245 posts
Sewer dweller brigade
white people hijack every single movement they join
Every single time abuse victims gather the courage to speak about their abuse, they’re not doing something simple and easy for them. They’re going against everything they’ve been conditioned and groomed into.
Every abused person has been forced by their abuser into some form of secrecy; maybe they promised, or they swore they wouldn’t tell, or maybe they were intimidated, threatened into silence, or the worst one, blamed and forced to acknowledge the abuse is their fault, making it so much more terrifying to tell someone, because telling then becomes an admission of their own guilt. And abuse universally makes victims feel ashamed. Because to admit they were powerless and cornered and dehumanized, it risks so much ostracizing and judging by others who do not want to acknowledge it’s possible to be in such a situation and to be able to do nothing about it. People will prefer to turn their back to victims, than to accept it can happen to anyone, even them, and that nothing they do could possibly prevent it.
Sometimes, the abuse will be too horrible to talk about, or to even think about. Sometimes, mere thoughts of it force a person into a panic attack, or a fight-or-flight mode. Some trauma can make us black out. Sometimes just thinking about it is unbearable and makes us wish we weren’t alive for it.
To go against all of that, and to trust someone to listen, acknowledge it, take us seriously, and sides with us, it’s a huge risk. We risk every single retribution from the abuser, we risk our own emotional and mental state, we risk venturing into the unknown territory of having someone else know our most painful, shameful and vulnerable moments, it’s a risk not everyone can make.
For a person to side against us, after we’ve done all this work in order to be able to speak, is devastating. For someone to call us liars, to accuse us of ulterior motives, of making it up to hurt the abuser, of wanting attention, of burdening them with this, it’s almost unbearable punishment for speaking out. Even worse, siding with abuser and agreeing they had the right to do this, or that it is our fault, it’s the worst possible scenario. It inflicts incredible damage on our lives. Makes it impossible to speak out again. It’s often a risk of speaking out in horrible desperation, only to be silenced forever.
And sometimes, it doesn’t even matter if we want to speak out, because there’s nobody who could help us. Our friends, acquaintances, peers, authorities, we can tell they will do nothing even if they knew. We can tell they will easily side with the abusers, because we heard them supporting the same rhetoric abusers use to justify themselves. Even if they felt sorry for us, we can tell they’re not going to do anything to help. For some, the knowledge of the abuse would only be a burden we don’t want to inflict.
You are not at fault for staying silent. You are not responsible or guilty of a sin if you never told anyone. You are not responsible for the abuser’s actions. You are not responsible for anything. Chances to speak out were either denied or ridiculously risky and/or hopeless to grant you rescue. Even if you stayed silent because your abuser lied and threatened you, you had no way to know for sure. You couldn’t have risked what little safety you had for the possibility of being hurt even worse. You’ve walked with this on your shoulders for so long, you should get to put it down without risking a thing.
trauma doesn’t often feel like trauma is ‘supposed’ to feel. it feels like indifferent detachment, watching from outside yourself because nothing can hurt you there. it feels normal, just how people interact, so why are you making a big deal about it? it feels like a joke – just how kids play, just how adults tease, just how some relationships work.
you wake from nightmares five years later and still wonder if you made it all up.
trauma can look like bad behaviour. like the stubborn refusal to get better, to stop self-destructing. trauma is putting yourself in harm’s way because you don’t really mean it, or because it’s funny, or because you just want to feel something, or because you just want to stop feeling. it’s wanting to destroy and reassemble yourself into another person entirely, so your real life can begin. because this isn’t real. because really bad things don’t happen to people like you.
trauma is the constant feeling of being an impostor. it’s the drive to survive twinned with the impulse to make yourself more sick in more ways. to hurt yourself to prove how bad you feel, or to punish yourself for exaggerating. you want people to believe what you’ve been through, to tell you your feelings are real, that your memories really happened. but when people do take you seriously, you play it off as a joke, apologize for bringing the mood down.
you go on and on about how it wasn’t that bad. you seek permission to still love the ones who hurt you, because it’s the people closest to us who can hurt us most deeply.
you can feel like the people who hurt you are the only ones who really knew you. in low self esteem, you can mistake cruelty for honesty.
there will always be people who have been through worse. that doesn’t make what happened to you okay.
there will always be people who don’t believe you. that doesn’t mean you are lying.
at some point, you have to take yourself seriously. you have to make a life you can stand to live. it’s the only way to survive.
