Moments in Harry Potter that hit right in my heart. In Prisoner of Azkaban, when Severus has his wand against Sirius's neck and says "Do I detect a flicker of fear?"

That moment, when he finally got the upper hand against one of his abusers and said *It's your turn to be afraid*

Can't help but see a parallel to the start of the story when Harry aims his wand at Vernon and says "Try me."

These two moments, facing off against your abuser and taking the upper hand, these two moments here.

My New Beginning (My way out)

(Mentions of disabilities, mental, emotional, physical abuse, S*x abuse, bullying, self harm, suicidal ideation, Domestic violence, be wary before reading).

So where to begin……. This is about familial abuse, so this has been something happening my whole life!!! My “mother” is a narcissist. She bullied me and my sister our whole lives, I am the third of 5 kids, she would pit us against each other and watch us fight to laugh and make fun, most of my insecurities stem from her clowning me in front of my brothers, funny enough she is NEVER ALONE, my father he abused us including her but he left and I thought we were better off for it, I wasn’t wrong but little did I know the monsters she’d allow into our lives after, I was getting molested by older brother and my mothers boyfriend before I even got to elementary school, my brother started when I was insanely young, and I still protected him as I didn’t know what tf was happening, her boyfriend started when I was in 4th grade, he wasn’t a drunk or anything just a pedophile, she knew he was because he got caught cheating on her with teenage girls and yet she still kept him around for a decade so wherever we moved he was there and I started to become angry, rage grew inside my soul like a fire that had no intention of burning out, on top of that he was abusive hitting and bruising me and my siblings who all have disabilities, you know my sister as she’s a tarot reader on here so I’m not going into specifics about them, but she would sit and watch and do nothing, she would hide food with him, have us stand in the corner for hours on end while they are food in front of our faces “mmmm that’s good”. She even forced to drink her breast milk in front of him, she despised us having friends, soo when I would have a friend she wouldn’t let me see them or go out or we would move, I’ve never stayed more than 2-3 years in any place my whole entire fuccin life! I don’t know anything but toxicity when it came to relationships, I tried to kill myself multiple times but they failed so I decided to be a burner, I just burned myself, the fire it was the rage inside me felt outside, I decided to tell my mother about the molester from her boyfriend when I was 15, because I told someone in school he told me I had to tell her or he would so I wrote her a letter, he had a gun in the house and put it to his head and said he was going to kill himself (gaslighting), she kicked him out for a day, brought him back then told me that I had to share her with him, so at 15 and with her knowledge of him molesting me, we all moved to California, we drove there, and that was awful, we all fought and he screams how he didn’t care about what he did to me and he was laughing in front of her, i ended up just sweeping that under the rug because i went to focus on my career I had acting classes so my mind was focused but I met a guy from school and he automatically hated him (the boyfriend) he told my mother and automatically I was told to stay away from him, I didn’t I had got arrested the year before so I had community service and he was helping me with that, I told him what happened I thought we were meant to be but he cheated on me with his sister and I found myself in her another Jerry springer bind but I found that out months after we broke up, but he stood up for me and he was the only one on the outside that actually came and defended my honor as sick as he is I will give him credit for that. A year later we’re moving bacc to NYC, before we did though, they got Into a fight (my mother and the boyfriend), pretending to break up, he went to the gas station filled a gas canister wit gas came back to the front door and poured gasoline on himself, obviously not lighting himself on fire because it was an act, he went to jail a week or two later she invited him back into her life, I already knew that it was going to happen because the shit was predictable at that point, Skipping ahead to 17, we moved back to NYC, we came separately, I came on a plane with my mother and the rest of my siblings drove back with him, because obviously she trusted him with children why wouldn’t she? She already knew what he was capable of, she didn’t care 🤷🏽‍♀️, when we got back to NyC she

