#and it's hard to deprogram ourselves

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Intercultural Bias in the Fan Experience of QL

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while, and I think it's an appropriate time for it after reading @hallowpen's post today - which if you haven't read yet, please do so.

I'm saying this as someone who's been on a lifelong journey of learning, and is also extremely aware I still have so much that I don't know. I am from the U.S. and that comes with a truckload of bias and privilege. But this is something I have learned that I think is worth sharing.

There is a danger, for those of us who are progressive, yet grew up in countries that have been historically exploitative and oppressive to other cultures.

Because colonizer bias is insidious. And it can be very tempting to say, I'm aware, I've done the anti-racism training, I've read the books, I have my own oppressions I have to fight every day, I'm aware of my privilege, I'm an ally, etc, etc, etc. But this is just like racism - if you are not being actively anti-colonialist in your interactions with other cultures, you are likely perpetuating bias and oppression.

I grew up in a very liberal part of the U.S. and had a very progressive education starting from grade school. I got education on systemic racism in junior high, my high school had one of the first gay/straight alliances in our state. I studied science in college, but since it was a liberal arts degree, I also took classes on sociology of race, the religions of Asia, Chinese history, etc.

But despite all this I still grew up in a country with a fuckton of bias about our role in how we interact with countries around the world. And as we all do with bias that we grow up with, I internalized some of that.

It wasn't until I took some graduate coursework on Intercultural Training & Communication that I really was able to recontextualize my perspective and become aware of my unconscious bias, thank to an amazing instructor.

Other countries do not need us to come in, tell them what is wrong, and tell them how to fix it. Whatever problems there are, there are people in that culture who know, who are actively working on it, and they know better than anyone outside what needs to be done.

Honestly, it doesn't even need to extend to other countries - just look at all the nonprofits and charities in the U.S. that talk about helping the poor, but in the end just perpetuate the cycle of oppression by coming in to neighborhoods and doing zero work to center the perspectives of the people most affected.

You can absolutely support and spread awareness and send money and share expertise when asked, and do the things that the people of that culture ask you to do.

But if you come in, and try to say "this is what you all are doing wrong, and this is what you should be doing" - you are perpetuating a colonialist mindset.

And yes, this extends to media as well.

This is why I struggle with some of the takes I have read, especially those that attempt to rank the "queerness authenticity" of shows, from an entirely Western perspective, with no engagement with the idea that one's queer identity is impacted by one's culture (among other things), and that it can look and be expressed in a million different ways.

There are criticisms of queer directors, blaming them for a myriad of perceived sins, with zero understanding of what queerness might mean to them both individually and as a Thai person, and what they might also be trying to navigate socially, culturally, and politically.

There are people making broad sweeping statements about the direction that they think QL is headed in - some of which enter the realm of catastrophizing - entirely based on their own subjective opinion of what is most important for a different country and culture to care most about in a particular moment in time.

You know why I'm not worried about the direction of QL? Because I know there are millions of Thai people who care about it too. I know the Thai queer community and their allies are speaking up, and pushing for change and progress. I know that they are extremely cognizant of when representation fails, and I know they are the reason representation has already improved so much (sorry interfans, it's not about us).

And yeah, sometimes the pendulum swings the other way - those of us in the U.S. should be very aware of this. But the fight doesn't stop.

There are Thai people who are working to promote mental health and therapy, to encourage people to have strong boundaries with family who have hurt them, to provide more representation for groups who still aren't seen. And someone from a different country complaining about all the ways they think their culture is failing isn't helping a thing.

Like @hallowpen says, this is not about saying you can't critique. Most of the people I follow do a great job at making it consistently clear that their perspective is subjective, and they relate it to their own life and experience. That's great, and a place for people from different cultures to connect!

But those of us who are interfans have a responsibility as members of a global community. There are people from Thailand who read your posts. From Japan, from Korea, from China. Are you speaking up to support them? Or are you talking over them? Are you expressing understanding for what they are navigating from historical context and current political conditions? Or are you just lecturing them on how you think their world should be?

[heirloommtomatoes]

i used to be so.....prestige or whatever-brained that i was like. ok i'll go to law school just so i can Have a jd and then never practice law and do something more creative or fulfilling or something. yay! :) and really thought this was gonna be like. a plan

[velvetvexations]

It's so hard to talk about and it sucks to constantly have to dance around people who aren't acting in good faith to try and discuss basic things like this.

Every day we drift further from God's light.

Yeah!

I didn't know that was a thing but I think trans girls need to hit other trans girls now and then if we're ever going to deprogram ourselves from thinking trans women are perfect innocent angels who everyone else has it out for, so maybe some conflict will prove healthy in the long run.

It sounds obnoxious to experience for the time being regardless. God, can we please stop speedrunning radfem bullshit? Please?

They don't even believe that, they think transphobia is just an excuse to hate women while covering it by saying you hate men.

I think there ends up being problems however you try to express it. I keep emphasizing how cissexist the English language is because I really feel like it's a huge problem.

[ben-marco]

Hello!

I wanted to ask if you have any tips for working with a few issues I'm having irt deprogramming.

With the point we're at, our highest ups have converted to the side of the system, but still fear reaccess by our abusers despite that not being possible (group has disbanded, leader moved away). How can we help with the remaining fear?

