My family is so fucking exhausting I'm so fucking sick of it

Ok ok BUT litg s5 MC's villa "bestie" (who is also a LI btw) is kind of the worst too???? She goes from wanting to fuck MC's ex - who cheated on her - to wanting to fuck the girl he cheated on her with!???

If Lottie was in this season she would have murdered Dana with her bare hands on national television just for the sheer audacity

Seriously why is everyone in this season such an asshole!?

Dana is supposed to be MC's bestfriend but she never actively defends MC against all the bullying, cheating and boderline sexual harassment. And blatantly flirts with, tries to get with the guy who cheated on MC + the girl he cheated on her with, without even talking about it with MC

Alfie says he's getting serious feelings for MC, that she's the only one for him and that he wants to be in a serious committed relationship with her but then, less than a day later, the villa gossip, who is known to overreact, tells him she saw MC and her ex kissing 5minutes after MC told Alfie she wanted to be serious too (the ex that Alfie knows cheated on MC and knows is now constantly harrassing her) And instead of talking about it with MC, like someone in a normal relationship would, his first response is to kiss his bestfriend's partner and then shut MC out when she tries to explain what happened

Kat tells everyone she saw MC and MC's ex kissing? flirting? and doesn't listen to MC when MC tries to tell her that she was trying to get him to leave her alone

Suresh cheated on MC who was his long term partner, came on the show and constantly flirted with MC no matter how much she tried to get him to leave her alone, acted like MC hiding the fact that she was going to propose to him before she found out he cheated was somehow as bad as the fact that he cheated????? Says he's going to get over MC, couples up with another girl and then constantly hits on MC while he's coupled up with her, laughs and enjoys it when the girl he's coupled up with yells at MC, in front of MC's new boyfriend, because she saw Suresh flirting with MC, says he's changed while constantly doing what he did to MC to the girl he's currently with, never believe's MC when she tells him she's not interested because apparently he knows her better than she knows herself and just is so forceful with the flirting, says she'll come back to him, implies that him cheating is not as bad as other guys cheating because he and MC knew each other for longer?????????????????????????????????????? God there's so much shit he does that's so uncomfortable and sleezy

Arlo acts as if MC's the sole cause of every bad thing in the world???? Suresh could kick a baby in front of Arlo and she'll turn around and accuse MC of mass murder. Seriously your partner's constantly flirting with a girl who's desperately trying to get him to leave her alone and you blame the girl for it?????? this is an actual conversation they had, Arlo: are you still interested in suresh? MC, *for the 100th time*: No. Arlo: don't lie to me, I know you are! Me: ?????????????? THEN WHY DID YOU ASK AGHHHHHHH

and I read spoilers because I had to see if this was all just a horrid fever dream I was having and I know it only gets worse

This season is so frustrating. The only reason I'm getting through it without losing my entire mind is because I'm replaying S2 as well. This particular season would have done so much better as a psychological horror and I'm being 100% serious. There's at least some degree of gaslighting going on with the way people are trying to convince MC she feels a certain way no matter what she says or that they feel a certain way no matter what they do. the entire premise of being stuck in a bright sunny place where a person who hurt you deeply keeps playing mind games with you - hungrily chasing you no matter how much you try to run, promising he loves you but setting up your misfortune and laughing at it, no one believing you when try to tell them, no one listens to you when you plead for help, even the people who are supposed to help you are slowly turning against you or have been lying from the beginning, you're surrounded by people and yelling to be heard but they all laugh like nothing's wrong, you're surrounded by people and yet you're so utterly alone

I hope MC poisons their water supply

i finished two books over the past four days........ master of one by jaida jones & dani bennett and reverie by ryan la sala

long post under cut :3

master of one

this one... was kind of disappointing at the end lmao.

master of one had a lot of build-up to a climax that seemed... pretty lackluster. it reads pretty heavily like a book leading into a sequel, so i hope the next installment drops soon because i was left deeply unsatisfied by the ending lol. also i wish shining talon and the rest of the fae characters were more interesting... they all seemed so flat!!! they barely had any screentime and no POV chapters; everything about them was filtered through the perspective of others which i feel was a damn shame.

shining talon was there from the beginning and by the end of the book i feel like he was the same person, almost no growth happened. i mean i guess he and rags had a romantic thread for the whole thing which felt a bit rushed in my opinion but maybe that's what fae are just like so eh....

also the fact that rags was sixteen had me. squinting. couldn't get invested in it because of how weirded out i was by the concept of a centuries old fae prince and a teenager 💀

especially since rags was SO mean to shining talon for the whole book. most of that had to do with his inferiority complex but still. get it together, rags.

on the plus side i loved the worldbuilding SO much. love that revisionist history theme that keeps getting callbacks. the fae turning out to be less cruel and more complex, victims of a war they tried to survive and brutally lost. the queen's mysterious plans and strangely lengthened lifespan vs. her lack of a real matriarchal heir and how that resentment breeds in her sons. the rebellion and all the characters in it!!! rags's backstory with dane as well. sad as hell ����😭 the strange creatures that bond immediately with their chosen masters, how they become two halves of a complete whole. the mirrorcraft!!! how does it work!!! how do the sorcerers channel their magic, how does the red cloth work, and why the fuck was morien SKINLESS. LIKE WHAT.....

