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furiousgoldfish · 7 months

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I'm going to sit down and try to explain this with patience, to everyone who still thinks calling out narcissistic abuse is 'ableist' or 'dehumanizing to the narcissists', and that abuse is something we're all equally capable of.

I don't think you understand what narcissistic abuse is, or how it differs from the other kinds of abuse. We can agree that all and any abuse is damaging, traumatic and scarring, but narcissistic abuse is so extremely pervasive, hidden, strategic and unbelievable, to the point where I can't honestly tell it's something any regular human would be capable of. And even more than this, the survivors of this particular type of abuse have found it extremely, extremely difficult to figure out they've been abused, even when they've been put through extreme, devastating, and absolutely dehumanizing scenarios. Realizing that your loved one is a narcissist requires your entire world to break down, and every piece of your heart shatters in the realization, and it takes months, even years to accept it.

The only way we can possibly figure it out is to connect the patterns. And patterns of the narcissistic abuse are focused on erasing one's own sense of self, one's perspective and ultimately, complete control over someone's emotions and behaviours. This is often done from early on, the grooming process starts at age zero, your value, worth and usefulness is determined by them, and you cannot wrangle yourself free from it on your own, not without someone confirming to you that you've been held captive, that your free will has been taken a long time ago.

Unfortunately, I have to give some examples, because I don't think it can be explained otherwise. When I was 2 years old, a narcissistic person found it a nuisance to watch over me, and they beat me up every time I disobeyed. I was a toddler. Then they proceeded to convince me that I was a demon, and would burn in hell regardless of what I do for the rest of my life. I've been brainwashed by this person to believe I was not a human being, had no human rights, that it was correct and regular for me to be locked up, beaten, and that it was my fault every single time, even when I did all that was asked of me. This person then had me comfort them after they would beat me, because it was a stressful experience for them. I wasn't allowed to cry. I would be beaten for making a face expression they didn't like. It was random and unexplainable.

Another narcissistic person created a game where they would give me wrong instructions for a task, then torture me when I did exactly as they instructed me to. It got to a point where I would beg them to tell me what to do correctly, and they would respond with a laughing 'you should be old enough to know this' and they would be even happier to beat me up and scream at me for getting it wrong. This person not only threatened to kill me regularly, but often made me believe I was in my last few seconds of life, putting me in position where I believed I was about to die. They forced me to work for them in unsafe conditions, heavy physical jobs, where I was not allowed to say I'm tired, not allowed to cry, and even after I'd do everything, they would still tell me I didn't deserve to eat. I was a child. I didn't think for a second I was being abused. I was already brainwashed to believe that everyone else had it worse, and that I was lucky.

I had no identity besides existing for them, I had no free will except to try and make myself into something they could use, and if I didn't do a good enough job, I'd be ostracized. They loved beating me, screaming at me and making me cry, and then they'd leave me in a room crying without being allowed to make any noise, while they laughed in the room next to me, as a family, loudly so I could hear what a great time they were having. They would treat other children gently in front of me in order to try and make me jealous. They would revise every part of what they did to me if I ever tried to bring it up. I wasn't allowed my own perspective, opinion, or complaint. I wasn't even allowed to remember the abuse correctly. I would be locked in a room and questioned and punished if my opinions weren't to their liking.

I don't believe this is something anyone is capable of doing. I don't believe anyone of us is capable of torturing a kid until the kid begs to be killed. I don't believe most of us are capable of erasing a child's point of view, their reality, their humanity to the point where the child is forced to live a life where they will either comply or be killed, and they will be tortured no matter what. This isn't a regular thing that a person can easily do.

Luckily, us who have been through this, have noticed that there is a specific pattern to their behaviour. That they use almost identical phrases with which their invoke guilt, fear and hopelessness. That they can go frighteningly fast from rage to laughter to acting hurt. That they enforce their will over ours with a specific type of terror that triggers both our survival instincts and our compassion and shame. That we've been groomed by them in an almost identical way - to not believe that we're allowed our own feelings, memories, opinions, point of view, or freedom. That we have learned to exist only to be an extension of them.

