#Whats worse. His abuser asked his girlfriend to lie and gaslight him into thinking he was good and she did it

[sineala]

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

#posts i actually wrote

[wienerbarnes]

Much Ado About Nothing (4/6)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 1,608

Warnings: enemies to lovers, au series, some nervous thoughts, fruit

A/N: lot of steve in this one! and ooooo wedding next chapter👀

MAIN MASTERLIST | MUCH ADO MASTERLIST

Steve anxiously paces around the suite room that him and Sharon share, creating grooves in the floor waiting for her return.

As much as Steve loves fighting for what’s right, he hates this kind of confrontation.

She wouldn’t do this to me. Why would she do something like this to me? If she were cheating, why would she agree to marry me? Was it because there were a lot of people around? But, still, couldn’t she have told me in private if she wasn’t ready to get married, yet? It doesn’t make sense.

Every minute that passes feels like an hour and Steve can’t stand to just wait around for Sharon to get back from dinner. Or her affair. No! Her dinner! She can’t be cheating this has to be some kind of mistake!

“That’s it,” Steve doesn’t like infringing on the privacy of others, and he realizes that this makes him that kind of a fiancée , “F.R.I.D.A.Y., where is Sharon’s phone, right now? Can you track it? And where it’s been?”

“Yes, Captain. One moment.” The A.I. responds.

“Agent Carter’s private phone has been located at Le Bernardin, and has been at this location for approximately 114 minutes. Would you like me to contact her?”

“No! No! Don’t send anything! Thanks, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

He was right! He knew Sharon wouldn’t cheat on him! And, as happy as he is to be assured of his future bride’s loyalty, an unanswered question still remains. Who were the people that John thought was Sharon and another guy?

Everything seemed a little… staged? He sees John every once in a while because he works in the lab with Bucky’s girl, but otherwise, he doesn’t really know anything about him. Why would he go out of his way to tell Steve his supposed affairs in his love life? Based on what Sam has told him, he’s not the kind of guy that’s just looking out for someone that way.

He knows John has struggled a bit around here, especially with everything that comes with having a brother that’s pretty famous. And because of all of this, he wants to believe John was doing this out of the goodness of his heart, but he just… can’t. Something just doesn’t feel right. Like it was being done on purpose.

“Is my wedding being sabotaged?” Steve asks aloud to the empty room.

…  

It’s a bit childish, he knows. Pretending to be asleep in their bed as he awaits Sharon’s return, her On My Way! text sitting unanswered on his phone. Jeez, he grew up picking fights with people twice his size and now fights Nazis for a living and he’s scared of an argument with his girlfriend. Or, fiancée .

So, he’s choosing to hide instead. He knows she would never be unfaithful to him, and that’s not what he wants to talk to her about. She’s so, so smart, and she can help him figure out who exactly is behind trying to create heat between them, and if it is John like he thinks, she can be the one to help him figure out what to do.

He suddenly hears her steps down the hall outside the room. He pushes himself deeper into the bed, hoping the mattress will swallow him whole so he can just emerge on his wedding day and not have to deal with the threat of someone trying to break the two of them up.

She removes her shoes at the door and even though he isn’t looking at her, he knows she’s taking off her earrings and moving towards the dresser to replace them in her jewelry box, as she always does when she gets home.

“Why are you pretending to be asleep?” She whispers into the dark room.

“How did you know?”

“You snore like a bear, babe.” She turns, a gentle smile on her face, and sits beside him on his side of the bed.

She leans down and pecks him on the lips as a hello, and he can smell the scent of bittersweet wine and cheesy pasta sauce, the smell of basil surrounding her. She smells like her favorite Italian restaurant, Le Bernardin, where she was tonight.

Any nerves Steve had has since vanished now that’s she’s pressed her sweet lips to his; her mere presence in the room calming him immensely.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on? Hope you’re not getting cold feet.” She scratches softly through his hair, and her joke comes out as just that - a joke. Because the thought of either of them having doubts about their love for each other is hilarious.

“I gotta tell you about something that happened tonight.” Steve finally tells her.

It’s time to get to the bottom of this.

…

You feel as though you might be more nervous than Sharon, the night before her wedding. You know she went out to dinner, and is probably cuddling with Steve on their last night together as fiancées. Meanwhile, you lie awake in your bed, the thought of going to a wedding so… displeasing.

You haven’t had the best luck with love. You’re grateful to not have encountered someone who hits you, but you have dealt with the manipulators, the gaslighters, the mental and emotional abusers, and the occasional stalker.

Other people tell you that not everyone is like that, and you tell yourself that, too. So you keep trying, keep dating, only to be disappointed once more. It’s exhausting. And it makes you hate love. And it clearly doesn’t seem to like you much, either.

So, as unbelievably happy as you are for your two best friends, you can’t help but dread tomorrow night. The light, dreamy colors of the ballroom, the sweet vows, the slow dances, the happy tears of pure joy.

You hate to admit because you know it’s wrong, but you’re jealous. And it’s less than twenty-four hours before the wedding and you don’t see how you’ll fix any of your problems in that time frame. So instead, you’ll lie here awake, lost in your thoughts, until you eventually fall asleep from utter weariness. And tomorrow, you’ll smile for your friends, and you’ll join in the dances, and then you’ll shed your own share of tears. But deep down, you won’t be able to help being a little sad.

What you think makes it worse, is that, as aware as you are based on your past experiences that relationships will fail you, you’ve done it to yourself again. And not only have you put yourself in the position again, but you’ve done it with someone who teased you, mocked you, and annoyed you ruthlessly here at the tower. You couldn’t have chosen better.

You hate relationships, you hate love, and yet, here you are, longing for one, wishing for one, dreaming for one, just looking for any kind of sign -

A soft knock echoes in your room and you glance at the small clock on your nightstand, 13:05. You roll over and stand up out of bed, your large shirt falling to cover midway on your thighs, socks padding across the floor.

You open the door to reveal Bucky, a pair of cotton shorts and a sweatshirt covering his own body, what you assume are his pyjamas, and he tucks a strand of hair behind his ear before asking,

“Do you like fruit?”

“... Did you knock at my door at one in the morning to ask me if I like fruit?” You ask.

“No. Well - yes. I, uh, I needed to make myself busy, so, I, uh, cut up some fruit, but now I have too much. Do you want some?” He explains. He almost looks… shy. And his shyness is what softens you enough to agree.

It’s a part of Bucky’s nightly routine to have trouble sleeping. And it’s been even worse over the couple of days now that he has so many new feelings to think about. To stress about.

The kitchen is silent as the two of you stand across from each other at the island, munching away at the mixed fruit cut into a large bowl.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.” Stop being so catty! Just talk to him! No wonder your relationships fail, you’re always so mean!

“Why do you hate me?” He asks.

A small pause before you answer, “I don’t hate anyone.”

“Well, you certainly don’t like me.” He responds. You have no idea.

“And you certainly don’t like me.”

He picks up a piece of strawberry before replacing it back in the bowl. “Look. I only didn’t like you because you didn’t like me. What else was I supposed to do?” He argues.

“Well, I only didn’t like you because you didn’t like me! What was I supposed to do? I didn’t do anything to you!”

“And I didn’t do anything to you!”

Old habits die hard, the two of you realize as your bickering comes so naturally. He goes to continue the arguing when two people suddenly enter the kitchen and turn on the lights.

Steve and Sharon in their pyjamas stare at the two of you, anger clouded in your faces over what seems to be a bowl of fruit.

“Is that fruit?” Steve asks.

“We have a problem,” Sharon interrupts, “It involves the wedding and John.”

“The wedding?”

“Sam’s little brother?”

You and Bucky question, respectfully, the argument from before forgotten.

“I’ll explain, come on.” Sharon tells them before walking back towards the private rooms, seemingly to retrieve Nat, in order to get everyone’s help to figure out the next plan of action.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes series #bucky barnes fanfiction #earths mightiest heros more like earths mightiest detectives amiright

[nalgenewhore]

masterlist - ao3 - day three - day five

<3<3<3

TW: Mentions of PTSD, Psych Wards, Mentions of Child Abuse/Abuse, Gaslighting

<3<3<3

It’s so late. She’s exhausted after being on her feet for fourteen hours. 

Elide wants two things. 

One: The hottest, longest shower she’s ever had. 

Two: The piece of chocolate cake she bought, but hasn’t had the time to eat yet. 

As she drives home from the hospital, she nearly falls asleep at the wheel. Elide snaps her eyes open and sits up straighter. Opening her window, she hopes that the bitter winter wind will encourage her body to stay alert. 

It works well, and she starts to shiver, her teeth chattering lightly. She keeps the window open still. 

At a red light, her phone starts to ring. It’s in her bag, on the passenger seat, and Elide ignores it. The important people in her life text when they need something and she’s driving anyway. 

Her apartment building isn’t far from work, so she’s home shortly. After she parks in her unit’s assigned spot, her phone rings again. Elide reaches over and fishes it out. When she sees her girlfriend’s contact, she smiles and happily accepts the call. “Hey, you. I’m happy you called.” 

“Hi, love,” Lorcan says, her voice distant and shaky. “Are you at work?” 

“No,” Elide frowns at Lorcan’s voice, worried. “I just got home. Are you alright, Lor? You sound upset.” 

It takes a couple seconds for Lorcan to reply. “I’m- I… can you come over? I- I just really want to see you.” 

Immediately, Elide re-clips her seat belt. “Of course. I’ll be there soon, honey. Do you want me to stay on the line?” She waits with wavering patience, trying to force calmness for her obviously distressed girlfriend. 

“Yes,” Lorcan all but confesses, like she’s ashamed to have needs, “please.” 

“Good. I missed you today,” Elide puts the phone on speaker and places it in the centre console’s cup holder. “And last night.” She fakes a pout, “It’s so cold without you.” 

Lorcan chuckles, the sound forced and choked, “Yeah, ‘m sorry I couldn’t be ya personal furnace, princess.”

Elide smoothly changes lanes, “You should be. Anyway, I’m glad you called. I showered at work and was probably going to crash the minute I got home.” There comes another red light and Elide stops in the left turn lane. “Work wasn’t too busy, just so gods-damned long. I had rounds at five AM, hon, but I got to scrub in on a femur repair today.” 

Both of the women know that Elide’s chatter is so that Lorcan can be distracted. Lorcan makes minimal comments and mostly communicates in monotonous hums. 

Elide parks in front of Lorcan’s building and picks her phone up, taking it off speaker. She holds it to her ear, “I’m here, Lorcan. Buzz me in?” 

“Yeah. I’ll see you soon.” 

“I love you,” Elide says, biting her bottom lip. 

Lorcan’s voice is soft and warm, “I love you, Lee.” 

They both hang up and Elide gets out of her old Ford Explorer. She walks to the lobby and presses the button next to Lorcan’s unit number. 

“‘llo.” 

“It’s me, Salvaterre.” The locked doors buzz open. “Thank you, honey.” Their friends don’t understand how Elide can call her six-foot-seven girlfriend ‘honey’ but it just fits, and Lorcan melts when Elide calls her such. 

Elide pulls the door open and walks to the elevator. Lorcan’s building is relatively new, so the ride is short and smooth. Elide steps out on the thirteenth floor and goes down the hall to Lorcan’s apartment. Knocking on the door, Elide waits on the doormat in relative calmness. 

The door is opened a few moments later. Lorcan stands in a ratty t-shirt and rugby shorts, one hand on the doorframe and one on the doorknob. “Hi.” 

Elide grins and rests her hand on Lorcan’s arm, “Hey. Can I come in?” 

Lorcan nods mutely and steps out of the way. She lets Elide in and closes the door. The petite woman hangs up her jacket and toes off her shoes. When she stands back up, Lorcan wraps her in a long, tight hug. Elide melts against her girlfriend and slides her arms around Lorcan’s broad shoulders.  

She slides a hand through the loose hair at the back of Lorcan’s head and the other soothes circles between Lorcan’s shoulder blades. “Honey, I’m here. I’m right here.” 

Lorcan nods again, “I know. Thank you for coming.” She drops her hands to the backs of Elide’s knees and easily picks her up. Lorcan wraps her girl’s soft, warm thighs around her waist. Elide smiles. 

Lorcan walks them into her room and doesn’t turn on the lights. She puts Elide down on her bed and sits down on the edge of the mattress, not knowing how to say what she needs to.

Elide gets up, “I’m going to get changed and go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” 

Lorcan hums and her eyes silently track Elide as she moves around. 

She trades her athletic shirt and scrub pants for a long sleeved skate shirt of Lorcan’s she had cropped and a pair of compression shorts. Her hips swing as she pads into the toilet. Lorcan stretches out on her bed and stares up at the rotating ceiling fan. 

Her father never calls. He never contacts her. 

The last time she saw or heard from him was seven years ago, and the subsequent PTSD episode landed her in the psych ward for a month.

Right now… she’s fine. She’s- she’s fine. 

Since he called her this afternoon, since she heard his low, threatening voice - the voice that haunted her childhood and nightmares - Lorcan’s been in a state of shock. 

Her phone rang. Not caring to see who it was, Lorcan picked it up and held it to her ear, “‘llo.” 