anyways final score: 6/10 and mostly because the story is unfinished and the final climactic scene with morien was super underwhelming. maybe book 2 will raise the score for me in hindsight but until it comes out (if it comes out) i can't say.

reverie

oh my god kane (main character) irritated me so much the whole fucking book. i understand that he's been through a traumatic experience and know that he's dealing with the consequences of actions he doesn't even remember doing due to his amnesia is making him lash out but MAN....... understanding it and tolerating it are two very different things

like i sympathize with his situation i really do: it's shitty, nobody seems to be able to help him, and the people who seem to know more about it are constantly trying to gaslight him into believing that nothing's wrong. but he was so fucking RUDE to his sister who was the only one in his corner the whole way through until she, too, fucking snapped from all the disrespect he was slinging her way.

not to mention the fact that he had the rules of the dreamworlds/reveries explained to him multiple times and he STILL IGNORED THEM. KNOWING THAT DOING SO PUTS PEOPLE'S LIVES IN JEOPARDY. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

and it's not a "oh kane forgot" NO THIS BITCH WILLFULLY PUT THE LIVES OF OTHERS IN DANGER. and for what!!!! to do selfish shit??? that had absolutely no basis in logic??? he'd do something dumb, realize it was dumb, and then double-down. everything he did in the book actively hindered or harmed everyone else AND himself too! i hated him! the whole! fucking! book!!!

he lost his fucking mind over his sister like my guy can you just pump the brakes. pump the FUCKING brakes. stop ruining everyone's lives because you don't want and don't know how to fix things properly!!!!! GOD........ EVERYTHING YOU TRIED TO DO IN ORDER TO FIX THINGS MADE THINGS WORSE. EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!!!!!

the others (the name of his friend group) didn't deserve all the shit he put them through, especially after it was revealed that his amnesia was SELF-INFLICTED. he straight up ASKED to have his memories removed!!! and the others were just keeping away from him because they didn't want him dragged back into their world without the knowledge necessary to survive it. and even after he was told this he was mean as hell!! which okay, i would ALSO be pissed about being kept in the dark like that but his friends were like. they constantly tried to help him and for what. to be disrespected at every turn? blown off and ignored? given the cold, spiteful shoulder??? LEAVE HIS ASS!!! IF HE WANTS TO BE ALONE THEN LET HIM BE ALONEEEEEEE AARRRRGGHGHGHGUIHG

he pulled his head out of his ass for the last 5 or 6 chapters of the book but my god he pissed me off so much. fuck that guy. dean, sophia, and the others deserve better.

final score: also a 6/10 but only because the supporting cast was so good. the main antagonist poesy was also extremely iconic with the looks and the dark confidence. literally gaslit gatekept and girlbossed through the whole book.

edit: also it should be noted that even though some of the characters annoyed me, i still finished master of one in two days and i finished reverie in one. they were engaging enough for me to keep reading...... yeah :3

URGENT QUESTION TO ALL MY FOLLOWERS, I NEED YOUR FEEBACK!

Okay so here's the situation. I am asking you all to please please read this through and like, maybe tell me if I made the right decision... because I feel terrible about this. I would love it if someone told me if this is correct or wrong and I should've done something else. I'm not a popular blog, so whoever this post might reach (which is not going to be a lot of people) please please take some time out to read this through. I know it's a really long post, but I really really need your opinion on this. If you don't have the time right now, maybe just reblog it and save it for later. It would also help this post reach more people. Also please check the tags for the trigger warnings.

I have been going to a therapist for about 5 months now. My mom, as you probably know by now, is narcissistic and my dad enables her, along with my mom's parents who we live with. I have no siblings, and I just turned 17. Since we live in Asia, all you desi people know how hard society is on us when we go against our parents, who are supposed to be godly figures.

So all along, my therapist, (for confidentiality's sake we'll call him Sam, 21), has been bent on making me talk to them. I dont know why. I've tried explaining so many times that talking to my mom is not an option because 1) NARCISSISTIC PEOPLE DON'T EVER CHANGE and 2) my mom WILL use all my words against me and twist them into whatever she wants and later bring them up to bring me down. You guys with narcissistic parents know this shit too well.

It's not like I haven't ever even tried talking to them, I have! I've done it so many times, with a calm tone, in the most diplomatic way possible. There were times I tried to get the point across by crying and being desperate too. There were also times where I thought anger might work out.

It never did. It doesn't. It won't, because she is not looking for solutions or for mending the bond between us. All she wants is to infantilize me and keep me under her control forever. Mom and dad both want this. They don't ever want to let me out of their sights. They don't let me out of their sights.

A very long story short, I am supervised 24/7, I don't have much of a phone, I don't have friends, I don't have any family members who would support me, I don't have much of a family either tbh. I am monitored like crazy, gaslighted every single day, lied to, manipulated like hell, and babied to the point where it's just narcissistic infantilization and not concern anymore. To them, I'm a baby when it suits them, and I'm an adult when it suits them better that way. She doesn't care about what I think because apparently I'm a liar and to all those people out there who know the smear campaigning and the flying monkeys and the triangulation....yeah. All of that happens on a regular basis. I know I'm not providing any concrete proof and situations but please believe me. Please believe me. My memory is so shot I can't remember anything and i know it doesn't work out in my favor but please please believe me I'm telling the truth...