We also all noticed that we're all absolutely, beyond terrified of them, and that we don't feel we're allowed to say it, or think it. That we're taught by terror to keep believing that they're good people, that they do none of it on purpose, not even the most extreme, insane, egregious abuse. That they will go to any length, even committing more atrocities, to escape accountability. That they use tactics of darvo, gaslighting, double-bind, planting insecurities, triangulating, future faking, discarding, love bombing, mirroring, smear campaigns, projection, scapegoating, silencing, throwing tantrums, victim playing, like it's in their second nature. That they're genuinely, absolutely terrifying and almost unreal in how far they're capable of going. And most of all, that they are dangerous, and capable of completely turning another human being into their puppet, and never think for a second that it might be wrong. To them, we are nothing more but toys to manipulate, control, and discard. We are disposable. There is no limit to what they can do to us, because to them, we are not alive. They would do to us what normal people wouldn't do to a corpse. And they feel superior for it.

People abused by narcissists from early age are likely to develop the most complex and extreme disorders, complex ptsd and dissociative identity disorder being some of them, because that's what it takes to survive being a child and existing next to a narcissist. This means that small children need to be shattered in pieces in order to please the narcissist. Others that are very common are eating disorders, anxiety, depression, paranoia, avoidant personality disorder, panic disorder, and compulsions to cater to everyone's needs, to the point of our own destruction. This is what they make of us, on purpose, in order for us to be of use to them. And they will forever insist it's their right.

When I'm saying the word 'narcissist', I am not referring to 'anyone diagnosed with npd', I am referring to a person who will do this to a child, and insist on doing it for the rest of the child's life. I am writing it because I don't want children to have to live like this forever. I am not aiming to dehumanize the narcissist, their actions show who they are, I am saying, be careful and aware that this person will dehumanize you. That you are disposable to them. That making you feel good in order for you to like them, is a game to them, and one they're very good at. That playing the victim at you and demanding justice, will easily manipulate you into standing against the victims of abuse and talking down to them for 'dehumanizing their abusers', and being 'ableist to the npd', after being tortured past the point of return by those people.

A lot of us are permanently damaged by what's been done to us. We are not asking for justice. We're not asking for revenge. We are asking to be safe. We're asking for this to stop. We're asking for children not to be left alone with people who are dangerous to this level. We're asking you to understand that a narcissist left alone with a child means a child in danger.

It's common to not be aware just how bad it can go, because we think that most humans know not to torture a child. We believe that nobody would do things to children that narcissists do. If you read the stories of the survivors, you'll find out what actually happens behind closed doors. The themes of torture, dehumanization, sexual abuse, brainwashing, violence, and extreme cruelty are common, even towards toddlers.

I need you to not attack those children when they grow up and say they no longer want to be around narcissists. I need you to understand that they know what they're talking about when they say it's not safe, that they want to be protected. The society already failed to protect them at their most vulnerable, and they had to make it alive by their wits alone. And now you won't even let them speak without attacking them? It's inexcusable.

If you want to know about the narcissists, read what their victims have gone through. Then make a judgment on whether we're allowed to speak, and whether it's worth warning others to hold caution. I've heard and read stories of narcissistic parents sex-trafficking their own child, holding them captive and locked up and convincing them it's right to do this, using brutal punishments to 'train' them into inhumane slave-like behaviour, keeping the children in state so terrified the children wished they were dead. And in all those cases, they still convinced the children to love their parents, and to never blame them for any kind of abuse. Yes, even in the sex-trafficking cases.

Fighting for those children to realize that they didn't deserve that, is the only correct thing to do. Fighting to help them realize they're in danger, and that they deserve safely, it's not only right but extremely necessary, it's what we all should be putting all of our energy into.

Wanting to keep others safe will never be wrong. Wanting to protect those who still have their identity, their sense of self, their undamaged humanity, their free will and their point of view, that's worth fighting for! And above all, those who already lost it all, need to be protected. We cannot allow for already badly wounded people to be dehumanized over and over again. Nobody deserves that.

