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anxietysroomsupport · 4 years

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Hey I've just been having a really shitty time lately; with the pandemic I've been stuck at home with my family, and things are slowly sliding from bad to worse. I'm 17, going to college this fall, and stressed out of my mind. My parents called me lazy and pressured me into getting a job in the middle of a pandemic, but because it's only part-time suddenly even that's not enough and they want more. (1/?)

(2/?) I work more than my dad does. He works maybe 1-2 days a week...I work 4. Every week. My mom's offering to send him back to college bc "we can afford it" while simultaneously telling me "there's only so much we can do for you" and "you'll spend your whole life in debt." I'm 17. I make minimum wage. My dad's 50 with a nursing degree. I'm already stressed, mentally-ill, and struggling, and they just want more. I'll never be enough for them.

(3/?) Not to mention being at home has only fucked this relationship up more. My dad used to physically abuse me when I was younger, but now that I'm a lot older and stronger than he is my mom's suddenly concerned about domestic violence because my father "can't afford to go to jail," and I've been yelled at more than once when we got into a fight over that. The other day, she screamed at me for even daring to imply they had abused me in the past. I'm so angry and tired.

(4/?) They keep saying they can't understand why I could possibly be upset or angry about anything. They tell me I'm making shit up, or putting words in their mouth, or "making the choice to focus on the negative." I KNOW they did shit to me. I KNOW they hurt me, and keep hurting me. But because they make money and I have stuff, apparently that means it's not possible; my life must be perfect. I don't know what to do.

(5/5) I want to run away; I even want to kill myself, I just want to get out. But I don't know how. I feel stupid and awful, like a burden and a failure just watching my mental health go down again. I was doing good! I thought things were better! But they're not, and I feel like I'm back here all over again.

Hi Anon,

I’ll be honest, your parents sound terrible. But you are not trapped.

First, check with your college and find out if they require freshman to live on campus their first year. If not, getting an apartment with some other students could save you a lot of money. Save everything you’re making at your job, and use it either toward paying down your college fees or putting a deposit down on an apartment. If you can’t hold out until the school-year starts, some apartments offer one-month leases that you can do for just 1-2 months until the dorms open up.

Next, (or simultaneously) start applying for grants and scholarships, and here’s a place to start: https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/scholarships. These can help with costs as well. Each one requires a different application, but check with your college about this too, because some schools have a streamlined scholarship application process. By filling out one large application through your college, they might be able to help you apply for lots of others.

Some financial aid, like FAFSA, doesn’t work unless your parents are completely absent from your life, or dead, or they sign a form saying they refuse to help you. Sounds like your parents wouldn’t even do that much for you, but there are still other options, and you can talk to your college counselors and advisors about those.

Colleges also often have an orientation week or couple days at the start where they introduce you to older students whose actual job it is to help you navigate things for a bit. There are also work-study programs for students to make a little money by working a job on campus to offset expenses. It reduces travel costs to and from a job and they work with your class schedules.

Your parents are gaslighting you. If at all possible, cut ties. At the very least, reduce contact a little. The thing about parents (or any shit family member) is, if you’re never going to be enough for them, it’s kind of good news, because it means you can stop trying to meet any of their expectations. You don’t have to argue about things they will never understand or admit to. You can just let them be wrong and live your life. Be free.

They think they can bully you into providing for them, but you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. They don’t deserve your help. If you decide to help them later anyway, it’s your choice.

Once you’re at school and things are a little sorted, seriously consider talking to the counselors or a therapist about your parents abusive behavior and your relationship with them. Try to get in 1 or 2 sessions before the holidays. Your parents will probably expect you home over breaks and therapy can help you prepare to either approach them differently while you’re home, or how to stay strong when you tell them you aren’t coming back.

If you’re going into debt for college, that means they aren’t paying for it, right? So, they don’t get to tell you what to do anymore once you’re out of there. You decide what you’re okay with and what you’re not.

Look at me- look me right in the eyes through this screen- are you looking?

You’ve got this.

