Latest Posts by twistybat - Page 6

It's officially Banned Books Week, so now is as good a time as any to remind everyone that libraries still get frequent challenges to books on our shelves. Books continue to be challenged, banned, and even burned. I'm a librarian in a blue state, yet one of my neighboring libraries has recently been the target of book bannings and threats of violence (they had to shut down an all-ages LGBTQ event due to these threats too).

Please support your local libraries. If you want more books by queer and disabled authors and authors of color, TELL US. Give us recommendations. Check out books and ebooks when we get them in. Tell us when you write books too. We're here to make information and stories accessible.

P.S. And if you notice patrons or staff acting like assholes (particularly managers) please let someone know. Library government is weird, so a lot of libraries aren't union and also don't have any sort of HR. Trust me, if you frequently notice someone being a jerk, chances are good everyone else has to and has been stonewalled.

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Hey. Large chest people that want it to be smaller and flatter. I have a tip for you.

I am a trans man. I have an h cup chest. That is not a typo, not a brag, and not an invitation to sexually harass me. This means I have about 4 pounds of breast. This means that binders do not work for me. There’s not enough structure in the compression to keep that much weight in place.

I wore a sports bra under my binder, for a time- it kept things in place, and the binder flattened. This isn’t really safe and I recommend against it. It also never actually got me looking masc- I tended to look like I had between a c or b cup. TransTape I discarded too- it’s just not sturdy enough.

Enter Enell. Specifically, the Enell Sport High Impact Bra.

I want you to look at the construction of that sports bra. It clasps in the front. This flattens the chest. And since it’s a sports bra designed for busty people, it LOCKS everything in place. When I wear my Enell sports bra, I do not bounce. It also gets me looking like I have an a cup at worst- and at best, when I layer, I actually look masc.

Admittedly, they’re not cheap. That one’s 66$. But I’ve tried even custom binders, and they don’t work as well as Enell. I was actually contemplating a custom built corset before I found Enell. Enell is also much, much safer than layering compression, since it is being used as intended (sort of). As a bonus, you can actually exercise in it- it’s a sports bra!

I will note that they use their own sizing system, so you will have to measure yourself.

Happy binding!

If you experienced trauma in childhood or had a rough childhood, dude listen to me. Offer yourself play. You were deprived of it.

Keep bubbles in the house, blow bubbles in the yard, blow them in your room, get a coloring book that doesn’t have to be an adult one with mandalas, watch cartoons, laugh at stupid things, dress up as a superhero for Halloween, wear a Santa hat on Christmas and big light up snowflake earrings, lay down on the floor, lay down in the grass, eat eggos for dinner sometimes. It’s not stupid. You’re not childish. You’re giving your inner child what they had taken from them. They deserve it.

I don’t know if it’s this way for everyone, but being abused made it so impossible for me to come forward if I’ve done something wrong or a mistake, even if it’s a tiny little thing, even if I know it would be forgiven instantly and not even taken as a digression, I can’t do it. I feel the second I admit I did something unfavorable or wrong, I’m going to be condemned straight to hell, I’m going to be despised, my crimes are going to be enlarged and put on trial, I’m going to become untrustworthy, evil villain in everyone’s eyes.

I end up hiding things that people have no reason to hide, just because I’m too scared to admit to the tiniest mistakes, because I can’t handle people thinking worse of me, for something so small, something that doesn’t warrant being demonized. Something that doesn’t even hurt anyone but could, in my mind, be perceived as less than perfect, less than ideal action.

I hate it. I hate that I condemn myself and hide in shame before even giving anyone the chance to forgive me.

This is a great response and I am going to use it!

I get so fucking angry when people try to rationalize why parents abuse children and it’s always “oh parents have been thru it too” “oh they had a hard life” “oh they were abused too” “oh they never knew love so how could they give it” and what they’re basically saying is: Well, the child is suffering but it’s not anybody’s fault. It was inevitable. And you know what that means? There’s nobody to blame, there’s no way to stop it, parents who have had difficulties in life will always abuse their kids and children will just have to suck it up because that’s life.