Promises me that he’s not coming back into our lives that it’s over this time, I told her he’s going to gaslight her she says not gonna work, fast forward to when they all made it to the apartment, she approached me with the sob story I said he would come in with so she said she is letting him stay, I was going to just walk away, but my sister told me that she fought with him on the drive here, she stood up for me, he yelled at my older brothers and her that he did What he did to me cos he truly wanted to and he’s unapologetic for it, the flame it was uncontrollable and I blacked out I went into the room and I kicked him out myself. He yelled bullshit but he left, she hated me for that, so she started to sneak him in secretly then they started hiding food again, leaving us to literally shake, starve and feel sick, we learned how to improvise with what little we had. I was going to school so I didn’t care, speaking of school I was supposed to be on my last year of school, and I couldn’t graduate because my principal explained because I moved so much my credits were all over the place, so she told me I had to repeat a year that was devasting to me because in California I only had a few credits before I could graduate, I got two jobs because I just wanted to save up money to leave, she told my grandma lies oh she has a whole bunch of recruits that she tells constant lies too about us and what we do never the truth because they already feel she’s sick but they do nothing about it, family tho right? My grandma called me and so again we told her the truth and she helped us kick him out for good, (so that’s the end of boyfriend 1…. For now) I was finally 18!! So again I have no friendships nothing ever stuck, but I had two jobs and I was saving up for an apartment, I shouldn’t have done this but I was so proud of myself! I told her (my mother) that I was going to move out, get my own apartment and live on my own, she didn’t like that, she was saying that it was disloyal and what was she going to do without me and she needed help because most of my siblings have a disability, so I stayed, I couldn’t be disloyal when she needed me, that was a big mistake. A year later we are moving BACC to California because she has found A NEW BOYFRIEND, some guy she met over the phone, guess who helped her move back to California though (boyfriend #1), my brother who molested me left to go into the army, don’t worry he’s not in it any longer dishonorable discharge (it was fitting). So anyways the new boyfriend was some white guy who I felt meant no harm the fuccin dude was quiet and softspoken so I paid it no mind, but I was wrong, he was a drunk, not only was a he a drunk, he was a RACIST DRUNK! Did she care???? NOOOOOOO! Everytime I tried to leave she stopped me, til we fought then she would say to leave knowing I had nowhere to go, if I had a friend to go too she would hate that friend, funny thing is most friends that want to take me away from this be friends she introduced me too, she wanted to be friends with them but they wanted to be my friend yes they are younger people, I don’t have those friends anymore because they were very similar to her go figure right ? I thought I should call the cops, call for help, but everyone I reached out too did nothing INCLUDING COPS! So I felt backed into a corner, well I had my sister my little sister my rock, funny fun fact though, her new boyfriend ALSO LIKES LITTLE GIRLS oh and BOYS! He got arrested and she stood up for him, while he was doing that in her home, she would run away and leave us all my siblings in the house with him drunk calling us the N word, kicking doors down and causing mess, I couldn’t leave my siblings who couldn’t understand what was happening behind all I knew is that they were scared and their mother wasn’t there all she did was make excuses for him she told me I should kill myself, that I was a cunt that didn’t deserve her name, ( I don’t have it, I have my dads last name), that I was going to be nothing more than a whore, by this time………………

