Both my parents actually suffer from HORRID emotional dysregulation and are prone to snapping and going into rages. My sister is the same way tbh. I am now realizing this is why they are constantly baffled by the question of whether or not I am mad at them.
I don't have external meltdowns.
I could. I don't let it happen.
I keep my rage on the inside and stay pretty quiet about it. It's just as strong as theirs [physically shaking nose bleed from high blood pressure kind of bad], but like as a kid I saw how terrifying it was to be around [dad breaking dishes, mom putting our lawn chairs into walls] and I just internalized that I wasn't going to wear that anger on the outside.
So my mother genuinely cannot tell if I am just being quiet or if I am silently hearing the dial-up noises of pure rage. This has lead her to both making strong and confident statements like "You are a pacifist who would never hurt a fly U.U" but also acting like I am secretly dangerous maybe... It's because she has never seen me snap.
She knows what her temper is like [throwing chairs through walls], she knows what my father's temper is like [pick up child and toss out door], and she can tell I am being tested, but she doesn't know what happens when I snap or where that breaking point is.
Her -perhaps unhinged- solution to this, my whole life, has been to do things that should obviously enrage me or shut me down completely, like ignoring important boundaries, repeatedly, punishing me for expressing emotions or needs at all, etc... And then to constantly ask me if I am angry with her when I get too quiet [right after near directly telling me to shut up].
It has occurred to me now, they have never once seen me lose my temper, so they literally just can't tell if I am angry at them. My sister is easy, my mother fights and screams with my sister constantly, my mother understands this. My mother doesn't have any grasp of feelings or boundaries that are not screamed at her [apparently, and I fear my sister is the same way]. Her and my sister are close despite constant fucking fighting because they understand each other.
They are trying to get me to engage the same way and it is not working. I realize now that this has been hard for them.
I was so successfully taught to suppress my emotions, by being punished for any outburst, that rage quiet looks the same as any other kind of quiet from the outside. To them anyway.
I did tell her. For the record. I used my words. I did tell her very calmly that my response to rage, in order to avoid doing the things that terrified me as a child, was to simply leave [the autistic urge to GTFO]. When a situation or person causes too much of the dial-up rage noise, I simply extract myself from that situation, up to and including never speaking to a person again. I explained this calmly. I explained it calmly 100 times and I explained that I explain myself calmly as my rage response 1-5 [also pretty much every other negative emotion tbh], and I told her that what came next was me simply opting out and fucking off. I told her this. I couldn't understand why she never took me seriously, or why she never fucking understood.
I couldn't understand what made her like this.
But it's the same problem I have with everyone else multiplied by a factor of 10.
If I am explaining myself calmly, they can't understand that it's actually serious or that I am actually upset. ESPECIALLY because they read me as "female" and women "aren't that rational" so if I am not screaming and crying about something, which I never do, people assume I can't be upset and it isn't serious.
And then after having my boundaries ignored too many times despite having calmly explained how and why it's a problem [shaking inside or not]... I leave. I leave and everyone gets upset like this is unexpected behaviour, even though I told them 50 times that is how I would respond if they kept doing *the thing.*
And for neurotypical people especially, they are expecting there to be a disconnect between what someone says they need or feel and what their actually boundaries and feelings are, and they expect the latter to be demonstrated with emotions. Telling them bluntly you do not function that way somehow never helps?
My mother isn't just looking for normal yelling or a few tears to know I am serious, whether or not I do those either [I don't], she's looking for an explosion to know there's a problem at all.
Fucked if I know how she proceeds through life this way in general or if this is just her expectation of her own kids???
And I couldn't get why my mother couldn't read my emotions and didn't seem to think I have any. It's because she's testing for the rage limit to see where my 'actual' limit is instead of taking my word for it. Never the fuck mind that she could simply *not* test at my boundaries instead of letting me have them. Separate issue.
I couldn't figure out what made her *like this*
She's expecting me to throw a giant meltdown violent tantrum at people when I have 'actually' had enough. Maybe she got away with those being like 5'4" in another time, but I am the size of the average man, I do not get to have giant screaming rages, whether or not people perceive me consciously as a woman, and least of all because a lot of people -at least unconsciously- read me as 'masculine' or at least always "they guy" of the situation compared to all other women and some men [bigger stronger and more rational, more able to just absorb the damage and let it go so the less rational screaming/crying one doesn't have to be dealt with]. Even if it was in me to be willing to terrify people [usually never], there are such limited instances where it wouldn't just blow back on me. Potentially very dangerously.
I am going to be the quiet calm one. You are going to have to let me use my words, bitch.
So she kept ignoring my boundaries until I had to cut her out of my life, and she probably doesn't understand and probably thinks it feels sudden -after 36 long years of bullshit- abrupt and unfair.
But I told her hundreds of times.
I probably should have just screamed at her.
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Fuck It Friday (also on saturday bc fuck it)
tagged by @itwoodbeprefect ❤️ ❤️
I’ve been doing a lot of rereading of the 23k of state of disrepair that’s already written and very little writing of it so here. y’all can join me in that.
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“Again, I understand why you had to go on this little Eat Pray Love trip.”
Steve looks up, slightly startled, but doesn’t get a chance to say anything before Danny continues.
“And I’m not mad at you about it. But if you ever leave me again, Steven, I will kill you myself.” It doesn’t come out quite as rock-hard as Danny might have liked, softened by a miniscule waver in his voice at the end. Most people wouldn’t even pick it up, but he hears it, so he’s sure Steve does too.
“No vacations without Danny. I’ll write it down.” When Danny looks over at him, he’s looking back, quiet and heavy, solemn enough that Danny knows he understood.
“Exactly,” he replies. “Don’t start taking too long at the store either, or I’ll be heading for the kitchen knives.”
Steve shakes his head. “Of course your murder weapon of choice would be a butcher blade.”
“Don’t demean the classics,” Danny chides. “They got many a housewife out of a bad marriage.”
“You know, I don’t think I like the turn this conversation is taking.”
Danny stops, considers, and frowns. “Me neither. I think I just called myself a housewife.”
“And this a bad marriage,” Steve adds, gesturing between them, an offended emphasis on ‘bad’.
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tagging @faorism @bookwhimses @osointricate @thomtrebond if any of y’all care to *to the tune of Devo’s Whip It* fuck it
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ALSO IDK IF I SHARED ELDCN R/NG STUFF but that is my current obsession so i
her name is Cyg (Cygnatratus,,, bc i am ,,, a nerd,,,, and like to make things Mean Things [a play on how the dragons names work! her name is a mixture of words that means 'black swan' essentially jfjfjfhd]) she's a prisoner subclass (and all that comes w it yea) and a draconian <3 playing heavily in the dragon blood thing, wants to purify her blood or whatever jfsdfhsdjf idek!! if thats possible but she sure as hell wants to try (probably why she was imprisoned all those years ago,,, smthng to do with her seeking some kind of forbidden power) ANYWAY she's a little Havoc Wreaking gremlin who did NOT need the flame of ambition at all but now she has it and she's never been so terrifyingly Laser Focused on power FDGFDG
anyway tldr, as a good friend of mine once said..... We support women's rights and women's wrong here... she just happens to have a lot of Wrongs
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