Well then, what about me? And others like me? We’ve been brutalized by our parents severely, we haven’t known anything except neglect and pain and hatred, and would never do it to another living soul on earth, much less a child. What are we then? An exception? Are we so much fucking smarter and intelligent and insightful than all the parents on the world that we figured this out? Are we special cases? Are we miracles? How come our parents couldn’t have figured out what we have, that hurting a child is an act of evil and that we cannot claim to be a good person after we do that? How come something so fucking simple and obvious has eluded all of their eyes over and over again but we know it? How come if everyone abused has no choice but to become a monster themselves, we’re not monsters still? If we could suffer abuse and remain human, why couldn’t they do it to?

We’re the proof that abuse does not produce abusers. Abuse is a choice, every single time a parent abuses a child they’re making a choice to do it. And the easier this choice is to make and get away with, the more abusers we will have. This world is run by abusers and makes it easy for abusers to make that choice, even relives them out of the guilt for choosing that and provides them with many “worse” examples and excuses and rationalizations so they would still feel good about themselves! This world is fighting to continue child abuse, to continue worshipping abusers. This needs to stop, all excuses need to die. All abusers need to be held responsible for their own actions, every single one. No sad backstories, no tragic histories, no debate about how much harder it would be to not abuse a child than to abuse them. If we could make a choice to not abuse others, so can they. Their last excuse is burned to the ground by our existence.

quick dismantle for those who are starting to feel like it’s not worth speaking against narcissistic abuse:

children are being abused by narcissists right now, with no way to find out if there’s no resources being written about it

narcissistic abuse has been found to be so specifically devastating on the human body that even if it’s not physical, it causes long-term physical symptoms (chronic pain, chronic fatigue, inability to sleep regularly, over-active cortisol, over-responsive brain chemicals that give you ptsd symptoms)

there are people organizing forums, writing books, articles, posts, people making videos, checklists and all possible resources for dealing with narcissistic abuse. all of those people are survivors and victims of it. they’re not all making it up. they’re not all doing it for something that doesn’t exist.

dynamics of the narcissistic abuse are so pervasive, a person will usually feel they’re going insane and doubt themselves so hard until they finally find resources on narcissistic abuse, which is going to help them regain their sanity and find sense in what has been happening to them

narcissistic abuse has left millions of people feeling they’re not worthy of attention, care, resources, community, support or trust, and they’re accepting abuse as their normal. we can’t abandon them. we can’t say this is okay and look the other way in order to protect the narcissists.

if you’re worried that speaking out against narcissistic abuse is creating stigma against narcissists, remember that our writings and resources are being spread only among victims and survivors. narcissists are still controlling the mainstream narrative and all articles you look up as a non-survivor will convince you that narcissists are the ‘same as normal people’

for survivors of narcissistic abuse, it’s absolutely vital to avoid future narcissists and to be aware of their tactics. this is not limiting their access to public resources or public people in general, it’s only limiting their success among victims and survivors. ask yourself why would they want access to survivors and victims specifically. why is it so important that to this particular demographic, they look appealing.

narcissists claiming that if we don’t want them to have and abuse children, it’s ‘genocide’, genocide against who? narcissists most often don’t make other narcissists, they’re mostly creating abused kids. so the apparent genocide is against the abused children. they’re accusing us of genocide against ourselves.

narcissists finding abused people taking about abuse and attacking them for ‘smearing their reputation’ is a cover-up and darvo tactics. Only an abuser could turn against an abuse victim to act hurt and police their language instead of feeling rage towards the abuser. Anyone non-abusive would immediately have a problem with a narcissist who did the abuse, not with the victim who speaks out about it.

saying ‘not-all-narcissists’ is still admitting that a lot of them do abuse, and for the sake of their reputation, we have to shut up about it all. shut up. about abusers. to protect reputations. who except an abuser would need that to happen.

other times when they’re claiming no narcissist is abusive, they’re accusing millions of victims to be liars. openly denying experiences of abuse victims only to make themselves look good. we’re going to stand around and allow this?

making one narcissist feel like they don’t belong into safe spaces of victims is not more important than protecting the vulnerable part of the population from narcissistic abuse

abuse victims don’t have to be exposed to anyone who has anything in common with their abuser. we have the right to feel safe at the expense of anyone’s feelings.

