#...im trying to make sense of abuse. an inherently irrational thing

[simptasia]

jokes aside, i genuinely don't know what christian's problem with jack is

[arcane-sync]

So this thought has been sitting on me today, so I'm going to try to put it into words. It's one of those things that was exceptionally hard for me to really get in my recovery, so if you dont want to deal with hard concepts right now, I suggest moving on. Its one of those things that makes sense, but it hurts to hear if you are used to functioning in a certain way.

Self hatred is not a form of gratitude or apology. If person A has done something nice like an act of service for person B, it makes the relationship incredibly difficult to navigate if they respond with "oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, i cant believe I didnt do that already, I'm such an idiot, I'll do it next time i swear." Bonus points for difficulty if person B starts crying.

And like, I GET that reaction. Painfully so. That is a trauma reaction from abusive environments growing up, and I get it. I have reacted that way hundreds of times. I am so guilty of this that it hurts.

But person A was genuinely trying to do something nice for person B. There was no implicit guilt trip involved. It was probably more "I noticed you were struggling and stressing over getting this thing done, so I did it for you." Its an expression of love. They wanted to see person B relax and smile. Instead, they appear to have made everything worse. A thank you never happens.

An even harder situation is if person A notices person B is struggling to get something done (say struggling in with basic house chores like cleaning up after themself), so person A gently tries to address it with person B and person B implodes in self hatred. This is really important in people who live together, as someone failing to take care of themselves and living area can impact the person they're living with. Person A might be frustrated but is ultimately trying to help, trying to figure out whats wrong, trying to be supportive. Person B has most likely been acutely aware of the thing not getting done and is so buried in self hatred that they dont know what to do. No thank you is given for being willing to address the issue, no apology is ever given for the thing not getting done. Just panicked appeasing of person Bs implosion.

Trauma reactions are uneblievably difficult to conquer. But this is one worth focusing on. And im not trying to guilt anyone who does this. If you react this way, then chances are reading this is making you feel guilty inherently. Its OKAY to struggle. Its okay if trauma is eating you alive, choking your throat, and clouding your mind. I want to reiterate ITS OKAY and a PERFECTLY understandable reaction.

Whats not okay is never trying to fix it. For abandoning any idea of trying to fix it. This reaction can really strain relationships in even the most compassionate people. Especially long term.

Quite honestly speaking, this is probably why I had a really hard time keeping friendships for the first 20 years of my life. I burnt out the people around me. And I have slowly, very slowly learned to forgive myself for that. I was struggling from immense trauma, and things just sort of play out certain ways on the way to recovery. It doesnt make it okay. It doesnt mean I didnt hurt those friends. But I get it. I get that I was an exasperating person to deal with. I get that I had reacted violently so many times to the most gentle things that people became SCARED to help me, support me, do nice things for me, approach me at all. I get it. I have worked to fix it, and I have forgiven myself for the pain I caused. I have apologized to these people where I can. I have taken that anger directed at myself, and I have directed it at my abusers instead.

I am responsible for my own actions yes. 100% But I can also simultaneously recognize that my actions were heavily influenced by things that were done to me that I had no control over. I can be angry at my abusers, mourn the loss of those friendships, apologize for those actions, and work on myself all at the same time. Without hating myself.

I am still learning when to say thank you and when to say I'm sorry. Sometimes I still react violently, but rather than lay that reaction on the people around me, I have learned to calm down on my own, and THEN communicate what it was that upset me so. When I couldnt calm myself down and needed the other person to help, i have still waited to situate my thoughts first before talking to them about the problem.

Communicating through both rational and irrational thoughts and emotions is one of the hardest things to learn. And im still learning. But its WORTH working on, no matter how hard it is. The family you have made for yourself LOVES YOU. They wouldn't be there if they didnt. So dont give up on yourself, cause they havent either. I am learning to love myself enough to fix myself, if not FOR myself then for the people I love. And when I see someone else doing the same negative reaction over and over, I do my best to have both compassion for their struggle and support them AND compassion for myself enough to take care of myself.

