#VALIDATION

[classycookiexo]

[loveyourlovelysoul]

Sometimes we think we are over a certain behaviour or mental pattern. We think we have "healed" it, we are done and can move on. But if we look at it more deeply, we are probably not that done. And it's okay: it's something we have been doing and thinking for years, we cannot get over it in few days or months. So many aspects come into play, and we may need to work on the same thing more than once. With more and more determination.

So please be kind with yourself, and allow yourself to heal it once more. Do not feel bad about needing more work on the same situation. I know well it is really tiring and at times disheartening, but don't let this bring you down. You were (and still are) only trying to protect and save yourself, and cope with the lack of some form of care and affection you deserved to receive but probably could not for whatever reason.

Allow yourself to feel the pain, but know that you cannot find what you need where you used to search for it. You need to collect the strength and courage to look somewhere else. And not feel guilty for it, and for choosing yourself.

[akindplace]

Having a soft heart is not a shameful thing. Being earnest about what you love isn’t either. Sometimes it feels tiring to care when so many people in the world act like nothing moves them. But it doesn’t mean you should become uncaring only to seem stronger, because allowing yourself to be moved, to love, to be sensitive and soft is a brave thing, especially in a world that often seems so cruel. Remember to treat yourself with that same softness, that same care. It’s not a shameful thing to be vulnerable, to be seen.

[1-8oo-wtfbro]

does anyone else wish they could switch bodies with someone/give their pain to someone to see how that person reacts? like, am i being too over dramatic or is it really that bad? can they white knuckle it or are they also kneeling over in pain??

[onemashedbraincell]

since apparently it’s Valentine’s Day, system appreciation post!

You’re valid if you’re endogenic

2. You’re valid if you’re traumagenic.

3. You’re valid if you’re mixed origins. 4. You’re valid if you don’t know or care about your system origins. 5. You’re valid if you are a median. 6. You’re valid if you are polyfragmented. 7. You’re valid if you’re mostly blurry. 8. You’re valid if your parts are clear and distinct. 9. You’re valid if you don’t experience co-consciousness. 10. You’re valid if you experience co-consciousness. 11. You’re valid if you experience co-fronting. 12. You’re valid if you don’t experience co-fronting. 13. You’re valid if you hate being a system. 14. You’re valid if you love being a system. 15. You’re valid if you don’t know how to feel about being a system. 16. You’re valid if your trauma doesn’t fit the ‘typical norm’ or expected experience. 17. You’re valid if you have factives/fictives/fucktives/songtives, etc 18. You’re valid if you have hundreds of thousands of headmates. 19. You’re valid if you only have a few headmates. 20. You’re valid if you are looking for final fusion. 21. You’re valid if you are looking for functional multiplicity. 22. You’re valid if you’re a tulpa. 23. You’re valid if you’re an introject who doesn’t want to be like their source. 24. You’re valid if you’re an Introject who does want to be like their source. 25. You’re valid if your system isn’t very active. 26. You’re valid if your system is extremely active. 27. You’re valid if you have a core. 28. You’re valid if you don’t have a core. 29. You’re valid if you have a host. 30. You’re valid if you’re hostless. 31. You’re valid if you have a headspace. 32. You’re valid if you don’t have a headspace. 33. You’re valid if you have a relationship with another headmate. 34. You’re valid if you’re a bodily minor OR adult system. 35. You’re valid if you don’t like some/all of your headmates. 36. You’re valid if you love all your headmates. 37. You’re valid if you’re a disordered system. 38. You’re valid if you’re a non-disordered system. 39. You’re valid if you’re introject heavy. 40. You’re valid if you’re brain-made heavy. 41. You’re valid if you’re non-human heavy. 42. You’re valid if you’re covert. 43. You’re valid if you’re overt. 45. You’re valid if you’re an age regressor. 46. You’re valid if you’re a pet regressor. 47. You’re valid if you don’t identify with the body. 48. You’re valid if you do identify with the body. 49. You’re valid for feeling angry about those who hurt you. 50. You’re valid if you have a lot of control over your system. 51. You’re valid if you experience little to no control over your system. 52. You’re valid if your system structure is complex. 54. You’re valid if your system structure is simple. 55. You’re valid if you’re mono conscious. 56. You’re valid if you’re biconscious or triconscious. 57. You’re valid no matter your conscious term. 58. You’re valid if you want labels about your experiences. 59. You’re valid if you don’t want labels for your experiences. 60. You’re valid for having source trauma. 61. You’re valid for not having source trauma. 62. You’re valid for having alters split due to other alters either negatively or positively. 63. You are valid if you split for no reason, or a reason you can’t identify. 64. You’re valid for being different from the norm. 65. It’s okay to be wrong about your identity. Even if you aren’t plural, it’s what fit you at the time. Identity shifts. We’re always learning about ourselves. You made a mistake is all, you’re not a monster for making a mistake.

I could go on and on for days, but I think you get the jist.

YOU ARE VALID. NO MATTER YOUR EXPERIENCE. YOUR EXPERIENCES ARE REAL. YOU DONT NEED TO FIT INTO THE CONFINED BOX OF REQUIREMENTS TO BE CONSIDERED PLURAL.

