#relational

[melblogsgfreethruptsd]

[xxdreamscapes]

diary-x 050125 | 11:00 pm

on friendships & inconvenience;

Now and then, I think about all the times I convinced myself all the wrong people were the right ones just because I didn’t wanna be alone.

I consider history in my relationships, but it seems a lot of people don't. It's always been a tough pill for me to swallow. I know that history isn't an excuse to keep someone around who mistreats you. I also know that life isn't so black and white. Though there might be things unspoken, resentments, or miscommunication, I know that most people stay past an expiration date because they care enough to want things to work. You can love people who aren't healthy for you, but it doesn't mean you should.

I've been thrown away like garbage. I've thrown others away in the same regard. I'm not blameless. Who is? We're all responsible for the parts we play in our relationships. Me, now? I don't think people are disposable. Or interchangeable. If that's the way you view people I feel sorry for you. When I need to remove myself from a situation, I have longstanding and good reason. However, I have a hard time allowing others the same courtesy.

Sometimes, I think that I'm bitter, because if we were to quantify it, the way I've been mistreated by certain people was much worse than my worst moments. I've often felt an imbalance in past friendships, and for the longest time, I blamed myself. I always wound up feeling like I gave too much and became resentful by the end. This isn't applicable to current friends, thankfully, because my current friendships either began on a solid foundation (where I never felt like they had anything to gain besides being my pal) or were made in adulthood as I began implementing healthier interpersonal skills. Or both. But over the years, concern from outside perspectives shared with me as well as years of building self trust, signaled to me that a lot of people in my life wanted a best friend, but refused the inconvenience of being one.

Most people have some form of trauma, whether it's linked to family, friendship, or intimate partners. I'm not discrediting anyone's lived experience or agency to remove themselves from unsafe situations. But when you get to know people. And I mean, really, get to know them and see how nonchalant they are with their relationships and habits, it's a painful experience. When the laziness, or defensiveness rear their ugly heads, it's hard not to notice. Are they leaving because it's what's best for both of us? Or are they leaving because it's the easy way out, because maybe you're too needy or asking for far too much (you're probably not)

It makes you wonder about how they've always felt about you. It makes you question off-hand comments, birthday cards, or every message they ever sent about how they were so *grateful* for you. Does gratitude entail abandoning people you care about in difficult moments? Knowing I’ve sat with you through your familial troubles, anxiety about college, fear of being perceived, body image issues... any of it? I've since learned: don't cross oceans for people who wouldn't cross a puddle for you — let alone give you room on the sidewalk, when walking in a group. I'm saying all of this as someone who's taken a flight and driven miles for someone who couldn't bother to drive a couple to see me while we were living in the same god damn town. But lo and behold, a shiny new bombshell enters their life and suddenly they're Lightning McQueen! The forgiveness comes and goes. The introspection helps. I'll get there.

And yea, maybe I should have spoken up or asked for reciprocity from the person I, and many others, chauffeured around. But when you love someone, I don't think that fucking matters. I've driven many people, countless times, to the airport who wouldn't even uber me there. Spent years lending an ear to their miseries over breakups, family, etc. only for them to not change a damn thing or intentionally seek out cycles of self-harm. I've been patient, and selfless beyond human capacity, but yet somehow I was still met with accusations of selfishness and entitlement. The narratives people run with...

I get why people become bitter and jaded because of how they’ve been treated. Luckily that ain’t me..

It's hard to raise issues with people you love and have known for so long. It's anxiety inducing to think about their reaction or our shifting dynamics. Especially when the reality of their reaction ends up being much worse than you ever anticipated. It shouldn't be difficult to bring things up with people you love, which is why I always try my best to listen and not react. When someone deflects and makes it about the way I reacted instead of the impact their actions, I know there's no conversation that can salvage the fractures

So thank you to the people who've clued me into their true feelings. So much is said in patronization. So much is said in the unsaid. For a lot of people, the cruelty is the point. Maybe it's a getback for all of their resentments and the things they've held back. I've had so much bullshit projected onto me by people who think I'm just going to take it. I've given the benefit of the doubt. I've bent over backwards. Contorted myself in ways no human being should ever have to. But still, I don't regret it. Because I've still grown and I'm somehow still me. The little, misunderstood chubby queer kid who just wanted friends and for people to share and be honest with each other.

