switchywitchy - Tumblr blog

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Rabbits Rabbits Rabbits

Reblog this on the first of the month for good luck all month long!

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Witch Hats // Cool Play Mart on Etsy

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Hand Stitched & Freehand Machine Embroidered Butterflies and Moths By Lisa Toppin of Agnes & Cora: 👉 https://buff.ly/3kr9cLA 🦋

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frustra canem

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To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995)

Dir. Beeban Kidron

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The only tiktok trend that matters is people filming those easter chickens and then going “who did ____ without permission?” and one of the chickens is so fucked up and its obvious who the answer is and the intro to You Gotta Move by Mississippi Fred McDowell is blasting

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7 years ago today, I got married.

A lot has happened since then, and I’m having a lot of feelings lately (but especially today) that I’m not sure how to work though. So, I guess when in doubt, get the words out of your head- make them real- and maybe they’ll start to make more sense.

Let’s flash back further than 7 years ago- let’s flash back over 20 years ago, to when my mom divorced my dad. Back then, and in the years that followed, my mom would swing between extremes; she either waxed on about how the love of her life “died in the desert” (my dad was in Desert Storm and suffered a tremendous amount of PTSD), and that the man she divorced wasn’t the man she fell in love with, or she would spit at the sound of his name and tell us what a terrible father and person he is- and how lucky we are to be with her instead.

As the years passed, she was married and divorced three more times. Including her marriage prior to my dad, she has been married and divorced an impressive five times.

I remember being a 10,12,16 year old child thinking “I’ll only ever get married once. So if I want to get married, I have to be sure I can be with that person forever.” (Thankfully, this way of thinking turned out to be temporary.)

But I digress- this isn’t about my mother, or how her selfishness, narcissism, and outright abuse helped shape my development.

In 2015 I quit my job in Florida and moved to D.C., where I planned on starting a life and career for myself outside the reach of my mother, and my ex “C” who had an annoying habit of finding me no matter where I seemed to go). I was there for two months and was barely scraping by with my new job, I didn’t have any friends, and in a desperate attempt to make some I tried searching for human connection through an app.

That ended up being a terrible idea, when I was assaulted by one of the very people I wanted to make friends with.

I was ready to leave, even if it meant going back to my mother. Instead, the weekend before I was set to move, I met “J” and found someone who was kind, thoughtful, handsome- he made me feel safe. And I threw myself wholly into becoming part of his narrative, not caring what parts of me where overshadowed and left to wither.

I knew him for four months before I decided to move to Ohio with him.

His family- while surprised- welcomed me with open arms and did their best to make me feel loved and like I belonged there. They constantly said how great I was for J, and how blessed they were to have me in the family.

J and I got an apartment together, then two cats. When he proposed in December of 2015 I said yes- completely ignoring all the red flags to that point. We had fought before about him feeling insecure with how many sexual partners I’d had, that I wasn’t Christian (though I did attend church with him), that I was taking anti-depressants when instead I should let the congregation pray over me to exorcise the demon of depression. He hated the fact that I’m attracted to all genders, not just men.

In 2016 we got married anyway. I look back on my wedding photos and see how happy I look, and I remember how happy I felt to be surrounded by my family and friends, and to be starting a new chapter of my life.

He got me a little white schnauzer as a wedding gift. Luna. I had to leave her and her brother, Merlin, in Ohio when I left; something I haven’t truly come to terms with (if the overwhelming knot in my throat and the hot tears stinging my eyes are any indication).

Donald Trump became president that year, and J dove hard into the MAGA life. He drank more- going through an entire bottle of moonshine a night. He watched Fox News at all hours of the day, and when he wasn’t watching it he was listening to the hosts podcasts and YouTube channels. His behavior turned more and more aggressive, and I drifted further and further away into myself while trying to pretend like everything was fine.

As the presidency progressed, so did J’s paranoia. His behavior escalated and I got more and more lost.

He started demanding sex and acting in ways that triggered my trauma responses. He actively dismissed my feelings and requests to go to therapy. In his words- if we weren’t going to church to seek help through God, we weren’t going to therapy.

In 2019 I was jobless, and was drinking a handle of whiskey every three days just to cope. That year, my youngest sibling committed suicide, and then my grandfather passed away. Things got worse.

Enter the pandemic. Being locked in with him during quarantine gave me lots of time to think. I had completely lost sight of myself. I was depressed, miserable, suffering internally feeling alone and isolated from my family, my friends, my life. I decided I had to get out. I stopped drinking and started applying for jobs.

I got a job May 23, 2021, two days after my 5 year anniversary. The weekend of our anniversary I spend the last of my savings on a “Save-Our-Marriage” weekend getaway, where I earnestly tried to reconnect and get him to try and understand my feelings- ultimately I was unsuccessful and the weekend was awful.

I told J I wanted a separation. He begged me to stay, and ended up agreeing to therapy (as long as I paid for it) as a last-ditch attempt to keep our marriage intact.

I tried, friends. I really did. Did I think it would work, honestly? No I didn’t think it would. I had mostly made up my mind, but I couldn’t in good conscience leave without trying one more time.

I searched and found a therapist that specialized in couples, had an extensive history with trauma patients, and who (as a bonus for J) was very faith-centered. Eight months of therapy left us no closer to reconciling- if anything he was angrier than before and was trying desperately to get any sort of rise from me even if it was negative.

I rented a POD, made the plans to stay with a friend, and told J the time had come and I was leaving. I packed myself and the cats, and left.

I ended up staying with a friend and her husband for four months (which ultimately turned out to be a mistake, but that’s a story for another day). In those four months, J blew my phone up every day with calls and texts, first begging me to come back then cursing me for leaving. He tried to manipulate me, destroyed my personal property, and held a family heirloom “hostage”. We filed for divorce, which was granted last August.

Now, it’s the day that would have been my 7th marriage anniversary, and here I am, divorced. I’m not upset about being divorced, but I am feeling melancholy about what could have been? I dunno, friends. My life has changed so much, and I do feel more like myself. I don’t feel lost anymore (well, I do a little, but I think everyone feels that way), but I still feel like things are unresolved.

I need to learn from this and move forward. But what is the lesson to be learned here? To not lose sight of yourself? To learn which situations to avoid to protect myself? That we have to leave important things behind in order to be happy?

I don’t know anymore.

I’m sure this feeling will pass, but for now I’m trying to sit with these feelings and make space for them, instead of burying or running from them.

I’m gonna splurge on a burger, put on Treasure Planet, and make smoke. Things will get better, and they won’t stay like this forever. Sorry for the long post, and if you stuck around and read this much, thank you- it makes me feel a little less alone.

-Switchy

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first day as a second century warlord i have my men tie branches to their horses’ tails to stir up dust and make it look like there’s a lot of us but i forget it just rained so there isn’t any dust and the enemy can clearly see there’s like twenty of us all spread out in a line

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I have been waiting all year to post this.

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- A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers // kagonekoshiro

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If you like the word “queer” reblog.

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Kanako Kinutani "Kirin Dancing in the Crescent Moon" No. 10

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guys new ea-nasir joke dropped on fucking reddit of all places