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).
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.
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Reviewing tgcf characters because I have thoughts
I finished S2 recently and I need somewhere to put my not exactly hot but like warm (?) takes because it's taking up too much storage space in my brain.
🤍 Xie Lian 🤍
It's a good thing I'm not into guys because if I was I would be on my knees for this man in every sense of that expression and his pet menace to society would mince me up like garlic.
So I'll try to be brief about my overflowing feelings about him. Xie Lian is the best main character I have come across in a WHILE. He's the embodiment of compassion and kindness. And also a cold blooded murderer. A babygirl. A father figure. A terrifying martial god. A silly little guy. A pathological liar. The most genuine man you'll ever meet. He's everything, and Hua Cheng is 100% valid in his obsession. I'm right there with him.
Rating: 10/10
❤️ Hua Cheng ❤️
Idk if we ever figured out who wrote My Immortal but I'm pretty sure we have our culprit.
"Hi my name is Hua Cheng Crimson Rain Sought Flower Red-Robed Ghost King and this is my evil weapon of death E-ming. I've killed soooo many gods with it!! My dark power is I can summon storms of BLOOD and SUFFERING. I have my own scary city of DEMONS and they all love me and think I'm HOT but I only want my BOYFRIEND who's the only REAL GOD so STOP FLAMING HIM YOU POSERS-"
Needless to say I love him. Being the 8 time winner of the Loverboy of the Century Awards with unbeatable records in the yearning olympics is truly a remarkable feat.
Rating: 9/10
(Bonus: E-ming. Cute little guy. Likes his stepdad more than his real dad. Not afraid to show it's feelings even if it makes it look like a muppet, 10/10)
🧡 Feng Xin & Mu Qing 🧡
Tweedle dee and tweedle dum gets a shared rating because they would hate to be grouped together like that and that's funny to me. Their dynamic is great, they're good characters, I wasn't sure which one was which until midway through the second season. But then also I have a pair of 7yo twin cousins who I still can't tell apart despite them not looking even a slight bit similar so that might just be a character flaw on my end. Oops.
Rating: 7/10
🩵Shi Qingxuan🩵
I'm doubling the rating because she is best boy and best girl at the same time. I love that I can use any and all pronouns for him because he's literally a pride parade personified and therefore all of them are correct. You don't get that type of chaotic fun just anywhere.
He is truly living my dream, presenting as whatever gender they want depending on what's more convenient and/or funnier in the moment. Super useful, for things like gathering intel and terrorizing Feng Xin by being a woman.
And I personally think we should crown her the new emperor. She'd look significantly better on that throne, with her Barbie-like radiance and flourishing Kenergy.
Rating: 20/10
🖤 Ming Yi 🖤
Listen, I hate to say it because I like a sunshine x grump moment as much as the next gay but he's just... not giving what he thinks he's giving. Everyone is whispering ominously about him having some dark devastating secret but MY point is no matter how big his boobs are in his female form, Shi Qingxuan could do better. I'm sorry. She really could.
Rating: 4/10
💙 Lang Qianqiu 💙
Just an honest man with good intentions and a sickass fucking sword. He did NOT hesitate to attack the infamous Crimson Rain Sought Flower on SIGHT and I respect a quick decisionmaker, even if it shows some himbo tendencies. He also has the same distinct energy as Fred from Scooby Doo.
Rating: 6/10
💚 Qi Rong 💚
He's got some odd dietary and moral choices going on. Definitely. But he's just such a fun villain!!! Being Xie Lian's nr 1 source of migraines SHOULD make me like him less but I'm sorry, every time he was on screen I was LIVING. He would do numbers on reality TV. Someone put this guy on Kitchen Nightmares, I need to see him 1v1 Gordon Ramsay.
Rating: 7/10
🌚 Jun Wu 🌚
He has his emperor status & DILF card going for him but something about this man just ain't right. If he came to a party I was attending I would cover my drink is all I'm saying.
Rating: 2/10
🔥Pei Ming🔥
I don't know much about him besides he had that one shady empolyee or whatever (could not hear the plot over the deafening sound of Hua Cheng's yearning) but I'm partial to a good manwhore character. The thought of people praying to him like "Hugh Mungus, who art in heaven-" really tickles me.
I know he's probably straight but I headcanon him as at the very least bi-curious because you can't be that hot with that much game and not use it for evil. (That evil being causing large scale gay awakenings among his soldiers.)
