It’s generally overlooked because of all the Greywarenness of greywaren but That One adam monologue in greywaren could kill a victorian child (me. It kills me.)

Are you kidding me. My son😭😭😭 20 different gut wrenching quotes after one another oh it burns

Thank you for your response to the "henry creel is nazi coded" post. Im jewish and that post made me so uncomfortable because I think you're right about the fact that Henry/Vecna's backstory is representative of people who suffered abuse/oppression. The fact he was imprisoned, abused, experimented on and treated as less than human for two decades does actually align more with the expereinces of holocaust survivors than with the agendas and actions of the nazi party. Its really tone deaf to think that he would sympathize with their views and goals as someone who literally suffered similar things that victims of their regime did. It makes a lot more sense that he wanted to empower and uplift people who are "different" like himself.

I'm sorry you had to see that post anon. I'm literally sorry we all had to see that post. I didn't want to think the OP meant harm by it but given they've been a total fucking asshole about criticism toward it, I'm really not feeling any shame in speaking out about it. Like, normally, I just cringe and ignore bad fandom takes - and, normally, I wouldn't feel comfy making a stink about someone's posts and opinions because, yeah; like I said I don't like to imagine people intend any harm right off the bat, but it's a little suss to sit there and acknowledge you're opening a very, very sensitive can of worms by saying something like that and then dismiss, mock and ridicule anyone who might present any criticism toward it, partic with evidence for why its almost certainly not an accurate read of canon.

I'm particularly annoyed about how the only response them and their friends chose to highlight and "discuss" is one from someone who was talking about their struggle with mental illness and abuse and their relation to Henry, purely to mock and dismiss that person. But they didn't once actually make any attempt to respond to my additions to the post. They mostly ignored/avoided them, actually. I think all I really got was the OP stomping their feet about me being a non-moot and putting my two cents worth in, as if it wasn't posted in the whole public tag for everyone to see and fully intended to grab the public's attention. Also the "ew why would you apologize for Henry Creel" like, bitch, I just explained why, lmao. I could say a real lot about the way they've been kind of misusing the concept of the "cycle of abuse" to validate their feelings, in how the "cycle of abuse" is typically and appropriately used to refer to harmful behaviors and ideas that pop up within personal relationships, typically those between spouses, parents and children and siblings and doesn't actually apply that much to the relationships between minorities and oppressors or bigoted societies.

The cycle of abuse is used to describe things like when men grow up watching their father's abusing their mothers and then go on to act similarly toward their wives/girlfriends. Billy Hargrove is actually a perfect canon example of the "cycle of abuse" in motion. So, obviously, this is a bit removed from the oppressed lashing out at people who subscribe to, represent or enforce bigoted systems of power and the concepts of those systems as a whole. Not to mention all the very not lowkey racism and belligerence that is now popping up toward Kali after these people became semi aware that yes, Kali and Henry stand for the same things: They are products of systematic oppression and are literally fighting for their rights to exist in a political and social environment that is geared against them and other people like them. But man at the end of the day and the point is, like, its perfectly okay if you DON'T like a character or you're uncomfortable with them for any reason, particularly if they are in fact an antagonist like Henry is, as he's meant to inspire a sense of caution, even if he is understandable and sympathetic, but its different to go on a deranged smear campaign toward said character with INCREDIBLLY sensitive and harmful accusations, as charged and heavy as literally claiming they're a n*zi sympathizer. Fuck off. Oh, and as a side note any psychologist, or anyone with half a brain really, can tell you that when it comes to victims of abuse who are perpetuating their abuse toward others, the worst and wrong approach is to condemn and demonize them. Shame, invalidation and silence are all massively contributing factors in why victims may abuse others or may continue to be abused themselves. These are the kind of people who viciously condemn Billy Hargrove because he was a teenaged abuse victim in the 80s that said something with a vaguely racist undertone, and they feel strangely assured that canon intended to display him as a monster when the actual reality of canon is he was a victim struggling against what he was going through and his own behaviors as a result, but he ultimately died "heroically" (like, the reason Max takes comfort in Running up that hill is clearly because she relates it to Billy. I've even straight up seen his actor explain this stuff. ) And like, look if you're mad you think Billy was an unrepentant, inexcusable racist, ok but it becomes weird when you're also sitting here grown in 2022 platforming really suspicious aggression and demonization toward a woman of color who is suddenly being seen as the most 'terrifying character' and a 'monster' for doing what? Oh, she killed someone who abducted, abused and tortured her. She said capitalism sucks. She's a lefty. Very evil, incomprehensible stuff! *sarcasm* Literally, what the actual fuck, make it make sense at least.