“Now, I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to greet your father, Lorcan.” 

Her blood ran cold and her heart stuttered to a stop. The report she’d been working on was forgotten. “C-cillian?” 

He clicked his tongue and she flinched. Her hands began to shake as she remembered what used to happen when he clicked his tongue. Her father clicked his tongue when he was upset, not angry. Whatever punishment he doled out after he clicked his tongue was always worse, because he wouldn’t be blinded by rage. 

No, he was meticulous. Careful. 

“How are you, Lorcan? That mother of yours told me you’d moved to Perranth. She tells me you have a girlfriend, too.”

Still shaking, Lorcan asked, “You… you talked to my mom?” He knows about Elide.

“Sure did. You know, I was almost certain that you knew about my house in Perranth. It hurt that you didn’t ask to rent from me.” 

“Why can’t you leave me alone,” Lorcan whispered, trying to block out the memories and flashbacks his voice triggered. “I don’t want anything from you.” 

“Now, I know I’ve been gone for a while, but I am your father. I deserve the chance to make it up to you.” 

Nothing can ever make up for what you did to me, Lorcan thought. She closed her eyes and the tears she hadn’t known were forming spilt down her cheeks. “Please,” she said, “just- just leave me be. Leave my mom and the twins be.” 

Cillian sucked on his teeth, “Don’t be selfish, girl. You were such a difficult child. It hurt me so much to discipline you like that, but I had to. You know that.” 

“Good-bye, Cillian,” Lorcan said, her entire body trembling. “This conversation is over. If- if you attempt to contact me again, I will file a restraining order.” With strength she didn’t exactly know she had, Lorcan hung up and immediately blocked the number. 

“Lorcan?” 

She sits up suddenly, her heart beating quickly. Of course, it’s only Elide, so she relaxes. The mattress dips as Elide crawls back into bed. She rubs Lorcan’s tattoo-marked thigh, where there is hardly any skin left untouched by ink. “Do you want to be under the blankets?” 

“Yes.” 

Lorcan and Elide move so they can lift the duvet and quilts. When they’ve settled, Lorcan rolls onto Elide. She spreads Elide’s legs with a hand to fit flush against her and rests her head on Elide’s tits. 

Elide chuckles softly and scratches Lorcan’s scalp, “You big softy.” 

Lorcan works her arms around Elide’s waist and exhales slowly. 

“Do you want to talk or sleep?” 

“Talk.” 

Elide nods, unseen by Lorcan and kisses the top of her girlfriend’s head, “Ok. You don’t have to.” 

“Yes, I do,” Lorcan responds, unconsciously hugging Elide tighter. “I… I need to.” 

“Ok, honey.” 

It takes a full minute for Lorcan to speak another word. “My… Cillian called me. I was at work.” 

Elide stiffens, her hand stopping in Lorcan’s hair, “Your… your father?” 

A nod. “He talked to my mom, El,” Lorcan whispers, trying not to cry. “He- he knows that I live here. He knows about you .” A shuddering sob escapes her and Lorcan shakes. Her eyes screw shut. “I ca-an’t make him leave. ”

In her chest, Elide feels her heart crack in two. She kisses the top of Lorcan’s head and scratches a loop between her shoulder blades. “He’s gone. You’re with me. You’re safe.” 

Lorcan still cries, her grip desperate and greedy. 

Soon, she grows quiet and nudges Elide’s neck with her nose. “I love you, Lee. So much.” 

“I love you too.” 

As she lifts her head, Lorcan searches Elide’s face. She tilts her chin up and kisses the ‘v’ between her brows, and then presses her lips to Elide’s. Just for a moment, nothing but a mere touch. Lorcan rolls them and sits up, pulling Elide’s knees around her hips. Elide squeaks at the sudden movement, and quickly settles, looping her arm around Lorcan’s neck. 

Lorcan clasps her hands around Elide’s waist and stretches her long legs out. She rests her chin on Elide’s shoulder and closes her eyes, “I want to be fine. I-I want to be fine.”

Elide lifts her head, her face directly in front of Lorcan’s, “I know you do.” 

“I’m so tired,” Lorcan whispers, a confession. 

Her girlfriend’s eyes mirror her exhausted, drained state. Her fingers are soft and light as she traces them over Lorcan’s features, “I know that too.” Elide climbs off of Lorcan’s lap and chuckles at her whine of protest. “You baby. Lie down.” 

Lorcan grumbles, but does as she’s told. 

“On your side.” 

Again, she complies. She moves her arms, ready for Elide to slip into them and to hold her close. Instead, Elide slides her arms around Lorcan’s waist, her chest pressing against Lorcan’s back. For a moment, Lorcan stiffens and looks down in silence, sort of confused at the new position. She’s- she’s never been little spoon. Her girlfriends were always shorter than her, and it just made sense. 

Elide kisses the nape of her neck and doesn’t pull away as she asks, “Is this ok?” 

Lorcan carefully eases into Elide’s hold. Their legs move and Elide’s is stretched over her hip. She grips Elide’s thigh and nods, “Yeah. ‘t’s kinda nice.” 

“Kinda?” Elide teases, her grin spreading across Lorcan’s skin. 

A slight, barely-there smile curls Lorcan’s full lips. “I feel safe, Lee.” She takes Elide’s hand and kisses her fingertips, “You make me feel safe.”

<3<3<3

@ladyverena​​ @ladywitchling​​ @mythicaitt​​ @sassyhobbits​​ @darklesmylove​​ @julemmaes​​ @letstakethedawn @cicada-bones​​ @highladyofthegentry​​ @darlinminds​​ @nahthanks​​ @sjmships​​ @eyllweambassador​​ @flamingveritas​​ @adelzd-bookblr​​ @somewhatdynamite @woollycat22​​ @firestarsandseneschals​​ @the-regal-warrior​​

#femslash february #fem!elorcan #elide x lorcan #elide lochan #fem!lorcan salvaterre #isa writes lesbian shit #nalgenewhore

[effervescent7]

Lana, Lex, Clark, and Lionel debate

This is a Lana Clark Lex and Lionel debate

X 6 years ago

"Clark means more to me than you ever will" No Lana the only person who means more to you than anyone is yourself.

LO 6 years ago

STFU REJECT

X 6 years ago

@LO STFU Lana fanboy.

Supernova 2 days ago

That's why Lana did all of that volunteer work for blood drives. Or helped Adam when he pretended to be homeless. Wanted to use Lex's money for halfway houses and immigrant slavery. You know this Lana-hate which THANK GOODNESS is almost over is just out of spite.

[1] Link

X 1 day ago

@Supernova She was the show's worst character. Treated like a perfect saintly Mary Sue who could do no wrong even though she can and had done plenty of wrong. She was a hypocrite who supposedly hated being lied to and having secrets kept from her only to lie and keep secrets herself. Her entire relationship with Clark was her trying to force him to tell her about his powers then having a tantrum when he wouldn't. She got jealous when men she fancied kissed other women even if she was with other men at the time. Even when she was with Whitney she gave Clark and Chloe a jealous look when she saw them kissing. Because Lana apparently believed that men had to pine for her until she was ready for them. Characters who were complete strangers to her would call her amazing out of nowhere even though she wasn't which was just the original producers projecting their obsession with the actress and character. Her and Clark's relationship was lust not love. They only liked each other for their looks and because they wanted to have sex. Anything Lana did wrong was ignored or portrayed as right. Like kidnapping the reformed Lionel and having him held hostage by a crazy woman for forcing her to marry Lex, when she was with Lex she threatened to have the college fund of the daughter of a LuthorCorp employee cut off unless said employee gave her the box from Brainiac's ship, she pretended to set up a clinic to help Kryptonite powered people but instead just used it to spy on Lex, nearly killed Lois while trying to kill Lex. People hate Lana because she's the worst character in the show, never had a clear set in stone character, was played by an actress hired for her looks not her acting ability, in other versions of Superman Lana Lang is just Clark's high school girlfriend. Therefore Lana should have left the show for good when she went to France at the end of Season 3. Instead they kept her around until Season 8. She was one of the most evil characters in the show yet was treated as if she was pure and innocent. At least Smallville's other villains were shown to be what they were.

A 8 hours ago (edited)

Only lust not love? When there were together they often go on normal dates, which they talk about of you listen to the dialogue. Apparently they always either go out to dinner, horse-riding, or dancing. They don't even sleep together for years of being friends. Anyway Clark is the major gaslighter in the show, gaslighting means making someone believe something isn't true even when they know it is. That is all Clark does to Lana and Lex throughout the first 3 seasons every-time someone threatens them about Clark. Lex tries to talk to him after being told by multiple people that Clark has a dangerous secret (like Lana) and just asks Clark outright. "Friendships built on secrets are destined to fail" and Clark says "good thing we don't have that problem". This is actually gaslighting. Making someone believe that something didn't happen, which can actually drive people out of their minds. "There's nothing more to me than what you see" to Lana who actually saw him use his powers "You'd still be the same Clark Kent." Which is what she says every-time she asks about the secret which is really in 3x02, gunpoint 3x03 after being kidnapped over the secret, and 5x10 because he suddenly stopped when they were going to sleep together. Then of course Clark blames her for moving away to college. And wait she actually think she asks about his health, because at this point she went to Lex and told him to stay away from Clark because he's "just like the rest of us". As for secrets in season 4 Lana admits everything which she had already told her current boyfriend and Lex about. She tells Clark after they become friends again. Why tell someone something if you aren't even talking to them? Then we see in 5x10 that Lana brings up aliens and tries to talk about the spaceship with Clark, before it's revealed that she accepted Lex's offer. Because Lex truly thinks aliens are going to invade and take over the world. Once Lex is revealed, you really expect her just to lie back and know that he's doing a ton of messed up stuff and not go after him? Lex is evil, but let him be? Going after an evil person doesn't make someone evil. And oh Lionel- didn't he kill his parents and a ton of innocent people over the years. Didn't he abuse his family? Who cares! But you seem to forget that Lana did save Lois' in Gone and Arrival. As for Lois, Chloe does confront her about that. But no Lana is not evil, she goes through therapy and reformation before returning because of some mental issues from being with Lex. And is your comment is less an accurate view of the show and more a rant.

X 7 hours ago @Ambrosia 777 She was right to go after Lex but didn't care how many innocents she hurt to get to him. And Lionel had redeemed himself after switching bodies with Clark cured him of a liver disease that was killing him and spent the rest of his life protecting Clark until Lex killed him. As bad as Clark's lying and secret keeping was he was doing it to protect people and make it so they didn't get put in danger or killed by his life as a hero.

A 6 hours ago

But she didn't plan to hurt Grant or Lois. Grant only didn't want to expose Lex because he worked for him. Anyway Lana had mental issues, she needed to work through. A fake pregnancy and finding out all of those things she defended Lex from were actually real broke her. But then and I read that blog post, she really did torture. herself because she didn't want to be that kind of person. Anyway the Black Box was supposed to protect the world from an alien invasion, until Lex wanted to start using it to make weapons. Then she disagreed, because she didn't want innocent people to die. Because she's not a Lex copy.

A 6 hours ago

Oh no I'm not a Clark hater at all. But I really hated how he pretended like Lex and Lana were imagining things and all of those people that kept telling them about him were lying. I know Clark is a good guy, but that took a toll on his friendships with them. They tried to prove they would care about him no matter what he was or why all of those things were happening. If a ton of people tried to kill me, then said yow know Clark has a secret. I'd want to know. And it's not like they argued with him about it, they asked directly. Straight to the source. Far better than just ending the relationship because Clark had a secret identity. Until Lex flat out started stalking him and that whole thing in Mortal which I will not excuse.

L 2 days ago (edited)

​ @A  All that truth scarred him off. Adults blindly hating a teenage girl and insulting the actress don't need attention anyway. To think that Lionel spent his entire life killing people and being a wife beater, to earn sudden forgiveness and still treat Lex like crap. While Lex turns into this kind of misguided monster. And Lana spends 1 year doing questionable things to protect the world from aliens or Lex and she's evil! Don't get me started on that teenage crap this grown man commented at first.

L 3 hours ago

And where does this “whining” all the time come from?! She asks twice in season 3 after Clark runs away and doesn't ask again until season 5. Compare that to Chloe seasons 1-3. I think Lana-haters know they just exaggerate and hate the character because they're insecure or immature. Especially when it's a grown man saying these hateful things.

X 3 hours ago

@L  Horrible things Lex and Lionel did were acknowledged as horrible. Horrible things Lana did were either ignored completely or treated as if they were right. Not liking a badly written and acted character isn't insecurity or immaturity. And there are plenty of women who hate the character of Lana as well. You liking her doesn't mean everyone has to.

A 9 minutes ago

You don't have to. Some of the things you said about Kristin and Lana in other comments read that way. And I truly think Lex and Lionel were evil because they had no reason to do those things. But Lana truly believed Lex when he said the Black Box could stop and invasion. And was mentally shook when he was revealed to be a bad guy who does all of these things she thought he wouldn't do, so she went after him. I'm just saying she's not evil or monstrous and ignoring the plot or reasons to hate Lana is unreasonable. And Isis was used to help meteor-freaks after she changed and stopped going after Lex.