Kiss Art February // Day 8 : "Shy"
today i summoned 34 crabs! look at them!
🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀
reblog if you worried about your abusive parent more than they ever worried about you
👀 ...... do u have an OC u would like to show and tell......??? 👀👀👀
Buddy I am going to make you regret asking that.
Since I don't really post original story stuff on this account, my main squeeze OC is this guy, Adrien. He's primarily a DC rogue, but I've been having fun expanding on his backstory lately to include some potentially unrelated stuff.
Also don't worry about all those missing kid posters--they're all him. He's been in the crime business for most of his life thanks to his father, a wannabe gangster who decided that the best fuck-you to his wife would be to kidnap their toddler and go on the lam before she could finish getting over that catholic guilt concerning divorce. Adrien went back and forth between ages and genders regularly, repeating or skipping grades as needed to fit whichever social security card his dad had snatched that month. His current identity is the longest-running one he's had, taken up after his dad disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
As a criminal, Adrien mostly deals in sabotage, either for corporations or for the mob. He prefers to be on retainer rather than causing trouble for his own sake. That can mean anything from destruction of property to taking a party hostage inside of a burning building. He puts the engineering skills to good use by quietly dismantling structures from the inside. A few crossed wires here and a few blocked doors there can cause a surprising amount of mayhem in just a couple of minutes. It pays pretty well too, if you don't count all the medical bills for getting his ass kicked and/or threatened with a torturous death by the Penguin for trying to burn down his club.
So yeah, this asshole is where I dump all my niche interests as of late. Thanks for letting me rant about him a bit <3
in batman 2022 bruce wayne's parents were killed in 2001 he would have been like 10? i think. the black parade was released in 2006 when he would have been ambiguously high school aged and obviously very emo and unpopular. what i'm saying here is that i think battinson heard the lyrics "when i was a young boy my father took me into the city to see a marching band he said son when you grow up will you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned" and decided to become batman then and there.
DO NOT DO THIS.
This makes me so angry.
If you work in a movie theater and you do this I have no respect for you.
My younger brother is Type 1 Diabetic.
When we go to a movie theater, we always get him diet soda. If he were to get regular when we asked for diet, we would not give him the insulin he would need for it. If that happens, his blood sugar level could go so high he could go into a coma, go blind, or even die.
If somebody gave him regular soda instead of diet without telling us, that person could be responsible for a nine-year-old being killed or blinded.
Just thinking about that makes me so angry. I get scared every time we take him to a movie in case the people working there saw this picture and decide to do the same thing.
Please signal boost this so people know.
i honestly think that the reason that the whole "staff shortage" thing still hasn't been resolved is because employers legitimately aren't trying to remedy it.
like as this "shortage" drags on it seems less and less like a natural phenomenon and more like excuse for employers (especially large employers like grocery store chains) to see just how few people they can have in their stores and still make money. like this pandemic has given them the perfect opportunity to see just how shit they can make the customer experience while still turning a profit
and when you look at it that way, the countless stories of people being denied jobs that were supposedly in DESPERATE need of filling totally make sense! because even if your store has ten-person lines at every cashier, if it isn't hurting your bottom line, why would you care? businesses are finding out now just how much that they can get away with before losing business, and it's WAY more than they previously thought
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b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm)
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(Source)
Today the governor of Texas released an official statement directing Family and Protective Services to investigate families of transgender minors on allegations of child abuse (with the intention of separating trans children from their families). It includes a “duty to report”, directing those who know or suspect the existence of a trans child to report it.
This is not a law, nor is it technically actively enforceable. But it is an official statement by a governor that WILL cause real consequences. It also emerges from all of the OTHER anti-trans legislation in action.
30/50 U.S. states are currently proposing legislation against the existence of trans minors (or sometimes people up to 21 years old).