ayo! (wait this might be a bit of a jumpscare dishdks i apologize) i’m op of That Post and was wondering what your opinions were on the whole woobification thing? /gen

because it’s a Tiny Bit widespread within the dream apologists to sort of,, overdramatize stuff like l’manberg hurting him. like they’re not a 100% wrong but if you look at it subjectively you can see some sort of bias going into that sort of thing that makes the character’s mistreatment a bit more blatant and intentional which,, it really wasn’t? and there wasn’t That Much of it either. especially on twitter (tumblr is much better about it) people just jump to conclusions it seems and yeah. since you brought it up i was wondering if you wanted to write a bit about it from your perspective!

we’re kinda from different corners of the fandom but i still notice that once you are too attached to a character you start taking certain evidence and giving it more weight than it actually has. there’s a blurry line between “taking away a character’s humanity” and woobification and it’s extremely difficult to find a balance when said character shows pretty much nothing of his emotional life (e. g. putting up the intimidating villain act in front of only c!tommy, pretty much everything he does making rational sense with no emotional subtext) and a lot of the fandom instantly jumps to one side or the other while it’s like.

we don’t know by far enough to say “he’s traumatized” or “he isn’t traumatized” or “he was villainized and it hurt him” or “l’manberg didn’t affect him at all”

as a very analytical person people constantly jumping to conclusions grinds my gears, but that’s about it for my own view of the situation - sorry for the rambling.

in general i agree with you that both dehumanization and woobification is Bad and i really hope getting Actual Context sorts this out (e. g. him saying he was betrayed by his friends doesn’t mean it wasn’t partially his fault or that they were allowed to leave him, but it also shows that he did care about that happening. mentioning the cat doesn’t mean anything about what happened to c!tommy but it also shows that he did care about what happened to it. it’s just always interesting to get more information about the way he feels because he usually does a very good job at hiding it.) because man.

it’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if you also are attached to the character and are expected to automatically agree with everything the people on “your side” say. it just ends up with everyone being mad and the character being mischaracterised overall.

oh wow hello! i didnt expect the op of the post to find me you’re right lol

and yes i agree! you seem to have a lot of very good thoughts tbh.

and by woobification, i mean exactly what you’ve already pointed out— the people who will say l’manberg purposely villainized dream, the people who will say wilbur faked his mental illness to manipulate dream, the people who are pretty much always talking about how badly dream was treated by people who were acting only fairly for themselves, usually.

for example people who act like dream was a perfect peacemaker before tommy showed up, or that tommy started most conflict. these are just actual lies that are told by c!dream himself to justify his abuse of tommy, and people fall for them incredibly easily because not a lot of people watched early dsmp and know that truthfully it was chaotic even then, and that dream was chaotic too. not to mention wilbur soot tried very hard to secede peacefully with l’manberg and dream jumped directly into war with no warning. and then people say he was forced into their war when, no, he started it.

theres also people who will say like, dream and sapnap for example are such good friends. i’m sure they cared for each other, but dream on multiple occasions has done horrible things to sapnap with no regard for his feelings (like leading fundy to sapnaps pets during the petwar, leading tommy to sapnaps pets during the other petwar and encouraging him to kill them, handing mars over to tommy to use as leverage against sapnap, etc). george he’s been less awful too but he certainly spoke over him and ignored his feelings enough that george felt hurt. he had places in his hall of attachments for beckerson and mars. george and sapnap were right to walk away from being treated like that.

there’s also what you just said here — “dream puts on a villain persona for tommy”— but honestly he acts like that around quite a few people (example: eret) and it’s usually when he’s revealing crucial info, which leads me and many others to believe that ‘persona’ is actually a more truthful version of him.

there’s the fact that he really isn’t safe for people to be around (or at least he wasn't before the prison) because he was planning to come up with ways to control every single person by stealing and threatening their attachments (some of which were not items but were living animals, or a real breathing person).

and then people will say dream was doing exile to enforce rules, or to keep the peace— when it’s very clear in canon it was a deliberate plan to get tommy on his own and into the prison. (from the way he was framing tommy for multiple crimes, and having sam set up the prison, and kidnapping tommy instead of correctly exiling him, all at the same time).

not even going into how he wants to kill and revive people for fun or make tommy immortal.