#narcissistic abuse #tw child abuse #tw child trafficking mention #narcissistic parents #toxic parents #psychological abuse #taking children's identity and self perception #to train them into personal toys and disposable puppets #while neglecting the children to the point where children don't realize they have the right to feelings #or even to exist without the parent's approval #devastating abuse #abuse

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pustostanie · 22 days

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It's so funny to me that ppl are weirded out by nonhuman/alterhuman folk. cuz like, you cursed us out and made us feel different, and 'dehumanize' us because of our identity, and often because of illnesses, disabilities and neurodivergency. But now that we agree, "yes we're not human", you have a problem with us not being human.

The amount of times I was called a psycho cuz of something or other, I'd think they wouldn't be surprised when it turned out I don't exactly vibe with humanity.

It's almost as if they're mad they lost a way to hurt us, eh.

#nonhuman #alterhuman #otherkin #therian #psychological kin #fuck society #voidpunk #spite is a big part of my identity

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the-nefarious-emperor · 1 month

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So... DID and the Daycare Attendant.

I don't think I need to do an introduction to everyone's favorite Daycare Attendant, so I'm going to start this off with a description of DID and what it's like to live with it, because I in fact have it!

DID is a weird case. It's both easy and hard to live with. My alters have saved my life in some cases, and they've made me have some strained relationships as well. One moment I'm here, then one positive/negative trigger later and I'm gone and someone else is piloting this fleshy mech. I have around 20 alters, some with names, some unnamed, some fictives, some ordinary people. But funnily enough, I have two fictives that take after Sun and Moon (named Sunnydrop and Moon respectively). They're both friendly, at least Moon is nowadays, but they've been around for a long time.

A positive or negative trigger is whenever something happens that brings an alter to front. Music, games, voices, people, etc can all be triggers for an alter to front, as well as trauma or distress which are typically referred to as negative triggers. We'll get back to that later when we talk about the lights off and Sun and Moon's positive triggers.

So! How about we get into why Sun and Moon (and Eclipse) are positive DID representation!

Here's why the Daycare Attendant is a great representation of DID!

First off, I want to regard the whole "Moon is an evil alter" thing. While yes, we are led to believe that he is indeed evil, there are a few interesting things about him that still make him excellent as representation. Remember how I said my alter Moon is friendly nowadays? Yeah, well not all alters are friendly off the bat and they can be quite aggressive based on whichever trauma they are defending you from. My alter Moon defends me from my abandonment trauma and trusts no one, and therefore can get really aggressive and even violent towards people. Not all alters are going to be friendly, and while I'm not saying they'll just be murderous killers looking for the thrill of a hunt, they can be mean. Really mean.

Now I wanna get into the smaller bits. When someone with DID is going through a switch, it's not as easy as "oh well he's gone now say hi to this other guy." It can be that easy on occasion, but most of the time it is a slow and painful process. Migraines, fighting for control for minutes on end... just like how Sun and Moon react. Moon mentions his gears are grinding in his head when trying to hold off Sun, not only having a fight for control, but a migraine as well. We can also see Sun struggle with the same pain in the base game when you turn the lights off.

You can also tell the two know each other pretty well. Sun never refers to Moon by name, but it's very clear he sees him as a threat and has seen the stuff Moon has done while fronting. This is called co-fronting. When someone is still conscious and watching whatever the alter is doing while they're fronting, that's when they are co-fronting. And in Ruin, you can see they are co-fronting the entire segment. Moon also refers to Sun by name plenty, meaning they are both aware of each other and really aren't fond of not being in control of the body.

Their pronoun usage of we and us is also incredibly accurate!! When I'm dissociating, I will refer to myself as we and us due to not being the only one fronting and sometimes being unsure of who's actually in control in the moment. Sun seems to do that plenty whenever he's distressed, alluding to Moon being present or trying to front in the moment. And once Moon's positive trigger is used, aka the lights being off, he can finally assume control. It does seem like Moon has stress as another positive trigger due to Sun's usage of plural pronouns but that's more of a theory than anything concrete, so I'll move on.

