#unhealthy relationship with an abuser

[thepeacefulgarden]

It doesn't matter what trauma they've been through. It doesn't matter what their ex did. It doesn't matter what their parents did/didn't do, or what their family of origin was like. It doesn't matter that they're under a lot of pressure at work. It doesn't matter what kind of day they had. It doesn't matter what mistakes, if any, you made. It doesn't matter what, if anything, you did wrong, or what, if anything, you could have done differently. They're not entitled to treat you badly.

#relationships #unhealthy relationships #abuse #self compassion #self care #self love #self respect

[neon-candies]

Happy Halloween!

Warnings for: Child abuse, emotional abuse, unhealthy relationship

Angel probably has this nightmare frequently after Annie was "born". And he probably tried to avoid talking about it at first. But it gets to a point where he can't even hide his fears and concerns. However that's a conversation for another time.

#annabelle content #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel angel dust #Hazbin Hotel Valentino #radiodust #radiodust fankid #hazbin hotel fankid #trigger warnings #child abuse #emotional abuse #unhealthy relationship

[sa-dnesss]

My home will be a home with no loud anger, no explosive rage, no slamming doors or breaking glass, no holes punched into the walls, no name calling, shaming or blackmail. My home will be gentle, it will be warm. No fear, no hurt and no worries. I may come from a broken and twisted place but I will build something whole and safe.

#tw abuse #physical abuse #abusive parents #child abuse #parental abuse #abusive relationship #abusive #toxic family #toxic parents #toxic household #emotional abuse #bad parenting #trauma #unhealthy #sad #depressed #sucidal #exhausted #tired #lonely #alone #empty #toxic mother #toxic father #upset #suicide thoughts #unhappy

[alaynestone]

i think what’s generally more acceptable now isn’t shipping problematic ships. it’s shipping “problematic” ships the way an anti would, meaning you are only meant to focus on how abusive, horrible, unhealthy something is. you are not allowed to have empathy for the characters or discuss the LOVE involved at all to the point where a lot of complex relationships get flattened and shipping gets reduced to "analyzing the abuse”, making it so that no one’s allowed to find beauty in dark content at all.

#and not every unhealthy relationship has an abuser and a victim

[tequiilasunriise]

I love when the toxic yuri is absolutely DOOMED by the narrative and they’re so in love they’re going through a divorce they are seeing each other in full for the first time they’re each other’s first (and last) love they’re gay and kissing and gay they’re still signing those divorce papers and yeah these is all happening at the same time

#welcoming nevermore’s white raven to the club #now i get go guah about TWO toxic yuri ships utterly doomed by the narrative going thru divorce #hiiiiii rosebirdddddd #also i want to clarify i dont mean ‘toxic’ like abusive or anything but i DO mean toxic like theure not necessarily good fer each other #like annabel lee n lenore? where their relationship is at rn is just not good shits mad unhealthy with the huge lack of communication #and all the other shit these girls are n o t on the same page hell theyre not in the same BOOK #and rosebird is. well. if you know you know. #rwby #rosebird #summer rose #raven branwen #nevermore webtoon #nevermore neverwhore #white raven #annabel lee whitlock #lenore vandernacht #feel free to tag any other ships that fit this bill if u wanna

[melblogsgfreethruptsd]

#toxic parents #emotional abuse #aftermath #accountability #guilt tripping #manipulation #unhealthy relationships #toxic family #scapegoat #boundaries

[pixelatedtaken]

StaticMoth Abuse

Featuring mentions of Angel Dust's relationship with Val

TW: ABUSE, SA

SPOILERS AHEAD ↓

Here's a fact. Vox is not being abused by Valentino.

This fandom is so deep in fanon content that it heavily intertwines with canon. But let's try to understand where Val abusing Vox came from, why it's not true and how it correlates to Angel Dust's relationship with Val.

Let's begin:

In the, now archived, posts on Instagram (or voxtagram), it was revealed that Vox and Val were in a situation-ship, and canon officially confirmed it.

Now, Val as a character is heavily hated and for good reasons while Vox is not. Many people adore Vox and for that, his relationship with Val can be conflicting, adding a bit of difficulty in justifying their like for him.