it’s just— ignoring all these actual facts and saying “oh he misses his friends, let’s get him some friends now” reminds me of like. when people would put flower crowns on pictures of serial killers. and then, there’s hardly anyone on the server who wasn’t subject to dream’s plans, so there’s absolutely no one i would be okay with him interacting with.

just remembered about the torture thing, and wow i still hate it so much. it’s someone’s sick revenge fantasy twisted into a way to get a manipulative villain sympathy, and it’s just gross to me on every account. i do think dream is traumatized-- just not by l’manberg, which was a conflict he started on his own terms. i would think l’manberg did affect him, because he was scared of losing control.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again— my ideal ending for dream would be for him to be sent far away from dsmp to an island full of therapy animals and super strong therapists who have never met him before. and for him to get a shit ton of therapy until he becomes a halfway normal person. and then eventually he could get integrated into society again; but a different one with new people. (although maybe dteam + bbh + puffy can visit him, they might still like him.)

none of the people on the server (who have all been affected by dream) should be burdened with befriending him or rehabilitating him— look how that turned out with sam! sam had a personal grudge towards dream and it ended with the poor dude being tortured every day; and sam himself falling into corruption and literally cutting off his boyfriends arm. like we can all see thats fucking awful right?

no one who was affected by dream should have to deal with him ever again. and contrary to popular belief, that includes a LOT more people then just tommy. dream isn’t just tommy’s antagonist, hes almost everybody’s.

the only person on the server who might also be able to stand to help dream is techno, and that’s from sheer lack of ability to give a shit. but techno is probably THE furthest thing from a good therapist there is lol, and dream needs better then that.

this kind of just ended up being a rant about my thoughts on c!dream, so im so sorry op. especially since it was probably negative for you. i hope you’re doing very well.

i guess in the end it’s true what you said— people will highlight or ignore things based on what characters they like, and it’s especially easy to do in this fandom, where half the content doesn’t even get watched and then we become a big echo chamber of half-truths.

considering dream has hurt so many of the characters i care about, i almost can’t understand how he could be someone’s favorite or comfort character— but he is nonetheless, and it would be unfair of me to be rude about that.

essentially it just bothers me to see someone who was a perpetrator of accurately portrayed abuse and manipulation (using both those words in their actual definitions, not just as random buzzwords lol) being given the flower crown edit effect. especially since he’s hurt the characters i care about a lot.

ANYWAY all of that being said (this got LONG im so sorry op) i am so so excited to get dream’s pov, because although i disagree with his actions strongly i actually find dream’s character very interesting and cool, and watching his POV is going to insanely fun. i cannot wait to see what theories get confirmed or denied

ALSO incase it wasn’t clear this is all /nm at you! you seem lovely and smart, and neither of us can help what characters we get attached to :]

a summary of the whole contrapoints thing from someone who has been spending most of her time on twitter and seen it first-hand throughout

(im using screenshots, some ive downloaded from trusted twitter mutuals and some ive made myself. since i have the shinigami eyes extension and many of my twitter mutuals dont, some scs will be inconsistent. i have checked each downloaded sced tweet to make sure theyre real.)

please dont try to start an argument on this post, im just summarising whats happened. ive already argued myself out over on my twitter and whatever point youre trying to make has literally already been said 20 times before.

Basically in late august/september natalie said some inflammatory shit about pronouns and nbs and “binary transes” which she’d said stuff along the lines of in the past. both nb and binary trans folks have criticised her lightly for this kind of attitude in the past as well. she has a pattern of behaviour (including being very...lenient towards terfs) but the stuff she was saying and the bad takes were tolerable, if incorrect and a little ignorant. what she said this time was basically “asking for pronouns in trans spaces is good i guess but it hurts passing/semi-passing transes like me” which is a take that makes no goddamn sense and is extremely ignorant towards both nb folks and trans folks who do not have the luxury of even trying to pass. she exaggerates the actual effect it has on her as well. basically the entire tweet reads really badly (the discussion was about asking for pronouns in trans spaces):

peter coffin made some batshit crazy takes (as usual) including inventing the term “enby cultural capital” which he refused to actually evaluate on past asking people to read a book (if you cant clarify your point on your own then you have an issue). he started tweeting like a madman and making it painfully clear how hard he will go to bats for natalie despite him being nb himself (many people joked/suspected  that its because he wants to fuck her, same with philosophytube, and honestly looking at how they see her that isnt hard to believe).