Speaking against narcissistic abuse is NOT futile. They’re fighting to shut it off precisely because it’s limiting their access to victims. Every day a victim of narcissistic abuse finds their way to their freedom because there are people who spoke out about it.

Happy Pride!

revisiting the "comics as a self-love exercise" thing i did a few years ago. (u can read the first one here, cw for discussions of death + suicide.)

thank u for hanging in there. u did really good.

I'm a red-blooded corn-fed AMERICAN MAN and if I wanna get my tits chopped off that's my god-given right as a tax payer.

Dismantling the Lies of Abusive Parents Masterlist

Resources

Giving you food and clothing is the bare minimum

You don’t owe gratitude for food and clothes you needed as a child

You had the right for basic resources

Parents shaming you for costing money is ironic and stupid

What it means when they say ‘This is MY house’

My house = my rules is blackmail

Children don’t owe absolute obedience for being fed and sheltered

Physical abuse

You are allowed to refuse any touch, not only violence

If they ‘don’t know they’re hurting you’, why do they ignore or punish you when you protest?

Hitting children is irrational and doesn’t work

You cannot ‘provoke’ your parents to abuse you if they’re not abusive

Why do parents actually hit, manipulate and traumatize children

Blatant Lies

Care, nurture and affection do not make you weak

They’re lying when they say it ‘wasn’t that bad’‘

You wouldn’t have grown up spoiled if not for abuse

You got too affected by it’ is a lie

Your parents are not ‘just too emotionally immature’ to understand abuse

‘You’re not living in the real world!’ is nonsense

You’re not worthless, a burden, ungrateful, or stupid, and your parents know that.

Constant undermining of your accomplishments is abuse

Not being allowed to talk about the past is symptom of abuse

Parents who want you to be happy vs look happy

You are not abusive for resisting abuse

When they claim ‘they didn’t mean it’, it’s still abuse

Your parents are responsible for their own actions regardless of how badly they try to shift blame on you

Psychological abuse

Blind Obedience is not required in a healthy upbringing

Disgust is a weapon abusive parents use on their kids

If they say they love you, but walk all over your feelings, they don’t 

Parents don’t have the right to enter your room to scream at you

Parents insisting for you to be ‘tough’ are doing it to hide the trauma

Even if a kid acts like ‘they can take it’, it’s still abuse

Pretending abuse is discipline will leave children permanently scarred

It’s inhumane to control and shame children’s reactions to abuse

Why don’t you already know this? vs Teaching you necessary skills

Acting like they’ll change is escape sabotage

Parents are responsible for protecting children from harm

References to how healthy parenting looks like

Not being allowed to be angry with your parents is psychological abuse

If parents want you to act way you did when you were little, they’re dangerous

Threats about how hard your life will be later on, are bad for you

Lack of continuity and ever-changing rules will cause anxiety

Forced obedience will lead you to abusive relationships

Parents acting like you’re a ‘bad’ is a shame tactic to control you

There’s healthy and abusive ways to give children chores

Revisioning the past and insisting you remember it wrong is gaslighting

If your parents make you suicidal, they’re abusive

Parents threatening ‘they could be worse’ is abuse

Always assuming the worst intentions for your actions is wrong

Keeping children hostage in abuse is torture

If this hits home, also read Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

How abusive childhood teaches you to stay in abusive relationships:

you have to be obedient and submissive in your childhood if you don’t want to get beaten, you’re taught this is normal in life, so why should you doubt it when it happens in your relationship?

you’re supposed to care about everyone else more than yourself, you’re taught to provide comfort and be minimally or completely non-demanding of other family members, always put yourself last, and this is exactly what abusive partner will demand of you as well, how would you fight it if you’re taught this is just your place in life?

your appearance, interests, skills, achievements, and faults are constantly exposed to criticism, insults, humiliation and ridicule in abusive childhood, and you’re taught it’s normal, how are you supposed to fight it when it happens in a relationship?

