californiannostalgia
californianNostalgia
| Professional Reblogger & Part-Time Scribbler |
| My brand is "Childhood-Trauma-Point-of-View" |
| avatar courtesy of @blarfth |
| My AO3 |
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Reginald Dwayne Betts, from Felon; Poems; "Ballad of the Groundhog"
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“I’m going to be far from my pain one day. I’m going to / No longer feel that pain but something new and just as merciless.”
— — Paul Tran, from “I See Not Stars but Their Light Reaching Across the Distance Between Us,” All the Flowers Kneeling (via lifeinpoetry)
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The Performer 🎭🎶 A character class for The Hidden Isle.
You can preorder the TTRPG here
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finally completed my comic based on the song ivy by taylor swift!✿ please zoom in to read the text and see the details~
✿.✿.✿
you can get the digital zine pdf here! it includes extras like character profiles, costume design, more art of willow and ivy, zine-exclusive sketches and an illustrated guide to the symbolism of all the flowers in this comic.
you can also get prints of individual pages here!
✿.✿.✿
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some dykes for your feed :) going to be making pints of this later this year >:)
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A small collection of my favourite sapphic art I did in 2023 🌸
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Isn’t that reason enough to keep living? To rediscover simple delights one moment at a time, I mean. I used to count them on my fingers, reassuring myself there was still good in the world and reminding myself to keep looking for those blessings. Butterflies, fresh-baked bread, the crunch of leaves on an autumn morning, so on and so forth. They don’t have to be profound. I started with one: the scent of fresh-cut grass. […] What you hold onto is less important than the act of holding on itself. It’s so easy to get lost in ourselves and this world. Sometimes you need to find your way back one tiny miracle at a time. —THE SUNSHINE COURT, NORA SAKAVIC
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i hope they take sooo many pictures together and jean keeps all of them pinned up on his wall
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i wonder what Jeremy did to earn this reaction...
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Well damn thats one reaction. I wonder what Cat said that triggered such a response.
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I just got done at a conference on trauma informed care in foster homes and attachment disorders in children with trauma and there was an emphasis on if there isn’t intervention, and honestly? I thought a lot about Andrew and Riko on the drive home and how accurate Nora’s portrayal of them was given the trauma they endured. Heck Neil too.
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all the new god portraits (so far) in hades 2 !!!
#hades game#greek gods#greek mythology#beautiful art#poseidon#hephaestus#apollo#demeter#aphrodite#zeus#artemis#selene
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[Image ID: The poem “One Source of Bad Information”, by Robert Bly.
There’s a boy in you about three
years old who hasn’t learned a thing for thirty
Thousand Years. Sometime it’s a girl.
The child had to make up its mind
How to save you from death. He said things like:
“Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.”
You live with this child, but you don’t know it.
You’re in the office, yes, but live with this boy
At night. He’s uninformed, but he does want
To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy
You survived a lot. He’s got six big ideas.
Five don’t work. Right now he’s repeating them to you.
/end id]
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Processing identity as a child abuse survivor
Recently I had a huge revelation. Come with me on this childhood trauma realization journey (if you want).
This post was written for those wavering on the 'was it abuse' question.
Fair warning, each of these revelations were a whammy. I recommend you keep in mind that these revelations will transform the way you see yourself and the world. This took me out of commission for hours at a time.
Revelation 1: Was I Abused?
Read this Tumblr post. Go down the list. Check the 'yes'es and 'maybe's.
'Was I abused' is a yes or no question. I need you to really think about this if your answer is 'kind of'. If you could be truly honest with yourself, what would your answer be?
For years I've gone to the logic of 'it wasn't that bad,' and 'at least the worst didn't happen,' or 'others have had it worse'. This is such a low bar. You deserve better than the bar your parents set for you. The socioeconomic circumstances and the normalization of violence in your living area? Yes, influential. But not a justification.
At the end of the day, the veracity of these statements don't even matter. It's a yes or no question: 'Am I a survivor of child abuse?'
It may take a really long time to truly process, and even then it might feel uncomfortable saying it like it's truth. I need you to know your truth is truth. It's a yes or no question.
Take a break. I recommend you don't progress further until you've processed Revelation 1.
(Shameless plug-in of my fandom blorbo interests: Rick Riordan's Trials of Apollo series really helped me with this first revelation. It made me feel seen and less alone. It may not be perfect, but I personally liked it!)
Revelation 2: What does this mean? (health-wise)
Listen to this Ted Talk by an expert (medical professional).
youtube
This is the part where I got angry and really fucking sad. Let yourself be sad. Let yourself be furious. Our life is not our fault and we're still stuck with this lot.
Genuinely this was such a shock for me to realize. The thing that has the biggest impact on my life is not my anxiety, depression, ptsd, insomnia, blood pressure, immune health, etc. The root cause of my physical and mental illnesses is Adverse Childhood Experiences.