L 4 minutes ago (edited)

@A that explained it way better than I did. If someone believes they are stopping a huge evil are they evil? Especially when compared to people who do worse things for their own amusement.

#lana lang #lex luthor #clark kent #lionel luthor #lana luthor #smallville #smallville quotes #lexana #clana #clex

[lucycaitlin13]

Manipulation and Gaslighting

Do you ever just hear a song and instantly feel sad? That song tonight was Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley. I’m going to take a break from my journals this evening. I’d like to talk about unhealthy relationships I think. 

Most days I am happy or at least content with my life, but other days I hit some lows. They never last too long, but these are the days that I reflect on my past “relationships” and current lack thereof. 

I used quotes around relationships because 99% of them weren’t more than a man disappointing me and the other 1% was a mentally abusive relationship. I mean I’ve had one serious relationship in my entire life and it was fucking terrible. I have never been treated like a lady worth someone’s time and that really gets to me sometimes. 

Do you wanna know what I get to reflect on when I look at the men I’ve “talked to”? I get to think about scumbags from high school who were just looking to get their dick wet. Every single guy I did something with in high school took advantage of me because they knew I wanted a relationship.

See, I am someone who wants to actually find someone to spend my life with. I enjoy simple things like cooking dinner together and watching a movie. I want to go to a museum and look at art. I want to go to a bookstore and find a book and read together. I want easy and romantic. 

I gave my heart away too easily thinking, “Maybe this one will be good. Maybe they actually like me this time.” So I allow someone to smooth talk their way into my DM’s and I meet up and go on a “date” if that’s what you want to call it. 

Let me tell you about some of the “dates” I’ve been on because I clearly didn’t value my self worth. The Walmart parking lot, nature trail behind the school, driving around in a truck and ending up in the back, dugouts at football games, Lake Junaluska, Blue Ridge Parkway, and many other similar situations. 

Now, obviously I take some responsibility for allowing things to escalate. However, I was a teenage girl who just was hoping to find that “high school sweetheart” that every girl wants. So of course I let my hopes and feelings take charge because surely one of these boys would be “the one’. WRONG.

Not one boy in high school was anything more than a hookup. Some not even that. As far as I’m concerned, every boy lied to me to get what they wanted and then exited stage left. Poof. Never had a boyfriend in high school. Just a bunch of mistakes. You could say that I was easily manipulated because I was blinded by the lies I was being told. 

(By the way, I’m using the term hookup loosely. It doesn’t necessarily mean I slept with them. Could’ve just been a make-out session. But I digress.)

So I graduate high school and go to college. I have a fresh start where not everyone knows me. Surely someone will want to take me out! Nope. Nothing changed during that first semester. 

I moved home and sure enough, I started dating someone who I had known for a while previously. This person was much older than me (BIG mistake at age 18). Sure I was mature for my age, which a lot of people say that, but I wasn’t the normal 18 year old. I was just ready to settle. I’m an old soul and like I said, I like simple and easy.

This was my first and only real relationship and at first it was okay. I didn’t really have anything to base it off of as I mentioned previously that all the guys in my past were scumbags. So, to me, this is surely how relationships should be! 

But lets just look at some red flags that I should have noticed and probably did, but I ignored because I “fell” for this person. First off, when you catch someone in a lie, you should probably take it more seriously than how I did. I just blew it off because they were “sorry” and promised it wouldn’t happen again. 

I was kicked out in the middle of the night because another woman had called.. I’m sorry, what? Yeah, you heard that right. So I stormed out of the house and went home. But did I forgive him when he apologized a week later. YUP! This was a month into seeing this person and looking back, this was the point I should have ran! But I didn’t. 

I ended up moving in with this person; moving several times during our relationship. In the beginning I knew there was baggage and I thought I was okay with it. I clearly wasn’t.

Was I a perfect girlfriend? NOPE. I’m sure I wasn’t. I went through his phone and didn’t trust him. How could I fully trust someone who I repeatedly caught talking to other people etc? Guess I shouldn’t have been in a relationship if that was how I felt, but I was young and dumb. 

Over the 3 years, maybe a little less, that we were together, there were WAY more lows than there were highs. I was told yelled at that I was a “horrible, rotten cunt” while they were driving. He yelled so loud I thought the windows in the car would shatter. I was terrified, yet I apologized. Sex was rare. A month or so would go by without anything. Any time I tried to initiate anything, I was yelled at for bothering him. So, it was always on his terms. Yet I apologized for being a nuisance. 

I probably was annoying at times. I mean, I’m not perfect as I mentioned before. But things just got worse and worse. He would go out with his friends and drink, but I wasn’t old enough, so I stayed home. This was fine until I found out from people that he was flirting at the bars. Of course there was more fighting when this was brought up. And denial. So I apologized and dropped it. 

An old fling had Facebook messaged me one time just asking how I had been. I told him I was happy and about my boyfriend. I left this open on the desktop and was screamed at when he picked me up from class that night. I was forced to message him and tell him that I wasn’t allowed to talk to him anymore and to block him. I was then thrown on the floor. Yet I kept apologizing repeatedly for how sorry I was.

So many little things happened in between all of this. From his junkie friend moving in with us because he was “helping her get back on her feet” and trying to help her stay clean. This wasn’t a choice I had any say in. I was told it was happening. To him calling one of my best friends a bitch and tried to fight with her. But every time we fought, I apologized because it was my fault, right?

Then the beginning of the end.. I started finding things in our home that didn’t belong there. Items that belonged to a mutual friend. I questioned this and of course here came a bunch of lies. “She came over with her kid and we went running.” “She came by with her kid to have dinner with us.” Etc etc. I started bagging all the shit I found and threw it in the fucking trash. 

I of course was going through his phone, tablet, and anything else I could at this point. How could I not? I don’t have any regrets in doing this because fuck him! And guess what I found? NOTHING. But how could I find nothing if I knew they texted? Why was he deleting an entire thread if there was nothing to hide? But I had no concrete proof of anything.

UNTIL one night when I decided to go through everything again only to come up with nada. So I rolled back over and tried to go back to sleep, but something was telling me to look again. So I checked his email.. Email that I was given access to to begin with to help print documents and such. Surely he wasn’t that dumb right? Sooo wrong! He was that dumb. I found pictures and videos of this bitch who was supposed to be a mutual friend! 

And so we broke up. I moved out. And for the next 9 months I TRIED TO FIX THIS ABUSIVE AS FUCK RELATIONSHIP. What the actual fuck! I was fed lie after lie. I was told this was all my fault. It was my fault he cheated. It was my fault that he kept seeing her again and again when I was being told he wanted to work on things. 

I was accused of sleeping with one of my good friends over and over again. I had my phone thrown out of a moving car. I was never allowed to hang out with friends. I was made to get out of the car on the interstate. I was brought into the middle of nowhere and literally texted a friend to call 911 because I was fearing for my life. 

So when I say I don’t trust men easily, I have my fucking reasons. That relationship was over 4 years ago at this point and I have been single since. And guess what? Every guy since that relationship has also been a waste of my time because not one of them gave a fuck about me. Just sex. 

So I have to wonder? What is wrong with me? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not skinny enough? Not funny enough? Or do they just realize there’s something better around the corner?

I’ve never really had someone actually love me or even like me for that matter. That relationship was not love and never was. I know now what I didn’t at the time. I was taken advantage of as I always have been. I was manipulated and gaslighted. I was embarrassed and made fun of by my own boyfriend and apologized for everything. 

So yeah, this post all started out with a song making you feel sad. But what that song made me feel was actually longing. Longing for someone to love me the way I know I deserve. Longing for someone to spend my life with that actually enjoys being with me. That’s really all I want, but all I can get is a DM from fuckboys for a one night stand. So I just don’t reply to anyone ever because what’s the point? 

I just want all of you to know that it was okay to leave someone before they leave you. It is okay to throw in the towel because they are mentally or physically abusing you. Sometimes you feel like you have to make it work because you’ve spent X amount of years in your relationship and you don’t want to have wasted all that time. IT’S OKAY! 

If there is one piece of advice I could give my younger self, it would be to listen to your friends! Listen to them when they tell you what is happening is wrong. Many of my close friends told me time and time again and I never listened to a word because I was so blinded by the bullshit.

I am much happier now and obviously haven’t let many people in since because I have some HIGH fucking standards now. And that is okay too! Sure I get sad sometimes, but I’m still much happier than I was.  

To all the boys who fucked me over and made me feel used - *middle finger emoji*. 

I’m ending this here because I don’t know what else to say. 

Xoxo

#abusive #abusive relationship #gaslighting #manipulation #past relationship #high school #feelings #fuckboys #learning to love myself #self healing #blogging #healing #love yourself #be happy #real talk #journal enteries #old flames #love yourselves #girl problems #unhealthy #unhealthy relationships #relationship #problems #relationships

[dalekofchaos]

Rachel’s Story, Life Is Strange:The Storm

I think what we need is a game that tells us Rachel’s story. After watching Twin Peaks:Fire Walk With Me, it made me think we need Rachel’s story told. What happened to Rachel was tragic, but it needs to be told. So here are things I want to see in a hypothetical LIS game where we play as Rachel Amber.

The best way to continue the story of Arcadia Bay. It would be the next logical step. Playing as Rachel would give us a new fresh angle, and set the stage for the original where we play once again as Max. It would be a fitting end to this LiS/BtS story and give us closure to Rachel’s character. And honestly, Chloe works better as a supporting character because Deck Nine did not understand Chloe Price.

Rachel’s ability. Where Max has the ability to rewind, Chloe can backtalk. I think Rachel's will be to fit into place and to convince everyone to do what she wants. It’s perfect for her and her personality.

Set Rachel’s character in line to the original game. Rachel Amber has charisma, intelligence, beauty and a lot of attitude, which would make the game full of action and dynamic. Her past is still mysterious, and playing as Rachel would be the right choice.

Make it clear that Rachel has completely severed ties with James and Rose. Telling Rachel the truth is the canon ending. Choosing hide the truth is completely stupid, the fact that hide the truth has a higher percentage with the fandom is laughable. Rachel has no good relationship with her parents by the events of LIS anyway. So what I will do is this. Rachel has completely severed ties with her parents and only chooses to be in contact with Sera. We will find out that Sera chose to go into rehab one final time for Rachel. This is why James and Rose refuse to believe that Rachel is even missing and the DA doesn’t even orders a search looking for his daughter.

Continuing our relationship with Chloe. Have it mentioned that Rachel and Chloe have been in a relationship since 2010. Show them kissing more, show Chloe and Rachel setting up Chloe’s room, show them partying, show them dancing, show them having sex and just showing them declaring their love for each other and showing them in love. Rachel was Chloe’s Santa Monica Dream. They loved each other, and I want their relationship to be shown more.  

Let it finally be about Rachel helping Chloe. Rachel helping lift Chloe through the worse point of her life. If Rachel had stopped Chloe from committing suicide… as was the commonly believed interpretation to what happened between Chloe and Rachel up until BtS, then Chloe’s ”“she was my angel” would have meant it was truly special and real.  Chloe and Rachel together having fun rocking out and Chloe starting to live again and show that Chloe Price loves Rachel Amber and Rachel loves Chloe.

Rachel’s antagonism with David and David’s paranoia for Rachel. Once again I have to make it clear. Chloe and David do not and should not have a good relationship and Joyce normalizing an abusive step-father is not a good thing. David does not understand nor does he care about Chloe’s depression and grief for losing William and Max moving away. Show that David physically, mentally and emotionally abuses her. Joyce normalizes it. So what I would have happen is this will be the first official time David will catch Chloe with weed. David slaps Chloe and Rachel is there to see it. Rachel has had it. Rachel puts her fucking foot down. “IF YOU EVER LAY YOUR FUCKING HAND ON MY GIRLFRIEND EVER AGAIN, I WILL CALL MY DAD, THE DA AND ARREST YOUR ASS FOR CHILD ABUSE. DON’T EVER TOUCH CHLOE AGAIN.” Rachel was so mad, she threatened to pull the James card. This is what enrages David to the point of installing cameras in his own home without Chloe or Joyce’s consent and getting a job as Blackwell’s head of security. He does not trust Chloe and Rachel and thinks because she dared to defend Chloe, that Rachel is “a bad influence” Stop trying to make us feel bad for this abusive piece of shit and make Chloe out to be the villain for not giving this asshole a chance.  He emotionally, mentally and physically abuses her and joyce normalizes it, violates her privacy. David makes Chloe feel like a prisoner in her own home. The safe home that Chloe has lived in all her life is no longer safe  the “safe” home that Chloe should have had was in fact a place where she didn’t feel safe, did not have privacy, and was harassed whenever David was home. She frequently would go to American Rust to sleep (because whatever happened with Rachel, it wasn’t safe to stay with her). She couldn’t even rely on her teachers to report child abuse because the police were sympathetic toward David and refused to act… and then David ended up getting a job as a security guard at Blackwell Academy and that one last safe place, school, was now the domain of her abuser. So Chloe would get herself expelled just to get free from David.  Whenever he is around she does not feel safe. He makes her so afraid that she feels like she’s living with a Nazi. They are not meant to have a good relationship. And it really sent an awful message that “you must be nice to your future abuser just to make your mother happy” What kind of abuse apologetic bullshit was that? The worst part is that Joyce chose her own happiness for the safety and well being of her own daughter.  Joyce enabled an abusive stepfather and ignored her daughter being hit and verbally abused (and there is a word for that: culpability. Joyce is guilty of child abuse. If we do not back up Chloe in episode 1 and we tell Joyce David hit Chloe, Joyce just brushes it off like it’s not a big deal. Joyce betrayed her own daughter by always choosing David over her. She never stopped the abuse. The only time she did anything is when Max was a witness and even then she doesn’t see it as a problem, more of an inconvenience. When she finally does kick David out, it’s not because David abuses her daughter, it’s because David put up cameras without her permission. “I just want us to be a family” if anything show us that Rachel was the only one who was truly there for Chloe.     