I have made three suicide attempts, I used to cut and was very badly addicted to it, and now I don't cut, but yeah I'll be sharing the reason in a little bit. Please hold on, this means a huge deal to me. Please don't scroll past this.

So Sam never really even had a smidge of doubt that my mom might be narcissistic, and I wasn't given the benefit of doubt either. After months of research when I myself figured that it might be narcissism, I told him and he went along with it. He does believe me now. But somehow I don't feel very understood. I dont feel better after I talk to him. I feel like my problems are trivial and that I'm just not working hard enough. I feel misunderstood and I never feel satisfied. I asked him for tips to deal with crushing loneliness and panic attacks and stuff like that, but I never receive real answers. When I asked for help with my suicidal thoughts, he just said that it's never an option and that's it. That's the only answer I got. When I asked for help with cutting, the only answer I got was that if I even tried to cut again, I'd lose him.

Like. Is that really how therapy is supposed to work?

Half of the time we just while time away, talking as if we're friends and I mean, it's a paid session. We're not very financially well off right now, what with the pandemic and everything, and we're paying him 2000 INR a week. It's a lot for us because we ain't exactly rich. That's like 10,000 INR a month.

I try to talk, I'm told that I don't stop talking and don't let him speak. When I don't speak, I'm not speaking enough. I dont feel comfortable anymore in a way that I think I should be with a therapist. I have recieved more helpful advice from actual PhD psychologists who are making videos on dealing with narcissism on YouTube. I feel more understood by them than I ever have with him. So many times I have left the session crying and hours later I'd still be stifling tears. So many times I don't feel heard and I feel like if I told him something he'd be angry. Sometimes he snaps and is like way too straightforward and it just doesn't do well with me. He doesn't support a lot of stuff that I support, like anti body shaming, especially for overweight people and stuff like LGBTQIA+ too, really. I'm mocked in an underhand way if I express that I support stuff that he doesn't really like. It's not straightforward but... I can't shake the feeling.

I do sometimes look forward to the sessions, if only because I'll have someone to talk to...but that's pretty much it. I'm not getting anything out of this. He claims that no one will understand me the way he does, and he keeps comparing my life to his, which I don't like. He says that in a way he and I both very similar and he relates to me and then proceeds to tell me about events in his life. He says that I'm his favorite client and now a good friend too, but I feel like that's not how it should be. And I do make an effort to listen to him tell me stuff about his life but...shouldn't it be the other way round?

Now I'm not saying that he is a bad person. I have loads of my own issues too; severe depression, crippling anxiety, overthinking every freaking thing, I'm like 100% sure I have complex PTSD from this childhood trauma, constant pain everywhere, crazy headaches, flashbacks, nightmares, hallucinations sometimes, and major emotion repression. I'm dealing with a million and one things right now and yes that might be causing me to feel worse about this situation than I should. I admit that I'm not exactly thinking about this in a diplomatic way...but somehow it doesn't feel right, and hence this really long post.

If you're still here, thank you so much. Your reading this is doing something that means a lot to me. Truly.

He exercises a lot, and he gave me a whole schedule to follow with the meals I should eat and the exercise I should do and somehow I never feel like I'm doing enough. If I miss out I can't tell him because he always reprimands me for messing up. I dont feel comfortable about opening up and then he forces me to do that and then when I do I don't feel better.

Lately, we'd been talking about how I need to tell my parents to their face what I feel is wrong with their actions, and how without that happening there's no point to our sessions anymore. Straight up went that if I don't talk to them on this Sunday, then we're not going to have sessions anymore.

I tried explaining to him many times how my mom will never change, how I don't want to enrage them further, how I don't want to give her more information on my life that she can use against me again...but no use.

He insisted over and over again on how she has no idea what she's doing to me, and if we just talked it out, my whole situation will be fine. This is just a huge misunderstanding.

I tried so hard to make him understand that that's not how it works for her, she doesn't want to resolve things and she'll just jump at the first chance she gets to use all my information against me, but no. I tried telling him that I have talked to her before and that I also used to think that if I just told her what they were doing wrong, then they would understand and mend their ways, I mean it took me YEARS to convince myself that it was never gonna happen! I tried it so many times and everytime I fell for this trap and everytime I regretted it but he doesn't get that! At all! That they're never gonna change!

Instead of helping me get over them, instead of telling me how to move on, instead of helping me grieve over my entire childhood... he was forcing me to talk things out with them, because if I didn't tell them I would be keeping it inside me and letting that fester would be bad.

I agree that it's not healthy for me to keep things to myself, which is why I talked to him right? And the things which are troubling me cannot be resolved with them because they refuse to change their ways!

The only thing that would come out of that family discussion is me at a disadvantage and them at an advantage by having all the latest scoop on my life and then have my mom (who is a doctor who has also done a course on CBT) psychoanalyse me even more than she does now. I'd be tailed harder. It will get worse and I know it. I've seen it and I promised myself that I would never make the same mistake of opening up to them honestly ever again. And here Sam wanted me to that very thing.

And I agreed initially, I tried convincing myself that maybe it'll work out and after all, Sam will be defending me and everything (even though he did say he would support them if he found them correct) but I didn't feel good about it. I remembered that a therapist is supposed to make you feel more at ease and let you take your own time to process through things and never force a client to do something if they had doubts about it.

And so I texted him today, and I refused. He said we won't have any more sessions, but I said it's fine. Because I don't want to go to him anymore anyway. I think I would rather have no one to talk to, than have someone belittle my experiences and just overall make me feel worse than I did when I first entered the session.