As a trans person who transitioned as a minor in one of these states, I’ve been fighting against these laws for years with little to no news coverage. I am begging for people to care about this. These laws prohibit access to gender-affirming care, accuse families of trans minors of child abuse, jail doctors, and prohibit trans people from playing in sports. Some of these laws have already passed. Some are going to.
Here is a thread of resources in regards to what is happening in Texas right now.
Here’s a thread of GoFundMes of Texas families of trans children who are trying to move out of the state.
Here is a website where you can track these anti-trans bills in the U.S., see what is happening in your state, and see what action you can take.
Stay safe. Protect and uplift trans youth.
Abusers love to pretend to be misunderstood and dealing with a lot of pain, guilt, concern or fear at all times. They love to make out their past so it seems like they’re some kind of tragic hero, or someone who is only abusive because of everything they’ve bee thru. They will yell at you for “not considering their feelings enough”, you can recognize it in phrases “do you ever think about how it is for me? do you think i enjoy doing this?” as if you are the one ignoring their feelings, and not the reverse. Even when they look happy you’re supposed to always assume that deep inside they’re in some kind of pain and be as understanding as possible.
Don’t get fooled by this. People who are dealing with a lot of pain, guilt, concern, shame, and fear don’t take it out on their closest ones. People who are aware of what compassion is wont yell at you for not taking enough of their feelings into account. People who are living with pain and regret don’t look fucking smug and self-important all the time! People who live in shame wouldn’t risk hurting you and increasing shit they’re feeling ashamed about! People who are hurt and living in a lot of pain wouldn’t just go and try to make you feel awful about yourself too! They wouldn’t make inappropriate jokes or call you names or try to convince you that if they feel bad, you need to feel bad too, and if they are doing that, then you are not supposed to take their feelings into account anymore!
Your empathy should not extend to those who have it as a goal to hurt you, when another person wants to cause you pain, this is where your empathy for them should end. No matter what they’re pretending to go thru, doesn’t it feel a little bit too convenient that their lives are so “tragic” and “misunderstood” and for that reason you’re supposed to just let them take it out on you and “understand where they’re coming from”? If they’re leading you to believe you’re a bad person if you don’t let them hurt you, they can just fuck off! It’s just a sham to make you believe that allowing them to cause you pain is noble from you, it’s not, your life has bigger value than to be a punching bag for someone, noble thing is to protect your life from that kind of parasite.
I realized growing up alone caused me to never give other people any roles in my life. I don’t allow myself to need anyone, because I still know how bad it hurt to need my parents, and how badly I was punished for it. Needing people is scary. I get attached to things instead. When I was a kid, some of my clothes had actual names. I had a favourite pillow, favourite blanket, favourite pajama. I was attached to every poster on my wall, and some of my things felt like extensions of me, if someone hurt them, it felt equal to hurting me. I gave things a role in my life one would usually give to humans, because I needed connection and interacting with humans was so unsafe.
Forms of communication that didn’t include direct interaction felt like the pinnacle of bonding to me. Reading a book felt like talking, listening and understanding. Watching a show felt like having friends. Listening to audio books felt like being read bedtime stories. Playing a game felt like being played with. Identifying with a fictional character felt like being seen, that character finding happiness felt like being fulfilled. Reading a blog felt like intimate connecting with someone’s soul.
I was out there absorbing and feeling like that was it, this is how you feel like a part of humanity. Only problem with it was, I was still invisible to all these creators, existing only in my own mind, nobody affirming I was a part of the bond. And it was safe. So I keep doing it with people too. I absorb what they say, without making myself a part of their world, and without giving them a role in mine. That kind of a role is reserved specifically for my socks.
when you go from a bad situation into a better one you may collapse exhausted and unsure what to do and full of grief, you may need time to regain the ability to do things as yourself or motivated by anything other than terror, you may need time to process or mourn or fall apart in ways you could not before,
and people may use this as proof that the old situation was better for you, proof that you need to go back, and it is not proof that it was better for you or proof that you need to go back
This is about Sci-Hub. yeah we get it.. gatekeep knowledge and protect the interests of capital…
Fact: October = Halloween 🎃
abusive parents be like: having a child? you mean, build a person with no personality who will be my perfect servant/punch-bag/caretaker/whatever else I decide I need?
