns home forlornly, and Mimi's still sad, living with her fairly neglectful family.
Basically, Kana's little cousin, Mimi, is severely neglected at the very least emotionally, and I hate her parents with a burning passion.
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atlxolotl · 1 year
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I tried this new idea on for size: “My parents didn’t love me,” I muttered to myself, quietly, then louder: “My parents didn’t love me.” It’s a tragic sentence. It should feel like a shot to the gut. But instead, it had both resonance and stillness. It happened. It’s true. And it’s okay. There are people who love me. I will be cared for. And I have my capable self. Everything is going to be fine.
Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
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bunnighost · 10 months
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punkstylerecovery · 4 months
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I love folks complaining about "gentle parenting" and blaming it on kids "being out of control" because not only could that mean anything from "a kid stood up to me and set boundaries like the human being they are" to "a kid i was babysitting screamed at me and threw a can at me because i said no to buying them something really expensive" but it also shows me that they know nothing about gentle parenting or parenting at all. One of those is a sign of good (or perhaps "gentle") parenting. One of those is probably a sign of neglect.
When I see folks complaining about kids on the internet these days and blaming it on "gentle parenting", so often they're just talking about clearly neglected kids and it's because so many folks don't know what parenting is without violence. You tack on "gentle" and automatically they assume you're doing nothing at all and letting the kid do whatever because parenting means some type of hurt to them and "gentle" negates that.
It's so sad that so many people can't imagine parenting without hurt. It's so sad people feel the need to tack "gentle" onto parenting to teach people how to parent properly because they don't know how to get people to separate parenting from hurt in their minds otherwise. It's so sad that so many people STILL can't do it.
I'm glad to see the folks speaking out against it if only because it says a lot about their characters and about the people who agree. But also don't get me wrong, I'm really glad about all the folks who use these parenting skills for kids. I'm really glad for all the people using these skills as well as those teaching other people and unlearning all this bullshit. I can already see their (our?) impact and I think it'll only grow more beautiful as it goes on.
It brings me hope.
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Just cried my eyeballs out after picturing myself holding my younger self. It was healing. Until I realized all the pain my five year old self has to go through and grow through without anyone to protect her.
Yeah. Don’t do it. 0/10 experience. Will def make you cry. Again.
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greyaugustuspoetry · 1 year
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Pondering Dad
What I remember of my father,
Is pain and beer
What I remember of my father,
Is anger and fear
There was probably love
Mixed around somewhere
But when it was expressed
It wasn’t fair
I hate that I remember,
The faults and cries
Because I like to think when he was young
There was kindness in his eyes
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