Rating: 7/10
❓Pei Xiu❓
Unreliable, unimportant, unattractive, unemployed.
I remember not a singular thing about him besides fucking up Xie Lian's daughter's life and also being on my last nerve from the jump. If you're going to be evil at like least be memorable about it, you know? You can't be a bad person and a bad character at the same time. Pick a struggle.
Rating: 1/10
📚 Ling Wen 📚
I heard she committed some war crimes but honestly if I had to do an entire realm's tax returns by myself AND teach Pei Ming how to read (I refuse to believe that man is literate, just look at him) I would want to rage on occasion too. I hope she has a hot wife waiting for her at home to give her massages after carrying the whole system on her back all day. It's what she deserves.
Rating: 8/10
Thank you for reading!! Opinions might change once I read the books but as of now this is it. Remembering everyone's names has been a journey and a half so this post is sponsored by @kirstenly 's character cheat sheet go look at it! and everything else too!!!
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As an ex swiftie that has reconciled with the fact she’s not a good person and now all her music just leaves a bad taste, it’s very easy to see Taylor measures her value on romantic relationships. She seeks validation out of men. She cannot be alone. And one thing I keep getting proven is that she bases her personality on the man she’s dating. In 2019 I genuinely thought the backlash plus the thing with her masters made her be more genuine and grounded and I was happy she seemed to be making steps to use her platform but all of that was just Joe’s influence on her. It wasn’t real for her but was just a reflection of Joe. Folklore and Evermore being her most mature and complex albums isn’t even funny when you know Joe was in it during the whole creative process. Folklore being an album where I felt this was her most authentic self. All of that has been erased the moment she broke up with him. She went problematic again just like Matty and now she’s playing NFL wife and promoting that disgusting association. She finally found a man arrogant enough to match her own narcissism.
Here's the thing: I think we are all influenced by our partners, and they can either make us worse or better people. However, I just find it weird that Swifties say we shouldn't define her by the men she dates when she's literally defining herself that way. Regardless of the fact that TTPS was, on the whole, more about Matty, it's obvious she knew most people would think it was about Joe, especially because of the WhatsApp group, and she marketed it as such. It's a big part of her brand. Same with All Too Well, the 10-minute version, she cast someone who looks a hell of a lot like Jake on purpose. She clearly defines herself by the men she dates.
I agree. I think Folklore was the way that it was because she was influenced by the music Joe liked. That doesn't mean I'm taking away from her achievement with this album. Folklore and Evermore have some of my favourite music from her. However, I think the tone and the maturity of that album leds me to believe Joe heavily influenced it. TTPS is a major step back in terms of those things. There are about six or seven songs I adore. However, if you look at the TC songs, they are immature; they are so high school (sorry, I couldn't resist). The thing is, during the Folklore, Evermore, and even Lover era (and I might even extend that to Midnights...) she had self-awareness - she was saying neither of them are perfect people. TTPS is a return to her "it's all your fault" era. It's a regression IMO.
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Hey folks. Real talk time. I've been seeing some discourse on the USAmerican side of tumblr that genuinely scares me, so I felt the need to put together a few reminders to hopefully spread around Tumblr. If you have the spoons, please create your own posts about these things so we can make sure as many people as possible are informed.
Tumblr staff did not just decide for themselves that certain accounts might be Russian trolls. US law enforcement agencies conducted a federal investigation, and found that Russian trolls were conducting Psy-Ops operations across multiple social media sites. The Russian trolls had the express goal of influencing the outcome of the 2016 election. If an account was banned for being a Russian troll, it was due to this federal investigation. It was not a false accusation from a tumblr staff member that didn't like what a liberal activist was saying.
It is highly likely that Russia has not stopped using this tactic.
Many of these trolls twisted the truth to split the Democratic party. I can't find it anymore, but there's an old post where you can literally see this in action. In the post, a Russian troll -- who had been pretending for a long time to be a liberal activist on tumblr, and was thus trusted by the community -- misquoted Hillary Clinton to make it seem like she was against free college and student debt forgiveness. The Russian agent quoted something Clinton said in a debate with Bernie Sanders: "I disagree with free college." Not included by the Russian agent was the vital context, in which Clinton argued for free and debt-free community college and public universities. This is the full quote the Russian agent didn't use, which was made in reference to private schools only: "I disagree with free college... I don't think the American people should pay for Donald Trump's kids to go to college."
