Don’t mind me crying over the fact that Kirby had no friends left after the Ghostface killings in Scream 4. They were either all killed off or were Ghostface.
Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
before you know about women, you hear that you do not need to love the man, just that you need to love him through his manhood. which is to say you have seen the future painted in lamb's blood over your eyes - how your mother shoots you a look about your father's inability to cook right. how your aunt holds her wineglass and says i'm gonna kill em. men, right! how your best friend bickers with her boyfriend, how she says i can't help it. i come back to him.
you learn: men are gonna cheat. men aren't going to listen when you're talking, because you're nagging. men think emotions are stupid. they think your life is vapid and your hobbies are embarrassing. men will slam things, but that's because men are allowed to be angry. if you get loud, you're hysterical. if a man gets loud - well, men are animals, men are dogs, men can't control their hands or their eyes or their bodies. they're going to make a snide comment about you in the locker room, about your body, about how you're so fucking annoying. you're going to give him kids, and he will give you the money for the kids, and you're going to be running the house 24/7 - but he gets to relax after a long day, because his job is stressful. the man is on stage, and is a comedian, and says "women!"
and you are supposed to love that. you are supposed to love men through how horrible they are to you - because that's what women do. that's what good women do. wife material. your father even told you once - it'll make sense when you're older. it was like staring down a very lonely tunnel.
it feels like something's caught in your throat, but it's all you know, so. it's okay that you see sex as a necessary tool, a sort of okay-enough ritual to keep him happy, even though he doesn't seem to care about happiness as-applied-to you. it is relationship upkeep. it is kissing him and smiling even though he didn't brush his teeth. it is getting on your knees and looking up and holding back a sigh because he barely holds you as you panic through the night. it's not like the sex is bad and you do like feeling wanted. and besides! he's a man! like... they're another species. you'll never be able to actually communicate, right. he isn't listening.
you just don't get it. you don't feel that sense of i'm gonna climb him like a tree. mostly it just feels fucking exhausting. you play the part perfectly. you smile and nod and are "effortlessly" charming. and it's fine! it's alright! you even love him, if you're looking. you could have good life, and a good family, and perfectly happy.
in the late night you google: am i broken. you google i'm not attracted to my husband. you google i get turned on by books but not by him. you google how to get better in bed.
the first time he yells at you, it almost feels like blankness. like - of course this is happening. this is always how it was going to end up. men get angry, and they yell, and you sit there in silence.
you mention it to your friend - just the once - while you're drunk. she shrugs and says it's like that with me too, i just try to forget and move on. men are always gonna hear what they want to. pick your battles and say sorry even though he's in the wrong. you play solitaire online for a month. you go to your therapist appointment and preach about how you're both so in love.
after all, you have a future to want. nobody lied about it - how many instagram posts say marriage is hard. say real love takes work. say we fight like cats and dogs but the best part is that we always make up. how many of your friends say happy anniversary to the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. if you really loved him - loved yourself too - you'd accept that men are just different from you.
the first time she kisses you, it's on a dare at a party. something large and terrifying whips through your body. you wake up sweating from dreams where her mouth is encrusted with pearls and you pick them off one by one with your teeth. fuck. you sit at the computer and your almost-finished game of sim city. you think about your potential perfect life and your potential future family. you google am i gay quiz with your little hands shaking.
you delete each letter slowly. you don't need to love him. you just need to keep going.
Friendly (or unfriendly if you're against this) reminder that this blog is supportive of ALL disorders. This blog does not think ANY disorder inherently makes someone a bad person, and is against any disorder being demonized. This blog wholeheartedly believes that a bad person having a disorder, yes, even if things that are also symptoms of their disorder are part of what caused harm, does not make the disorder a "bad" or "evil" disorder or excuse ableism and demonization directed towards the disorder.
Yes this includes personality disorders
Including npd and aspd
Yes this includes all psychotic disorders & disorders that cause psychotic symptoms
Yes this includes paraphilic disorders. All of them.
Yes this includes disorders that cause, or are even characterized by, attention seeking
Yes this includes disorders that directly have lying as a common symptom
Yes this includes dissociative disorders
Yes this includes any disorder with "gross" symptoms
Yes this includes physical disorders too
Yes this includes disorders that can cause loss of control of any kind- control of speech, control of body movement, etc.
Yes tis includes disorders that make someone "look scary"
This goes for literally any fucking disorder. There are not exceptions.
I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.