-Miss Fay

#college #relationships #family #parents #dad #mom #physical abuse #abuse tw #cursing tw #mental health #debt #stress #work

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zivitz · 5 years

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I can’t reblog this post so I’m just gonna copy and paste my reply. And then I have better things to do with my brain space than respond to people who are attempting to browbeat me into submission while simultaneously refusing to allow me to participate, explain, or elaborate on my POV. So I might be talking to myself here, but it makes me feel better. To my followers, I’m sorry for the novel.

@trashpandabarnes ( @trashpanda-barnes) wrote:

yeah, abusing and gaslighting your “daughter” whose family who burnt to the ground, whom you tried to manipulate and sacrificed AGAINST HER WILL, as she ACTIVELY EXPRESSED HER DESIRE TO FREE HERSELF FROM YOU but you threw her off the cliff’s edge because u want power, because you don’t actually care about your “daughter” but are ALL about making her tragedy of negligence and abuse ALL YOUR OWN self-vicimized manpain is totally the characteristics of a fantastique dad™, ooof i could go on and on on the Gamora thing alone but then there’s Nebula who you mistreated her whole life and constantly pit her against the only person who she felt like she could have a connection to, and never passed up a chance to insult her, saying killing her would be a “waste of parts”. Boi oh boi @zivitz never fucking have kids dude if you think saying/doing this kind of shit to your kids is still gonna get u the award of father of the year bc no matter how much u claim u love ur kids, it doesn’t fucking excuse the abuse and also never have a girlfriend if this is how you think women are to be treated in fiction/otherwise —its 2018, women deserve better than to be treated as plot device for a self-importance asshole’s cringey angst. Get tf outta here with your apologist attitude, dufe. Thanos shows no remorse or no acknowledgement of faults and therefore, no character growth. He is stubborn and self-absorbed and a deadass weak villian. Marvel went about wrong with constantly trying to sympathize him, he’s a purple egoistic maniac and that is not an appealing character trait and should NOT have been glamorized by marvel for edgy fanboys like you with barely one working braincell, end of.

First of all, and this must be embarrassing for you- I’m not a guy. At least, I hope it’s embarrassing, because you’re making a fuck of a lot of assumptions based on this belief and they’re all wrong.

There seems to be a lot of thought going around that I am, and I quote, “pro-Thanos”. That I defend his actions or justify them in any way. That I think he’s a swell guy who’s just a misunderstood woobie. Or something. I think you’re confusing me with the Loki fangirls, but whatever.

Thanos being both capable of love and actually loving Gamora doesn’t make him a good person. It’s pretty clear throughout the movie that Gamora is literally the only person he loves. At all. In the universe. Except for himself, that is. Just because he’s capable of loving Gamora doesn’t mean he loves Nebula- I mean, clearly he fucking hates her. He doesn’t love the Black Order. I have a hunch that they started out as his ‘children’ in terms of being under his protection, guidance, and doing his bidding, but he was taken by Gamora and she became his daughter in thought and deed as well as word.

I have never ever said he was a good father, either. He clearly was not; no good parent puts their child through that kind of pain. No good parent rips a child away from their family, kills them, forces them into a life they neither are ready for nor would have chosen. A good parent (even most bad parents) doesn’t pit children against each other. Gamora had an abusive childhood, flat out. No one’s arguing that. Thanos is a big fat child abuser. He abused her (and Nebula, and probably the Black Order) to suit his own purpose. It was bad and wrong and fucked them all up royally and none of them deserved that.

Now take a step back and get the fuck of your high horse for a minute, and look at it from Thanos’s perspective. He is the hero of his own story. That’s what we were meant to see in Infinity War. A peek at the story from his point of view. Not that we were supposed to believe he was right, not that they were saying he had a point, or that we should sympathize with him. We’re not supposed to see character growth because he’s not the hero and there is no redemption. We’re just seeing how things look from his vantage point.

He saw his world die and couldn’t stop it because no one was strong enough to do the terrible, awful thing that would have saved it. And he saw the same things happening all over, so he decided he was the only one strong enough to do what needed to be done. And he worked hard at it. He collected his ‘children’, those he could raise and train to be strong like him and carry out his work. Carry on his work, if it lasted beyond his lifetime.