There's more stuff that was related to this, and if you guys want to know something before making your judgement of this situation, please please please ask me, message me, but please just have a bird's eye view on this whole thing and tell me if I made the right decision...please.

I would really appreciate some feedback right now.

Thank you so,so much for sticking with me till the end of this post. It means the world to me, honestly. I couldn't thank you more.

So I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw this post that had a thread of therapy gems from people on twitter. I was reading them and a lot of them were things I knew already some I just learned and some that i felt but didn't recognize I knew. I came across one specific one though that I knew was really for me.

THIS! and I cannot stress enough THIS! I tried to explain this to someone one but it didn't come out as well as I had hoped.

I was physically abused before kindergarten. Like beatings abused. When we moved I ended up mentally abused by narcissistic family members. The self hate they projected as life lessons were very detrimental. I was alone in everything. Prey in my home and my own family. For what I used to think was my fault or sometimes what I knew was nothing. The biggest influence in my life was a broken self hating narcissistic compulsive liar a replica of the egg donor that abandoned me because she never wanted me to begin with.

Well, fast forward to middle school where I started to really find myself attracted to guys but knew I never planned on acting on it. Too self conscious from the bullying and abuse I dealt with at home. I make it to high school and I experienced a few sexual assaults which made those feelings so much worse. My best friend always made sure the men or boys that came around knew I was shy and a virgin and to stay away from me. It was the virgin word that made me more of a target though so when she thought she was helping she wasn't really. I made to 10th grade with just some gropings forced touchings and a few people shoving their tongues down my throat though serious not grand on the scale of sexual assaults. However, just when i thought I was gunna be ok the guy my best friend was talking to came to hang outside one night with her while I was there. I did my normal mind my business let me go somewhere else. I didn't get far it was dark outside and my best friend didn't want me to go far so we all just ended up leaning against the same car by his friend's apartment building door (which was in the same parking lot as my own). Anyways, they talked i went to a side where they weren't and did what I normally did, talk to myself to pass the time. The next thing I knew he was walking up to me with this look in his eye but there was this smile in his face. He didn't even say anything and the next thing I knew he was aggressively tryna to put his hand in my pants. I said no and I tried to move but he grabbed me. I tried to grab his hands and he in a swift movement had both of them in one hand still trying to get in my pants with the other hand. The look in his eyes is something I'll never forget. He enjoyed the fight. He was on a mission and he was gunna succeed. But then he didn't because my best friend jumped on him i got a hand loose and we fought him off. He went back to his friends house and we went to ab adult neighbor friend. Well, I didn't I sat outside and cried. I told 3 adults that day what happened. The male adult got really angry and set out like he was gunna do something. The two women held me and let me cry. Nothing happened to him. In fact my best friend kept dealing with him and he ender up trying to do the same thing to her except his nails breached her sweatpants but wasn't fully successful she got away. I had to look at him every day and every day he smiled that same smile at me. I was so afraid, but because of what I dealt with at home I didn't say anything so I just went about life. A few months later in drivers ed a guy I knew text me about how it was time for me to lose my virginity. I laughed it off but every day in class that was the text conversation. He tried to use charm but it was an aggressive charm. It triggered that feeling in me I felt against that car and I ended up submitting and letting him take it. I told myself that it was better than what happened before. What I didn't know was that boy was exactly like the female influence in my life.

It started off random sex meetings here and there. I lived my life he lived his. I made it to almost the end of 11th grade before I got kicked out. Went to job corps had other relationships and all that, but i was always uncomfortable and trying to find my own positive sexuality.

When I came back home that meant going back to what I knew. Who I lost my virginity to. Him and I messed around again except this time he was on some love shit. He would tell me he loved me but didn't want to be with me. He was in exclusive relationships multiple at a time with other people cheating on them the whole time all the while in my face telling me he loved me. We would argue because I tried to get him to understand that you can't if you do what you do. What I wasn't aware of what that he would tell people I was his best friend unless it was a male interested in me then it was oh we in love she loves me and blah blah blah.

Fast forward to a year and some change later. He raped me. I told someone at the time and I was laughed at like they didn't believe so I just kept it to myself and him and I went back to the way it was until I moved an hour away. I came back and it was back to business as usual. Then I moved across country and we didn't talk at all. Completely moved on from each other. I wasn't under his control anymore and my past traumas couldn't speak for me. When we did speak it was arguments and him trying to gaslight me some more. Every now and then he tries again and he fails miserably but it wasn't until recently that I realized that I dealt with him and his delusions of love because it was normal for me. The woman influence in my life impacted me that much that my love map was based on it. I dated men who were either too weak like my father or narcissists because of my aunt.

I spent this last decade trying to find what was wrong with me but it was those situations. I attracted what I was used to dealing with negatively. It wasn't me that did anything. Well, in retrospect I allowed these things and situations to happen because I believed what was being told to me. I know now through growth and a handful of positively triggering people that I don't want these people and situations. I still very much attract the same because I'm not fully healed but I don't engage.

Applying this feeling and plan to people i know is another story and definitely a work in progress 😩

If you made it to the bottom of this thanks for reading but thanks for letting me write it cause it feels good to write it down and let it out.