Here's my favorite part... Man, Sun and Moon are very similar. Scarily so. When someone has alternate personalities, they will all share some minor similarities. Queen and I share the same germophobia, Sunnydrop and I are both artists, Moon and I both have social anxiety. Etc etc. In the case of Sun and Moon, they both are very energetic and can't stand still. They bounce side to side or move in very eccentric ways. They both have an innate need to clean up, showing a sign of hating things being messy. They both tend to laugh a lot, have similar vocal inflictions, and even growl their words (listen to Sun in Help Wanted 2, he growls so much.) They both respect not going behind the desk, and supposedly want the kids to be safe and well assuming Moon is indeed hacked and not evil from the start. They both rock the jester aesthetic too which, sure they're dressed like them but, they sure do act like clowns. In the end, the two are strangely similar outside of one of them being obsessed with killing you.

Finally... let's talk about Eclipse. Eclipse is a third alter and very similar to a fusion between the two jesters. Calm and collected, while also remaining protective and very clean-centric, Eclipse is... very clearly the "host" alter of the three. An alter that is a mixture of the others? Yeah, very clearly, he is the host, so the main personality that primarily controls the body. Meaning Sun and Moon are both alters, making Sun a positive friendly alter! Don't see those in media very often, huh? Also, the fact there's three of them makes me incredibly happy, I always see DID represented by just one alter present. But there's three! Not a realistic number by any means, but it's better than one.

So... yeah!!! That's my basic run-through of how the Daycare Attendant is a positive representation of DID! If I missed anything or if you guys have questions, please shoot me a message or comment and I'd love to answer questions! Thanks for reading if you did! We appreciate it!

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hijinxinprogress · 5 months

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YouTuber!Stephanie

Stephanie has a youtube channel (she 100% gives it a name like gotham_after_dark or bat_interpreter) where she follows Batman and mocks him, she definitely also makes content on tiktok and instagram

She’s recording fights with rogues and him interrogating questioning people and doing voice overs in a goofiest growl she can for batman but she also does voices for everyone else (it gets to the point where penguin puts a hit out and is actively trying to expose the youtubers identity bc steph does this terrible whiny british accent when she’s imitating penguin)

She starts her channel right after Bruce fires her from Robin and still does it to this day

Bc if she’s gonna get shit for not being Tim might as well go all the way right?? She’s just doing the opposite of what Tim’s doing or outright copying him depending on which would annoy them the most

Stephanie records batman dangling some guy off a roof for the 37th time this week while going “You said the cheese on the nachos at your restaurant was imported directly from Italy but I saw you…THIS CHEESE IS FROM A GROCERY STORE…in GOTHAM… do you know what batman does to liars??”

Batman’s chasing the joker? Again? Here comes Stephanie with her fucking camera “Joker baby, you know that fight with Cobblepot meant nothing to me” “You know what, Bats? Fight whoever you want!” “Why are you going to Cobblepot’s lair with a grenade launcher? Baby…?” “Well, if the wellbeing of fucking Oswald is sooo important to you, you fucking cheater ☹️ I’m gonna kill him” “HUH” Stephanie’s joker voice is pretty good but she stops when Jason follows her channel after admitting he watches it (however Damian gives zero fucks and edits in his scarily accurate joker impression and will break into Jason’s apartment at random to do his joker impression)

Stephanie’s Duke impression is just her making puns in a bad robot voice and Duke hates it sm bc she’s saying shit like “Don’t signal for backup bc I’m already Signal-ing this ass whooping” “The yellow is the Signal for you to run” “Hey hey hey, night time is when you do this stupid shit rn is Signal Time” “The sun is my Signal to be vigilant-y” “Setting off that alarm should’ve been enough of a Signal for you stop” (Dick made tshirts and Duke refuses to talk to him when he wears them)