Make it clear everything Rachel was doing with Frank and Jefferson is so Rachel could’ve escaped to LA with Chloe. Rachel was looking for a way out of Arcadia Bay. She first thought both her and Chloe can escape to LA together. But over time she did not think that was possible anymore. Chloe dodges her car payments and her family is in debt and Chloe is in debt to Frank. She still wants to leave with Chloe, but Rachel needed an alternative way so she and Chloe can escape. So that’s when  Rachel turns to Frank, she used him for his money and drugs because as  time goes on, Rachel turns to drugs to numb the pain. She parties with The Vortex Club and as Nathan said “Rachel partied like a fiend on her own.” Hell, she was so desperate to leave Arcadia Bay she even asked the trucker to take her to LA. But I believe everything she was doing, she was doing so She and Chloe can get out of Arcadia Bay. The vibe I got from the first game is that Rachel and Chloe have this very important and special bond. But Rachel just wanted to be free of Arcadia Bay by any means necessary. Rachel would go far to get what she wanted. Someone who is willing to lie to the people she cared about to satisfy her own needs and goals. Personally, I see Rachel as being okay with manipulating everybody BUT Chloe, which gives everybody a foothold to try and gaslight Chloe and Max about her, trying to get them to doubt that Rachel genuinely cared about Chloe. And she did. Rachel Amber loved Chloe Price and had genuine feelings for Chloe and wanted to escape together.

Explore Rachel’s connections. Explore Rachel’s connections in Blackwell. Her rivalry and falling out with Victoria. Show that Victoria has respect and adoration for Rachel, but as Jeffershit showed more favor and adoration for Rachel, than her, then Victoria turned on Rachel. Evidence of the graffiti in Blackwell shows that Victoria bullied Rachel Amber and spread rumors about Rachel. So Rachel decided to be bigger than the Vortex Club to spite Victoria.  Rachel and Nathan’s relationship. I think they had a close friendship. Nathan harbored feelings for Rachel, but he knew she loved Chloe. I see Rachel as the one good thing Nathan had in Arcadia Bay, the closest thing he had to a good connection since his sister Kristine. She made him feel good about himself and soothed him without the need of hearing whale sounds. Rachel was Nathan’s safe space. As for how they both got involved with the Dark Room. It started out innocent. They both saw this as a private photo project and Rachel’s chance at being a model. It turned dark. I believe that Nathan tried to help Rachel and in doing this, resulted in Jeffershit overdosing Rachel and dosing Nathan and posing Nathan with Rachel’s dead body as punishment and was planning on pinning Rachel on Nathan. But it turned dark. When Rachel disappeared, Nathan lost it. When he saw Max in Rachel’s clothes, he hoped it really was Rachel, but he knew it wasn’t her. Rachel and Frank. I believe Rachel was just using Frank for money, Frank was obviously attracted to Rachel on their first meeting, but they never interacted and Rachel only wanted to find Sera. I think they first became close because Frank saved Chloe and Sera. Rachel isn’t the manipulative monster some people make her out to be. Rachel only wanted to escape Arcadia Bay with Chloe, she had no intention of leaving her behind, Rachel loved Chloe Price. She only wanted money out of Frank. What Nathan says is more likely. Rachel was only there for the stash and gave him photos in return. “everyone knows Frank is a liar and loser, even Rachel did” and there was a falling out between Frank and Rachel, plus Frank’s blood oath for Rachel must have creeped her out. And in her letter, Rachel ended it. “Frank, That was not cool what you did. And don't blame the drugs. You actually scared me and I thought you'd never chill out. I've never seen you act that way and the next time will be the last. I'm a Leo and we don't look back. I care about you, us, so maybe we need to break our routine.“ Also when the meeting with Frank goes wrong, Chloe will say she loved Rachel and she knows Rachel loved her. Frank will act hostile and possessive of Rachel “Chloe, you don’t know shit. You were part of her problem. Always trying to take her away from me… Always!”  I believe that Frank had an unhealthy attachment to Rachel and Rachel did care for Frank, but Rachel just wanted a way out of Arcadia Bay for her and Chloe Then, Rachel meets Mark Jefferson. Jefferson was Rachel’s teacher. This video explains Rachel and Jefferson perfectly.  Rachel saw him as her way to LA. She wanted to have her pictures modeled by a professional, which he was, but Rachel never saw him for what he was. A sheep in wolf’s clothing, a monster. He saw her as the perfect subject. A human chameleon with many visual possibilities and he felt they had a connection. Manipulating her into believing that he is the father figure that James never was for her. Rachel wrote a letter to Chloe in the shack but discarded it. She feels that he changed her life but the discarded letter shows that she felt ashamed about the whole relationship. "C. You can tell how much I want you to read this letter since I've been dragging my ass to give it to you. Maybe I just want you to find it when I'm not around so we never have to talk about it. And I don't want you to hate me. Where to start?I met somebody recently who's so different from the lame Vortex Club snobs. I know you'll have a meltdown when I tell you and think he's gross, but I swear he's wise and unconventional. Kind of scary, not in a "bad boy" way. He's just experienced some serious shit. Yes, I'm kinda obssessed (sic). I won't blame you for freaking.Maybe I know you're right and this just has to be my secret.I hate not sharing this with you except I know you'd give me that stink eye and grill me for every stupid detail. If I even told you that last night we hooked up near campus (...)" Her shame indicates that she was apart of the Dark Room as a consenting subject. At first she just saw it as a big photography project outside of school, but then Rachel started to look into Jefferson’s past models and figured out something was terribly wrong. In Jefferson’s own words “Not like Rachel, who was always looking in the wrong places. Poor Rachel.” Jefferson of course finds out because The Dark Room is under 24 hours surveillance. So out of fear of Rachel telling everyone, Jefferson kills Rachel, doses Nathan and poses Nathan’s unconscious body with Rachel’s lifeless body.  Stella believes they had sex, but I think it is more than likely that Jeffershit dosed her and raped her. He said “Rachel was in love with me” but how is there any truth to that? All Jefferson has done the entire game is manipulate and gaslight. There was no love, there was just Jefferson’s sick and twisted perverted Dark Room project. Rachel wanted a way out and she thought she had her way out, but in the end she played with fire and got burned. He killed her and blamed it on Nathan. But since Sera was meant to have powers, I believe that Rachel had powers passed down to her. I believe that Rachel’s death is what causes the storm. The storm is what Chloe said, Rachel’s revenge.  And in my opinion somehow her spirit gave Max the powers to save Chloe cause she wanted to destroy the town but she wanted Chloe to be safe so she gave the powers to Max so she could save Chloe from the storm.

Rachel is the storm. The death of Chloe caused Max to get rewind powers. When Rachel gets emotional enough. She has the power to unleash destructive weather controlling power. The thing is though, it turns out that her father wasn't involved with just some random mistress. More importantly though, we know of an event that is emotionally traumatizing enough for Rachel to unleash this kind of power. Because something unfathomably, fridge horror worse, happens to her than simply witnessing her father cheat. She gets kidnapped, sexually humiliated, drugged, and killed. Like the other victims of Jefferson, that is some dark side of reality shit right there. So it's very appropriate. An innocent girl gets violated tremendously and murdered, but this time, it's one with supernatural power. Hence supernatural consequences. This would mean that to whatever extent Chaos Theory was relevant. It had very little to do with anything Max did. In actuality it was more to hint at a string of consequences brought on by Jefferson and the Prescotts. In fact this was already pretty obvious in the first season, except it makes infinitely more sense now. Just with the first season alone, one was left to think this was some sort of Indian voodoo shit and that Chloe was just some sort of sacrifice to appease the Gods. But now we know, it's because of the original victim central to this story. Rachel Amber. The reason Chloe dying seems to appease the storm is because it results in retributive justice against Rachel's abusers. See another thing this ties in, is the Prescott family's impact on the environment. Something so strongly lathered on in the first season, with no inexplicable explanation when we are otherwise led to believe that the storm is caused by Max specifically. If the Prescott family essentially gets banished from Arcadia Bay right from the beginning. They don't influence the environment in exactly the way Rachel needs to harness the kind of power she does. So even though Rachel may still desire revenge against Arcadia. The forces of nature do not afford her such destruction if the Prescotts are busted early on. It's most likely a combination of her powers, and the forces of nature being contorted enough by the Prescotts polluting the environment, that creates the hurricane. Think about it. We are not even remotely told that simply, Chloe dying is what appeases the storm. Rather specifically what we are really told is that Max opens up certain options by the end of the first season. After finding out everything, she can go back and be a witness to Chloe's murder. Allowing her to bust Nathan Prescott, and Jefferson. If it was the other way around, it doesn't make sense. Because why would Nathan or Jefferson get in trouble at all if Max wasn't there? Nobody would know who killed Chloe, there would be no evidence. As well especially, Jefferson would have never got caught in the slightest. So ultimately, Max essentially strips Rachel of her venom so to speak. By time Nathan and Jefferson face consequences in the timeline where you choose to save Chloe. The chain of events have already led up to the Storm forming. So it can't be stopped. The environment has been polluted, etc. In fact there's no reason to believe that Rachel herself can STOP the storm. What we see with her powers is that she can unleash... chaos. Particularly of the weather variety. But she probably couldn't stop that forest fire if she had wanted to. It was most likely set in stone during the moments when she was being violated by Jefferson. That's when she probably experienced enough trauma for something like that to be set in motion. But after having passed away, she probably can't reverse the trajectory of things herself. That's where Max comes in, because she's a living participant. So she can mitigate Rachel's domino effect. Like a "Shield of Time", Max can simultaneously protect Arcadia Bay from Rachel's wrath, while simultaneously appeasing her by bringing justice to those who wronged her.

Rachel is the Doe. In the final moments of the game. After Rachel’s death, we would see a scene similar to the nightmare scene in episode 5. But it’s basically Rachel relooking over her life and finally passing on. Rachel would pass on as the Spirit Doe, to guide Max and Chloe to the truth. The first official time we see the Doe, we see it in Max’s nightmare. In the nightmare whenever we see it, the storm rages on. The first normal time we see the doe, we see the Doe where we find Rachel. Rachel guides Max multiple times. She doesn’t manifest for Chloe… only Max. Max’s rewind power does not work on the Doe, meaning that it is a spirit. Rachel was able to manifest to Max in a form Max would not find threatening. But however or whyever Rachel chose to manifest as the Doe to Max, what we definitely know is that the Doe was guiding and helping Max - both to lead her and Chloe to her grave, and then afterward in the Nightmare to bring Max to a place where she could escape.   And then, we see Chloe finding Rachel’s remains. Chloe grieving for her lover and best friend, and the Doe looks sad and finally disappears and finds peace.

#Life Is Strange #Rachel Amber #Amberprice #Chloe Price #Nathan Prescott #Victoria Chase #Frank Bowers #Mark Jefferson

[terselylove]

Maybe You’ll Never Be The Same After An Abusive Relationship And Maybe That’s Okay

Hiding my favorite benzodiazepines – Xanax and Klonopin – in lipstick tubes and vitamin bottles, the false calm they’d bestow upon me and then the fog. How hard it was to stay away from single-edge razor blades and sharper things. The constant hunger. The trash always in need to be taken out, full to the brim with empty glass bottles of one thing or another. Our dog sensing the hurricane brewing in the pit of my stomach, licking my hands, my legs, my face, knowing the imminent deluge was a dangerous thing; more anxious than me, maybe. Never sleeping before 3 in the morning and always waking up before 8. My makeup scattered across thebathroom counter, my hair on the walls in the shower, my eyebrows in need of plucking, how I no longer cared to make everything perfect for him. The ends of neon colored straws dipped in white in my cosmetics bag, in the silverware drawer, at the bottom of my purse. Condoms we didn’t use hidden in his glove compartment. The way my body folded in on itself when he touched me. Cursing the building we lived in when the shower wasn’t burning enough. Wanting to throw myself into the pyre. Wondering where I had gone. Mourning who I was.

These are the things I remember most from the final year of our relationship.

They say your body knows things before you do. It’s the way that we explain away the fact that our bodies understand love before our brains do – love at first sight if you believe in that kind of thing. It’s also the way we perceive danger, a reptilian inheritance, the way our bodies warn us against would be predators.

