I Have Therapy Tomorrow, And My Homework Was To Write, So... Hobey Ho, Let's Go.

I have therapy tomorrow, and my homework was to write, so... Hobey ho, let's go.

I'm fucking tired because my second father in law just died in a fucking stupid, traumatic, idiotic way. When my husband brought me into this family thirteen years ago, I gained three father figures. His dad, his stepdad, and one of his uncles. I was so lucky to have them in my life. But they're all fucking dead now. Cancer, cancer, and now an accident.

And I'm just. So fucking tired. My own father, after hearing about this, drunk dialed me three separate times while my father in law was on life support and sent me $500. Like, I appreciate the money. But could I have a hug? Could you tell me you love me when you're sober? Could you fucking try to fucking BE HERE? Could you try, at all. I want your attention. I want you to want me in your life. I want you to care about what's happening in mine. But you fucking don't and it's exhausting to keep wanting.

And then I have these three men that care and support me and protect me and every single one of them fucking dies within a few years of each other. And it's FUCKING STUPID. It's stupid they're dead. It's stupid I loved them so much. It's stupid that my mother is still alive when these good people are gone.

I'm fucking tired. I'm just so tired. I haven't been tired like this since I was in high school, living with my mother, being sex trafficked to pay the fucking mortgage.

I can't bring myself to feel anything beyond tired. I just want somebody to come take care of me, which is embarrassing, because I'm 31 fucking years old, but you know what? Nobody ever fucking took care of me. Nobody. And then when I was 19, I got a partner and his family and they loved me and taught me how to be loved and now they KEEP FUCKING DYING ON ME and I'm pissed. I'm pissed and tired and I want it to stop.

Health is not an indicator of worth.

i don't actually give a fuck whether fatness is an indicator of health because health shouldn't indicate a moral high ground. being healthy isn't some pinnacle of human achievement, it's not morally superior. and being unhealthy isn't a moral failing and shouldn't mean you're less worthy of kindness, justice, and a good life. signed, a chronically ill person who will never be "healthy" at any weight.

Here's a thought: if a child begs to be allowed to see a counselor and the parent's response is to prevent them from accessing mental health care because you're afraid CPS will be involved? That's a red fucking flag.

If a kid carries around a window crank and a screwdriver in their bag, tells you it's secret from their parents, "just in case," because their windows have been screwed shut and the cranks removed? That's a red flag!

If a kid tells an adult they trust, "my parent is an asshole and I'm afraid of them," that's a red mother fucking flag.

If a kid wears shorts to school with bruises covering their legs and makes teary eye contact with their teacher through the entire class period? Red. Flag.

If a straight-A student fails an exam, looks like they haven't slept in two days, is holding their arm awkwardly to the side as if it is hurt, and stands in their guidance counselor's office, shaking and crying, convinced that that failed exam is the end of the world? guess what color the flag is. RED.

If a kid passes out after a hot day of outdoor activities and when their parent arrives to take them home they scream at the kid for making them look bad- the flag is red!

All of the fucking flags were red. Fuck.

How abuse affects your friendships and relationships

Friendships/relationships

Abusive childhood teaches you to stay in abusive relationships

Children of abusive parents are more likely to tolerate abusive friends

Abuse will make toxic friendship feels normal.

Abusive parents teach us to chase people whose love we think we can ‘earn’ or obtain by removing boundaries and suffering more abuse.

Abuse can trick you into believing you have to love people unconditionally even if they abuse you.

Abusive fails to teach you the signs of an abusive relationship.

Abuse makes us scrutinize our own actions and behaviours, but never others’.

Abuse will make you completely disregard subtle red flags in friendships.

Long term neglect can make us long for any kind of attention

Neglect makes us extra vulnerable to Love Bombing and Mirroring

Abuse makes us vulnerable to Future Faking.

Abuse makes us tolerate more pain than anyone normally would tolerate in a friendship/relationship.

Abuse can teach us that neglect, lack of positive attention and engagement, lack of consideration for our needs and wants, is normal and acceptable in our friendships and relationships, leading us to tolerate it.

Living in abuse and using fantasy and idealism to endure the reality, will encourage the development of Magical Thinking in adulthood.

Abuse makes us emotionally vulnerable to grooming, and likely to bond with groomers.

Abuse makes it impossible to notice the signs of an abusive relationship.

Abuse can groom you to accept and tolerate abuse from others.

Sense of self

Neglect causes low self esteem.

Abuse greatly amplifies the human fear of being unlovable, unwanted and dying alone.

Being raised in abuse can make you feel like you’re 'not normal’ and make it difficult to relate to people.

Abuse can make you feel like you’re a constant inconvenience and always left out.

Abuse forces you to keep secrets that alienate you from friendships or feeling like a part of community

Abuse in isolation makes us feel like the world abandoned us.  

Attachment disorders

Abuse can lead to intense, over-attached, idealized, unstable, disorganized, or detached and fragile attachments as opposed to stable and healthy ones with boundaries and realistic expectations.

Neglect can cause abandonment issues, which then cause intense stress, anxiety, insecurity, and overall traumatic response to a break of a friendship/relationship

Neglect can cause craving of being ‘taken care of’ or ‘being the caretaker’ rather than pursuing equal and completely mutual relationships

Abuse can lead you to bond intensely with a 'favourite person’ which puts you into a position where you can easily be groomed or exploited, and unable to get out of it.

Abuse leads into idealizing people who show us even the minimum of kindness.

Abuse can make us crave ‘feeling important’ even from abusers

Parentification

Parentification teaches you to take care of other people as a Survival Strategy

Abusive parents can set you up to live as a resource to others

Abuse teaches you to keep your pain secret while tearing yourself apart to care for other’s pain.

Socializing

Abuse starves us out of conversation, touch, gentleness, community, and it can be painful to introduce ourselves (back) to it.

Abuse makes casual socializing anxiety-inducing and frightening.

Social abuse can invoke social anxiety.

Abuse can make attention feel dangerous.

Abusive parents can sabotage you socially, making your real entrance into social life only after you get away from them, and by that time you’ve missed out on valuable development of social skills and you’re starting with a disadvantage

Suffering the pain of abuse alone can make you feel like isolating yourself and being away from people is the only safe way to exist.

Suffering long-term abuse can make you intensely doubt people’s intentions (and sometimes you might be right).

Abuse can make any criticism in a social situation extremely painful and triggering for us

Abuse can create strict double standards for how we’re allowed to live and feel, and what others are allowed.

Intimacy and closeness will trigger emotional flashbacks, painful memories and personal crisis, making you unwilling to try and be close to people.

Long term abuse makes it painful for us to receive or accept comfort.

Abuse can make us feel indebted for comfort.

Abuse makes us feel like we’re craving abuse when we’re only craving comfort

Abuse makes us look for positive attention in non-effective or dangerous ways.

Abuse can make you blame yourself for any social interaction that hurts you.

Abuse makes us dismiss our own discomfort with others.

I'll always appreciate tumblr for being there for me when I need to vaguely shit post about terrible events in my life ✌🏻

I've been thinking over the shitshow that was my adolescence and wondering how I can be different as an adult and what I can do to protect the children in my life. Thinking about how fucking much I always hated people saying "just ask for help" when help didn't fucking exist. Asking for help meant taking a leap off a cliff, blind, and hoping someone would catch me. And nobody fucking did.

And I realized. Just now. Just today. That if instead of being told "just ask for help," I had been told "get as much evidence as you can and then get out and then ask for help" maybe things would have been different. If I had just been told how to protect myself, maybe.