You legally have to be a level 79 hater to be a vigilante in gotham so most of Steph’s videos esp after Bruce has pissed her off are just her shitting on batman in a terrible growl “Damn, I’m getting too old for this…my knees hurt so much” “Nightwing thinks he’s funny, asking me if I remember the dust bowl…mf I remember the fucking big bang” “I’m so good at this, I don’t think anyone knows I’m a vampire” “Bruce Wayne owns gotham general and can’t cure Alzheimer’s?? I hate that asshole, I don’t even remember where tf I’m going” “I wanted to be Spider-Man and now I’m this” “Ooh, I’m Batman and I hate fun, happiness, and joy” “Don’t do crime, be like me…perpetually bitchless and breaking kneecaps” “Some people need coffee for a pick me up but I just need to see a purse snatcher piss their pants” “I don’t actually meld into the shadows, I just have Apple Maps and it takes me the long way”

Batman’s fighting or arguing with black mask? Stephanie has been waiting for this moment so every video with black mask is just her making fun of black mask to the point where there’s barely any batman slander “My real names fucking Roman so I had to go all out with this stupid ass costume…I’m not even a real gothamite, I’m from metropolis” “Sionis…I don’t care… you blew up thirteen hostages” “ITS NOT MY FAULT, OKAY?! Did you know you’re supposed to wash masks? Especially if you wear the same one everyday? Bc I fucking didn’t” “…Sionis…” “THERES MOLD ON MY FACE and this mask smells like ASS” “Everyone knows that, you moron…How do you think I found you? I can smell your stench from damn near two miles away…” “I’m like scary though right??” “No, Sionis, you just have poor hygiene…and issues” “Dammit, I’m like a dollar tree version of two face” “Not quite, what’s lower than that? Dollar tree is too good for you…don’t tell joker but Harvey’s way-”

Stephanie has a two hour video of batman grappling across Gotham just shitting on metropolis and sixty seven minutes of it is just Superman slander in a terrible growl

There’s short clips of cass suddenly disappearing or appearing out of nowhere before and after dismantling someone with the michael myers theme playing in the background (Cass does dramatic flips and landings every time steph records her)

When Bruce complains about the threat to their identities and compromising ongoing missions/investigations, Stephanie (who is purposely trying to piss him off) just looks him dead in eye and goes “Well, you’re not the boss of me sooo” so Tim gives a presentation and shuts down every single argument Bruce makes just to be contrary bc he’s a fucking asshole

Tim only has a problem with it when Stephanie and Damian start working together bc Damian does concerningly accurate impressions and Damian keeps making Tim sound like a fucking idiot and it’s worse bc he can mimic his speech patterns (“I can’t do this anymore… I’m sad and pasty… Call the fifth robin, you know…the only competent robin…”)

Like Damian’s repeating one of Tim’s caffeine concoction induced rants about bagels in Tim’s voice while Steph is growling at him to focus in her batman impression

When Tim brings his complaints to Bruce about Stephanie’s youtube account, Bruce cites Tim’s own argument back to him so Tim takes over editing and recording to be an asshole

#stephanie brown #spoiler dc #bruce wayne #batman #tim drake #damian wayne #duke thomas #jason todd #dick grayson #cassandra cain #dc gotham #dcu #youtuber!stephanie brown #Damian stands at the end of Jason’s bed at 3am and just does the joker laugh for no fucking reason #Damian is 100% responsible for Jason’s mental health decline #Steph does an accurate british accent but it’s still whiny bc Alfred gave her the ‘I’m not mad I’m just disappointed’ look #Stephanie’s yt channel actually makes it easier to keep their identities secret bc she uses every batman theory in her videos #Stephanie 🤝🏾 Damian: psychological warfare on their friends and family #They probably think they’re just being mildly annoying but in actuality they’ve caused 67 mental breakdowns a week

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 6 months

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By: Anonymous

Published: Oct 16, 2023

When my first son claimed he was trans, I eagerly ‘affirmed’ him. When his three-year-old brother decided he wanted to be trans, too, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.

I was a social-justice organizer and facilitator before social justice took over the progressive world. I was at the nascent movement’s forefront, introducing the concept of intersectionality to organizations and asking people to share their pronouns.