I remember the first time my body tried to tell me something.

During our relationship, he only ever touched me as a prelude to sex, or during, never after, and never just to be affectionate. I can’t think of a time he ever grabbed my hand, kissed me for no reason, held me by the waist, caressed my arm, or ran his fingers through my hair. I was always starved for touch, always starved for love, for anything, really.

I think it was a Saturday afternoon, we had plans with friends later that day, but we were already drinking some tequila concoction my father had taught me how to make. In retrospect, I was drinking far more than anyone ever should, back then, and using alcohol as a coping mechanism to ignore my misery and keep playing my role in the life I’d subjected myself to – dutiful, loyal, faithful, pretty, devoted, forgiving, girlfriend.

The kind that woke up earlier on weekends to have his breakfast ready by the time he got out of bed. The kind that washed the stains out of his shirts without him having to ask. The kind who sat uncomfortably on the couch in a tight top and skinny jeans because he hated seeing her in sweats; hair always blown out and makeup done. The kind who tried to perfect a recipe for some dish or another until it was to his liking. The kind who wrote his business proposals, made his appointments, and refilled his prescriptions. The one who bit her tongue in half and swallowed it to avoid being cut into ribbons by his anger. The one who was never allowed to be herself. The one who took his shit and still got on her knees when he said when.

There I was, sundress and bare feet padding around the kitchen, pretending this was love, refilling his drink and pouring more liquor into mine. I walked over to hand it to him, and when he reached out with two fingers to trace along my cleavage, I flinched and jerked back, not in surprise, but in the kind of way your body reacts to something it is terrified of. In that fleeting second, my body rejected everything that was him. I realized what I had been in denial about for so long. One small graze of his fingertips did more than any years of cheating, emotional and mental abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, and putting me down ever did. I didn’t know who the man I’d given so much of myself to over the last few years was. I never had. All I knew, in that moment, all I wanted so badly to ignore, was that whoever he was, there wasn’t a single bone in his body that was good. Not only was I trying to push back the fear I felt, but I was swallowing my disgust.

When he asked what was wrong, I told him I was just jumpy from late nights and a lack of sleep and kissed him on the cheek. I had known in my very core for a long time what my mind was just then allowing itself to accept as fact. I was still trying to dismiss the truth. I was still hoping it was I who had reality skewed. I wanted to be wrong because I didn’t know if being right said more about me or more about him. I wanted to be wrong because even the revelation I had that not only was this a bad man but that I didn’t love him anymore, wasn’t going to be enough to make me leave.

I stayed for a year after seeing him for who he was and recognizing what he was doing to me. Opening your eyes isn’t enough, neither is reaching your threshold of pain. I’ve been asked why I put up with so much, why I allowed so much to happen, but abusive relationships are as hard to leave as any other. Harder, even. You always think, That would never be me. I’m out the minute this or that is done or said to me. You couldn’t possibly know what it’s like until you’re there. It’s different for everybody: it can be for financial reasons, the fear that they may do worse if you leave, because you share kids, or a million other possibilities of reasons. But the two common underlying things in any case are that you have been brainwashed into believing that you don’t deserve any better and that this is as good as it gets, and that you keep hoping the person you fell for and that they made you believe they were, in the beginning, is still inside there somewhere. I knew I hated him, I knew he got off to my pain, and I knew whatever I had blinded myself into believing was love wasn’t love, but I also knew I wasn’t going to leave. It wouldn’t be that simple for me.

I crushed up a Xanax and lined it up next a line of coke at 3 in the afternoon, cut the end of a straw, and told myself I could do this.

And so began a cycle of bad habits and a spiraling into one of the darkest eras of my life.

We headed out for a pub crawl with some friends a bit later that day. That entire evening, my whole aim was to just numb myself. I kept trying to shove my thoughts into a shoebox in the back of a closet deep in my mind. Truthfully, Ignorance is bliss had been my motto already for quite some time, but it wasn’t going to work for much longer. I remember going into the bathroom stall with his friend’s girlfriend, feeling thankful when she produced a bag of the white substance from her purse, and thinking, Maybe I won’t feel anything when he fucks me later.

He did – fuck me. I felt nothing but my mind retreating, my body folding in on itself, me somewhere outside my own flesh. I had never felt cold like that before and I never once felt warm again after. For the first time in our relationship, I appreciated the fact that he never looked at me or held me after. I felt anger, rage, disgust, hate – as much toward myself as him.

I didn’t sleep at all those late hours and that early morning. I suddenly understood the cause of my unexplainable stomach issues, why I would break out in hives often for no reason, why no medications were helping my anxiety, why I couldn’t fall asleep, why I couldn’t stay asleep, why I was constantly exhausted. For a long time, my body and I had been living in a state of hypervigilance.

On any given day, I was nervous about what mood I would find him in. Which one of his personalities was taking a sip of the coffee I had prepared for him that morning?

It was a labor to even have a conversation with him sometimes because I had to be careful in molding it and skirting around subjects that were sensitive or that we disagreed on. He was adept at making me feel intellectually inferior to him, whether I didn’t share his belief or point of view on something, or just to make himself feel bigger. He would sometimes quiz me on certain topics, eager to find something to educate me, lecture, or correct me on. Then there were times when he became angry when I expressed an opinion that differed from his. I remember him leaving me at a restaurant once and making me walk in the rain because as a feminist, according to him, I didn’t need him to pick me up from the front of the building, in fact, he said that I didn’t need a ride at all. Once, discussing politics after the bar, he threw his drink down in the kitchen and left the apartment. I, the blind fool that I was, ran after him to the parking garage, and he refused to come back home until, in his words, I would “agree to shut the fuck up.”

It wasn’t just that, I couldn’t express my feelings, either. He would go into rages, cut me apart with his anger, or punish me in some way if I ever expressed how I felt, especially when it regarded him or our relationship. He would make me believe that my feelings weren’t valid. He would make me feel like I felt how I felt because I was mentally imbalanced. He would insist that I was either thriving on the drama, or that I was insane. Somehow, when I was the one who had a right to be angry or a right to be hurt, he would come out the end of it being the offended one, and I would be the one doing the apologizing.

If he did or said something to hurt me, then I was too sensitive. If he lied to me about something and I uncovered that lie, I was the problem for not trusting him in the first place or for sabotaging his attempt at protecting me from the truth. If he cheated on me, I was to blame – I had put on weight, I had been making him feel suffocated, I had been acting “too depressed”, I pushed him to it in some way, or I had put it out into the universe by not wholeheartedly trusting him.

When his tactics were less effective and I stood more of my ground, or when I challenged him more, he would threaten me with breaking up or suggest that we should take a break. It always worked because he had this way of making me feel like I should be thanking him for being with me. He made me believe I was lucky for having him. I believed every single label he ever put on me: crazy, dumbass, fat, weak, insecure, needy, too emotional, too sensitive, irrational, psycho, idiot, bitch, ungrateful, not good enough. He said as much as he thought he was the only person in the world that could ever put up with me. I was so broken down mentally that I actually felt grateful to him for loving me. Not that I love you were words he used often. No, I only ever heard that when he wanted something, when he had been caught cheating again, or when he wanted to reel me back in.

When I made him mad, stood up for myself, wrote something about my past or something that painted him in a bad light, saw people he didn’t want me to see, spent some time away from him and enjoyed it, he would give me the silent treatment. He’d suggest I go stay at my parents’ and I wouldn’t hear from him for days. When I tried desperately to get into contact with him, he would accuse me of being unhinged and suffocating and obsessed with him.

It was one of his favorite things to do, to make me feel like I was crazy. He took things I had trusted him with and used them as ammo. He would use my struggles with mental health to back up his theories about why I was acting the way I was, or thinking the way I was, or feeling the way I was, or to make me believe I was inherently irrational. I think he actually enjoyed making me feel insane and making me doubt reality. I was afraid of being alone sometimes. Things would move around the apartment from their original place, or something I swore I put somewhere would end up being somewhere else, and I constantly would get phone calls from blocked numbers. Looking back, I am positive it was him doing both things.

He would accuse me of doing or saying things I never did, so vehemently that I doubted my own sanity. On mornings after a night of drinking, he’d accuse me of having blacked out or embarrassing him in some way, when I was sure I hadn’t done either. He made the people in our world believe that I was the problem, while he painted himself as a sweet, charming, devoted guy who could tolerate this crazy girl with emotional issues. It was a lie I believed, too.

I was lucky, I thought. Who would want someone sad and unstable and not beautiful? This was the narrative he insidiously fed me.

He constantly commented on my fluctuation in weight, pushing me to lose pounds, and even went as far as making me feel guilty when I ate certain things and telling me what I should and shouldn’t eat. I dropped weight to the point where it didn’t look good on me, so I decided to put a bit more back on, I was still at my fittest, but he wasn’t happy with it, he told me I had looked better months prior and I could drop it again.

See, he liked me better smaller – physically, mentally, and emotionally.

He wanted to have 100% of me. He wanted all of me without giving me any of him, and while making me feel like he didn’t need any of me. The truth is, he couldn’t function without that control and power he had over me, my heart, my time, my body, my mind.

I didn’t recognize his behavior and actions as abuse, not only because it’s common for the victim not to until they’ve gotten away from that situation, but because I had previously been in a relationship where the abuse was more physical, so in my mind, what he was doing to me wasn’t abuse. I didn’t even register that anything was being done to me.

An old friend and ex-lover I had been confiding in about certain aspects of my relationship bluntly asked me at one point if he had ever hit me. I said that he hadn’t, not really, no. All he had done was slam me against the wall and then punched said wall. Did that even count? I had been through worse – it was how I excused a lot of what I put up with. It was why I was blind to the fact that he was being mentally, verbally, and emotionally abusive. It was how I overlooked the times he did become physically violent. He had thrown things, he had slammed doors hard enough to rattle the walls, he had broken things, he had punched walls, he had manhandled me, he had pushed me, he had put his hands on me hard enough to leave faint marks behind, and I had seen his eyes go completely black, witnessing him physically and internally restraining himself from acting out towards me. That was violent behavior. He may have never hit me across the face, kicked me, punched me, or pulled my hair – he may have had enough control to never strike me – but the damage he did to my psyche left me as black and blue as if he had done any of those things.

Coming out of an abusive relationship you realize the biggest thing you were robbed of was not your dignity, your time, or your heart, but yourself – who you were and all the things that made you so uniquely and extraordinarily you. You lose yourself like following footprints in the sand, looking up, then down again, to find everything wiped by the tide like nothing was ever there. You may come close to some resemblance of your former self, but you never again revert to the person you were before. No amount of time, healing, or therapy, leads you back to who you were. You are irrevocably changed.

I have insecurities I never had before about who I am as a person, the way I see things, and my appearance. I was left with a rollercoaster of a battle with body image issues. I used to be this exuberant and confident girl who believed in her power and beauty, and who went after what and who she wanted. I doubt myself now, and become paralyzed by the fear that I am not good enough. I don’t see the best in people anymore, and that used to be one of my favorite things about myself. Now, I doubt the good that I do see, I become skeptical of it, I am mistrusting, I wait for the other shoe to drop. I am all too comfortable becoming physically intimate with someone, but sabotage any possibilities of emotionally connecting with anyone. I am jaded.

These are all things that I’m working on, and I know I’ll overcome them all one day, but there will always be a part of me that is tender that won’t let me forget; I’ll always have an inner voice inside me telling me to be careful. The thing that makes me saddest of all is knowing I don’t have it in me anymore to be as giving and generous as I once was. I can’t love again and give my all.

Maybe that’s okay. Maybe my all should always be given to myself and only myself. Maybe only then I can reconnect with even a few of the broken little pieces of who I used to be.

[sorjaa]

You’re Not Crazy, He’s Gaslighting You, And Here Are 50 Ways To Be 100% Sure

1. He calls you crazy.

2. You find that he lies to you constantly. Lying blatantly to your face is easy and almost natural to him.

3. He doesn’t back down from his version of the truth or change his story when you call him out on it. You can present irrefutable evidence of his lies and he will still insist that you’re wrong. He will still deny.

4. He’s extremely convincing, even when your gut is telling you he’s lying.

5. He takes advantage in a situation in which he is lying to you, to make you feel like you are crazy or irrational.

6. You have a lot of nonsensical conversations. They make such complicated arguments and twist the truth so much that you become confused.

7. He discredits you to others. He brands you with the label of the crazy girlfriend or controlling partner. He makes it appear that he’s the victim of your behavior or mental state.

8. He discredits others to you. If someone relays information that is inconvenient for him to you or paints him in a different light, he will try to discredit those people to you or claim that they “don’t like him” or “are out to get him.”

9. He deflects.

10. He often forgets or denies and displays selective memory. He claims to forget events that have occurred, especially if they don’t favor him. He denies having made promises of significance to you. He will say things like “that never happened” or “I never said that.”

11. He questions your memory and accuses you of making things up.

12. He reframes conversations, memories, or stories to be retold in his favor.

13. You doubt your version of the truth and second guess your memory.

14. He “trivializes” by minimizing your thoughts and feelings. He often accuses you of overreacting and being too sensitive. You are often told by him to “calm down.” He makes you believe that YOU are the problem, effectively communicating that you are wrong.