natalie went off twitter for a while, eventually leaving an apology that was actually alright and made me and several others believe she would return a little more understanding of trans intra-community issues, especially in terms of class because she has always had an issue with ignorance from that angle. she said she had a friend called gwen taking over (nobody knows who this is nor had they ever heard of this friend, leaving some people suspicious that she may have made her up. im not going to confirm or deny this because i have no clue.)

idk what peter coffin was up to because at this point i and most ppl had officially stopped listening to him but i believe he was angrily tweeting about cancel culture. a lot of people were as well, even though the bulk of the criticisms of natalie had been written and expressed in a mature, appropriate way. some of my twitter mutuals who had been involved in discussing natalie’s past trends with these issues as well as her lack of class consciousness and (probably) accidental antisemitism began to get messages from what was very clearly alt-right trolls trying to doxx natalie. it was real information, which is extremely concerning, but no person published it and her criticisers that got those dms were vocal about not bullying or doxxing natalie. natalie wasn’t pushed away because of “cancel culture”, and “cancel culture” really isnt a real thing and many contra fans believed this too until she came under criticism, which highlights a pretty weird mentality but whatever.

anyway, she came back this week with a new video titled “opulence” which i dont care for watching so i just read about it from my twitter mutuals who did. since i didnt watch it ill only summarise its criticisms very basically. 

to put it simply the main criticisms of the video were that she conflated trans aesthetic with literal opulence and class again, which people weren’t a fan of. she talked about her experience over the last few weeks, spinning it her way because how else would she spin it, thats to be expected. it was mostly just the usual contra, flawed takes and a bit of class ignorance...except for one blaring massive issue which is absolutely undeniable proof for where she’s heading with her politics and her content.

on that video, natalie invited infamous transmed, the guy who outed lana wachowski for money, buck angel, to collab with her. this guy is infamous in the trans community for being a cis bootlicking bigot. he makes kalvin garrah look like a lovely guy. he’s been around for a very long time and he’s very famous for being a massive asshole. heres just a taste of the kind of attitude he carries:

contra has previously spoken up about why you shouldn’t platform bigots. so her platforming a bigot has some very very obvious implications.

needless to say, people were and are pretty mad and very disappointed. a large majority of her fans have been against this.

 when oliver (philosophytube) promoted the video on his twitter many replies to his quote tweet were his fans begging him to be even mildly critical of contra. 

on contra’s subreddit (for clarification, natalie isnt a mod there and im not sure about how involved she is on the sub) there was even a thread created in which MANY of her fans on there expressed criticism of contra’s views. the mods then locked the post, deleted comments, and banned the use of the word “truscum” because it was offensive i guess? it was a move very close to “terf is a slur” territory

furthermore, some pretty infamous transphobes have been in support of her and buck angel in the past, including ian miles cheong which is...wow. some of these are scs from a twitter mutual, but the ones with red names are from me - i have the shinigami eyes extension, so basically any person with a red name is a known transphobe (im surprised buck isnt marked yet lol).

finally, ill put some threads here that give a pretty good analysis and view of the situation imo

((HS2 Spoilers under the cut!))

((For all the shit I give the epilogues, it does have its moments. Specifically highlighting this bit of dialogue here: ROXY: you think you choice mattered so much that no one elses could measure up? ROXY: n then what ROXY: did u get what u wanted? ROXY: did your life end and the points got tallied and you came out on top or like what? ROXY: still p much seems like were movin to me ROXY: and you sure dont seem like ur winnin so wheres all this good shit you got that you gotta go around handin out apologies for? ROXY: also damn dude while were at it!! ROXY: u forgot to actually say sorry in that apology! JOHN: no, i didn’t — i just meant... JOHN: i’m sorry for fucking up your life, or making it not— ROXY: i like my life!!! ROXY: i mean it aint perf and i got my share of fuckups n mistakes in there but you dont get to tell me its fucked up ROXY: or that it isnt real or somethin ROXY: its mine!