Another struggle, because the higher ups are no longer keeping everyone stringently separate, the lower gatekeepers are struggling to keep the "daytime" sidesystem away from front like they have been since discovery of our OEA background. It seems like it may be time to start trying to tell them what we remember, but we're afraid of overwhelming them. How do we start telling them without raising questions with answers they aren't ready for yet?

Thank you!

Hello anon.

I totally hear you. Higher-ups are tough. When I've been in similar situations, I have tried to orient them to the present as much as possible-- and in multiple ways. I had to invite one of them to join me at mealtimes (bonus points if he was willing to be around while I cooked whatever we were eating) to see that we can eat whatever we want now, and always have plenty of food. By taking part in meals and observing me while I cook, he learned that things are different for us now in these specific ways:

We live somewhere else, our kitchen is very different from the one that was in our childhood home

We are old enough to live on our own now

We are old enough to cook for ourselves

We eat what we want to eat, nothing that makes us sick, and the cabinets have plenty of what we need

It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, either. I found that this particular higher-up enjoyed chicken noodle soup from a can, for example. Sometimes it's the little things. You could also invite these parts to observe (or even take part) in other activities, like writing or drawing or collaging. Anything to show them that things are different these days.

You may find it helpful to keep an index card in your wallet (or in your journal, if you keep one) that states the current year, your current address, the group being disbanded and the leader having moved away, and any other information you think might be important or orienting. If you have a grounding box, you might also keep a copy of this information in there, too.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I have advice for the second part, as this is something I struggle with myself-- the constant tug-of-war between day parts and night parts, and who knows what, and who believes what. However, I will advise you that no matter how hard you try to be tactful and gentle with revealing this information, there's always a chance that parts will deny it or be overwhelmed by it. That's just the nature of these kinds of disclosures. A trauma-informed therapist might be able to help smooth this over, but it will likely still be messy or difficult at times, just because of the nature of the information.

Wishing you and your parts all the best.

[bengiyo]

Be My Favorite Ep 5 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Kawi went on the class trip that he missed in the past and encountered incredibly frustrating hazing rituals. His affection for Pear was used against him, and he ended up mildly embarrassed when Pear turned him down as gently as she could. Pisaeng, after being chided by Kawi, also directly turned Pear down. Max was glorious and unbothered. Not and the seniors suck. Pear is absolutely someone worth admiring, and I get why people like her. I’m currently impressed by how well this show is enabling everyone to grow by having one person start down a path of becoming more emotionally honest and forthright.

Curious that the show went out of the way to make sure we know that Not gets no bitches.

I like that Pisaeng is tippy-toeing to confessing to Kawi. He told him he made things clear with Pear because he cares how Kawi sees him and he needed to know if he was still going to pursue Pear on his own. He doesn’t want Kawi to know that he and others heard him being rejected.

Oh, it’s cool that Kawi is having a hard time taking advantage of the lottery.

Kawi building an interactive friendship with Pear is also a huge relief.

Big fan of the way the time travel rules have been established, because we have a reason to stick around here.

Kawi, please don’t knock yourself for being a subtitler. They are the most important people for the international audience.

I feel like Pisaeng is properly dealing with his own queerness for the first time, and I really hope he goes back to the gay club later.

Not is really making himself appealing to the girls by being condescending and an asshole.

Big fan of Max. Don’t be moody about your problems if you don’t want to tell me the tea. Also, it’s your issue not your potential suitor.

He went back to the club! This is definitely his first time being in a queer space.

Nooo! Don’t run away from Max!

I feel sad for Kawi that Not and co. took his joy for songwriting.

Oh, yes, Max. READ HIS ASS.

I need to learn the name of Pear’s friend because she just delivered a WORD. Being kind and offering encouragement costs so little! Stop being so mean!

I am in love with Max. He was a bit harsh with Pisaeng, but baby gays need to get over themselves a little bit sometimes.

Look at that. Just a little bit of encouragement and Kawi’s already doing better.

This show just said we have a duty to be kind to each other and ourselves, because the world is just a place. Oh my goodness.

This the third time we’ve seen someone get rejected kindly on this show. In each case, it has seemingly made things better between the pair. I feel like we will be writing about this more later.

This show just said “changes are more important than miracles.” What the absolute fuck? I am kinda losing my mind over a Jittirain show once again.

Gawin is so fucking good at playing a gay man learning to love himself. This is the third time!

I love that someone else saw potential in Kawi after he put himself out there. It wasn’t the chance he wanted, but it’s the one he found. This is actually really nice.

Curious whose perspective they want us to read this final montage from. Both? Neither?

Gawin played freshman Pisaeng differently. That was so well done. He’s talented.

Wow. I think I actually really like this show. It feels like it’s trying to gently deprogram the audience. It’s like it knew a lot of us were bringing a lot of hostile energy to the viewing and said, “Would you mind being just a little bit kinder?” and you know what, maybe I will be. This has been really lovely so far, and I think I need to soften my stance with it. There are some incredible ideas here about the important of community and treated each other with just a little bit more kindness and respect. I also like that the show said plainly that it hurts us all to withhold our feelings from each other, because even if we can’t reciprocate them we can still build something good for everyone out of it. I will be seated for the rest of this ride.

[granulesofsand]

Canadian Geese

🗝️🏷️ deprogramming, giving myself a pep talk cause life is hard

Every time we pull back a layer of programming — every cycle of gaining trust, sitting with one another’s worst memories, gathering the information, sorting out the effects — there’s a backup underneath.