15. He doesn’t acknowledge your feelings, thoughts, or beliefs. In fact, he makes you feel as if they are trivial, insignificant, foolish, or even wrong.

16. He dismisses your thoughts and feelings as absurd. They become a weapon. He uses them against you and uses them as “proof” of your character flaws, one of which he claims is irrationality.

17. You’ve found yourself questioning your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs yourself.

18. You’ve found yourself doubting your sense of reality and perceptions.

19. You don’t feel validated, understood, or seen with him.

20. His mistakes often become your own. The blame is constantly shifted to you. He manipulates the situation in such a way that he ends up making you believe that his transgressions are a result of something you did wrong or your shortcomings. He claims that if you would try harder, behave differently, or hadn’t acted in such a way, he wouldn’t have done what he did to hurt you.

21. He denies any wrongdoing and doesn’t acknowledge your pain.

22. You apologize when he’s the one that should be apologizing.

23. You become convinced everything is your fault.

24. You are constantly apologizing for what you do and who you are.

25. You often feel like you’ve done something wrong or have “screwed up” somehow.

26. You repeat words of things he’s called you to yourself, like: crazy, irrational, overly demanding, nagging, inadequate, wrong, stupid.

27. You never feel good enough.

28. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to ask yourself if you are really too sensitive, overly emotional, overly demanding, etc.

29. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to invalidate your own emotions.

30. He has tried to mold you and change you into his ideal. This may include things like making remarks about your weight, clothes, habits, diet, friends, and even trying to make you doubt your views.

31. He becomes angry when your views don’t align with his.

32. He becomes angry when you challenge his views or try to have an open-minded conversation.

33. You’ve become silent. You don’t speak up in order not to spark an argument. You know that expressing your feelings or sharing your thoughts or opinions will only wind up making you feel worse. You stay silent to avoid reality twists. You don’t speak up to avoid any kind of verbal abuse.

34. You lie to avoid his reaction, verbal abuse, put downs, or simply not to argue.

35. You make excuses for his behavior.

36. You lie or withhold things from friends and family in order to “protect” him, and in fear that they wouldn’t see him in a good light.

37. He uses your fears, vulnerabilities, and insecurities against you.

38. He may use your mental health if you suffer from things like depression and anxiety as a weapon, or to further amplify his argument that you’re “not thinking right.”

39. He “diagnoses” you and tells you that you need help, medication, or tries to claim to know why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling or thinking the way you’re thinking.

40. He claims to know what you are thinking and accuses you of lying when you don’t admit to it.

41. He accuses you of having ridiculous ulterior motives.

42. You lost all your self-confidence and self-esteem.

43. You don’t recognize who you are anymore, especially around him, and you’re starting to feel disappointed in who you’ve become.

44. You find it hard to make even small decisions. You act indecisively.

45. His behavior and attitude confuses you. He’s extremely mercurial.

46. He doesn’t apologize unless he’s using it as a method to reel you back in.

47. He uses affection as a weapon and often only displays it when you’re pulling away or he wants something from you. He uses compassionate words only in the same situations and says exactly what you want to hear.

48. His words don’t reflect his actions.

49. You are often trying to shut thoughts down that something is “off” about him.

50. You don’t know what’s normal anymore, but you are beginning to feel like there has to be something better than this.

Source

#gaslighting #narcissistic #abuse #abuser #citation #quote #toxic #gaslight #people #quoteoftheday #relationship #emotional #emotional abuse #manipulation #narcissist #npd #toxic people #ego #toxic relationship

[sayonaralullaby-a]

Finally, am I done giving my full thoughts on/venting my own experiences in 2017. Warning for child abuse, brief mention of/implied suicide, and homophobia.

Shoving the honest and blunt thought of how 2017 as numbers means nothing to me ( if you can get what I'm saying ) aside, looking at my chapter overall of this soon to be ending year, as I said before, it could've been better.

During the beginning of 2017 was when I had to deal with the loss of my very close friend as he left me even after everything I had done to give him the love and support he needed. Sure, the loss was mostly my fault; I snapped at him because of my paranoia and anxiety was running so high as I thought he was mad at me for dropping our long-term love plots for our OCs when I wanted to focus on my education more than roleplaying, but I still wish we could've actually talk and settle things right to each other, but if he wished to not do so and instead leave me and the things we had done together behind as he doesn't want forgive me, that's okay. People come and go, and what I did was a complete shitty as I should've known better so I don't blame him for leaving me. I just hope he's doing okay today and may 2018 and beyond treat him well. I know he had gone through so much and probably still does in the present, especially when Tr.mp was elected, even if it hurts a lot knowing I lost him in the end, I'm just glad that before we never talk to each other again, I managed to do for him what I always wanted to do all the time. To give the love and support when he needed them the most.

Meanwhile until September, I also have to deal with my so called friend at my school. He's narcissistic, unwilling to express much care, once threatened my other friend he would blackmail him, pretty much my mom 2.0 as in manipulative and an asshole. Again, I'm fine with him now, but during those months were so fucking shitty, and the fact I didn't feel like school could be like a tiny home to me with my friends, mainly Casey, while my apartment is fucking shit when my abusive and toxic mom is around, which is like 99.5% she is, was so depressing because there were no where else I could go besides internet with my online friends that would make me feel just a bit at least that I am still alive and real. Still does it blew my mind I had a 100% on my math test as I'm fucking terrible at math, but too bad I couldn't be proud of myself when that day was horrible having to deal with that fucker.

During the spring break on March, that was when I had a girlfriend. If I can actually tell it is supposed to be had instead of have. She was intelligent, funny, and just a wonder to be with. We reunited after we both left the roleplay site forum when it got revamped and haven't seen each other for months until that day we met again on Tumblr. She started saying how she should take me away and live with her somewhere far. How we should be together as a couple. I took her sayings as to date, and we did. Until in the middle of August, we lost touch as I realized she's not as friendly as I thought. I shouldn't be surprised, knowing her personality, but I just believed. Like a fool. To hear from my other friend how she was talking shit behind her back and lying about her when she couldn't be able to tell what holds behind her texts. My ex-girlfriend’s words and actions are just as worse as a stranger doing it, especially knowing how hers along with many others made my friend feel horrible and ashamed of herself to the point she wanted to give up. Even if she did it to someone who I’m just a stranger to, I do not ever accept that sort of attitude and mindset from anyone who does that, unless the person who are being treated that way had done or said way worse than not being able to tell how their texts were worded rudely or sarcastically when it wasn't intended to. Either you shut the fuck up or talk and behave civilly. It's so simple.

The problem I had with her ( anyway - if it weren't for her turning out to be a disgusting asshole ) was the lack of interactions, mainly from me. Both in reality and on the internet, I'm... not that great at socializing. So the fact her and I just drifted off to each other without saying any goodbyes or anything at all in the end doesn't really surprise me. Again, as I said earlier, people come and go, and I know with the friends I have today, they would all go, and I always tell every single one of them I love them because even if it hurts so much, I will never know when they would, so it's just best for me to remind them I love them. And I love them. And I want them to know even if them and I don't end up keeping in touch anymore, I love them so so much. I say this many times but I'm horrible at interacting and I never will. I'm not interesting as I don't get into many tv series, books, films, whatever. I get distracted easily, I don't have much time getting into them, and I'm so wary of the actors, actresses, writers, etc because nowadays, some of them would turn out to be completely way different as in disgusting and horrible than how they usually act towards their fans and such ( such as M.lanie M.rtinez and N.ck R.binson from Polygon who turned out to be garbage this year ). I shouldn't spend part of my life looking up to and even take my time and effort into making my content for what or who is actually full of shit. Fuck them. Even if I am into few things at least, I rarely talk to people about it unless they prompted me to, though eventually I don't continue it because I don't know how to. So if you talk to me, don't be surprised I don't often reply back when either I don't know how to continue the conversation or I'm overwhelmed at the thoughts of annoying you or whatever along the line. It’s very exhausting to talk to me, so really, I don't blame anyone even my close friends and partners who drifts away from me. But if you really want to be my friend, I advice you to keep talking to me, keep throwing topics at me, anything that would make it easy for you, even if I don't end up carrying it, just do it.

I think the absolute worse part of 2017 was when I believe on April when I got my journal book to do my journal stuff, I drew Casey as his favourite animal, and I drew a pin on him that said “I’m gay”. My mom saw, and she got extremely mad at me, telling me “being gay isn't something to be proud of,” and she kept shoving questions down in my throat if he was trans as she was also transphobic and I had to lie to her, replying that he's a new friend of mine while [ his dead name ] left the school. I apologized many times and thankfully I was forgiven, but I felt extremely shitty saying his dead name and to be honest, I still do. I should've done better but I just panicked and that was the first thing that came to mind. Then that was when my mom started to actually ignore me and for the first time she actually neglected me, she didn't give me my dinner as I have to get it myself, and she was mad at me for almost a week, which that's the longest time she was so at me. When I got my dinner after realizing she didn't give me any food, she asked me why as she thought I would stay in my room. At that time, I become completely careless and emotionless, just eating my food as she just ranted her toxic and abusive ass at me. Throughout the entire time while I was eating, she was trying to gaslight me and guilt-trip me. All I can remember her saying was how she knew one day I will leave her behind. That when I was born, she can already tell by the look of me that that I would end up leaving her behind and become a disgrace. That I would turn out to be horrible. I knew she was trying to make me feel guilty, but having a fear of turning out to be rude and violent already, that still didn't help me become more anxious and afraid of myself as just that small part of me feel like that would happen. That was when I tried to plan running away from home. At least live with Casey. But after a week of thinking about it, I realized how completely difficult and different my life would be if I did run away from home, and it's not that easy doing that like I see in movies, video games and whatnot, plus I can't just leave my two brothers behind, so I dropped the plans. Obviously, I deal with her every single day, so I shouldn't be bothered listing everything else that she did to me, but that was the absolute worse one I got from her in 2017.

2017 was definitely the year I've honestly dealt with a lot of intrusive and suicidal thoughts and had used self-deprecation humor so many times, more than I had in any other years, as I can only assume my depression was getting worse as months went by. Also my emotions? They are in no doubt messy and exhausting to deal with this year as people would see me happy then five minutes later I'm sad and is ready to embrace death then five minute later, here I am being happy again. I like to think that when I'm dealing with some dumb sad shit and/or dealing with something bad that happened to me it's easy for me to get out of them as long as I have something to distract me and keep me calm? I don't know, but I guess it's good knowing that I don't often get stuck into the mud for weeks at least. But yeah. Bless this mess.

Despite all of that, during the last August was when I got into Brooklyn Nine Nine and Sugar Pine 7, as September was when I got into Buzzfeed Unsolved. They were the very few best things that I had done in that year as I don't regret getting into them at all. They bring me so much joy and inspiration. Also the people in the community of Buzzfeed Unsolved who does graphic/video edits and artworks are the ones who actually pushed me into doing graphic edits as a hobby with a massive amount of inspiration. I made so many friends in that community and they all make me feel so loved and respected everyday as it's always a joy to see them on my dashboard. To know how it feels to be so alive and most importantly happy at the end of the year from September to December is a fucking blessing, and just, to the friends I made from few months ago through Buzzfeed Unsolved along with Casey, Cy, and Ella, thank you all so so much. 2017 could've been better to me, yes, but you guys making my 2017 at least a bit more brighter and kind to me in the end is what makes it all up for it, and I can't ever be grateful enough for it.

Thank you.