I don't know if you're the right person to tell this to but I think my mom's emotionally abusive. She gets mad whenever I get upset at her and gaslights me(probably??) whenever I call her out. I tried to tell her that she never apologized for hurting my feelings and she responded with, "I don't have to apologize to you" and it just made me feel worse. My family's Christian and all but I'm scared to tell the pastor(or anyone) because I don't want her to get mad at me. Do you have any advice?

I guess I’m a decent source for that, and I’ve got enough spoons today to answer this! 

I’ll be honest with you, a parent reacting with anger whenever you get upset with them is never a good sign. The “I don’t have to apologize to you” response is definitely emotionally abusive, especially if it’s not a reaction in a vacuum; anything as an isolated incident is understandable since we all make mistakes, but this doesn’t sound like a one-off thing. 

I had a couple of friends help me through being gaslit myself; here are a few articles on the topic, all of which are pretty brief:

Were You Born Under the Gaslight?

11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting

a resource post from r/RaisedByNarcissists

I’m not a psychologist in any capacity, but having been through it myself and having sat down and watched a film adaptation from where the term hails, here’s a sort of brief rundown of some things gaslighters will do to their victims:

making attempts to isolate you (from friends, from family members, etc; ex, excessive monitoring of your communications with friends to the point of taking your phone or computer so you can’t contact them, although this may be done subtly)

telling you that you have traits or attributes that do not feel or sound like things you do (ex, telling you that you are “forgetful” or “tend to lose things” even when you are not a forgetful person)

accusing you of lying, whether directly or indirectly (ex. asking, “what did you do with x thing?”, not believing you when you say you haven’t seen it; then when you find it, saying something to the effect of, “so you did know where it was”)

saying things with emotion and then denying there is any emotion behind their words (ex. if they say something to you in an angry way and when you say, “don’t be angry,” they say, “i’m not angry” and look at you like you’re crazy)

making you look bad in front of others (this can be making you look like a jerk, making you look inconsiderate, making you look foolish, like a buzzkill, etc.)

taking on a tone to imply that you are scaring them, even when you have not done or said anything out of the ordinary (if you’re thinking to yourself, “i didn’t even have any emotion behind this, i didn’t even sound angry” and they’re reacting like they’re afraid you’re going to hit you? that’s gaslighting)

whiplash mood swings and honeymooning - quickly going from being angry at you to putting on a convincing happy act in front of others; “honeymooning” is when, after a period of abuse, they start to act really nice and considerate towards you, making you think that they’ve changed, or maybe they do one really nice thing for you as a way to “make up” for their behavior (this never lasts, don’t buy it.)

turning themselves into the victim of every situation (guilt tripping you, especially in situations where you are telling them that they have hurt you. parents really love this one; it’s the “oh so i’m a horrible parent” comeback to any time you’ve ever said “this really hurt my feelings”)

infantalizing you (another parental favorite)

upsetting you in public, covertly, so that only you are aware of what they have said/done

threatening you with institutionalization

Another big one that I don’t think I mentioned here because it’s not one that came up in the film is outright denying that something ever happened. We tend to assume that’s something we’d be able to catch outright, but the truth of the matter is that their lies start out small and they do all of these things above & more for the sake of putting you off balance and confusing you so that by the time their lies get to the level of things you should be able to look at and say plainly, “that’s not true,” you’ve gotten to the point where you feel like you can’t trust your own memory or judgement of things. 

I’ll give a couple examples because the list of potential things they could lie about goes between fairly small stuff to extreme stuff:

my mother claimed once that she was never on her phone during dinner

my mother claiming she’d never seen movies that not only did i remember her commentary on, but i’m pretty sure one of them we actually saw in theatres

her claiming i’d never told her things that i most definitely had told her before

combined with that one: lying about the last time we’d had contact; right before i cut off all contact with her i was able to actually screenshot the dates and times of the last time we’d spoken and send them to her

lying about actual historical facts; in my mother’s case: refusing to acknowledge that ABA had, since its inception, used aversives and was abusive in practices, was the foundation of the conversion therapy movement. i sent her screenshot and link proofs of this as well and she did not appreciate it

she also claimed that she never threatened to kick me out of the house and claimed that i promised her i would start therapy before starting HRT - neither of which are accurate or even remotely believable (you really think i’d up and move w two weeks notice halfway across the country if i hadn’t been kicked out? i have to laugh.)

Another one that did not really get shown well in the film but that I believe i’ve read somewhere and have personal experience with, is that they like to keep you traumatized. It keeps you in a state of like... uncertainty, I guess you could say. It keeps you from feeling completely lucid or in control of things, and more likely to need help and depend on them for continued support. They may also be likely to mess with your head in other ways, like with the use of drugs - and I don’t just mean illegal ones; parents who have control over your medication and make sure you take it do have to potential to keep you up on medications you don’t actually need as a method of control. (Both of these can actually be seen in use in the film Midsommar w/ the suicide ritual being a method of continued trauma and the constant drug use being...obvious. I’m sure it gets used in other places too but that was the first one to come to mind, and Aster does a really good job of showing how effective that shit is.)

I don’t really know what other religions rules are like when it comes to confidentiality. I was raised Catholic, and there was a certain understanding about priests and ethics that pretty much went that unless you had a warrant (and on top of that, a damn good reason; iirc there have been plenty who don’t even testify under oath) they weren’t to tell anyone what you told them in confidence. If you know anything about their ethics regarding that or even feel that you can ask them safely about it, it could be a good place to start if you feel that church community is one where you feel safe. 