I’m sure it’s not every program, but it’s a lot. A whole new world of the worst one human could do to another. And sometimes they come with the realization that this wasn’t just a training, but part of our life. Something they did habitually just because they could.

Some of them we saw at play before we found — hindsight is 20/20 — like light filtering through substrate. That’s what we are, layers over layers, stratum over stratum. It feels less like something we brought upon ourselves, when we recognize them.

Others were nested neatly into their predecessors. I don’t know how they did that, except that I do and it’s too much to handle. We try our best to reach out softly. It’s okay that we’re bad at it, because they are too.

We do damage control, look for means of keeping the buried ones safe without starting the deconstruction again. Some of them fit into the groups we already found, others we start fresh for and hope they don’t fit into a pattern.

It’s exhausting, and I can’t tell whether it’s better to search them all out and offer what we have or wait and restabilize every time. It hurts either way, because I want everything to be okay right now. It hurts because it hurts.

And I get that everyone we pull out is another one safe, a win, but it feels like more evidence we’ll never be done.

It’s more panic than anything, I guess. Because we need to keep going, even if we never get done. Healing is supposed to be exponential, I’m trusting in that. Every alter who can help is that much more power on the team.

This is exhausting and twisty and I hate it. And that propels me. A friend told us the Canadian geese here haven’t migrated because they have to show up at the most inopportune moments; creatures of spite. Negative ten degrees, feels like negative thirty, and they stay around to make themselves a nuisance.

Forward. Even if it’s a spiral staircase, a step forward is a step in the right direction. Like a Canadian goose at the marsh, ascending from muddy waters.

I can be a Canada goose.

[hc-did-culture-is]

I'm a bit scared of saying we identify as multigenic publicly so we're sharing this anon instead. There's a variety of reasons we see our system the way we do.

We don't have the typical traumagenic experience of "oh my brain formed alters to save me" I relate on some level to those who refer to their experiences as being created. Yes my creation was caused through trauma and torture but that alone is already something most DID spaces have ended up pushing me out for and feeling ostracized about. I know it's not the same as someone sort of meditating and constructing another identity that they live with in a way of multiplicity/plurality- but a lot of people who do that tend to be more accepting when I talk about how being a definitionally created alters leads to me feeling isolated.

We also have a lot of spiritual beliefs. I won't get into them because they're quite niche and may be identifiable in our case given other context- but we do have some spiritual and religious beliefs going on with our system (sperate from the programming which I could also see how programmed system who are unable to deprogram at that time but still have alters who believe they're spiral entities may find space with others genuinely experiencing that as a way to safely interact and possibly work on recovery in ways outside of just the issues with the programmed/instilled identity they feel trapped to) and we are always shamed and treated poorly for not being either an atheist or a mainstream or well-known religion.

We also find ourselves being pro-endo because a lot of the hate and vitriol thrown and at endo systems become pure ableism thrown at especially polyfragmented and programmed systems. The main difference between the two being the aforementioned programming. (I also would assume non-programmed systems but ones that have programmed alters {hard to explain but like I mean ppl who went through RAMCOA after they already had a system} still get the same treatments as HC-DID systems)

I understand that my experiences with our disability is not the same as endogenic systems who don't have my disability because of the primary reason that- one is a disability and the other is just having people in your head/being multiple. The many identities, self state, personalities, people, parts, whatever one wants to call them is just the most focused on aspect of DID/OSDD and similar for singlets and primarily those with no education on mental health. The main stuff that categorizes DID is amnesia and dissociation to a maladaptive degree. (Iirc)

.

[peridot-tears]

I think a lot about how US-centrism is a really big thing, and something we USians commit whether we are conscious of it or not -- because, quite frankly, no matter how much we proclaim to dislike our country or want it to change, or straight up just want to leave it behind, it's already been deeply intertwined into our personalities.

But there's also that other factor where when it comes to fandom, we end up writing AUs set in the USA, because, well...that's still our home? That's what we're familiar with? So of course I want to play around and reimagine WangXian as diaspora Chinese growing up in New York, just like me. I think it'd be really funny to reimagine Arno as an exchange student who has to deal with NYU kids out here (I pity the man, NYU is an elitist nightmare). And if Tumblr is a US-based site, where most of us end up gathering, that's just math, right? There are going to be a lot of USians here writing about our experiences in this country, because they're the things that immediately affect us the most.

I don't think it's inherently bad to want to reimagine characters in the world we personally live in, but we do have to ask ourselves some hard questions about why we want to take these characters and put them in a setting that we are comfortable with. Would we appreciate them all the same if they were in a setting unfamiliar to us?

And if we were on a non-American site doing the same thing, and the people on that site got mad at us, how would we react? We have to be honest with ourselves.

Also, HUGE disclaimer:

This is not permission to whitewash characters.

If you're writing an AU with characters of non-American origin, do your research on their cultural norms.

Also, the USA is the "melting pot" or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, right. So is this character going to be an immigrant, a tourist, a tenth-generation American, or a second-generation American from another country's diaspora?

*Or are they Indigenous? In which case, what nation are they from, did they grow up on the rez, elsewhere, and what relationship do they have with their family and identity?