She knows about what my brother did to me I didn’t mention that confession because she just skipped right over it. She literally didn’t care and she told me to my face she believed he was only playing with me and I am confusing it all and that I know nothing about it because it happened to her and she the only one who knows pain and my pain doesn’t matter she tried to assault me and again tried to tell family but she already took the narrative so they weren’t trying to hear me out or help, in august of this year, me and my sister left, we went to stay in a motel for a week or two, with the help of my booking agent we didn’t have enough money to stay and the homeless shelters were all full and we’re not answering back, so we had no choice but to go back, we are back and nothing even a week later back to the drunk racist, not eating, starving routine, I wanted to die and I felt like a failure! I couldn’t even get out of bed I felt like I deserved this I got my sister out to end up right back 2 WEEKS LATER?!?!! I fuccin hated myself! He was drunk and again causing ruckus, she came back a morning later and was telling him to leave, he was going to hit her, my brother (diagnosed with MR) was out there with my younger brother (autism) and they were scared and standing up for her and the boyfriend was in their faces what was I supposed to do???? Me and my sister tried to help and she tried to tell us to leave for helping her!!!!! Me and my sister decided to just call the police, they started to fight, and he tried to kill her, the police got him out, and they told her that she was lucky to have her kids here, we cleaned up her room after he broke her whole house apart, I mean EVERYTHING IS TORN APART RN!!!! she decided that she was going to move down to Texas with the molesting brother because he has kids, (oh yeah other fun fact she kept forcing me to have kids she even wanted me to give her my eggs so she can have kids with both of those boyfriends she approached me TWICE ABOUT IT, one she wanted my eggs and the other she wanted me to be pregnant for her!) So now my brother has kids she was like saying she knows I’ll never have kids and I’ll be forever alone, that no one will ever love me, anyways skipping to now my birthday came and left I’m 27 now! The housing program that me and my sister signed up for began to pend and we found a place! We didn’t tell her we found a place and that we were in a program we didn’t even tell her that we went down the city. We ended up getting a random woman come into the house and serve us she was evicting us (my mother) even on the eviction notice it says no fault just cause, she didn’t even tell me, so we have 60 days to leave and vacate her premises! Funny enough yesterday my sister got her APPROVAL NOTICE!!! Mine is still pending but I know that I’m getting approved and if all goes well we will be in our transitional home on SATURDAY! We finally did it, dug our way out, I didn’t think that I could and that I would, I would’ve been opened up to someone if I didn’t believe that it was against the family or that no one would love me like she did, she painted the world as such a unloving place and that this toxicity was normal and for the longest I believed it, but I am waking up now! And I am looking forward to beginning my life AWAY FROM HER! Just me and my rock @silvershiningtarot I AM NOT ASHAMED OF MY STORY, I’m only ashamed I kept quiet for so long, I allowed them to get away with everything and they took control of the narrative but I’m taking my power back! This is the first chapter of my success story! I’m not looking for claps or sympathy or for yky to actually care or anything I just wanted to put my story out there because this shit shouldn’t be in the dark anymore, mothers can be demons, family can be a dark and scary word for people and they’re not family, only relation! And I wanted to make that clear! RELATION DOESN’T MEAN FAMILY

I feel more familial love from you guys on here than I ever did anywhere! My music gave me hope and tarot gave me community

You deserve to know your reader through and through!

Thank you!!! For listening and taking the time for hearing this sad ass story, I hope I didn’t drag your day down! 💋

Reading the Lolita novel I don’t think I was prepared for how much I would...platonically love Lo as a character. She’s so smart and funny and reckless, she’s crass and weird and messy in ways that Humbert fucking hates and I absolutely adore. 

I just wanna take reach into the page and set her free to be as bright and beautiful as she already is. She’s trying so hard to survive and keep her sanity, and people find it so easy to judge her based on that.

She’s trapped in a truly horrendous situation, there’s no getting around that if you have an ounce of reading comprehension and she’s by no means a perfect victim, she’s on edge and traumatized and rude and angry and quietly crying for help in ways that people either can’t or aren’t willing to put in the effort to see. She’s a little girl going through hell. 

And even then, even through Humbert’s extremely narrow, objectifying gaze, Lo’s personality shines through, stuff that you never get from an aesthetic post about her. She has an IQ of 150. She’s a baby bisexual. She loves comic books. She dances just for herself. She wants to be in the school play. She fixates on pop culture and kitsch as a coping mechanism. There are scenes with her where I could swear I’m reading a description of a 50′s understanding of a character with ADHD. 

She forms relationships with other kids, away from Humbert, despite his efforts to control her every move, and even though those relationships are so often stunted and suppressed they’re there, they’re real, she’s real. For all that Humbert tries to control the narrative, Lo still exists as her own person, even if there’s so much of her we’ll never get to see. 

I don’t know, I just didn’t really expect for Nabokov to go so hard giving Lo complexity and depth, both as a young female character and a child enduring horrifying, sickening abuse. I wish Lolita was remembered for that instead of the “tragic love” and “coquette” shit.