⋆⁺₊⋆ + ⋆⁺₊ ⋆ ☁︎

Set firm boundaries, set them early, but make sure they aren't walls. Choose your friends, and where your energy goes, wisely ♥︎

[russellmoreton]

Reading Collage : Spatial Drawings/Documents/Analogue Photography by Russell Moreton Via Flickr: A Hut of One's Own, Ann Cline Texts,Annotations, Foundations, Pathways, Corridors, Bookmarks, Walking, Thinking, Ramble, Cross Country, Disciplines,

[doseofnerdshit]

Life Stuff (Personal)- Concern out of Love.

In my life, I have been told ‘I’m concerned because I love you’ but have never felt the love, only the concern.

Only judgement, scolding, lecturing, concern- for their own reasons. Never genuinely seeming like they care for me any more than themselves.

When my ex would make me eat because ‘they were concerned for me’ when in reality they admitted they needed to be around me all of the time and I would get moody if I didn’t eat. So it wasn’t out of love or concern for me- it was out of the consequences they would suffer.

With my grandma being ‘concerned’ I was being influenced because my boyfriend doesn’t go to church or view God the same way she does, she never actually had a conversation with me. She judged him and said I am getting into trouble before she even knew what his name was.

With my mom being ‘concerned’ I hadn’t been doing much with my time before asking me the progress I had been making in creating, researching, re-organizing my room and the plans I had made. Even when I told her, she still brought up the fact she was concerned about pointless things to avoid admitting being wrong, remain right and seem like a “good mother.”

I have also never ever felt or received self sacrifice, love without gaining something in return, or genuine compromise. In the past it was ‘do this because I can’t handle myself otherwise so I need you.’ or with my mother especially, she would refuse to drive me and my brother because it was inconvenient for her, even when she was fully capable. Her hugs never felt like hugs, they felt like a checklist item to say she’s a ‘good mother’ by a textbook definition. Nothing I did was ever excused without needing to justify my actions, or why I liked what I did. My mother wouldn’t share what I liked, if she couldn’t find something to like about it- yet would make me experience what she wanted to do simply because she wanted to do it. My grandma couldn’t accept the fact I wore fidget rings founded from Buddhism, or that my boyfriend has tattoos and doesn’t go to church, so she judged him and me with looks and lectures. My mother and my grandma both have narcissistic tendencies.

I have never before felt the love that is supposed to go along with concern in those moments, or any form of compromise or self sacrificial love.

Until recently, with my boyfriend and his family.

I recently received spinal surgery. It was a massive surgery, and in my healing- I have a tendency to pick at my skin. I had been consistently picking and getting mad at myself over it. That when I shamefully told my boyfriend and he asked to see- I was full of shame, regret and dread. That he was going to judge me, or make me feel awful for what I’d done, that it would affect his own mental wellbeing somehow.

He took a look at it. And said ‘oh babe- ok. It’s ok, don’t freak out, but you have picked away a good bit. Is it ok if I patch it up for you?’

This was at 11 pm at his house, he was on the verge of falling asleep after a long day. He didn’t make me feel bad. He didn’t guilt me. He kept saying ‘oh babe- it’s ok-‘ as he put bandages over the parts of my back I had torn open again by kitchen light. He was very very tired but wanted to do this for me to make it easier- for me. (Not to mention he sterilized his hands beforehand and he had gotten cuts earlier that day on his thumbs- so that hurt as well.)

I felt awful and consistently apologized. He kept telling me it’s ok and to not apologize- but looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘baby, you can’t pick at it anymore, ok? Or it won’t heal properly or very well.’