We should still think outside of our country. Realizing and acknowledging that we are raised to be ignorant of the world, and that our country holds a cultural Monopoly (i.e. our fucking media and entertainment are EVERYWHERE, and my roommate from Vietnam knows iCarly as well as I do, and I know someone from Nigeria who grew up on Johnny Bravo, just to name a few examples) are only the first step. We need to deprogram and see the rest of the world as a place that exists outside of us while still being affected by just how sprawling our influence is.

My personal experience:

I'm an immigrants' kid who grew up among other immigrants' kids in New York (note, I say "immigrants' kid," meaning I am explicitly not saying we immigrated, only that our parents did. People assume I came here just because I'm not white, which is some racist bullshit).

I have lived on other continents.

MDZS is easy for me because it's my culture. I've written them as diaspora Gen Z kids, Chinese people who grew up in mainland cities I'm familiar with, and in the canon Ye Olde China (Tang-dynasty-ish, but also a Ming-dynasty AU) setting.

I write French Frye in modern-day Paris and London very easily because as a USian, we're taught that "world history" is just "Western and Central European history." We're a Eurocentric society. Also, I've been in those cities and know people from there.

I struggle with writing Ratohnhaké:ton even though he is literally Indigenous to the land I grew up on (Kanien'kéha:ka were from upstate New York, just a day's drive from me, before colonization forced them to move further north). As a USian, that means I was taught the colonizers' attitude towards Indigenous folks, and despite all my research and talks with Indigenous folks to learn to be better, I will eventually trip up and accidentally say something racist or culturally offensive.

This isn't going to stop me from writing fanfic about him, but I'm gonna do my due diligence and consider the circumstances he would be in in a modern AU.

Yes, I want to write a modern-day AU where he goes to China and trains with Shao Jun, because I'm Chinese and I think that would be neat.

When I read modern AU MDZS fanfiction, I can tell who's not Chinese when I read about WangXian living in a house in China. I cannot emphasize how different the apartment-to-house ratio in most major Chinese cities is from the USA. I don't find it offensive, it's just a really strong tell.

If you're writing an AU set in NYC and there isn't a single "yerrrr" in it, you've already outed yourself (this is a joke).

[fictionkinfessions]

Hey, 'Father', Bible, whatever you were, I know that you'll hopefully never see this (for the better), but I have a lot to say to you.

Fuck you. You little cunt, you ruined my life and everything in it. You basically kidnapped me, don't try and phrase it to make you the hero, as far as I'm aware you threatened to shoot my parents if they didn't hand me over right then and there. You forced me into your God-forsaken cult that I'll never really shake off, even a hundred lives from now, and then you stripped away whatever autonomy was left. 'My sweet daughter will stay with me forever' 'We'll give ourselves up for the Lord when it's time' 'She's going to be just like me' shut up I'm your son and there's no way in the hell that you despise that I'll ever be a fraction of what you were. My friends had to bloody deprogram me after I got out of there. The only way I could get out of there was running away because you were so adamant that I'd be with you forever. I feel so ashamed that I didn't see past your bullshit sooner. I hate you and every ideology you forced into me, and I hate how you tried to force my friends and I back to you LONG after I was an adult just so you could have your way and get me back into worshipping your false 'God'.

With all that said, I hate the fact that I still sometimes think that I miss you. You hurt me in every way and yet you still put food on the table for me and brushed my hair out. You held me close and told me that everything was going to be alright in the end, you gave me purpose and something to live for, even if it wasn't exactly the best thing. You helped me beat the hard levels when I was playing a game on the DS you bought me, and I have no idea what you did or said to those kids but at least you got them to stop harassing me. I miss our house and the things you gave to me and the way you treated me when you said you loved me and the days we'd go out for ice cream and how I could sit on your shoulders or back when I got tired. I miss the childhood that I thought I had. You loved me. I hate how I still call you Dad in my mind. You don't deserve that title. I wish I could hate you without ever wondering if I love you again, I wish. You're one of the reasons why I am the way that I am.

Dear Dad, I hope you're either in paradise or purgatory.

With begrudging maybe-love and a metric shitton of hate,

-Your son.

(No source nor proper names listed -- tag as fictive, please. Thank you.)

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Making Home by Elise Toedt

On SALE: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/making-home-by-elise-toedt/

Making Home is a collection about the complexities of finding contentment through the hardships and joys #life brings. It grapples with the end of life and its beginnings, the complexities of #love and community, and learning to love oneself through the hard work of deprogramming and noticing what is beautiful right now. It’s a collection about the iterative process of making home inside oneself and the world. We are reminded how with each new iteration of ourselves, while the imprint of the past continues with us, we nonetheless build anew. #elisephd #poetry #home #joy #community #resilience

Elise Marie Toedt, PhD is a writer, researcher and teacher whose research interests span gender, education, and writing studies. Her poetry focuses on simple daily rituals of present attention and appreciation, experiences of love and foibles within human relationality, and the role of care as pleasure and care as work within a capitalist social context. She currently teaches in the Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Follow her work at https://www.elisetoedt.com/.