Here's where Valentino's relationship with Angel Dust comes in.

Val has been shown to be abusive and to SA Angel Dust. First example of that being the Addict music video.

This has created the need for people to give a reason behind Vox's relationship with Val and make excuses for him so they can validate their favoritism.

"Val is so awful! He must be abusing Vox! Breaking his screen and whatnot!"

What people don't take into consideration is the difference in their power imbalance or lack thereof.

One of the core factors in Angel Dust's relationship with Val is the power difference between them.

Val is an overlord while Angel is a sinner.

A sinner that signed a contract with Val and gave his soul. That alone makes their dynamic vastly different. Val feels it's within his right to abuse Angel, to test his limits until he breaks. And up until episode 4, Angel believed he deserved it because whatever Val did to have him sign the contract must have been his fault. Although that's not true, Angel felt so. Heck, he wanted to break himself so that Val would let him go.

Vox and Val, on the other hand, don't have that. Both of them are overlords.

They are on equal footing. There is no power imbalance. In fact, the Vees could have not existed and both Vox and Val, including Velvette, would be completely fine without each other and continue to have their respective overlord status.

The reason it exists is exploitation.

All three can and do use each other so they can have a more powerful front. A mutual alliance of exploitation. Within this, they have created their own fucked up bond. As a result of that, Val and Vox have an on-again, off-again relationship. It's far from healthy, but it's not an abusive one.

Vox knows of Valentino's behavior but as long as it's not effecting their shared partnership, he will not interfere nor will he care about it.

Or maybe the next seasons will give me the middle finger and I'm completely wrong. Who knows? I just read a fic and saw posts about Vox being abused by Val and wanted to give my two cents on the topic.

#staticmoth #hazbin hotel #hazbin vox #hazbin valentino #unhealthy relationships #this is specifically about ppl claiming vox is abused or even manipulated by val #tw sa mention #tw abuse #hazbin analysis #hazbin angel dust #< mentioned #feel free to ignore #ok bye

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

toxic relationships: intentional vs romanticized

i want to talk about what makes a toxic ship intentional and what makes it romanticized, since a lot of spop fans claim that “of course Adora and Catra's relationship is toxic, they were enemies and they had a rough childhood”. however, it's clear that the writers of spop themselves don't consider this relationship toxic, or if they do, they think that the toxicity is sexy or romantic.

for comparison, let's take Jasper and Lapis from Steven Universe. this was a ship that was clearly written to be unhealthy. these were two characters who did not like each other in the slightest, who both had their own share of trauma that they never worked through and decided to form a fusion instead.

Jasper tries to coerce Lapis into forming a fusion with her, in order to help her defeat the Crystal Gems. Lapis is unwilling at first but later, she relents. whether she did this out of fear or because of her own anger towards the Crystal Gems is unclear at first.

Fusions in SU are a good way of visualising the nature of a relationship. if a relationship is healthy and stable, the fusion is stronger and can stay fused for longer periods of time. if the relationship is unhealthy, toxic or unstable, the fusion might break apart easily or have trouble functioning as one body.

fusions aren't strictly a romantic thing either, there had been a couple of platonic fusions in the series too, like Smoky Quartz or Steg. suffice to say, it was just a creative way to explore different dynamics between different people.

as expected, Lapis's and Jasper's fusion was not stable or healthy in the slightest. Malachite was the biggest fusion we had seen at that point in the series, and she looked more monstrous and unhinged than any of the other fusions we had seen prior.

it is at this point that Lapis reveals that she was just trying to keep Steven safe by fusing with Jasper and forcing the fusion to stay underwater with her.

even right after this scene, it's clear that the writers wrote Malachite as an intentional toxic ship because Garnet immediately remarks that those two gems were “not good for each other”.

after an undetermined period of time where Malachite stayed fused, and while Jasper got more and more angry and vengeful, Lapis got more and more exhausted of holding the fusion together; the Crystal Gems finally succeed in making the two unfuse.

there is some nuance to this ship too, because there wasn't just one person at fault. while Jasper was physically stronger than Lapis and she was the one who initially coerced Lapis into fusing with her, Lapis herself admits that she used their relationship to take out all of her anger and frustration. she admits to hurting Jasper in the process.