Gamora came along and was Different. In that deleted scene, he said himself he saw himself as alone and he was okay with that (he says in a voice that very much says he was Not Okay With That) because he had ‘a new vocation’. Until Gamora. He loved her. Took her under his wing, trained her, challenged her to be the best she could be. Gave her a family. Thought she, his favourite daughter, would be his heir. Wanted her to choose it, choose him, and let her leave when she didn’t instead of dragging her back and punishing her. He doesn’t really care that she’s rejecting him because he loves her regardless, but is hurt by the betrayal of her lies because she was the one person he trusted completely. He hurts her, but only as much as he has to to get what he needs. If he didn’t need to, he wouldn’t hurt her (we see this again and again- he could have killed Bruce, Groot, Cap, Wanda- and he didn’t. He just wanted them out of his way). His Vocation is more important at this point. And even then, he struggles with the decision that he must sacrifice the one person he loves and again be utterly alone- and live with the knowledge that he’s killed his child, his ‘everything’- for the sake of the Greater Good.

That’s how Thanos views himself. Is that how I view him? Not really. I mean, objectively speaking he did pretty fucking unspeakable things for what he thinks in his own incredibly misguided way is the right thing to do. Did Gamora deserve all that? Fuck, no. No one does. Did he love her during all of that, think he was doing what was best for her? Yup. Was it actually what was best for her? Fucking hell. No.

I love Gamora. I feel a great affinity for her because I grew up in an abusive household, where I was groomed and manipulated to be what my mother wanted and needed me to be. I was made in her image, to be useful to her and do what she needed and prop her up. I was her enabler for a long time. I didn’t break away from her until I was long into adulthood. And yet, I was loved. My mother thought she was doing the right thing by me. She thought she was making me into a strong person. She was doing her best to make me the best I could be by her vision. Because she loved me. She was wrong about what she was doing. She fucked me up in ways I’m still learning about. I can see both worlds: the one my mother inhabits, and the real world.

I feel Gamora. I really, truly do. But liking Thanos, being able to see how he sees himself and yes, even feel bad for someone who’s suffering even if they’re a crazy abusive monster, doesn’t mean I have to agree with him. Doesn’t mean I think he’s justified, doesn’t make me an apologist. Doesn’t mean I love Gamora any less.

And it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. That I support abuse, abusers, or would abuse anyone in any way. I work with very young children precisely because I was abused and no one helped me. And I want to keep that from happening to other children, to keep them from growing up like I did. It’s my own version of “There are little girls like you across the universe who are in danger. You can stay with us and help them.” You make a lot of assumptions about me, and we all know what they say about that. This is fandom, but we’re all people here. Maybe check yourself before you go shooting your mouth off about shit you know nothing about.

#Thanos #fandom drama #you don't have to agree with me #but fuck off with the personal attacks and assumptions #infinity war

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shadowintegration · 4 years

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I’m trying to figure out why the universe is sending my failing friendships with people who disrespect me and then leave dramatically and paint me as evil.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

They disrespected me

They hid their true feelings from me

I ignored the bad feeling in my gut

I drew a boundary and they left*

They blame me for our fallout

*on this note, I was thinking.... with the one girl, I was hurting for an extended period of time. She did a lot of hurtful things including talking shit about me while she stayed in my house for free (including meals!) but I had been holding my pain inside in hopes to preserve our friendship. One day I finally snapped and sent her a less than respectful audio telling her to back off and give me space to heal from how she hurt me. (I regretted not waiting a few days because at DBT we learned a communication technique that I could have used had I known it, but at the same time I let her knowingly hurt me for way too long already. And it’s valid of her to be upset that I disrespected her, but she is blind to how many many many times she has disrespected me time and time again and in so many different ways. I think it comes from excessive pride. I am humble enough to admit that I handled all of these friendship conflicts in a less than graceful way. I am still learning after all. A year ago about I tried to reach out to her and apologize, I sent a fucking paragraph! And I was hurt that she replied with a one sentence apology so I made a venting post on my blog just like one sentence and she saw it and took it so so personally and said this is why we can’t be friends ever again don’t ever check my blog again... which like ok.......... I’m allowed to be offended by your fake ass apology that lacked effort and introspection but that’s fine if you’re too prideful to think you did anything wrong. I still pray for you. I still care about you and your family’s wellbeing.