#I'll make my appreciation/shoutout post eventually as this really took the toll outta me #fucking damn #( Cae speaking )

[ethelbertpaul444-blog]

You’re Not Crazy, He’s Gaslighting You, And Here Are 50 Ways To Be 100% Sure

1. He calls you crazy. 2. You find that he lies to you constantly. Lying blatantly to your face is easy and almost natural to him. 3. He doesn’t back down from his version of the truth or change his story when you call him out on it. You can present irrefutable evidence of his lies and he will still insist that you’re wrong. He will still deny. 4. He’s extremely convincing, even when your gut is telling you he’s lying. 5. He takes advantage in a situation in which he is lying to you, to make you feel like you are crazy or irrational. 6. You have a lot of nonsensical conversations. They make such complicated arguments and twist the truth so much that you become confused. 7. He discredits you to others. He brands you with the label of the crazy girlfriend or controlling partner. He makes it appear that he’s the victim of your behavior or mental state. 8. He discredits others to you. If someone relays information that is inconvenient for him to you or paints him in a different light, he will try to discredit those people to you or claim that they “don’t like him” or “are out to get him.” 9. He deflects. 10. He often forgets or denies and displays selective memory. He claims to forget events that have occurred, especially if they don’t favor him. He denies having made promises of significance to you. He will say things like “that never happened” or “I never said that.” 11. He questions your memory and accuses you of making things up. 12. He reframes conversations, memories, or stories to be retold in his favor. 13. You doubt your version of the truth and second guess your memory. 14. He “trivializes” by minimizing your thoughts and feelings. He often accuses you of overreacting and being too sensitive. You are often told by him to “calm down.” He makes you believe that YOU are the problem, effectively communicating that you are wrong. 15. He doesn’t acknowledge your feelings, thoughts, or beliefs. In fact, he makes you feel as if they are trivial, insignificant, foolish, or even wrong. 16. He dismisses your thoughts and feelings as absurd. They become a weapon. He uses them against you and uses them as “proof” of your character flaws, one of which he claims is irrationality. 17. You’ve found yourself questioning your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs yourself. 18. You’ve found yourself doubting your sense of reality and perceptions. 19. You don’t feel validated, understood, or seen with him. 20. His mistakes often become your own. The blame is constantly shifted to you. He manipulates the situation in such a way that he ends up making you believe that his transgressions are a result of something you did wrong or your shortcomings. He claims that if you would try harder, behave differently, or hadn’t acted in such a way, he wouldn’t have done what he did to hurt you. 21. He denies any wrongdoing and doesn’t acknowledge your pain. 22. You apologize when he’s the one that should be apologizing. 23. You become convinced everything is your fault. 24. You are constantly apologizing for what you do and who you are. 25. You often feel like you’ve done something wrong or have “screwed up” somehow. 26. You repeat words of things he’s called you to yourself, like: crazy, irrational, overly demanding, nagging, inadequate, wrong, stupid. 27. You never feel good enough. 28. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to ask yourself if you are really too sensitive, overly emotional, overly demanding, etc. 29. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to invalidate your own emotions. 30. He has tried to mold you and change you into his ideal. This may include things like making remarks about your weight, clothes, habits, diet, friends, and even trying to make you doubt your views. 31. He becomes angry when your views don’t align with his. 32. He becomes angry when you challenge his views or try to have an open-minded conversation. 33. You’ve become silent. You don’t speak up in order not to spark an argument. You know that expressing your feelings or sharing your thoughts or opinions will only wind up making you feel worse. You stay silent to avoid reality twists. You don’t speak up to avoid any kind of verbal abuse. 34. You lie to avoid his reaction, verbal abuse, put downs, or simply not to argue. 35. You make excuses for his behavior. 36. You lie or withhold things from friends and family in order to “protect” him, and in fear that they wouldn’t see him in a good light. 37. He uses your fears, vulnerabilities, and insecurities against you. 38. He may use your mental health if you suffer from things like depression and anxiety as a weapon, or to further amplify his argument that you’re “not thinking right.” 39. He “diagnoses” you and tells you that you need help, medication, or tries to claim to know why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling or thinking the way you’re thinking. 40. He claims to know what you are thinking and accuses you of lying when you don’t admit to it. 41. He accuses you of having ridiculous ulterior motives. 42. You lost all your self-confidence and self-esteem. 43. You don’t recognize who you are anymore, especially around him, and you’re starting to feel disappointed in who you’ve become. 44. You find it hard to make even small decisions. You act indecisively. 45. His behavior and attitude confuses you. He’s extremely mercurial. 46. He doesn’t apologize unless he’s using it as a method to reel you back in. 47. He uses affection as a weapon and often only displays it when you’re pulling away or he wants something from you. He uses compassionate words only in the same situations and says exactly what you want to hear. 48. His words don’t reflect his actions. 49. You are often trying to shut thoughts down that something is “off” about him. 50. You don’t know what’s normal anymore, but you are beginning to feel like there has to be something better than this. Read more: thoughtcatalog.com http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/06/27/youre-not-crazy-hes-gaslighting-you-and-here-are-50-ways-to-be-100-sure/

[terselylove]

Maybe You’ll Never Be The Same After An Abusive Relationship And Maybe That’s Okay

Hiding my favorite benzodiazepines – Xanax and Klonopin – in lipstick tubes and vitamin bottles, the false calm they’d bestow upon me and then the fog. How hard it was to stay away from single-edge razor blades and sharper things. The constant hunger. The trash always in need to be taken out, full to the brim with empty glass bottles of one thing or another. Our dog sensing the hurricane brewing in the pit of my stomach, licking my hands, my legs, my face, knowing the imminent deluge was a dangerous thing; more anxious than me, maybe. Never sleeping before 3 in the morning and always waking up before 8. My makeup scattered across thebathroom counter, my hair on the walls in the shower, my eyebrows in need of plucking, how I no longer cared to make everything perfect for him. The ends of neon colored straws dipped in white in my cosmetics bag, in the silverware drawer, at the bottom of my purse. Condoms we didn’t use hidden in his glove compartment. The way my body folded in on itself when he touched me. Cursing the building we lived in when the shower wasn’t burning enough. Wanting to throw myself into the pyre. Wondering where I had gone. Mourning who I was.

These are the things I remember most from the final year of our relationship.

They say your body knows things before you do. It’s the way that we explain away the fact that our bodies understand love before our brains do – love at first sight if you believe in that kind of thing. It’s also the way we perceive danger, a reptilian inheritance, the way our bodies warn us against would be predators.

I remember the first time my body tried to tell me something.

During our relationship, he only ever touched me as a prelude to sex, or during, never after, and never just to be affectionate. I can’t think of a time he ever grabbed my hand, kissed me for no reason, held me by the waist, caressed my arm, or ran his fingers through my hair. I was always starved for touch, always starved for love, for anything, really.

I think it was a Saturday afternoon, we had plans with friends later that day, but we were already drinking some tequila concoction my father had taught me how to make. In retrospect, I was drinking far more than anyone ever should, back then, and using alcohol as a coping mechanism to ignore my misery and keep playing my role in the life I’d subjected myself to – dutiful, loyal, faithful, pretty, devoted, forgiving, girlfriend.

The kind that woke up earlier on weekends to have his breakfast ready by the time he got out of bed. The kind that washed the stains out of his shirts without him having to ask. The kind who sat uncomfortably on the couch in a tight top and skinny jeans because he hated seeing her in sweats; hair always blown out and makeup done. The kind who tried to perfect a recipe for some dish or another until it was to his liking. The kind who wrote his business proposals, made his appointments, and refilled his prescriptions. The one who bit her tongue in half and swallowed it to avoid being cut into ribbons by his anger. The one who was never allowed to be herself. The one who took his shit and still got on her knees when he said when.

There I was, sundress and bare feet padding around the kitchen, pretending this was love, refilling his drink and pouring more liquor into mine. I walked over to hand it to him, and when he reached out with two fingers to trace along my cleavage, I flinched and jerked back, not in surprise, but in the kind of way your body reacts to something it is terrified of. In that fleeting second, my body rejected everything that was him. I realized what I had been in denial about for so long. One small graze of his fingertips did more than any years of cheating, emotional and mental abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, and putting me down ever did. I didn’t know who the man I’d given so much of myself to over the last few years was. I never had. All I knew, in that moment, all I wanted so badly to ignore, was that whoever he was, there wasn’t a single bone in his body that was good. Not only was I trying to push back the fear I felt, but I was swallowing my disgust.

When he asked what was wrong, I told him I was just jumpy from late nights and a lack of sleep and kissed him on the cheek. I had known in my very core for a long time what my mind was just then allowing itself to accept as fact. I was still trying to dismiss the truth. I was still hoping it was I who had reality skewed. I wanted to be wrong because I didn’t know if being right said more about me or more about him. I wanted to be wrong because even the revelation I had that not only was this a bad man but that I didn’t love him anymore, wasn’t going to be enough to make me leave.

I stayed for a year after seeing him for who he was and recognizing what he was doing to me. Opening your eyes isn’t enough, neither is reaching your threshold of pain. I’ve been asked why I put up with so much, why I allowed so much to happen, but abusive relationships are as hard to leave as any other. Harder, even. You always think, That would never be me. I’m out the minute this or that is done or said to me. You couldn’t possibly know what it’s like until you’re there. It’s different for everybody: it can be for financial reasons, the fear that they may do worse if you leave, because you share kids, or a million other possibilities of reasons. But the two common underlying things in any case are that you have been brainwashed into believing that you don’t deserve any better and that this is as good as it gets, and that you keep hoping the person you fell for and that they made you believe they were, in the beginning, is still inside there somewhere. I knew I hated him, I knew he got off to my pain, and I knew whatever I had blinded myself into believing was love wasn’t love, but I also knew I wasn’t going to leave. It wouldn’t be that simple for me.

I crushed up a Xanax and lined it up next a line of coke at 3 in the afternoon, cut the end of a straw, and told myself I could do this.

And so began a cycle of bad habits and a spiraling into one of the darkest eras of my life.

We headed out for a pub crawl with some friends a bit later that day. That entire evening, my whole aim was to just numb myself. I kept trying to shove my thoughts into a shoebox in the back of a closet deep in my mind. Truthfully, Ignorance is bliss had been my motto already for quite some time, but it wasn’t going to work for much longer. I remember going into the bathroom stall with his friend’s girlfriend, feeling thankful when she produced a bag of the white substance from her purse, and thinking, Maybe I won’t feel anything when he fucks me later.

He did – fuck me. I felt nothing but my mind retreating, my body folding in on itself, me somewhere outside my own flesh. I had never felt cold like that before and I never once felt warm again after. For the first time in our relationship, I appreciated the fact that he never looked at me or held me after. I felt anger, rage, disgust, hate – as much toward myself as him.

I didn’t sleep at all those late hours and that early morning. I suddenly understood the cause of my unexplainable stomach issues, why I would break out in hives often for no reason, why no medications were helping my anxiety, why I couldn’t fall asleep, why I couldn’t stay asleep, why I was constantly exhausted. For a long time, my body and I had been living in a state of hypervigilance.

On any given day, I was nervous about what mood I would find him in. Which one of his personalities was taking a sip of the coffee I had prepared for him that morning?

It was a labor to even have a conversation with him sometimes because I had to be careful in molding it and skirting around subjects that were sensitive or that we disagreed on. He was adept at making me feel intellectually inferior to him, whether I didn’t share his belief or point of view on something, or just to make himself feel bigger. He would sometimes quiz me on certain topics, eager to find something to educate me, lecture, or correct me on. Then there were times when he became angry when I expressed an opinion that differed from his. I remember him leaving me at a restaurant once and making me walk in the rain because as a feminist, according to him, I didn’t need him to pick me up from the front of the building, in fact, he said that I didn’t need a ride at all. Once, discussing politics after the bar, he threw his drink down in the kitchen and left the apartment. I, the blind fool that I was, ran after him to the parking garage, and he refused to come back home until, in his words, I would “agree to shut the fuck up.”

It wasn’t just that, I couldn’t express my feelings, either. He would go into rages, cut me apart with his anger, or punish me in some way if I ever expressed how I felt, especially when it regarded him or our relationship. He would make me believe that my feelings weren’t valid. He would make me feel like I felt how I felt because I was mentally imbalanced. He would insist that I was either thriving on the drama, or that I was insane. Somehow, when I was the one who had a right to be angry or a right to be hurt, he would come out the end of it being the offended one, and I would be the one doing the apologizing.

If he did or said something to hurt me, then I was too sensitive. If he lied to me about something and I uncovered that lie, I was the problem for not trusting him in the first place or for sabotaging his attempt at protecting me from the truth. If he cheated on me, I was to blame – I had put on weight, I had been making him feel suffocated, I had been acting “too depressed”, I pushed him to it in some way, or I had put it out into the universe by not wholeheartedly trusting him.

When his tactics were less effective and I stood more of my ground, or when I challenged him more, he would threaten me with breaking up or suggest that we should take a break. It always worked because he had this way of making me feel like I should be thanking him for being with me. He made me believe I was lucky for having him. I believed every single label he ever put on me: crazy, dumbass, fat, weak, insecure, needy, too emotional, too sensitive, irrational, psycho, idiot, bitch, ungrateful, not good enough. He said as much as he thought he was the only person in the world that could ever put up with me. I was so broken down mentally that I actually felt grateful to him for loving me. Not that I love you were words he used often. No, I only ever heard that when he wanted something, when he had been caught cheating again, or when he wanted to reel me back in.

When I made him mad, stood up for myself, wrote something about my past or something that painted him in a bad light, saw people he didn’t want me to see, spent some time away from him and enjoyed it, he would give me the silent treatment. He’d suggest I go stay at my parents’ and I wouldn’t hear from him for days. When I tried desperately to get into contact with him, he would accuse me of being unhinged and suffocating and obsessed with him.

It was one of his favorite things to do, to make me feel like I was crazy. He took things I had trusted him with and used them as ammo. He would use my struggles with mental health to back up his theories about why I was acting the way I was, or thinking the way I was, or feeling the way I was, or to make me believe I was inherently irrational. I think he actually enjoyed making me feel insane and making me doubt reality. I was afraid of being alone sometimes. Things would move around the apartment from their original place, or something I swore I put somewhere would end up being somewhere else, and I constantly would get phone calls from blocked numbers. Looking back, I am positive it was him doing both things.

He would accuse me of doing or saying things I never did, so vehemently that I doubted my own sanity. On mornings after a night of drinking, he’d accuse me of having blacked out or embarrassing him in some way, when I was sure I hadn’t done either. He made the people in our world believe that I was the problem, while he painted himself as a sweet, charming, devoted guy who could tolerate this crazy girl with emotional issues. It was a lie I believed, too.