Lapis also admits that she misses Jasper, a sentiment that Jasper also seems to share as she tracks down Lapis to ask her to fuse with her again, promising that it would be better this time.

this is not uncommon in toxic relationships where the individuals get so used to the toxicity that they feel empty without each other. they would rather be in an unhealthy but familiar relationship than be alone. and this is the first time i've seen this sentiment be portrayed so realistically in a show. the fact that you can get away from someone who hurt you and still miss them and want them back is something that needs to be talked about.

Lapis does eventually reject Jasper's offer, saying that their relationship wasn't healthy. while i do have problems with how they suddenly made Lapis the victim afterwards (and her whole arc as a whole), i still think SU handled this ship really well.

it was an introspect into a toxic relationship, without romanticizing or sexualizing it, and without justifying Lapis's or Jasper's actions, even though they were both sympathetic characters on their own. they do kind of gloss over Lapis's role in this relationship later on, which i wasn't fond of but in the end, they made the right decision to not let this ship be canon.

this is how toxic relationships should be explored in media. without bias, without excusing or justifying a person's actions. whether the ship separates in the end or not is the writer's wish, but the framing is important.

whereas c//a is framed in a way that expects us to sympathize with Catra, to excuse her actions and to root for her to get with Adora. like Malachite, c//a was not healthy for Catra or Adora (although the conflict there was definitely more one-sided) but the writers of spop seems to think that a vague apology is enough for them to get into a stable relationship.

if you frame toxic behaviour as cute or romantic, your audience is going to accept that. fiction does greatly impact reality. and considering that spop is quote-unquote “a kid's show”, they have a responsibility to not send the wrong message to thousands of impressionable children.

this turned into more of an SU analysis than an SPOP critique post lol but since y'all already know why c//a is not like malachite, i trust i don't have to write more about that.

#lapis and peridot also had an unhealthy and emotionally abusive relationship #and while i hated how they never held lapis accountable for her actions #i'm glad they didn't make that ship canon either #long post #steven universe #steven universe meta #su meta #su #lapis lazuli #jasper #lapis x jasper #malachite #spop critical #spop salt #spop criticism #spop discourse #spop #she ra #anti spop #anti catra #anti catradora #anti c//a #antic//a #anticatra #anticatradora #tw abuse #tw toxic relationship #i also want to point out the language used in su vs the language used in spop #su clearly states that lapis's and jasper's relationship was unhealthy and that they were not good for each other #while spop uses vague terms like “catra is mean” “catra is a bad friend” or “adora's and catra's relationship is complicated”

[14dayswithyou]

What would happen if Angel were to marry Ren/[REDACTED], but through being married Angel were to become incredibly abusive, and kinda following into the foot steps of Ren/[REDACTED] father, and treating him like Ichiko, including their kids? Would he put up with it still being incredibly patient an try to seek help, or maybe just try to reset the whole story/game back to day 1, and try different personas to try not to frick up Angel?? (This questions been on my mind lately!!)

✦゜ANSWERED: As disturbing and heartbreaking as it is, Ren would honestly still stay with Angel even after they start behaving like his father T_T

⚠️ If you haven't blocked them already, please be mindful of the cw tags below before proceeding!!

While he is extremely patient when it comes to you, Ren also wants your unconditional love and attention just as much. Even if it means going through the same harrowing abuse he endured as a child, they'd willing do it all again if it meant only having you all to himself. He wants your undivided attention, he wants you to be just as obsessed and in love as he is, and he wants you to only interact with him (as opposed to Leon, Violet, Moth, etc.).

But in saying that; Ren would also know firsthand what it's like to have a parent neglect and mistreat you — so if he saw the exact same thing happening with his own children, then he'd honestly just find a way to let them escape without you knowing (because obviously if you were anything like his father, you wouldn't care about the whereabouts of your children). Ren might go to his best friend River for help, relocate your kids to another safe place (since he can literally buy another house if necessary), or ultimately try and dissuade from being such a monster to your children. Ren isn't like his mother Ichika; he won't sit by and ignore his own children out of fear — because he doesn't fear you in the first place.