**this point is also not entirely accurate for someone else I have blocked on tumblr. I was forward with her about being willing to be whatever she wanted whether it was friends or a little more, and after that conversation where she didn’t directly say “no” (but her vibe check definitely said NO) she assumed that I was IN LOVE with her. OBSESSED and PINING. How fucking false and self centered, for one thing. And also stop living out of your past trauma!!! I am NOT your abusive EX!! I am also not the person he painted me as, but you must have believed him on some level. Clearly, since you were so thoroughly committed to misunderstanding me and assuming I had all these feelings that were actually all projected from within herself. One day, I was just trying to have a conversation with her as a friend. And I suppose, it’s important to acknowledge at this point I had instituted a policy of honesty, because hiding my truth and my feelings was a huge factor in my prior hospitalization. I was fucking gaslighting myself for years by telling everyone I was “fine” or “just tired”. Dishonesty when answering “how are you” was a form of self harm for me. This girl was offended that she habitually decided to ask how I was and then push for more personal questions to be answered. Very intrusive questions! At the time I thought: she must be really interested in psychology and wants to develop an emotionally intimate friendship. I was fucking WRONG. She was asking me all the questions she wanted someone to ask her. When I would answer honestly (which was CONSISTENTLY a “más o menos” kind of answer like yeah I’m ok but I’m a bit sad today. Like... clearly stating that IM OK but I also am dealing with my mental illness and that’s ok because I know how to do it - it’s my life bro I know how to take care of myself!) she would take my answers, focus on the negative clause in the complex sentence, and hyper focus on it, projecting her unresolved and repressed negative feelings unto me. She snapped at me one day in an attempt to “draw a boundary” apparently (everytime I say “apparently” here, I mean I heard this through a third party) . I couldn’t tell it was her drawing a boundary because it was so fucking out of the blue and was just her misdirected anger (which I’m sure she was angry at herself & we will come back to that shortly)... she used an emotional abuse tactic (manipulating me to make me feel guilty for her actions and lack of self prioritization/ self care) to make me feel bad for consistantly being honest. Apparently, my honesty was overwhelming her and she wanted to draw a boundary to protect herself from my depression. And that’s valid! It’s her methods that I have a problem with!!

To be honest, I was super uncomfortable with probably 85% of the questions she would ask me because they were super personal and (honestly hindsight is 20/20) because I’ll absolutely never go that into detail about my symptoms to anyone who asks who’s not my doctor ever again. No one needs to know my daily struggles that intimately!!! Only the doctor who’s working with me on treatment should know about that! It’s not like I’m necessarily hiding it, I just don’t feel comfortable ever sharing that truth with anyone else ever again (unless they are treating me because my feelings are no ones responsibility to take on.) so like we were kind of on the same page on a “gut” level - we both wanted a boundary and I guess neither of us could enforce one correctly. I realize now I could have refused to answer her questions. But anyways... She snapped at me, saying that I was too much and that she was super stressed and trying to cram for an exam (earlier in the convo she said she was studying, and personally I have studied while talking to friends simultaneously so I thought nothing of it. But clearly she meant to say: “I’m busy studying for an exam I have to concentrate I’ll ttyl.” IT REALLY WAS THAT SIMPLE TO ENFORCE A BOUNDARY RESPECTFULLY, GIRL. but no. She blamed me for distracting her [which, ok sorry for trying to talk to a friend, if you had self control and self respect you would either turn off your notifications or stop checking your messages as a form of self care in order to focus on your priorities. That’s all on you.] and then she projected how bad her mental state was unto me, saying that “she couldn’t need what I need her to be” (even though she said that right before the snap/paragraph and I had replied gracefully “you don’t need to be anyone but yourself 😊” clearly she didn’t hear that 🙄 didn’t want to admit that she was just a friend and not a Savior) so yeah anyways she projected her repressed and ill-controlled mental illness unto me. If she hadn’t repressed herself and her truth (as I refused to do) she wouldn’t have blown up. She blamed me for all the things she felt and never showed me. When I would ask how she was she was always “fine” or “tired” (sounds familiar? Yeah I already grew out of that, like I said) and I honestly refuse to accept the blame for her personal emotional neglect and disproportionate response to my honesty. To me, it is clear that she was angry with herself for not being honest with herself, she was angry with herself for not being able to focus and prioritize her studies, she was angry that she was hurting inside so badly but I didn’t even know because she was never honest with me or herself.

