Dealing with my fear of rejection by never asking for anything, and my fear of being a burden by never doing anything that involves other people. Foolproof.
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Idk man I might get torn to shreds for saying this, but I simply cannot understand the new trend, particularly among younger internet users, where people write a laundry list of their triggers in their bio and then expect everyone to read and cater to said list on a PUBLIC PLATFORM.
This is the same mentality that drives people to attack appropriately tagged fics on AO3 for having x y or z content because “How dare you post this when I have trauma about this???” Obviously if someone is going to write a super heavy and highly sensitive fic and NOT tag it properly, they ought to be called out on it. But this isn’t about that, it’s about the people who don’t curate their own content, it’s about the people who enter public spaces and demand that the general public cater to THEM specifically.
Additionally: Listing out your triggers for everyone to see is just ASKING for trolls to come into your inbox and flood you with triggering content. (Unfortunately, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, the internet is full of selfish jerks who don’t give a crap about anybody’s trauma.) Not only this, but the algorithm does not read your bio. The algorithm does not care about your triggers unless YOU make sure to block specific tags and content.
YOU are responsible for curating your own content, and nobody else.
Obviously this is not to say people shouldn’t try to tag their posts for common triggers, because that’s the common courtesy thing to do. But if Becky has a phobia of bees, it is on her to block that tag and curate her feed around it, and she does not get the exclusive right to suddenly demand that nobody talk about bees within a ten mile radius of her. If Alec has a phobia of dogs, then it is well within his right to avoid contact with them, but he doesn’t get to go to a public park and yell at anybody who brings their dog there. It is his responsibility to know his own limits and seek out parks that are dog-free. (If someone brings a dog to a dog-free area, that’s a whole different issue that I won’t be getting into rn but yes, the person who does that is in the wrong there.)
The internet is widely a public space. If you want to create a safe space completely and utterly free of your specific triggers, you have to put the work in to make that space for yourself. You don’t get to ask other internet strangers to do it for you.
I’m saying this out of genuine concern (and admittedly, frustration) because there are so many young teens in fandom nowadays who don’t understand this, and they end up putting themselves in extremely vulnerable and even downright dangerous situations because they don’t understand that putting your well-being in the hands of a stranger is a terrible idea.
Please be safe, and for the love of all that is holy, be reasonable. Curating your content yourself is just as much a protection for you as it is a vital key that allows public communities to function.
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I dislike the term 'trust issues' because it implies that the trust should be the default, and that the one who 'doesn't trust' is somehow morally wrong for it.
In reality, we learned very slowly and painfully where we can and can't trust. People are born with infinite and instinctual trust; as a toddler, you didn't suspect anyone, didn't doubt anyone. You couldn't. It was by repeated interactions, inflicted displeasure, disappointment, pain, betrayal, rejection, abandonment and grief that you learned to predict and mimic other people's behaviour. Your trust has remained only where it has not been broken.
For someone to fear interactions with other people, they would have to be utterly broken by what other people did to them, and how much verbal abuse and trauma they suffered. For someone to not trust others to touch them, they would have to be tortured and severely violated by human touch. People crave both interaction and touch, and for that craving to be overwritten by fear, it had to be proven unbearable and deadly to be touched and interacted with. People don't lose their trust completely for anything less.
Even when all trust is lost, it can be re-established by very slow, cautious and consistent actions. If another person took care to approach you slowly, to be very consistent with their actions, never attempted to violate you, took great care to understand and protect your comfort - after a while of confirming that they mean it, you could potentially feel safe around them. Unless this is exactly how someone approached you before, and they did it right until the point you relaxed, and then they betrayed your trust and hurt you. Sometimes, that happens too. In that case, it becomes even harder to establish trust.
But if someone wants your trust after all you've been put thru, they should earn it. They should figure out your ideal pace and your level of comfort and be respectful of your boundaries, not once or twice, but consistently. And even then, you don't owe your trust to them. You don't owe it to anybody. You do not have to risk your well being for someone else's curiosity or desires or whatever kind of intentions they have with you. You don't need to expose yourself to a potential new trauma just so someone wouldn't accuse you of having 'trust issues'. What exactly do they want to do to you that requires your blind trust? Why should anyone require trust they didn't earn?
Trust comes naturally, and is broken forcefully. If someone refuses to acknowledge that your trust was broken by force, and not by your choice, they're not the kind of person to be trusted.
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Dear diary...
I hate how easily I break down over the smallest things.
A single word, image, or sound is able to make me hate myself even more, and make me wish I wasn't here at all.
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me when i’m smoking my big bonk (this design is intended to be a little bit trans colors and a little bit referencing blues clues lolol)
image ID: a creature with 4 paws, a tail, and a star head with one eye looks into the bong it is holding that is it’s size, surrounded by colorful smoke
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