you’re humiliated and ridiculed for seeking intimacy or try to express yourself in your childhood, how would you know it’s okay for you to desire understanding, consideration, reassurance and intimacy in your relationship?

if you’re used to being hit, humiliated, and having your objections to it ignored, or even worse, minimized and punished by even worse violence, how are you supposed to defend yourself when it happens in a sexual situation? how would you be able to know it’s wrong for another person to harm you if your parents have been doing it, and they supposedly love you?

if you’re taught to always be grateful that things aren’t worse, always compare yourself to someone who is tortured worse, how are you ever supposed to reach out and get help for being abused? how are you supposed to know when your situation is really, really bad? There’s always going to be someone somewhere in the world tortured worse, and this becomes a reason for you to suffer in silence.

Abusive parents are direct cause of abusive relationships, if your boundaries aren’t destroyed and your sense of what’s acceptable and to be tolerated in your close relationships skewed to allow abuse, you have much easier time rejecting abusive relationships later in life. 

I’m still trying to figure out a consistent Killer Croc design, but I’m getting closer. Half the time, he’s an actual lizard and half the time he’s just some guy with a skin condition, so I wanted to kind of blend the two. I don’t have much backstory figured out for him yet; He had some kind of skin condition and entered a drug trial that made things worse, then somewhere along the way he was imbued with actual reptile characteristics against his will.

He and Otis met sometime shortly after that, probably after Otis went to prison. They both hide out in the sewers a lot, so they cross paths regularly. They were also cellmates in Arkham at one point.

I just *love* how TERFs hate on trans women for supposedly "appropriating cis women's struggles", then proceed to make a trans person's identity and relationship to gender all about themselves and how it makes *them* feel. Grow up.

Trans girls and women deserve guaranteed access to healthcare and safe shelter.

Abusive parents are the only ones who go convincing their children they don’t deserve basic resources and need to be grateful for being allowed to have any. First, you have to be grateful for having a roof under your head, then you have to be grateful that you get to eat food, then you have to express gratitude for being able to own clothing, then for being allowed basic resources like books and a bag so you can go to school, you have to be grateful for a ride, for a bed to sleep in, for being allowed to live.

These are not things that should require any gratitude. Every child brought in this world has every right to food, shelter, comfort, clothing and any other resource they need to feel safe and happy and to develop all the interests and hobbies they want to. Anything else is unacceptable. Do we bring children in this world just to have them fear for their own lives? Do we have children so we could starve them, have them hurt or killed with cold and heat, to deny them living space and right to comfort? Do we bring children in the world so we could torture them? If not, then there’s no fucking reason they should be grateful they aren’t being killed on purpose.

What abusive parents are trying to do is make the child feel it’s not allowed to exist anywhere past the boundaries the parents set. If they can convince a child they don’t have a right to living space, next thing they can convince the child is that having their personal living space is selfish, that they’re taking living space from someone else, who actually deserves it,  and acting out of bounds when they want to move out. It makes sure children don’t ask for money, so they can’t accumulate money and escape. Hell, it even makes sure that when children are offered money they don’t feel they’ve earned, they’ll refuse it, and it will make it a lot harder for children to get financially safe and independent if they come into adulthood strongly believing they deserve nothing. They will work for next to no wages. They will struggle so hard. Survival will become something terrifying and out of bounds and will force them to come back to parents.

You take your living space as you please. You eat and spend all you can. You take everything and live wherever you want. The assholes don’t get to tell you what you deserve or not. The monsters don’t get to define where or how you’re allowed to exist. Those who would force gratitude for things you have every right to, actually have nothing on you. You do not owe them shit. You were in fact, entitled to the living space the second you were born. You were entitled to food and clothes and any resource you needed. What’s more, you were entitled to loving parents who would make sure you grow up unharmed, healthy and with the best start in life they could have possibly given you. You were entitled to more than they ever gave you. It’s them who owe you a childhood. It’s them who owe you a home and a family. Not you who owes them because sometimes they would remember they in fact had a kid, and it was in fact, illegal not to feed and clothe them. Fuck the guilt tripping. You deserve more than they gave you. 