My friends and I felt like we were the cool kids, on the vanguard of the revolutionary wave that would change the world. We were going to achieve what people in that milieu call “collective liberation.”

Within this context, I came out as a lesbian and identified as queer. I also fell in love, entered a committed relationship, and gave birth to a son. Two years later, my spouse gave birth to our second son.

Having children and experiencing the love and devotion I felt toward them, was a game changer for me. I began to experience internal tensions. My thinking was split between what I felt instinctively as a mother; and what I “should” be feeling and doing as a white anti-racist social-justice parent.

Because I’d felt victimized by my parents’ rejection of my sexuality, I wanted to make sure to honor my own children’s “authentic” selves. In particular, I was primed to look for any clues that might suggest they could be transgender.

My spouse and I raised our sons with gender-neutral clothes, toys, and language. While we used he/him pronouns, and others called them boys, we did not call them boys, or even tell them that they were boys.

In our everyday reading of books or descriptions of people in our lives, we did not say “man” or “woman”; we said “people.” We thought we were doing the right thing, both for them and for the world.

Even when our first son was still young, he already struck us as different from other boys—being both extremely gifted and unusually sensitive. By age three or so, he started to orient more toward the females in his life than the males. “I like the mamas,” he would say.

We started to attribute some of this difference to the possibility that he was transgender. Instead of orienting him toward the reality of his biological sex by telling him he was a boy, we wanted him to tell us if he felt he was a boy or a girl. As true believers, we thought that we should “follow his lead” to determine his true identity.

At the same time, I was taking a deep dive into the field of attachment and child development. This made me understand that attachment is hierarchical; and that parents, not children, are meant to be in the lead. This obviously conflicted with my insistence on letting my child decide his gender. Sadly, it was the latter impulse that won the day.

At around age four, my son began to ask me if he was a boy or a girl. I told him he could choose. I didn’t use those words—I imagined that I was taking a more sophisticated approach. I told him, “When babies are born with a penis, they are called boys, and when babies are born with a vagina, they are called girls. But some babies who are born with a penis can be girls, and some babies born with a vagina can be boys. It all depends on what you feel deep inside.”

He continued to ask me what he was, and I continued to repeat these lines. I’d resolved my inner conflict by “leading” my son with this framework. Or so I told myself.

His question, and my response to it, would come back to haunt me. In fact, I remain haunted to this day. To the extent I was “leading” my son anywhere, it was down a path of lies—an on-ramp to psychological damage and irreversible medical interventions. All in the name of love, acceptance, and liberation.

About six months later, he told my spouse that he was a girl and wanted to be called “sister” and “she/her.” I received a text message about this at work. On the way home that night, I resolved to put all my own feelings away and support my transgender child. And that is what I did.

We told him he could be a girl. He jumped up and down on the bed, happily saying, “I’m a girl, I’m a girl!” We—not our son—initiated changing his name. We socially transitioned him and enforced this transition with his younger brother, who was then only two years old and could barely pronounce his older brother’s real name.

When I look back at this, it is almost too much to write about. How could a mother do this to her child? To her children?

Once we made this decision, we received resounding praise and affirmation from most of our peers. One of my friends, who’d also socially transitioned her young child, assured me that this was a healthy, neutral way to allow children to “explore” their gender identity before puberty, when decisions would have to be made about puberty blockers and hormones.

We sought out support groups for parents of transgender children, so that we could find out if we’d done the “right thing.” It hadn’t escaped my notice that our son hadn’t exhibited any signs of actual gender dysphoria. Was he actually transgender?

At these support groups, we were told, again, what good parents we were. We were also told that kids on the autism spectrum (which our son likely is) are gender savants who simply know they are transgender earlier than other kids.

At one of the support groups we attended, we were also told that transgender identity takes a few years to develop in children. The gender therapist running things told us that during this period, it’s important to protect the child’s transgender self-conception—which meant eliminating all contact with family or friends who didn’t support the idea that our son was a girl. I believed her.