I was lucky, I thought. Who would want someone sad and unstable and not beautiful? This was the narrative he insidiously fed me.

He constantly commented on my fluctuation in weight, pushing me to lose pounds, and even went as far as making me feel guilty when I ate certain things and telling me what I should and shouldn’t eat. I dropped weight to the point where it didn’t look good on me, so I decided to put a bit more back on, I was still at my fittest, but he wasn’t happy with it, he told me I had looked better months prior and I could drop it again.

See, he liked me better smaller – physically, mentally, and emotionally.

He wanted to have 100% of me. He wanted all of me without giving me any of him, and while making me feel like he didn’t need any of me. The truth is, he couldn’t function without that control and power he had over me, my heart, my time, my body, my mind.

I didn’t recognize his behavior and actions as abuse, not only because it’s common for the victim not to until they’ve gotten away from that situation, but because I had previously been in a relationship where the abuse was more physical, so in my mind, what he was doing to me wasn’t abuse. I didn’t even register that anything was being done to me.

An old friend and ex-lover I had been confiding in about certain aspects of my relationship bluntly asked me at one point if he had ever hit me. I said that he hadn’t, not really, no. All he had done was slam me against the wall and then punched said wall. Did that even count? I had been through worse – it was how I excused a lot of what I put up with. It was why I was blind to the fact that he was being mentally, verbally, and emotionally abusive. It was how I overlooked the times he did become physically violent. He had thrown things, he had slammed doors hard enough to rattle the walls, he had broken things, he had punched walls, he had manhandled me, he had pushed me, he had put his hands on me hard enough to leave faint marks behind, and I had seen his eyes go completely black, witnessing him physically and internally restraining himself from acting out towards me. That was violent behavior. He may have never hit me across the face, kicked me, punched me, or pulled my hair – he may have had enough control to never strike me – but the damage he did to my psyche left me as black and blue as if he had done any of those things.

Coming out of an abusive relationship you realize the biggest thing you were robbed of was not your dignity, your time, or your heart, but yourself – who you were and all the things that made you so uniquely and extraordinarily you. You lose yourself like following footprints in the sand, looking up, then down again, to find everything wiped by the tide like nothing was ever there. You may come close to some resemblance of your former self, but you never again revert to the person you were before. No amount of time, healing, or therapy, leads you back to who you were. You are irrevocably changed.

I have insecurities I never had before about who I am as a person, the way I see things, and my appearance. I was left with a rollercoaster of a battle with body image issues. I used to be this exuberant and confident girl who believed in her power and beauty, and who went after what and who she wanted. I doubt myself now, and become paralyzed by the fear that I am not good enough. I don’t see the best in people anymore, and that used to be one of my favorite things about myself. Now, I doubt the good that I do see, I become skeptical of it, I am mistrusting, I wait for the other shoe to drop. I am all too comfortable becoming physically intimate with someone, but sabotage any possibilities of emotionally connecting with anyone. I am jaded.

These are all things that I’m working on, and I know I’ll overcome them all one day, but there will always be a part of me that is tender that won’t let me forget; I’ll always have an inner voice inside me telling me to be careful. The thing that makes me saddest of all is knowing I don’t have it in me anymore to be as giving and generous as I once was. I can’t love again and give my all.

Maybe that’s okay. Maybe my all should always be given to myself and only myself. Maybe only then I can reconnect with even a few of the broken little pieces of who I used to be.

[ethelbertpaul444-blog]

You’re Not Crazy, He’s Gaslighting You, And Here Are 50 Ways To Be 100% Sure

1. He calls you crazy. 2. You find that he lies to you constantly. Lying blatantly to your face is easy and almost natural to him. 3. He doesn’t back down from his version of the truth or change his story when you call him out on it. You can present irrefutable evidence of his lies and he will still insist that you’re wrong. He will still deny. 4. He’s extremely convincing, even when your gut is telling you he’s lying. 5. He takes advantage in a situation in which he is lying to you, to make you feel like you are crazy or irrational. 6. You have a lot of nonsensical conversations. They make such complicated arguments and twist the truth so much that you become confused. 7. He discredits you to others. He brands you with the label of the crazy girlfriend or controlling partner. He makes it appear that he’s the victim of your behavior or mental state. 8. He discredits others to you. If someone relays information that is inconvenient for him to you or paints him in a different light, he will try to discredit those people to you or claim that they “don’t like him” or “are out to get him.” 9. He deflects. 10. He often forgets or denies and displays selective memory. He claims to forget events that have occurred, especially if they don’t favor him. He denies having made promises of significance to you. He will say things like “that never happened” or “I never said that.” 11. He questions your memory and accuses you of making things up. 12. He reframes conversations, memories, or stories to be retold in his favor. 13. You doubt your version of the truth and second guess your memory. 14. He “trivializes” by minimizing your thoughts and feelings. He often accuses you of overreacting and being too sensitive. You are often told by him to “calm down.” He makes you believe that YOU are the problem, effectively communicating that you are wrong. 15. He doesn’t acknowledge your feelings, thoughts, or beliefs. In fact, he makes you feel as if they are trivial, insignificant, foolish, or even wrong. 16. He dismisses your thoughts and feelings as absurd. They become a weapon. He uses them against you and uses them as “proof” of your character flaws, one of which he claims is irrationality. 17. You’ve found yourself questioning your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs yourself. 18. You’ve found yourself doubting your sense of reality and perceptions. 19. You don’t feel validated, understood, or seen with him. 20. His mistakes often become your own. The blame is constantly shifted to you. He manipulates the situation in such a way that he ends up making you believe that his transgressions are a result of something you did wrong or your shortcomings. He claims that if you would try harder, behave differently, or hadn’t acted in such a way, he wouldn’t have done what he did to hurt you. 21. He denies any wrongdoing and doesn’t acknowledge your pain. 22. You apologize when he’s the one that should be apologizing. 23. You become convinced everything is your fault. 24. You are constantly apologizing for what you do and who you are. 25. You often feel like you’ve done something wrong or have “screwed up” somehow. 26. You repeat words of things he’s called you to yourself, like: crazy, irrational, overly demanding, nagging, inadequate, wrong, stupid. 27. You never feel good enough. 28. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to ask yourself if you are really too sensitive, overly emotional, overly demanding, etc. 29. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to invalidate your own emotions. 30. He has tried to mold you and change you into his ideal. This may include things like making remarks about your weight, clothes, habits, diet, friends, and even trying to make you doubt your views. 31. He becomes angry when your views don’t align with his. 32. He becomes angry when you challenge his views or try to have an open-minded conversation. 33. You’ve become silent. You don’t speak up in order not to spark an argument. You know that expressing your feelings or sharing your thoughts or opinions will only wind up making you feel worse. You stay silent to avoid reality twists. You don’t speak up to avoid any kind of verbal abuse. 34. You lie to avoid his reaction, verbal abuse, put downs, or simply not to argue. 35. You make excuses for his behavior. 36. You lie or withhold things from friends and family in order to “protect” him, and in fear that they wouldn’t see him in a good light. 37. He uses your fears, vulnerabilities, and insecurities against you. 38. He may use your mental health if you suffer from things like depression and anxiety as a weapon, or to further amplify his argument that you’re “not thinking right.” 39. He “diagnoses” you and tells you that you need help, medication, or tries to claim to know why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling or thinking the way you’re thinking. 40. He claims to know what you are thinking and accuses you of lying when you don’t admit to it. 41. He accuses you of having ridiculous ulterior motives. 42. You lost all your self-confidence and self-esteem. 43. You don’t recognize who you are anymore, especially around him, and you’re starting to feel disappointed in who you’ve become. 44. You find it hard to make even small decisions. You act indecisively. 45. His behavior and attitude confuses you. He’s extremely mercurial. 46. He doesn’t apologize unless he’s using it as a method to reel you back in. 47. He uses affection as a weapon and often only displays it when you’re pulling away or he wants something from you. He uses compassionate words only in the same situations and says exactly what you want to hear. 48. His words don’t reflect his actions. 49. You are often trying to shut thoughts down that something is “off” about him. 50. You don’t know what’s normal anymore, but you are beginning to feel like there has to be something better than this. Read more: thoughtcatalog.com http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/06/27/youre-not-crazy-hes-gaslighting-you-and-here-are-50-ways-to-be-100-sure/

[ethelbertpaul444-blog]

You’re Not Crazy, He’s Gaslighting You, And Here Are 50 Ways To Be 100% Sure

1. He calls you crazy.

2. You find that he lies to you constantly. Lying blatantly to your face is easy and almost natural to him.

3. He doesn’t back down from his version of the truth or change his story when you call him out on it. You can present irrefutable evidence of his lies and he will still insist that you’re wrong. He will still deny.

4. He’s extremely convincing, even when your gut is telling you he’s lying.

5. He takes advantage in a situation in which he is lying to you, to make you feel like you are crazy or irrational.

6. You have a lot of nonsensical conversations. They make such complicated arguments and twist the truth so much that you become confused.

7. He discredits you to others. He brands you with the label of the crazy girlfriend or controlling partner. He makes it appear that he’s the victim of your behavior or mental state.

8. He discredits others to you. If someone relays information that is inconvenient for him to you or paints him in a different light, he will try to discredit those people to you or claim that they “don’t like him” or “are out to get him.”

9. He deflects.

10. He often forgets or denies and displays selective memory. He claims to forget events that have occurred, especially if they don’t favor him. He denies having made promises of significance to you. He will say things like “that never happened” or “I never said that.”

11. He questions your memory and accuses you of making things up.

12. He reframes conversations, memories, or stories to be retold in his favor.

13. You doubt your version of the truth and second guess your memory.

14. He “trivializes” by minimizing your thoughts and feelings. He often accuses you of overreacting and being too sensitive. You are often told by him to “calm down.” He makes you believe that YOU are the problem, effectively communicating that you are wrong.

15. He doesn’t acknowledge your feelings, thoughts, or beliefs. In fact, he makes you feel as if they are trivial, insignificant, foolish, or even wrong.

16. He dismisses your thoughts and feelings as absurd. They become a weapon. He uses them against you and uses them as “proof” of your character flaws, one of which he claims is irrationality.

17. You’ve found yourself questioning your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs yourself.

18. You’ve found yourself doubting your sense of reality and perceptions.

19. You don’t feel validated, understood, or seen with him.

20. His mistakes often become your own. The blame is constantly shifted to you. He manipulates the situation in such a way that he ends up making you believe that his transgressions are a result of something you did wrong or your shortcomings. He claims that if you would try harder, behave differently, or hadn’t acted in such a way, he wouldn’t have done what he did to hurt you.

21. He denies any wrongdoing and doesn’t acknowledge your pain.

22. You apologize when he’s the one that should be apologizing.

23. You become convinced everything is your fault.

24. You are constantly apologizing for what you do and who you are.

25. You often feel like you’ve done something wrong or have “screwed up” somehow.

26. You repeat words of things he’s called you to yourself, like: crazy, irrational, overly demanding, nagging, inadequate, wrong, stupid.

27. You never feel good enough.

28. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to ask yourself if you are really too sensitive, overly emotional, overly demanding, etc.

29. You’ve stopped confronting him in certain situations because you’ve started to invalidate your own emotions.

30. He has tried to mold you and change you into his ideal. This may include things like making remarks about your weight, clothes, habits, diet, friends, and even trying to make you doubt your views.

31. He becomes angry when your views don’t align with his.

32. He becomes angry when you challenge his views or try to have an open-minded conversation.

33. You’ve become silent. You don’t speak up in order not to spark an argument. You know that expressing your feelings or sharing your thoughts or opinions will only wind up making you feel worse. You stay silent to avoid reality twists. You don’t speak up to avoid any kind of verbal abuse.

34. You lie to avoid his reaction, verbal abuse, put downs, or simply not to argue.

35. You make excuses for his behavior.

36. You lie or withhold things from friends and family in order to “protect” him, and in fear that they wouldn’t see him in a good light.

37. He uses your fears, vulnerabilities, and insecurities against you.

38. He may use your mental health if you suffer from things like depression and anxiety as a weapon, or to further amplify his argument that you’re “not thinking right.”

39. He “diagnoses” you and tells you that you need help, medication, or tries to claim to know why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling or thinking the way you’re thinking.

40. He claims to know what you are thinking and accuses you of lying when you don’t admit to it.

41. He accuses you of having ridiculous ulterior motives.

42. You lost all your self-confidence and self-esteem.

43. You don’t recognize who you are anymore, especially around him, and you’re starting to feel disappointed in who you’ve become.

44. You find it hard to make even small decisions. You act indecisively.

45. His behavior and attitude confuses you. He’s extremely mercurial.

46. He doesn’t apologize unless he’s using it as a method to reel you back in.

47. He uses affection as a weapon and often only displays it when you’re pulling away or he wants something from you. He uses compassionate words only in the same situations and says exactly what you want to hear.

48. His words don’t reflect his actions.

49. You are often trying to shut thoughts down that something is “off” about him.

50. You don’t know what’s normal anymore, but you are beginning to feel like there has to be something better than this.

Read more: thoughtcatalog.com