PRAISE FOR

Making Home is a complex and beautiful meditation on the many cycles of making and unmaking in life—the creative power of tending gardens, cooking, harvesting, caretaking, and writing poetry. The poems bear witness to cruelty in others and take stock of the cruelty we ourselves are all capable of while asserting the primacy of compassion, nourishment, and love. These poems are call and response testimonies and songs about the creative and destructive tendencies in human morality, relationships, spirituality, and desire, all illuminated with dazzling language and imagery. We lean in to listen, for these poems speak with authenticity, intimacy, and wisdom. Watching her son play in a puddle she writes, “It is so simple for him to love his life, I think / It could be so simple for me to love my life.” And we come away with a reminder of the deep sacredness of caring and tending for those we love, those we struggle to love, the natural world, and ourselves.

—Heathen (Heather Derr-Smith), author of five collections of poetry, most recently Outskirts

How shall we love the troubled world? By naming every blessed fragment, by inscribing every sharp memory, every loss that won’t stay gone. By reciting recipes of everyday life and watching with wonder the ways a child moves in the world. Such are the lessons of Elise Toedt’s fine debut collection, Making Home. These poems sing with wise simplicity.

—Julia Spicher Kasdorf, author of As Is, University of Pittsburgh Press

I admire and am taken in by the path this poet creates for her readers. We are given such an essential, dark welcome—these family memories, these childhood nightmares, these visions of a child practicing being good, practicing being bad, learning the family’s and God’s lessons by watching and listening and imitating— I loved every move the poet made. And the poems stay complicated, and human, and full of wisdom, and we see that some hard-earned grace and peace does arrive in the narrator’s life. A great pleasure reading this fine book by Elise Toedt.

—Deborah Keenan, author of eleven collections of poetry and a book of writing ideas, from tiger to prayer. Her newest book is The Saint of Everything.

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems #elisephd #poetry #home #joy #community #resilience

[feelboss]

lmao @ astarion simps trying to come for lae'zel in the notes. sugar. sweetie. honey. anyway lae'zel has been just as groomed and manipulated as the rest of the party and I feel like a lot of people wanna try and forget that while stumbling over themselves to defend their fav. she's a KID. she is literally the youngest party member facing her entire race's worst fear and taking it in as much stride as she possibly can. she, like shadowheart and astarion, is drifting hard into the familiar because that's all she has! of course she's brusque and seems standoffish - SHE IS LIVING A NIGHTMARE. she's SCARED and putting on a hell of a face while having an entire existential and religious crisis while also neck deep in culture shock.

literally everyone in camp has trauma and if you can understand any of the other characters acting irrationally because of it you should be able to understand lae'zel. genuinely i don't understand how people don't. she is just like the rest of us in camp. we are all fucked up together and we're all learning and deprogramming ourselves together and you either understand it for everyone or you just don't understand it lmao

people are so weird about lae’zel srsly. this woman is so Good i truly do not understand the majority of takes

like shadowheart mentions she’s half-elf once and lae’zel is like ok noted for the next time and doesnt get it wrong again

gale mentions how he’s impressed by her fighting and she immediately offers to teach him

she also answers any and all questions about the celestial realm and mindflayers that EVERYONE in the party asks her

she is the ONLY one with any experience and hands on knowledge about what the party is going thru but will still defer to the leader and help. for all she knows, they will literally be cured immediately if they find the creche but she still sticks around these fucking weirdoes because they ask her to

never speak bad about lae’zel in my presence EVER

[icanseethefuture333]

https://www.tumblr.com/icanseethefuture333/729959260547579904/healing-my-inner-child-and-learning-to-accept-im?source=share

I hate that you’re so relatable, but there’s one thing in which we differ: I’m literally unable to heal. I’m still stuck on all that I lost when I was a kid and a teenager, somehow having to do the most for everyone else and still have no voice of my own in the midst of traumatic experiences unfolding. You know that feeling? I’m still angry with everyone, but I think it might be hurting my progress cos I can’t let go. Idk anymore. I’m glad that you’re able to heal though, maybe one day I will too.

*sighs and sits down, takes a deep breath*

To be honest, we aren't different at all. For years I put off healing my inner child because it was so uncomfortable for me. I didn't dismiss my younger self or avoided her, but it was like I kept her at a arm's length. Kind of like having a child but not taking care of them fully, just only stopping by to play a game with them, then leave when they need you the most. I am just now learning to properly listen to my inner child and comfort her, because facing my trauma and accepting that is not me anymore is extremely painful. It's like I know how to take care of everyone but me and that's fucked up!

For people with trauma, we don't have to let go of what happened to us. We don't have to forget and move on. We just have to learn to get to a place where we accept it and find comfort within ourselves despite the things that happened to us. It's about loving who you are and finding a way to not let it control you, but finding ways to cope with it.

You are capable of healing anon. Anyone is capable of healing. You just have to be brave enough to want to heal and allow yourself to be like the Death tarot card. You have to be able to want change and allow yourself to transform for the better, even if it's painful. I feel like most people hear my experiences or my advice and think I just did it overnight or I have it easy, when I never did. My life has been so hard and I am still trying to get by every single day. I just have gotten to a place where I am wiser and think about what steps could lead me towards my happiness. So as long as I am focused on my goals and also making time for self care, I will be okay, but I don't surpass my emotions when I'm sad or angry.

Growing up in a household where there was arguing and chaos, made me feel really small in comparison. I felt like I didn't have a voice. At times I still don't feel like I have the freedom I deserve but I am being patient regarding that because I have faith that the universe has a plan for me. Which is why I even major in Communication in the first place because that's exactly what my family's weakest point is. Not being able to listen to each other, not speaking in a calm manner, etc. Generational trauma can be a very toxic cycle.

