clarissacrotty - Tumblr blog

[clarissacrotty]

if a survivor of abuse says something like “kill all pedophiles” or “kill all rapists” or “kill all abusers” and your first response is to go “um actually that’s way too broad and doesn’t take rehabilitation into account and blah blah blah” or compare them to cops or whatever, fuck you! sincerely, fuck you for trying to police how survivors express their anger!

there’s a time and a place to talk about “rehabilitation” and to be against punitive justice and capital punishment and whatever the hell, but that time and place is not in the notes of some random internet stranger, who is clearly in massive amounts of pain and grief, saying that they wish they could kill their pedo father.

[clarissacrotty]

i don’t need to be nice or even respectful to people who think the abuse i suffered is sexy. like i literally don’t. you’re lucky i’m just calling you gross on the internet and not ripping your throat out with my teeth

[clarissacrotty]

on sunday, i went to a family friend’s wedding. i’d never been to a traditional wedding before. i had to excuse myself during the daddy-daughter dance to cry a bit in the hall. luckily, i don’t think anyone noticed.

i really didn’t think it would affect me. i thought i had come to terms with the fact that my father would never walk me down the aisle or dance with me at my wedding, nor would he ever be worthy to after everything he did to me. but i guess i’ll never totally accept it. how can you accept something like that? how can your brain ever truly, fully come to terms with it?

they danced to the song “butterfly kisses”, which i think is ultimately what got me. it reminded me of the “good ol’ days” before the abuse started, back when i was a daddy’s girl through and through. sometimes, i don’t even know if there was a time “before” the abuse, because can one really pinpoint the exact moment abuse starts? i wonder if i was truly safe back then, or if this horrible thing that ended up happening to me had been the plan all along. i wonder if i was just too young to see what was going on around me. it’s just hard to reconcile the good times you had with your abuser with all the horrible shit they did to you. i can easily drive myself crazy lying awake thinking about that on any given night.

i’m getting ahead of myself, though. i’m not even remotely close to marrying anyone. still, though. it hurts.

[clarissacrotty]

oh my god I literally can’t have SHIT... I’m stuck in my small town for at least the rest of this summer and I’m trying to apply for a job so I can get a car and pay for my classes and such, but my dad knows EVERYONE here and there’s too much risk of him finding me.

[clarissacrotty]

sometimes seeing dads who love their daughters just… messes me up. a week ago at the arcade i saw this little girl playing mortal kombat with her dad. she just barely reached the buttons. she was in her pajamas. i could tell that this was just something they did together often. her dad probably scooped her up as soon as he got home from work and took her to the arcade. he didn’t put her down when she lost or scream at her when she won. some days i think i’m over my childhood, and then i just get sent hurtling back. seeing what i could have had reflected in some other little girl will always mess me up inside.

[clarissacrotty]

my experiences as a child were part of what drove me to want to work with children, but they also make it so hard sometimes. i hate being able to identify hopelessness and despair on the face of a child; I hate that I know what that looks like because I was once that child. i hate being chronically scared that i’m missing the signs. i keep myself awake at night wondering if i’m missing some cry for help, and if i’ll one day be blamed and scorned like i blame and scorn my own previous teachers for never seeing the signs that i was being abused. i fear growing up to be another oblivious, uncaring adult more than i fear anything else in the world.

[clarissacrotty]

i wish everyone who has ever physically held a child in place so they could yell in their face a very painful death

[clarissacrotty]

sometime last year, i finally found a word for the trauma my abuser put me through by manipulating the family court system against me— it’s called litigation abuse.

has your abuser dragged you through long and drawn-out court cases to try to exhaust you into relenting? threatened you with legal action if you didn’t bend to their whims? manipulate court officials into having a negative opinion of you when you’re too young to be allowed to speak for yourself? hold resources over your head unless you go through a legal battle to get them? yep— that’s litigation abuse.

so i guess i wanted to share that word with other people and see if it struck a chord for them, too. putting words to what you went through is a powerful thing.

[clarissacrotty]

of course the day this blog starts back up, i have to be a mandated reporter as a witness to abuse in a school. of course.

the world works in mysterious and horrible ways, friends.

[clarissacrotty]

Stuffed Friend

“Stuffed Friend” is probably the most well-known Clarissa comic, published in 2001. It’s been adapted into a short animated film of the same name, as well as a live-action short film called “These Little Fluffy Secrets”. “Stuffed Friend” tells the tale of Clarissa and her new stuffed bunny, Floopsy, on an average night in the Crotty household.

TW: heavily implied child sexual abuse, implied alcoholism, suicidal imagery

This comic contains triggering, upsetting, and disturbing content. Please read the trigger warnings before continuing.

[clarissacrotty]

jason yungbluth knows about this blog and there’s new clarissa on the way. what is life

[clarissacrotty]

update on this post: a few days ago I finally legally changed my name. i have a new credit card and i’m working on getting it changed everywhere else. my abuser’s name is no longer my name. his name won’t be on my college degree; my accomplishments are finally my own. things get better, everyone.

having the same last name as your abuser is a special kind of torture because it feels as though your abuse is now an inextricable part of your identity in every sense. not just your personal identity, but your professional identity, who you are at school, your driver’s license, your credit card. strangers innocently ask if you know so-and-so, because what a swell guy he is, and you have no choice but to nod along or tell an unconvincing lie.

oh and you have to pay money to change it. what the fuck

[clarissacrotty]

hey can we stop policing the language that CP/CSEM survivors use to describe their own abuse. the term a survivor uses to describe their experiences with abuse, even if it’s not the “correct” term, is nobody’s business except their own.

[clarissacrotty]

one day the feeling i get when someone opens my bedroom door won’t be instinctive fear but instinctive joy. i’m gonna make it to that day on purpose.

[clarissacrotty]

i got bathtime fun’d several times (that I can remember) as a kid and now I can’t take a single shower in peace. i love cptsd /s

[clarissacrotty]

i’d almost been ready to leave this blog inactive forever after not posting for a while, but today i found this crumpled post-it on the ground and took it as a sign. so, here i am.

[clarissacrotty]

having the same last name as your abuser is a special kind of torture because it feels as though your abuse is now an inextricable part of your identity in every sense. not just your personal identity, but your professional identity, who you are at school, your driver’s license, your credit card. strangers innocently ask if you know so-and-so, because what a swell guy he is, and you have no choice but to nod along or tell an unconvincing lie.

oh and you have to pay money to change it. what the fuck