We don’t talk consistently throughout a week, we’re on complicated and busy schedules, so after that it was- up to me. I wasn’t given constant reminders, just occasional checkups, but it’s my own body and self suffering from the consequences of my actions- and I realize that and recognize that. That this is me. This is mine. He’s concerned out of love because he loves me and wants me to be ok- for my own sake- not for his. He patched me up not because it was convenient for him but because it was better for me- he reminds me for my own sake-

He makes me want to take care of myself. Just for simply loving me. Realizing I may be someone worth loving and taking care of- for my OWN sake. Not his. Not anyone else’s. But mine.

On top of that, his mom reads my poems. (My own mom never asks to read my poems.) and during a difficult time in recovery when I was venting about my mom through poetry, when I went to my boyfriends house she gave me a long ‘mom hug.’ A genuine hug. I teared up, and was going to cry, because I can’t remember the time my own mom gave me a genuine hug like that, because she just wanted to hug me or felt like I needed it. The kind of hug you can let last as long as you need it and feels like they genuinely want you-

I don’t know. I’m not used to it. But I love it.

Those nights all screamed “I’ve got you.” To me. Until I can fully get myself, through ups and downs, of course I’m independent and learning. But they’ve got me too. They’ve got me.

His message to me today after venting about my own family a bit:

[tenth-sentence]

It is often difficult to know the difference between right story and wrong story, because intent and relationality are not easy to measure.

"Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking" - Tyson Yunkaporta

[quotecollector14]

We live in a culture that's fixated on gurus, on the heroes' journeys and on individuals. Individual authorship is also another product of textuality. In an oral culture, no one believes they own a story or wrote it themselves. Everyone understands that everything they do is relational.

--Sophie Strand

[techsmarts]

New to SQL and RDBMS concepts? Checkout this ByteByteGo infographic.

(via EP90: How do SQL Joins Work? - ByteByteGo Newsletter)

[anxietyproblem]

[its-funnytwittertweets]

[casualfoxwitch]

since facebook nixed fact checking some really cool things are being shared and I am totally here for it

[cannibalchicken]

[reginaguerriera]

dont delete your zero note post. i will be there in 15 hours.

[russellmoreton]

Grisaille on paper. by Russell Moreton Via Flickr: russellmoreton.blogspot.com/ Indexical Patterning/Painting : Affective Relational Intensities (Micropolitics of slowness and repetition) Layered Drawings : Architectural Screens/Modulations of Translucency Space Between People How the virtual changes physical architecture Stephan Doesinger This book shows how the virtual has completely changed the physical world around us. If architecture is the construction of space between people, what happens when that space exists in a virtual world? That question is the starting point for this collection of revolutionary projects by a new generation of designers. The book begins by examining the important issues that have emerged as technology reshapes our idea of place and proceeds to present the four winning projects from the first architecture competition held within the explosively popular Internet community known as Second Life. Chosen for their inventiveness and aesthetic excellence, these structures - a cloud that can be inhabited; a meta-museum; an interactive sound scape; and a snow palace of discarded objects - illustrate the mindbending possibilities of digital design. In the books final section, media artists share their real-time experiences conceptualizing and creating projects for the virtual world. Non Spaces/Digital Still Image : Fire escape Winchester School of Art Meshworks/Norwich, moving analogue source : Midway/Dante Beginning as one always does in the middle, in mediis rebus, one experiences a sense of disorientation, a sort of cartographic anxiety or spatial perplexity that appears to be part of our fundamental being-in-the-world. It is an experience not unlike that of Dante, in the opening lines of his Commedia: Midway along the journey of our life, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. ( Dante 1984 : 67) Introduction : Spatiality . Robert T. Tally Jr. the New Critical Idiom, Routledge 2013 Art as Spatial Practice. Space folds : Containing "Spatialities around historicality and sociality" "All that is solid melts into air" Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, (Poetic observation concerning the constant revolutionizing of social conditions) Perceptions now gathering at the end of the millennium. Spatiality, Robert T. Tally Jr. 2013 Sensuality, Drawing and Astronomical Space. Architectural Translucency (Tracing Layers) DSC_8860 Pavilion : Borderlands Andreas Horlitz : Simulacrum. 2006 Brian Clarke : Lamina. 2005

[doseofnerdshit]

Life Stuff (Personal)-

Relationships and jokes

Alright so I’ve been dating my current boyfriend for about 4 months, it’s going extremely well, I really love him and actually feel like we could last.