Looking back, I now see her comments in a shockingly different light: this was part of an intentional process of concretizing transgender identity in children who are much too young to know themselves in any definitive way. (One set of parents attending the group had a child who was just three years old.) When identity is “affirmed” in this manner, children will grow up believing they are actually the opposite sex.

The therapist endorsed the same approach that many adolescents use on their parents, who are urged to write letters to grandparents, aunts, and uncles to announce the child’s transgender identity. In these letters, the conditions of continued social engagement are made clear: Recipients must use the new name and new pronouns, and embrace the new identity, or they will be denied contact with the child.

After about a year of social transition for our older son, our younger son, who was by now only three years old, began to say he was a girl, too. This came as a complete shock to us. None of the things that made our older son “different” applied to our younger son. He was more of a stereotypical boy and didn’t show the same affinity for the feminine side of things that his older brother did.

The urge for “sameness” is a primal attachment drive in many family members. We felt that our younger son’s assertion of being a girl likely reflected his desire to be like his older sibling, in order to feel connected to him.

His claim to be a girl became more insistent when both brothers went to school part-time, because their program included pronoun sharing. Why could the older sibling be a “she” when the younger sibling couldn’t? Our younger son became more insistent, and we became more distressed.

We made an appointment to see the gender therapist whom we’d met at the support group. We truly believed that she would be able to help us sort out who, if anyone, was actually transgender.

To our shock, the therapist immediately began referring to our younger son as “she,” stating that whatever pronouns a young child wants to use are the pronouns that must be used.

She patronizingly assured us that it might take us more time to adjust, since parents have a hard time with this sort of thing. She added that it was transphobic to believe there was anything wrong with our younger son wanting to be like his older transgender sibling.

When I pushed back and asserted that I wasn’t yet convinced our younger son was in fact transgender, she told me that if I failed to change his pronouns and honor his newly announced identity, he could develop an attachment disorder.

We were unconvinced. But, again, we wanted to do what was right for our son and for the world. We decided to tell him he could be a girl. And that night at dinner, we told him that we would call him “she/her.”

Right after dinner, I went to play an imaginary game with him, and I wanted to be affirming. So I put a big, warm smile on my face and said, “Hi, my girl!”

At this, my younger son stopped, looked at me, and said, “No, mama. Don’t call me that.” His reaction pierced me to my core. I didn’t turn back after that.

For the next two years, my partner and I dug deeper, agonized, and then continued digging again. Everything we thought we knew or believed that had led us to socially transition our older son began to unravel.

I continued to study the attachment-based developmental approach to parenting and learned more about autism and hypersensitivity. We decided not to socially transition our younger son. Not only was he not transgender, we now realized, but our older son probably wasn’t either.

He was just a highly sensitive, likely autistic boy who saw a girl identity as a form of psychic protection. It also provided him a way of attaching to me through sameness.

My spouse and I decided that since we’d been the ones who’d led him down this path, we were the ones who needed to lead him off of it.

A year ago, just before our older son’s eighth birthday, we did just that. And while the initial change was hard—incredibly hard—the strongest emotion exhibited by our son turned out to be relief.

In the days following my first conversation with him about going back to his birth name and pronouns, during which I told him that males cannot be females and that we were wrong to tell him he could choose to be a girl, he got very mad at me, then sad. Then, the next day, I felt my son rest. I felt him release a burden, an adult burden that he, as a child, was never meant to carry.

Since that time, we’ve all been healing. My son is now happy and thriving. We’ve watched him come to a deeper peace with himself as a boy.

Our younger son is also thriving. Once his older brother became his older brother again, he happily, and almost immediately, settled into his identity as a boy.

I feel like someone who’s escaped a cult—a cult whose belief system is supported by our mainstream culture, the Internet, and even the state.

I fear for the future—the future of sensitive, feminine, socially awkward boys. I fear what the world will tell them about who they are.

But no matter what the future holds, I will never ever stop fighting to protect my sons. I am no longer a true believer.

#gender ideology #queer theory #genderwang #gender cult #social transition #autism #social justice #critical social justice #affirmation model #gender affirming #gender affirmation #trans identity #gender identity #child psychology #religion is a mental illness

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