But Ren does put you before everyone else — even himself. Which is why he's willing to re-experience all the traumatic abuse you give him.

Ultimately though, I don't condone that kind of abusive behaviour or actions — so if anyone is considering making their Angel anything like Taylor (or Ichika to some degree), please do not interact with me or this blog >_<

#cw abusive behaviour #cw emotional abuse #cw child neglect #cw unhealthy relationships #💌 — answered. #💖 — about ren. #💖 — about [SPOILERS]. #💖 — 14 days with queue. #If you need to; please ask me to tag this as anything else!! >.<

[thepeacefulgarden]

#people pleasing #fawning #abuse #relationships #codependency #family #unhealthy relationships #you didn't deserve it #it wasn't your fault #trauma

[antiendosystemterms]

Reparative alter

A term for alters who think or wish they could fix relationships with people who have harmed or abused the system in the past. They may believe they are the only ones who can fix it and may even attempt to do so

((this term is made by us. The flag is made by us.))

#did #actually did #anti endo #did system #endos dni #system #endos fuck off #alter #alter terms #system terms #tw abuse mention #tw unhealthy relationship mention

[ferretwhomst]

alright guys. poll time

just wanted to ask because from what i can tell the gf fandom doesn't really seem to have a general fandom-wide consensus on this ship. rbs would be appreciated!!! also feel free to elaborate in the tags which option you chose and why! i'd love to hear people's reasoning :-)

#personally i have super mixed feelings on billford #people sometimes boil down their relationship to “haha they fight like a divorced couple” and yeah it's an easy generalization but #i really hate when people skip over the aspects of their dynamic which are Fucked Up #like... bill was abusive and manipulative to ford from the start. and ford was fucking OBSESSED with him #and his time with bill left a lasting mark on him for years and years #that's not even including how bill fucking tortured ford during weirdmageddon #my point is they aren't HEALTHY. they never were #and i think the only way to do their relationship justice is to keep the unhealthy dynamic #while also acknowledging how fucked up it is #there isn't a single world where ford is normal about bill and vice versa #i don't necessarily mean that romantically tho because i don't really ship billford myself #i'm just observing from the sidelines as i take a bite out of my platonic stan twins and fiddauthor fanworks yk #ok this got long. #what i'm trying to say is their dynamic was fucked up as hell and it would stay like that even if they were gay 4 each other #anyways #ferret rambles #gravity falls #bill cipher #gf bill cipher #stanford pines #ford pines #grunkle ford #gf ford #billford #poll

[the-healing-mindset]

"Not knowing how to be in a healthy relationship because of what you witnessed is traumatic." This post from Nedra Tawwab hits home in so many ways. For some of us, it really hurts to discover that we don't know the first thing about relationship dynamics, how relationships are meant to work, and how to protect ourselves when dealing with other people.

Most of the times, this discovery comes about when we are interested in becoming close to another person but find ourselves deeply insecure about how we should show up to the connection, ultimately causing us to back away, or try too hard for those who are not good for us. This potentially leads us into more distressing situations, if not wholly traumatic.

#trauma #dysfunctional family #family trauma #childhood trauma #parent child relationships #life #living #dysfunctional relationships #emotions #feelings #childhood emotional abuse #childhood emotional neglect #traumatic stress #PTSD #C-PTSD #relationships #healthy relationships #unhealthy relationships #toxic relationships

[chemdisaster]

i've seen people complain about the toxification of desert duo, and while valid, a lot of you need to learn what abuse actually is and stop slapping that label on every single relationship that isn't all sunshine and rainbows.

abuse is repeated and constant, it's a power imbalance, it's suffocating and will drive a person's self-worth and will to live to the ground. let me say that again - repeated and constant. one instance of mistreatment is not abuse. a few select situations where one person hurts the other are not abuse. i will even dare say this - sometimes there will be a period where one person hurts the other more than they get hurt themselves, and it still won't be abuse, because there's more to abuse than just "person does bad thing to another person". abuse causes a very specific type of damage, it's about a total lack of respect and it's about control. miscommunication and difficult periods may make a relationship complicated, but they will not make it abusive.