If you ever need to justify traumatizing someone by making them feel bad for you and your sad tragic past just know that this person would be way happier without you in their life and using your past trauma to bring more trauma to others lives doesn’t make you the tragic hero you think you are, it’s unoriginal and boring and they will eventually see thru you and be sickened by it and you will not be forgiven
no offense but this image looks exactly like finn and rey and i’m counting on yall to use it in all your finnrey aesthetics from now on
edit: here’s where the picture is from
by Cat Mallard
Neglect is abuse. It has the same effect on you. Being last on the priority list of people “have other things to worry about” is not how you grow up into an emotionally healthy person. You will accept being ignored and neglected because it’s whats expected of you. You will be grateful for crumbs of attention and seek for no more, no matter what. You will grow up dealing with every problem alone and learning to not reach out, not ask for help, not take away a second of someone’s precious time for your problems that surely couldn’t matter.
You learn to be quiet and invisible and to not show signs of pain. You learn to blame yourself for not speaking out, for suffering alone, as if you’re doing it on purpose. You learn to cope with being insignificant, because when you’re neglected, that’s a given. Surely, if you were of any importance, someone would care enough to notice, to talk to you, to see if anything’s wrong. To see if you’re drowning in depression and dissociating from the amount of pain you’re in. Surely, what you’re going thru would matter to someone.
People who don’t care to give you attention are not people who love you and care for you. They don’t raise you, they don’t even learn who you are. And it’s only a matter of time before you fall into resignation and learn that being ignored and sent to the gates of hell to deal with demons all by yourself, is how your life will be. And the more dangerous part – if someone gives you predatory attention, if someone finds something they can use within you, something they can tear away for their own purposes – it will feel welcome, it will make you feel like finally, you’re good for something. Finally, someone is looking at you. You’ll welcome people who use and hurt you, because even that is better than to be completely and utterly abandoned and ignored by the world. Neglect will make you welcome abusers in your life, not only without caution, but with gratitude that even for a moment, you’re not feeling neglected anymore.
Black kids deserve to be treated like kids.
Black kids deserve to be able to grow up at their own pace instead of being held to adult standards as children.
Black kids deserve to grow up without fear that white adults will somehow feel “threatened” by them and make them suffer for it.
Black kids deserve a safe place to unload their thoughts and feelings without being belittled or punished for it.
Black kids deserve a support system.
Black kids deserve to be taken seriously.
Black kids deserve to take up space.
I want all nonblack people to watch this video, especially white people.
This is the best video IMO that displays the depth of what it feels like to be Black in the midst of white supremacy.
This is the rage that burns in so many Black people and eats at us when it is not sufficiently soothed by our self restraint and years of learning to cope with and sit with us. This is the pain that shortens Black people’s very lives, that we smother each day. This is the justified yet unjustly ignored anger we have learned to hold and to aim and to deal with without breaking (too much).
This is the fire that those of you who are just showing up on the scene are learning to sit beside.
When you ask us ‘how we’re doing’, understand that this is the real core of it, every single day, and we have had to learn to laugh, to sing, to dance, to work, to grieve, to heal around heavy, heavy pain. I don’t get the feeling that y’all are expecting nor could you handle if we answered you like this. But I do feel like you should already know how we’re doing: we’re Black.
So y’all, sit with this video for a hot minute.
Kimberly Jones, you are a warrior. I feel every moment of this, every diaphragm flex, every tenuously tempered shout. And I hope that you are taking a break, and experiencing a moment of peace, because you deserve it.
-Malcolm X (1962)
(Originally made on insta by @michaelabalogun)
[Multiple people have pointed out that the Sojourner Truth speech isn’t accurate. Interesting none of you bother recommending other resources to spread awareness of what it’s like to be a Black Woman while you are pulling attention away from the main point–Black Women need to be recognized. If you have such a problem with how accurate the speech is, just know I looked into it and apparently she approved the second version which also expresses how she’s feeling. Let’s move on or pm me and I can list some alternatives if it’s weighing on your mind.]