I do feel badly about ghosting her. I never replied. But... She said I’m that last paragraph all I needed to know: she needed to study. She needed space. She didn’t want to hear my truth again. She was incapable of properly respecting herself, so it was only natural that she would accidentally disrespect her friends. She wasn’t ready to confront her truth. ... I knew then that she wasn’t ready to heal, she wasn’t ready to address the real cause of her problems, she was only trying to get through things day by day. That’s fine. We’re all at different points in our journey.

It’s funny how this is in many ways reminiscent of the first girl that left me, but instead of me hiding my pain, she was hiding her pain, and the resulting explosion/attempt at a boundary was disrespectful. Clearly, pain distorts our thought process and makes us lash out when we feel unheard, even if we were the ones hiding our pain. Trying to protect the other through dishonesty only hurts ourselves in the end.

Maybe that’s the lesson. Honesty. Respect.

#soul searching #interesting pattern universe #pattern #universe #source #lessons #karma #personal

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kitschcats · 3 years

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Giving Meaning to a Whole Bunch of Completely Doable Wants that I Just Never Got Around to Doing

I’m going to be reposting some older pieces that never made it here. (22/8/20)

A little under a year since my last entry. The hilarious irony of the way I ended my aforementioned last post here, all faith and sickening optimism and this ridiculous newfound enthusiasm to be writing again and all these other words and phrases synonymous with bullshit, is, quite frankly, pretty poetic, if you look at it a certain way. It makes me think of the short-livedness of those fleeting (and painfully rare) bouts of motivation. Where do they go after they're gone (and before they've had a chance to serve their purpose, because that's the way it always is, isn't it), having vanished in a puff of smoke? Where do they even come from in the first place? Why is it so hard for anyone to get anything done? (Mac's taking a class on motivational psychology this sem. I wonder if he'd know. I should probably ask him.)

As it appears, a lot can happen in a year. In the least amount of words possible, I started living with my best friend of 7 years and boyfriend of 6 months (at the time of writing), moving out from home and halfway across town in the process, started religiously inhaling poison gas equivalent on a regular basis (i.e. several times a day), developed several other just-as-bad habits, went to Langkawi for the first time and got absolutely blackout shitfaced barai mabuk for the first time, underwent body modification procedures that would horrify my grandma (sorry maktok) (yes I know it's going to be on my body forever) (no it didn't hurt that much) (it's a joke maktok it's supposed to be this meta-ironic acknowledgement of the throes of getting your first tattoo which is exactly what this experience was like for me too which yes again is going to be on my body forever) (yes maktok I love you too), experienced the singular 12 most spiritually-awakening hours of my life, and started school again just this summer (it sucks). But those are all entries for other days. (I promise.)

Today, I want to narrow my focus down towards how it's possible to simultaneously feel as if you've otherwise accomplished absolutely nothing else since. I mean yeah I finally got around to starting that art account I've been meaning to make since I first got my hands on Instagram all those years ago but I posted a drawing once during the peak of my enthusiasm about yet another creative pursuit and not another since. That's about as personally accomplished as I've ever felt since I graduated from high school and got a pat on the back about my O-Levels. Which is pretty sad.

It isn't exactly music to one's ears but allow me to indulge in self-sorrow. Allow me to pessimise (which post-quick Google search to verify my doubts I just found out was a word), allow me to wallow in regret and yearning and these ever-present insecurities of inadequacy and put in the simplest words possible, allow me to just feel sorry for myself. It's not like anyone apart from myself reads this anyway, unless you're the one odd stranger who just so happens to be peculiarly interested in the humdrum happenstances of my life (in updates of extremely random intervals), in which case hello odd stranger.