First: criticism. The writers wield this little section like a crude cudgel. They use it to underscore the weight of ‘canon’. This is the ‘candy’ timeline, so it supposedly ‘weighs less’ than the ‘meat’ timeline, but its characters still have meaningful thoughts and emotions. Here, John supposedly makes a choice that supposedly invalidates a bunch of supposedly important events, and Roxy here blows it all out of the water by claiming she made these choices too and that part of the blame rests with her in the direction her life has taken... which is total dogshit used to justify a bunch of really overt swings in character thematic. Continued here: ROXY: you wished i was one way the whole time we were married ROXY: but i wasnt ROXY: but now that youre all convinced ur the only real boy in a crowd o puppets ROXY: here i am bein me just like you ordered only i did it without your help ROXY: widen ur zoom my man!! ROXY: im not actin like this now because you want me to or bc you dont want me to ROXY: i was bad at standin up for myself then and im learnin to be good at it now ROXY: ive got my own self actualization train ROXY: ur just pullin in to one of my many roxy figures some shit out stations right as i built it JOHN: but... JOHN: you were never like that before i... ROXY: dude ROXY: where tf do u get off trying to decide what is or isnt me being “like me” enuff ROXY: do u think ppl stay the same their whole damn lives or what JOHN: you’ve really never felt like anything about our lives here was... off? ROXY: off from what exactly?? JOHN: the way things should be? ROXY: what does that mean???

Roxy here argues that there is no ‘one right way to be’ as a half-baked wink to the audience that all this gross mischaracterization is intentional and that it diverges so grossly from the established character arcs in order to demonstrate that nothing is set in stone. While technically true, this also makes for some pretty terrible writing.

Roxy was a caring, almost too involved individual before the epilogues. Her ditching Calliope for John and this messy marriage business and just letting Jane warp into a full-blown dictator makes no sense, even couched within the idea that ‘characters change.’ Yes, characters change, but there’s generally a reason for it! And not a shitty deus ex machina reason such as ‘John makes a choice!’ What even fucking happened to Candy Calliope anyway? She just fucked off somewhere? How do you sincerely throw a character away like that and then have the gall to wink at the audience as if what you’ve done makes sense? Changes in character are generally brought on by catalysts in their life! Trauma, joy, death, new settings, new ideas, events! Not... John deciding to eat a plate full of candy. If we had insight into Roxy’s thought process behind ditching Calliope and marrying John and having a kid on a whim, this might be saved. But we don’t even get a glimpse. Instead we’re pawned this shitty excuse for a very glaring departure from what we knew about Roxy. Character development is just that -- development! As in to become more complex or advanced! Roxy has made wrong choices in the past, yes, but her reasoning was laid bare in such a way that those wrong choices made sense for her to make. She then makes different decisions later because she learned from her wrong decisions. This is development! Her character is learning and changing behavior because of the things they’ve been through! Her reasoning for this awful series of bad choices is just... not explained, despite going against a ton of shit Roxy has learned. It’s slipshod. It’s careless. It’s sacrificing the tree to showcase the topper. The audience isn’t vested in this Roxy because she’s seemingly robbed of her agency, and then they’re trying to foist this idea that she somehow still has agency on us as if they didn’t preface the entire timeline with ‘well, all this shit is going to happen because we decided it and no other reason!’

Now: the praise. This bit of dialogue has huge implications for ‘non-canon’ dynamic. No, not ‘non-canon’ in the cheeky way the epilogues and HS2 claim to be ‘non-canon.’ I mean ‘non-canon’ as in this blog that I run and all the blogs that you, the reader, are writing and reading as well. Roxy’s insistence that characters change can swing the other way, too. Characters can develop in bad ways as well! Not bad as in bad writing, but bad as in flawed character reasoning! Suppose what Roxy learned from her time in HS1 was that most things can be solved by unvoiding fix-all solutions into existence? Then we might be able to see her trying to fix the human-troll-population issue by just... making more planets! Or unvoiding some sort of device trolls could wear that inhibits hivemind tendencies! That would be interesting and perhaps morbid to write about!! It would at least track with her past experiences!!! Or better yet: perhaps she actually takes a side against Jane (as she has done in the past) but instead of using their friendship as the moral plating, she went right into sarcastic arguments FOR eugenics to demonstrate how bigoted Jane was being? That’s a very Roxy thing to do!! She could have made the argument that if trolls need eugenics to suppress their violent tendencies, then so should humans! Having read about the Condesce’s eugenic practices during her formative years, this should have been fairly obvious to Roxy that what Jane was suggesting was from the same playbook, at least.