For anyone else who is gonna struggle surviving the next 3 weeks with the angsty and tense situation of Callowmoore here's a few things from the last 2 episodes that I feel were underrated and will assist in trying to keep me sane/emotionally stable:
- Matching messed up hands built for holding
- Fearne nervously playing with her hair as she approaches Ashton
- Ashton wanted Fearne to be either the last thing they saw if they died or the first thing they saw when they succeeded
- Fearne's admittance corroborates Ashley's 4SD revelation that Fearne is in love with someone in the party but doesn't know how to process the emotions
- Fearne wanted Ashton to be happy, while Ashton wanted to feel whole so they would be worthy of the Hells
- Ashton twice tried to lead a search for Fearne, and instantly clocking onto Chetney saying he followed Fearne
- Fearne making herself look as radiant as possible before giving Ashton the cold shoulder
- Ashton only rose to Chetney's provocations until he said 'You hurt Fearne'
Use how you will
The following is about Bad’s character not the CC!
I do wanna say that q!Bad’s insistence on wanting q!Forever to tell him he did a good job isn’t just because of any crush he has on him or whatever. It’s also because Forever is one of - if not the closest friend Bad has (tied with Baghera, or Max.)
And Bad is desperate to confirm that his closest friend/crush doesn’t just see him as a vending machine for resources/assistance/egg care. The reason he’s making such a big deal about it isn’t just drama - Bad is seriously starting to wonder if anyone on the island actually cares about him, or if they only talk to him because they need him to do something for them.
Because he told them about all the things he’d done for the island and what he wanted himself (he is saying “I will support you”), and they still elected Forever.
Because he told them he was on a vacation (he is saying “I am not okay”) and they called him crazy, and he was still expected always to be there. (With the exception of Baghera: who noticed and tried to talk to him, and Foolish: who noticed and let Bad build a roach-spawning summer home in his tower that is still there.)
Because he tells them hello and goodnight (he is saying “I miss you when you’re gone”) and they don’t do the same.
Bad is upset with Forever because he thinks he’s asking the question “Do you care about me?” and he thinks the answer is no.
Obviously, he isn’t. At least not in a way that’s easy to see - it’s not really Forever’s or anyone’s fault that he’s developed this mindset. And he is infamously terrible at communicating his feelings. But I do want to acknowledge that while “I want Forever’s attention and I’m too emotionally-constipated to admit it” is definitely part of it, there’s something deeper there too.
Do you ever just lay awake at night, turning over in your head the stark difference in delivery between Hewson's Van saying--steadily, unshakably--"it's just something that's happening to you...happening to us" and Cypress' Taissa saying--imploringly, whiningly--"this was not just my dream, this was our dream"?
Do you ever just turn it over and over, how often Tai tried to scare Van away, and how it only made Van set her feet more firmly? How Taissa's first love was this person who saw a problem fall into Taissa's lap, a problem that was quite literally trapped inside Taissa's body, and decided unflinchingly: No, that's an us problem now? How she refused point-blank to walk away even with blood in her mouth, how she flatly informed Tai "I'm never gonna be scared of you", and promptly turned a moment of pain into a declaration of love? And how this would etch itself into Taissa for the rest of her life? How she'd take these things that worked with Van--with the person Van was, with the bond they shared--and try so hard to run through an identical script with Simone?
Except Simone is her own person. A completely different kind of person. A person who hasn't been offered any of the context, any of the realities going on inside Taissa. So: naturally she doesn't respond the way Van did at eighteen--and will go on to do all over again in her forties. Naturally, she hears our dream as the excuse it is, not as a plea for connection. Naturally, she is scared away when Taissa pushes, and shouts, and begs. Because there isn't blood in her mouth, not yet, but there will be. And they have a son to worry about. And she isn't eighteen and a special kind of immortal, a special kind of romanticized. She's a grown woman with responsibilities, with priorities, with an understanding that you can't fix someone just because you love them. And Tai can't just perform a revival of the play she and Van had memorized twenty-five years later with a whole new performer in the works, and expect it to shake out the same.
Of course it doesn't work. But look at Taissa trying it. Look at Taissa trying to reframe her first love through a new lens. Trying to recast it. Trying to play it through again. Van taught her love was sticking out the blood, shaking off the pain, making a you problem into an us problem. Does it ever just eat at you, how tragic it is, watching Taissa try to shape her marriage around a woman who isn't even wearing a ring?
this is a bit of an ask inspired by another ask (and also ridiculously silly) but what’s the boys’ relationship with penny like in the future?? i loved the little snippet of her at bradley’s wedding and ice trying to figure out if she’s a threat or not (and then maverick coming back from dancing and saying he couldn’t stop gushing over ice….ugh!!!) but do they become good solid friends? I like the idea of them expanding their circle now that they can trust more people…even if one of those people are one of maverick’s exes
additionally: do her and ice ever talk about their shared experiences (not sex, ice would probably keel over and die, but just…having a relationship with mav)? the thought of penny cornering him is ridiculously funny to me. or maybe they never reach that point of comfort 🤷♀️ i just need to know if she ever takes them both sailing and ice gets a chance to laugh at mav on a boat
[also, in all sincerity, I have an unhealthy amount of things to say about this series and I’m a bit sad it’s over, but I love everything you’ve done <3 I could compliment it for days on end and probably never run out of things to say]
ice to Penny at mav’s birthday party sometime over the last five years: Hey! Good to see you again :) thanks for coming …
Penny, apropos of nothing: so.,. weve never talked one-on-one… but. You and i have both been inside Pete Mitchell at some point ?