I’m coming from the perspective of growing up in a conservative Christian household, with very conservative family. Parents who despise each other but haven’t gotten divorced, a grandma who’s gotten divorced twice, and my own previous toxic clingy/needy relationship. So this is very new and different to me, and has changed my entire perspective on what healthy relationships can look like.

1: Independence

Being independent within a relationship can be a good thing!! This does depend on the people, some are more clingy and less independent than others, but this is a big compatibility factor that isn’t talked about much.

In my previous relationship, my ex was extremely clingy and needed constant attention and responses in certain ways. After we broke up, I was very glad to have my own personal space and feel like my own independent person again. That when I found my boyfriend, I was nervous the pattern would repeat again. But my boyfriend being as independent as he is as well- makes it all so much easier.

We have our own friends, our own interests, our own schedules, and general likes and dislikes. We have similar goals for our lives but generally they involve each of us forming our own path, with the help of each other but generally independently. Yet at the end of the day we’re still there for each other, always, and can support each other in our separate interests, likes, wants, and form mutual goals.

We can have conversations, come to mutual agreements or compromises in the end for important things. We want to live together and still work on our own separate goals. Which I didn’t think was possible in a healthy relationship until this. Experiencing a past clingy partnership, and all of the social commentary and jokes of ‘being tied down’ or ‘we’re going to lose our friend now that they’ve found a partner,’ kind of sucks. I understand that it’s common, but that is not something I want for myself or my partner.

Spoiler alert- you do not have to agree with every single one of your partners opinions or decisions!! BUT of course there are times where you need to come to a mutual shared decision, with the use of open conversation and communication, especially over living together/kids/things that will affect the both of you. But when it comes to things that will affect each person separately it’s ok if you disagree respectfully with their decisions or opinions. Respectfully, being the keyword there. There is a necessary level of trust to trust yourself and your partner each to your own lives in separate moments.

We are our own people, independent of each other and choosing to exist together side by side. We make choices and compromises for each other absolutely- but we have decided we do not want to put our own dreams and goals on hold or stifle them for or because of each other. And we can do that while happily coexisting- which is crazy to me.

2: Conversation

We are extremely different people from the outside. I am an extremely verbally/outwardly emotional person and he is not.

For example, my reaction to the Wicked movie was to cry and his was to say it was ��pretty good” with a neutral face- yet we both rated it a 10/10. He is the kind of person you have to be around consistently to learn to read his emotions. And/or have genuine conversations!!

Conversation is one of the most- if not the most important tool and asset in relationships. Being able to have a variety of genuine, hard, lighthearted, positive, etc. talks is extremely beneficial. To gain each others perspectives,

Feeling heard in conversation is also one of the most important assets of any level of communication. Communicating yourself, speaking up over necessary topics to communicate and initiating that- as well as letting your partner speak and voice their opinions. Taking turns in a two-way exchange of speaking and listening.

My boyfriend always lets me feel heard and makes sure he is listening. Whether I’m venting about a situation or talking to him about something serious- he responds, listens actively, asks questions and also will genuinely take accountability and apologize when realizing he is in the wrong, or has something to apologize for.

If you and your partner can be secure enough in yourselves to both communicate, listen and take accountability- that solves so many issues, so quickly. There’s a sense of mutual trust and comfortability established. I’m not afraid to tell him anything and I am trying to create an environment where he feels the same, because it will only be met with discussion, yet in the end our actions are our own.

3: Jokes

As well as having the difficult conversations- jokes are also necessary in a thriving relationship as well. Another issue with my ex, we ended up in a situation where we were only talked about hard things or vented to each other and completely grew away from any lighthearted topics. Which made being around them exhausting and not very enjoyable.