Recognizing Abuse Masterlist

Signs that you’re living in abuse:

Behavioral patterns of living in abuse

Was I abused? Checklist

Not knowing you are a victim

Signs your family is abusive

Making excuses for your abusive parents

Experience of living in secrecy

What they taught you was abuse

Emotional experiences of living in abuse

Shame and guilt: how abused children feel

What makes parents abusers (actions)

Have I been manipulated into believing abuse was my fault? Checklist

Am I being held hostage by abusers? Checklist

You are not allowed to mention the past

Why you still love abusive parents

Parental behaviour that isn’t normal

Shit parents aren’t supposed to say to you

Experience of “not belonging anywhere”

Red flags for abusive parents

Healthy vs Abusive Chores

Was my childhood abusive or just had some bad parts?

Rules always change (unpredictable environment is abusive)

Breakdown of abusive parent’s behaviour:

“This is my house” rule

Start living in the real life!

Why all the children aren’t abused equally in an abusive home

Common abuser hypocrisies

Do your parents want you to be happy or look happy?

Why do they try to convince you that you’re worthless

Why do they pretend you’re a burden? Controlling behaviour

Why your abusers are not good people

Abusive parents are keeping you in false hope they’ll change

Are your parents preventing you from succeeding?

Abusive parents pretending “it wasn’t that bad”

Double Bind (why every choice you make ends wrong)

Incorporating trauma in raising children

Abusers will not allow you to call them out on abuse

Signs your parents are narcissistic:

Stuff delusional narcissists say

Shit narcissistis parents say

Tactics of narcissistic abuse

Recognizing emotional immaturity of narcissistic parents

Examples of narcissistic behaviours

Being punished for growing up by narcissistic parents

What children of narcissists go thru

Signs you’ve been thru sexual abuse:

CSA (Childhood Sexual Abuse) Symptoms

Signs you might have endured CSA

Was I sexually abused by adults as a child? Checklist

Signs of abusive friendship/relationship:

How to tell if a friend is not a friend

Am I in an abusive relationship/friendship? Checklist

Manufacturing insecurities

Red flags for abusers

Have I been thru social abuse? Checklist

You can recognize abusers by how they make you feel

How abusive childhood teaches you to stay in abusive relationships

Recognizing abusive friendship

Signs you’re struggling with trauma

Trauma processing information

Experiences of traumatized children

Signs you’re recovering from long term abuse

Things abuse survivors think/say

Thoughts of victims of child abuse

Your brain on trauma

How long term childhood abuse develops into complex trauma (comic)

Ups and downs of trauma

The person I reblogged this from deserves to be happy

I tried to scroll past this. I really did

Abusive parents will still make sure you care about them so much, so your heart hurts when you even think about calling them abusers, they will make themselves seem so important, so clueless about what they’re doing to you, so well-meaning, so emotionally immature, it feels like you’re a bad person to even think of holding them responsible for cruelty. But they never seem to think the same of you.

They don’t think you’re important, or clueless about how you affect them. You, in fact, should just shut up and watch your every move for how it affects them. You never get the benefit of doubt that you maybe meant well when you did something they didn’t like. You have to take responsibility for everything you do, and even for what they do. You don’t get to be emotionally immature, you have to act like an understanding, compassionate, all-giving adult even when you’re a small child. You don’t get to be forgiven for mistakes, you don’t get to be spared of being called horrible names when you’re less than perfect in their eyes. You don’t get the same warmth and care they expect to be given. You don’t get to have space to grow and develop. You don’t get to be important. You only exist to make them feel like good parents, regardless of what awful parents they are. You get to be neglected and dismissed but you are expected to care and acknowledge them immensely.

If they can’t acknowledge that you are a child, who depends on them for care and safety, who is affected by them immensely and that it’s on them to provide you with care and warmth and space, if they can’t give you space to make mistakes, space to grow and develop, if they can’t hold themselves responsible for their own actions towards you - they’re not good parents. And regardless of what they say, you’re not obliged to make them feel all warm and soft inside after they failed you that badly. You don’t owe them credit they never deserved. If they wanted to feel like good parents, maybe they should have put more effort into making sure their child is safe and happy. Maybe they should have tried parenting instead of manipulating you to love them despite what they did to you.