If anything were to happen to me, I hope that the most significant message I conveyed was that you matter, and that there is always hope. Even if a flame goes out, there are always ways to reignite it.
in recent years, there's been a push in therapeutic circles to shift the language from "attention-seeking" to "connection-seeking" behavior.
i was an attention-seeker. i was the textbook example of an attention-seeker. i was a troublemaker. i would self-harm. i destroyed my own relationships. i was uncontrolled, dramatic, sensitive. i took everything personally. i had "nothing" to be depressed "about," but made a big show of how sad i was nonetheless. i was really unsafe about myself in a lot of ways.
the strange thing about that is: it meant others could ignore me. the prevailing wisdom behind knowing something is "attention seeking" is to say: well, since you want it that bad, you're not getting any. it meant i was lower-on-the-list of concern. it meant an eye-roll.
the belief was that: since i was obviously doing these things on purpose, it would be bad behavioral training if i was "rewarded" for it. it would "teach me" that i simply had to make enough fuss, and i'd finally get all that missing attention and love. no, it was better to ignore that stuff.
i was suffering. and it felt like - oh, it doesn't matter how loudly i am in pain, nobody gives a shit about if i'm living or dying.
awhile ago, i went through my journals from that time. a lot of them read the same thing. in them, i am convinced i am invisible. that nobody wants to hear me, to see me. that i could die or vanish and nobody would even notice. i didn't even want attention - not really - because it was always dismissive, mocking. nothing i ever did would be good enough to get someone to actually-worry about me.
that's a terrifying thing for me to read as an adult. that is a child who fully has no problem committing. that is a child who has no concept of feeling loved. the most basic human instinct is missing from her life.
i needed help. i didn't know how to ask for it. i was a kid. i was a kid in a bad home, and whenever i thought things couldn't get worse there - they almost always did.
and the ways i showed that - the ways i tried to deal with that - they made others dismiss me. i wasn't suffering prettily. after all, if i was really in trouble, why wouldn't i just march into the first counselor's office and ask someone to help me? i had the opportunities, right? what did i think would happen, exactly? that someone would finally stand up and do something? who even wants that kind of responsibility?
i heard connection-seeking for the first time about three months ago. my therapist mentioned it when we were talking about my history. it rang some kind of horrible bell, deep inside me. i don't know what she said in the rest of her sentence. i just started... crying.
"oh no", i said to her. "i think i just realized: i have no idea how to forgive them for minimizing the ways i was hurting."
how many other kids, though. how many other kids were out there drowning, snatching around for a lifevest, some kind of rope - how many were straight-up ignored.
OCD will literally remove your brain's ability to register when a task is Complete and then create 10,000 incredibly ridiculous and extremely specific rules for you to follow in every single aspect of your life (to keep you safe, of course, it tells you.) and then tells you that if you don’t do them Correctly and Completely every single time it tells you to (it tells you countless times per day) then the Entire Fucking World Will End and then it’ll do this fucked up thing where it makes you believe that nonsense.
and then people that don’t have it will make silly little jokes about being soooooo OCD and make t-shirts with fun little acronyms on them like Obsessive Coffee Disorder and tell you how much they like it when things are organized and clean, too!!
and then you’re supposed to just. laugh. like you haven’t been robbed of your entire being and potential and been taken over by a mind and life altering disability
reminder that my totk rants are me just rambling about my thoughts, ideas and complaints, im not trying to analyze anything, be smart, be right, debate or convince anyone who likes it that its bad just bc i think its bad or simply dont like the choices made, im literally just spilling out my brain so it doesnt keep haunting me
if you think something makes sense that i think doesnt i, and forgive me for being so blunt about it, do not care why you think it works, my opinion of this game will not change and i am okay with that
you are free to disagree with anything i say of course but i really dont care why, sorry
(sth i said only in the tags before but added now in this edit bc i think its important: its not bc i dont want to hear other peoples opinions and live in ignorance or something, but bc im tired and i PROMISE you i have seen 99.9% of those arguments already)
im not trying to be mean, aggressive or dismissive, but again, these rants are just me rambling with no intention of arguing with anyone, the only reason im still posting whenever i think of something thats bothering me (even if it might be dumb or be disproven in game bc i am not all-knowing and might be possibly misremembering something), and letting those posts be rebloggable/interactable is bc i have been told by quite a few people that they like reading them or that they feel validated in their own disappointment