I have mixed feelings about social media. First, give me a chance to justify the relevancy of this statement towards the content of this entry. My thesis statement, if you will. I've been on and off the thing intermittently for the last few months now, and while I can't say I love it, I can't say I can keep myself away from it very long either. We have an extremely turbulent love-hate relationship, Instagram and I.

On one hand, it's the single gateway I have to most, if not all, of my casual friendships. I was never exactly the texting type, I hardly bothered with it when I could just opt for physical company (which I always did). Without that option I'm actually pretty terrible at maintaining relationships of any kind — something recent pandemic-related developments worldwide have forced me (like, grapple me in a chokehold and force-feed me my least favourite vegetables (with the vegetables being harsh realisation, in this case) type of force) to come to terms with. Instagram was, for a brief while, what temporarily helped me to bridge this gap.

And on the other side of the coin, it wore me out. That's right ladies and gentlemen, hobos and tramps, cross-eyed mosquitoes, bow-legged ants, and other variations thereupon: social media fatigue is a very real thing. Sometimes it just got too much for me to deal with. At one point I even stopped reading the news and just slammed all my doors shut to the world that existed outside of my own. This recurring theme quickly evolved (or de-volved?) into a repetitive cycle of delete, re-install, repeat. Kind of something like constantly getting back together with a toxic boyfriend that gaslights you like an unsuspecting frog in a frying pan. Or heroin.

Seeing everyone else in the world (at least as far as my social circle vicinity goes) get up to just about everything there is to get up to while I continued to dig myself an even deeper hole to help confine me to the mundanity of my daily, non-productive routine depressed me. At first I tried to pin it on the MCO situation, which was a thing a few months back. Things were weird, the new routines were alien, and it was a reasonable (and also convenient) excuse at the time. Until restrictions were relaxed, and I still found my metaphysical self lying face-down at the bottom of the pit I'd spent the last few months excavating myself.

At that point I tried to convince myself it was the nonstop peak-productivity no-breaks hustle culture bred by the disease of capitalism that I had deluded myself into believing all this while. I tried to convince myself that I deserved a break, that I just got caught up in unhealthy notions preached to me by a society that didn't care about me, that I let it all get to my head, my centre console. That I was doing completely fine on my own. That I was alright. That I was enough. And then I stopped believing.

I want to do things. I never stopped wanting to. I still want to write. I want to draw. I want to read. I want to learn. I want to teach. I want to get a job again, work on the side. I want to be able to make some extra income doing these things freelance. I want to give these desires meaning. I want something to show for all these wants. I want to make and do meaningful things. I want to make something with my own two hands, look at it when I'm done, and feel pride. I want to make. I want to create. And sure if I have the whole rest of my life ahead of me to do all these things, but why wait?

I want to do a lot of things. There's a lot I want to get done, and there's a lot that I'll have to do beforehand to get them done. I'm pretty upfront about that, and those goals have never really changed — only my means and motivations have. The Universe, oh so cold and cruel woe is myself, has cursed me with lots of ambition to do things and not much motivation to actually do things. My skill point for initiative is zero. I mean, just what did I think I deserved a break from? There's wanting, and then there's doing. And then there are another two kinds of doing, the second of which I have clearly neglected.

I'm no motivational speaker and I won't try to kid myself into believing I'm one. That wasn't even the point of writing this anyway, I just needed an outlet to finally be able to actually articulate these feelings of mine that I've been harbouring for the longest time because fuck knows I needed it. These could have all just been words for all I know, seeing as I'm picking up a pattern of suppressed optimism and hopefulness that was pretty damn similar to my last entry, but if nothing else, these words serve as acknowledgements. It's proof to myself of my own self-awareness, for if I ever start to have doubts again. I sure must be cripplingly insecure if I feel the need to justify myself to myself, huh?

Anyway, I'm far from perfect. I think it's a fact of life that everyone else is, too. As long as we're human, true, ultimate perfection can never truly be achieved. But I think that just adds all the more character to collective humanity. If, hypothetically, say I were perfect, I'd have my priorities set straight and I'd be studying for finals (which are, I would like to add, on Monday) right now, not lighting one up and thinking about how to end this one poem I'm trying to write. But hey. I'm human and junk.

#p #thoughts

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