Just remember anon that when you say things like "I can't do this" or "I'm not able / or good enough to do xyz" you're just affirming that even more. You have to deprogram yourself from what others told you can and can't do, decide for yourself what you will do from this day on. You have the power to do whatever you set your mind to.

[granulesofsand]

hi i totally understand if this is way too personal to answer but did you know what youd been through from the start or did you find out later on? if its the second im not asking for details or anything but vaguely howd you figure it out?

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA, torture mentions, suicide/sh, active trauma, unlucky therapy

Some of us have known for as long as it’s been happening. Some knew because they were involved. Others have learned recently. Still others do not know yet.

Most of our system is now aware of our RAMCOA history, if that is what you’re asking. There are many stories as to how this came to be.

During the trauma, most were split intentionally by abusers. This has happened for as long as we could be split, and is less frequent now that we avoid the group and our family.

The internal workings of our system rely on the fragments scattered between alters. The one who knows a cue is not the one who was tortured is not the one who completes the behavior is not the one who remembers doing it. Alters were elaborated, split again, assigned a place.

Some were designed to be front-facing alters. They might have no part in programming chains, cover a chain, or have an obscure placement in their chain. These are the alters who did not know, serving as an external presentation.

There are also those who were ‘organic’ splits; they were usually created like the intentional splits, but without forethought. If they went unnoticed, they remained unassigned.

It’s hard to say where the first leaks really started. The presentations were poking around where they shouldn’t have, always so curious about our past. The unassigned meddled invisibly from the outside, interfering or watching. Some of the programmed were higher ups who were wreaking a particular kind of havoc.

We did not all find out together. Everyone has their own story of what happened as they made the discovery. Some are still stuck in their trauma or are too conditioned to see right now.

The presentations got into social media when we were around 15. I don’t know if anyone had it before then, but this is when they noticed online communities of systems and RAMCOA survivors.

This is probably how so much of the system came to know if they didn’t before; they left traces externally and others found it. There were debates about whether this was possible, programs set off to create amnesia or doubt or shatter anyone stepping too close.

We spent a year of forgetting and remembering our own DID symptoms, but eventually failed to realize. Months later, a friend disclosed their own DID. Another few months of research. We went back to a place we had been trafficked out of and finally had a co-conscience switch.

We gathered a notebook with every possibility of what it could have been and took it back to the PHP we had attended before the trip. That therapist took the notebook for a week and gave it back, said to proceed as planned regardless.

That notebook is nearly out of pages now. We took it to our regular therapist, he sent us to a new therapist, they were gentle enough to get someone to admit it. That process took another few months.

This therapist was a trauma and unreality specialist, had worked with systems before us. More of us made their own disclosures about their pasts, eventually leading up to an acknowledgment of having been trafficked and programmed.

That was about a year ago. We have since been deprogramming. There were triggers throughout the time leading up to this, some resulting in suicide attempts and self-harm. We have not yet rid ourselves of callbacks, and are prone to reaccess.

We are somewhat able to dispel new programming, especially when trauma is old or not as awful as tortures used previously. It is difficult to remain socially active enough that we cannot be taken for the time needed to inflict worse.

Does that answer your question? We are willing to speak on some programs and troubles throughout this journey, but not so much as to put ourselves at risk. Feel free to clarify or ask something else.

[real-jane]

drifting (epilogue)

[cw!bucky barnes x female!reader]

summary: bucky saves the life of a woman when she’s buried in an avalanche. faced with the possibility that his cover might be blown, bucky must keep the woman alive, and try to keep her from finding out who he is… or what he’s done.

how long can he hide?

warnings: softness.

word count: 1.6K+

a/n: here's the end, my loves. It has been very hard for me to say goodbye. but i think this will do it. thank you for loving my little story of healing.

series masterlist

___

She reaches for the ember before she can second guess it; the glowing debris is flicked from the fire and it lands with a fizzling hiss on Bucky’s hair, which is damp with sweat.

The moment her skin makes contact–heat. She bites back the pain, desperate not to make a sound and break the meditative trance Ayo left him in some time ago. Hours, at least. The last of his triggers finally… deactivated.

Six months in Wakanda, four inches of growth to Bucky’s hair, countless failed attempts to strip the mind control from his synapses without wiping away the frightened boy beneath it all, and here he sits. Between her knees, against a log. Slumped back with his eyes shut, head pillowed into the crook of her neck. His eyes are swollen from tears which he cannot stop. 

But he’s free.

He crawled into Y/n’s arms the moment Ayo proved that his trigger words no longer had a hold on him. More than anything, Y/n wept because he did. Seeing Bucky so thankful and free, and emotionally laid bare… it cracked her open. 

She’s happy to hold him close, even though he needs to eat or sleep, or bathe (all of those things for the first time in days). But her hand aches from the white-hot burn on her palm, and she whimpers without realizing it.

Bucky stiffens in her arms. Without saying anything, he tilts his head up with a frown. In the glow of the fire, his eyes look more green than blue, and there’s no mistaking the shock of red veining from crying, but Bucky still focuses as best as he can on her face.

“You had a piece of ash,” she murmurs. She inspects the surface of her palm. Sure enough, there is an angry welt at the base of her ring finger. Bucky cradles her hand in his. He sniffs, as if he can’t properly inspect her with a runny nose. He makes a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat.