[lavenderek]

this is a super valid point; however, i don’t necessarily agree. in my experience, rhetoric was empowering in that it not only gave me an outlet for expressing myself in the same way im capable of expressing myself about more “mainstream” frustrations like my job and school; but it also showed me that i’m not alone. i’m not just a person who’s “wrong.” does that make sense? i’ve spent quite literally my whole life perplexed about why i feel and say and do what i feel and say and do.

and that’s the whole purpose of “relatable” memes. something we’ve never put into words becomes something universal, and the relief of discovering that it’s not a bug but a feature is heady. i felt isolated, suffocated, and dizzyingly lost in my mental illnesses before i found these bpd blogs. i really did. i dwell on my mistakes for days, months, years. i would have abstract concepts of what i was feeling that didn’t have names or rhyme or reason. i saw my life as an endless scribble of irrational behavior and hurt and loss, of abuse and confusion. and then fuckin’ bpdarielfromthelittlemermaid or whatever rolled in with “that bpd feel when you have a favorite person,” “tbpdfw someone asks you what your goals and interests are and you have to reconfigure your personality real quick so you can try to answer,” “tbpdfw you [thing i’ve experiences for years but didn’t realize it was an experience, let alone that i was having it],” and i realized i could find patterns in my experiences. i could take what had previously seemed like an unpredictable whirl of unimaginable bullshit and find in it the same things happening over and over, the same emotion. i could look my fucking mother in the eye and tell her why i do that. what it’s called when i do this. i’m not being bananas on purpose, this is a symptom of x and i need to work on y. like, i have never in my actual entire life seen anything like me in mainstream media, and everything that comes up in the google results are articles on how other folks can deal with a person with borderline in their life. there’s nothing for me. and then there’s that bpd feel.

there is an attitude that surrounds mental illness which suggests a sort of permanent entrapment, and that’s an attitude borne of unhappiness and cynicism. when you are a person struggling with getting yourself out of that mindset, yes, this sort of attitude will be harmful to you. but my problem was that i didn’t know i wasn’t just a directionlessly wrong fuckup. i didn’t have the language i needed to articulate what was happening. and now i have the tools not only to explain patterns throughout my life but to understand them.

i realize that’s a personal experience and not a universal one; the same could be said for baku’s perspective in the post i linked. that’s why it’s important to try to consider yourself objectively. try to step back and ascertain what’s going on. if you’re using tumblr mental illness rhetoric to wave away what’s going on, but you never seem to be changing or feeling any better, maybe something’s up. i dunno, im not your psych. i do know this: if you’re using your illness as an excuse for poor behavior, you’re doing it wrong. we can’t all be neurotypical, karen, but behavior is a choice, pat. find community in this rhetoric, don’t hide in it. striving for a semblance of recovery isn’t futile, nor is it a betrayal of your mental illness. you’ll never be nt, but you can be okay, and i think, on the optimistic side of things, that what mental illness can do is enrich your understanding of the human experience. it’s awful and shitty when you’re in the throes of it, but that doesn’t mean you can never climb out.

and while you’re in the worst of it, here is this. my friend kelly once said this to me. she said, “it’s okay to linger.” she said it about sleeping in on your day off, lmao, because i was grouching about how i didn’t want to get up, but it’s always stuck in my mind for some reason. i think about it whenever i’m feeling like i’m wading through molasses and like i’ll never get out. it’s okay to linger. “lingering” has an inherent implication of temporariness. you’re not staying sick, you’re lingering. you can linger there while you need to. you’ll get up eventually, when you can.

tl;dr tumblr mental illness rhetoric may allow some people to entrench themselves in their misery and remain stagnant, but others may find power and strength in it. the jargon and community isn’t the cause, it’s the individuals. it’s the prerogative of the individual to practice some objective introspection and work out what’s best for them. in the meantime, it’s okay to linger.

that’s all adios tannerinos