Happy Valentines Days, everyone. <3

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Everyone else when their posts get popular: oh no, this is terrible, please don't do this to me!

Me when my posts get popular: This is great. I’m going to get a good grade in Tumblr, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve

[traumasurvivors]

People seemed to really like the last one, so here's a new one! There might be a bit of crossover with the last one but there should also be new ones!

Please pass this along. <3

[recoverr]

i hope life takes it easy on you today. but if not, i hope you have the strength to carry on until the sun rises again. you are very loved and very needed here, i hope you remember that.

[aseaofquotes]

Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

[classycookiexo]

[korrainasamisjacket]

Happy 10 year anniversary to our babes.

[akindplace]

you are not a failure for not being able to handle everything on your own. you’re not having a hard time because you’re weaker than other people, things truly have been really difficult lately and other people would probably have a hard time too, and those who are overly critical of you don’t go through the same things you do, and they would probably struggle if they did. please have a little compassion for yourself. things have been really hard and you are not exaggerating. asking for help doesn’t make you a needless burden. you don’t have to carry all that alone.

[sk-lumen]

Reminder that you don't need to get people's approval to go for something. All you need is ownership over your choices.

Want to go on a weekend spa solo and you have the finances for it? Go for it, you don't need your friends' approval to validate your decisions. Want to get a dog because you've always wanted one? Just do it, you don't need your family's approval to make a decision as an adult. Want to reconnect with an old friend or travel to another country? Just do it. Always had dreams of becoming an influencer? Just start posting fancy stories on social media.

Understand that this is your life, and you can do as you please without someone confirming you're allowed to do it. The only person who needs to agree is you.

[succulentsiren]

Stop giving away your power by letting what others think of you, define you. People’s perceptions of you hold no value unless you allow it. If you don’t agree with how others see you, create you own narrative and start defining yourself.

Shift your mindset from needing validation, to knowing who you are. Don’t walk into the room thinking “I wonder what they think of me.” Walk into the room thinking “I don’t mind what they think of me. I know who I am. I am the best.”

And sure, this mindset may seem like arrogance but it is far better than craving approval or trying to explain yourself to others.

You can either give your power away by depending on the approval of others or you can free yourself, become the main character and perceive yourself the way you desire.

[prototypesteve]

Valid. With or without validation. (A before there was an A.)

Asexuals, aromantics, and everyone else on the aspec are valid, and were valid even before we had a name for what we were.

In May of 1971, I was born different. There wasn’t a name for it. (The committee who wrote the Asexual Manifesto wouldn’t even form for another year and four months.) I was valid, but there wasn’t even a way to say what about me was valid.

In June of 1989, I graduated from High School. I was barely 18. I was still different. But in all those years, I���d never encountered the words aromantic or asexual. (Instead, I heard words like frigid, weird, secret f-g, psycho, virgin, and sheltered). In Career And Life Management class, where sex education was a brief module, they didn’t even mention X on the Kinsey Scale. We were told it was 1 to 6. Period. (I didn’t check, because I was X on the Kinsey Scale, which meant I didn’t care about things like the Kinsey Scale.) They managed to find a way to invalidate me without even naming the things they were invalidating!

By April of 1993, I graduated from college, still different. Now I was hearing kinder guess-names for what I was: Busy, focused, fussy, pure, a late-bloomer, and undecided. But I still hadn’t heard words like aromantic or asexual. I was at an art school. I heard all the other words. I saw people living all the other words. I saw bi couples, I had gay and lesbian friends and instructors, I had a pansexual classmate, and knew someone who was almost certainly pre-transition trans. I was aromantic and asexual but I had no way of finding those words, or being rescued from my confusion by those words. By this point, I didn’t even need validation, anymore. I just wanted understanding.

But I got sent out into the world, to go start my career, and figure out apartments, cars, taxes, utilities, setting up a business, and a million other adult things that took “housed-or-homeless” priority over “figuring out what was ‘wrong’ with me”. So, even though there were murmurs on the right talk shows, or screeds in the right ink-and-paper offline zines about asexuality and aromanticism, they weren’t in mainstream or sidestream discourse. I had to settle for “different, busy, and single-minded about his career”.

It would take until late 2022—over 29 years after I left college and 51 years after I was born—before I started noticing social media posts about “aroace” characters who didn’t feel love.

Now I had a name for my difference.

I knew exactly what I was, because everything I read about asexuality and aromanticism perfectly matched and explained the experiences I’d had, and the feelings I’d felt, since I first noticed I was different at age 12!

I’d been valid all that time. I saw the other posts saying we didn’t belong in this or that community, and the names should be broken up into more categories, and we were taking up space at pride festivals, and this was a made up thing that didn’t exist prior to… oh, fuck it, it didn’t matter. I was aromantic and asexual on the day I was born in 1971; before those two words were available to ordinary people. I was real, I was who I was, and I was valid, and even though I wasn’t allowed to know what I was for another five decades full of trauma and loss and hurt, I always was who I was, and so I always was valid, regardless of whether or not anyone else agreed.

And so are you.