“‘M alright.”

He shakes his head faintly. “It’s bad.” Bucky’s voice is raw and scratchy, but his tone is firm. “It’ll blister.”

“It can wait–”

Bucky growls, which stops them both in their tracks. His expression shifts from frustration to… amusement. He chuckles, and clears his throat. “Don’t know what that was.”

“Caveman,” she teases softly. He squeezes her wrist.

“That was Gandalf,” he says. 

She huffs. “Right. My mistake.”

Bucky turns, so his body is angled towards hers. He allows her to tug at the blanket beneath him, which he had long abandoned in the aftermath of his success. She watches him drape the blanket over his legs when the wind brings the evening breeze rushing through the small grove of banyan trees. She wants to tell him how proud she is. She knew he could do it. He’s so strong. James Barnes prevailed. But she can’t make any of those words come out. Nobody prepared them for what to do after. Maybe they’re supposed to sit in the Wakandan wilderness until they sprout roots.

“Nat took me for burgers,” she remembers under her breath. Bucky glances up at her again, despite diligently studying her burn mark. “When I got home.”

“Hmm,” he says. 

“America was too loud. Still is,” she says. “But freshly deprogrammed? I wanted a burger. For all the wonders of Wakanda, they haven’t yet gotten a Five Guys.” He raised an eyebrow. She scoffed. “I lost you.”

“It’s a burger joint?”

“I’ll make Steve bring us takeout next time he comes.”

“Or we could go ourselves…” he trails off.

Y/n swallows hard. “Jamie…” How do you tell a man that you’ve been making plans for his future, without him? “Do you like it here?”

He shakes his head, but Bucky’s mouth curls up at the corners. “More than I expected to.”

“Do you remember saying we could go away again, when all of this was over? I’ve, um. While you’ve been with Shuri and Ayo, I sort of took on a project. I should’ve told you sooner, but you needed to focus. But I want to tell you so bad… I’m rambling–”

“You barely started.” Bucky tilts her chin so she’ll look him in the eye. “What did you do, doll?”

She breathes out slowly. “I found us a place. Ramonda did, but I like it. It’s small. Smaller than the cabin–I don’t know, I think it will be fine. There’s plenty of space around it so we don’t have to be crammed together all the time, but. The fence is sound, so there is ample room to have goats–Ramonda keeps saying chickens but they’re so messy. I don’t want our lives to be covered in chicken shit. But there’s two trees, and it’s definitely good for a hammock. If you want. And I think it’s really nice. For us. If you want to, Jamie–”

“Doll,” he says with a light laugh. “You’re so worried, you’re making me nervous.”

“You want this, right?”

“Mm. That’s what you’re worried about?”

“Jamie…” she laughs, a mix of exasperation and love. “That’s just about the only thought I can make sense of, these days. So. I wanna know what you want.”

Bucky sighs. “We don’t need to rush the next step, you know? I know you’ve got muscles as twitchy as mine, but we aren’t living on borrowed time anymore.”

“Sorry,” she breathes. “I’m–”

“You’re here. That is what I want.” He kisses her gently. “I have one more thing I have to do, and then we’ll decide what’s next.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you can be patient for seventy-two hours?” The smile at the corner of his lips is so soft that she can’t help but worry her lips over the curve. It’s a place he’s eventually going to wear a wrinkle, because she’s going to make sure he smiles like that every day of the rest of his life. 

She’s known about this last phase of his journey in Wakanda because she did the same thing herself. He has to go recalibrate out in the elements, T’challa reminded her, gently. The king has deferred months of inquiry from the US government regarding his fugitive. Bucky will be safer out in the Wakandan back country than walking down a New York City street, so what’s three more days?

“Yes,” she peeps. 

He chuckles. “Liar.”

“Do you have to leave right this second?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Not until the coals go out.”

“Okay.”

“Tell me about this house,” he says, resting her upturned hand on her knee. As she gives him a rundown of the property, he tends to her wound, only half-listening to the story of forever she’s built for them both.

__

He sneaks in behind her as she washes dishes in the small sink basin. Whether or not she realizes he is there is moot; after three days wandering the wild, the thing that had brought him back to himself was the faint scent of her favorite lilac soap on the edge of a breeze… which lead him right to the door of what might generously be called a house, but which he hopes to call ‘home’. He leans against the wall, which has been painted a lovely shade of teal, and watches her.

Three days was an eternity without her. 

No, it was longer–months, even, but he wasn’t himself. She floated on the periphery of his heart the entire time, his true north as he fought through the triggers of the Winter Soldier–but it wasn’t until his final night with Ayo by the fire that he had his sweet woman by his side again. A permanent fixture of his third chance at life.

In a lot of ways, Bucky is forever twenty-four. He certainly feels it, with a body charged in renewal. But then again… hasn’t he always felt that way with her? 

Long before the avalanche dropped her on his doorstep, back when he had nothing to live for but his next orders, there she was. He remembers it all. The light on her cheeks through the yellow fogged windows, meant to allow sunlight but not observation from the world outside–Moscovian light, which was harsh on buildings and soft on snow. And cheeks, which his lips and fingers tingled to explore even before he knew why. 