The biggest roadblock tbh is age and...idk how else to put this other than status? If you’re a minor there is, unfortunately, not a lot you can do to get away from her or get her to stop - especially if you’re in a situation where she’s really your only parent. Which is sort of what I meant by status; do you have another parent or step-parent, sibling, uncle, aunt, cousin, etc  you feel you could talk to about it? 

I really wish I could recommend school guidance counselors, but I’m not altogether sure they’re equipped with the right materials to help you out there. That being said, if you have a family member that you can trust to help you find a therapist outside of school, that would also be a really good resource; whether you’re an adult still living within that contact or a minor who can’t get away at the moment, a therapist can help you come up with some coping techniques to deal with it until you can safely get away. I’d suggest looking for one who specializes in trauma or in PTSD, esp if they have c-PTSD listed (the ‘c’ is for complex, which is a proposed addition(??) to PTSD that would separate a singular traumatic event from an ongoing traumatic situation like living in war zones, being a POW, domestic violence, etc). PsychologyToday has a search function for finding accredited therapists in your area that should list their specialties, credentials, and insurance plans they take. (And if you’re asked why you need one, honestly, extrapolate on a minor issue. Like tbh you could just say body image issues.) Therapists are bound by license-revoking ethics not to tell anyone what you discuss in therapy unless you are going to hurt yourself or someone else.

[If you feel you’re being monitored too closely at home and don’t have a way to get this information at school, I suggest asking a reference librarian to help you out. A lot of public libraries will have community resource information, and if they don’t have flyers or brochures out, reference librarians’ entire jobs are to help you access information whether that’s in the library or in the community! That’s why I work in LIS, lol.]

Other than that the two big pieces of advice I have are:

Build up a support network outside your family. If you feel you can’t trust them with this, or even if you’re worried about putting them in the middle of a difficult situation - and even if those aren’t concerns for you - it’s always good to have a support network that isn’t connected to the situation in some way. Most of my support network came from friends, a bulk of whom I knew from online, and from coworkers. The first person to tell me I was being gaslit was actually a coworker, who I talked to when I got kicked out and was shaken up about it. I had a p good relationship w my boss and all my coworkers there, so when I had to put in my two weeks’ notice I actually got an offer to stay with my boss in the event that the situation escalated, and also knew I could go and stay with my one of my best friends with their grandad, or their sister. In fact, right when that happened, my friends already had a kind of escape plan half-formed because things had just kind of been getting worse, and for almost a year now I’ve been living with my other best friend. Even if things never get to the point of you having to leave the house, just having people that you can rely on who will be on your side entirely is crucial to dealing with that kind of stress.

If you think or feel you may be getting gaslit - even if you’re thinking to yourself that you’re just blowing things out of proportion or that it’s “not that bad” (a lot of us go through that) - start keeping a journal of things your mother says to you. You don’t have to show anyone. Just keep it for yourself. It doesn’t even have to be anything important; like I said earlier, it can be as simple as off-handed comments about movies you’ve watched or appointments you’ve made or what have you. Write them down when they happen, date them, and then when she says something that you feel contradicts what you’ve already heard - you can fact-check it. You can also do this with screenshots if it’s over text or something, and if you think you can get away with secretly recording her on your phone that might help too. I don’t recommend telling her you’re doing this or pointing out when she’s been lying; in the event she doesn’t outright deny it she could flip it around to make herself the victim or spiral out of control and get worse - this is just for your peace of mind. The goal of gaslighting, to quote the movie, is to “systematically [drive] you out of your mind”. This would just be a way to reassure yourself that you’re not making it up, you didn’t forget, you’re not blowing things out of proportion. 

If you need anything more specific, feel free to let me know! I’m so sorry you’re going through this, it really just fucking sucks. But I believe you can make it! And there is an it - there’s an out, even if it’s hard to get to or takes long. 

this is nervewracking to ask, but i'm going to do it anyway. what did cyril do that was abusive? i can't see it, and honestly that just makes me scared that i do some of the same things and don't recognize it.

Hey, anon! This is a perfectly fine question and there’s nothing wrong with asking it (the issues lies in people who don’t see the abuse and then decided obviously that means it’s just not happening… and then go the extra mile of harassing the victim and their supporters). Thank you for asking! I’ll try to explain as best as I can, but the best advice I can give is to Google signs of emotional abuse and you can find a lot of lists of certain behaviors. Most are framed in terms of romantic relationships, but they can happen with friends, family, RP partners–anyone, in real life and online alike.Cut for length and general sensitive content dealing with emotional abuse and the dreaded “drama”

Here are some common ones that imo appeared in the logs:Isolation

Abusers often try to isolate victims from their friends/family and any other relations they might have. A sad and lonely victim makes for an easier target, as does one with no support network to help them escape their abuser. It also means less people around to find out about the abuser’s true nature. In the logs we see him try to cast doubt on her friends, telling her that her friends were bothering him and calling him “her keeper” or coming to him about her private conversations with them that they were displeased about (yet refusing to say who, to leave her questioning everyone), not mentioning her friends and tumblr followers were worried about her and trying to reach her until after the fact, etc.Walking on EggshellsA lot of people in abusive relationships describe it as feeling like “walking on eggshells.” They try to avoid doing things that might set off their abuser… but their abuser has to keep them from being content and confident to keep them in control, so they’ll find smaller and more irrational things to get upset at them about. Replying “if you want” to being asked about taking screenshots becomes a point of contention. “When are you going to stop being sad?” becomes an angry question. She’s blamed for deleting her own blog even though he knew she did it for her health/happiness. She’s blamed for the smallest inconvenience of people asking him if she’s okay even though she has no control over them choosing to reach out to him and for the most part didn’t even have any knowledge of it. Rather than answer them or ask them to stop contacting him, he ignores them, then blames her for him continuing to receive questions from them and the perception he believes that people think he had a falling out with her.