The Republican party often struggles to win the popular vote in presidential elections. It is in the Republican party's best interest to split the Democratic vote.
In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.
A third-party candidate has not won the presidential election since the 1800s.
If you do not have the spoons to read news articles or watch multiple news channels, it is vital to be aware that you are especially vulnerable to propaganda on social media. You do not get the full story from tumblr posts. You do not get nuance on current events from tumblr posts. You may be being straight-up lied to on tumblr posts. Remember to take things with a grain of salt. Remember that a lot of propaganda relies on inducing outrage and strong emotional reactions.
If you are upset about the Gaza-Israel situation, and it is going to affect your vote, you must read news articles -- not tumblr posts -- about what Biden has done, what Biden has failed to do, and what Biden's opponents' plans and stances are. This is an area where the propaganda is going to be strongest, and if you want to do right by the citizens of Palestine and Israel, you have to research what's happening. Do not act based off of information from social media, because so much of it will be biased if not downright false. If you don't have the spoons to read or watch the news on these things, I urge you not to vote based off of just this issue, because it would be so easy to vote against your own morals if your only info is from tumblr. And if you think the situation is important enough to determine your vote -- well, then it's clearly important enough to research properly.
Again: In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.
Anyway, please reblog or create your own posts on these topics. Let's work together and aim for herd immunity against propaganda.
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btw about Neil Gaiman I periodically agree with the 'Neil Gaiman is annoying' stuff bc I feel like both he and Amanda Palmer seem like people who I would go insane stuck in a room with bc we have very different ideas about art and suchlike. and I also do think that the career trajectory he's on lately is cynically redoing his greatest hits and pretending that was the dream all along when it clearly was not. which is at best meh.
having said which
as far as I can tell by far the most common complaint about Neil Gaiman is "Snow, Glass, Apples is problematic/gross/it's got incest and rape and frames the child as the aggressor"
which strikes me as a weird complaint to pull out of a 40 year body of work tbh when that short story is pretty clearly coming from a place of 'how far can I push this'. like you don't have to like the story. I don't really like the story. but it is. a horror story.
like and this is the thing with particularly 90s alt horror right? a lot of the interest is in transgression and sitting in the worst possible perspective and seeing what happens if you pull those strings. like I really like Clive Barker for example but there's a good chunk of his short stories that I'm like I'm not picking up what you're putting down Clive this seems Kinda Off. but that willingness to write some trite or Bad Message horror fiction that doesn't land is imo a side effect of being willing to try writing uncomfortable and unpleasant fiction at all. which is what horror is for, among other things, it's for creating discomfort as a form of catharsis or engagement.
like I am not a huge fan of the type of sex-horror that pops up in a lot of Gaiman's work and other contemporary horror writers - to me I don't find it upsetting or horny it just ends up feeling kind of edgy and tryhard - but I'm also a bit like. it does seem like a lot of people's beef with Neil Gaiman is that In The 90s He Was A Horror Writer
and this approach to Problematic Horror in Snow, Glass, Apples I find kind of microcosmic of how The Discourse often approaches art in this kind of 1:1 way. if you write a story which seems to line up with rape apologia it can only be because you agree with it. if you write a story about transphobia you're a transphobe. if you write a story that makes me genuinely uncomfortable you're attacking me.
but artwork, especially art like horror that's not necessarily trying to provoke enjoyment as its main response, is necessarily hit and miss. and if what you're shooting for is discomfort then whether it works, falls flat or goes too far incredibly depends on your audience. and making good art - as in art that makes its audience think, art that opens the audience up to discomfort and catharsis and sticks with them and changes them - requires the space to experiment and tbh the space to fuck up. like they aren't all going to be winners and they certainly aren't all going to work for you as a singular audience.
personally I don't see the appeal of Snow, Glass, Apples, less cause it's nasty and more cause it's hack. ooh an edgy monstrous version of a fairy tale where there's lots of rape and cannibalism? you're soooo original Neil. but like. that's fine. I don't really vibe with like 70% of Neil Gaiman stuff I've read but I still like Neil Gaiman because the stuff that works for me really works for me.
idk I think there's a lot of folk on this website who shouldn't interact with horror cause they clearly aren't interested in being horrified. that's not everyone who dislikes Snow, Glass, Apples, but it's a real undercurrent to a lot of the criticism and tbh this kinda vibe is shit for art. making standout art What Is Good also requires being ready to make art which stands out for the wrong reasons. sometimes they'll be the same art to different people.
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