while i haven't read every desert duo fic, i scoured the entirety of the scar tag up to around early june. by far most of the fics portrayed them as simply having a complicated relationship. and once again, complicated relationships are not abuse. to claim every difficult relationship you see is abuse is to downplay the very real and very harmful effects of actual abuse. additionally, what will end up happening is that you will start screaming "abuse!!" at every single little thing that happens to you, and it will poison your life because you will see an enemy in everyone and cut people off like strings and end up miserable and alone as a result.

so yeah. next time you go screaming about those nasty authors who don't tag their desert duo fics with abuse, take a step back and consider if the relationship is actually abusive, or if you just can't handle reading about any interaction between two people that is less than perfect.

#also for the love of god i am begging people to stop using the words 'unhealthy' and 'abusive' as interchangeable #relationships can be unhealthy for a variety of reasons and not every single one of those starts and ends with abuse #not 👏 every 👏 relationship 👏 is 👏 abusive #gtws #gtwscar #goodtimeswithscar #grian #grianmc #desert duo #trafficblr #tw abuse mention #life series #textdisaster

[eastgaysian]

Sorry this is a dumb question but can you explain why tomshiv is not abusive? Shiv seems to hit a lot of textbook behaviours of emotional abusers

thank you for your follow up clarifying this was in good faith bc i checked my inbox yesterday right after getting high and was like man come on. don't do this to me. but yeah i can talk about it, it's obviously something i have a fair amount of thoughts on

on a fundamental level, i take issue with the assertion that there are 'textbook behaviors of emotional abusers' in the first place. distilling abuse down to a set of behaviors is, imo, effectively meaningless and totally unproductive. it's not the behavior of an individual that defines abuse, it's a specific and intentionally cultivated imbalance of power and control within a relationship. victims of abuse can and do resort to survival mechanisms that could be considered in isolation as 'abusive behavior', the point is that you can't consider them in isolation. there's a gulf of difference between the same actions when they're coming from a person in a position of significant financial or physical or social power over someone else, or when they're coming from the person at a disadvantage.

i think viewing abuse as a set of behaviors also encourages you to treat interpersonal abuse as if it's discontinuous with systemic abuse, which is inaccurate and unproductive. a key part of succession's premise is that, because the family is literally the business, the familial abuse within the roy family is inextricable from the broader systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and the sexual violence and abuse endemic to them. with regards to how the show satirizes and critiques these systems, i think it's very telling that all of the characters are to some degree complicit and/or participants in abuse, but logan is the only one i'd say is unambiguously and intentionally presented as 'an abuser' (whose abuse is not an isolated product of him as a person, but integrated into/inseparable from the capitalist system which persists after his death). still, logan isn't reduced to a one-dimensional angry, abusive dad, he's given depth and complexity. his continued insistence that he loves his children isn't treated as something that's untrue, but that doesn't make it inherently good, and it certainly isn't incompatible with him abusing them.

circling back to tom and shiv. their relationship is unhealthy, it's not good for either of them to be married, shiv does fucking awful things to tom and tom does awful things right back, i'm not questioning any of that. but at my most cynical and bitchy, what it comes down to is quite simply: shiv doesn't have enough power over tom to be abusive, systemically or personally.

the thing is sometimes you see people say 'wow, if the genders were reversed people would say tom and shiv's relationship is unambiguously abusive!' which... hrm, but really the issue is that. the genders are the way they are, that's for a reason, and yes, that does make a significant difference in how we perceive their relationship and power dynamics. tom holds very real and present power over shiv as a man and as her husband, proposing to her when she was vulnerable in a way that placed huge pressure on her to accept and then trying to get her to have his baby so he can become patriarch. shiv's the heiress with the legitimacy of her family name and generational wealth but she is continuously, unavoidably subjected to gendered discrimination and violence. she's never allowed direct access to real power - she has to rely on the men around her, her husband or her brothers, and if they don't feel like humoring her she's shit out of luck.

