Abuse Survivor - Tumblr Posts
When he did something that profoundly upset me, he'd know, and he would force me to come to bed. Usually he'd have sex with me, and I'd lay there.
I would lay there, seething, until I knew he was asleep. Then I'd slip out of bed and go to sleep on the couch in the basement.
Only then I'd exhale. I'd message someone I wasn't supposed to. I'd stretch out and release my muscles. I'd masturbate to a fantasy in my head that didn't include him. I would feel safe knowing I'd hear the floorboards creek if he got up.
It was a false sense of security, but it was a breath that kept me from drowning.
My car just died.
The first thing I did was call my partner. Without hesitation.
Do you know what it feels like to be able to do that?
Approximately 24 hours out from discovery and I can talk about it a little. There were two things I felt in particular that I was ashamed of:
Jealousy - this lasted for no more than 5 seconds, but it was still the first one I felt. Can you really hate someone if you're jealous of the person they're with, however fleeting that emotion is?
Doubt in my own experience - it hits so subtly, but like a freight train at the same time. If she likes him and wants to marry him, he can't be that bad, right? Was everything I felt and experienced real? Or was it al in my head? Did I invent it all to justify being a bad person?
It's been seven years, and I still don't trust my own brain.
He's getting married to someone I am about 3 or 4 degrees of separation from (depending on your definition).
It's not a full spiral, but there's definitely some things I need to talk to my therapist about. Some emotions that ranged from mild and controlled to shameful.
But generally, I think I'm doing ok. I'm currently eating my feelings at nearly 3am, but I've had worse nights.
Begone!
I don't know how it's possible but I'm still finding paperwork with both of our names on it. I'm cleaning out some stuff I've been putting off since moving in with my partner, and i just found one of our void cheques.
There's a story about those cheques that i don't think I've ever told, but for now just know I'm nauseous just looking at our names together.
I've hated myself so much for failures I would forgive someone else in a heartbeat. Gotta take a deep breath and hug that guy and tell myself I'm okay now. Nobody needs to be punished. I don't have to hate. Don't have to be afraid. It's okay. You can cry. You can laugh loudly. Breathe and sleep and maybe eat something too. It's okay to feel like a failure. It's okay to grieve or be numb or look ridiculous or disappoint yourself. There's always tomorrow.
I Wrote a Poetry Book 🦷
Hello, friends! I haven’t posted anything on here for a while, apart from reblogging gif sets when I get into a new fandom lol, but I wrote a poetry book, and I want to share more information about it!! I would really appreciate anyone skimming over this and/or reblogging. ❤️
A few months ago, I finished my first poetry manuscript, Is It Bad if My Gums Bleed When I Floss? If you’re a fan of the macabre, poems about trauma and self-acceptance, or you happen to love teeth like I do, this book might be for you!
Is it Bad if My Gums Bleed When I Floss? is a collection of poems following Netty, a dental student, from childhood to adulthood and the relationships she forms throughout, including a sexually abusive relationship with her professor. When she emerges on the other side, it’s with heavy trauma and a newfound desire to fully accept her own sexuality, as well as heal her fractured relationship with herself. It’s a lot of body horror—it is pulling teeth and probing gum pockets and tasting blood on someone else’s lips. It’s literally teeth poetry. It’s not pretty, but I think that’s the beauty of it.
Because I know it’s easy to see this and not really know what the hell “teeth poetry” means or what my writing is actually like, here’s an example—this is a concrete poem I want on the back cover of the book, which touches on a lot of the themes and images in the collection (please excuse the poor quality; I don’t know how to fix that lol):
I want her, I want her
under my pillow are my baby
teeth soaking up saliva
in his mouth
I taste my blood
under my fingernails
press into her skin
is so pretty
little lips saying
“It’s Netty,” and I—
I’m really proud of this manuscript; completing it was like putting to rest years of hatred and shame that were festering within me. But I can’t say any of this without giving a BIG thank you to @tigerlilycorinne and @jovialobservationanchor for supporting me while writing this. If it weren’t for them reading it, leaving feedback and suggestions, and generally just being the best cheerleaders in the world, I probably would’ve just let it sit in my Google Drive.
One last note: I have an author Instagram and a Ko-fi if you want to follow or support me elsewhere! I’ll keep you guys updated on any news I hear from the indie publishers I’ve sent this manuscript to, as well as new things I’m writing. (Between you and me, I have another book in the works…!)