But I digress. What this bit of dialogue really does is give credence to us, the audience, in exploring these stories we’re currently writing for these pre-established characters. YES, canon Rose likely didn’t dabble so thoroughly in game magics, and she likely didn’t have as much anxiety as my Rose. BUT I prefaced my Rose’s current state with a bunch of events that make sense! She missed her rendezvous with the others! She had to float adrift, alone in a broadcast satellite, for nigh on a decade! She’s had a long fucking time to develop all these anxieties and mental illness because that’s what happens when you���re isolated for years! It is a tool I use to express my own anxieties and explore how someone might somehow overcome them! And most importantly: she’s still Rose. She has unprocessed mother issues. She cherishes her friends. She’s more than a bit gay. And she knows when the meta is using her and when it’s not, because she’s had a traumatic experience being used by Doc Scratch as a plot device. And that trauma isn’t going away (well, unless she gets therapy, but given the setting we’re writing... not likely), so she’s going to be overly cautious when it comes to big decisions involving her friends. What she’s not going to do is suddenly abandon everyone she’s departed from because uhhh Jade ate some bread the wrong way or whatever.

tl;dr: What this section of the epilogues/HS2 (well, really just this bit with Harry Andersen, Tavros, and Vrissy that is somehow more interesting than virtually EVERY OTHER PART of HS2) is telling us, the audience, is that it is good to diverge from canon. Non-canon characters will still have very real feelings and face very real consequences for their actions. Just... don’t do it like they did it. All these characters we’re writing for and all these events we’re writing around them... they’re valid! They matter! Just because they’re not canon doesn’t mean others are willing and wanting to read them, and that makes them important! Unfortunately, this also means the epilogues/HS2 are important, but let’s ignore that for now. What I’m trying to say is: be indulgent! Write the things you want to write! As long as they’re well-reasoned, they’re good writing! Characters can be overpowered! They can be cliche! They can have teenage problems as an adult! Just... give them a good reason.))

Dear Mother

I do not have too many memories from being a child. I am not sure if this is due to emotional suppression, a bad memory, or just not thinking hard enough. I do however have a few distinct memories of places and feelings. I remember feeling like the burden of your continued connection to my father when i was about 5ish years old and you lived in that apartment complex off of Miller Ave across from the lumber mill. I remember we did not get too see you too often, but that whenever we were over you were unhappy. You would complain about our father (the memories involve trevor and i). There is a picture of trevor and I in front of a Christmas Tree smiling like there was not a care in the world. But I can remember the emotions i felt. I was scared, scared that you felt so sad. I was also sad, because I didn’t like to see my mother so distraught. I was also confused because I was too little to really understand anything. Few positive memories continued between. There was a lot of time where i was left with Suki, who was paid to take care of me, and did so. But I remember being very young and having you tell me very vulgar things about Suki and my fathers relations. Things no parent should tell their kid. I remember going to Virginia for Christmas one year and having a lovely time. I also remember all the terrible christmases in Mill Valley that entailed fights and inevitable anger for someone feeling that no one was grateful. I would like to highlight the behaviors, as illustrated by direct quotes, that are unacceptable to me and have resulted in my augmented state of mental illness. 

I remember being bribed by both my parents. I was given money as a token of love. The only memories i really have with my mother were when we went shopping. Thus my mind made a correlation between mother-daughter time and shopping. It was not that I was using her for her money, but that it was the only activity we were familiar with. This goes on, and I am later ridiculed and yelled at. I was accused of being a selfish bitch and just using my mother for her money. Ex, on November 19 i recieved this in a text messaged, “Don't ever ask me to pay for hair that was way over $200″. This requires some context. Weeks before, my mother told me my roots were growing out and offered to pay for my highlights. I declined because i said I would rather have the money for more important things, she replied with hair being of high importance. This resulted in a few weeks later, me getting my hair color treated and cut. I was offered this service but then was yelled at for doing exactly that. The mixed messages there are not of high importance but it is a recent example of this pattern of giving money/objects then getting upset and using that as something to get mad over.  

After any sort of fight my mother and I had, we would normally just ignore each other for a few days and then things would resume their normal states. Sometimes after a really big fight, one of us would send an apology message such as this message sent on September 6 2017, “I love you. sorry im a bitch. I have been so frustrated and miserable not being able to walk. I have felt like nobody cared all going to burning man and leaving me helpless. I love you more than anything”. Even though this is an apology it is filled with excuses, but an apology is an apology and i will accept that. In all honesty, after certain behaviors this sort of apology is not enough. It is superficial and only scratches the surface of the issue. In order for real reconciliation, they must both acknowledge their wrongdoings, discuss the situation, and understand how it could be better solved in the future. This should result in a gradual change in behavior and an overall better understanding of the other person. However between my mother and I’s relationship, the “sorry” is short and sweet and we have just brushed off the dust and moved on, leaving much to fester and add up for later. 