Took a while but it’s finally done! Here is Batwoman’s Black Mask after Alice attacked him with acid, commissioned by the lovely @doktorgirlfriend. Thank you so much dear! This was a fun one to do research for, and I was delighted to learn that this man was in both Saw and had a small cameo in the otherwise regrettable Silent Hill movie sequel. Truly a class act.

Time for a rousing game of "How the fuck does Man-Bat's body work", feat. Oswald.

That first transformation left some permanent marks on Kirk. He built up his upper body strength before taking the original serum specifically to offset how heavy the wings would be, but they still managed to pull his shoulder blades out of place. He needed surgery on his back after he got arrested and usually wears a brace to help with it now. After he changed back, the improvement to his hearing stated, and his hair started coming in thicker. The serum also screwed with his connective tissue, so he's more flexible and his joints dislocate more easily than they used to.

Anyway, comic book anatomy is fun to figure out.

If you’ve been thru a phase of your life feeling hopeless, depressed, broken, scared, suffering pain that you didn’t believe would ever stop, or having your whole will to go on eaten away by something devastating that happened to you, and you were alone and abandoned and ashamed of feeling this pain, I want you to know that it wasn’t okay.

Every human, especially young humans, can get overwhelmed and devastated and drown in their dark thoughts and fears, and nobody deserves to go thru that alone. If you were living close to other people, and they failed to notice, or ignored your state, or tried to make sure that you feel guilty for it, ashamed of it, deserving of it, or responsible for it, that wasn’t okay. That’s not what’s supposed to happen. Human society isn’t built on kicking someone when they’re down. Humans are not supposed to see someone suffering and deteriorating and then go ‘serves them right’ or ‘it’s their own fault’. That’s despicable.

You were not supposed to be left alone in your pain. You were supposed to get help and support. Even if you couldn’t imagine how that support and help would look like, if you couldn’t believe you deserved any, even if you felt so worthless and unimportant that taking someone’s time and energy would have felt horrible and selfish to you, you still deserved help and support during the worst period of your life.

Someone should have checked up on you. Someone should have made sure that you don’t spend all or most of your time alone, drowning in your own fears and pain, neglected. Someone should have offered you conversation and reassurances, even if they wouldn’t have fixed the underlying issue. You shouldn’t have been going thru it alone and unchecked. Someone should have taken measures to make sure you know you’re cared for, that people are going to put an active effort into changing your situation for the better. You should have been reminded, with actions and words, that you are still lovable, that you’re desired to be a part of society, that you’re not something to leave behind in a room until you either get your shit together or fail and be forgotten. You should have never feared for your relevance or your value while already suffering from everything else. You shouldn’t have been left to your own devices, with your social needs completely unfulfilled, with society turning their entire back on you.

That kind of situation makes you feel alone for a long, long time. That’s the kind of thing that makes you lose hope in people, and it should have never come to it. You should never have been in so much pain and alone in it. You never deserved that kind of cruel and contemptuous abandonment. You should never have been thru something that makes other people feel like a threat or a dead end. Your problems should never have felt so large that your place in the world your humanity and would be revoked over them.

If your parent is a covert narcissist, then most of the usual narcissistic parent information won’t ring as true, and instead you’ll be in a situation where you feel great worry, concern, protectiveness, desire to care for, desire to rescue, feeling responsible for, and longing to be acknowledged and loved by your parent.

Your parent was always the ‘weak one’, and you were the one who was strong, and there to protect them. There was a neverending stream of afflictions plaguing your parent – they struggled with the child care, they had a tough time being married to the other parent, they were sick, they were bullied by the other family members/people at work, they had too much housework to do, or the housework too hard and they were too weak to handle it, they worried about the future, they didn’t know what to do or how to go about life, they lacked support, nobody took care of them, nobody gave them affection. And you wanted to rescue them so badly. You were there for everything, if something needed to get done, you tried your best to do it in order to spare your parent the extra worry and work, you anxiously tried to help them as they were sick, you stood up for them when they were bullied, you reassured them and tried to take as much stress as possible on yourself, only so they would have to do less.