this doesn't cancel out like a math equation, but it definitely makes things much more complicated than shiv being an Evil Bitch Wife to her Poor Pitiful Husband. when shiv finally does push tom too far, he immediately, successfully, goes over her head to her abusive father to fuck her over. maybe shiv wants to be her father in her relationships and exert the same kind of control he does. but she doesn't and she can't! she does not have that power! she cannot stop tom from kicking back and his hits are significant. as much as she might like to pretend otherwise, tom not only has always had the power to leave in a way shiv doesn't, he had and has the power to fuck her up badly, and he's used that power. that is simply not the power dynamic between abuser and victim to me.

i also have to say that abuse is not always going to be definitive black and white. in real life there are plenty of unambiguous situations but there are also plenty of complicated situations, and applying judgments to fiction is not always straightforward. i can't exactly call someone 'wrong' for personally being uncomfortable with tom and shiv's relationship or believing shiv is abusive, but i'm very skeptical of the viewpoint and the motivations or assumptions that are often contained within. if shiv is abusive, she definitely isn't uniquely so among the cast, so you had better be applying that label and any associated moral judgments equally across the board.

#mingbox #abuse mention #might self destruct this tag later but it's like. #my relationship with my ex was definitely unhealthy and fucked me up but it was not abusive because fundamentally. #he was actively worse to me than i was to him but the moment he went too far i cut him off and took all the friends in the divorce #if he had more influence in our social circle or could actually successfully emotionally manipulate me it would've been much worse #but he didn't so it wasn't. i won the idgaf wars and everyone liked me better because i am not an asshole so i peaced out. #he's a dickhead and i had to leave that relationship for my own good. still it was not abusive #chalkboard

[bonefall]

I find it funny in an unfunny way that they pinned some of the blame on Yellowfang

Like, Yellowfang?

Yellowfang, who suffered from abuse from Raggedstar, was framed for murder and exiled from her clan?

Yellowfang, who takes no bs, saved countless lives as a medcat, helped Cinderpelt and was a major support pillar for her, and died saving people from fire?

The very same Yellowfang who killed her son because of everything he did, all the murders and child soldiers he caused? Who wished Firestar was her son? Then killed Brokenstar AGAIN???

THAT Yellowfang???

And they said Starclan let her let Ashfur into their ranks???

I honestly believe they began writing a completely new character after TPB. She's NEVER felt like the person Fireheart knew in life in subsequent material, not in StarClan, not in her SE, nowhere.

Knowing how hard she is on herself in regards to StarClan and her feeling she deserves "divine punishment," it makes sense to me that she'd *repeat* StarClan's ruling on the matter, or even that she'd be hard on Squilf and Leafp in their trials. But LETTING ASHFUR IN??

ENOUGH THAT WE CITE HER AS A REASON?

Nooo fucking way. She would never make that ruling. She felt WRETCHED for what she had to do to Brokenstar and like it was "teaching her a lesson," you can't tell me that she would let Ashfur get off scot-free for trying to murder 3 people out of romantic spite

And like, I've also gotta stress; it's not JUST three counts of attempted murder.

He was beating the shit out of Lionpaw, in a way reminiscent of the harsh training Brokenstar was putting apprentices through, PLUS the abuse of Stumpypaw

He DID successfully murder his leader, just the one life but he WANTED it to be all 9

Treason in working with Ashfur. That is canon. People forget it's canon and Hawkfrost used his dying breath to tease that he had inside help

Assault of Squilf, he was going to make her watch her children get crispy-fried

Absolutely insane article. Story team should stop even trying to explain themselves they just make everything worse. Their choices are baffling enough, but their thought process is truly like the world's worst Rube Goldeberg machine

#And like. Fuck off. If you have to come in years after the fact you write an abusive relationship to confirm it-- #--because you are consistently so bad at writing romance you keep unintentionally writing abuse and have to CLARIFY when it's unhealthy-- #--you utterly failed your audience of young teens. #Bone babble #Yellowfang