That song–she has hummed it for years. She hums it now without realizing, because it’s just one of those things ingrained in the fiber of her being. She’s a tapestry of precious threads, shot through with gold filament of tenderness. Instead of fear at the thought of how he might harm her… all that rests on Bucky’s mind is that this house is theirs. Back in the cabin, on the desolate mountain, he wanted it… but he couldn’t give her this without facing his demons. Instead, she held hands with the devil himself, with Soldat, and she made the world technicolor again.

Yes, he wants this. Even if it’s covered in chicken shit and baby goats, and even if they fight every moment, and even if they get bit to high heaven by mosquitos all summer, it is still paradise compared to where they came from. 

He takes a measured step forward, but his foot on the soft rug makes a sound which startles her and she turns, hands doused in suds up to the elbows. But she smiles, and there is not one thing better than the way her eyes light up.

That is his home. Wherever those eyes go, whatever they see, he’ll share it. As long as he can wake up next to her.

“Hi, baby,” she whispers.

Bucky’s face exercises the full range of his muscles in one go–smiling brighter than he ever thought himself capable.

“I’m home,” he murmurs.

***

Thank you so much for reading! :)

tag list: @peterhollandkait @abitgryffindorky @hogwartsahist0ry @idgafiamallthefandoms @mysticatto @im-just-star-dust @light-through-stained-glass @ginger-swag-rapunzel @sanguineterrain @honeywithemoney @nahthanks @lalalaloki @themorningsunshine @mumbles411 @slutforsexyseabass @eloiseishere @foreverindreamlandd @thornsnvultures

kate’s masterlist - my bucky barnes masterlist

[unsentimentaltranslator]

Oh, you’re supposed to stay passive, anxious and self-conscious. You’re just supposed to keep a smile on your face around the menfolk.

Take a look at social media culture, for example. Young women make posts where they self flagellate about inconsequential bullshit and the posts go viral and get loads of positive attention. Whereas when young women made a bunch of posts referring to relaxing in the bath as “self care”, they got slammed for being Lazy and now there’s a faction war about What Self Care Is between the young women who fawn by wearing makeup to look pretty for men and the young women who fawn by reassuring conservative boomers that they’re Responsible Adults who love bootstraps. (Yes, that is fawning. I am almost 40 and no decent person of our age wants to probe into your daily routine and give you a grade on it. You can ask for help but otherwise I just trust you to get on with it, as my older friends and colleagues did for me when I was in my 20s.)

Hell, look at feminism. If you call wearing makeup “empowering”, respond to the way men jerk off with one hand and point their finger with the other by simply saying “stop pointing; it’s fine!” and never addressing the way men treat women in the realm of sex, and are harder on women who are mad at their oppressors than you’ll ever be on a man who commits violence against women, everyone loves you. If you do an actual feminism, you get called an Evil Radfem/SWERF/TERF/misandrist and even the left circles the wagons to ostracise you.

So I am hard on people who participate in encouraging and rewarding passivity, anxiety and self-consciousness in women because as someone who has been through that myself, the more you feel that being passive, anxious and self-conscious makes you a Good Person and not being like that makes you a Bad Person, the harder it is to overcome it. The patriarchy wants us to spend our adulthood being afraid of putting a toe out of line and our liberation depends on us learning that this is brainwashing and deprogramming ourselves from it.

Lol one thing about female socialization I find crazy is like your entire childhood and adolescence you'll be discouraged from being an active agent in your own life and punished for stepping a toe out of line and then when you're an adult you get your ear talked off about how passive, anxious and self-conscious you are and how annoying it is.

[skaldish]

(about American evangelicals) that's how i grew up - being taught a LOT of really wacky and unscientific shit, until I finally got out as an adult. i've seen bits and bobs here and there, talking about how to move on from being raised that way, but nothing substantial, and i was wondering if you or your ex-evangelical friend have resource recs for healing as an adult, from those kind of religious experiences growing up?

(from the anon asking for resources about moving on from an evangelical upbringing.) I know it might sound like a "just google it" question, bc there are a small handful of books on the topic, but I'm asking you since you have an outside perspective, and a level head that I've always appreciated from following you. And it sounded like you've been having some in-depth convos about evangelicals lately, so it just seemed worth asking?

Oh don't you worry. I've tried "just googling it" myself and there's really nothing out there.

Because I didn't grow up with religion myself, I don't personally have a lot of hard-hitting resources, but I'm sure @the-illuminated-witch does. I know she recommends the book Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control as a resource that could potentially help a lot of ex-Christians, Mormon or otherwise. She also wrote a really tidy post on coping with religious trauma which you can find here.

I do know from experience that deprogramming and reprogramming the mind is not a simple task. As much as we can can logically reject the misinformation we were raised on, it's oftentimes still part of the brain's basic "operating system" and therefor not something we just "will" ourselves out of. Trying to do so, or trying to simply repress the trauma, is only going to make it come out in subconscious ways.

This is where hard-hitting psychotherapy comes in. And I don't mean just a regular talk therapy, but therapy that specializes in deprogramming/reprogramming. I've had good experiences with EMDR therapy, something my ex-Evangelical friend introduced me to.

It's a future goal of mine to compile resources for coping with religious trauma in a blog post, especially since it's an experience many pagans struggle with. But as of right now, this is all I really have to offer.

Followers, if you have other resources or recommendations, don't hesitate to drop them in a reblog.