Yet me and my boyfriend joke and laugh with each other constantly. Any jokes we are comfortable with, we make. Teasing each other, joking with and about each other. Yet if one of us says a joke or action made them uncomfortable, we always take it seriously and stop. It has to be mutual laughter and joking, of course. And at the end of especially teasing each other, we’ll hug or say ‘I love you,’ small yet genuine things that mean a lot.

Because we know the jokes mean nothing more than shared laughter between us, references, and the chance to grow closer by not being afraid to tease each other. The couples that tease each other seem to have a higher happiness rate.

My parents rarely EVER joke, tease or have lighthearted discussions, and are extremely unhappy. Whereas me and my boyfriend you may overhear calling each others brains smaller than the other- and then both laughing over it together until were apologizing and hugging over it. I think that’s much better than pretending to constantly like each other.

4: Intimacy

I have NEVER grown up in a household or family where intimacy was talked about, joked about, or even displayed. My parents rarely touch each other, period let alone hug/kiss/hold hands/etc. Neither did really any of my extended family that I could visibly see and use as a healthy example. I felt it was odd or weird to a degree because I never saw it anywhere.

But my boyfriend’s family? They are very open with small affection, or jokes about sex. My family is very much into purity culture and abstinence until marriage- not even joking about it. But I think joking about sex makes it easier to talk about and much more lighthearted. As well, small affection like kisses, hugs, holding hands, or arm around the other- means the world. Especially since my boyfriend has been used to that, and is not afraid to show public displays of affection to me (obviously with limitations there isn’t anything we’d do to make anyone uncomfortable) is- really sweet.

At his house I remember, we were in his living room with his parents around, and he just hugged me for awhile. Nobody said anything or really cared, he still talked to his parents, and I felt really awkward at first but I realized they genuinely don’t care and are used to this kind of affection- I’m not- I’m not even used to receiving a kiss on the cheek in front of my parents, ha. But at the most recent family event we had, he kissed me on the forehead (after a long session of joking and teasing each other) and put his arm around me- and my family was not very used to that at all and was in awe a bit at his very small open affection towards me.

I think it’s important to talk about and show physical affection- obviously to the extent you, your partner and the situation/setting/people around you are comfortable. But in general? It’s definitely important to talk and joke about. Makes actions and intimacy easier and closer with one another.

5: Expectations

The biggest failures/disappointments/frustrations in relationships typically always come from unmet expectations. Expecting an outcome, an action, someone to be a certain way- and they are not or can not be that way. Especially unsaid expectations that aren’t met, people often get mad for.

The first step to this is to communicate general expectations beforehand- and afterwards if expectations were not met- while keeping an open mind.

Expectancy is the way we should frame our minds when it comes to this. Relying and trusting in a person, not the outcome. I trust that the decisions my boyfriend makes, he makes for a reason, they aren’t horrible decisions, they are worth discussing, and there is a reason expectations were not met. I trust he will take accountability and apologize when he does make a mistake, as I will as well. This is what a healthy relationship, communications and forming expectancy instead of expectations looks like.

I’m learning to trust him more and more based on his actions and the way I’ve seen him process his decisions and his own life. So I can from healthy expectancy, trusting in him as a person.

I realize several of the relationships I’ve seen or experienced have been full of immaturity and insecurity. I am trying fully to avoid that, leave space for openness, communication, genuine love and independence. So far it is working. We’re young, it’s been four months, we have a long ways to go and MANY things to learn- but I am beyond grateful with all of the progress we’ve made so far, all the realizations I’ve gotten to come to, and getting to exist side by side in comfort with him. <3

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Forget about torturing your blorbos, putting them through the wringer. I'm putting my blorbo in perfectly ordinary, pleasant situations. Their tortured personality will cause them anguish anyway, making an absolutely mundane scene into the most dramatic, agony filled affair as though the world is ending and it's all their fault