It never worked. Regardless of how much housework you did, or how hard you tried to ease the tensions or make sure they have the peace and care to get better, they would never be quite okay. And it always felt like you were so close to getting your parent to a place where they’d be fine, and then, they would finally have space in their life to love you. Because, in your head, your parent did love you, only they were always so preoccupied with their own life, they could never relax enough to show it to you. So they never did anything you did for them – they didn’t protect you, or stand up for you when you were bullied/abused, they didn’t nurture you or take care for you when you were sick, they didn’t help with your studying or chores, they didn’t give you their time or affection. And you felt empty, but you understood it was only because they couldn’t, they were never okay enough to do it. You had to be strong enough to handle it all for them.

Sometimes, they’d lash out at you, and say things you were sure they didn’t mean. And you understood even then, they only did it because other people were bullying them, and they had to lash out at someone. Or they didn’t understand it was wrong. Or they didn’t realize it would hurt you because they were used to you being so tough. You still believed that deep inside, they loved you. Hateful words from them hurt you immensely, but you couldn’t find it in your heart to accuse such a troubled and anxious person of being a bad parent, you didn’t even want to think about how badly this would hurt them. Getting angry at them was likewise impossible, because you understood just too well where they were coming from, and you felt so bad and worried for them already, you couldn’t even think about turning against them. You didn’t want them to have to deal with life without you, when it was already so hard for them.

It was next to impossible for you to realize that you were neglected, because you were the one who was supposed to provide care and solutions. You didn’t have love, but in your heart, the love existed, just out of your reach, just a bit more work to get it. And if it never happened, you blamed yourself for not being enough to get it. Abuse from someone who you were so worried and concerned for, doesn’t read as an abuse, but as action from a person in desperation with no other option but to lash out. Your entire experience growing up was the one of ‘unavoidable’ and ‘necessary’ pain. 

Things I couldn't do in my abuser's house that I can do now:

Take a bath whenever I feel like it

Leave my room whenever I need or want to

Leave the house and arrive back whenever I need or want to

Play music while I cook and dance and sing around the house

Step on the noisy floor tiles

Walk into rooms without peeking in to make sure no one's in them

Leave my belongings all around the house without worrying they'll be broken

Eat everything that's in my fridge without fear it wasn't meant for me

Choose what's in my fridge

Choose when the heating is turned on

Choose what to watch on TV

Choose how to organise my time

Arrive to places on time because I get to choose when I leave the house

Invite my friends home whenever I feel like it

Feel free to add your own! Let's spread some positivity :)

And for those of you who still live with your abusers and need to hear this: it won't last forever. One day, you too will be able to feel safe and in control in your own home ❤️

Amen, amen, amen.

For victims of abuse, it’s almost essential to gain ability to stop empathising with our abusers, not only because it’s keeping us trapped in their manipulations, but because we deserve to know that we don’t have to prioritize the feelings of a person who is actively doing harm to us.

Empathy for victims of abuse is almost mandatory, to the point where we’re punished for every moment we’re not displaying extreme and unconditional empathy for the abusers. We can get called out and berated for simply going about our business and not thinking of what the abuser might want of us in the particular second. We get shamed for ‘not knowing better’ and 'failing our role’ if we take a minute to consider our own needs.

When they’re doing their usual play – hurting us, then quickly acting hurt and playing the victim, bringing out their past trauma, crying about how hard they have/had it, how our feelings hurt them, even in the case we don’t fall for it, and refuse to apologize and accept that our feelings are just collateral damage in their personal crusade, we will get attacked immediately for being an emotionless and selfish person. Fail to react empathetic to the abuser’s guilt trip will get us called out for being horrible, for not caring, for being the most vicious demon, the worst person, the most unworthy and ungrateful human being in the world. That kind of thing sticks. We don’t just get over that. It becomes etched in our brains that displaying empathy, even to someone who is walking all over us, is our biggest priority, that showing empathy is the last thing that might protect us against an even bigger outburst, that might help us deserve to not be attacked for our lack of morality. We don’t get to be mad. We don’t get to stand up for ourselves. We have to put up a display of empathy or endure personal attacks that will make us feel like we don’t deserve to live.