Oh Billy, you look so small right there…
❤🖤💚🧡💙
Okay, so I don’t know if I want to make a full AU out of my librarian headcanons, but I can post an array of notes even if I don’t end up doing anything with the idea. Here goes:
Harley Quinn •Youth/Teen Department Head—she manages the youth department with a special focus on teen programs. •Harley is the only person with the chaotic energy to match the older kids. She knows how to tire them out to get them to behave. •Her office is a fucking mess, but she knows where everything is in there. Nobody else goes in unless they have to. •The building-wide nerf war that happens every year was her idea. On the one hand, it’s a disaster. Every. Single. Time. But it’s also gotten more teens to sign up for library cards than any other outreach attempt. There’s a waitlist to sign up every year. The rest of the library has a love-hate relationship to it. Jervis Tetch •Youth/Reference—he’s in charge of storytimes and general child-wrangling. •All his patience is reserved for the little kids. Teenagers and adults get none, which has led to him being dragged away from several altercation where he snapped and let loose on a misbehaving patron. •His method for keeping the kids in line are “Quiet Cards”. The kids in the reading program get one at the start of every storytime they attend. If they misbehave, their card gets taken away, but if they still have it at the end of the storytime, they get tickets that can be put toward prizes later. It works like a charm to the point that Harley started co-opting it for teen programs. •Jervis makes many of the crafts and decorations for the library. The youth workroom is his domain and Harley is the only other one who dares to enter.
Jonathan Crane •Tech—he’s the guy who fills orders and repairs things. Do not fuck with him or he will make your life a living hell. •He and Jervis are constantly at odds because most of the items getting damaged are kids’ books. •Workplace cryptid who is almost never found outside his office. If he comes looking for you, start running. Edward Nygma •Reference — He’s also the de facto IT guy because he’s the most computer savvy person available. •Ed gets stuck with all the problematic patrons and he hates it. The only upside is being able to foist them off on his coworkers and knowing all the drama they cause. •He knows everyone’s secrets and could totally blackmail everybody if he really felt like it. •He’s the only person outside the youth department who does really well with the kids. He likes entertaining the ones that get bored waiting for their parents by sending them on little scavenger hunts (usually for office supplies).
You might be suffering the consequences of long term abuse if:
you feel uncomfortable taking credit for things you did
you feel uncomfortable being praised or complimented, and you feel like sudden expectation or blackmail are coming up afterwards, you need to find intentions behind praise
someone getting mad at you is absolutely terrifying and you’ll do anything to avoid it
you don’t ever feel it’s safe to stand up for yourself, you can predict that even if you did that, ultimately you’d only be punished and hurt even worse, and you can’t risk it
you always analyze every situation with „am I bothering these people? Is my presence a burden to everyone?“ even when you’re with friends or at a place where you were invited
you don’t feel like a part of anything, not your family or your peer group, you worry everyone is going to figure out that you’re out of line trying to pretend to be a part of their group and reject you
you worry that you have no value to anyone and you feel like you need to deserve to be a part of society
you feel inexplicably ashamed of yourself, there are so many situations you can’t talk about, or even think about without feeling overwhelming shame
you keep feeling everything bad that happens is your fault, even for things that aren’t related to you directly, you feel responsible and like you should have done something to prevent it
you feel like everything would be better if only you didn’t exist
you struggled with suicidal thoughts before (or still struggle with them)
you feel like anyone who hurts you is justified in doing so and you deserve to be hurt
you’re terrified of being punished for anything you do, and don’t do, to the point where you paralyze and can’t do things you’re supposed to do at times, because you can’t tell if it’s going to end up in you suffering punishment
you don’t feel comfortable being touched or cuddled, you feel like it makes you weak if you desire it
you don’t feel okay showing big emotions in front of anyone, you feel your feelings in secret, or not at all
nobody knows just in how much pain you are. You don’t show it.
you can tell that even if you did talk to someone about your problems, you’d be accused of exaggerating, asking for attention, faking it, or being weak for not controlling your emotions better
you feel like the dream of a good life, where you’re loved and happy and cherished, is something completely unrealistic and it feels silly to even imagine it, it’s out of reach for you
If it’s only a few you can relate to, they can be caused by outside factors, but if you relate to almost all of these, it’s likely you’ve been living in a situation that is unbearable for human being without severely affecting their personality and mental health. Abuse can cause all of this, and these are not little things, this is lowered quality of life.