The relationship between my mother and I is very complex. This is due to many factors. One of which being that I, the daughter, feel as if I am the only one willing to put up with my mother. In my opinion, she has pushed away everyone in her life, on accident or not. Her loneliness is often displayed in anger. With the recent experience of her foot breaking and the devastating disappearance/loss of her cats. I was told since a child that I have to love my parents because they are the only ones i have. I was told that no matter what, the children in the hood will always love their parents, this doesn’t matter how many beatings they had received. As well as many other children, no matter how they were treated, they were taught to respect and love their parents. This was drilled into me. I never thought it was an option for me to disconnect, even if it was for the good of my own mental health. In high school I had a very embarrassing experience of my mom showing up to cheer practice and pulling me aside and yelling at me right next to all the cheerleaders in my squad. She yelled at me, telling me it was my fault that dad was kicking her out of the house and that i had to do something about it. That it was my responsibility to fix it and if i didn't she would kill herself. I had so many witness but she to this day will not admit that she did that, and that it was wrong. On September 30 2017 my mother send me this message “hillary hates her mom and has told everyone everywhere she goes. You made me suffer and watched when I was alone”. This message, in my opinion, is directed towards the situation at which occurred after the cheerleading incident. My father was going to be out of town for a while and I was scared to be alone with my mother, thus my father helped me set up a plan. I ended up staying with Jessee Hinton’s family for the week. I did not tell them much of anything about my family. But rumors had spread due to her outbreak at practice, and the rumors had warped like in a game of telephone. I did not intentionally go out and tell the world that my mother was terrible. I confided in very few people the horrors of my home life. Yet my mother seemed to think I was an open book and expressed her behavior to everyone, this was probably out of embarrassment because she did not want people to know how she emotionally abused her child. 

Ever since I can remember, I have had thoughts of suicide. I have had thoughts of death, self-harm, thoughts of self-depricacy. I can remember back to being in around 6th grade and going to Park Schools new play structure and purposely swinging myself off the bars and falling on my back in hopes of hurting myself. I wanted to feel pain because I wanted to escape the pain in my head. Around this same time I witnessed my sister holding tissues to her wrist in the front seat in front of 7/11 on Miller Ave, crying hysterically and looking me in the eyes. I remember my mother repeatedly telling me she wanted to go home, go be with her mother, who had died long ago. She would tell me her intricate plans to kill herself. I remember she made an attempt when I was a freshman in high school in 2009. My sister had found her OD and she was put on a 51/50. I remember how ashamed, scared, disappointed, and betrayed I felt. This woman, my mother, always told me I was all she had and If i wasn’t around she would kill herself. This woman would say that she loved me so much and that i was her only child. But this same woman would also go on to say things such as the most recent incident on November 2 “ I only wish i could hang myself and have dad and trevor have the pleasure of seeing me”. As this is not a threat, there were many purposed threats that were sent in a way to manipulate my emotions, for whatever reason, I have no idea. I remember, it must’ve been when I was a junior in High School, she was very upset. As was i. I cannot recall the reason for this upset, but I was scared to be around her so i was downstairs in my room trying not to fuel the fire. She came bombarding into my room, gun in hand. She was belligerent, and not making any sense. She was very distraught and upset. She placed the gun next to her head and threatened to shoot, and then pointed that same gun at me saying I should go with her. Many other words were exchanged, but this resulted in me calling the police because I was scared for my own safety, as for hers. As the police arrived, the gun disappeared. The police searched the house and were not able to locate the gun, my mother somehow convinced them that I was on drugs, i begged them to let me pee in a cup to prove to them I was completely sober. I remember them flashing a flashlight in my eyes and saying my pupils were dilating strangely. This was due to my commencement of welbutrin which had weird effects on me, but they did not believe me. I was brought to the station in handcuffs, they wrote me up for falsely using the 911 system. They thought I was just on drugs and trying to get my mom in trouble or something of the sort. but no I was scared of this woman, I did not know what she would do. The way she lied to the cops was disgusting. She later told me it was just dads gun, and that it wasn't even functional. This experience still haunts me until this day. I have felt depressed for as long as I can remember, and having two female role models in my young life that demonstrated very unhealthy coping mechanisms really altered my perception of mental illness. I did not want to be like them. But i felt haunted. I was going mad. i don't know what it was. i would wake up crying, i would hide in closets to keep the thoughts from overpowering me. the thoughts that when I was younger, mistook for voices, but to be completely honest they might have been voices because boy were they strong and malignant. I ripped my arms apart in all directions with razors, trying to escape my internal pain. I did this because I saw my sister do it and thought it was ok. I overdosed on pills, I tried to hang a noose in my closet, I wanted to die so bad. And to this day, the thoughts still enter my head. I am not well. I have a long journey ahead of me before I reach my destination of happiness and gratitude for life. I however can not reach that if I am constantly being berated by the person who I thought was my best friend and mother. This message was sent on the 19th of November 2017 “You find a new way everyday to say bitch i hate you!”  This woman must not know what I go through. She must not understand how much I put up with. How much she has said to me, that has ripped me to my core. That has fueled my depression, that has been the tip of the iceberg for one of my suicidal episodes. She must not understand that I love her so much. And all i do is to please her. She must not understand that I try to be the angel she wants me to be, i try to be there for her. But i CANNOT read minds. I do not know what she wants. That has taunted me my whole life. Anger was thrown at me for not doing certain things, in which I had no idea I was supposed to do. How was i supposed to know I should stand up for mother in divorce court and say my older sister was lying about everything. I was a toddler! I did not even understand the situation! How can I be held responsible for something I honestly could not have done. How can this still be haunting me. How am i still living in the past, because every time she tells me I wasn’t there for her, i believe her. Because no matter how much i do, it is never enough. It never will be enough, and with what is going on in my head I can't live with it. 