To other systems:

Has anyone else struggled with the need to maintain a sense of individuality as an alter apart from the rest of the system?

I know we're all part of one whole as opposed to me being a whole and the rest of them being extra parts, but it's so hard to come to terms with that. I feel like the others are trying to "steal" my personality or identity, even if I know we're all part of the same person per say.

I know this is entirely a mentality or insecurity issue I'm going to have to figure out and fix myself, but has anyone else had a similar experience? If so, tips??

- 🎐

Your abuser might try to gaslight you and guilt trip you into believing you owe something to them, that you were the one who was wrong all along. This is your reminder that none of this was your fault and that it is okay to end relationships with people who have abused you, because you don't owe them anything.

Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.

- Khaled Hosseini

I am struggling right now.

I feel like my insides are shaking, but my body is still. It's similar to feeling nauseous.

My body aches, especially my neck, and my eyes are fatigued. I'm literally curled up in a fetal position as I'm writing this.

Mentally, I'm at one of my lowest times and have been writing in my "Dark Journal."

I want to escape this mental torture.

It's very difficult to put into words what I'm feeling... beyond depressed because it feels much deeper than that.

I just know that I'm not in a safe place.

it really fucking sucks that ppl like me have to feel silenced about being abused and assaulted. this society is so fucked up. we should feel free to share our stories if we want to, without fear of what would happen to us, our belongings, our family and people we know, without fear of being scrutinized, made into a joke, and disbelieved. this fear is frustratingly suffocating. i'm so ready to speak up right fucking now and regain ownership of my life right fucking now but i am understandably paranoid.

girls don’t want men girls want to know what they would’ve been like if none of the bad things happened

After all the years of abuse I had to endure, I don't want to hear a single Jesus freak tell me how it was all "god's plan" or that "god didn't intend it to be that way." Go fuck yourselves and stay away from abuse victims/survivors.

We need to stop demonizing some mental illnesses that aren't as known by many people until it becomes just another illness among so many others any human being alive can develop. At the same time, some people who suffer from trauma might refer to their abuser suffering from an illness not as a way to attack them nor the illness itself, but because survivors often try to find reasons for what happened to them, and they are just explaining what led to their trauma, without demonizing their abuser's illness.

We should not invalidate the feelings of people who have trauma as much as we should not invalidate those who have illnesses. The truth is that many people who have mental illness might have suffered abuse themselves.

Talking about personal traumatic experiences doesn't necessarily mean attacking the abuser's disease itself, or being an ableist. It is possible someone is only talking about their specific case, the details of their lives, their own private lives, without making any remarks or generalizations or accusations about those who also suffer from mental illness.

Both sides can and should be validated when one understands that just because one person with an illness was abusive, it doesn't make everyone who suffers from it an abuser, and the other understands that they are talking about an specific situation, they are talking about their abuse, and not attacking the disease you suffer from or saying that you are abusive since you have it too. Both of you understand that each one has their personal history with your respective problems and don't judge, demonize, or invalidate each other.

We can validate people who suffer from trauma at the same time we validate those who suffer from illnesses that were demonized as "abusive". But until we validate that, people in mental health spaces who come from very complex backgrounds might get their individual and private experiences put in a box labeled as "crazy".

If we don't start fighting for our rights (in the ways we realistically can) and accepting each other more and more, start looking deeper into ourselves and others and realizing humans are complex, then doctors, therapists or anyone in the medical area will still treat us with the same ableism, and all of us suffer to feel seen, heard, validated and helped on the hands of someone raised in an invalidating, ableist society who doesn't bother to change to help their own patients.

Support the rights of those who suffer from any mental illness, from trauma, from PTSD, from chronic illnesses. If we are there for each other, understanding that we are all different and complex but all of us are valid in our struggles, we can come together to ask for more inclusivity, for more rights, for less ableism and accessible health care. Please don't attack someone's illness, especially when you suffer from one yourself. Please don't invalidate others. And remember not to do it to yourself too. You have value. We all do. So it is best we coexist.

Liv

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