Gaslighting

This is what I saw the most of them in the logs and the most alarming thing. Gaslighting is turning everything around on the victim and making them doubt their own memory/sanity/intelligence/credibility. No, that didn’t really happen, you’re lying. No, what I did to you wasn’t that bad, it was normal, you’re just dramatic. No, I didn’t really say that, you’re misremembering. It’s a lot of lies, justifications, twisting words and scenarios, and taking things out of context.You can see how everything is spun as her fault and actually hurting him. Her deleting her blog is her fault. Him receiving messages about it is her fault. Her not doing anything about the messages is her fault, even though he just now told her it was bothering him, even though he just now told her he was still even receiving them past the first couple ones. Her being unhappy is her fault and a bother for him. Her not being enthused enough to do things with him is her fault, why doesn’t she appreciate that he so generously offered to hang out just to make her feel better? Obviously it’s all because she just hates him. He’s not treating her like an inconvenience, that’s just her mental illness telling her that. She tries to talk to him about her feelings and the way he’s treating her, and rather than acknowledging it, he turns it around–rather illogically and irrationally–about how he is actually the one being mistreated and inconvenienced.Passive Aggression 

A classic way to make people feel like shit but then pretend you did nothing and act like it’s all in their head. Look at the language he uses. Calling her “childish and rash” for “expecting” him to answer messages about her even though she never said she expected that. “It’s better than nothing” when she tries to do something to address the people messaging him as soon as she finds out it’s bothering him. “I don’t think you handled something well -  whatever -  people handle things in different ways” in regards to her deleting her blog for her own happiness. “I would have hoped we could resolve the problem if we’d talked it over” as if he wasn’t the obstacle in that.Those are just a few examples from the first album (the others get into less passive aggression, and more… downright aggression but still have plenty of examples, “delete them - so you don’t just repost them later without my knowledge again.”).ControllingnessThe staple of abuse is an attempt to control the victim. Look how weirdly hung up he is on her deleting her own blog and not doing it in a way he approved of (I almost wonder if he’s upset because he lost the status points of having a “tumblr famous” ship partner?). Look at how, even after they stopped being friends, he wants to keep her character on his ship page after she’d asked him to remove it and he admits to intentionally doing it to make her talk to him and give him leverage over her. Look at how he won’t let her go talk to her own friends in private for advice regarding him and shames her for it being an invasion of “privacy,” as if the logs showed some personal/RL info and not just him being unreasonable. Look at how concerned he is with people on tumblr not assuming the two of them are on bad terms. Look at how, even after they stop being friends, he browses her blogs for posts he believes are about him and tries to tell her what she can and can’t say on her own blogs.It’s evident in his branding post, as well. If people cut ties with him on terms he doesn’t like, they can’t RP having a brand–because he said so. Even if they change the story of how they received it and what character gave it to them. Even if they had that idea before they met him and asked him to RP it with them. Even if they change the look of the brand so it’s no longer his design. This isn’t even a unique idea or something he came up with on his own. Branding slaves has been a RL practice. It’s been made into a trope with… pretty much every fictional slave storyline.And while I’m generally of the opinion of the opinion that IC =/= OOC, IC does not exist within a void unaffected by OOC and vice versa. It’s just speculation since there’s nothing wrong with RPing the type of character he does, but there could very well be a reason he’s drawn to an antagonist/rapist/slaver/abuser/sadist/kidnapper type character.Lack of Care for BoundariesShe says she doesn’t want to be friends anymore, she blocks him, she asks him to delete her number, so what does he do? He not only keeps her number, but texts her because he hopes she hasn’t blocked him there, too. Not even to make an apology, just to say “I would have hoped we could resolve the problem if we’d talked it over” as if he hadn’t been an obstacle in that and “if you change your mind, I’ll be here” to put the onus of fixing the problem on her. When that doesn’t seem to get a response? He keeps their ship on his page despite her asking him to delete it and says, “I used it to make a point, since I knew that you wouldn’t continue the conversation unless I had something to get your attention.” He knows she doesn’t want to talk to him, so rather than honoring it or even finding a respectable way to approach her and make amends… he’s does something against her wishes that he know will upset her so she’ll feel compelled to reluctantly reach out to him. And when he gets that platform he wanted, does he use it to apologize? Nooope! He uses it as leverage to make her delete her screenshots of their conversation.Ultimatums How do you make someone do something they want to do? Give them an alternative that’s even worse. You want your name removed from my ship list so people don’t think you’re associated with me after you’ve realized I’m not someone you want to be around? You have to message me, delete your logs of our conversation, and not say anything about me. You don’t want me to embarrass you by posting logs of your confession to me and me rejecting you? You shouldn’t do things I don’t like, then… oh, but I’d never actually do that, don’t worry, silly! :) :) :)General Narcissism There are numerous times he demands he should be more appreciated. I did all these things to try to cheer up you, be grateful no matter how I’m treating you now. I’ve been so nice to you, how dare you say you feel like I don’t care even when I’m disregarding your feelings. Heck, look at the posts about his rules regarding his branding. He acts like it’s a revolutionary idea he came up with all his own and anyone he’s RPing with is being graced with this groundbreaking idea and if they keep some element of it in their RP after cutting ties with him they’re just “piggy-backing off" his time, effort, and energy to make up for their “lack of creativity” like srsly dude??Even though he refuses to apologize or acknowledge any wrongdoing, he really wants her to forgive and her to make things up to him, to still be his friend, to still have a positive opinion of him so he won’t lose that control. He can’t just let things die. Look at how many times he brings up being “villified” to her friends, the community, etc. He is desperate to have the world see him in a good light, which goes back to the other things mentioned. Control over the perceptions people have of him. The power of popularity and being liked to better isolate victims. Respect from the community to lend credibility that he’s trustworthy and definitely not gaslighting.

