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Oh!

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agonizing over all the time you wasted or lost is useless. it’s gone now. you survived in the only way you knew how. doesn’t your survival deserve some recognition too?

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@ryebreadgf / The Truth About Grief, Fortesa Latifi / bone deep, m.v.e / Sidewalk, Richard Silken / @fridayiminlovemp3 / 60 hours, m.v.e / @itsblackleader / Salt, Nayyirah Waheed / @heavensghost

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‪What part of “i don’t wanna spend anymore money” don’t I understand

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You're not actually a better friend for not articulating and respecting your own needs, limits and boundaries. Your lack of communication and boundaries is not some impressive sacrifice. You're not doing anyone any favors by acting like you're okay with things you aren't okay with. You're just building burnout and resentment that will eventually damage the relationship in question. And when you eventually snap and walk away because you silently overburdened yourself to be a "good friend", it won't be the other persons fault

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im so tired of being unable to say "no/please stop" because if i do the other person will hurt themself

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Honestly it boils down to reparenting yourself & rewiring your own neuronal pathways & telling yourself a firm “stop” when you notice your mind slipping down negative loopholes & being present in the moment & enjoying being mid task rather than waiting for it to end & not thinking of inertia as your baseline and natural way of living

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a body more tolerable, jaye simpson

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You were alive here — fearful and wild and beautiful.

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The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

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one of the more valuable things I’ve learned in life as a survivor of a mentally unstable parent is that it is likely that no one has thought through it as much as you have. 

no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation. 

no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying. 

no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.

no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.  

a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age. 

Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse. 

I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships. 

The best thing I ever did for myself and my relationships was insist upon frank communication and a categorical denial of subtext. For some people this is a moral stance. For survivors of mentally unstable parents this is a requirement of recovery.