On September 16 my mother sent me this, “i was thinking if we get left behind for NY why don't we like drive to Tahoe and just play around for thanksgiving?? Stay at a hotel etc.” I replied with excitement it sounded like a great idea. The plans developed and soon we had a hotel planned. My father agreed to pay for 2/3 of the hotel, but i assume he forgot. I sent him a few reminder texts but they were sandwiched between other questions so must have gotten lost in translation. Finally on the 19th of November, I called up my father and asked if he was still going to do that, he said he only agreed to pay 1/3, but then realized he might have misspoken and agreed to pay 2/3 even though he said he currently only had $1000 in his bank account. He wrote out a check for $500 and said he would leave it on his desk. Hours later i received angry messages from my mother consisting of this “ “i haven't been able to go to tahoe for 20 years while you and your buddies went nonstop and blew out BMW” and ““so you were going to spend 500 on yourself and not tell me. sounds about right”. This was because my father wrote the check out to me, to which I had no knowledge. This assumption that I was going to just cash the check and take the money and go to Tahoe was completely absurd. I was excited to go to Tahoe with my mother and our dogs. I was excited to help her have a good holiday for once, surrounded by good vibes and new memories. “you have to move dad’s care before you to to Tahoe bitch”.

I love my mother so much. But i also value and love myself. I need to accept the love that I deserve. I am 22 years old. I am becoming my own woman. I want to be strong an independent. I cannot have a mother emotionally abusing me. I cannot tolerate that. I do not deserve that. I have been there as much as I have emotionally been able to. I have never once been appreciated for it. When false accusations are thrown at me, I do not take them lightly. I would appreciate an apology from my mother. Not a half-hearted “sorry for being a shitty mother”. An apology acknowledging her wrongdoings and acknowledging that not all her children are “the devils children”. And to be honest none of them are. They just cannot tolerate the way she treats them. This is a two-way street, respect goes both ways, so I cannot say anything for anyone else. I am just saying that I have been disrespected for too long. My mother had pushed away everyone who has ever loved her. She has had the same patterns of behavior she has had with me, to different degrees with all those other people. And most of them have chosen to cut off contact. I have not done that, this is based on love, but also on pity. No one should have no one around to love them. But if said person makes it impossible to be loved, theres nothing anyone can do. If my mother wants to have me in her life. She needs to do some work on herself and realize she cannot treat people the way she has been. Trevor is not a retard and Drea is not the source of all the bad in your life. My mother needs to take some responsibility for the actions she has made in her life, and has to realize even though others might have had a role in it, she did as well, and she cannot blame it on anyone.

This goes to you mother. I love you with all my heart but you need to understand that you do not know it all. I am not a bitch who wants to take your money and run. I wanted to spend a good solid thanksgiving in your presence before we both get too old and distant. I want you to realize the white-picket fence life you have always dreamed of could've been yours and can still be yours if you still living in a pity act. I understand that you are suffering. I see it and I can feel it. I want to be there to help you get through it. I cannot do that if it compromises my mental health. I am not strong enough to take it. I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living, my Mommy you'll be.