And not directed at you, anon, but in general.. for all the people trying to spin at as someone mad they got rejected who was actually terrorizing him… really? The only person who brought up her feelings in the logs was him doing it to spite her. idk I’ve dealt with a lot of admirers not taking rejection well and lemme tell you, I don’t invite them to hang out IRL (I try to avoid seeing them IRL, actually), I don’t ask them to hang out with me in game, I don’t go to lengths to contact them when they’ve blocked them, I don’t ship with them and try to parade it on my blog even after the ship has been retconned, I don’t desperately try to stay in contact with them and convince them to see me in a positive light, I don’t manipulate them into messaging me when I know they don’t want to talk, I don’t try to control their lives and their blogs, and I definitely don’t threaten them with ultimatums. Honestly, nobody deserves that in any context, even if they were a terrible person themselves.

Things aren't always what they seem...

I often ask, "Why me?" I didn't ask for this journey. In fact I ran from it. Since 2010 or 11, Erik inserted himself in my dreams. He always presented himself as this "pool guy" and usually said things about my spiritual path. I knew him mostly by his hair.

So Erik responds with,"Why NOT YOU?"

Okay, I guess there are many reasons why it can't be me. But there are more reasons why it is me and that's the hardest part. My experiences say it all. I have so many recipts yet I figure a lot of times I'm just fucking crazy. I literally ran from my spiritual journey because intuitively I knew the psychic that predicted to me Erik's death was right and that same spirit was the one following me, trying to get my attention through my dreams and shit.

I remember hearing something like,

What is the hardest to believe is worth believing.

It's easy to believe I'm wrong. I welcome the possibility that I'm wrong even though in my heart and through my experience I'm not wrong. But it's easy to say, fuck this shit, and walk away.

I've done it. I did it in 2012.

I didn't believe in Twin Flames but I was starting to believe this spirit that was with me was something more and yeah, I thought I was developing feelings but I needed to live my life and let him go. So I did. Dropped everything in an attempt to be normal in spite of the dreams that cropped up.

He let me go too but he reminded me from time to time that at the very least I should find myself back on some sort of spiritual path in my dreams. I tried in 2014 but work kept me busy. I barely thought of him. I even started this Tumblr account for that purpose but didn't know where to start. Then I forgot all about it until 2016.

There were several times I was guided to get myself back on my medications.

Medications help me concentrate. To use my intuition, I need concentration. But I didn't want to be intuitive. I was pushed to the point that the dreams were so often and so memorable, it made me feel insane. I got upset because I didn't know what this guy wanted from me. Like what did he want me to do and why did he want me to forgive him?? It was part of how I became depressed in 2016.

There was then another time I was guided to switch drs because when I did start my meds my dr became unreliable. That was just a few days after talking to Erik on April 20 2017 when I hospitalized myself. My dr was not ever available to help with my meds and when I was at the hospital, they connected me with a good dr through my insurance.

Since then, I didn't have to go back to that shitty good for nothing bitch.

Seriously. She was kind if a bitch though. Like had no business be a dr with the lack of empathy she had and then to ghost like she did. Fucked up shit dude. Not right...AT ALL! Had me feeling worse about myself every time.

So there was a method to the spiritual intuitive madness...I guess.

I'm very self conscious about how I talk about things.

Like I don't want to sound crazy or out of touch with reality. I used to laugh at people like me. I ran from my own intuition too. I never wanted to be seen or thought of as some kook. Outside of spiritual stuff, I carry on debates and lengthy conversations about geeky things like video games, history and science with my friends. They don't know about my spiritual life because they are athiests so I know better. I pick my battles.

My drs never noted that I have some crazy shit going on. Just depression, anxiety, ptsd, ocd, autism and tourettes. With some drs I DO gloss over my spiritual life but it's rare I talk about it. Only with one therapist who was also on the spectrum and spiritual (catholic) so we talked about crystals and my intuitive stuff. Looked at my file and nothing mentioned about that. Only that I needed meds for the problems listed above. So I assume I am to be believed as someone with a sound mind. Idk sometimes I feel like I'm insane. Thanks to some gaslighting. That's also awesome. Fuck them.

I like to think I'm pretty well-rounded in spite of my spiritual life.

😘💕 Good night!