joanmarston

[joanmarston]

idc if it's cringe, if i had the money i'd be a furry and dress up like this

[joanmarston]

miss her so much wwaahhghh

[joanmarston]

stop telling people who have abusive parents to “just leave” after they turn 18!!!!!!! it’s not that fucking simple!!!!!!!!!

i’ve been an adult for two years now and i STILL live in this hell hole. you know why? CONTROL. you can’t just walk out of the house and never look back like they do on tv. it doesn’t work that way. you take documents with you (that, if your parents are anything like mine, are locked up tight in a safe), you have to have enough money and a stable job and a place to go (which most victims are unable to get jobs due to mental/physical health or parent control), you have to move all your things out of their name (phone, car, etc). the list goes on. don’t you dare tell an adult victim that they’re just “not helping themselves”. i’m tired of hearing it.

adult victims of abusive parents: your abuse is still valid and i promise you there are those of us who understand and care.

(and before you try and pull the “here’s some suggestions” shit, my doctor has already met with a social worker with me. i’m stuck here for the time being. thanks for your concern but fuck off.)

[joanmarston]

Just an important message for my fellow trauma survivors:

What happened to you wasn’t fair. Don’t downplay it, or tell yourself that other people have it worse. The bottom line is that it should NEVER have happened. What you feel about it is real and valid. It might not be okay right now, but one day it will be. Thank you for surviving. I’m so glad you’re here. 

[joanmarston]

Ready or Not (2019) dir. Tyler Gillett, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin

[joanmarston]

🐈‍⬛🪻🐈

[joanmarston]

When abuse/incest survivors think their parents are/were good.

One of the hardest things for non-survivors to understand is the way that survivors of abuse defend their abusers. A common question I get asked is “How could you possibly think your parents were GOOD?”

To non-survivors, my situation looks simple. A father who plays pornographic video games with his seven-year-old daughter is a bad father. A mother who isolates her daughter from social support and starts physically punishing her and grooming her toward heterosexuality after she comes out as gay is an abusive mother. Parents who let cult members into the house and create cover stories to excuse ritual abuse don’t deserve sympathy when their adult children go no-contact.

Here’s the problem. People aren’t just born with an innate understanding of what love, intimacy, trust, goodness, and understanding are. Those things are supposed to be learned during infancy when a child is helpless but learns to trust that an adult will take care of them. Children who are abused by their primary caregivers have what is supposed to be their very first loving relationship marred with abuse. If the “care” a child received at their most vulnerable was infrequent, unreliable, or affected by shaming (ie: parents being disgusted with their baby/constantly angry at their baby for crying), then the baby never has anything positive to measure future relationships against or even to measure the parents’ behavior against. If the parents say “we love you more than anyone else in the world,” the child is going to believe that is true. If the parents say “other children get more love than you do because you’re worse than other children/more annoying than other children/less attractive than other children/less lovable than other children/etc.” then the child will believe that as well.

Unlearning that kind of message, especially when the child started learning it in infancy, is not as simple as hearing “you didn’t deserve it” and then going “oh wow, that’s such a revelation! My life is fixed now, thank you so much!” Sure, survivors need to be reminded that they deserved more love and care than they got, but asking a survivor to implicitly understand that on a deep, core level just because you say it to them sometimes is asking a bit much.

Infants actually need to emotionally attach to someone in their lives in a secure manner. This means that even if a parent is rejecting, sadistic, or otherwise abusive, the infant will still try to attach to this person. The child *needs* love from that person to avoid being left with literally nothing.

This is part of why abuse survivors often date abusers when they get older. They desperately need someone they can connect with, and abusers are more likely to offer instant relief than good partners. Good partners will want to gradually get to know the survivor and let intimacy develop naturally. Abusers will push for immediate trust and intimacy, which initially feels like fresh air to a survivor who lacks it from other sources. Beyond that, stigma against people with mental health issues and traumatic backgrounds can make good partners reluctant to give abuse survivors a chance. This can mean that abusers are much easier to form bonds with than “good people” are.

In addition to manipulating attachment needs (deliberately or unintentionally), abusive parents are rarely abusive 100% of the time. Some abusers financially support their survivors to keep them dependent, and other abusers will buy expensive “just because” gifts for their children, which leaves their children feeling indebted. Some abusers say “I love you; you’re wonderful” on odd numbered days or exhibit “good” behavior just some of the time, leaving survivors thinking that the abuse is just their parent reacting to stress or some passing problem that can be eventually overcome. Many survivors think they can figure out a rhyme or reason behind the “good days” and “bad days” to ensure that only good days happen from now on. That’s rarely actually possible, so survivors suffer.

Survivors aren’t dumb for believing their abusers are good or right. Those are common beliefs that can take a lot of work to overcome.

[joanmarston]

Delusions of grandeur ☕🩸

Dutch Commission :)

[joanmarston]

[joanmarston]

Homework (1989) a documentary film made By Abbas Kiarostami

Mr.Kiarostami here is interviewing a student, asking him about the meaning of punishment and encouragement

[joanmarston]

when you unrepress a memory but you aren’t sure if you made it up:

fucked up if true

[joanmarston]

i cannot stress this enough, but the majority of people legitimately do not care about survivors and victims of rape, sexual abuse and childhood sexual abuse. and if we even dare to tell our stories, we're considered "pedophiles" and "groomers" who deserve to die for writing something so disgusting and evil.

wanna re-work your trauma and write about sex? do it! but why with a minor in a student/teacher relationship.. do you even hear yourself..

and these are the reviews based off a different survivors memoir

much of it seemed more dramatic than i think would occur. you people have absolutely no idea the kind of sick mentally deprived shit perpetrators do and force their victims to do. you don't have to live through that and thank god. but to the majority of you it's an unrealistic fantasy, to many of us, it's a reality. a non-ending nightmare that we have to carry around with us for the rest of our lives. we have to live with that. you don't get to tell a victim their stories are too "dramatic", "fake", or "unrealistic".

and fuck you. >:'|

[joanmarston]

Kurt Cobain and his kitten looking at polaroids (1991)

[joanmarston]

the trauma brothers

[joanmarston]

keep yourself together

[joanmarston]

who else is feeling terrible due to choices they’ve made in life

[joanmarston]