Again, I would very much appreciate if anybody reblogs this! Tag a poetry lover, the dental hygienist you follow, a Dead Dove fan, or the casual tooth enjoyer in your life. I want my poetry to find the audience I’m certain is out there. If you know me, you know I’m not always confident in my writing, but I think this is it. 🦷❤️
Speak even if your voice shakes ❤️🩹
I’ve got your back 💜
Setting boundaries is hard. Not letting what others say about you affect you can be even harder.
We hate October. Stay safe fellow #ramcoa survivors.
abuse tw
a very important and serious reminder: just because your abuser does nice stuff sometimes or gives you nice stuff sometimes, does not make them any less of an abuser.
throughout my life I have been abused by multiple different people in different ways, and yeah they were nice sometimes, but that never erased the fact that they abused me.
Just thinking about how, as an under-medicated, severely mentally ill 18 year old, living 800 miles from the only home I knew with no support system other than the fundamentalist cult I was wrapped up in-
I was supposed to sit in a court room and point a finger at the man who hurt me for over a decade, and know how to explain what he did to me, and remember events I was completely dissociated during, and understand that I wasn't lying, I just didn't have access to all of the parts of me that experienced all of the things that happened.
With an undiagnosed dissociative disorder, I was supposed to explain to a jury why my three witnesses knew different details of different events and why I'd only reported one instance.
As a minor, I was supposed to understand that if I told my mandated reporter therapist about one specific situation, I'd be expected to then disclose every instance of abuse, or pretend that it all only happened once.
As a child, I was expected to behave in a way that "makes sense" to the middle aged, rural, conservative jury of my abuser's peers.
Fuck. That.
I can't believe I'm 31 and still putting pieces together.
Shortly after reporting my stepfather to the police for rape, his father, the man I had called grandpa for a fucking decade, started coming to the burger joint I worked at. I couldn't get a restraining order because he didn't do anything but order a burger and sit at a table directly across from the register and stare at me. He'd leave when he finished his food.
When I told people, their reaction was always "why would he do that? That's so weird." But knowing what I know now, knowing he'd been paying my mother thousands of dollars over the years to keep both of us quiet, knowing he had effectively been paying my mother to let his son use me-
It was just intimidation. Money wasn't keeping me quiet so he wanted to scare me into silence. Wanted me to know he had more power, more resources, more time.
And they did win the court case. And he did scare the shit out of me. So much so that I nearly quit my job.
I was just faulty merchandise to him. God.
This was my 4th Christmas without my mother. Every year, I am struck by how much of a fucking relief it is. I was told by so many people that I would regret my decision, that I would miss her, that "she's your mom and you only get one."
I don't miss her. My life has been objectively better without her.
I miss believing I had a mom who loved me, but that started a long time before I cut her out.
I don't miss the panic I felt seeing her name on my caller id. I don't miss her manipulation. I don't miss her parentifying me. I don't miss the burden of caring for her in her old age looming over my head like a fucking guillotine. I don't miss her guilt or her lies or her abuse.
I don't miss her. I don't miss her. I don't miss her. I feel free.
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.
~ I said you were too much so you made yourself small ~
Tell them...
Tell them about the constant bouts of silent treatment you put me through when you wouldn't get your way or when I would beg for communication.
Tell them...
Tell them how you told my ex my depression was a burden, I wouldn't let you leave the relationship or I would threaten suicide, pretended to leave me just to trigger it ( all so you could take screenshots of the manipulation to send to her and call me crazy, while simultaneously telling me you love and 'I can't believe I almost lost you')
Tell them...
Tell them how my ex sent me videos of all the conversations so when I saw everything you were doing to me, I immediately left out of respect for myself because I WAS NOT going to be abused any longer.
Tell them...
Tell them how to this day you take ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY.
Tell them...
Tell them how a few months later you said you did and said all of that ' because you were lashing out'. That it was a symptom of your BPD. How everything was always your BPD.
Tell them...
Tell them how you begged me to stay. Begged me to go to therapy after I saw the video. And when you realized I was putting myself first, you immediately switched to attacking me and tearing me down.
Tell them.
Tell them the truth.
Extremely Important Conversation.
Includes introductory cat.
Olurinatti -- Diddy is Going to Prison:
Hey, do any of my followers have experience with absconding from their parents' house to a safe place as soon as they're able? Do you have any advice on how to do that? Do you have any advice on what the person they're going to live with should do?