ACE is more common than you'd think. Acknowledging that what happened to you was bad will be beneficial to humanity's survival in the long run. Like any illness, ACE can be fought at a societal level.
Take a break. I recommend you don't progress to the next revelation until you've processed Revelation 2.
Take your time to be angry and sad. Take forever. You never have to forgive your abuser, even if they change their behavior. The chance at a civil acquaintanceship you might be willing to extend to your parents doesn't require your forgiveness.
.
Revelation 3: Why is your therapist recommending you retell your life story?
This one is mostly for when you have steady access to a therapist. Here are some things I wish I'd known before seeking out therapy in the US.
(Is it shitty that you can't get therapy on your own terms when you're underage? Yes, it fucking is. To those of us who survived to adulthood: holy shit y'all. At 19 I felt like absolute fucking bullshit, like my brain was a burning ball of tangled barbed wire. It does feel absolutely shitty. But reaching 19 is an achievement.)
The thing is, I do or say a lot of things that I later come to think of as embarrassing, inappropriate, or in certain circumstances, potentially abusive. Genuine trigger reactions happen. I will always have to live with a piece of my parents in my head. But I don't want to do to another person what they did to me. Self-awareness is what separates me from my abusers.
What to do about this? Number 1: chill out. You're not gonna be your abuser. Humans are unique and imperfect. They have not replicated themselves in you. It's okay to make mistakes when you're talking or reacting. Your brain is fucked up. You can do something differently next time.
Number 2: read this article about Overthinking, Over-apologizing, Oversharing, and Overwhelmed as trauma responses.
Then read this article on how to deal with Unresolved Trauma.
Yeah. It be like that. Isn't it fucked up? Recognizing the four Os in my behavior helped me realize I'm not an antisocial asshole by default.
Unresolved trauma is the root cause for my behaviors that I think of as unhealthy. This revelation happened very recently for me. Before this point in time, I couldn't understand why I would want to recount traumatic events in therapy.
At this point in time, I have regular access to a therapist I'm okay with. Going over memories and deconstructing the blame system seems like a reasonable thing to try.
What happened to you as a child is not your fault. You're not the one who landed yourself in your life. You've been given an unfairly difficult situation to be responsible for. You did not create your coping mechanisms for shits and giggles.
So yeah. Number 3: figure out your life with the help of a therapist. Let's see where we are ten years later or something.
Nothing is easy and everything is confusing. Take a break, hydrate, eat, sleep, do something nice for yourself. Do something you like doing. Thanks for reading.
#child abuse#domestic abuse#trials of apollo#mental health#life advice#my thoughts#resources#therapy#Youtube
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Things I wish I'd known before seeking therapy in the US
This post is written for people whose abuse didn't necessarily raise CPS intervention alarms.
For survivors of child abuse in the US, your first steady access to a therapist will likely be in-network therapists from college insurance or a sliding scale therapy center. US colleges are pretty good about getting you disability accommodations. I recommend college for the therapy.
School or online-only therapists will usually not be qualified to deal with anything bigger than the very basics. Find a therapist who is qualified in trauma healing.
Finding a therapist you can tolerate is a long and frustrating process. You can take a break from the search if you don't like it. I took a two-year break once.
Keep in mind for people in the US, even if you're not a citizen: if there's a minor under your parents' guardianship (i.e. younger sibling), be aware of the mandatory CPS report. If you'd prefer not to get CPS called because of the risk of retaliation from parents, wait until your younger sibling is of age and talk vaguely around the specifics of the child abuse part. If shit's severe, decide you'll risk it.
(Even if CPS is informed, most of the time they won't do anything unless it's immediate-intervention level stuff. They're understaffed and underfunded. The world sucks.)
And yes, it's beyond shitty that you can only get therapy on your own terms when you're of age.
In your first session, ask your therapist about reporting mandates, including child abuse and the forced mental hospitalization thing for suicidality. Clarify what will put you at risk to say. All the therapists I've met were cool with not calling the forced institutionalization hotline for suicidal ideation. Thoughts are different from actual present willingness to attempt it.
What matters most is your comfort level in talking to the therapist. You are paying money to have someone listen to you, for once. If the therapist isn't working for you, walk out. You're the one who knows your needs best.
Nothing is easy and everything is confusing. But having a therapist listening and helping contextualize things was something I needed. Sometimes they have good life advice, too.
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forgive me for being this dark. but all these people saying Taylor Swift is too perfect and too privileged to suffer would have pitied her and championed her as an underdog if she had successfully killed herself like she said she wanted to over and over on TTPD.
Movies would have been made about the last few years leading up to her death, they’d make theories about whose fault it REALLY is, they’d shame and scold each other for how they treated her, comparing her to Marilyn Monroe and Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse. And she would be dead just the same. And they would learn nothing.
They’re playing Drown The Witch. If she lives, her life isn’t that bad. If she dies, oh my god, she was suffering, we should’ve known.
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Music from the Swing Era: album covers by David Stone Martin (1913-1992).
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