To finally be able to cut the empathy and stand up against the abuser, is an act that fights years, maybe decades of brainwashing and conditioning. To not care if the abuser has it bad anymore, means we faced and fought years of trauma, lies, personal attacks, self doubt, self hatred, pain and injustice. Abusers want to take away our ability not to care, not to empathize and not to prioritize them, and seizing that back means seizing ourselves back, existing in a place where our empathy is not mandatory anymore, where we’re not pure compassionate receptacles of trauma anymore. Where empathy isn’t forced and squeezed out of us under the threat of pain. Where our value and personality isn’t dictated by whether we endlessly forgive and accept people who will only continue hurting us and bringing trauma into our life.

It is not a mark of a healthy and normal human being to offer our entire compassion and understanding to a creature who is destroying us in return. If someone proves to be a danger to us, it’s normal to disregard everything except the knowledge that this is a threat, and nothing else to us. To keep away because our well being shouldn’t be put under a fear of a constant threat. We are normal for following our sense of self-preservation and turning away from whatever is damaging us, regardless of how sad or upset this being becomes. We are not to be a collateral damage to someone’s misery or manipulation. Our empathy doesn’t have to be an opening to accept harm. We can save our empathy for those who also feel for us. We’re not bad people if we close up under a threat of abuse, and want to retreat to safety. We’re not evil, cruel or selfish for extending our hearts only to those who also keep ours safe.

Sometimes your abusers will be extra nice to you after an event of horrendous abuse and it will feel transactional, like if you accept this niceness now, then you’ve accepted to forgive them for the abuse, then it’s all behind in the past and you’re perfectly happy to be on good terms with them again, and it will feel wrong and prickly like poison being injected into your body because no, you’re not okay, and no, you’re not forgiving them, you are not on good terms anymore, you do not want to act nice back, you do not want to accept niceness, you want to shut them out and be free from them forever. 

But you don’t dare to act out only because it might bring the horrendous abuse back. You have no choice but to let them believe all is well and forgiven and you’re a nice little family again and nobody is holding grudges. It feels like signing a contract against your will, confirming that the anger and the pain and the hatred will forever be festering inside of you, until they eat you alive, but you will never bring it up or act on it. It’s like being blackmailed to keep all of the consequences of abuse to yourself, and never let abusers experience any, because they’re currently being nice, and you can’t risk them being anything else.

And you know what, that contract is invalid. You were at a direct threat while you were displaying this behaviour. It doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to explode later. It doesn’t mean you have to keep consistent with what they expect of you. It doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to hold them accountable anymore. You were not leading them on to believe you’re fine with abuse, you were blackmailed and forced into taking over the consequences they deserved to bear. They still deserve it. Temporary niceness makes up for zero of the abuse. Nothing they do or preform or fake can make up for the abuse. Nothing can absolve them. None of your behaviour means they’re forgiven. You’re allowed to hold them accountable, to be mad, to show rage and coldness and consequences for however long you deem it prudent. Even if that is forever.

Neglected children will sometimes reassure adults that they’re fine, even when they’re in a horrible state. Neglected kids will feel guilty if anyone is worried about them because they don’t want to be a bother, feel badly for taking anyone’s attention, and don’t want to cause any concern. If as a kid you reassured and convinced people that you’re okay, when you were anything but, know that it’s normal for abused kids to do that. Concern and worry are often things we get guilt tripped for, we’re told we’re “bad” for making anyone worry, “selfish” for causing any kind of distress.

This doesn’t mean anyone is allowed to use this to change the narrative into ‘but you said you were okay’ when you finally admit you were not. Pain and struggle is visible on a child, regardless of how good an actor the child is, for anyone who bothers to pay attention. You pretending you were fine does not absolve anyone of hurting or neglecting you. A child always left to their own devices, reassuring others and insisting they don’t need any attention ever, is obviously not fine. Healthy children thrive on attention and always try to get more.